My Favorite Movies of 2020

2020: The year we collectively agree to take a mulligan (or a Carey Mulligan, I guess, but we can talk about Promising Young Woman later). The year where everyone gets a pass. The year where movies got pushed back forever or studios just threw up their hands and streamed them for free. Just look at 2020’s Oscar nominees where there isn’t a big budget surefire bet in the bunch. Instead there are a bunch of smaller, more intimate films that would typically get overlooked but this year get a chance to shine. Despite getting a pass for being a down year, every down year has at least 10-15 movies that are excellent enough for a list.

15. I’m Thinking of Ending Things
Directed by Charlie Kaufman

I ended up consolidating two films on my original top 15 and needed a film for the last spot. This was a fun little exercise that made me think about every other movie from 2020 that I had seen. The problem is there are at least 5-10 movies from 2020 that I wasn’t able to get to, and the odds of at least one of those slotting higher than this one are extraordinarily good. AND YET. This is about what I can get to by Oscar Night, and despite having mixed feelings about Charlie Kaufman’s latest, I sure as hell haven’t forgotten it. That movie is stuck inside of me. It’s pure kino. The way this movie unfolds layer by layer like a rotten onion is truly magnificent. The performances are all excellent, but Toni Collette’s deranged mother character was one of my favorite performances of the year. The details of I’m Thinking of Ending Things are best left unsaid so you can best have the most uncomfortable viewing experience possible (which is weirdly desired in this case). For what it’s worth, it’s hard to find filmmakers willing to get this weird while still trying to keep us cemented to an emotional center.

14. The Trip to Greece
Directed by Michael Winterbottom

I loved the first Trip movie so much, and hated the second Trip movie so much, that I didn’t even know there was a third Trip movie. I signed on to review The Trip to Greece thinking it was the third installment, curious to see if they were able to right the ship. I still haven’t seen The Trip to Spain, but the qualms I had with The Trip to Italy (that it was a photocopy of the first one with diminishing returns a la Michael Keaton in Multiplicity) vanished. For all the wonderfully idiotic jokes and impressions and ribbing and banter, this is a surprisingly deft tale about two men getting up there in age and trying to make peace with the lives they have lived. Had I known I was going to like the film this much, I would have saved myself for the miniseries.

13. Raya and the Last Dragon
Directed by Don Hall and Carlos Lopez Estrada

Disney gonna Disney, I guess. The Movie Theater In Your Home rentals the pandemic brought felt a bit like a Pandora’s Box. So convenient and appealing, but with a hefty $30 price tag. Once you open it, you’re going to end up doing it all the time I thought. Was Raya and the Last Dragon worth $30? You bet. I love how Disney Princesses have slowly and steadily become more resourceful badasses. Tangled hinted at it, the Frozen movies hinted further, Moana took it to previously not-before-seen highs of competence, and Raya goes all in. What I love most about this film, however, is its lack of a clear antagonist. It’s rare to see shades of gray like this from an empire built on fairy tales, but the central construct is that everyone in this fantasy world needs to cooperate to take down a greater evil that will destroy them all, and they’re all unwilling to do it. Sound familiar? It’s hard to think of a movie better suited to watch during quarantine as maniacs rail against the measures that will get us through a pandemic safely.

12. The King of Staten Island
Directed by Judd Apatow

Like all of Judd Apatow’s movies, The King of Staten Island is about 45 minutes too long, rambling, unfocused, and full of heart. Apatow is a clumsy filmmaker whose work I’ll always check out. This is Pete Davidson showing the world he’s not just that tattooed stoner guy from SNL, turning in outstanding work as a loosely fictional version of himself. Bill Burr (who had a hell of a year as a capital A Actor with this and his incredible Space Boston accent in The Mandalorian) is a revelation here.

