Amph What were your Favorite Movies of 2015?

You really enjoyed Blackhat?

 

It was a competent Mann thriller.

 

I even have a soft spot for the much derided Miami Vice movie, but Blackhat I found a bad combination of unbelievable and dreary.

 

Do we count What We Do in the Shadows? That was 2015 here. I liked that one and Fury Road.

 

Oh this is easy. I'm a super picky movie goer and I only go see what I know I'll like.
Star Wars Force Awakens (I haven't seen it yet bc of work/weather but it will be my top favorite.)
The hobbit Battle of five armies (Theatrical release was an edited nightmare, but I still enjoyed seeing in theater)

And so far 2016 has
Star Trek Beyond (I may hate what Lin does with it, but I'll still like it because it's Star Trek, probably)

 

Hmm. Just looked it up. Sounds like it's based on the Irish folktale John Sayles used as a basis for The Secret of Roan Inish.

 

Mad Max and Creed are probably the best of the year for me. TFA being an honorable mention.

 

Wow, yeah, Blackhat is not one I have seen brought up as one of the better films of the year anywhere else. But, yeah, Slow West was great.

 

Revenge of the Sith

Oh wait...2015! Well, I'm sure as hell not going to say TFA.

Winner: Mad Max: Fury Road

Runner-up: Spotlight (Even better than All the President's Men)

 

2015 Movies Honorable Mentions

Okay, so these are all movies that came out in either 2015 or 2014. As a side note, I think including 2014 films is the best way to handle the issues regarding foreign films, festival films, and really late releases. It allows you to carry those over, which I think is nice, because otherwise, you can’t really bring them up at all if you’re being strict about release dates. Anyway, good policy move. Here are my honorable mentions. I’ll come back and post my actual top ten tomorrow.

Black Mass

Expected a solid crime thriller, got a masterpiece. It’s a gripping exploration of corruption and violence. Great cast, smart script. Depp is wonderful, but Edgerton gives the real performance as a stalwart FBI agent slowly corrupted until he becomes an utterly loathsome figure. Great movie.

The End of the Tour

Haven’t been seeing this one crop up as often as I figured I would. It’s a real two hander with Jesse Eisenberg and Jason Segal both giving great performances as a Rolling Stone writer following David Foster Wallace (respectively) as he wraps up the Infinite Jest tour. Movies about writers are dicey; movies about people talking are dicey; movies about dead people are dicey. The End of the Tour dodges every problem and knocks it out of the park. Bittersweet, soulful, smart, thought-provoking, incredibly well characterized.

Gett: The Trial of Vivian Amsalem

Israeli film follows the trial of a Jewish woman seeking a divorce from her husband. Star Ronit Elkabetz also wrote and directed, establishing herself as a triple threat for sure. The entire film takes place in the tiny courtroom; we never find out the truth of the stories told in that room, but it’s a gripping, entertaining movie that never feels the need to trumpet that it’s about women’s rights; it’s just about the facts and the facts are devastating.

It Follows

Elegantly directed horror film boasts great performances from Maika Monroe and Keir Gilchrist in particular and its quietly moving menace has a real sense of palpable dread. But there’s more than that; it’s an exploration of many things, not least sex. It is, in many ways, a kind of elegy for sexual pleasure and it dares to have the best horror ending in quite some time: the characters don’t face precisely the fate they most fear – perhaps they face the one they most deserve – perhaps we all do.

Kingsman: The Secret Service

As gonzo, unpredictable and ridiculous a movie as any I saw this year, this wonderfully cast, energetically directed and slyly sadistic spy thriller was a surprise like no other. The cast commits completely; both Firth and Jackson are as good as they’ve been in years. And as an action movie, it’s absolutely gripping. The brawl in the church is the most insane film sequence of the year, hands down, but the climax, ludicrously over the top, shockingly violent and maniacally hilarious, will stop you in your tracks. WHO just got killed?

Mistress America

A companion piece to Frances Ha, this winning screwball comedy finds Baumbach at his best and gains a lot of bounce from the leading pair of actresses. Greta Gerwig is a continually flailing dreamer; Lola Kirke (watch this actress; between this performance and her work in Gone Girl, she’s proved herself quite a chameleon) is the young college student who falls under her sway. It’s a clear-eyed movie and not as affectionate as the much more hopeful Frances Ha, but it’s deliriously funny and often smartly on point.

