It's the end of yet another year, and time once again for us to look back
on our favourite movies to appear before our eyeballs over the past 12
months. Load up your To Watch list, as we've got 50 movies we urge you to
see.
50. Second Spring
We said "Watching director Andy Kelleher’s character study of a middle-aged
woman succumbing to a rare brain condition which manifests in uncivil social
interactions, may well make you a little paranoid about the state of your
own mental health."
Read our review
49. There Is No Evil
We said "There Is No Evil offers pristine and deeply human
filmmaking. Rasoulof’s impassioned rhetoric is communicated through detailed
character portrayal and a layered rendition of a flawed country."
Read our review
48. Deadly Cuts
We said "A silly, funny and irresistibly warm-hearted film. Never mind a
bit off the back and sides, I’m wondering how I will ever remove the wall to
wall grin which Deadly Cuts has styled me with."
Read our review
47. The Fallout
We said "The Fallout tells a remarkable story about an
important modern subject through amazing character work, topped off by the
most crucial ending it could have conceived."
Read our review
46. Cocoon
We said "What makes Cocoon such a sincere pleasure is its
affection for its subject matter, warts and all."
Read our review
45. Inexorable
We said "What's most interesting about the film is its self-awareness of
the genre sandbox it's playing in."
Read our review
44. RK/RKAY
We said "RK/RKAY is a film that wears its cinephilia loud and
proud and offers an interesting perspective on artistic frustrations."
Read our review
43. Riders of Justice
We said "Whoever said revenge is a dish best served cold didn't have
Riders of Justice in mind. Jensen takes the revenge thriller
template and delivers one of the most warm-hearted movies you'll see all
year."
Read our review
42. Lapsis
We said "Although Lapsis works as a social critique it is
successfully wrapped inside a well-paced and very watchable sci-fi parable."
Read our review
41. Lola and the Sea
We said "With reports that Transphobic hate crimes are on the rise,
Lola and the Sea is a film made vital by its social context."
Read our review
40. Poppy Field
We said "Anyone who believes "don’t ask, don’t tell" isn't a harmful way to
live would do well to watch Jebeleanu's film and see how such a mentality
really affects those forced to live under such stifling conditions."
Read our review
39. Zana
We said "In the fragmented culture of Kosovo, Kastrati seems to suggest,
fringe beliefs and archaic misunderstandings proliferate within the cracks."
Read our review
38. The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao
We said "The film posits that the women are individually sapped by their
estrangement, that sisterhood is a necessary bulwark against the crushing
male supremacism of 1950s Rio."
Read our review
37. The Exception
We said "In this MeToo era we've seen quite a few movies explore the idea
of women being gaslit by men, so it's refreshing to see women as the
antagonists in such a scenario."
Read our review
36. Gaza Mon Amour
We said "Gaza Mon Amour is a beautiful film, with its
elemental power drawn from the lived-in qualities of the performers, the
comfortable and deeply affecting verisimilitude which the film creates,
exuding warmth and emotion from the white dust and broken concrete of its
setting."
Read our review
35. Pig
We said "A reminder that behind the madness and the memes, Nicolas Cage
is a fine actor."
Read our review
34. Shiva Baby
We said "It's the very specific Jewish humour that makes
Shiva Baby so much fun, that ability to find a silver
lining, or sometimes a cloud, in every scenario."
Read our review
33. Carmen & Lola
We said "The depiction of young, possibly doomed love (which, let’s face
it, most young love is) has a moving verisimilitude which transcends the
given context."
Read our review
32. The Pit
We said "This is a depiction of a town afraid of itself, fatally
suspicious of each other, and turning a blind eye to exactly the wrong
sorts of social ills."
Read our review
31. Freaky
We said "The horror-comedy sub-genre has given us some of the dumbest,
most cynical movies imaginable, but Landon appears to have nailed what
makes these two flavours go together – an appreciation and respect for
both forms."
Read our review
30. Cowboys
We said "As a domestic drama lovingly painted within frontiersman
wide-frames, and with its deliberately old fashioned milieu offering
centre stage to a contemporary cultural issue, the film is a winning
combination of seemingly incongruous styles and ideas."
Read our review
29. Caveat
We said "If it opens like an adaptation of some lost Poe tale, or a late
addition to BBC's 'Ghost Stories at Christmas' canon,
Caveat climaxes in EC Comics fashion, with a final twist
deserving of its own lurid splash page."
Read our review
28. The Djinn
We said "In this age of helicopter parenting and molly-coddled kids, it's
refreshing to see a movie that dares to inflict horrors - of both our own
world and other dimensions - on a child without coming across as
mean-spirited."
Read our review
27. Threshold
We said "Using limited means, Robinson and Young have crafted an engaging
horror story that focusses on the one element so often overlooked by low
budget practitioners of the genre – the people at its centre."
Read our review
26. Spencer
We said "Spencer is surprisingly cinematic for a biopic of
an Anglo-Saxon princess, but for all of Larrain's pulling from the horror
genre and Knight's scabrous dialogue, the film ultimately rests on the
bare shoulders of Stewart."
