Before it gets too late in the year, here’s a quick roundup of all the films that I saw last year (or that were released last year; I snuck in a few viewings after Dec 31). First, my five favorite.
- “Spotlight”
- “Mad Max: Fury Road”
- “Sicario”
- “Creed”
- “The Hateful Eight”
You could easily re-sort the top three any way you like and I wouldn’t disagree as I found it really difficult to choose the right ordering for them—even after watching each of them a second time.
Here are the movies I saw that I thought were worthwhile, and deserve attention from anyone who hasn’t seen them yet.
- “Ex Machina”
- “Inside Out”
- “Steve Jobs” You could poke holes in its accuracy, but it boasted a truly powerhouse script and a riveting lead performance.
- “Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation Far, far better than it had any right to be.
- “What We Do in the Shadows” A gem.
- “The Peanuts Movie” Totally delightful and a wonderfully faithful adaptation of the comics you remember from childhood.
And here’s the rest…
- “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” You already know how I feel about this.
- “The Martian” Good fun, if you don’t mind the many groaners in the script.
- “Spy” I really wanted to like this a lot, and it starts out strong, but it limped across the finish line.
- “Ant-Man” Maybe my favorite Marvel movie yet, for better or worse.
- “Furious 7” I’m a fan, but even I admit, these movies are not art.
- “Trainwreck”
- “Paddington”
- “The Shaun the Sheep Movie”
- “Spectre” An unmitigated disaster.
- “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” Completely insubstantial.
- “Avengers: Age of Ultron”
- “The Overnight”
By the way, one of my new year’s resolutions is to track the movies I watch over at Letterboxd. If you’re at all interested, you can follow along there with my movie diary.
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