1.11.2016

The Best Films of 2015.

The time has come! 2015 has come to an end, and a few days into the new year, after having caught up on the last few titles I was missing, I've decided on my favorite films of the year. This year I managed to catch 110 movies and the year offered more pleasures than I expected. As it stands, instead of doing my usual top 20, I've elected to go to 25 this year to reflect just how great I think the year was. I've ranked them all this year so you know exactly where everything falls into place, but given the quality of the year's films, I can confidently look at all the films listed here and give them a passionate recommendation. So take a look below and enjoy my favorite films of 2015!

HONORABLE MENTIONS

25. SPY
The most nonstop hilarious film 2015 had to offer and a worthy action blockbuster. When we talk about auteur/actor relationships, we should start bringing up Melissa McCarthy and Paul Feig. 

24. TOM AT THE FARM
Xavier Dolan's 2013 film finally made it to theaters this year and proved that even delving into psychological thriller territory was a perfect fit for his signature style and wit.

23. SHAUN THE SHEEP MOVIE
A surprisingly great year for animation and leave it to the Wallace & Gromit team over at Aardman Animations to deliver the simplest pleasure and a stop motion visual feat.

22. WHITE GOD
An awe-inspiring Hungarian drama primarily starring a cast of dogs with more jaw-dropping "how did they do that?" moments than almost any other film (#3 excepted) this year.

21. GIRLHOOD
A year after Boyhood examined the coming-of-age of a young American boy, Céline Sciamma's drama comes along and shows us a completely different but equally moving approach to the story of a young girl struggling to find her place in the suburbs of Paris.

20. THE END OF THE TOUR
James Ponsoldt's character study features writer David Foster Wallace and the reporter who examined him over a few days at the peak of his career and a decade before his suicide. Regardless of your knowledge of Wallace's work, the story's quietly moving script captures a remarkable two man show that's more than worth the stay.

19. SPOTLIGHT
Pushing aside this year's stuffy prestige dramas, Tom McCarthy's journalism drama tackles one of the United States' greatest scandals (the sex abuse crisis of the Catholic Church) and manages to avoid any frills or hysterics in telling it's story. One of the best depictions of the city of Boston and all of its problems and glories as you'll find.

18. MISTRESS AMERICA
Noah Baumbach & Greta Gerwig, working to follow up 2013's best film Frances Ha, mine similar territory for their latest comedy, but end up finding a new brand of weirdness in this examination of a couple of New York City girls each at an uncertain point in their lives.

17. THE LOOK OF SILENCE
A sequel of sorts to his 2013 documentary The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer's latest documentary takes the victims of Indonesian killings of 1965 and introduces them to the perpetrators profiled in his first film. Avoiding grandstanding or exploitation, Oppenheimer instead finds a devastating way to take us inside the aftermath of a tragedy whose effects reverberate today.

16. ROOM
As harrowing a premise as one can get, Lenny Abrahamson's drama is a pitch perfect examination of a woman and son in peril and the brutal aftermath of a kidnapping not unlike the ones on our news station's everyday. Brie Larson once again proves her immense talent and newcomer Jacob Tremblay joins her to make a reflective experience out of a parent's nightmare.

RUNNERS-UP

15. THE ASSASSIN
Hou Hsiao-Hsien's martial arts drama is slow and brooding, but provided some of the most indelible images of 2015 as well as some of its most effective set pieces. 

14. THE DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL
A coming-of-age drama that takes all the conventions expected of it and flips them on their head, Marielle Heller's film is awkward, hard to watch, and a thoroughly realized emotional journey headed by a fantastic performance by Bel Powley.

13. PHOENIX
Part mystery, part character study, Christian Petzold's story about a disfigured Holocaust survivor going incognito to discover if her husband turned her into the Nazi authorities is more than the sum of those parts. What sounds like a pulpy thriller is one of the year's most emotionally satisfying and carefully constructed foreign dramas with one of its strongest lead performances.

12. SICARIO
Mexico's drug war and America's Southern border are touchy topics today given our current political climate, so it's all the more impressive that Denis Villeneuve's film manages to be a thorough examination of the shadowy figures who work along it as well as a tense and claustrophobic thriller that puts the audience right at the edge of their seats.

11. ANOMALISA
Another animated feat from this year, Charlie Kaufman's first film in seven years (with co-director Duke Johnson) takes his signature wit and heart and finds a perfect fit in the stop motion world of a depressed middle-aged man struggling to find joy in the banality of his life.

