Maybe it’s because we were stuck inside for most of the year, but I watched a lot of great films in 2020. More than any other year, we needed them in our lives, to break up the mundanity of repeating days, to take our minds off of every awful thing happening, to simply entertain ourselves for a bit. Yet I don’t envy anyone who released something this year, even if it could be argued that being stuck inside bolstered the popularity of some content. Part of the magic of the big screen is the attention it forces on you; you can’t pause it to go to the bathroom, you can’t (or shouldn’t) check your texts in the middle, all you can do is engage and hope you love what you see. Despite missing that, I still loved a lot of what I saw this year, and I wanted to share some of my favorites. Here’s 20 of my favorite films of 2020.
20: The candy-coated world of Promising Young Woman lets you know the heightened experience you’re in for, yet what sells the film is the main character’s humanity. Cassie’s girl-boss persona is a front for a grieving woman, filled with trauma and rightful anger. Even as she goes in directions we might consider too far, we always understand her intent. And while there is messiness that results from the ambition of this, I find the ambition and raw talent of Emerald Fennell more than worthy of the praise she is getting. Available to rent 19: Black Bear was written for Aubrey Plaza and utilizes her perfectly. The mysterious, sardonic persona she’s built is utilized, yet beneath that we also see a vulnerable, sad woman being manipulated unfairly. The isolated rural setting and ensemble of actors elevate the writing here, which occasionally leans a bit too much into unearned tension but is always interesting and filled with specificity for the characters. I continue to think about the more cryptic moments, while the cynical perspective it takes early on twists into earnestness in a beautiful, unexpected way. Available to rent 18: The setup of Scare Me – a power outage makes two vacationing writers tell each other scary stories – initially seems more suited for a play with its single location, but writer-director Josh Ruben uses his camera to his advantage, playing on horror camera tricks to make these stories feel gargantuan in scale despite the single house we’re in for the majority of the runtime. The two characters at the center of this are used as commentary for both fragile masculinity and ego, yet they are fully-realized people, irritating and likable in all the right ways. Its rough start and strange ending detracted a bit initially, but the scary stories at the center are phenomenal displays of comedic talent that made up for my complaints. You might not be scared, but you will smile. Streaming on Shuddr 17: I’m Your Woman has a great, simple premise: it’s a mob movie that takes the perspective of a housewife, Jean, left amidst the chaos of gang warfare her husband caused. She’s confused, angry, and unsure of whether her husband is alive, what the source of the conflict is, and what the future holds for her family - especially her newborn child. The tension comes from what filmmaker Julia Hart doesn’t do; the stillness we often find ourselves in feels unstable, like it could be ripped apart any second, and keeps us engaged in the moderate world which could otherwise feel lackluster. Rachel Brosnahan is great as the lead, perfectly distraught yet filled with agency and a growing confidence that is exciting to track, and the portrait of Jean painted leads to a satisfying ending, quiet and bittersweet. Streaming on Amazon Prime 16: Described as a film about losing everything, Nomadland is in fact the opposite. We start with Fern (the always great Frances McDormand) at her lowest, but the journey she takes becoming a nomad is one of growth, one that finds change a slow yet beautiful process. The film’s willingness to focus on the lives of other people Fern encounters - to simply listen as Fern connects with them and vice-versa - is its greatest strength. Everyone on this path is grieving in one way or another, and the community they find is moving and sincere. It takes time to get into Nomadland, as Fern is revealed to us passively; once you lock into the film, the power it holds is plentiful. Streaming on Hulu 15: It was a stacked year for Alison Brie, with four films capturing the many sides of her talents, but the film she co-wrote and starred in, Horse Girl, stuck with me the most. I’m not always drawn to these types of movies, surreal and focused on vague elements, but the reason it works is because of the horse girl in question. Sarah is shy, awkward, often looked down upon by others; yet our perspective is firmly rooted in staying by her, never judging her even as she verges on craziness. That last word feels wrong, even, since what others around her call insanity feels deathly real to us as we experience every strange moment with her. Brie gives one of the best performances of the year here, striking away all social skills and playing up sincerity even when Sarah is babbling out what seems like gibberish. And that’s the power of the film, why it has stuck with me; the utter nonsense and foolish things that Sarah spews out, by the end, start to feel like truth. Streaming on Netflix 14: It would be difficult to mess up a subject matter as extraordinary as the one found