That's true of every year. Yet every year, as December rolls around and people start reflecting on the previous twelve months of cinematic pleasures, the complaints begin. For as long as I've been serious about watching and loving and writing about movies (2006 was my first year of "seriousness"), people have complained about how weak a given year is, every year, without fail.
There is no such thing as a weak year for movies. People who say that need to watch more. Every year, there are tons of incredible movies to see. Blockbusters, indies, documentaries, foreign films, TV movies, movies that never make it to theaters or TV. We are blessed, year after year, with a plethora of amazing movies. Weakness is in the eyes of the beholder, eyes which don't behold enough.
A couple notes with this year's list:
First, I have always forced myself to trim my list to the arbitrary ten that most critics and movie lovers choose at year's end. Part of the reason for delaying the publication of this list was trying to force myself to knock a movie off, but I couldn't. This year presented eleven movies that I couldn't bear to not write about as part of my year-end celebration, so this year, I'm doing a Top 11. In future years, I'll probably continue to let the movies dictate the length of this list, because it only makes sense.
Second, release dates can be tricky. There are a couple movies on this list that I saw at AFI Fest that will (hopefully both) get US theatrical releases this year. But, because they were part of my 2014 viewing and were released in their native countries in 2014, I deemed them eligible for this list. So you can start getting excited for them now.
Without further ado, here are my favorite movies of 2014.
11. The Grand Budapest Hotel (dir. Wes Anderson) - When trying to explain the concept of an auteur to someone unfamiliar with the term, Wes Anderson is the director whose work I use as an example. He's a visionary of life's odd minutiae, finding such immense pleasure in the details as he crafts worlds that feel like they have fallen out of the pages of antique pop-up books. Anderson's work has always been a pleasure to look at, populated with memorable characters, and thematically rich. But, with The Grand Budapest Hotel, the director has crafted the ultimate diorama of the human heart, in the guise of a gloriously funny caper in an alternate-world European nation on the brink of war. The rhythm of Anderson's supremely witty dialogue (which has never been delivered with as much gusto and finesse as it is here, by a stellar cast led by the phenomenal Ralph Fiennes) is matched by the furious beating of humanity's collective blood-pumper, gasping for air and relevance in a world that is increasingly cold and unfeeling. The film's rabbit-hole structure and peerless production design signal what a deep dive The Grand Budapest Hotel is, as we tumble headfirst into the cobwebbed halls of candy-colored melancholy.
10. Whiplash (dir. Damien Chazelle) - Many, myself included, have cited Boyhood as a miracle movie, one that came together despite great odds against it. A similar phrase deserves employment in service of Damien Chazelle's stunning Whiplash. The film is a study in rigorous filmmaking, filmed over the course of less than three weeks and yielding some of the most memorable work before and behind the camera of the year. Miles Teller continues his ascent to deserved pop superstardom as a supremely dedicated jazz percussionist who finds his way into the class of a militaristic teacher who demands more than perfection. As said teacher, J.K. Simmons, the reliable everyman character actor who has been in dozens of films you might find hard to list, carves out one of the year's unforgettable performances, utterly entrancing in every moment of venom, tenderness, and rage. Edited with rat-a-tat vigor by the aptly-named Tom Cross, Whiplash plays like an action movie where notes are the ammunition, and a missed beat could lead to a bloodbath. No movie this year stressed me out more, and I mean that as the highest compliment.
9. The Way He Looks (dir. Daniel Ribeiro) - There are so many ways that The Way He Looks, Brazil's overlooked Oscar-submission, could have gone wrong, but it doesn't. It is a note-perfect high school romance, deserving a spot in said canon alongside The Spectacular Now. Ghilherme Lobo is unbelievable in how believable he is as a blind student striving for independence - his turn was so convincing, I rushed to the internet after seeing the movie to find, to my surprise, that Lobo is not actually blind. Daniel Ribeiro has made a stunning debut here, taking subject matter that is ripe for saccharine turns and ridiculous shocks, and shaping it into a profoundly grounded, moving story of how scary those first tentative steps into love can be. The trio of young leads are great, the Belle and Sebastian-scored scene is an all-timer, and the ending is the sort of chill-inducing, swoon-worthy moment that brings tears to my eyes upon remembering. This is one of the finest queer romances I've ever seen.
