Another year gone and another dose of many many films I wasn't able to see because of...life getting in the way. I tried to be marginally more discriminating in the movies I chose to see in theaters or at all in an effort to see films that I expected I would enjoy rather than run the risk of just seeing something for the sake of seeing something. I think as I've gotten older and my taste in films has simultaneously expanded and limited in different directions and across broader horizons of cinematic material and the like, I've become more and more willing and able to know what I'll like and appreciate and enjoy. That being said there are still a ton of films I simply wasn't able to make it to for one reason or another, I will still make a valiant effort to see a lot of the expected Oscar nominees when those are announced in a couple months and eventually I'll get around to seeing even those movies that don't get nominated (in as much as I put legitimate time into caring about silly awards shows when there are plenty of films that don't stand a chance of ever getting nominated despite them deserving to be). In any case...as much as it matters to anyone (namely me)...here is the list of the films I considered to be truly great for one reason or another for this past year.
As always I should note that films, and art in general, are, of course, completely subjective. I personally enjoyed or got a lot out of these movies because they meant a lot to me, that does not necessarily mean that everyone can or should agree or that I'm dictating that other movies aren't as deserving of spots on the list. It's just an arbitrary organization and ranking of movies that I appreciated for one reason or another. I will inevitably update this list in the next couple of months as I try to play catch up with the movies that I missed and still want to see. It's also important to clarify that a couple of these movies aren't strictly "great" in the sense that I traditionally define my favorite and top films to be. Perhaps they have flaws or narrative issues or technical problems in terms of design and production and such, but overall their strongest aspects to them outweigh whatever weaknesses there may be. Perfection in general, as good as it is to set as an artistic goal, is a rather meaningless and overarching concept that is virtually impossible to achieve. I will always argue that I would rather see a movie that reaches for something and potentially falls short in some areas than a merely competent movie that is satisfied with staying within the safe framework of a comfortable status quo narrative-wise and takes no risks artistically. Further, even the strongest and greatest works of art have elements that it can be argued enter the realm of a so called "weakness", be it a problematic dated aspect of an older film or a somewhat weak performance in an otherwise flawless cast or a limited budget necessitating a compromised production design or cinematographic choice. Point is, no movie is perfect and a couple on this list are "really good" instead of "great" because of that lack of perfection. I'm okay with that and so should you.
Onward to the list...
My Top Eleven Films of the Year (random number choice yes, but honestly who cares really?)
11. Won't You Be My Neighbor?
What a lovely documentary that honestly and simply tells the story of a surprisingly complicated, but still inherently good-hearted man who only ever wanted to help and improve the lives of others- especially children.
10. Black Panther
An outrageously well produced and put together Marvel comic book movie, easily one of their strongest efforts purely on a technical and (mostly) narrative level. Yes, its story is perhaps ultimately a bit overly familiar, but everything from the performances to the production design, from the costumes to the score, from the action to the direction are top notch and purely entertaining in the greatest sense.
9. Mission: Impossible- Fallout
Action and thriller type pulpy spy fun done exceptionally right, the entire movie is like an adrenaline shot to the heart.
8. Annihilation
Asks many questions and poses several bizarre situations while brilliantly not fully revealing itself in the strictest sense and providing enough clever ambiguity to not feel overly expositioned to death like a lot of science fiction movies are today. Not as strong as Ex Machina was but very very intriguing and tone-wise a fascinating departure with its dreamlike atmosphere and copious amounts of inexplicable dread and apprehension.
7. A Star Is Born
Exceedingly strong performances, especially by Gaga, dare I say she can and perhaps (in my book) should win the inevitable Oscar for it. The music is startlingly strong as is the familiar story (three times adapted before to varying degrees of success in earlier efforts), both of which strike the right chord of slight melodrama but with an overriding degree of authenticity and rawness thanks to the dying devotion of the leads to play the romance straight and true. The ending sequence left me breathless.
