What we consider to be the best of this year represents a combination of the movies that had the greatest emotional impact on us, matched with movies that felt innovative or groundbreaking. Here are the films Jasper considers to be this year’s best:
10. Inside Out (d. Pete Doctor)
It could be argued that Inside Out is the best educational movie ever made. It takes the very abstract scientific concept of the human brain and turns it into characters that everybody from ages 2 to 102 can not only understand, but relate to. As complicated as a doctoral dissertation and as fun as a Saturday morning cartoon, Inside Out is a return-to-form for heralded Pixar Animation. Never before has a Pixar film, or perhaps even an animated film, felt so vibrant and surreal. It’s a Technicolor therapy session and an existential adventure film, but it keeps itself impossibly grounded with raw human emotion. Well, that is an unfair advantage for a film about raw human emotion.
9. Brooklyn (d. John Crowley)
The real wonder of Brooklyn is in its simplicity. On paper, it’s a standard love story. Girl moves away. Girl meets guy. Girl falls in love with guy. Girl marries guy. The story goes on becoming a charming fable that asks important questions about home and adulthood, evolving into one of the sweetest and most honest period dramas in, perhaps, a decade. Much of this can be attributed to the two leads Saoirse Ronan and Emory Cohen. Ronan is magnetic and Cohen makes you melt. Their chemistry is, in the best way possible, a little awkward, but oh so endearing – a genuine snapshot of courtship in the 1950s. Their love story is so beautifully photographed with a rich palette of pastels that feels like that oil painting over your grandparents dining table – slightly corny, but wonderfully nostalgic.
8. Bridge of Spies (d. Steven Spielberg)
2015 was quietly a banner year for the spy movie. From reliable blockbuster fare (Mission: Impossible and Spectre) to smart reinventions (Kingsmen and Spy), the genre almost outdid superheroes for box office ubiquity. Bridge of Spies was the spy movie for adults. Perhaps Steven Spielberg’s quietest film in a decade, Bridge of Spies flourishes on an unlikely pairing. With a screenplay from Joel and Ethan Coen, it’s a spy film light on action and heavy on wit and political chatter. Spielberg’s hallmark sense of drama thrives on the Coen’s deadpan conversational tension, which is, in turn, bolstered by a brilliant cast headlined by Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance. It may be rather traditionalist, but it’s refreshing – a taut, political thriller, from a crew of storytelling masters, that would make Frank Capra proud.
7. What We Do in the Shadows (d. Taika Waititi)
For the most part of the last decade, vampires have been defined by Edward Cullen’s brooding angst – morphing this generation’s perspective of the mythic race into something more romantic than fearful. Despite their mysterious sensuality, vampires are pretty fucking goofy though. What We Do in the Shadows exploits this notion to its fullest capacity. Jemaine Clement (coming off a hat trick of a year) and Taika Waititi’s mockumentary romp about the daily go-abouts of a troupe of vampires in New Zealand is a bonkers roast of the undead. The result is the smartest vampire movie since Let the Right One In, perhaps the best farce since Borat and the funniest movie of the year.
6. The End of the Tour (d. James Ponsoldt)
It is not important to know much about David Foster Wallace before The End of the Tour because he feels like an old friend after about 106 minutes. This could be attributed to a lot of elements. Jason Segal disappears into Wallace in an awards-worthy role. Or perhaps it’s Donald Margulies’ wonderful script. Either way the tree shakes, it comes down to the words, the conversations. Whether it be about dogs, television, or Alanis Morissette, everything spoken in The End of the Tour feels like a revelation. Okay maybe, that is a bit much. But in the moment it genuinely does. It’s warm and inviting, existential and melancholic. It’s a movie where nothing particularly happens, but everything rings true. Not because it’s a road trip with the supposed ‘voice of the generation,’ but because it is wholly honest.
5. The Revenant (d. Alejandro González Iñárritu)
Among the very many brutal moments in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s mammoth The Revenant, there are few beautiful moments where human breath literally fogs up the screen. Leonardo DiCaprio, in what should be his first Oscar-winning performance, almost disappears behind the cloud of his own breath. It is these moments that prove The Revenant may be the most intimate film of the year. Alongside the great cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, Iñárritu exerts ferocious realism and visual lyricism to craft an immersive, unrelenting portrait of human endurance that stands among greats such as Lawrence of Arabia and Apocalypse Now as a testament to the spirit of filmmaking on the edges of the world.