Read our review
25. Sound of Metal
We said "It is Ahmed’s tight performance which keeps
Sound of Metal’s emotional rhythm on point."
Read our review
24. The Father
We said "For anyone either approaching old age themselves or with loved
ones at such a milestone, The Father is a sobering,
difficult watch, more disturbing than any horror movie."
Read our review
23. Offseason
We said "This is old school horror, with a fog machine working overtime,
mist creeping around tombstones and hanging vines as telephones ring
tauntingly in the distance."
Read our review
22. The Stylist
We said "Most of the best horror movies take a very simple, even
well-worn premise and enliven it with a combination of a creator's
personal vision, a gripping central performance and an understanding of
the technical tricks that make the genre tick.
The Stylist checks all these boxes."
Read our review
21. A Dark, Dark Man
We said "It works equally as a gritty crime thriller, a takedown of
Kazakh corruption, and a laugh out loud comedy about a man who just wants
to get out of his work clothes by six o'clock."
Read our review
20. Treasure City
We said "Hungary may be in a sorry state as a society, but
Treasure City is the latest of many recent movies that prove
the Eastern-European nation boasts one of the continent's most exciting
film industries."
Read our review
19. Lorelei
We said "Wayland and Dolores could easily have stepped out of a
Springsteen song, but they feel wonderfully alive to the viewer, if not to
themselves."
Read our review
18. A Brixton Tale
We said "A Brixton Tale’s overriding theme is obviously the exploitation of perceived black
authenticity via privileged white media, yet the film never patronises us
or its representations by drawing simple binaries."
Read our review
17. Dead Pigs
We said "Yan effortlessly trades between character study and plot-driven
events while maintaining a cultural specificity to the people and themes
she explores, shepherding uniformly excellent performances from her cast
that establish the tone of her dramedy."
Read our review
16. Cry Macho
We said "The grouchy character Clint played in his seventies and eighties
has made way for the happy go lucky nonagenarian of
The Mule and Cry Macho. His transition from John Wayne to Walter Brennan continues."
Read our review
15. They Say Nothing Stays the Same
We said "Each verdant frame has the prized value of uncut jade, with
characters overwhelmed by the fecund and potentially supernatural power of
their surroundings."
Read our review
14. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
We said "The great movie characters continue to exist once the credits
roll, something that occurs not once but three times within the two hours
of Hamaguchi's film."
Read our review
13. Bone Cage
We said "The brute force of the film is matched by its raw humanity and
deeply sensitive approach to its difficult, tragic characters."
Read our review
12. The Killing of Two Lovers
We said "The Hyde of this tale wasn't created by knocking back a potion,
but by America's refusal to evolve from its Wild West morality."
Read our review
11. Verdict
We said "In the film canon of women enacting retribution for violence,
Verdict is a sobering tonic to the cathartic pleasures of
rape revenge movies, where sluggish, and obscured due process is almost as
painful and beleaguering as the crime itself."
Read our review
10. France
We said "Seydoux’s remoteness is essential to France, captivating us even
when we are not sure the film deserves our focus, or if the so-so
principles warrant close attention."
Read our review
9. Fidelity
We said "Our empathy towards Lena is greatly enhanced by a quietly
attention-grabbing performance by Gromova, who really sells Lena's
frustrations."
Read our review
8. Apples
We said "Apples suggests that no matter how rotten things may seem,
there's always a fresh apple left in the bowl. Go on, take a bite."
Read our review
7. After Love
We said "The great Scanlan, of course, offers a tour de force of
emotional subtlety. She is both dignified and desperate, frightened and,
at times, even funny."
Read our review
6. Malmkrog
We said "The type of topics which modern discourse has ground into the
most superficial takes is here given devoted, extended space; the audience
simply eavesdrops, compelled to listen to the rising interactions and
deepening debates while the hours melt into one another."
Read our review
5. Nomadland
We said "Zhao is as poetic a filmmaker as it gets, the closest to a John
Ford figure we have today; and like that great American master, she knows
where to find poetry in America, in its people and its panoramas."
Read our review
4. Gatecrash
We said "It’s not so much that the narrative turns of Gatecrash are
surprising, more that the plot developments are destabilisingly strange,
unsettlingly leftfield and coolly shocking."
Read our review
3. Songs My Brothers Taught Me
We said "Zhao's storytelling is as American as that of Ford, Hawks and
Peckinpah. Her stories are populated by the same sort of people –
stubborn, rugged individuals who symbolise everything that makes America
so equally fascinating and frustrating."
Read our review
2. Ham on Rye
We said "Imagine Haddonfield without Michael Myers, Springwood without
Freddy Krueger, Lumberton without Frank Booth. Now imagine the teens of
those fictional suburbs dealing not with evil men but with the existential
dread of encroaching adulthood."
Read our review
1. 1982
We said "Mouaness has achieved something of a marvel with his remarkably
accomplished debut. He's crafted a story set in a part of the world
synonymous with hardship, but from the first frame it's clear he's not
interested in our pity."
Read our review