Runners-Up: Even though I go
overboard with 30 films (not including docs or animation, which get their own
post unless they make the top 10), there are still some films that deserve
attention that didn’t make the list. Beyond the Lights
(Gina Prince-Blythewood) was an excellent
musical melodrama, with a great performance by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Captain America: The Winter Soldier
(Anthony & Joe Russo) is probably the best Marvel movie to date, Child’s Pose (Calin Peter Netzer) was
a fascinating, disturbing, extremely well-acted study of a screwed up family. The Double (Richard Ayoade) is a wonderfully funny, surreal nightmare of a
film about what happens when Jessie Eisenberg meets his doppelganger. Goodbye to Language
3-D (Jean Luc-Godard) was mind boggling in
terms of its visuals – which reinvent 3-D photography, but I still have no idea
what the hell it was about. Ida (Pawel
Pawlikowski) is a brilliantly photographed, touching, ambiguous, angry film
about Poland’s past, The Immigrant
(James Gray) was gorgeously shot, and brilliantly acted. Obvious Child (Gillian Robespierre) is
a very funny comedy about a woman who gets pregnant – and decides to get an
abortion, with a great performance by Jenny Slate. The One I Love (Charlie McDowell) had its big twist in the first
act, and then got weirder and better. The
Rover (David Michod) isn’t the triumph that Animal Kingdom was, but an
excellent genre film just the same. Stranger
by the Lake (Alain Guiraudie) is a fine thriller, about the dangers of
desire, when a man meets two very different men at a gay pickup spot. Wild (Jean-Marc Vallee) is an excellent
examination of one woman rediscovering herself by hiking – which is a lot
deeper than that brief description would imply.
30. The Drop (Michael R. Roskam)
One of the more unjustly overlooked films of the
year, Michael R. Roskam’s The Drop is wonderfully constructed crime thriller.
Tom Hardy plays a character that is perhaps a little slow – he works as a
bartender in a low-end dive in Brooklyn for his longtime boss, and friend,
played brilliantly by James Gandolfini. Once in a while, the bar acts as a drop
for the Russian Mob, who has taken over the local racket. When a robbery
happens at their bar, things start to get worse. At the same time, Hardy starts
a sweet romance with a woman who helps him with the dog he found in a dumpster
(Noomi Rapace), while her violent ex-boyfriend (Matthias Schoenarts) shows up
at the same time. Based on a novel by Dennis Lehane, the film is one of the
best crime thrillers of the year – it is understated, and takes its time
building to its climax. Like many of the best Lehane novels, the movie sneaks
up on you – getting deeper and darker as it goes along. The film has a “twist”
ending, but it’s one that actually fits in with everything that came before it.
A fine, English language debut for Roskam – and a fitting send off for
Gandolfini - not to mention yet another showcase for Hardy.
29. Godzilla (Gareth Edwards)
Godzilla is the rarest of blockbusters – an actual
auteur film, made within the studio mandated structure that needs a lot of
special effects, and things blowing up. Director Gareth Edwards last film was
Monsters – a film that he shot with two actors, in Mexican locations, and then
added brilliant special effects with little else other than his laptop.
Godzilla takes his worldview in that film, and adds hundreds of millions of
dollars in special effects – and ends up with an even greater version of the
film. The human characters in the film are all sympathetic – but they are all
basically useless as well. They enact one plan after another throughout the
film – but none of it matters. If Godzilla, and the other monsters, want to
destroy humanity – they will. The film is all about how the characters see and
experience the scenes of destruction – often from a distance, or on TV, and not
in close-up. It is, like the original Godzilla, which is about mankind’s
hubris, and how it will ultimately destroy us all. It is also a thrilling
blockbuster – that gives you everything you could want in a Godzilla film – but
in brilliantly original ways. Edwards is a real filmmaker – and he has used the
studio system to make a great film of his own. He’s still the guy who made a
monster movie on his own computer. Now, he just has more resources at his
disposal. 
28. Two Days, One Night (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
Like clockwork, every three years Jean-Pierre &
Luc Dardenne go to the Cannes Film Festival with a great movie – ones that sit
back and observe their characters in a variety of different genres, but always
with a similar goal. In Two Days, One Night they tell an economic fable – where
the main character, brilliantly played by Marion Cotillard, has to go to her
co-workers, one by one, to get them to vote to keep her instead of getting
their annual bonuses. The film is basically the same scene over and over again,
with slight variations. Her co-workers are generally nice – they like her, and
while some agree to vote for her, some tell her that they cannot do that – they
need that money for a variety of (mostly good) reasons. The end of the movie is
great, as it seemingly does the impossible and doesn’t over sentimentalize its
conclusion, with either joy or sorrow, but ends on an ambiguous note. The
Dardennes are among the most consistent directors in the world – every three
years, they show up with a great film. Two Days, One Night is no exception.
27. Proxy (Zack Parker)
Zack Parker’s Proxy is perhaps the best film of the
year that no one talks about. It starts with a shocking act of violence – a
pregnant woman being beaten with a brick so that she’ll lose the baby. From there,
it becomes a disturbing examination of the now not pregnant woman, who is
shielding darker secrets that we ever imagined. Then, at about the half way
point, another shocking act of violence switches the focus to another woman –
who is equally disturbed as the first woman, but in a completely different way.