11. Fireball: Visitors From Darker Worlds & Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin
Directed by Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer

Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin
Directed by Werner Herzog

Watching the Ken Burns Ernest Hemingway docuseries on PBS the other night, I started thinking about what it would look like had it been made by Werner Herzog. Burns is great, and I love his documentaries, but I much prefer Herzog’s subjective, wildman approach to a subject over Burnsy’s dry, informative style. Both have their place, but whereas Burns’ work feels like school, Herzog’s feels like a trip down the rabbit hole. Obviously, I would follow Herzog to the ends of the earth, and it always seems like that’s where his subject matter takes him. Both of his 2020 docs are incredible. One is about asteroids, one is about adventurer Bruce Chatwin. Both films have tons to say about who we are as a species, and both capture the irreverence of the human spirit and our small place in this world (and cosmos). I love this man.

10. Soul
Directed by Pete Doctor

Pixar gonna Pixar. While Onward is more on brand for me in regard to their 2020 output, Soul got stuck in my, well, you get where I’m going with that. Maybe it’s because I also watched A Matter of Life and Death earlier this year and there are some gleeful parallels here, but also, just, dangit Pixar has a map to our collective EMOTIONAL RESONANCE button and just slams on that sucker at every opportunity. While Disney’s inability to keep black bodies IN their bodies when they feature African-American’s in their films, at least this one isn’t as bad as The Princess and the Frog. This one at least feels like it’s the story of a black man, which is a big step for Disney. And despite all of the EMOTIONAL RESONANCE button mashing, this movie is also funny as hell. The lone serious student film I made was about the idea of the afterlife, so I have a soft spot for that sort of thing, and Soul has so much fun with it that I realize I was wrong when I was pondering which Pixar movie was most tailor made for me. It was this one all along, duh.

9. Escape From Pretoria
Directed by Francis Annan

If you held a gun to my head and had me pick a favorite movie subgenre, I would instinctively say “Prison Escape Movie.” But honestly, who doesn’t love a good prison escape movie? I watched Le Trou last year and immediately slotted it into my top 20 movies of ALL TIME. The Great Escape. The Shawshank Redemption. Stalag 17. Escape From Alcatraz. Rescue Dawn. The Count of Monte Cristo. Maybe it’s something about man’s desire to be free or whatever. LIVE FREE OR DIE. Etc. I can’t get enough. What’s amazing is that there are still a slew of prison break classics that I haven’t seen, and knowing that I have a vast well of escape cinema to draw upon brings me great comfort. Add Escape From Pretoria to that list. I went into this one like, “Ok, young director trying to make his name, Harry Potter trying to further establish himself as a serious actor even though he doesn’t need to because everyone loves him unconditionally, apartheid era social commentary, this will probably be pretty good.” It’s as good as any of the greats. I think one thing the prison break movie has that gives it an unfair advantage in regard to other genres is the built in tension. The scene where they ALMOST get caught and the plan that has been painstakingly carried out is almost thrown out the window. It’s pure horror movie stuff. But I don’t really like horror movies, so maybe this is where I go for that feeling where I feel like my heart is going to fly out of my chest and run down the street. Director Francis Annan isn’t just a name to watch, he’s someone I’d put money on to become a star because man this one was just so damn good.

8. The Place of No Words
Directed by Marc Webber

20 year old me would have decried this film as a sappy vanity project. I know it. 35 year old father of two me openly wept at multiple points during this movie. This is effectively Marc Webber’s way of working through the anxiety of what would happen to his son if he died prematurely. Webber’s son Bodhi plays himself, and Webber’s wife Teresa Palmer plays herself. Everyone plays themselves. The film jumps between Webber’s Hollywood reality and a children’s fantasy world as his character attempts to tell his son that he has terminal cancer and is dying. Despite the contrivance of the story’s structure--which I was into, and yet find it hard to recommend this film to anyone--it feels like an elevated home movie. Like what if your home movies were an art film? Webber is one of those actors I’ve always loved--from Todd Solondz’s Storytelling to Scott Pilgrim--so I’m probably biased, but if The Place of No Words is anything it’s honest, and honest filmmaking is a treasure.

