25. Lucy (dir. Luc Besson) & The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears (dir. Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani)
READ MY LUCY REVIEW
BUY IT HERE
We kick off the list with a one-two punch of pure cinema, two movies that eschew narrative coherence in search of an impressionistic sensibility. Breaking down cinema to its base components, they might not make a lick of sense, but each casts a visceral spell hard to shake.
24. Locke (dir. Steven Knight)
STREAM IT HERE/BUY IT HERE
We move from the ecstatically cinematic to a premise, which on paper at least, sounds like the antithesis of cinematic: a movie spent entirely alongside a man in his car as he makes and fields phone calls about concrete, pregnancies and soccer matchups. But when the performer making these calls is Tom Hardy, a large part of the work has already been done for you.
23. The Double (dir. Richard Ayoade) & The Zero Theorem (dir. Terry Gilliam)
STREAM THE DOUBLE/BUY IT HERE
BUY THE ZERO THEOREM HERE
Next up, the sophomore effort from director Richard Ayoade, a film in complete control of its cinematic faculties as it displays one man’s (Jesse Eisenberg, nailing his dual performances) psychological dissolution upon the discovery of an exact duplicate who supersedes him at every turn. Also worthy of consideration is Terry Gilliam’s Brazil-esque riff that came out this year, a darkly comic and visually dynamic film with a focus on one man’s existential sickness versus that of an entire society.
22. Edge of Tomorrow (dir. Doug Liman) & Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (dir. Matt Reeves)
READ MY EoT REVIEW/BUY IT HERE
…quick-witted and enjoyable in a way that we should demand of all summer blockbusters.
READ MY DAWN REVIEW/BUY IT HERE
Be it thematically or dramatically, visually or kinetically, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes also has it over just about every other summer blockbuster in recent memory.
21. We Are the Best! (dir. Lukas Moodysson)
STREAM IT HERE/BUY IT HERE
A beautiful window into the insular world of pre-teen girls as well as a fist-pumping ode to the punk ethos that eschews virtuosity in place of genuine feeling and rebellious spirit, Moodysson’s adaptation of his wife’s memoir captures a time in a young person’s life that very few films manage to depict honestly, with warm and heartbreakingly relatable lead performances from the three girls at its center.
20. The Tribe (dir. Miroslav Slaboshpitsky)
19. God Help the Girl (dir. Stuart Murdoch)
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This pairs brilliantly with the aforementioned We Are The Best.
18. Force Majeure (dir. Ruben Ostlund)
Ostlund’s portrait of a family in decline following a father’s momentous split-second decision while on vacation at a ski resort can be cannily described as European art house-meets-Curb Your Enthusiasm, a simultaneously hilarious and through-provoking conversation starter/relationship ender.
17. Obvious Child (dir. Gillian Robespierre)
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The fact that it tackles needlessly controversial subjects matter-of-factly and without apology is what makes it not just a great film, but also an important one.
READ MY REVIEW
16. Boyhood (dir. Richard Linklater)
PRE-ORDER IT HERE
We often find ourselves looking back, but time refuses to wait and we’ll soon enough find those memories and experiences obscured and faded. There’s something sad about that, but also something beautiful in the potential each moment can hold, a humane balance Boyhood (and Richard Linklater) seems to intrinsically understand.
READ MY REVIEW
15. John Wick (dir. Chad Stahelski and David Leitch)/The Raid 2 (dir. Gareth Evans)
READ MY JOHN WICK REVIEW/PRE-ORDER IT HERE
BUY RAID 2 HERE
Two bone-crunching choices, one a sprawling crime epic with the most brutal, balletic action sequences you might ever see and the other an emphatic reminder of the value of narrative efficiency when coupled with an effortlessly cool lead performance and just the right amount of world building.
14. Why Don’t You Play In Hell? (dir. Sion Sono)
BUY HERE
Sono has specialized in the audacious his whole career (the surrealistic nightmare of Suicide Circle, the nearly four-hour epic about love, religion and upskirt photography that is Love Exposure) and his love letter to 35mm film is no different. Hilarious, violent and surprisingly resonant, it’s the best movie about movies in ages.
