Best Movies Of 2015
Last year around this time we talked about the Best Films of 2014. I don’t know about you but I think it’s time to turn this into a tradition. So I guess second verse, same as the first. In retrospect 2015 probably had some of the best mainstream films to come out in a single year, most of which could and should be award-worthy. Unlike last year when I had to go into the smaller, limited release market to fill out my list. For the most part, you have heard of every film on this year’s list.
- Spotlight
Spotlight is one of the most bare bones un-cinematic films this year. It looks and feels cold even though it takes place mostly in The Boston Globe office. White is the primary color in most of its scenes. The costuming is made of mostly drab shirts and costuming. The shots themselves are standard for the course with nothing particularly standing out thanks to its minimalist camera work. This is as sparse a film as one can have and yet it is completely riveting from beginning to end. Tom McCarthy’s docu-drama about the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team that won their first Pulitzer Prize after they uncovered a conspiracy of child molestations amongst Catholic priests in the Boston area is as brutally honest as it is surprisingly uplifting. It doesn’t need to be flashy to be great. It just needed to tell a story that needed to be told. The ensemble cast is great and infuses the team with a great sense of urgency and humanity with Michael Keaton and Rachel McAdams being the standouts. The only issue I have with it is that it is getting a boatload of awards and nominations that I feel should go to films both higher and lower on this list but even then this is a film that I wouldn’t mind seeing sweep an awards ceremony every now and then.
- The Revenant
The Revenant is probably the most macho movie to come out this year and probably the most artistic. I say that because even though it’s about how a frontiersman played by Leonardo DiCaprio literally crawls out of his own grave to hunt down the men who killed his son and left him for dead after a brutal bear attack. The movie is also about the spiritual struggle of man vs. nature while being set against beautiful naturalist photography from Gravity cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and a haunting orchestral score by Ryuichi Sakamoto who also composed 1987’s The Last Emperor. It also helps that the film is filled to the brim with scalping, shootings, tomahawking, head smashing, arrow shootings, hatchet fights, stick fights, gunfights, knife fights, and yes even bear fights, all the while DiCaprio damn nears kills himself as an actor basically begging the Academy Awards for that Oscar. Like Alejandro Inarittu’s other films its lyrical, poetic, and meditative but unlike those, it has dudes jumping off cliffs on horseback purely filled with white-hot vengeance for a member of their fellow man. Now give Leo his Oscar already, dammit!
- Inside Out
Is it cheating to say that your favorite character of the year is also the setting of the film? Because Riley from Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out might just be mine even though, again, she is the setting as the story is really about the emotions on the inside of her, specifically joy and sadness as after an altercation in their headquarters, have to travel all over Riley’s mind to return her core memories and themselves to HG before the other emotions anger, fear and disgust unknowingly ruin Riley’s life forever while trying to help her until joy and sadness get back. The best part of Inside Out is how emotionally intelligent it is. The film through Riley shows its audience an understanding of depression, denial, and trauma that most adults can’t even grasp. Which is even more incredible how Pixar and director Pete Doctor managed to get a lesson like “sometimes you just need to feel sad to get through life” and sell it toward a family audience and more importantly, towards kids. They made a film around the concept of when a child has the beginning of wisdom. And it worked. Pixar has shown the world why they are the top tier of modern animation. If there is one film I wish Pixar made a sequel to, this is the one. I think I found a new favorite Pixar film.
- The Martian
If The Martian was just a nearly perfect ultra-realistic Sci-Fi adventure film, that would have been good enough for me. The fact that it is so much more is what pushes it so close to the top for me. The Martian trusts in its audience that putting smart people in a tough environment and showing what they need to do to get out is all we really need for a compelling film. It also manages to be a great human story and character piece at the same time thanks to Ridley Scott deciding to cut back both the scientists on earth trying to think of a plan to get Matt Damon’s Mark Whitney home safely and Jessica Chastain’s crew trying to decide whether to keep on heading back home on their ship or turn around to pick up their companion. But above all else, it’s the film’s relentlessly optimistic vision of a near-future where everything from the rescue of a single person to a better future of all mankind isn’t solved by Tough Guy swagger or pseudo-spiritual beliefs, but instead through use of our brains and the spirit of global cooperation regardless of race, sex, religion, birthplace, or sexual orientation that made me love it as much as I do.
- Mad Max: Fury Road
The first Mad Max film in 30 years isn’t the best film of 2015 because I am a fan of the previous films from the 1980s. It’s the best film of 2015 because it is a film that is essentially one giant, two hour long, R-Rated car chase that is beautiful, artistic, thoughtful and meditative at the same time. The film blew the world away back when it came out in May when film critics, hardcore movie buffs, and general audiences realized just how good summer blockbusters can be. Not just highly entertaining like the recent Star Wars film but genuinely award worthy and not in visuals for sound design and other technical categories, but in big categories like picture, director, screenplay. It’s a feat that hasn’t been accomplished since Gladiator back in 2000. George Miller at age 70 brings us possibly the best action film of the early 21st century and puts it alongside Die Hard as an opponent for the category of Best Action Movie ever made, all thanks to his embrace of practical effects and how well it blends with CGI. The movie showed us how action can evolve in the 21st century by embracing women not as superior to men, but as equals. It appreciates the strengths and weaknesses of both genders and how when together, they can be stronger than before. The film also speaks and says volumes through its sparse dialogues, quick gestures, and complex imagery. Charlize Theron deserves at least an academy award nomination for best actress after she made the character of Furiosa one of 2015’s best characters through her costuming, actions, and even her very presence. There is so much work going on in each frame to build Max’s beautiful, yet violent world of fire and blood that I can genuinely say that no other art medium can tell the story and subtext it provides as well as film can. This needed to be a film for it to be as good as it is. Not as a painting, not as a book, not even as a video game. Mad Max: Fury Road needed to be a film for it to be as great as it was which is why it’s the best film of 2015 and one of my favorite films in general for years to come.
