I'm the idiot who waits until the year actually ends before rolling out my Best Of... list every year, and that's because I'm often able to squeeze in about a dozen or more films in the last couple weeks of December, mostly stuff that others have told me is worth checking out that I either missed when it came out in Chicago or titles that simply never came out in my fair city.
By my count, I saw 465 films in 2014, either in a theater or via screener. This number does include a few vintage titles, but only if I saw them in a theater (sometimes via a restored print, sometimes not). If I simply watched an older film at home, that doesn't make the list. As I do every year, I've separated out the documentaries because I want an excuse to call extra attention to a whole other batch of worthy films (15 this year) that might go unnoticed on my main list. Plus, it's always seemed strange to me to mix docs and features; the same way you don't usually see fiction and nonfiction books shelved together in a book store.
You've heard it before, but I'll repeat it: 2014 was an exceptional year for films. I don't say that every year, because it simply isn't true. I was genuinely shocked at how many great movies weren't making my Top 10, or even my Top 20, as I was assumbling it. I often feel that after the first 10, the numbers don't mean much, and that's never been more true. In fact this year, I had the hardest time figuring out my Number 1 because there were three or four solid candidates. In 2014, I also saw more films at least three times than I can remember seeing in any previous year. Of the 465 films I saw in 2014, probably 20-25 of them I saw three times (a couple of them, I saw more than three). In fact, of my top 10, the only one I saw once was SELMA, and that's simply because there was only one press screening before the Chicago Film Critics Association voting deadline this year. But I will see it again soon, since it opens in some markets, including Chicago, this week.
I also say every year that if you think a list of 50 is an annoyingly huge number of titles, feel free to stop at 30, or 20, or 10. Of course 50 is overindulgent, and I think I've earned the right to be so (I started to put together a Worst Of… list, but my mind began to melt after typing out about 30 titles); you'll find ways of dealing with it, I have faith. I've included sections of my original reviews of my Top 10 films, with the exception (once again) of SELMA, which I've included my full review. Hope you dig the list and that it gives you some ideas for purchases, rentals, going to the theater and actually checking them out the old-school way, etc. A few of these are still in theaters, and if they are, that's where you should view them. A couple of them will make their way to you in January. Alright, enough preamble. Here is my humbly submitted Top 50 best features and Top 15 best documentaries of 2014…
BEST FEATURE FILMS OF 2014
1. FOXCATCHER I've seen FOXCATCHER three times now, and each time I noticed such different things about every aspect of the story, from the depths of the betrayal and corruption to the layers of familial bonds—real, imagined, and desired. The first time I saw it, it left me impressed with the performances but cold in my soul; the second time, the emotional content of the film leapt out at me, especially through Ruffalo's soulful performance, in the way the protective Dave never wanted to make an enemy; he might not have anything nice to say about you, but he'll be damned if that means he's going to say something nasty. Man, is Ruffalo good here, and if he's doing his job well, you won't even notice.
FOXCATCHER is the ultimate, slow-spinning, downward spiral, surrounded by smaller spirals going in every direction. Director Bennett Miller chooses to end the film with a rather bittersweet postscript, verifying what we already knew—no one got out of this situation better for the experience, and there's no reason to let us think otherwise. Although it doesn't happen often, it is possible for a masterpiece to leave you feeling empty and chilled to the bone; you may even hate the feeling. But if that is, to a degree, exactly the feeling the filmmaker wanted to instill in you, maybe the film worked. Do me a favor if you walk out of FOXCATCHER not sure how you felt about it—see it one more time a couple weeks later. It's a different experience when you can actually focus on the subtext and not get pleasantly distracted by the flawless, transformative makeup and mannerisms surrounding the performances. FOXCATCHER is a layered, death-defying journey into the misguided minds of lost American souls. In other words, it's about a lot of us.
2. INHERENT VICE Here's another film I've seen three times, and I firmly believe that you have to see it at least twice for the true genius and value it contains to reveal itself. The latest from Paul Thomas Anderson has its own language that takes a couple viewings to crack, and while you may think that the story (based on the novel by Thomas Pynchon) doesn't matter because it's all about the characters, that's not quite true. The mysteries of the film aren't as interesting as the plethora of character studies, but that doesn't mean they don't matter; they certainly hold up. INHERENT VICE requires a trippy combination of your total attention and an appreciation for those times in our lives when we have a... loose connection to reality. Might be the most fun I had in a movie all year—times three.
