Just a technical note: the movies I've considered are ones that have had theatrical releases in the United States during the past year. Several of the ones I discuss here have earlier release dates, either in festivals or foreign markets, but still qualify because of their theatrical release dates in the US of A.
It's also worth noting that (per usual) due to time, release schedules, and simple apathy, I have not seen every single movie released this year, so if it's not on this list, there's a big possibility that I just didn't see it. A few notable gaps in my viewing that readily spring to mind include Inherent Vice (which won't come to Knoxville until January—c'mon, distributors!), Selma, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Gone Girl, Big Hero 6, and Whiplash, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Basically, it's been a great year for movies, so great that even with as many movies as I saw, it's been hard to keep up. So let's celebrate that.
Anyway, here are my favorites. Feel free to disagree; I'd love to hear what I missed!
Favorite Movies
It's no secret that Wes Anderson movies can hold humanity at arms length, prizing affectation over pesky things like character motivation and recognizably human behavior. That's not at all true of his most recent feature, The Grand Budapest Hotel, which is Anderson's flat-out best since Rushmore. It's certainly the movie least constrained by the expectations of what a Wes Anderson movie should be since The Royal Tennanbaums, something it paradoxically achieves by making the movie even more Andersonian, with even the plot constructed like a fussbudget dollhouse. It's no small feat that a story this complicated also manages to throw enough dramatic heft to support poignant examination of nostalgia and storytelling, pet themes of Anderson's that feel more meaningful than ever here.
The best way to watch this movie is, I think, not to go in envisioning it a rich work of sociopolitical commentary on the relationship between Israel and Palestine (though it is that) but instead to see it as a heartbreaking picture of a relationship between two human beings, an agent and his star-crossed informant. First and foremost, this is a character drama in which, in a certain sense, the specifics of nationality are secondary. The movie isn't so much a political thesis as it is a mere empathic depiction, and with tweaking, the principal characters could be from any two states in conflict. The lesson here isn't "right vs. wrong" or "cops vs. robbers" or any such simple binaries that political lines imply; it's about human lives mattering and the sickening tragedy that arises when we're tempted to forget that.
I'm completely within the majority cultural sentiment here—I found Guardians of the Galaxy to be one of the funniest, warmest, and most winsome movies not just of 2014 but of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, a franchise that has had no shortage of good movies but has taken until this year to find a true emotional core. Guardians is great fun, but what makes it even greater than its similarly fun Marvel counterparts is the presence of real emotional stakes for its characters, something previously gestured toward only in the Captain America movies. It's not belabored, but with its light touch, it's also genuinely moving. Oh, and there's also tons of '70s music. And the glorious and long-overdue ascendance of Chris Pratt as a top-tier movie star. Sounds like a winning combination to me.
There's a very real way that Ida is as much of a genre tribute as Guardians of the Galaxy. Only instead of Guardians's two-hour love letter to the space opera and adventure serial, here we have Ida professing undying affection for the austere, punishing, and altogether miserable world of '60s and '70s European art cinema. Black and white cinematography? Check. Self-consciously portentous framings of shots? Definitely. Frequent, pregnant pauses in dialogue? For sure. Unsmiling characters who wrestle with weighty philosophical concepts like selfhood, art, and the existence of God? Oh, you better believe it! I'm making this movie sound terrible, I know, and admittedly, its appeal may only be compatible with a certain type of person. But I'm definitely of that type, and I found it a fantastic experience.
It shouldn't be surprising that the most profound religious ideas in this year's cinema came from a biblical epic. I mean, it's biblical, right? Still, the depressing reality is that movies directly adapted from the Bible tend to have all the profundity dignified out of them. What's in part so wonderful about Noah is how undignified it's willing to be. Noah is one strange movie that doesn't worry one bit about ruining its ethos with, for example, a detour into an experimental rendition of the Genesis creation story. This is the rare (perhaps sole) occasion of a Hollywood film approximating the terrifying power of the Old Testament, and it's bursting with ideas, the most compelling of which being that humanity is more important than fundamentalism but not so important as to trump God Himself. Great stuff.
