A-List: Top 10 Movies of 2015
By J. Don Birnam
December 30, 2015
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Last year, the first observation that emerged was that although there was a “2014 is a weak year for movies” narrative, the top choices somewhat debunked that idea. This year, there is no doubt that it is a strong year for movies, with at least 25 movies more than worthy of being on this list. The narrowing down was excruciatingly difficult to say the least. Indeed, there are at least 20 titles with a realistic shot at a Best Picture nomination.
Other than that, the themes to these movies are as diverse as ever (which will, hopefully, be reflected in this year’s Oscars ceremony). There is a particularly strong mother or motherhood theme, especially among foreign language films.
A final word on rules: last year I made the list based on movies that had been released theatrically in North America in 2014. I figured I could mention movies I had seen in festivals but were not released in theaters until 2015, if worthwhile, the following year. In hindsight, it seems somewhat dated to now mention movies from January 2015 (which entered into critical awards discussion in 2014). This is to the detriment of brilliant titles such as two nominees for Best Foreign Language Film last year, Argentina’s Wild Tales and Mozambique’s Timbuktu, two movies that are outwardly polar opposites but are, at their core, two stunningly-vivid portrayals of modern-day problems (middle class oppression in the former, terrorism in the later), the frustrations they cause, and how passive or outwardly violent resistance can help ease it. To fix this issue, I will now consider any movie I may have seen in 2015, regardless of whether it has had a theatrical release yet.
Having already cheated by mentioning two additional movies without giving them a slot, onto the top 10.
10. James White/Mia Madre
Allow me to cheat once more and list two movies at the tenth spot, as they could basically be companion pieces despite seemingly outwardly different. Both movies deal with the illness and eventual death of a mother. In James White (covered during TIFF) the mother at issue (a stunning, brilliant Cynthia Nixon) is a booze-hound and a drug-dependent partier. In Mia Madre (covered during NYFF, we see the mother of a driven, successful, and at times tyrannical (female) movie director. Both movies are, by the way, on their own meritorious for their nuanced while realistic analysis of the emotional turbulence that the loss of a parent can cause. Seen together, they brilliantly showcase how these whirlwinds can be the same across humanity, regardless of whether you are a party animal or a driven professional. Both movies are exceedingly lyrical (and James White even features some very awkward close-ups reminiscent of those in the lauded Holocaust movie that is set to win Best Foreign Language Film this year), and make sympathetic the two mostly unsympathetic protagonists, simply because of the humanity in themselves that they discover as they have to care for their ailing mothers.
9. The End of the Tour
Mostly overlooked by critics, the End of the Tour features Jesse Eisenberg as the reporter David Lipsky, looking back on his interview of famed writer David Foster Wallace, played by a wonderful Jason Segel. The movie focuses on the at times tense but ultimately respectful relationship that forms between the two men, despite Lipsky’s overall resistance and skepticism to Wallace’s life-affirming platitudes. Throughout the interviews, Eisenberg comes to discover that, despite his fame, Wallace is deeply conflicted and insecure about his own works and existence. It may sound superficially trite, but it is pulled off magnificently by an exacting script that hits the right notes about the importance of certain things in life (such as internal peace and happiness) and is buoyed by two nuanced performances. While you may find yourself thinking that many of its supposed explorations of humanity, friendship, success, and the meaning of life are all things you’ve heard before, you will surely somehow identify with the ways in which these anxieties affect the characters of this infinitely thoughtful movie.
8. The Big Short
I’ve always been a fan of movies that can pull off something complicated like, in this case, explaining the housing crisis in an audience-friendly way. And I’m a big fan of movies about the excesses of American corporate culture, such as The Wolf of Wall Street. The Big Short combines these two in a slapstick dramedy that tells a compelling story, features strong if showy performances, and keeps the audience gripped the entire time. As I wrote last week, The Big Short is an incredibly urgent movie that tries to lessen the urgency of its messages by throwing its hands up into a comedic “I give up” gesture. It compellingly walks through how and why our economic, societal, and political structures were set up to bring about the endlessly greedy speculative gambling that almost destroyed the entire World’s economy.
The directing efforts of Adam McKay (of Anchorman fame) may well be panned as the movie’s disjointed element, but disjointed is what a movie about untethered avarice needs. There are no good guys in The Big Short - there are only cleverer guys and, oh, ironically, we root for them, even though they, too, will profit from misery. If you look closely, then, the movie is not just about the housing crisis and not just about good vs. bad guys, it’s about how much of that all of us are, no matter what we may think about ourselves in the first place.