3. BOYHOOD BOYHOOD is meant to capture universal truths through the eyes of young Mason (newcomer Ellar Coltrane) over the course of 12 years. Against all types of logic and odds, director Richard Linklater was able to gather us the same core cast members—Coltrane, his daughter Lorelei Linklater as Mason's slightly older sister, and Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette as the boy's divorced parents — each year for a couple of days or weeks at a time to shoot a new small sequence that chronicles some small but significant moment in Mason's life. Although the framework isn't specifically said to be a flashback, it's clear that everything we see is meant to be viewed as a remembrance from Mason's perspective. They aren't meant to be seen as individual moments, but rather as the ingredients that when mixed together become the young man the film presents us with at the end.
The film refuses to be nostalgic in traditional ways, instead making each scene feel like the present and all around us. Boyhood can be appreciated as a pure cinematic event or as a trigger for your own memories. I couldn't help but wonder what moments might appear in a version of BOYHOOD surrounding the same 12-year period in my life. Don't be disappointed if watching the film doesn't result in a wave of devastating callbacks flooding back into your brain. It won't do that for everyone; it isn't supposed to. Use it as you see fit, and enjoy the experience on your own terms and not the way others might. You'll get the most out of it, believe me.
4. THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL In many ways, THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL feels like a Wes Anderson greatest hits of visual tricks, methods and acting styles. But it's also the film that finds him borrowing the most from other sources, most notably the credit "inspired by the works of Stefan Zweig," the Austrian writer who used dry humor to convey his societal commentaries, and the films of German-born Ernst Lubitsch, who made a career in Hollywood (THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER being one of the best known). Anderson isn't stealing from these artists so much as paying tribute to their all-but-lost works in the memories of filmgoers. It's a worthy endeavor, but hardly the sole reason to see this film.
The real reason to make seeing THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL a priority is that it's the sly, hilarious and darkly brilliant culmination of all that Anderson has been building toward, and it features several eye-opening performances by actors whose limits we had assumed we knew (first and foremost Ralph Fiennes) in the hands of a director who still has the capacity to surprise us in small but significant ways. It's joyous and melancholy in the same breath, a cautionary tale about nostalgia and a very funny romp through a fictional troubled time that still feels familiar. Send me a postcard from the Republic of Zubrowka anytime.
5. NIGHTCRALWER First-time writer-director Dan Gilroy has made a movie that almost dares you to find something redeemable about its lead character. In NIGHTCRAWLER, Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal, in easily the best performance of his career) is a man composed of uncut ambition and drive, but he can't find an outlet for his level of dangerous energy. You don't have to like your lead character to enjoy the hell out of a film, and NIGHTCRAWLER might be the best example of that in a very long time. You'll be disgusted and morally outraged by Lou's behavior and journalistic ethics, but you won't be able to avert your eyes for even a second while he's on screen, setting the stage for some truly appalling behavior. On top of that, the film works as a fully-functional thriller, with tension building exponentially as the story creeps on to its inevitable conclusion. NIGHTCRAWLER comes closer to capturing the world we live in than you'd care to admit.
6. SNOWPIERCER A lot of people are using works like "crazy" and "insane" to describe SNOWPIERCER, the latest visionary work by the great South Korean director Joon-ho Bong, but the truth is that, although some truly outrageous and exaggerated things happen during the course of this film, by the time it's over, it all feels quite inevitable and weirdly prophetic. The film is aggressively intelligent, whacked out of its mind, and loaded with some of the coolest performances you're going to see all year. It shouldn't surprise you that the film is the highest-grossing film in South Korean history, and that's because it's that rare combination of pure entertainment and unashamed commentary on the present day. Don't let that scare you; let it thrill you.
7. UNDER THE SKIN On the surface, UNDER THE SKIN is about an alien that steals the skin of a young woman (played by Scarlett Johansson, in her most compelling performance to date) and sets out to capture random men in Scotland for reasons I don't want to give away here. The men think they're being seduced, which in a sense they are, but not for sex. But what the film is really about is a creature (we don't even know if the alien is male or female or either) who is slowly learning about how Earth and its inhabitants work, and how sights and sounds that we would react to might have no significance to someone from another world. The film has a haunting, hypnotic, ethereal tone to it, and Johansson manages to pull off being charming and slightly seductive, while also having a cold, ruthless look in her eyes.
