Forty-seven noteworthy films released in the United States in 2015

A couple of notes: this year the movies I loved and the movies I actu­ally got to review did not over­lap as much as they might have, as you’ll see par­tic­u­larly in the upper­most twenty. You will see more doc­u­ment­ar­ies than I nor­mally put on such lists, and this is because I’m see­ing more doc­u­ment­ar­ies, a sur­pris­ingly pleas­ant side bene­fit, it turns out, of freel­an­cing at The New York Times. 

Hard To Be A God

1) Hard To Be A God (Alexei German)

Reviewed here. 

2) Anomalisa (Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson)

Discussed here, and here. 

Girlhood

3) Girlhood (Céline Sciamma)

This is a pic­ture I saw more or less cold, at this year’s EbertFest, and it just floored me. Not just in its com­mit­ment to its char­ac­ters and its set­ting, but in its cine­mat­ic fluid­ity, which is best, or most notice­ably, expressed in a scene in which its party­ing girl squad lip-syncs the Rihanna song “Diamonds.” I am about as far as you can get from a Rihanna admirer, incidentally.

4) Horse Money (Pedro Costa)

Wherein Costa’s col­lab­or­a­tion with the per­son­age known as Ventura veers off from a statuesque poet­ic not-quite-realism into a realm of nearly sci-fi dysto­pia and dread. Intimations of the under­world and the very real spectre of fas­cism are giv­en utterly con­vin­cing form in a shud­der­ingly beau­ti­ful film.

5) Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller)

Discussed here. 

6) Heart of a Dog (Laurie Anderson)

Discussed here.

  Heaven Knows What

7) Heaven Knows What (Josh Safdie and Ben Safdie)

The first five or so minutes of this film, which opens with an almost anti-virtuoso trav­el­ing shot through a fluorescent-ugly med­ic­al facil­ity while elec­tron­ic music blares very loudly and unheard char­ac­ters scream at each oth­er, con­sti­tute a sort of endur­ance test. Not that the remainder of the film is a pic­nic, but once you settle in, the movie tells the ter­ri­fy­ing story of the routine life of junkie­dom. I remem­ber someone like Burroughs say­ing that addic­tion had a very organ­iz­ing effect on one’s life, to wit, you got up whenev­er you got up know­ing that you had to do two things that day: cop and shoot up. Everything else is leis­ure time. I have not seen anoth­er film that put across the algebra of need to piti­lessly and accur­ately. A hor­rif­ic masterpiece.

8) Brooklyn (John Crowley)

Reviewed here.

9) The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino)

It’s nice to see an act­ively anti-social Quentin Tarantino work­ing his malevol­ent magic again. His sprawl­ing but sur­pris­ingly flu­id not-properly-locked-room mys­tery could have stayed with­in the prickly, racially incen­di­ary who­dunit con­ven­tions it seems to be set­ting up in its first half, but when the viol­ence really explodes in the second half, Tarantino achieves Authentic Sadistic Cinema. Yes, by all means call it “objec­tion­able.” It is. 

10) Shaun The Sheep Movie (Mark Burton and Richard Starzak)

Another beau­ti­fully real­ized movie, per­fec­tion from stem to stern, almost every per­tin­ent detail the intro­duc­tion to an obser­va­tion or a gag that will pay off beau­ti­fully, some­times with­in seconds, some­times not until the end cred­its. Also a sin­cerely sunny and sweet-natured work that’s nev­er cloying.

11) Ex Machina (Alex Garland)

I spoke about this pic­ture with a film­maker friend of mine and we both expressed a kind of irrit­ated mys­ti­fic­a­tion about it: how did Alex Garland, an exper­i­enced nov­el­ist and screen­writer, become such a god­damn good dir­ect­or his first time out? It’s kind of mad­den­ing. Complaints about the film’s ostens­ible sex­ism are really…kind of sad, because it’s clear that the people mak­ing them haven’t really thought the piece through, and that ques­tions of gender con­struc­tion get kind of com­plic­ated when arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence engin­eered by a horny chau­vin­ist are con­cerned.  For fur­ther on the film’s lar­ger top­ic, see Heinrich von Kleist’s story “On The Marionette Theater.”

12) Phoenix (Christian Petzold)

Classical form in cinema still has its uses. Petzold’s sur­viv­or tragedy tells a story that’s squal­id and irra­tion­al in equal meas­ure, and tells it with meas­ured, mas­terly detach­ment. Killer ending.

13) Son of Saul (László Nemes)

My friend and col­league Manohla Dargis angrily con­demned this film as “rad­ic­ally dehis­tor­icized” and while the char­ac­ter­iz­a­tion is cor­rect I kind of think that a form of dehis­tor­iciz­a­tion was part of dir­ect­or László Nemes’ point. His demon­ic con­cep­tion and exe­cu­tion of his Holocaust story, hold­ing claus­tro­phobic­ally tight on his doomed lead char­ac­ter, removes the view­er from the realm of his­tor­ic­al con­tem­pla­tion and into the realm of exper­i­en­tial phe­nomen­o­logy. It is a cine­mat­ic­ally vir­tu­osic “you are there” movie, com­pletely har­row­ing and upset­ting and con­fus­ing and nobody knows what time it is and death is all around and it’s com­ing for you. One recalls what Stanley Kubrick said to Fredric Raphael about Schindler’s List: “Think that’s about the Holocaust? That was about suc­cess, wasn’’t it? The Holocaust is about six mil­lion people who get killed. Schindler’s List is about 600 who don’t.” Son of Saul is a film about The Holocaust—in miniature.