in Collective, a documentary that starts by exposing mistakes made by the Romanian healthcare system, then continues onto fraud, corruption, and even more errors that make you think “You couldn’t make this up if you tried.” Filmmaker Alexander Nanau’s restrained style serves to capture insanity with discipline and care, restraint instead of indulgence. Occasionally it leaves you wanting more - I could have used a better sense of the time period as it begins to jump ahead occasionally, and the ending didn’t land for me - but mostly it leaves you enthralled, leaning into the unravelling story. The way in which the free press is treated here, with deserving reverence, felt refreshing and never overstated. It’s a hard watch, but a necessary one. Streaming on Hulu 13: There’s probably no film this year more downright gorgeous than Wolfwalkers, an animated achievement from Cartoon Saloon and Melusine Productions. The hand-drawn animation is striking at every turn, going from one vivid color palette to another and filled with too many desktop screensaver shots to keep. The animation enhances the mystical story that ignites the inner child in all of us, delightful from start to finish, and with just enough twists and turns to never keep you predicting every beat. Every character is memorable, every moment fun and compelling, and I can’t wait to watch this gem with my family. Streaming on Apple TV+ 12: Documentary or drama? Real life or fiction? Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets never gives you an answer. Over the course of 24 hours, we experience the final day in the life of a bar, with newcomers and regulars alike coming in and out, shifts ending, friendships beginning. Certain activities invite you in – the whole bar playing along to Jeopardy, singing along to loud music - but mostly it’s conversation, ones that never betray the documentary format even as small choices alert you that not everything is natural. The only professional actor in the cast, Michael Martin, delivers a jaw-dropping performance as the bar’s foremost regular, always a little intoxicated and pitiful in nature yet never condescended to. The climax leans a bit too much into what would feel overdone in a drama and exploitative in a documentary, yet the mystery of what this film is has kept it in my mind. Streaming on Kanopy 11: Kelly Reichardt is one of the best directors working today, and First Cow is a testament to why. The projects she takes often makes protagonists of people who would be minor characters in most movies, gives empathy to those who don’t get it enough; in First Cow, we’re in the American frontier in the early 1800s, but the loud fur trappers we’ve seen before are second fiddle to a quiet chef nicknamed Cookie and a Chinese immigrant he befriends. Their bond is beautiful, and their struggles to simply not starve are riveting. The films quiet pace sucks you in, always engaging even when not much is happening, and the final shot has a sudden emotional beat that leaves you haunted, lingering on the brilliance of what you just saw. Streaming on Fubo & Showtime 10: From the opening of Minari I thought it was transcendent. As credits pop up, and the music builds an ethereal, hypnotic mood, the camera trains its gaze on the rural setting, portraying it as entirely mysterious and foreign to the characters. Somehow, the movie lives up to the promise of the intro, with lived-in, likable characters, a great sense of humor, and an incredible specificity that comes from both the memories of Lee Isaac Chung, telling a semi-autobiographical story, and the skills of a great writer-director in capturing evocative details. The climax feels too enormous for its own good, yet that doesn’t detract much from a story so precise that it ends up entirely universal. Available for premium rental 9: It takes a while to get into the rhythm of The Assistant, which is a day in the life of a junior assistant at a film production company. She gets to the office early, does chores, goes through an ordinary routine. This normality, simple and recognizable, sets the film up to comment on the normalized office behaviors that are anything but ordinary, terrible abuses of power that we’re only now attempting to deal with in any meaningful way. And that patience makes the slow realization of what is really going on heartbreaking, as claustrophobia sweeps in on protagonist Jane (Julia Garner, subdued and still) and everything that surrounds her, as her mostly male colleagues excuse the vile thing they’ve become complicit in. The quiet approach also lends itself to making a more dialogue-heavy scene between Jane and Matthew Macfadyen as Wilcock become riveting, as she attempts to articulate what she suspects yet struggles to speak as she slowly realizes Wilcock doesn’t care. The naturalistic pace is helped by a runtime less than an hour-and-a-half, which tightens the structure and makes for a relatively quick watch that nonetheless leaves you in deep thought, wanting what you witnessed to just be fantasy. Like Jane, you know better. Streaming on Hulu 8: Boys State is, more than anything else, horrifying. About a Texas summer program where a thousand teenage boys build a government together, this documentary captures the excitement many of these boys feel for politics while never understating the moral compromises they