I began last year's favorite movies post talking about how much 2019 sucked, and wow, did just a few months of context expose that for the wild naivete it was. This isn't the post to rehash everything that was even worse about 2020 (and will likely continue to be awful into 2021, since chaos and evil and disease don't tend to follow the Gregorian Calendar), but the one thing specific to this post that is worth bringing up is how much I miss going to movie theaters. It's probably clear to anyone who reads this blog that going to the movies is one of my very favorite things in the world, and while movies certainly aren't leaving my life (I still have the local library and streaming), one dispiriting thing this year has demonstrated is just how poorer the cinematic arts are without the option to sit in a dark, over-air-conditioned room with several dozen strangers.
It's not just the aesthetics of the experience (though, for example, I am deeply grieved that I cannot hear the score for Soul on theater sound equipment); movie culture and discourse is basically on life support without theaters because the streaming giants have not yet figured out how to be good distributors of cinema, despite being currently the biggest distributors of the art form. Big, expensive movies from major filmmakers like Spike Lee, Sofia Coppola, and David Fincher were released directly to streaming and promptly disappeared from the discourse (and streaming services homepages) after a week or two, and these weren't isolated incidents. Movies on streaming services exist basically in a big heap of content with only the most cursory of curation and organization, and it turns out that relying entirely on rifling through that heap to find the gems is actually pretty bad for any sort of shared or communal experience, which is the lifeblood of film culture.
Steaming and its boundless access have a vital role within the film world. I've seen films via streaming that I probably would never have been able to find otherwise. But theaters force people to experience something together across a city, nation, or even sometimes the globe, and as much as that could sometimes be frustratingly gate-kept (why would Knoxville not get major awards-season films until January??), it could also be powerful, too: the last vestige of a shared culture in an era that has fractured (seemingly irreparably) into splinters. I want to hear people in the row behind me get excited about a movie trailer that I think looks pretty dumb; I want to laugh awkwardly when no one else in the theater did; I want to wait in line outside of the Downtown West theater and look at the posters for those silly movies that would be about boomers going on road trips and falling in with a community of competitive Rubik's cubers or whatever. This bizarre, kitschy, collective liturgy—I just miss it all.
In last year's post, I mentioned that I hoped to one day share the movies on the list with my son. This year, I hope to one day still be able to share a theater-going experience with my son. It's looking grim for theaters, but my fingers crossed.
Anyway, here's the list. Per usual, everything on here is something that got a streaming or (unlikely, I suppose, but possible) theatrical release in the United States during this calendar year. I certainly haven't seen everything, so feel free to share your own favorites, too!
Favorite Movies
A gorgeously animated anti-imperialist fable that is firing on all cylinders at all moments. I sometimes have second thoughts about my #1 pick, but I don't think I've ever been more confident about one as I am about Wolfwalkers. It's a masterpiece.
[Read original review]
2. I'm Thinking of Ending Things
A truly feel-bad movie in every conceivable way, simultaneously the logical endpoint of writer/director Charlie Kaufman's inventive, meta career and also the nightmare alternate-universe version of the man in a world without the whimsical acidity of early work like Being John Malkovich. The way I'm describing it probably makes this movie seem like it isn't for everyone, which is certainly true, but it's also the sharpest depiction of loneliness that I've seen in a movie in a long time, and in the year of COVID quarantines, there's probably something universal in that.
[Read original review]
Upon a couple months' reflection, I've decided that this definitely my favorite Hugh Jackman performance. In a walk. Like, no contest.
[Read original review]
It's strange to call a movie that ultimately takes the shape of a pretty bleak tragedy as "cozy," but this little story of two dudes on the frontier just trying to steal some milk so they can bake some sweet oily cakes definitely feels cozy for long stretches. That Reichardt touch, I suppose.
[Read original review]
Extremely close runner-up to Wolfwalkers for my favorite animation of the year. Wolfwalkers's imagery not being viscerally terrifying probably gave it the edge in the long run, to be honest. But this movie has the benefit of looking like no animation I've ever seen before. It's stunning. And yes, very scary.
[Read original review]
I feel like people forgot about this one—among the last theatrical releases, a real visual treat, and an exceptionally sharp Jane Austen adaptation. Also, between this and The Queen's Gambit, I'd say Anya Taylor-Joy is really knocking it out of the park finding films with terrific costuming.
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7. Residue
This is the kind of movie I was talking about when I mentioned movies disappearing into streaming services up in the prologue. I don't know anyone who saw this movie except me and the people I watched it with. Take it from me, because Netflix sure isn't going to tell you about it: watch this movie!
[Read original review]
A beautiful little piece of children's entertainment existentialism, with probably my favorite score of the year, split between the pristine Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross electronics and John Batiste's sprightly jazz arrangements.