The film was marketed as a horror movie, but it isn’t really that, despite how
terrifying it is. It isn’t really a thriller either – even though it does
superficially resemble that as well. Instead it is one of the most disturbing
portraits of madness you will see this year. Don’t let the fact that the film
was barely released in theaters, before heading straight to DVD and VOD fool
you – this is a great film. 
25. Blue Ruin (Jeremy Saulnier)
Jeremy Saulnier’s Blue Ruin is a different kind of
revenge thriller. Anchored by a great performance by Macon Blair, as a man who
finds out the man who murdered his parents has been paroled, and decides to get
his revenge – setting up a series of messed up events, none of which play out
the way he expects them to. From the early scenes, with Blair looking like an
insane, homeless man, to the moment his shockingly gets his revenge (to his own
surprise as much as anyone else’s) – to the consequences of that act, Blue Ruin
never takes a step wrong, even as it continues to twist itself, and never goes
quite where we expect it to. The film is bloody and violent – but has a vein of
pitch black humor running throughout (the funniest line of the movie, one of
the funniest of the year, is about an arrow wound). Saulnier made this film
with almost no money – but it doesn’t feel like that. I see countless revenge
movies every year – but very few even come close to Blue Ruin.
24. Birdman (Alejandro G. Innaritu)
Birdman is an immensely entertaining, amusing
comedy that probably isn’t as insightful or meaningful as it means to be – but
is so well directed and acted, it hardly matters. Michael Keaton is great as a
movie star, known for a comic book character, trying to gain his respectability
back by doing Broadway (although, it must be said, the play he is doing looks
laughably awful). Surrounding him are various characters that are almost as
crazy as he is – Edward Norton is particularly great as a vain character actor.
Even though the movie takes place over several days, it looks like it is done
in one continuous shot, because of the cinematography magic of Emmanuel
Lubezki, and some trick editing. Innaritu, who until know has been known mainly
for heavy (and heavy handed) dramas, has decided to go into comedy this time –
and makes what may be his best film to date (although, to be honest, it is
still a little heavy handed). A mesmerizing, entertaining comedy.
23. A Most Wanted Man (Anton Corbjin)
John LeCarre has been writing intelligent spy
novels for decades now – not the kind you normally see in movies, with action,
sexy women and gunfights, but the kind about the slow, often un-glamorous world
of real life spies. A Most Wanted Man is one of his best recent novels – about
life in a post 9/11 world – and director Anton Corbjin has crafted an intense
movie out of it. Philip Seymour Hoffman gives his final great performance, as a
German intelligence officer, who is being punished by his superiors and foreign
powers, for a botched job in Beirut. But Hamburg is still important as that is where many of the 9é11 terrorists
came through. He isn’t about to let that happen again – and when
a young man arrives on the shores of Hamburg, he thinks he has his chance to
turn him to catch bigger fish. This entails a game of cat and mouse, with many
intricate, moving pieces – as it always does in LeCarre. The film doesn’t quite
reach the heights of Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy from a few
years ago – but it comes close, and may in fact have an even better final
scene.
22. Listen Up Phillip (Alex Ross Perry)
I wasn’t a huge fan of Alex
Ross Perry's last film – The Color Wheel, which was pretty much 70 minutes of
hipster navel gazing- but it had such a brilliant ending that I knew I wanted
to see whatever else he did next. Listen Up, Philip is a huge step forward for
Perry – a kind of play on the work of Woody Allen and Philip Roth, but doesn’t
see his characters with an ounce of romanticism. The main character, played
brilliantly by Jason Schwartzman, is an asshole in the first scene in the movie
– where he berates an old girlfriend, before moving on to berate an old
roommate, who happens to be in a wheelchair – and over the course of the film,
he simply becomes an even bigger asshole. A brilliant writer he may be – but
he`s still an asshole. Jonathan Pryce plays his mentor – an even bigger
asshole. And Elisabeth Moss is his girlfriend, who learns to be as selfish as
him, but does it to finally free herself of him. All this may sound kind of
dour, but the film is actually hilarious throughout – with wonderful, literate
narration, delivered by Eric Bogosian in a brilliant deadpan, who mercilessly
takes down the main characters (at no time more than the film scene). I was
curious to see what Perry was going to do after The Color Wheel – so I cannot
wait to see what he does next.
21. Nymphomaniac (Lars von Trier)
Back in the spring, when I saw Volume I, I was
somewhat up in the air on Lars von Trier’s epic film. The first film was
enjoyable, but I still couldn’t get a handle on it – and I said in my review
that it could end up being a disaster or a masterpiece based on what happened
in Volume II. I liked Volume II as well – and while it never became Trier’s
masterpiece, it is a film that has haunted me all year long (by the way, what
happened to the even longer, five-and-a-half long, single cut of the film that
I thought was supposed to come out on demand by now? I haven’t seen it yet, and
I would love to). It would be easy to dismiss Nymphomaniac as yet another
female martyr film from Trier – which would place it in a long series of his
films like Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, Dogville, Antichrist and
Melancholia. But the film is somewhat different than that – it’s funny, it’s
stark, and it’s disturbing. It’s a fascinating exploration of sexuality. It
isn’t exactly subtle – Trier doesn’t do subtle – but it’s a deeper film than
some give it credit for. This is one of those films that grows in your mind
over the months – and perhaps years. I wouldn’t be shocked if this film sneaks
closer to the top 10 if you were asked me to make this list again in 5 years. 
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