7. Tangerine
The indie critically acclaimed Tangerine is the seventh spot. The movie focuses on two transgendered call girls and a closeted Armenian client of theirs and their movements in Los Angeles over Christmas Eve. The lead is played by real-life transgendered actress Kitana Kiki-Rodriguez, who embraces the role with an honesty that, honestly, Laverne Cox could only wish. She is looking for revenge after she discovers that her pimp, who was also her boyfriend, had cheated on her while she had recently been imprisoned. Her friend, played by a sincere Mya Taylor, helps at times along the way.
Through their eyes, we see an honest portrayal of the lives of an until now mostly forgotten segment of the population, without traveling through the plot twists one has come to expect from these themes. Spoilers: this movie, about a black transsexual hooker, does not end with her death. The facile emotional manipulation gives way to the much more harrowing circumstance of the actual difficulties that individuals in her situation face. You do feel stereotypically bad for the closeted Armenian, but there is some magnetism to all the characters that is difficult to pinpoint - be it thanks to the purposefully churlish acting, the surprisingly steady directing (despite the movie being filmed entirely on an iPhone), or the excessive use of sound to draw the audience into the bombastic nature of the characters’ lives.
I have read elsewhere that Tangerine is the movie of 2015 that most “wears its heart on its sleeve,” and I agree. What’s more, it works in doing so, which is much more than we can say about most sentimental pictures. This is, at bottom, a sentimental movie about hopelessly flawed but impossibly lovable characters.
6. The Revenant
I became a big admirer of Alejandro González Iñárritu when he made his first hit, the Mexican nominee for Best Foreign Film, “Amores Perros,” but he somehow lost me until the second and third times I saw Birdman and realized he possesses a brilliantly subtle narrative genius. It was with The Revenant, however, that I became an unerring fan. As I wrote in my review last week, The Revenant is a multifaceted story of revenge and love, crisscrossing themes from gun and aboriginal violence, to revenge and resilience, all on top of stunning cinematography, an eerie soundtrack, and flawless directing. The story of The Revenant, itself, is not particularly innovative: man gets hurt, man seeks revenge.
But it is Innaritu’s love of craft, and his suspenseful, honest, and brutal story-telling that make the movie compelling, nail-biting, and, of course, a bit gut-wrenching. On top of the superb technical elements, add two awards-worthy performance by the criminally overdue Leo DiCaprio and the rising star Tom Hardy, and you have what is basically the serious, conversation worthy version of the much more questionable Dancing With Wolves - a movie that shows that the filmmaker and his team truly deserved all the accolades they received for Birdman last year.
5. Spotlight My coverage of this movie during TIFF should speak for itself, but I could not resist putting it on this list, as much as I wanted to give space to other movies that may have less of an audience than the still-presumptive Best Picture front-runner has. But Spotlight just works on so many different levels, and is too hard to ignore. It doesn’t step falsely; every moment has a purpose. As I’ve said, the movie admits of no easy and convenient truths, but instead spreads blame around for a tragic problems in sometimes unexpected ways. In what is arguably the climactic scene, it delivers the emotional punch that many Oscar bloggers unfairly says it lack by showcasing the effects of the tragedy at the center of the story through the eyes of those who broke it. The acting is one of a kind, Todd McCarthy’s directing is unobtrusive and guided, the soundtrack is powerful, and the overall cohesion of its elements make a movie that may be somewhat greater than even the sum of its parts.
4. Ixcanul (Volcano)
Guatemala’s first ever entry into the Best Foreign Language film, Ixcanul (Mayan for volcano), is undoubtedly one of the most surprising movies I saw all years. This movie first surprised me at TIFF, with its focus on the relationship between two Mayan women, mother and daughter, and the problems that befall them when they come into contact with local, non-Mayan society. Itself interesting, the story is infinitely buoyed by the purposefully long, quiet, drawn-out scenes of contemplation, the involved acting, and the accessible screenplay.
As beautiful as many a panoramic widescreen shot from The Revenant, Mad Max, or any of the other movies up for cinematographic accolades, Ixcanul was shot almost entirely at the foot of an active, live volcano. The volcano was life and the volcano was death, figuratively and literally, and if the analogy sounds too over-wrought, then see for yourself how captivatingly it isn’t. On top of that layer, the infinite meanings about womanhood and motherhood, about birth, and life, about the destruction and rescue that all of these can cause, make the at times eerily silent movie strangely compelling. At bottom, it demonstrates that a relatively small amalgam of simple, powerful scenes can make for an overall powerful picture. It does not have to be more complex than that, and Ixcanul is perfectly exact in that sense.