[Read original review]
Just a really tight sci-fi thriller that works basically across the board. There's some interesting, surprisingly thorny subtext about gaslighting and what it means to believe a survivor of abuse, which is cool, but I think this mostly hits as hard as it does because it's just an impeccable piece of craft.
[Read original review]
I love a good Groundhog Day riff, and this is probably the best, most self-aware Groundhog Day movie since the original.
[Read original review]
Appendix: Miscellaneous Movies Also Worth Noting
Documentary Corner Award: Time—This was my #10 until I saw Soul. I wish I'd had time to watch City Hall, which I have a feeling would have beaten out this movie, but that's no slight to Time, a moving, urgent documentary on its own right focusing on a woman's years-long fight to get her husband released from prison. Deeply sad.
Taylor Swift Documentary Corner Award: Miss Americana—It's been a big year for Taylor Swift fans: two albums and two movies. Miss Americana is one of the less-guarded chronicles of Taylor Swift we've ever gotten, and I've definitely thought a lot more about this documentary this year than my original review suggests.
"Last 2020 Movie I Saw in a Theater" Award: Gretel & Hansel—I'm fudging a little bit on this one, since it means not counting Portrait of a Lady on Fire (the actual last movie I saw in a theater) as a 2019 release, even though it didn't open in Knoxville until 2020. Anyway, Gretel & Hansel is a solid film whose existence I completely forgot about until I was compiling movies for this post. More notable is that I saw it in a small, local theater that almost certainly won't survive the pandemic, which is sad. Boy, do I miss going to the movie theater.
"More People Should See This" Award: The Assistant—I mean, I know why more people didn't see this. It's an extremely quiet, often uncomfortable indie film than came out in Jan/Feb, when most people aren't going to movies (back in the days when people actually did, you know, go to movies). But it's really worth it; believe me. It may be quiet, but it's gripping.
Best Revisionist-Historical Depiction of a Mid-Century Genius: Shirley—I kind of just invented this category so I could pointedly not give it to Mank, but also, Shirley is a really interesting, really sour take on the private life of Shirley Jackson, anchored by an indelible Elizabeth Moss performance. Runner up: Tesla.
Best Anxiety: She Dies Tomorrow—In which anxiety and existential dread literally spreads like a disease among a group of increasingly isolated people. Hm, what an outlandish idea for a film.
Biggest Disappointment: A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon—I loooved the first Shaun the Sheep Movie, so I was pretty crestfallen that this follow-up did nothing for me.
Best Low-Rent Direct-to-Streaming Thriller: Run—A surprising number of direct-to-streaming movies are low-rent thrillers, but this one edges ahead of the pack. A ridiculously tight film about a girl who begins to suspect that her mother is intentionally poisoning her. Very fun.
Best Spike Lee / Best Soundtrack: Da 5 Bloods—In 2020, Spike Lee released a short film, a concert doc, and this movie, a sprawling mash-up of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Apocalypse Now filtered through the lens of black anti-imperialism. They're all worth your time, but this is the best, and the Marvin Gaye soundtrack is TOPS.
"Disney, Can You Lay Off the Corporate Synergy for Just Like One Minute?" Award: Black Is King—My opinions of the Walt Disney Company have never been lower, and it seems like everything they put their grubby little mouse paws on this year got just a little bit worse. Exhibit A: Black Is King, Beyoncé's idiosyncratic musical art film / music video cycle that just haaaaad to tie in narratively to the live-action Lion King remake. Like, come on, Disney! Let Beyoncé be Beyoncé!
Movie I Most Wish Were Just a Little Better: The Forty-Year-Old Version—The screenplay is too reliant on corny turns and character clichés to be completely good, but the best parts of Radha Blank's semi-autobiographical dramedy are so good that it makes me wish for the great movie that could have been.
Worst Movie of the Year: The Turning—Not just the worst movie but easily the worst ending of any movie. It's not like the movie were anything close to good before the final 5-10 minutes, but those final 5-10 minutes are astonishingly incompetent and completely nonsensical to a degree that the tedious mediocrity of the preceding 80 minutes did not prepare me for at all. It's a failure of such magnitude that it has to be seen to be believed.
Best Non-2020 Movie I Saw for the First Time in 2020: Exotica—This movie snuck in at the very last minute and completely clobbered me. I watched this on December 31, and it was immediately apparent that I'd watched an all-timer. I haven't had a chance to write it up yet for the blog on account of having only watched it yesterday, but this is just an astonishing work, a hypnotic, achingly compassionate story of wounded people linked together by tragedy, featuring one of the best examples of disparate plot pieces clicking into place to form a coherent whole in the movie's final minutes that I've ever seen.
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