8. Mommy (dir. Xavier Dolan) - As a guy who considers his mother his best friend, it's perhaps unsurprising that I found young Canadian master Xavier Dolan's latest film so engaging. There is a ferocity in the love that's on display here: Anne Dorval as the protective mother who wants such great things for her son, Antoine-Olivier Pilon as the wild child whose every emotion manifests itself in hyperbolic explosions, Suzanne Clement as the timid neighbor who becomes the strange but necessary third wheel in their offbeat family. Mommy is a joy to watch, not only for the strength of the performances and the assured direction, but also for the fascinating 1:1 aspect ratio, which serves a piercing symbolic function that becomes apparent during the film's most awe-inspiring sequence, and creates indelible album cover-esque frames that mark Dolan as an increasingly iconic cinematic tour-de-force.
7. Pride (dir. Matthew Warchus) - We got a lesson in how droll and unremarkable a story of queer-laced history can be this year in the form of The Imitation Game. We also saw an example of how utterly engaging and delightful such a film can be, thanks to Matthew Warchus's Pride. Most queer films aren't particularly upbeat; they're often about the agony of coming out, the struggle to accept oneself, or the AIDS epidemic. All are worthy subjects for big-screen stories, but my, is it a joy to find a movie that isn't so tortured in its sexuality, but still manages to touch on important issues. Pride unearths the little-known true story of a group of gay and lesbian activists who raise financial support for striking miners during Margaret Thatcher's regime. The history is interesting, but the human connections on display are riveting. The entire spectrum of gay experience is here, from the closeted newcomer to the out-and-proud flamboyant bon-vivant. The stress of familial expectations, the fear of disease, the torture of hiding who you really are - all come into play, handled carefully, beautifully, but never sink Pride into dire territory. This is a triumphant, affecting, generous film, one that made me laugh and cry in equal measures.
6. The Raid 2 (dir. Gareth Evans) - Like many others, I quite enjoyed Gareth Evans' The Raid: Redemption, a thrilling action movie that owed much of its existence to Die Hard. But my admiration for that film didn't prepare me for the action magnum opus of Evans' follow-up. Breaking free of a single confined space, The Raid 2 is a sprawling, epic thing, full of incredible action set pieces that have to be seen to be believed. Unlike the action movies that get churned out by Hollywood studios, The Raid 2 lets viewers see what's happening. We get to luxuriate in the stunning choreography, and feel the weight of every punch, kick, and bullet. It would be exhausting if it weren't so thrilling, with each fight scene somehow one-upping its predecessor. I was left reeling in the theater, and couldn't help but mutter expletives at the end of each incredible battle. This is action at its best.
5. Stations of the Cross (dir. Dietrich Bruggermann) - The technical precision of Dietrich Bruggermann's stirring religious examination is suffocating. The film, which mirrors the Biblical stations of the cross, unfolds as a series of long, static takes (save a couple notable exceptions), creating clearly defined stages for the characters to act within while symbolically representing the rigid rules put forth by the Catholic fundamentalist sect to which 14 year-old Maria (Lea Van Acken, in one of the year's best performances) and her family belong. As Maria faces the temptations of the outside world - including music and boys - and considers the plight of her mute little brother, the weight of religious responsibility becomes too much to bear, yet a weight she willingly greets. Bruggermann's film isn't anti-religious, but it explores the danger of a child's faith, especially in a world that offers so many other things to worship and believe in.
4. The Tale of Princess Kaguya (dir. Isao Takahata) - One of the last films from the beloved Studio Ghibli, The Tale of Princess Kaguya is a stunner. Isao Takahata toiled over the film for years, to the point that some wondered whether he would ever finish it. He did, and how. Takahata's final film is the most visually stunning I've ever seen. The watercolor animation is vivid, gorgeous, textured, animated with breath and life and energy that is rare, especially in an age dominated by computer-generated animation. The Japanese folk tale that serves as the film's inspiration is deceptively simple - a bamboo cutter finds a mysterious girl in the forest, and decides to raise her as a princess - but gives way to a beautifully realized tale of identity, expectation, and family. The film has wondrous fantastical asides and plenty of humor, but it never sacrifices its heart, and every frame is gorgeous. I want to wallpaper my room with this movie.
