A Good Year

The floodgates to the better movies of the year open in fall. Then it’s hard to catch up. Not just writing about them in this my most humble blog, but even watching them. I also don’t write from a major city, although its proud inhabitants would probably scorn me for saying this, so we have to impatiently wait for some of the more talked about films to arrive. I will not be able to make my top ten list of the year until they do, even as I read with gusto the ones being made by my favored film critics. It is these I want to share, even though many may have already read them in the newspapers and magazines they originally come from.

Noteworthy in this year’s top ten is the variety in the selections among critics who, in the past, have pretty much agreed on their ten favorite films of the year. This is good news. It means there were a lot of good ones to watch. This year my favored critics all agree on only one film: Linklater’s Boyhood, the movie feat filmed over twelve years. I have seen the movie and was not captivated, while I understand the accomplishment this director has achieved. Could it be that the critics are all male; does that make the difference? I did not include Manohla Dargis on the chart, even though I enjoy her critiques, because her list was in alphabetical order and included much more than ten films, so we don’t know which her top were, but Boyhood certainly was on the favored list.

Ellar Coltrane in Boyhood

I think all critics agreed that there were more than ten films they would have selected as the best of the year. This is wonderful for us film lovers. If we just count the number of movies on the chart below, there are 28 very good movies on the list. The directors of these great films are also from all around the world, including South Korea, Mexico, Argentina, Russia, France, Poland, the UK and Spain, alongside some very talented US directors. Some of the American directors are very well known, like Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson, David Fincher and Christopher Nolan, and others still quite new and young, like Dear White People’s Justin Simien and Whiplash’s Damien Chazelle. There are only three women directors on the chart, one of them, Laura Poitras, for a documentary film. It is, however, fantastic that Ava Du Vernay stands out with her film Selma, included in the majority of critic’s choices on this chart.

Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons in Whiplash

The Lego Movie and Guardians of the Galaxy are surprisingly on these lists, surprising because it is rare that the movies on the top ten box office list are included on a film critics top ten. They were both fun to watch and wonderful achievements in digital and FX talent, so good for them!

Will these lists coincide with the films that the Academy and the different movie guilds and associations choose for their nominees? Most certainly the fact that this has been a good year in movies, but with such diversity, will probably make the choosing hard and the award season that much more interesting.  Happy Holidays indeed!

Ranking	New York Times A.O. Scott	Rolling Stone Peter Traverse	Entertainment Weekly Chris Nashawaty	The Guardian Adam Boult	Time Magazine Richard Corliss
1	Boyhood Richard Linklater	Boyhood Richard Linklater	Whiplash Demian Chazelles	Under the Skin Jonathan Glazer	The Grand Budapest Hotel Wes Anderson
2	Ida Pawel Pawlekowski	Birdman Alejandro G. Iñáritu	Boyhood Richard Linklater	Boyhood Richard Linklater	Boyhood Richard Linklater
3	Citizen Four Laura Poitras	Foxcatcher Bennet Miller	The Grand Budapest Hotel Wes Anderson	Inherent Vice Paul Thomas Anderson	Lego Movie Phil Lord, Damian Miller
4	Leviathan Andrey Zvyagintsev	Selma Ava Du Vernay	Life Itself Steve James	Whiplash Demien Chazelles	Lucy Luc Besson
5	Selma Ava Du Vernay	Gone Girl David Fincher	Selma Ava Du Vernay	Leviathan Andrey Zvyagintsev	Goodbye to Language Jean-Luc Godard
6	Love is Strange Ira Sachs	Whiplash Demien Chazelles	Guardians of the Galaxy James Gunn	Two Days, One Night Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne	Jodorowsky's Dune Frank Pavich
7	We Are the Best! Federico Padilla	The Grand Budapest Hotel Wes Anderson	Gone Girl David Fincher	Nightcrawler Dan Gilroy	Nightcrawler Dan Gilroy
8	Whiplash Demien Chazelles	Unbroken Angelina Jolie	Snowpiercer Joon-ho Bong	Ida– Pawel Pawlekowski	Citizen Four Laura Poitras
9	Dear White People Justin Simien	Under the Skin Jonathan Glazer	Birdman Alejandro G. Iñáritu	The Grand Budapest Hotel Wes Anderson	Wild Tales Damián Szifrón
10	The Babadook Jennifer Kent	Interstellar Christopher Nolan	Jodorowsky's Dune Frank Pavich	Lego Movie Phil Lord, Damian Miller	Birdman Alejandro G. Iñáritu