14) Star Wars Episode VII:  The Force Awakens (J.J. Abrams)

It takes a very smart storyteller to come up with the very simple idea that makes this movie work so well. J.J. Abrams under­stood the only way to unfuck the franchise—or the myth, if you really believe it’s a myth—was to go back to First Principles. So he remade Star Wars, or, A New Hope if you’re like that. And did a damn good job of it.

15) The Assassin (Hou Hsiao Hsien)

I enjoyed the visu­als and I under­stood the plot. So no worries. 

16) Inside Out (Pete Docter and Ronnie del Carmen)

As I observed else­where, really would make an excel­lent double fea­ture with Tarkovsky’s Stalker.

17) Carol (Haynes)

Tender, seduct­ive, immacu­lately craf­ted. Also dis­plays a side of Rooney Mara I really enjoy see­ing, one in which she seems kind of happy. There was a rumor a while back that she was mov­ing into my neigh­bor­hood (see entry for Mistress America, below) and I was wor­ried that she’d issue edicts requir­ing every­one wear black, that no one make eye con­tact with her, or laugh, any­where, ever. If she con­tin­ues per­form­ances in this vein my per­haps mis­taken impres­sion of her as a per­son will abate. And she didn’t end up mov­ing into my neigh­bor­hood anyway.

18) The Mend (Magary)

Discussed here. 

Timbuktu

19) Timbuktu (Sissako)

Reviewed here. 

20) Creed (Coogler)

You can look at this two ways: Director Ryan Coogler’s spec­tac­u­larly enga­ging follow-up to his power­ful debut fea­ture Fruitvale Station, or an effect­ive and rous­ing entry in a fran­chise that had squandered a good deal of its integ­rity and juice over the years. The dir­ec­tion and the act­ing are ener­gized, invig­or­at­ing, but I was also really taken with the construction—satisfying boxing-movie nar­rat­ives aren’t as com­mon as all that these days.

Fort Tilden

21) Fort Tilden (Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers)

Discussed here. 

22) Clouds Of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas)

Reviewed here. 

23) The Revenant (Alejandro G. Iñarritu)

Iñarritu’s much-dreaded-by-me return to heavy­os­ity turned out to be not so over­bear­ing in its heavy­os­ity as I’d dreaded, so I was kind of able to enjoy this as a drawn-out bru­tal­ist Western with spir­itu­al touches. I know, I know—I said “over­bear­ing!”

24) Magic Mike XXL (Gregory Jacobs)

It’s a bit of a no-no for me to include this but to hell with it, it was a super fun movie and Greg Jacobs is a fant­ast­ic dir­ect­or and also one of my favor­ite people, as are a few oth­ers who worked on this.

25) The Forbidden Room (Maddin and Johnson)

At first I thought this ripe-rot-suffused pas­tiche of seri­al, Expressionist, and Doris Wishman styl­iz­a­tions was on the drawn-out side, but on con­sid­er­ing its spec­tac­u­lar cli­mactic pay­off and more, I think I’d like to see the three-hour ver­sion of which I’ve heard tell.

26) Experimenter (Michael Almereyda)

Both play­ful and earn­est, Almereyda’s uncon­ven­tion­al film about Stanley Milgram is as engaged with his ideas as it is with his life. Peter Sarsgaard takes his uncanny abil­ity to come off like the world’s biggest know-it-all up to elev­en, and makes you like it.

27) Queen of Earth (Alex Ross Perry)

This tightly-focused exer­cise in Finding The Bad In People is even more assured and dis­com­fit­ing that Perry’s Listen Up Philip. When will Mr. Perry meet people that he sin­cerely likes, and feels he can be him­self with, and when and if this hap­pens, will this change his art? Stay tuned.

28) Hitchcock/Truffaut (Jones)

Another movie dir­ec­ted by a friend, the great crit­ic and pro­gram­mer Kent Jones…and a pleas­ingly thor­ough exam­in­a­tion of two film­makers, their sens­ib­il­it­ies, and the col­lab­or­a­tion that pro­duced one of the great texts on cinema.

29) Democrats (Nielsson)

Reviewed here. 

Field Niggas

30) Field Niggas (Allah)

Reviewed here. 

31) Bridge of Spies (Spielberg)

Mr. Spielberg’s Cold War pic­ture is a fre­quent nail-biter even if, like this old man, you know how the story turns out. It is very Spielbergy but without cross­ing that line many say Munich crossed. I was one of a rel­at­ive few people who thought it was hil­ari­ous that Eve Hewson had a part in a movie in which Francis Gary Powers was a character.