3. Gone Girl (dir. David Fincher) - Like many, I devoured Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl when it finally made its way to my Kindle. It was a perfect read: thrilling, funny, dark, surprising. That Flynn adapted her own book to the screen is impressive, and risky: writers can so easily be precious about what they've written, acting as though cutting a scene or line or character is tantamount to removing a vital organ from a beast that will, upon its excision, wither and die. That obviously wasn't the case with Gone Girl, the latest fucked-up crime movie from the master of such fare, David Fincher.Gone Girl is, top to bottom, an impeccable film. The screenplay is among the year's best, perfectly structured, sharp as a knife, dripping with sarcasm and commentary and darkness. The craft on show is stunning, from the moody cinematography to the hilariously skewering score from Fincher regulars Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The entire ensemble is stellar. Ben Affleck is carefully chosen and wonderfully hatable. Rosamund Pike becomes a star right before our eyes, so menacing and gorgeous and terrifying. Carrie Coon, Tyler Perry, so many others fill out an amazing ensemble that find the right balance between pulpy murder mystery and uproarious upside-down rom-com. Under Fincher's direction, Gone Girl becomes just such an enticing generic hybrid, and a scathing comment on our culture of endless consumption, whether it's shit at the mall or human misery on the news. No wonder I couldn't help but eat Gone Girl up.
2. The Tribe (dir. Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy) - Movie-goers today are, by and large, passive consumers of light and noise. People file into the theater, settle in for a linear story with clear cause-and-effect, carefully delineated morality, and easily digestible themes, and promptly take out their phones. Even watching movies this way, they can often recall most of the details of the movies, because most fare (especially Hollywood studios' stuff) doesn't demand your full attention. Most movies are cinematic fast food.Myroslav Slaboshpitskiy's harrowing debut, The Tribe, is the polar opposite. It's the rare film that doesn't spoon-feed its audience a single plot point, character detail, or even line of dialogue. The Tribe follows a new student who arrives at a deaf school, where he becomes engulfed in a seedy criminal underworld full of sex and violence. The catch: the film is completely in Ukrainian sign language, with no subtitles or voice-over. There is no musical score to comment on the shocking events that transpire, no flashy editing tricks to provide relief, humor, or extraneous style. The Tribe drops its audience into a world where they are at a loss, and must pay attention to grasp what's happening, what's being said, and why (a disorienting experience that must be something like being deaf in our noisy world). What could be a gimmick is actually a thematic punch to the gut, a gripping narrative tool, and a strange return to the era of silent film. The Tribe is unlike anything I've ever seen, or will ever likely see again, unless Slaboshpytskiy is again at the helm.
1. Boyhood (dir. Richard Linklater) - We movie lovers sometimes grate against the majority. We want to show off what obscure movies we watch, what fine taste we have, how unique we are in our personal definition of "greatness." (Looking over this list, I think people could fairly accuse me of some of that.) But this year, of all years, I am proud to be a voice in the great critical chorus singing the praises of Boyhood, which is indisputably the year's most impressive achievement, and in my eyes, the best.It's almost become redundant to heap praises on Richard Linklater's masterpiece, but every word bears repeating. Boyhood finds the magic in the world, in the mundane, in the routine. It recognizes that life isn't defined only by the big moments - falling in love, losing your virginity, moving to a new city - but by the millions of small moments that happen in between, the moments that are promptly forgotten and thus, never represented on screen. Those interstitial days make us the people we are, even though we could never trace the evolution of identity, so fleeting and unremarkable are the turning points. Linklater, ever fascinated with time, has done his damnedest to unearth that evolution. And the result is stunning.
Boyhood is a rare film that changes each time you watch it. Different scenes pop, different lines of dialogue become bolder, certain supporting performances gain nuance. Linklater is holding a mirror up to each person: this is what it's like to be a parent, a sibling, a student, a child, a lost soul, a found soul. Even further, he explores what it means to be a person in a world that is becoming smaller every day. How perfect that Linklater is collapsing time during a span of years when technology was collapsing space. We can seize every moment of human history with a few keystrokes.
There has never been a film like Boyhood. Those who try to compare it to other films or franchises come up short, because the Up documentaries or the Harry Potter series or Everyday were doing such different things, for such different reasons. To say that Boyhood is a gimmick is to say that any film is a gimmick. What is The Wizard of Oz without the switch to color? What is Citizen Kane without its carefully plotted narrative? What is Annie Hall without its jumbled chronology? A film is the sum (and more) of its parts, of every decision made, of every risk taken. Boyhood is so careful in its craft, so universal in its themes, so rewarding in every moment (especially Patricia Arquette's scenes). It's the best movie of the year.
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