7. The Father
Directed by Florian Zeller

Here’s another one that I’m shocked got a Best Picture nod, considering how intimate this film is. If this film was just two absolute stars in Olivia Coleman and Anthony Hopkins working pure thespian magic it would still be one of the year’s most quietly compelling films, but Florian Zeller’s use of the form to illustrate Hopkins’ titular Father’s Alzheimer’s is some of the year’s most incredible cinematic wizardry. Zeller effectively puts you in the shoes of someone who is losing their memory, and this brilliant trick allows you to empathize with a person suffering from a degenerative memory disorder unlike any other film. Even as Hopkins lashes out at those around him and is exceedingly cruel to his daughter, Zeller allows you to understand why he is acting this way. It’s absolutely heartbreaking stuff, and it’s a shame that Zeller was snubbed for Best Director because this is what brilliant directing looks like.

6. You Cannot Kill David Arquette
Directed by David Darg and Price James

I remember when David Arquette won the WCW title. I was a ride or die WWF kid, but like all of us, we still flipped over to TNT during the commercial breaks. This was when WWF had basically won and WCW was in its death throes. Hence desperately putting the belt--the same one held by Ric Flair and the like, a belt of prestige goddamnit!--on an actor who didn’t give a shit about the business to pop a rating. For wrestling fans, this was what we thought about when we thought of David Arquette. He was a joke. Someone who Jim Cornette would say KILLED THE BUSINESS. I wouldn’t go that far, but it David Arquette + Pro Wrestling definitely didn’t equal something pleasant.

You Cannot Kill David Arquette starts with that presumption and builds on it. It knows you hate David Arquette the Wrestler. It knows you thought him winning the strap in the late 90s was idiotic. So seeing how much he cares about the business, and watching him transform himself into a legitimate pro wrestler is pure movie magic. You don’t need to be a wrestling fan to get into this movie. I am of the mind that people like watching documentaries that focus on people who are passionate about something, and it doesn’t really matter what that something is so long as their passion is true (unless that passion is, say, being a Nazi or something equally abhorrent). This is a movie about trying to make good, even when everyone around you thinks you’re crazy, and then making good. It’s an outta nowhere feelgood story that I have been hawking to anyone and everyone all year. CURRENTLY STREAMING ON HULU GET ON THAT BROTHER OOOOOHHHH YEAHHHHHHH!

5. Nomadland
Directed by Chloe Zhao

Once I put aside the glamorization of the Amazon Warehouse that this film depicts (not a piss bottle in sight, and I desperately want to see the contract that says you can shoot at the warehouse, but you have to make it look like the happiest workplace on Earth), I was able to fully immerse myself in this portrait of a woman (and a cadre of RVers) attempting to set herself apart from the American capitalist system that killed her husband and set her adrift, while still relying on the gig economy to fund her meager van life. Frances McDormand is unreal here. I don’t know how she does it. It’s like she exists in a sort of zen state. Like she doesn’t even need to act, that’s just her. It’s awe inspiring. David Strathairn is also someone I love to see pop up here and there and he’s a perfect foil for McDormand (earlier on the day of watching this I watched him in The Expanse with his quasi-South African Belter accent and I think that really cemented how much I love this guy, and how damn talented he is, and how it’s a shame he didn’t win that Oscar for Good Night and Good Luck). But this is Chloe Zhao’s movie, and if it wins Best Picture and she Best Director that is going to feel like a coup. It shouldn’t feel like a coup, because Nomadland firmly establishes her as one of the most talented directors we have right now (I can’t WAIT to see her Marvel movie Eternals, oh boy). This movie could be bleak, but she breathes so much life into it. Masterful stuff.

4. Boys State
Directed by Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine

The premise of Boys State is compelling enough—every year a thousand plus high school boys in Texas (though many states have Boys State and Girls State programs) participate in a mock government in an effort to teach them about our democratic institutions—that it doesn’t really need to do much more than present the program to be interesting. Instead Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine gave us one of the year’s most entertaining, depressing, and hopeful films. It’s Model UN meets Lord of the Flies. A bunch of hormonal teenagers vying to outmaneuver each other in the fake governments they are establishing. Moss and McBaine focus on a handful of boys from various backgrounds and with varying political ideologies, and all of these boys are among the year’s most compelling characters. From the Machiavellian Reagan obsessed Ben Feinstein (who proves himself to be the film’s truest villain) to longshot party leader Steven Garza (who proves himself to be the film’s hero and single handedly gives you hope for a better future) to Robert McDougall who uses a silver tongue and All-American Boy vibe to sway his compatriots on the evils of abortion and gun control before admitting later on that he doesn’t actually believe any of that stuff and this is all a game to him. It’s our political system write small, and perfect viewing for the what proved out to be (so far) the end of the chaotic cruelty of the Trump Era.

