Special mentions: X and Pearl
If Ti West had told us all he was planning to make a trilogy of horror films this year, I'm not sure anyone would have believed him, much less that the first two, at least, would make such a big cultural splash. I certainly wouldn't have expected it of A24, a studio perhaps best known for its ushering in the era of elevated horror. Perhaps this is because West's gripping story about the violence of life deep in the American West as the outside world beckons is most accurately described as exploitative of exploitation films. His upturning of formal, genre, and even audience expectations make these films touchpoints wherein future critics and scholars and film artists will see a shift in horror for the 2020s. The extent to which West's films enact that shift -- or reflectively codify that shift in metafictional ways -- remains unknown for now.
10. The Batman
A stunning, beautiful, and daring re-imagining of the character as well as the franchise, The Batman is perhaps my most surprising film on this list. But in Matt Reeves's visionary approach, this film makes me very excited about the franchise because he avoids the mythmaking tendency of the Nolan films in favor of deconstructing the character and moving everything to a fresh place of raw grit. It's a Gothic film noir of a detective story, one that surprises even as it awes. I felt similarly about Prey this year, a prequel of sorts to the Predator franchise that so brilliantly reimagines itself that I almost forgot to pay attention to its uncannily breathtaking technical acumen; turning something so familiar it's trite into something so smart and new it's scary is no small task.
9. Fire Island
The queer romantic comedy we've all needed and deserved for so long now. Joyous and funny and inspiring and heartfelt, it's the story of a group of gay men who go to Fire Island for their annual week-long vacation and how they catch up with each other and hook up with the other gays in the village. In doing so, and in such a positive light, this film seems to be working toward reclaiming the liberated sense of community in gay culture that has largely been absent since before the AIDS crisis. It helps us literarily-minded folks that it's also a witty adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Bros was a lot of fun this year but ultimately not as liberating, and the heavy targeting of Gen-Z in Bodies Bodies Bodies was more grating to me than inspiring. Sometimes you just want to feel good about being queer, you know?
8. Strange World
While I've spoken at length before about only putting due responsibility on specific films to cater to sociopolitical commentary, this movie might have changed my mind. Strange World is the, and I won't qualify this claim, most progressive Disney movie in my lifetime. Its animation is lovely and its voice acting and screenplay all fit the bill of really solid Disney fare. But what makes this movie so important is that Disney finally gave us all the things we've been clamoring for for years. Its multiracial, multigenerational family may be the most diverse in the studio's history, to say nothing of its queer, mixed-race protagonist whose ethnicity and burgeoning sexual identity are casual and even celebrated. More people need to see this film. In some similar ways, more people should see Spirited, last holiday season's unexpected and utterly joyful musical update to the Scrooge story.
7. TIE: The Wonder / The Whale
Though isolation and quarantine aren't really current concerns anymore, two of my favorite movies of the year dealt head-on with amazing, complex characters who are essentially alone in their pursuits of meaningful lives. Each are essentially chamber dramas -- I'd argue that their respective directors also lean heavily on folk horror and psychological horror tropes -- revolving around a protagonist navigating their way through an existential crisis. Literary and philosophical, in turns heartwarming and bitterly cruel, each story begs the viewer to tap into a slower, more contemplative wavelength to ponder complex thematic and ideological concepts. These films will largely be spoken of in terms of their leading actors, who are both magnificent, but they're also incredible films in technical and artistic ways that deserve more recognition.
6. Nope
I haven't been this intellectually or emotionally involved in a movie about aliens in years. Jordan Peele's latest film is a complex and nuanced masterpiece of science fiction horror, one that frustrates even as it satisfies. Funny and terrifying, ethereally beautiful and conceptually brilliant, Nope combines seemingly unrelated ideas of fame, fate, monsters and aliens, trauma and spectacle, ambition and hope, and presents a coherent, haunting, and visionary story that will say very different things to anyone who watches. For more visceral scares, I'd highly recommend the two big survival horror films of the year, the vertigo-inducing nightmare Fall and the violent, thrilling killer lion adventure Beast.
5. The Woman King
A love story about community, about Black women, and about Africa, this film is one of the most riveting and inspiring I've ever seen. Much of the pleasure of viewing comes with learning about the culture of Dahomey, the West African kingdom that comprises the setting, and specifically the Agojie warriors, an elite sorority of women warriors. And director Gina Prince-Bythewood allows us to engage our curiosity without exploiting the peoples she dramatizes. The action -- choreographed to within an inch of its life and mostly performed with eye-popping precision -- is nothing short of exhilarating. A close tie for this would have been Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which is one of my favorite entries in the MCU, but which also suffers slightly from being overstuffed with franchise-necessary material.
4. Everything Everywhere All at Once
The most aggressively weird movie in a long time, the latest from Daniels is a doozy. It begins as one thing, shifts into something wildly different, and by the halfway point is unrecognizable as a coherent film. And then, by the end, I found myself so awash in feelings and sensations I've never felt in a film before that I stood with my friend outside the cinema and we just giggled and cried and kept shrugging our shoulders because we just couldn't figure out what we were feeling. Everything Everywhere All at Once is, I promise you, not like you might expect. No summary or synopsis can do it justice. I'm not even sure watching it can do it justice. Embrace the chaos. Enjoy the novelty and beauty and hilarity and weirdness along the way. It's a unique and fabulous experience for your senses. For darkly hilarious absurdism and unbridled heartache in a similar thematic (but certainly not visual) vein, Martin McDonagh's Banshees of Inisherin was a close tie here.
3. Glass Onion
Murder in paradise is always more fun. Much like Kenneth Branagh's latest deadly mystery follow-up, Death on the Nile, which shares a lot in common with Rian Johnson's latest, Glass Onion takes everything wonderful about Knives Out and ups the ante in every way. Apart from a glorious screenplay and excellent cast, it's also uncommonly beautifully shot and staged, something I wish would have earned it a place in theatrical distribution rather than direct-to-streaming. But let's just be grateful it exists and, hopefully, paves the way for more in the series.
2. TIE: TAR / Till
The two best performances of the year are also two of my favorite films of the year. Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tar, a dubiously fictional EGOT conductor, and Danielle Deadwyler as Mamie Till-Mobley, the real-life mother of Emmett Till and formidable activist. Each film, directed by Todd Field and Chinonye Chukwu respectively, is a searing portrait of purpose-driven lives that go in very different ways, one cerebral and one heartbreaking, gorgeously captured as odysseys into unique and fascinating parts of womanhood and the human condition we've never seen on film before. Baz Luhrmann's Elvis, while similar in some aspects (not least of which its leading performance by Austin Butler), doesn't quite share the same scope or depth for me, and so remains suitably an honorable mention.
1. The Northman
Taken from the medieval myth that inspired Shakespeare's Hamlet, The Northman is a rare film that feels completely timeless even while pushing modern boundaries of what is cinematically possible. Beautiful and challenging, it reminds us why we culturally carry these far-removed stories with us and revitalize them time and again. In director Robert Eggers's masterful hands, both the film and its audience are in for a soul-shaping artistic experience. Prepare yourself for this one; after the film ended, I felt little other than exhaustion. Satisfaction, to be sure, and lots of joy for various elements, but it's a brutal two-and-a-half hours of greed and lust and revenge. Precious few films are this transformative.
What were YOUR favorite movies this year? Let me know and we'll chat about some stellar cinema!
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