THE TOP 5
1. Drive My Car
A three-hour-long, heady, Oscar-nominated Japanese film about a widower attempting to stage a version of ‘Uncle Vanya’ may not sound like riveting stuff, but ‘Drive My Car’ is as close to a game-changer as anything that has come down the pike in recent years. Though it spends most of its time wandering and meandering like an aimless stroll through an abandoned town, it never stops being absolutely riveting in its presentation. It’s not until all is said and done that you realize what a masterful film you’ve just experienced.
2. Belfast
Drawing from his own life experiences growing up during “The Troubles”, screenwriter (and director) Kenneth Branagh has put together a superb film that easily stands among the best and most affecting this year. Elegantly shot in black and white by Branagh’s longtime collaborator Haris Zambarloukos, it’s a deeply moving and wholly satisfying film about family and religion and politics and young love. The exquisite Catriona Balfe leads the way with a performance that instantly cements her legacy.
3. Spencer
Give Kristen Stewart all the awards now for her depiction of Princess Diana in this slice-of-life biopic set against the 1991 Christmas holiday at Sandringham Estate. Director Pablo Larrain (‘Jackie’), working from a pitch-perfect script by Steven Knight, creates a tinderbox, tosses the People’s Princess into the middle of it, and lets the embers crackle and pop until the whole place burns down. It’s a tough watch (and will, no doubt, infuriate many blueblood Anglophiles), but Stewart’s performance is as captivating as it is uncanny.
4. CODA
Locke & Key’s Emilia Jones stars as the titular young woman in CODA (short for ‘Child of Deaf Adults’), a sweet and heartwarming movie that winds up being far more successful than it has any right to be. What could have been a sappy, Hallmark-y mess instead emerges as an honest and engaging triumph. Jones runs away with the movie, but Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur also shine as her deaf parents.
5. The Power of the Dog
Over the years, Netflix has earned five Best Picture nods (‘Roma’, ‘The Irishman’, ‘Marriage Story’, ‘Mank’, and ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’) but they might finally win with this masterpiece from Jane Campion. The quintessential slow-burn Western, ‘Dog’ is an absolute thing of unsettling beauty, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as a bullying scoundrel who terrorizes his brother’s family in 1920s Montana. It’s subtle and creepy and unnerving and all-out fantastic.
THE REST
- Licorice Pizza
- The Tragedy of Macbeth
- Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
- Dune: Part One
- The Lost Daughter
- The Eyes of Tammy Faye
- Nightmare Alley
- Being the Ricardos
- Tick, Tick…Boom!
- Attica
- Last Night in Soho
- Wife of a Spy
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
- Pig
- Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain
- The Rescue
- Stop and Go
- The Guilty
- No Sudden Move
- Encanto
- King Richard
- The Last Duel
- Free Guy
- Spider-Man: No Way Home
- West Side Story
- Burning
- Ghostbusters: Afterlife
- Sing 2
- Black Widow
- The Harder They Fall
- Army of Thieves
- The French Dispatch
- The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
- No Time to Die
- Worth
- Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed
- The Protégé
- Vivo
- Annette
- Stillwater
- Closed for Storm
- The Suicide Squad
- Twas the Fight Before Christmas
- Don’t Look Up
- Mixtape
- Jungle Cruise
- Gunpowder Milkshake
- The Tomorrow War
- Blackpink: The Movie
- The Last Letter From Your Lover
- Fear Street Part Three: 1666
- House of Gucci
- The Tender Bar
- Summer Days, Summer Nights
- Whirlybird
- Ride the Eagle
- Los Angeles
- A Clusterfunke Christmas
- 8-Bit Christmas
- Love Hard
- Ron’s Gone Wrong
- Halloween Kills
- Fear Street Part One: 1994
- Venom: Let There Be Carnage
- Kate
- Vacation Friends
- Jolt
- How It Ends
- Die in a Gunfight
- Escape Room: Tournament of Champions
- Fear Street Part Two: 1978
- Finch
- Silent Night
- Red Notice
- Eternals
- My Son
- Sweet Girl
- Lady of the Manor
- Muppets Haunted Mansion
- Warning
- Home Sweet Home Alone
- South of Heaven
- He’s All That
- Black Friday
THE BOTTOM 5
90. The King’s Man
I called Matthew Vaughn’s 2015 original a ridiculously “profane and violent…James Bond-lite (and -like) romp”, and its 2017 sequel a “vertiginous frenzy of fast edits, tumbling camera work, and sub-sophomoric humor”. Alas, the downward spiral continues with this prequel/origin story starring Ralph Fiennes and Djimon Hounsou. Apparently, Vaughn couldn’t decide on a genre, a tone, or anything else that would help make this violent, sound-and-fury disaster worth watching. While it was in the process of being delayed and re-scheduled eight times over the last two-plus years, you’d think someone could’ve fixed it… or, better yet, make the smart decision to just shelve it altogether.
91. Reminiscence
‘Westworld’ co-creator Lisa Joy makes her directorial debut with this muddled, overblown mess that will leave you wondering how it ever saw the light of day. Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Ferguson try their best to keep it afloat (pun intended—it takes place in a future, flooded Miami), but no amount of talent helps you make sense of (or care about) what’s going on. Part Flatliners, part 40s noir detective caper, it adds up to nothing at all worth ever mentioning again.
92. The Addams Family 2
The tagline on the poster (“Unhappy to see you again.”) sums it up better than I ever could. It’s just bad, right from the get-go—lazy, moronic, and all over the place. Kudos to anyone who can make sense of it (or, better yet, care enough to make sense of it).
93. Father Christmas is Back
As much of a dumpster fire as you could possibly imagine and chock-full of god-awful, groan-worthy one-liners, this nonsensical disaster may actually make you want to swear off movies forever. Not only is it stupid and boring and lazy, it also squanders the talents of John Cleese, Elizabeth Hurley, and Kelsey Grammer… among others. What could have been a sparkling British comedy about the ultimate dysfunctional family instead crashes and burns and deserves to never be spoken of again.
94. Four Hours at the Capitol
While documentarians live by a mantra of objectivity and impartiality, sometimes it may, in fact, do more damage than if they had left well enough alone. Such is the case with director Jamie Roberts’ film about January’s siege on the US Capitol. Giving the insurrectionists yet another platform for their message (and, by the way, referring to them in the simplest of terms, such as “filmmaker”) does nothing to illustrate the severity of their crimes and may, in fact, excuse them as rational. Sure, intelligent, learned viewers can draw their own conclusions, but what about everyone else? Horribly irresponsible.