Even though the theaters were closed for the vast majority of 2020 (at least where I live), I still managed to see nearly as many new releases this year as I did last year. In fact, I only saw five less, despite taking a six-month break from reviewing film. A small silver lining in all the nightmarishness of the year that would not end. Though it concluded rather…inconspicuously, 2020 started with a bang with my attending Sundance Film Festival (for the fifth time) and looking forward to an exciting year of personal and professional growth. Welp, that mostly ended in the gutter but here I am knocking out a Top Ten list because I know it is my sacred duty as a reviewer of film to produce such an annual list so produce I shall.
Though the year in blockbusters was, shall we say, slim, 2020 nevertheless had some outstanding output. Though I struggled a bit consolidating the list down to a mere ten (a yearly plight at this point), with many really good films jostling for a spot on the list, I ended up going with the films that left me with feeling as hopeful or as hopeless as possible. Quite the spectrum. There were at least 30 films jockeying for a spot on this list and I’m sure that a day, week, month, or year from now it would look completely different but that’s the great thing about these lists: they’re basically completely arbitrary and overly reductive. Although my top five were pretty much cemented in a league of their own, I can name a solid 20+ that were competing for their entry but didn’t cut the mustard. So make room for some honorable mentions.
Of those that found themselves on the outside looking in, there was no shortage of greatness. Take Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland for instance, a film that’s deservedly positioned to be a top contender for Best Picture and for good reason, it’s excellent. But there’s only ten spots so it didn’t quite make the cut.
It was a phenomenal year for first-time filmmakers and quite a few were right on the cusp of making my list. There was Cooper Raiff’s homesick college dramedy Shithouse, Florian Zeller’s nightmarish dementia saga The Father, Emerald Fennell’s electric feminist revenge flick Promising Young Woman, Alex Thompson’s delightful Saint Frances, Shannon Murphy’s heartbreaking teen-dying movie Babyteeth, Remi Weekes’ searing social horror His House, Natalie Erika James’ outstandingly eerie Relic, Darius Marder’s tragic deaf drama Sound of Metal, and Carlo Mirabella-Davis’ pica thriller Swallow. Incredibly, my list could have been entirely composed of first-time filmmakers and it would have been just as great.
Alright four paragraphs seems adequate preamble, so let’s get down to the official Top Ten Films of 2020…
10. New Order
Relentlessly bleak and borderline nihilistic Mexican thriller New Order better summed up the societal decay, political rot, and social anarchy of 2020 than any other. Cynical, shocking, bleak, exceedingly violent, and endlessly provocative, this social thriller about a populist uprising in Mexico City, one that upsets the yuppie wedding where the story begins, makes challenging, frightening assertions about inevitable (un)civil response to unyielding economic disparity. Michel Franco spares nothing and no one and his movie is designed to provoke a strong response. Consider my inclusion of it on this list my strong response.
9. The Invisible Man
Gaslighting describes the phenomenon by which someone attempts to convince you that reality is not indeed real, thereby making one feel crazy. Though the phrase has become somewhat wildly overused in 2020, no movie better defined the psychological warfare of gaslighting better than this reboot of a classic Universal monster movie. Better in pretty much any aspect than it has any right to be, Leigh Whannell’s critical and commercial success The Invisible Man finds the perfect balance between cinematic thrills and genuinely potent thematic elements, more specifically about gender roles and power dynamics in abusive relationships. Though it came as no surprise, putting Elisabeth Moss at the forefront of it all just made it the whole thing hum.
8. The Painter and the Thief
Czech painter Barbora Kysilkova has two of her most celebrated works stolen in broad daylight. But rather than seek legal revenge against the addict thief (who was so blasted that he cannot remember what happened to her magnum opus) she instead invites him to become her artistic subject. A power portrait of the unlikely friendship between two deeply scarred and broken individuals, the Norwegian documentary The Painter and the Thief explores forgiveness, addiction, trauma, and inspiration in a way that fictionalized dramas rarely can. Filmed over the course of several years, Benjamin Ree’s twisty journey is the year’s best example of truth being stranger than fiction.
7. Possessor
While Wonder Woman 1984 shook off the inherent horror of someone non-consensually inhabiting your body with a shrug, Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor ran the opposite direction. Andrea Riseborough plays a deadened assassin who bio-hacks into her victims, taking over their motor functions like a cerebral puppeteer and forcing them to kill at her mercy. Vicious and visceral, Cronenberg’s progeny delivered one of the decade’s most compelling and devilishly malevolent modern twists in the sci-fi-horror genre, taking the anxieties that come from the intersection of tech and humanity to extremes that not even Black Mirror dares.