THE TOP TEN

10. SON OF SAUL
The Holocaust as a topic for film has long been touchy as filmmakers have often taken the event and turned it into cloying prestige fare. László Nemes' film is as agonizing as you'd expect, but instead finds purpose in a story that avoids cliche in favor of telling a more spiritual tale about one man's journey to find peace in the middle of unbearable tragedy. 

09. 45 YEARS
Andrew Haigh's last film was an examination of two men dealing with the emotional consequences of a short-lived romance. In his latest, he ups the game to a romance spanning almost half a century and takes a look at the issues that arise on the opposite side of the spectrum. In just two films he's established himself as an essential independent voice and he's given us an all-time great performance by Charlotte Rampling to boot.

08. TANGERINE
Two transgender sex workers travel across the streets of Los Angeles on a particularly chaotic Christmas Eve in this independent comedy. Comical, crass and brazen, while still being a touching drama that respects and examines a pocket of our population that has yet to get its due on screen, Sean Baker's film is one of a kind in a vital way.

07. AMY
Pushing past the boundaries of typical music documentaries, Asif Kapadia's film depicts the rise and fall of one of music's greatest talents to emerge in the new millennium. Without exploiting or condescending to its subjects, we're shown the particular heartbreak of what it feels like to lose a performer as legendary as Amy Winehouse through a story that would feel familiar if not for her unique gifts and Kapadia's signature storytelling.

06. EX MACHINA
The movies will never give up their fascination with artificial intelligence, but if the movies stay as thrilling and cleverly crafted as Alex Garland's debut, I'm willing to keep giving them a shot. With a pair of sinisterly effective performances (Alicia Vikander and Oscar Isaac, 2015's MVP's) and crisp direction, Garland takes a familiar tale, spins it on its head, and gives us an instant sci-fi classic.

05. BROOKLYN
A movie so universal and so agreeable, there's no reason why John Crowley's immigrant drama should be as good as it is. However, the story of a young Irish woman coming to America but struggling with the pull between continents is as effective and moving as anything theaters had to offer in 2015 thanks to another smart script by writer Nick Hornby and the always great Saoirse Ronan.

04. IT FOLLOWS
The most ingenious horror premise in years would have been enough, but David Robert Mitchell's film moves beyond its conceit to become an essential picture in the storied tradition of John Carpenter and Wes Craven. Without giving too much away, Mitchell's idea for a murderous demon that travels from victim to victim via sexual transmission yields an entire film of glorious thrills, striking visuals and enough themes to fill gender studies classes for years.

03. MAD MAX: FURY ROAD
The thrill of the year, both in how unexpected it was and how utterly and bizarrely perfect it turned out, George Miller's summer blockbuster is an action movie, an art film, and a feminist drama all in one. Every set piece is immaculately crafted, every shot burns into your memory, and every performance has such a strong understanding of the universe it exists in that you wonder how such a movie could even exist. And if this sounds hyperbolic, it's supposed to because Miller's film is a work of glorious hyperbole and epic filmmaking.

02. INSIDE OUT
After a few years of middling films and outright misses, Pixar comes back with perhaps their best film since WALL-E and possibly their most ambitious film since their inception. It's hard to believe nobody got to this premise first, but thank god we waited for Pixar so they could combine their typically incisive and warm writing with another pitch perfect voice cast in this stunning examination of what it means to grow up.

01. CAROL
Todd Haynes is the rare filmmaker who has been making classic films for decades now and still feels like he's at his peak. With his latest he covers territory he's partially examined before (this time a lesbian romance in the 1950's) and proves himself as vital as ever. Once again, Haynes' brings his lush visuals to an impeccably stylized world in order to examine the characters who lie beneath. What sets Haynes and his actresses (Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, perfect as ever) apart are the ways in which they take the quiet moments of their characters and find universal truths that stretch beyond the confines of their time periods. We're lucky to have a filmmaker like him operating at the top of his game during our lifetime. We shouldn't take him for granted.

Even narrowing my list down to these 25 was particularly difficult with the amount of riches that 2015 brought us. Consider these films also worthy recommendations that might have landed here on another day: ’71, 99 Homes, About Elly, Bone Tomahawk, Clouds of Sils Maria, Crimson Peak, The Duke of Burgundy, Eden, Far From the Madding Crowd, Kumiko the Treasure Hunter, Listen to Me Marlon, Love & Mercy, The Martian, Queen of Earth, Timbuktu, Tu Dors Nicole, Victoria.

And after a year of many highs, it wouldn't be right to conclude this post without turning over to my pessimist side and highlight my Least of 2015:
01. Stonewall
02. Kingsman: The Secret Service
03. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
04. Trumbo
05. The Cobbler

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