2015 was a very good year at the movies. From highly anticipated blockbusters to small documentaries, I found something entertaining and provocative all over the cinematic map. Individual rankings may vary according to the mood I’m in. And listed in order of how much they made me cry, this would be a very different list, with franchise revivals Creed and Star Wars: The Force Awakens battling for the top spot. But this was also an excellent year for powerful documentaries, a few of which might make you cry, too.
1. The Look of Silence. Joshua Oppenheimer returned to Indonesia for this powerful follow-up to his essential documentary The Act of Killing, which introduced us to the charismatic monsters behind Indonesian death squads of the ‘60s. Silence may be even more remarkable, not because, as advance word had it, it’s “more human”—what can be more human than murder? But because its multi-camera setups and arthouse feature pacing make it unlike any other documentary.
2. Mississippi Grind. It played for all of a whole week here, but directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck turned the unlikely prospect of a gambling buddy movie co-starring Ryan Reynolds into the year’s best drama. Great writing and cinematography help, but the film is carried by Ben Mendelsohn’s sad-sack gambler, my favorite performance of the year.
3. Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter. Loosely based on a true story, this almost visionary film observes the sad quest of a lonely Japanese woman (Rinko Kikuchi, in my favorite female performance of the year) who is so obsessed with the movie Fargo that she travels to North Dakota in search of its buried treasure. What could have come off as a winking celebration of pop culture becomes a bittersweet, exhilarating look at the search for meaning.
4. Creed. Two weeks before this franchise reboot opened, I had never seen a Rocky movie. But a weekend binge gave me a newfound respect for Sylvester Stallone (who turns in my favorite supporting performance of the year)—and made me think II and V are sorely underrated. Writer-director Ryan Coogler stays true to Stallone’s characters and pumps up the heartstrings even more than Rocky Balboa. Who knew that boxing movies were such tearjerkers?
5. Star Wars: The Force Awakens The year’s second successful reboot reportedly panders to fans, but even though I grew up on the first movie I had long stopped caring. Which makes it even more remarkable that J. J. Abrams was able to transform a series that had become cold and stale to something exciting and human again.
6. Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll . Thanks to the AFI Silver, the most memorable live performance I saw this year was a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of Cambodian musicians who had survived the tumultuous ‘60s. And by survive, I mean they weren’t killed. As I wrote in my Spectrum Culture review, the film “is more than a music documentary. It preserves the memory of musicians who paid the ultimate price for making people dance.”
7. The Duke of Burgundy. I didn’t care for the giallo pastiche of director Peter Strickland’s previous film, Berberian Sound Studio, and this erotic lesbian drama is clearly in thrall to European exploitation movies of the ‘70s. But Strickland gives this an unsettling and at time genuinely surreal tone that’s impossible to shake.
8. Queen of Earth Speaking of unsettling, director Alex Ross Perry turns mumblecore into psychological horror with a great performance from Elisabeth Moss. Sure, the dialogue isn’t particularly realistic, but with the help of an ominous droning score by Keegan DeWitt, Perry creates a distinct cinematic world. You wouldn’t want to live In it, but it’s fascinating to watch.
9. Anomalisa. I’m not looking forward to writing about writer-director Charlie Kaufman’s new animated drama. I went in completely cold and worry that its powerful central premise would lose its impact if you knew about it ahead of time. Kaufman fans should not miss this when it opens here on January 8.
10. City of Gold. This documentary about Los Angeles food critic Jonathan Gold isn’t just about food and writing, but about immigrant dreams and an unquenchable and generous curiosity. In my AFI Docs coverage, I wrote that, “It’s an inspiring film, not just for a food writer but for any writer and for anyone who eats food, which means you.”
Bubbling under in the 11-20 spots are Andrew Bujalski’s lonely-gym rat semi-rom-com Results; Mad Max: Fury Road; Experimenter; Macbeth; The Russian Woodpecker; La Jaula de Oro; The Big Short, which opens December 23; the revisionist Western The Salvation; The Tower Records documentary All Things Must Pass; and the D.C. punk doc Salad Days.
Honorable mentions go to Inside Out; American Ultra; When Marnie Was There; San Andreas; Iris; The Seven Five; Be Known: The Mystery of Kahil El’Zabar; White God; and The Taking of Tiger Mountain.