3. Inside Out
It has been a while since an animated movie makes it this high up my favorites of the year, but repeated viewings of Inside Out leave no question that it deserves whatever accolade it receives, and more. It was arguably Shrek that began the series of movies that can appeal to adults while being aimed at children that have mercifully carried on to this day. But to say that Inside Out has transcended that genre into the genre of animated movie for adults that may also appeal to children is no exaggeration of its merit. You can praise the animation itself and the delightful voice-acting, particularly of Phyllis Smith as the central pro-antagonist Sadness, but it is in the beauty of its symbols where the brilliance of this movie lies.
It is not just the allegories about mind and memory, the thoughtful message about the importance of sadness to one’s psyche, that make this movie so memorable. It’s the particles of each element that display its brilliance. The analysis of the psyche, both in its wit and its cleverness, are unparalleled, and the overall embrace of what it means to be a growing child in a rapidly changing world, without the “oh it was so much better in my day” cynicism that has come to characterize many a young adult picture, complete a perfect circle, and what is nearly a perfect movie.
2. Carol
Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven was among the best movies of the 2000s, and his return to the… 1950s sexual repression genre? is among the most memorable of 2015. You’ve heard of the stunning portrayals by both Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara of two closeted lesbians living in upper middle class society in the 1950s. You’ve heard of the haunting cinematography, the blurry use of colors and the touchy sentimentality that colors the movie. You’ve heard of the powerful screenplay adaption by Phyllis Nagy of the Patricia Highsmith novel, and of the nuanced scenes that evoke love and beauty with artistic perfection. But what’s really worth looking for in the unforgettable Carol is the complex relationship between the self and the other, between the growing love for oneself and for another being.
Therese, Mara’s character, is the young ingénue that for the first time is discovering her sexuality. As she does so, she discovers herself, she inspires herself, she learns things about herself. The character is so simple and yet so vastly difficult to read it is almost impossible to believe it is flanked by an equally layered, if slightly more enigmatic Carol, the experienced yet slightly troubled married woman living trapped in suburban society. In doing what he does best - exploring what every day humans in every day olden society were like - Haynes delivers an emotional counterpunch that is as timely as the issues of gay marriage that arose in 2015, as important to the history of queer cinema as Brokeback Mountain, and is accomplished in its craft as any other movie on this list.
1. Steve Jobs
But it is undoubtedly the much-maligned Steve Jobs that I have returned to with the most intrigue in 2015. The story, as you likely know, centers on three discrete chapters of Jobs’ life, preceding the launch of three products in his illustrious career. I have written a lengthy defense of Steve Jobs piece for the Oscar column already, and won’t repeat all that rant here. Suffice to say, however, that the key to realizing the brilliance of this movie is to view it not as a story about a real man you think you know and about whom you have undoubtedly strongly-held views, but as a soap opera about a fictional character who is intriguing, brilliant, as well as truculent and coarse.
The most perfect element of this intellectual diatribe is undoubtedly the Aaron Sorkin script, his best since The Social Network. It has been correctly called a companion piece to that movie, in fact, given that it analyzes in non-redundant ways the manner in which flawed geniuses can captivate, and theorizes that brilliance and good moral character may not always be compatible. Not to be forgotten, of course, are Michael Fassbender’s performance as the megalomaniac entrepreneur, and Kate Winslet as his anchoring advisor. Despite Danny Boyle’s at times flamboyant direction, the movie overall is tight within its three-act structure. It is, at times, impossible to look away.
Two scenes, in particular, serve as (not accidentally, if you pay attention to the infinite references) operatic crescendos and denouements - the Jeff Bridges fight scene at the heart of the movie, and the climatic look between Jobs and his alienated daughter, as the music rises to deafening levels. The movie ends up working at every level, and is constructed so meticulously as to be an analogy for Jobs’ compulsive visions himself. Fassbender is Jobs, but not really. The real Jobs is an enigmatic man, but what we got in the fictional one on screen is much more interestingly so.
These are the movies that moved me in particular in 2015. Undoubtedly they are different than yours. And, even more undoubtedly, they will be different than those which will soon prove to move the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Let the hatred begin.