make. One subject’s impassioned anti-abortion speech, for example, is undercut by a talking head stating his pro-choice views; “I’m playing this like a game,” he says, conscious of the sea of conservative testosterone that surrounds him. The filmmakers focus on five, mostly left-leaning teens, not because of bias but to see how they blend in. Some act a part, some hold true to their ideals, yet no matter what choice they are given not judgement, but empathy from the filmmakers For at the end of the day, it’s just a summer camp, so these compromises don’t matter that much – yet the underlying horror connects to the long list of alumni that went through Boys State, modern day political figures who learned the basics of the political game as juniors in high school. It’s not all scares, though: it’s a fun and fast-paced doc that connects immediately, and allows glimmers of hope in figures like Stephen Garza and René Otero, young students motivated to succeed and bring forth change while attempting to stay grounded in their beliefs. The question is whether those beliefs and optimism will last. Streaming on Apple TV+ 7: The 2020 movie I’ve watched the most is easily Palm Springs. Its time-loop scenario, while relevant to everything we are still going through, is also notable for the way it expands upon the formula that has continued to be used in recent years: by placing two people in the loop together, it makes the idea of love being “for the rest of my days” become “for the rest of this day.” A scenario of being stuck in one place with someone forever becomes joyous when the person is someone you truly love, and the chemistry between Nyles (Andy Samberg, his goofball nature perfectly cast) and Sarah (Cristin Milioti, grounded with a raw and hilarious performance to make the high-concept feel genuine) is filled with delight at the simple luck of being trapped with someone you truly appreciate, expressed perfectly in recurring shots of them waking up from the same bed on the same day, yet with their respective smiles growing wider each time. The magic of the movie is that it makes you follow suit, making you grin bigger and laugh louder as the film continues. It’s a comfort movie, one that manages to touch on real conflicts while giving you a warm, cuddly feeling that keeps you coming back, excited to relive November 9th again and again. Streaming on Hulu 6: Sound of Metal is a masterclass in openings, working because of a focus on banality. We’re allowed to watch metal drummer Ruben start his day: work out a bit, make coffee and breakfast, polish his sound system. Every bit of this mundanity sets up what Ruben will long for after he begins to lose his hearing. The small sounds we hear in the beginning, eggs cracking, water running, become the miniscule things that Ruben desperately longs for. But the film’s strength is that despite this want, what Ruben gets is not terrible; he is sent to a shelter for deaf recovering addicts (Ruben a former user himself) where he meets other deaf people, learns sign language, and begins to find happiness again. The ending is perfect, done without words, without sound, trained on Riz Ahmed’s fantastic performance as he conveys all you need to know. Sound of Metal portrays deafness as not a disability but an adjustment, one rife with difficulty but when acclimated something beautiful in its own right. Streaming on Amazon Prime 5: Any comments section for a trailer, interview, or review for Never Rarely Sometimes Always will inevitably feature argumentative debates about the topic of abortion, with pro-life commenters recommending films that comply with their stance. Yet Eliza Hittman’s astonishing film gives you its position wordlessly, in the form of a question that will cross your mind. Autumn (played brilliantly by newcomer Sidney Flanagan) is pregnant, and there’s no reckoning with her need to get an abortion. But Autumn and her cousin, Skylar (Talia Ryder, also great), must travel to New York to get one without parental approval, on their own in an unfamiliar, scary place, forced to stay more nights than they planned. And this whole journey leads to the question: Why is this so difficult? For in a fair, equal world, this film would not exist, yet Hittman knows the truth and gives it to us. It’s occasionally hard to watch, sad throughout, and the scene from which the film gets its title is devastating. But Hittman doesn’t wallow in misery; her patient, cinema verite method leads to moments of hope, rewarding because of the slow yet determined pace, that are overwhelmingly emotional and always earned. Streaming on HBO Max 4: Another Round isn’t the simple message movie it appears to be. The outcome of four teachers testing a theory that everyone would be happier if they were a bit drunk every day is easy to predict: the glorious highs of drinking will be ruined by catastrophic lows. Yet even while highs and lows happen, they never quite happen in the way you expect. The drinking they do is not a solution to but a motivator in fixing problems plaguing each of the men’s lives, lives you grow to care about very quickly, and each fix never feels overbearing or unrealistic. In fact, sometimes their drinking is strictly a plus, not the easy solution many people would reach for in this type of film. Tension is exacerbated by one smart choice that leads to two unique