Just in time, we're here to review the top films of 2015!
I find more and more it seems trite to make year end lists, even if it's the backbone of our industry. For one, I struggle to see every film that comes out, and also there is a big shift in staying power that I think is fair to asses after a decade. There is assuredly merit in films that are of their moment and give great first impressions, though as well. Hence why we do still keep listing movies the same year they come out for time capsule purposes but the ten year list is the real deal.
I also really like the ten year list because I am less worried about throwing on movies that would be utterly laughable to really call the best of the year. So here we go:
#10: Ex Machina
I had rated this pretty high back in 2015 and I think it's still enjoyable, remarkably more for thematic prescience over craft. It holds up but is no longer mind-blowing.
#9: The Night Before
Yeah, I couldn't rank this at the moment. I just re-watched this because I was drunk, but I think it remains one of the last true "Seth Rogen" movies, which doubles for movies starring that Freaks and Geeks Apatow crowd. I might even call it the last funny movie ever made. It is remarkably solid, has some tight themes of growing up and moving on, but earns them, and is consistently funny.
#8: Bone Tomahawk
Let's go the other way. This is such a brutal grim movie that I mostly remember for Kurt Russell having the exact same hair as he did for The Hateful Eight. But this holds up as an unsparing smaller film that exists out of time and an unheralded S. Craig Zahler effort.
#7: Krampus
I recognize I'm putting two really off-beat Christmas movies on this list, so be it. I keep returning to Krampus, though! It has remarkable energy, a game cast, a really established atmosphere, and the perfect mix of holiday cynicism with a tiny glimmer of hope.
I feel like I am the only one who liked Joy, but there just doesn't exist any other movie that quite shows female ambition like this. There is an insane amount of films from the male perspective. For whatever reason this persists for me.
#5: The Big Short
I don't totally love how this movie tends to blow past the minutiae with Margot Robbie in the tub and stuff but I get why, but it still seems to not dig into why all this stuff happened. It's still an amazing collection of scenes and a monumental kinetic narrative effort.
#4: Straight Outta Compton
There have been a ton of biopics over the years, including a lot more of rappers but not many as honest as this. I still think about it, especially has many have somehow gotten worse.
#3: Creed
As I'm going through this list, a lot seems to be movies that are just different enough within their genres to stand out. This may be one of the few, if not only legacy movies to truly stand on its own with fully fleshed out characters that are able to go on their own journeys, a feat not even its sequels achieved.
#2: The Hateful Eight
I still don't think this quite nails the ending but it feels like a bottle film that Tarantino challenged himself to do, but because he's Tarantino he nailed it. The cinematography is astounding, moreso because of the ultra wide aspect ratio for a movie that largely takes place in a single room lodge. It had grown on me for sure.
#1: Mad Max: Fury Road
What can I say, this movie is perfect. There you go.
There were a handful more on my shortlist and I can't believe I found myself giving them the boot, especially Inside Out. I think I have retroactive Pixar fatigue setting in, but I also struggle getting excited about Inside Out ten years out where I don't have that for everything else on this list.
The Duke of Burgundy
The Martian
Spotlight
Carol
Dope
Inside Out
2015 has a nice mix of great big and small movies, franchise efforts, indy efforts, and mid-size efforts. Hyper-masculine and hyper-feminine films. Looking back it does feel like it is far as we got as a culture before turning around and heading straight to hell. There is great, compelling energy to all these films, all clear visuals, and crisp film language. Again, probably the last stop on the trolley before cinema became all haves and have nots and digital mud replaced everything.
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