6. Palm Springs
Andy Samberg just can’t get out of Palm Springs. A modern riff on Groundhog Day, Max Barbakow’s film of the same name explores Nyle’s (Samberg) zany exploits as he’s stuck in a time loop, reliving the same day over and over again until Sarah (Cristin Milloti) inexplicably joins the infinity pool that is his cycle wash. Though Palm Springs hits many of the same general notes as Groundhog Day (and yes, there’s plenty of dying and waking up again), it remains a wholly distinct and solitary vision defined by sharp wit, sardonic humor, and sneaky sweetness. Samberg and Miloti drip sarcastic chemistry and Barbakow goes hog-wild letting his time loop comedy reach all sorts of logical extremes. Add in a deranged J.K. Simmons with a compound bow and a grudge and you get one of 2020’s best surprises.
5. Dinner in America
A more aggressive punk-rock love anthem you will be hard-pressed to find. Dinner in America, for all its surface-level misanthropy and colorful expletives, hides a deeply felt heart. Like the movie, the characters live on the margins, outsiders through and through, which makes the budding relationship between the nerdy Patty (Emily Skeggs, excellent in the role) and punk-rocker convict Simon (Kyle Gallner, also excellent) all the more shockingly heartwarming. Stir in some killer original tunes (all hail ““Fuck Everyone But Us”) and you have the makings of an anti-establishment cult classic.
4. Kajillionaire
Miranda July’s oddball charmer Kajillionaire is just the right amount of strange. Centering on a family of grifters who loophole their way through society, July plants us in the middle of a baggage heist of lowly financial stakes that pays soaring emotional dividends. Eccentric but inviting, Kajillionaire hosts one of the best casts of the year with Evan Rachel Wood, Gina Rodriguez and Richard Jenkins each offering awards-worthy turns, working to create a vision of fringe society where character’s fight to define their worth. That July invests so much emotional real estate in the awkward coming-of-age/coming out journey of a ragamuffin misfit named Old Dolio (Wood) speaks to her desire to not only befuddle and amuse but to truly probe the human beneath the eccentricities.
3. First Cow
Who woulda thunk such a small, intimate cow-based PNWestern about a derring-do Chinese immigrant, a soft-spoken chef named Cookie, and a milk cow would be one of the best films of the year? Directed with effusive humanity by Kelly Reichardt, First Cow speaks to man’s universal need for companionship. Despite being set in 1820s Oregon, there is a universal allure to the budding friendship between Cookie and King, which rang especially poignant in the isolation of the year’s cripplingly lonesome pandemic. Also, oily cakes became the undisputed cinematic delicacy of 2020.
2. Another Round
What a life! Or so goes the Scarlet Pleasure jam that provides the perfect capstone for Thomas Vinterberg’s Danish drama about four friends who decide to insert a little fun into their middle years by conducting a DIY experiment. That experiment involves the four teachers testing their alleged BAC deficit by getting perma-tipsy. Mostly at work. Things don’t necessarily go as planned for them but Vinterberg’s icy and darkly funny Another Round channels the midlife crisis into an introspective and powerful saga that’s drunk on good times. Led by a mesmerizing turn from the perennially-excellent Mads Mikkelsen, it’s easy to be intoxicated by Vinterberg’s charming cocktail of pathos and lost purpose.
1. Soul
Middle school band teacher Joe Gardner never really got the shot he wanted in life. The spotlight eluded him right up until his dying day. But now that he’s passed from his mortal coil, all Joe wants is one last shot at Earth. A soul-searching and rather adult effort from Pixar, Soul explores what it means to be human and how one finds their purpose. Done up with all the splashy, colorful bombast you expect from the animation studio, Soul electrifies with silly, lighthearted humor that still cannot distract from the heady, existential mission at its center: to explore what it means to be meaningless. In 2020, nothing has attempted to answer such a weighty question, especially with so many puns.
A Few More Honorable Mentions:
Hamilton
Boys State
Come to Daddy
American Utopia
i’m thinking of ending things
Wolfwalkers
Bacurau
Bloody Hell
Da 5 Bloods
The Lodge
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