3. First Cow
Directed by Kelly Reichardt

I dipped out on Kelly Reichardt for a minute and I don’t know why. The last work I saw of her was back in the early days of Netflix streaming when we started Meek’s Cutoff and the stream froze and when we couldn’t get it back up and running, gave up. What a shame. She’s so great. First Cow plays like a parable set amongst the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest frontier. Despite the simplicity of the story--two outcasts form an unlikely partnership and steal milk from the frontier town’s only cow to make delicious cakes and sell them to the townsfolk--every frame feels like it weighs a ton. John Magaro and Orion Lee both give the sort of compelling and tender performances this kind of movie requires to really sear it in your memory.

2. Promising Young Woman
Directed by Emerald Fennell

Jenny was begging me to rent this for weeks, but I just couldn’t justify dropping $20 to watch a movie that would be down to the standard $6 rental price or better yet, streaming on Hulu or whatever, within a few weeks. And lo, it dropped in price and I acquiesced. And had we blown the full $20 on this, it would have been well worth it because goddamn what a movie. Director Emerald Fennell absolutely nails her debut feature, and every little detail about this movie feels intentional. I’ve seen complaints about the film’s inconsistent tone, but I don’t see it. Everything move feels purposeful, and the blending of satire, exploitation film, and searing critique of American rape culture makes this a big ol’ box of TNT. It’s pure righteous anger towards a culture that caters to protecting the lives of men while women “have it coming.” Carey Mulligan is incredible, and while that’s a platitude considering that she’s always incredible, she’s REALLY incredible here. We’d just watched her episode of SNL where she was pretty eh, which was kind of perfect because it lowered my usually high standards for her work and she absolutely dominates this film.

1. Sound of Metal
Directed by Darius Marder

Sound of Metal hit me like a truck. A movie I knew was probably going to be my favorite movie of the year the second it ended. When I saw the screener request come through at Moviejawn, I jumped immediately when I saw Riz Ahmed sitting behind that drum kit on the poster. Ahmed’s supporting work in Nightcrawler blew me away and I was pumped to see that he finally got a leading role. The logline: heavy metal drummer loses hearing and has to adapt to his new life as a deaf man, made it feel like a no doubter. And it was a no doubter. To see it nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars is exhilarating, because even though it won’t win, it’s still a miracle that such an small and intimate film even blipped on the radar.

Riz Ahmed is a star. After this I watched his breakout--Four Lions--and was impressed by him even then. It’s something about his eyes. They’re enormous, they convey so much feeling it’s insane. In Sound of Metal he excels at portraying trauma in real time. Here we have a man—Ruben--whose entire world falls apart. A musician losing his or her hearing feels like a Shakespearean tragedy. What’s so beautiful about Sound of Metal is it’s not so much about Ruben’s rage at losing his hearing--though there is plenty of that--but about his trying to find acceptance and adapt to his new life. The film leans on the deaf community to get this point across, and it’s just incredible stuff. Paul Raci--who runs the halfway house for deaf and hard of hearing folks where the main character ends up--is an absolute force, and again, to see his work recognized by the Academy seems baffling. Only in 2020. His Joe provides an anchor to Ahmed’s Ruben, and their interactions are the most incredible filmmaking of the year. It’s the beating heart and soul of this movie. Sure Mank has the technical brilliance (though the sound design of this film is incredible, I won’t spoil it but it’s one of the little details that makes this a masterpiece), Promising Young Woman and Nomadland have the social commentary, but in terms of pure feeling, Sound of Metal blows them all away.