The sci-fi elements are no less fascinating, and when we finally do see the ultimate destination where these men are being led, it's as dark and empty as the alien's eyes. The film is about many things, but discovering what it means to be human is certainly at the top of the list, and I was surprised how emotionally responsive I was to Glazer's vision of UNDER THE SKIN and how disturbingly predictable we are as a species (at least men).
8. BLUE RUIN If you're tired of tales of specially trained men or women (many of whom are in retirement) suddenly having to call upon their instinctual abilities, often in defense of a loved one, then Blue Ruin is the film for you, because in all likelihood the central character, Dwight (Macon Blair), handles his brand of revenge and justice a lot like the rest of us would. BLUE RUIN is small but powerful gut-punch of a film, in which nearly every act of violence comes with real consequences. The situations may be familiar, but the way each scene plays out often is unexpected and shocking. Saulnier's skill as a screenwriter, director and even cinematographer are all on full display, and I bet that after a couple more films under his belt, he'll become one of those directors whose work you eagerly anticipate. He's taken one of the most familiar (some might say overused) story set ups in filmdom and done something exciting and new with it. That alone should earn him high praise.
9. BIRDMAN I would not have guessed that director and co-writer Alejandro González Iñárritu's latest work BIRDMAN would be one of the most divisive films of the year, but these things are so rarely predictable, I guess I shouldn't be terribly surprised. If you allow yourself to get caught up in the parallels between the lead character of the film, Riggan Thomson, an actor who became a massive star after playing the title role in the BIRDMAN superhero movies before walking away at their peak, and the real actor who plays him (Michael Keaton), you'll probably drive yourself crazy and ignore what is truly great about the film. BIRDMAN manages to be sloppy and elegant, dreamlike and nightmarish, a technical wonder that feels like a confessionary piece from Iñárritu, who acknowledges that his earlier work may have been a tad too self-serious, bordering on pompous. Hell, even this film borders on bloated, which I think, for once, is on purpose. However you slice it or interpret it, BIRDMAN is a singular vision from a director whose Mexican-born contemporaries—Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuaron—join him as some of the most inventive and awe-inspiring filmmakers working today. Above all else, it's great to see Keaton back in a leading role, where he belongs, losing his mind like the rest of us.
10. SELMA You'd think after 50 years, there wouldn't be much more to learn about a man as high-profile and whose accomplishments were as well documented as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. But SELMA proves to us that isn't at all true. Far less a history lesson than a character study, the latest film from director Ava DuVernay (I WILL FOLLOW, MIDDLE OF NOWHERE) certainly covers the undeniably important three months during which King led a campaign to gain equal voting rights for all U.S. citizens by leading a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965. The resistance by white Southerners, the physical abuse and other barriers put up against the largely black organizers and marchers is all there. But what makes DuVernay's version of the King story so different and compelling (thanks in large part of Paul Webb's worthy screenplay) are the peaks behind the curtains, into his role as a husband, a savvy politician, a bullheaded leader, and man who didn't like to admit when his way might not be the best way.
A lot has been written about the portrayal of President Lyndon B. Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) as "anti-Civil Rights" in the film. I'll admit, that's not how I read Selma's take on the man, who was put in an almost impossible situation by King (played with such perfect nuance by David Oyelowo), and with good reason. King wanted voting rights and he wanted them now; Johnson said they would come but in good time (which is never the right answer). One interpretation of Johnson's actions here is that he had to publicly tell King to be patient, knowing full well that that would motivate King and his followers to plow ahead, causing the American people to demand an end to the inequality sooner rather than later. However you interpret them, it's fascinating to watch the conversations between the two men, with King pushing Johnson for a little more each time and Johnson, not so much pushing back, but trying not to lose votes in the process of stopping the South from falling into total civil unrest.
One of the true wonders of Oyelowo's performance is that King is shown offering up different faces to different people. When he's with the president, he's respectful and courteous, while remaining just forceful enough for the president to respect him back. With reporters, he's a bit more to the point, aggressive, bordering on militant in his speech. With his family and friends, he's relaxed, far less concerned with his public face. We all do this, depending on where we are and who's around us, but to see it represented in a movie about someone as well known as King is rare.
