One of my favorite recent complaints is the happy grumble that there were too many great movies released in 2015. Having a difficult time narrowing the year’s best down to fifteen is the kind of problem I hope to have every single year.
It’s practically impossible to see every movie released in a year, but I think the only title of note that I haven’t had the opportunity to see (and that would potentially have made the cut) is Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight.
After much consideration — and after being told in no uncertain terms that #15 could most definitely not feature a six-way tie — these are the films that occupied and engaged my mind the most this year. These are the films that stayed with me across 2015, some for the past few weeks and others for many months. These are my picks for the fifteen best movies of the year.
15. Tomorrowland
Walt Disney Pictures
Look, I did say these are my picks, so if Brad Bird’s much-maligned adventure for the eyes, brain, and heart is the particular cinematic hill I have to metaphorically die on so be it. The lead is a smart, independent, science-loving teenage girl who even Max Landis would love as she fumbles and grows on her way to a world-altering conclusion, and while it initially appears to be another tale about “the one” who can save us all it subverts that idea with the radical notion that we can actually save ourselves. Far from just a message movie though it’s also an energetic ride featuring beautifully orchestrated action sequences, equally well-crafted laughs, and optimism laced with tough-love and common sense. Check your cynicism at the door, and share it with the smart kids in your life.
14. The Revenant
20th Century Fox
Part revenge tale, part man-vs-nature endurance test, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s newest film follows through on the promise teased with each of his previous features. It’s a stunningly photographed journey through an ice-cold hell complete with gorgeous mountain vistas and a tangible winter that threatens to freeze over the screen. Long, unbroken takes move viewers through the bloody chaos of combat from the ground to horseback and back again, and through it all Leonardo DiCaprio delivers an intensely-focused performance that gives life to the strength of one man’s will to live. One line of dialogue (and Tom Hardy’s epic bungling of its delivery) threatens to unravel all that came before, but the film’s breathtaking, all-consuming weight is an equally tenacious force.
13. What We Do In the Shadows
The Orchard
This horror/comedy import from New Zealand is one of two films that I’ve re-watched the most this year — the other sits at #5 below — and while its playful, slapstick style and goofy vampire-centric focus make it far less serious fare than the rest of the films here, they don’t prevent it from being one of the year’s best. It’s a ridiculously funny and extremely smart comedy that proves no topic is ever truly squeezed dry of potential in the right hands. Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement are the owners of those right (and left) hands, and their deliriously humorous peak behind the curtains of the undead is pure genius.
12. Slow West
A24
John Maclean’s genre-bender is something of an acquired taste as it infuses a violent Western adventure with wit and big laughs, but the result is an immensely satisfying look at the American dream on the wild edges of a sleepy America. It gallops with bloody ease between the deadly serious and the morbidly funny, and the organized chaos extends to a narrative that’s confident and crazy enough to avoid predictability. Michael Fassbender’s part scoundrel/part mentor cowboy is as charismatic an antihero as you’ll see this year, and he makes for a terrifically off-kilter guide on this cockeyed trip into the Old West.
11. Mistress America
Fox Searchlight Pictures
This is what pure delight looks like. The second (of two) flat-out comedies to make the list, Noah Baumbach’s latest film is easily his best as it charts the ups and downs of a new friendship through a series of unexpected life lessons. It’s a coming-of-age film that recognizes that the act of becoming an adult is a journey, not a destination. Both witty and wise, the script is brought to life by a terrific Lola Kirke and the modern day queen of screwball perfection, Greta Gerwig. It’s a fast and funny ride, but don’t let that distract you from the honesty and warmth on display beneath the zaniness.
10. Wildlike
Amplify Releasing
This is most likely the least-recognizable title on the list, but it deserves to reach a wider audience as it’s a beautiful little gem of a film about knowing the difference between the things we get in life and the things we deserve. Alaska’s vastness can create an isolation of sorts if you let it, a feeling that walks a fine line between loneliness and solitude with the balance decided only by the weight of your heart, and this film is one of the very few to capture that appealing desolation. The film finds beauty, calm, and trust between two strangers and makes it as compelling an experience as any big-budget spectacle could ever hope to create with gorgeous cinematography, a smartly affecting script, and a pair of fragile yet powerful performances by Ella Purnell and Bruce Greenwood.
9. Steve Jobs
Universal Pictures
Danny Boyle’s latest may be a faulty biopic, but real-life details are for nerds. Instead it’s an utterly engrossing and fantastically entertaining look at the personal price of genius. Michael Fassbender gives one of the year’s best and most-engaging performances, and Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, and Jeff Daniels shine alongside him, but the real star here is Aaron Sorkin’s lightning-fast, constantly mesmerizing script. It packs a lifetime into three days as it examines the value of ambition, loyalty, success, and failure, and facts be damned — we should all be so lucky when it comes time for our own biopics.
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