6. Boy Erased
Not particularly well structured with a too confusing to keep straight flashback framework which feels done to death in movies of this kind- the entire film is saved by astonishingly solid performances by the entire cast. Especially surprising are Kidman (who I have inconsistently admired and had my patience tested by with her usual aggressive coldness) and Crowe (who I've never liked more and who's never felt more real). The movie belongs to Hedges though and he brings a brilliant sense of stability and awkwardness to a person who is fundamentally challenged at every turn to be something he's not while navigating his own complicated feelings. The ending especially is striking in its...emotional rightness in terms of feeling legitimately true to life and satisfying from a character perspective. He eventually gets to where he needs to be in his life and he has the conversation with the person who's ultimately provided the most stress for him (though importantly not from a malicious place) and he says exactly what he needs to in order to move on. Effectively: "you either get me and love me or you don't, but it's your choice and I'm not changing because there's nothing wrong with me."
5. If Beale Street Could Talk
A fascinating and surprisingly real-life-esque, low key and not maudlin at all cry against the many barriers and walls African American people struggled and still struggle with (don't tell me otherwise because we all know better). There's a strength to the characters that's undeniable and incredibly admirable and an urgent poignancy to their plight that they address but never overtly. Like the white man who disgustingly smells the hand of the Black makeup counter girl because he can and because he wants to exert his despicable sense of superiority and control- the film intelligently depicts it and addresses it and comments on it but in such a way as to make it anger inducing and upsetting but not in an aggressive call to arms, must take a political stance tired Spike Lee like way. It's effective and gets under your skin in the subtlest of ways. The dialogue and the performances are of particular note as well. A scene towards the middle of the film is deeply unsettling in the way a relatively minor character effectively without being graphic explains how prison changes a Black man, especially when living under the thumb of white guards and especially when he's committed no actual crime. The whole thing makes you angry through its sadness and sense of reality and ultimately because of the characters' resignation to their lots in life. There is no escaping what happens to them and takes them to rattle minor cages to discover that. And that pisses me off no end.
4. First Man
Knuckles whitening, palms sweating, squirm inducing. Not since Interstellar and Gravity have the perils of true space travel felt so incredibly real and incredibly terrifying while still igniting a fire to want to continue the exploration of our universe. I admire the silence when they get where they're going. Chazelle knows to let the moment breathe in real time, selling this insanely well depicted sense of being there with Armstrong. The biggest IMAX screen possible really sells an incredible sense of reality and tactile you-are-there-ness.
3. The Favourite
Yorgos Lanthimos is a bona fide genius and the performances at play are deliciously wicked and barbed. It's funny and oddly suspenseful and kinda sexy while all being insanely tragic and bizarre. Taking the dullsville that often is a costume drama and executing the technical aspects perfectly while also providing a fun and twisty and twisted well worn story makes for an entertaining and ultimately...strangely ambiguous tale. Can anyone tell me what the last shot actually means? I still don't know but I'm endlessly fascinated by it.
2. Suspiria
Words cannot describe. Oh the excess. Oh the discomfort. Oh the bloodshed. It's a truly epic kinda historical kinda feminist expose-y kinda horror movie. With lots of awkward bone breakage and piss on the floor and cold corridors and blood and interpretive ballet dancing. It's a truly bonkers movie. Nothing at all like the original. But if you want a nightmare you've got one. If you one wanna see a truly brutal death scene...see this movie. I adored it.
1. Hereditary
Just. The sheer originality here. The story. The performances. The way it just...watches. It's almost cruel how wince-inducing this movie is. And that's before it becomes a horror movie. The drama aspect alone is so well done. Every frame of this movie is perfection. A brilliant and endless sense of progressively building dread. You don't know at all where it's going and when it gets there you breathe a sigh of relief solely because it's over and not at all because you're at ease with where it ends. Everything here is just plain genius.
And my personal favorite film of the year, which I had intended to write an in depth blog post about before losing virtually all of the content I had started on it (and may still eventually write about)...but which isn't technically a top film because those earlier discussed narrative issues and overall weaknesses do prevent it from being strong enough to be included on the list in the traditional sense...and yet I still can't resist loving and talking about and dragging people to is...of course...
Love, Simon