Perhaps we are never more aware of the uniqueness and depth of Selma than in the scenes between King and his wife Coretta (Carmen Ejogo), some of the most difficult to watch in the whole film. She confronts him with various concerns about their marriage and family. He's rarely home, he doesn't know where anything in their modest house is because he's never spent much time there, and most shockingly, she asks about his behavior on the road with regards to other women. There's a question she asks that forces King and the audience to hold their collective breath awaiting his reply. It's an absolutely stunning singular moment that feels like it last an eternity, and Oyelowo's delivery of his reply sends shockwaves through everything that follows.
SELMA is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to supporting performers, with the likes of Tim Roth (as Alabama's shifty governor, George Wallace), Cuba Gooding Jr., Martin Sheen, Oprah Winfrey (in a beautiful early sequence), Giovanni Ribisi, Common, Wendell Pierce, Niecy Nash, Alessandro Nivola, and Dylan Baker as J. Edgar Hoover. With the exception of perhaps a little too much evil mustache twisting by Roth as Wallace, there are no false notes here in the acting work. There's even a great deal of humor in spots, in particular when King is allowed a moment of calm before the storm with his co-organizers and a home-cooked meal.
Director DuVernay comes from a filmmaking background of making small, intimate films with just a few characters and a great deal of emotion. So it shouldn't be surprising to see her nail those types of moments in SELMA. The true surprises for me was seeing how deft she negotiates the larger sequences, involving hundreds of extras and scenes of violence that many of us are more familiar with through documentaries on the history of the civil rights movement. She not gives King his due on the big screen for the first time, in my opinion, but she captures the history in an exemplary fashion, especially the three marches the serve as the film's final act.
To say that King was a master manipulator is far from an insult. To be able to stir people's hearts and minds is not easy task, and he did it better than just about anyone in history. One of the more interesting aspects of Selma is that the filmmakers don't rely on familiar speeches from King (I don't think they could afford the get the rights to them), so Oyelowo has to essentially give us his preacher version of King from scratch. I especially liked an opening sequence in which we see King rehearsing a speech he's about to give after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize; his oratory gifts, we learn, may have been instinctual, but that doesn't mean he didn't practice.
SELMA is a reminder of many things, but chief among them is that we sometimes need to look to our past to recognize our present. The film has it's minor flaws, but what it seizes upon and accomplishes is nothing short of remarkable. I have never referred to a film as "important," and I'm not about to start now—even I respond poorly when I hear that about any movie. But SELMA succeeds in so many ways that you'll be genuinely lifted by both its story, its messages, and its purely cinematic achievements. It's playing in select cities now, and will open wide on January 9.
11. WHIPLASH 12. CALVARY 13. A MOST VIOLENT YEAR 14. ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE 15. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 16. THE BABADOOK 17. THE IMITATION GAME 18. IDA 19. GONE GIRL 20. FORCE MAJEURE
21. WILD 22. TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT 23. A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT 24. THE LEGO MOVIE 25. WINTER SLEEP 26. THE RAID 2 27. JOHN WICK 28. LOVE IS STRANGE 29. MR. TURNER 30. WE ARE THE BEST!
31. CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER 32. OBVIOUS CHILD 33. LOCKE 34. THE GUEST 35. EDGE OF TOMORROW 36. THE TALE OF THE PRINCESS KAGUYA 37. FRANK 38. THE ONE I LOVE 39. THE CONGRESS 40. THE TRIP TO ITALY
41. X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST 42. KILL THE MESSENGER 43. BIG HERO 6 44. JOE 45. LAND HO! 46. NYMPHOMANIAC, VOL. 1 47. VENUS IN FUR 48. HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 49. HELLION 50. LISTEN UP PHILIP
BEST DOCUMENTARIES OF 2014
1. CITIZENFOUR 2. LIFE ITSELF 3. FINDING VIVIAN MAIER 4. LAST DAYS IN VIETNAM 5. JODOROWSKY’S DUNE 6. HAPPY VALLEY 7. TO BE TAKEI 8. RED ARMY 9. THE DOG 10. KEEP ON KEEPIN’ ON 11. CODE BLACK 12. SUPERMENSCH: THE LEGEND OF SHEP GORDON 13. NOW: IN THE WINGS OF THE WORLD STAGE 14. NATIONAL GALLERY 15. POINT AND SHOOT