As has been remarked before, "Boyhood" probably isn't the best title for Boyhood—"Parenthood" (already taken, I know) or particularly "Motherhood" might have suited it better, if only by virtue of its most interesting character. Poor Mason, protagonist though he may be, lingers a little too closely to blank slatehood for audience projections, and really, there's no more powerful line reading in any film on this list as Patricia Arquette's "I just thought there would be more." That moment resonates on several levels, but the most meta one is the way it functions as a duel commentary on both life and the nature of Linklater's newest masterpiece: they slip by without warning, without montage, only the flow of everyday mundanity marking time. It's a beautiful premise beautifully executed.
I've talked a lot with my friends about Interstellar: its themes, its special effects, it soundtrack, its acting, its leaps in logic and plot and characterization. I've usually entered those conversations with a comment like, "It's a flawed movie, but..." And you know, it is a flawed movie. BUT when all is said and done, Interstellar works in a big way for me. It's not just the effects, which are surely some of the best, most awe-inspiring space visuals we've seen this side of 2001; it's not just the surprisingly uncondescending treatment of astrophysics; it's not just the mastery of montage and cross-cutting, which recalls none other than Intolerance in its scope. No, it's McConaughey's Cooper watching twenty years in one fell swoop, his kids drifting away from him into adulthood. That, as they say, is all the feels. And feels work.
And for a companion piece to Interstellar's feels, look no further than here. It's a cool quirk of this list that the two films that use complicated science as a platform to explore people ended up in adjacent spots. I'm a huge dork for quantum physics, particle physics, cosmology, and all that good stuff, but even if you aren't, don't worry; a large part of what makes Particle Fever such a great doc is how it's less about the science (though it's there) and more about the people who are enthusiastic enough about the science to test it out. With the physics that reaches us through textbooks, it's easy to forget that hardworking people hinge their entire life's work on these theories, and that there are real emotional stakes involved with even the most esoteric studies. Hopefully Particle Fever ensures we don't forget again.
If this movie hadn't gotten in my Top 10, it surely would have won the "Greatest Difference in Quality Between Poster and Actual Film" award. What an ugly poster, but what a great movie. Around Oscar season, we see a lot of period films, and something that trips a lot of those pieces up is that their period trappings serve more as a projection of our modern society on history than history itself. It's only one of The Immigrant's many strengths that it avoids this trap. This is a movie set in early 20th-century New York, and with everything from the dialogue to its lush mis-en-scène, this movie immerses itself in that environment wholly. It's period done fantastically right. And that's to say nothing about the phenomenal cast or the gorgeous cinematography. Don't judge a film by its poster.
I think the best way to describe this movie is to call it live-action Looney Tunes. Slapstick, zany action, and classical music combine with an energy here that suggests a darker take on the best of Bugs Bunny and company (in particular, "Rhapsody Rabbit"). Grand Piano is not a film to be taken straightly, despite its opening fifteen minutes of glowering Elijah Wood, a concert pianist sticken with a paralyzing case of stage fright, and by the time Wood's character is dodging bullets while simultaneously playing an "unplayable" piano piece, it's clear that neither reality nor sobriety are chief concerns. Before anything else, this movie is fun. Emotional stakes and insightful depictions of the human condition are great and all, but sometimes it's nice to see a film just kick back and have a good time.
Appendix: Miscellaneous Movies Also Worth Noting
Best Inheritor to Both Groundhog Day and City Lights: Edge of Tomorrow—This movie is so good that it's probably the best inheritor to several more movies, too. It definitely would have been #11 on the Favorites List up there, had the list gone on one entry more. Regardless, the Groundhog Day comparisons are hopefully obvious enough: dude relives one day of his life over and over (this time on a battle-strewn, alien-invaded Earth instead of Punxsutawney, PA). The Chaplin comparison is maybe more dubious, but that final scene and Cruise's smile in particular are totally right out of City Lights's legendary ending. And oh boy, is it perfect.
Best Movie, Animated Category: The Lego Movie—More accurately: the only animated movie I saw. Still, it's nice that even when Pixar takes the year off, American animation still has at least one honest-to-goodness great animated feature up its sleeve (the verdict is still out on The Boxtrolls and Big Hero 6 for me, since I regrettably haven't seen either). Everything is awesome indeed.