conflicts: all of these men testing the experiment are teachers, meaning they are trying not to be discovered day-drinking and, for a plot thread that provokes even more interesting conversations, they are directly influencing kids and teens with their drinking attitudes, even if they don’t entirely realize it. Of course, the film reveals plenty of issues with overdrinking and reliance on alcohol, too, but never in a way that feels like overkill. This nuanced conversation about liquor culminates in one of the best endings of the year, one which revels in the lack of answers it gives you. The ambiguous nature of it is joyful, sad, funny, and terrifying all at once, and it makes the entire experience wash straight to your head – luckily, with no hangovers involved. Streaming on Hulu 3: Part of the reason Bad Education stuck with me was its release date. In April of 2020, I was sad and missing everything, like all of us were, and while the thing missed most were other people, I also missed the shared experience of going to movie theaters, of sitting in the dark with strangers and letting something take us all away. Bad Education was a reminder of why. Sitting in a theater watching this with people would have been a joy, not only for the surprising humor it brings to its true story but because of the way the film tricks us: it makes us like its main character, Frank Tassone. We see how much he cares and loves his job, how much extra effort he puts in to make people happy, and in that way Frank cons us as much as he cons the characters in the film. Hugh Jackman lends the charisma that we fall prey to, while conveying the sudden fear and agitation that come out in key moments. After his showy debut, Thoroughbreds, many have deemed Cory Finley’s direction here boringly efficient, yet I found it gripping. He conveys the euphoria school administrators feel at the beginning through long, sweeping tracking shots, while lending weight to the most basic scenes of dialogue with a few key close-ups. Each of these interactions are brilliantly written, revealing plot and character with a great pace and attention to detail that is helped by screenwriter Mike Mawosky’s upbringing during the time and place the film takes place. He manages to make such sad people genuine, touches on themes of the importance of journalism and the easiness of complacency, while always keeping us entertained and engaged. It is everything a good biopic should be, a fascinating story told with humor and empathy. Streaming on HBO Max 2: Martin Eden is an Italian film so languid and old-school, filled with actors who look like 1940s film stars, that it feels like we’re watching a reprint rather than a brand new feature. The love story at the center, between the working-class title character and a wealthy woman, is built methodically; the camera captures their instant attraction, their growing friendship, and their soon-unbearable longing for each other with grace and thought. Their class difference also informs the other aspect of the film, a query about the advantages of socialism vs. individualism. The seemingly differing topics transition into each other perfectly, and many of the best scenes manage to include romance and political thought in the same moment without ever feeling excessive or obvious. Adapted from an American novel of the same name, the Italian setting ends up adding to the material, as it romanticizes the beauty of Italy like a tourist while acknowledging a harsh, working-class life that might typically be ignored. As the film progresses, our good will for Martin is challenged as his pretentious, hot-headed nature bubbles to a head and makes him almost an anti-hero, but never in a way that rings false; this spectacular transformation is indicative of thoughtful and patient writing reflecting the past right back at us. Streaming on MUBI 1: Somehow, Time works. This is a documentary with a strange structure, a black-and-white presentation, a potential pretension that exudes right down to the short, ambitious title. Yet everything that would have potentially put me off sucked me in, right from the quiet, heartbreaking opening scene. It lets you know everything this movie will touch on: the passing of time, the criminal justice system, and most of all love: its power and beauty, horror and detriments, whether the love is for protagonist Fox Rich’s children or the incarcerated husband she is attempting to free. Rich is a wonderful subject who you get to know so intimately in the short running time, complicated and frustrated and always wonderful to watch. Her journey to get her husband out of jail is certainly relentless and sad, but never stops feeling vital and, most of all, challenging. For her husband’s sentence was not because of a simple crime, easy to dismiss; he did something bad behind good reasons, and his penalty isn’t an attempt to teach him, to make it not happen again; it is simply a punishment. Time makes you question the way the world thinks of criminal justice systems, while always staying focused on the personal story being told. Every single emotion here is accentuated by the beautiful music that plays throughout the film by Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guebrou, not written for the film but suited to it entirely in its overwhelming nature. All of it builds to a highly emotional