4. 99 Homes (d. Ramin Bahrani)
The 2008 financial crisis was a very confusing time in America. For specifics on what went down, buy a ticket for Adam McKay’s rousing The Big Short, a high school economics teacher’s dream movie (where you at, Mr. Browning?!) which somehow makes learning about flawed consumerism fun and informative. To really understand the effects of the debacle, 99 Homes is the master class. Bolstered by muscular performances from Andrew Garfield and Michael Shannon, it’s a white-knuckle thrill ride and a piercing character study of American greed. Discerning as a documentary and sensational as a soap opera, 99 Homes is both essential and entertaining insight into the crisis’ effects on American life.
3. Victoria (d. Sebastian Schipper)
It’s better to know up front that Victoria is all shot in one take. Sure, call it a gimmick or a stunt to fill up seats, but that would be ignorant. In fact, it is a marvel. It is only a marvel though because the story and the characters are as equally compelling as the stunt itself. The chemistry feels so organic and uncalculated that you wonder whether director Sebastian Schipper and cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen just up and decided to follow some twentysomethings in Berlin and watch their night unfold. For that reason, it’s better to not know much else about the Victoria. The concept and the narrative work hand in hand to form a singular cinematic experience that is a refreshing rush of pure adrenaline.
2. Infinitely Polar Bear (d. Maya Forbes)
Talk about the greatest actors of the generation for a moment. Seriously, take a second. It’s a crime that Mark Ruffalo probably only came up because he’s pictured above. In his (Bruce) banner year, his centerpiece performance in Infinitely Polar Bear is the key evidence that he is the most sensitive and versatile actor working. His is a manic showcase and, ironically, for a comedy about bipolar disorder, it is remarkably balanced debut feature for director Maya Forbes that tackles mental health, race and parental roles with rare and necessary authenticity.
1. Grandma (d. Paul Weitz)
Grandma is easily the simplest film on this list. In fact, you could make 83 different Grandma’s with Robert Downey Jr.’s Avengers salary (and I guarantee the world would spin a little smoother). But, what on paper could read as a simple road comedy crackles to life in a way that few films did this year. Sweet, acerbic, and riotously funny, director Paul Weitz has crafted a small, timely and topical triumph with his script. But it is a revelatory Lily Tomlin as the titular matriarch who leads a small, but mighty ensemble on a slight, but brave day trip through the emotional truths of love, aging and learning to move forward.
Honorable Mentions
A list of some other wonderful films to add to the end-of-year festivities
Another wonderful portrait of fatherhood to play alongside Infinitely Polar Bear is James C. Strouse’s People, Places, Things. As previously mentioned, Adam McKay’s The Big Short is a rollicking and rather informative tale of the financial crisis.
Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight illuminated the inner-working of the newspaper business to deft effect.
Brett Morgan’s intimate rock documentary Cobain: Montage of Heck and Bill Pohlad’s complex Brian Wilson biopic Love & Mercy (with impressive dual leads from Paul Dano and John Cusack as, respectively, young and old Wilson) redefined what the music film can be.
The American war on drugs was enlightened with a trio of perspectives in Denis Villeneuve’s narrative thriller Sicario, and two separate documentaries told from separate sides of the border: Matthew Heineman’s immersive Cartel Land on the southern cartels and Bill and Turner Ross’ cinema verité Western from a small town Texan side.
Another impressive documentary about small town America worthy of mention was Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker’s harrowing tale of white supremacy in the midwest Welcome to Leith. Speaking of the west (the wild west), Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight was a rollicking addition to his impressive canon.
Netflix made an impressive first foray into the feature game with Cari Joji Fukunaga’s Beasts of No Nation. The most impressive foreign language film aside from Victoria was Miroslav Slaboshpitsky’s gritty, sign language coming-of-age drama The Tribe.
And, of course, there was the stop-motion genius of Mark Burton and Richard Starzak’s Shaun the Sheep Movie, the latest and zaniest feature from the creative team behind Wallace and Gromit.