13. They Came Together (dir. David Wain)
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It took years for the last collaboration between David Wain and Michael Showalter to achieve the cult status it so richly deserves (the delightfully daffy Wet Hot American Summer) and I’m not making the same mistake here. They Came Together skewers the You’ve Got Mail’s and All About Steve’s of this world with comedic ringers and hilarious cameos filling out the periphery at every turn.
12. Ida (dir. Pavel Pawlokowski)
STREAM IT HERE/BUY IT HERE
Rich and gorgeous black-and-white cinematography mixed with luminous performances from both Agata Trzebuchowska and Agata Kulesza as the niece who discovers her Jewish heritage on the eve of taking her vows as a nun and the aunt who helps her discover the final resting place of her family who were murdered during World War II.
11. Nightcrawler (dir. Tony Gilroy)
PRE-ORDER IT HERE
Gilroy has created a gorgeous neo-noir here, with Gyllenhaal helping to elevate it to year-best quality with an unforgettable performance.
READ MY REVIEW HERE
10. Beyond the Lights (dir. Gina Prince-Blythewood)
A powerful refutation of the “they don’t make them like they used to” notion, this love story between a jaded pop sensation and the police officer with political ambitions is sensational, led by a stunning performance from Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Note to Hollywood: let Gina Prince-Blythewood make movies frequently, please.
9. Only Lovers Left Alive (dir. Jim Jarmusch)
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A return to the effortlessly cool work of his early years, the film takes what should be an utterly exhausted genre staple (the vampire) and crafts an utterly-unique and wondrous world to surround it…a profoundly romantic film that achieves a kind of grace his recent work has only flirted with.
READ MY REVIEW HERE
8. The LEGO Movie (dir. Phil Lord and Chris Miller)
BUY IT HERE
Snarky, inventive and hilarious throughout – fulfilling the obligations of a movie based on a toy line while also biting the hands that feeds it, Lord and Miller proved their inability to misfire with The LEGO Movie, the funniest comedy of the year.
7. Blue Ruin (dir. Jeremy Saulnier)
STREAM IT HERE/BUY IT HERE
A revenge movie that almost entirely transpires after the act is achieved — Blue Ruin is a stone cold classic of suspense filmmaking. Macon Blair proves perfect as the man in entirely over his head as he attempts to outrun the long tendrils of violence that creep towards him from all directions.
6. The Babadook (dir. Jennifer West)
BUY IT HERE
Unfortunately, Jennifer West’s exemplary psychological horror film has yet to screen in theaters in Milwaukee – it’s an incredible work about the demons we must reckon with on a daily basis in order to keep living, and is the rare horror movie that doesn’t sacrifice its central metaphor as a means of providing third act closure or silly jump scares.
5. Whiplash (dir. Damien Chazelle)
PRE-ORDER IT HERE
A toe-tapping genre-defying story that manages to be crowd-pleasing and disturbing at the same time, Whiplash is easily one of the years very best.
READ MY REVIEW HERE
4. Guardians of the Galaxy (dir. James Gunn)/Captain America: The Winter Soldier (dir. Joe and Anthony Russo)
BUY GUARDIANS HERE/BUY CAP 2 HERE
If these rankings were based on the movies I’ll be sure to watch the most over the course of my life these two would be co-holders of the number one slot. Read my reviews for both of them here and here.
3. Snowpiercer (dir. Bong Joon-Ho)
STREAM IT HERE/BUY IT HERE
Snowpiercer is the reason I love the movies—both viscerally exciting and intellectually stimulating. Incendiary, thrilling, hilarious and gut-wrenching, this is sci-fi filmmaking at its finest.
READ MY REVIEW
2. The Grand Budapest Hotel (dir. Wes Anderson)
BUY IT HERE
Make no mistake, Grand Budapest Hotel is as effortless and breezy an entertainment as Wes Anderson has ever concocted, but it’s a puff pastry that sticks to the ribs, managing lightness even as darkness encroaches from all sides.
READ MY REVIEW
1. Under the Skin (dir. Jonathan Glazer)
STREAM IT HERE/BUY IT HERE
Under the Skin is certainly not for everyone, but if you allow the film to burrow itself exactly where the title indicates, you will see no more impressive a vision this year.
READ MY REVIEW
