The Top 10

10. Leviathan (USA) dir. Verena Paravel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor

If there is one movie on this list that I wouldn’t recommend to most friends, it’d be Leviathan. A highly impressionistic documentary on a fishing vessel with no narrative, no interviews, no characters, no context. It’s a complete audio-visual experience. The visuals, made up of cameras of all sizes, in all places, are absorbing. Each offer a mini-challenge of discovering what the shot actually is, from what angle, and whose perspective — you might think you are hovering above the water only for a splash to reveal a flock of seagulls in what you had assumed to be under the ocean. Combined with the trance-inducing clanks and hums of the audio, the sensation is heavily textured allowing you to feel (rather than observe) life on a fishing vessel with a sort of “you are there” immediacy that no 3D film can replicate.

9. The Wolf of Wall St (USA) dir. Martin Scorsese

Scorsese goes 90s by returning to his devil-may-care recklessness of Goodfellas, Casino, Bringing Out the Dead with his most loathsome protagonist yet. The difference is that Jordan Belfort is criminal within the boundaries of the law (or at least he acts that way). Scorsese doesn’t wag the finger for us, he presents the debauchery as free-wheeling fun as it must have seemed, while keeping a critical distance so the brutality and carnage is fully apparent. Instead of criminalizing an easy target, the film asks us to decide which is to blame: the player, or the game?

8. The Dirties (Canada) dir. Matthew Johnson

The Dirties is like a brief glimpse into the mind of a God-fearing middle American petrified at the notion of a new breed of super-killers being farmed into maturity by our sour, indifferent society. With reckless abandon, the movie jokes its way through difficult, heavy, dark subject matter as if it was all just a movie, which of course, it is. The beauty is that it doesn’t aim to offer any kind of message—it mocks the idea of deconstructing school shooters and their motives by boiling them down to the cliches and stereotypes of mass media and delivers them as a comedy rather than tragedy. The Dirties destroys sensationalism without even trying.

7. Gravity (USA) dir. Alfonso Cuarón

How this plays on a small-screen, I don’t know. But in a theatre, it serves as a reminder of why we go out to movies in the first place. Like some sort of roller-coaster, Gravity is unrelentingly thrilling and visceral keeping the plot on the need-to-know basis while delivering immediate threats and complications. It’s the type of exhilaration that goes back to the old story of how people once dived away from a screen when an early film showed a train hurtling towards it—Gravity pushes the boundaries of how visuals and CGI can thrill, shock, and surprise us.

6. Her (USA) dir. Spike Jonze

A love story between a man and computer? How would that work? Against odds, Her transcends its hangups by the complexity of its script. A story about isolation and love found and lost is also about anxiety of age and masculinity. Joaquin Phoenix, out of his usual manic character types, plays a man with his heart on his sleeve, and feeling like he’s owed some sort of compassion for his sensitivity. Instead of going all hipster-bullshit on us, Jonze sees Phoenix tortured for his crippling sensitivity, addressing it through an amazingly rich relationship with a “woman” tailor-made for serving his every need and desire. Jonze is amazing at unraveling the initial thrill of a new relationship and how reality seeps back in and the mundane begins to develop. How shortcomings and synergy are realized in bursts—like words in a book, punctuated by the long spaces between.

5. Beyond The Hills (Romania) dir. Cristian Mungiu

Sprawling, tedious, and tense, Beyond the Hills is a morality play within the confines of an uber-strict monestary where the ramifications of reality clash with the ideals of a slightly twisted division of faith. No one is cast a villain, and no one is a saint, instead we see the pleas of several people lost in translation between a place that struggles with its obligation for tolerance and a person who is unable to cope with routine. A slow-burn of tension erupts into an unbelievable climax that pins the horrors of The Exorcist in grounded reality.

 

4. Frances Ha (USA) dir. Noah Baumbach

What initially looked like a bunch of twee indie bullshit, ended up being one of the most enjoyable, fun, and admirable films of the year. It’s a funny film because it could have resolved at almost any moment, had the title character, Frances, just gotten her shit together for a moment. Like a moth to a light, Frances buzzes into New York for no other purpose than a fantasy that fulfilment and opportunity are there. We’ve all met, seen, or been people like Frances. She is an amazingly relatable character full of charm, wit, and shame. She has no narrative arc, no goal, she merely needs to do something. This is the story of a girl kicking and screaming her way into adulthood.

3. The World’s End (UK) dir. Edgar Wright

Once again Wright & co. reveal their utmost respect for their audience with a script confidently laying on references, foreshadowing, symbolism, and crude jokes. Wright’s humour is the rare breed that has text and subtext that are equally satisfying without stepping over each other. Not only is it clever, smart, and entertaining but it’s also the best action film of the year with fight scenes that are directed with the type of inventive, masterful flair I’ve come to expect from Edgar Wright. Being able to follow a fight scene is a major compliment these days.

2. Blue is the Warmest Colour (France) dir. Abdellatif Kechiche

What makes this Blue stand out is the way it compresses time allowing it to sidestep many of the intimate-romance-story cliches, turning a slice-of-life love story into an epic. Two of the best performances in memory turn this excessively large scaled romance into a profound story about the ebbs-and-flow of relationships and discovering what one wants in the world. Leisurely paced in a way that would make Harvey Weinstein’s blood pressure reach critical levels, Blue finds the moments of passion and contention in everything from sex to walking down the street while achieving higher meaning by examining first-love from a distance. It’s the rare accomplishment that achieves moment-to-moment intimacy while seeing a larger picture.

1. Inside Llewyn Davis (USA) dir. The Coen Brothers

A friend of mine demanded that I tell him who is better and more consistent than the Coens. There really isn’t anyone, is there? It’s almost a cop out to name a Coen brothers film as the film of the year, but how the hell can’t you when that film is Inside Llewyn Davis? The Coens often do stories about bumbling idiots, but Llewyn is no idiot, he’s an asshole instead. But an asshole with an amazing talent. The thing is, for every Bob Dylan, there are twenty Llewyn Davis’. The great myth of our culture is that the talented rise to the top, but Llewyn Davis’ story is one of struggle and pathological desire. Wouldn’t you be an asshole if the world kept handing you crumbs? Not a depressing movie, but definitely bleak, Inside Llewyn Davis is the 60s with the rose-tinted glasses removed for a change, and what’s left is monochrome. In an era where success and experimentation supposedly flourished, some artists fell to the wayside and struggle with the great paradox: how does one succeed at making art while also making money? The film is about endurance, defeat, relentlessness and all anchored by the best music in a film this year sitting front and center. The Coen’s are in their A-game here, making a film that asks a lot of the viewer, and offers even more in return.

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That’s it. There were a few awesome looking movies that I didn’t see in time for this stupid list, but they may have made it on. Those include: All Is Lost, The Grandmaster, You’re Next