Best Movie, Agitprop Category: Snowpiercer—This film absolutely kicks butt, and it does so while wearing its politics in flashing neon lights on its bleeding sleeve. I don't mind it so much because there's a secret part of me that sometimes wants to be an angry anarcho-Marxist who blows up a train and stuff, though I do concede that it's heavy-handed as all get out.
Best Use of Enormous Eyeballs: Nightcrawler—I suppose it's worth mentioning that I haven't seen Big Eyes, the most obvious contender in this category. Still, I somehow doubt that that film, even with Chrisoph Waltz, will top the utterly riveting, utterly horrifying turn Jake Gyllenhaal makes as the gawky protagonist in this film. A lot of the credit should go to the lighting, which does a great job accentuating the already gaunt features (particularly those peepers, jeepers creepers!) on Gyllenhaal's character.
Movie I'm Least Likely to Forget: The Final Member—It's a documentary about, wait for it, two men competing to be the first human donation to the world's only penis museum. Believe it or not, it's actually kind of moving.
Most Regrettable Waste of Stellar Leads: The Amazing Spider-Man 2—Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are so good reprising their roles as Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy (respectively, of course—although... there have been worse ideas...) that it's a shame that the movie feels the need to follow a half-baked plot that makes Gwen Stacy do her Gwen Stacy thing instead of just letting those two actors improvise the whole time. It would have been ten times the film, if only by the sheer charm of their chemistry alone.
Best Movie Overshadowed by Its Charismatic Younger Brother: Captain America: The Winter Soldier—Yeah, Guardians of the Galaxy gets all the Top-Ten love, but that's no negative reflection on Marvel's other cinematic outing this year. In a year that turned out to be hugely damaging to my personal trust in the American government, The Winter Soldier gave me catharsis by speaking to that exact distrust. It's not the most sophisticated investigation of our government ever, but when many films these days seem to go out of their way to avoid making a political point, The Winter Soldier feels essential.
The Kids Aren't Alright Award: Palo Alto—It's impressive how committed this film is to showing just how utterly terrifying and hopeless adolescence can feel. Most teen-oriented movies lean heavy on the self-actualization, which is fine, but man, Palo Alto is not interested at all in softening the teen nihilism with any kind of lesson or "coming-of-age." It's all the better for it, too.
Come for the Movie, Stay for the Music Award: Only Lovers Left Alive—I'm not in love with this movie as a whole (I've found that Jim Jarmusch films, this one included, tend to leave me cold), but the soundtrack is absolutely aces. All vampires should listen to drone metal.
The "I See What You Did There" Award: Locke—It's a cool technical achievement to have the entire movie take place in a car with a single character, so let's give a round of applause for that. You know what's also a cool achievement? Actually making your movie interesting instead of just a filmmaking exercise. Sorry, Locke.
The "I Don't See What You Did There" Award: Under the Skin—Look, I'm all for arthouse, and I'm even more for arthouse sci-fi, but I just do not get this movie. Points for weirdness and cool implosion effects, I guess, but other than that, I feel like the main feat here was aggressively keeping me at arm's length. Feel free to attack me for my thickheadedness.
Obligatory "Hey, Remember How Nicholas Cage Is a Good Actor?" Award: Joe—It's a bleak movie, which doesn't mean it's a bad one (it's quite good), but the only real source of joy here is that it showcases that rare beast of a measured Nick Cage performance. In the year of Left Behind, we needed that.
My Fair Lady Award for the Worst Ending to an Otherwise Enjoyable Movie: Magic in the Moonlight—File this under: Woody Allen loving his protagonists too much. There is nothing in the preceding 90 minutes that justifies Firth's character getting a happy ending. But there it is. The lesson is apparently that being a patronizing jerk will help you find love (a lesson unfortunately common in rom-com world).
Best Non-2014 Movie I Saw for the First Time in 2014: The General—I already wrote this one up for my AFI project (you can read the entry here—when everything was said and done, it was my favorite movie I saw for the first time through the project, though The Apartment came close), but other than what I already said there, I can now add that this movie introduced me to the wonderful world of Buster Keaton, the artist behind a veritable cornucopia of silent comedy masterpieces. I probably saw more Buster Keaton than any other filmmaker this year.
And that's it! Hope everyone has a wonderful new year! Don't forget to let me know what you think about this year's movies.
Until next year.
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