A Most Violent Year

Oscar Isaac does his best Godfather II Pacino in this tale of a heating oil company and a guy who just wants to make an honest living. But in 1980s New York, that’s not a simple thing. When your wife is a scheming, manipulative, hard-edged Jessica Chastain, you’re not sure which of your rivals is the one behind all those hold-ups and you’re being hassled by a stalwart David Oyelowo, things just get tougher. This third film from the always interesting writer/director J.C. Chandor is his first full-on masterpiece.

Straight Outta Compton

It feels like this movie has been coming for years; I guess it’s rather like the album it’s named for in that way. A cast that is nothing short of astonishing inhabits this tale of the rise & fall of N.W.A., one of the most incendiary rap groups of all time. The story, of poor kids rushed into wealth, of petty jealousies, of financial corruption, of deadly feuds . . . well, it’s nothing new. Maybe that’s why it continues to work; there’s something fundamentally American about this twisted success/failure story. It’s a constantly engaging film and even as the years roll by, it never loses sight of the emotional lives of the people at its heart. Nothing short of brilliant.

Tangerine

A couple of transsexual hookers, a cheating pimp, a wasted prostitute, a promiscuous cab driver, Christmas Eve, Hollywood . And one of the most invigorating, hilarious, high-energy films of the year. Shot on the very, very cheap, Tangerine still captures the look and feel of life on the street with a jittery caffeine (or maybe something a little harder) buzz. And yet, for all the hilarity, it’s a film with real characters and real human connections. It’s raunchy, raw, violent, heartfelt, sincere, hilarious, tragic. Maybe Tangerine set out to capture a slice of life; maybe it did it.

Testament of Youth

Yes, I know, you saw Alicia Vikander in Ex Machina. Well, give her a look here, in the British film that catapulted her to stardom across the pond. She plays Vera Brittain, famed WWI memoirist, and the tale is of bright young people with stars in their eyes and a feeling of invincibility in their hearts and what the Great War does to them when it comes. The rest of the cast is particularly good, including, hmm, is that Jon Snow? Yes, yes, it is, and he’s really fine here. But Vikander is the central character and the journey of her character from hopeful to broken to bitter to . . . what? Is one of the most compelling character arcs of the year. Artfully, tastefully directed and aiming to break your heart, Testament of Youth is beautiful and cruel all in one.

Okay, honorable mentions. Tomorrow, my actual top ten.

 

Star Wars: The Force Awakens
The Gift
Mad Max: Fury Road

Most of the other movies I saw were either bland, boring, or both. I'd file Jurassic World in one of those slots.


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After going through much of the awards bait of 2015 including those I most anticipated such as The Revenant, I still think Mad Max is the best I've seen. This is weird. It's rebootquel of films people are nostalgic for (*cough*). I wanted to hate it, but instead of being lazy it did things right.

 

Jurassic World and The Force Awakens.

 

Fury Road was the standout by far for me. I really liked Ex Machina and of course, TFA.

 

In no order:

Ex Machina
The Force Awakens
Fury Road
The Martian

That's my top four. Actually, that's the only four movies I saw.

j/k but not by much. Way down on the movie count this year.

Forgot about Scott's film.

 

My favorite films of 2015 are:

1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
2. The Kingsman: The Secret Service
3. Avengers: Age of Ultron
4. Creed
5. Mad Max: Fury Road
6. Ant-Man
7. The Martian
8. Fast & Furious 7
9. Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation
10. Jurassic World

 

SW: The Force Awakens
Spectre
Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
Jurassic World

That's pretty much it for the 2015 movies that I saw that I really liked, but I do still want to see The Martian, Macbeth, The Revenant, and The Hateful Eight.

 

1. TFA
2. Ex Machina
3. Mad Max
4. It Follows
5. The Hateful Eight

Still need to see Sicario and The Martian though

 

1. Well. DUH! (TFA)
2. Everest
3. Sicario
4.Mad Max, Fury Road
5. The Martian

 

1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
2. Terminator: Genisys
3. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2
4. Cinderella
5. Avengers: Age of Ultron

 

2015 fav: Mad Max: Fury Road

 

The Force Awakens
Jurassic World

Every other 2015 film I saw kinda sucked, iirc. Including Avengers 2 and Inside Out.

 

Eli Roth may arguably be the best auteur filmmaker working in American cinema today, and I would be excited to find someone who would make that argument.

But there's no arguing that

"THEY HAVE THE MUNCHIES!!"

Isn't the greatest line of movie dialogue in 2015.