10. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
d. Roy Andersson
Not as bizarre as you might expect, if you’ve read any reviews of Roy Andersson’s film. It’s a poker-faced, mordantly funny sequence of elegantly strung vignettes about man’s impassive, recyclic cruelty to man and beast, featuring a cast of reanimated corpses and moribund onlookers. And it may contain the strangest, most depressing abstract comment on colonization you’ve ever seen.
9. Song of the Sea
d. Tomm Moore
Inside Out is rightly well-regarded, but it doesn’t get near the luminous melancholy of Tom Moore’s moving paean to Ireland, childhood, and loss. And you can’t have a respectable “end of year best” list without Brendan Gleeson’s involvement somewhere.
8. Mommy
d. Xavier Dolan
Exceptional performances elevate this Sofia-Coppola-meets-Alan-Clarke examination of a car crash scenario involving the hardened disappointments of a widowed woman, her ADHD-afflicted son and a damaged neighbor. Unflinching and empathetic and unlike anything else I saw in 2015. Ignore the occasional soundtrack faux-pas.
7. Mistress America
d. Noah Baumbach
Greta Gerwig and Lola Kirke deliver the year’s best acting double-act in, for me, Noah Baumbach’s best film. Other films in 2015, notably the likeable Appropriate Behaviour, covered very similar territory (literally), but there are few directors now who can make a handful of locations and people talking in rooms as much interesting fun as this.
6. Hard to be a God
d. Aleksey German
We’re all looking for immersive cinematic experiences but this is almost painfully so — and is often like being dunked headfirst in bloody grime. Utterly bizarre and relentlessly dingy and violent, Hard to be a God, set in an absurdly chaotic Medieval landscape, isn’t something to be made much sense of. It’s consciously into Tarkovsky territory and, like Peter Strickland’s The Duke of Burgundy, is best simply experienced.
5. The Look of Silence
d. Joshua Oppenheimer
If you haven’t seen this or Joshua Oppenheimer’s landmark The Act of Killing, watch them both. This is the contemplative yet confrontational companion piece to that extraordinary documentary and, whilst less hard-hitting than its precursor, still asks some horrifying, unanswerable questions — such as “How do you live impassively alongside the killers of a loved one?” –and is no less essential.
4. The Wolfpack
d. Crystal Mosella
A group of brothers locked inside an apartment during their childhood construct their identities and ideas of the outside world via movies, which they re-enact in their Manhattan apartment. Fascinating, funny and weirdly moving, and the kind of thing E.L. Doctorow might’ve written about.
3. Whiplash
d. Damien Chazelle
Budding drummer Miles Teller is tormented into shape by J.K. Simmons’ urbane drill sergeant in one long clattering, unrelenting drumroll that quickly reaches a crescendo and stays there. Ends brilliantly, on a baffling note of grueling euphoria.
2. It Follows
d. David Robert Mitchell
A curse is passed on from one person to the next during sex, resulting in death for the recipient unless they can quickly transfer the affliction. Sounds ridiculous; result is one of the best horror films in years. Could’ve been even better but to make such a premise work at all is impressive.
1. The Salt of the Earth
d. Wim Wenders
Best film of 2015 by a million miles, a distance you feel the subject — photographer Sebastião Salgado — would easily cover in pursuit of his goal: to capture human life close up in all its forms. Salgado’s admirable resilience and good-humored relentlessness, and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado and Wim Wenders’ documentary tribute, are pretty spectacular.
Notable mentions: Carol, Amy, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, The Gift, The Duke of Burgundy, Precinct Seven Five.
Whiplash was stunning – powerful – unforgettable!
I agree, Adrienne. I thought the ending in particular was just marvelous at having it all both ways! I’m also a big fan of Song of the Sea, Lee, and all of the documentaries you have on the list are ones I’ve been very excited to see — but I haven’ yet!
Whiplash is completely wonderful – I’m ready to watch it again…I think Adrienne sums it up perfectly.
I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy all of them, Trevor – and I think you’ll love one.
Oh and Song of the Sea is great, particularly if you watch it with the little ‘uns…
Great List Lee!
Also, what did you think of “Spotlight”? I thought it did a great job with the very disturbing subject of abuse in the Catholic church.
Thanks Greg – it’s on the list, definitely.
It Follows was tremendous, and I’m extremely pleased to see it here. It works so very well, not just as horror movie but as a curiously timeless examination of growing up and facing mortality, as well as an aside on race issues in Detroit. Apparently when making it the director had to downplay the nature of the threat as it sounded so silly, and yet it’s executed so well.
I definitely plan to see the Baumbach. Gerwig’s an interesting actor. She crops up in a supporting role in The House of the Devil (which I actually thought was very good). Have you seen Frances Ha? I haven’t yet, though ought.
The Aleksey German is entirely new to me. You should write a review! You should write reviews of all of these! And more!
That’s probably enough exclamation marks for the moment, and indeed for most of the rest of the year.
Yes, I think It Follows will become something of a classic, as it deserves to. I think the two hardest kinds of film to pull off are original horror films and broad comedies. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of afterlife it has. With such films I’m always conscious of the choices the director makes at every turn, as so many examples of the genre are so lazy. In this case, for such a difficult premise/set-up, you’ve got to admire the job done.
I think Greta Gerwig’s great – I think she could probably do anything. I have seen Frances Ha and would recommend that also. Baumbach seems to be making a lot of films but I’ll likely watch them all. There are always three or four distinctive moments where the comedy is very surprising, in ways only he seems to be able to effect. There’s a scene in Greenberg where Ben Stiller is on the phone to his brother about the latter’s swimming pool. To completely regurgitate that scene now (which I’m guessing you’re familiar with: if not do watch Greenberg) would make it seem not only unfunny but quite possibly nasty. Whereas, at that moment in the film, it’s bizarrely and completely hilarious. He throws very different characters together and gets at the subtle (and not so subtle) clashes between them very well.
Aleksey German: I am fairly sure you’d like that quite a lot. And yes, I should really write a review for at least half of these. They all warrant far more than a passing paragraph.
Ah, I don’t know. Sometimes a bit of hyperbole is what’s needed…