climax, one which would feel like overkill in any other movie but is somehow earned by every majestic moment before it. More than any other single movie this year, I have continued to think about and adore this film as time goes by. Streaming on Amazon Prime 1… Part 2: Yes, I’m cheating, but for a good reason. Small Axe, a collection of five films about the West Indian community in London from the 60s to the 80s, is hard to categorize. It gets its title from a proverb used in a Bob Marley and the Wailers song: “If you are the big tree, we are the small axe.” That big tree is the system-at-large, the courtroom, educational policies, the police force: systemic racism that exists in every facet of society. Yet as much as these films focus on these huge problems in realistic and nuanced ways, many of the best moments come when the small axe, this community of Black Londoners living working-class lives, simply have fun with one another. The first film, Mangrove, has the patience to set up plenty of small details for a courtroom drama that will unfold in the second half while allowing for an extended dance sequence on the streets of London that revels in the joy of this community simply being together and celebrating, a reminder of their humanity before the film focuses on the fight to preserve it. The next film in the series, Lover’s Rock, expands on this joy, making a 70-minute long film where the only plot is a young woman going to a party, and allowing us to feel the heat of that tiny room, see the sweat dripping from countless foreheads as they dance to the titular reggae subgenre of lover’s rock, and be swept away by the beauty of simply seeing people belt their hearts out to music, without a care in the world for their voice cracking. This party is not without its tension – creepy guys, police sirens in the distance – but its willingness to not force too much drama into this setting and simply immerse us in this tiny, crowded space (especially when we lacked them this year) made it one of the most memorable and relevant things I watched all year. Red, White, and Blue was also immensely relevant, yet in an entirely different way: its focus on Leroy Logan (John Boyega in an incredible performance) attempting to reform racism and brutality in the police force rang even truer because of the heightened conversation about Black Lives Matter. For Logan cannot succeed as one man against the world, no matter how hard he tries, and the inevitability of that makes for some of the best scenes of the year; when his anger and frustration reach understandable boiling points, all McQueen has to do is hold on the smirks of his imperious colleagues to make the effort feel hollow, inconsequential even as Logan tries everything he can to get through. Yet the small amount of hope we’re left with feels genuine, a reminder that change has to come eventually, even if Logan never gets to reap the rewards of his efforts. Alex Wheatle is the weakest entry, suffering from structural issues and the least steady pace of all the films, one which didn’t keep me fully engaged like all the others. Moments still shine, however, as the title character’s journey towards ingratiating into his community provides interesting perspectives and a more breezy tone. The final film, Education, is occasionally a bit overbearing, but for a very understandable reason: the topic, drawn from McQueen’s personal experience, is about a child, Kingsley, abandoned by the education system, put into a boarding school that doesn’t further anything besides his mischievous nature. What’s amazing here is that you understand the good intentions of the system being criticized, even as its laziness ultimately makes efforts useless. Kingsley does need extra help; he is behind the other students in his class and has a tendency to fit into a class clown role. But instead of helping him and elevating him, the system gives up on him entirely, deeming to fit him into a useless class and throw every curiosity and benefit he has away. They tell Kingsley he is stupid and unworthy, and he actually begins to believe it. Yet the stilted family life that sucks you in during exposition also comes to be Kingsley’s savior, and the loving scenes that result are the highlight of the film and a fitting way to end the anthology. Small Axe has been considered a limited series by awards shows this season, and the thematic connection between each film makes them consumable in this way, yet the distinct worlds of each story stand on their own. This is such a vital work of 2020, always beautiful to look at and always worth continuing to think about. Streaming on Amazon Prime I hope you enjoy any of these if you end up watching them, and I hope life is somewhat ok during this awful time. Stay safe.
3 Comments
Lucas
3/19/2021 05:32:05 pm
No Evangelion; 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon A Time? Gonna have to give this list a big ZER0!!
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Eric Muschler
3/23/2021 11:57:05 am
Man, I didn’t even know 1/2 of these. Got some time on your hands! Thanks. I can go back to this and find something worth watching!
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Evie
3/28/2021 03:38:22 pm
Damn I have my viewing work cut o for me but also second what Lucas said
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