32) Eden (Nilsson-Love)

Discussed very briefly here. 

33) Mistress America (Baumbach)

I’ve lived in the same Brooklyn neigh­bor­hood since 1990. When I first moved in it was still a pretty sol­id Italian-American working-to-middle-class enclave with small pock­ets of quasi-bohemian folk, and the ensu­ing years have seen, well I don’t really have to tell you, do I? The influx has been a mixed bag, from ambi­tious res­taur­at­eurs who buy their moz­zarella from the loc­al guy to sneery hip­sters who giggle at the shrines to Padre Pio on some front stoops. As I get older, I find myself almost reflex­ively less amused by the self-regarding Bright Young Things and their strollers and such, but I try to main­tain tol­er­ance, under­stand­ing that aging will do that to you. Still. A couple of years ago a bis­tro opened around the corner from me, in a one-time eyebrow-raising doom spot, and with its big front win­dows, low-key light­ing, and pricey menu in small type, made me think they might as well have put an equi­val­ent of one of those debt-clock count­down signs on the roof, telling me how long I had before I was com­pletely priced out of the neigh­bor­hood. I have to admit that one night there were a bunch of kids caus­ing a ruck­us at the park nearby, and as they sort-of dis­persed, a few of them made some aggress­ive ges­tures into those afore­men­tioned win­dows, and I was not dis­pleased at the napkin-clutching of some of the pat­rons. I avoided the place on prin­ciple for a while, but recently I was coaxed in for a brunch with some friends and it was really, really good. I feel rather sim­il­arly toward this movie, for reas­ons I can­’t quite articulate. 

Crimson Peak

34) Crimson Peak (Del Toro)

No, I did not find the nar­rat­ive par­tic­u­larly sat­is­fy­ing. Yes, I really would rather see Del Toro get all the money to make all the Lovecraft adapt­a­tions. Still. Not just the visu­al rav­ish­ment but the clear emo­tion­al swoon-lust that anim­ates this movie caught me up but good.

35) Grandma (Weitz)

Reviewed here. 

36) Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (McQuarrie)

A neat if slightly hoary ellipt­ic­al nar­rat­ive, sweet action set pieces, and Rebecca Ferguson.

37) Trainwreck (Apatow)

When “full dis­clos­ure” looks like name-dropping, I don’t dis­close. So. Beyond that,  I thought, some dips into celebrity absurd­ism at the end not­with­stand­ing (I am totally fine with LeBron James’ role though), the movie worked very well as a cred­ible, intel­li­gent 21^st cen­tury rom-com. I am, I have to admit,  tired of all the Bra Sex in Judd Apatow’s movies. Which should not be mis­con­strued as a call for top­less woman expos­ure. It’s just…try some dif­fer­ent angles, maybe. Nobody has Bra Sex as a mat­ter of course unless there’s a mild fet­ish involved.

38) Blackhat (Mann)

The old “Pure Cinema” defense applies here. Quite con­vin­cingly dynamic. 

39) The Martian (Scott)

A minor peak in sci-fi optim­ism. Make NASA Great Again!

40) Love and Mercy (Pohlad)

Reviewed here. 

41) Tangerine (Baker)

I like its vital­ity and its small innov­a­tions but it’s still a straight white man’s view of trans cul­ture, which, you know, I could do MYSELF.

42) Spotlight (McCarthy)

This is a com­pel­ling story, well-acted. I’m not entirely cer­tain how well-told it is. What’s funny is that should one observe that it’s visu­ally flat, one runs the risk of being accussed of being some kind of shill for “pure cinema” (see above), which means you’re only inter­ested in things like flashy cam­er­a­work and show-offy edit­ing, and that’s bad, you see, because the thing about storytelling is that tech­nique is sup­posed to be invis­ible. Only prob­lem is, tech­nique is also not invis­ible when it’s BORING. In terms of pacing, Spotlight is bey­ond ped­es­tri­an. Every scene is a very neat little pack­age of a few minutes, one after the oth­er, each one fixed on a single top­ic or action that will move the nar­rat­ive to the next square, until all the squares have been covered. The pos­sib­il­ity of sur­prise, spon­taneity, per­versity, any­thing that is not spe­cific­ally related to The Lesson, has been squeezed out of the work prob­ably before the first scene was lit. Even if Tom McCarthy had wanted to do some­thing along the lines of the seven-minute split-diopter shot of Redford mak­ing the Dahlberg call, he couldn’t have, because there’s noth­ing for it in the script. Again: a com­pel­ling story, well-acted. And com­pet­ently told. But if it hadn’t been so well-acted the com­pet­ence would seem like mediocrity.

The Duke Of Burgundy

43) The Duke Of Burgundy (Strickland)

Reviewed here. 

44) The Big Short (McKay)

Reviewed here. 

45) Ant Man (Reed)

Reviewed here. 

46) I’ll See You In My Dreams (Haley)

Reviewed here. 

47) Ballet 422 (Lipes)

Reviewed here.