The 50 Best Films of 2020

 

This year has been “unprecedented” as I’m sure you’ve all been made incessantly aware of by commercials and celebs trying to relate you on social media. It was no different for film. As the theaters shut down and the big movies largely jumped into 2021, an opportunity arose for films that might not usually get a chance to shine. As such, the amount of interesting, excellent and wonderfully original films was almost overwhelming for me. 

The deluge of great stuff felt endless, especially without Marvel and Star Wars weighing down the majority of the conversation. It’s a good problem to have! With that in mind, I wanted to forgo the usual ten or twenty and highlight fifty of the best films I saw this year. This year had it all and the following is but a (large) sample.

50. Alone dir. John Hyams

John Hyams is a genre master. Making his name by upending the Universal Soldier franchise with the incredible Day of Reckoning, he immediately became a filmmaker I’d follow anywhere. At first glance, abduction thriller Alone feels like one out of a million DTV flicks you’ve seen before. Its basic setup is simple, a woman driving alone on an abandoned road encounters a madman and is forced to fight for her life for 90 minutes. Hyams, being the master that he is, crafts such a tight little thriller that none of the familiarity matters. Jules Wilcox and Marc Menchaca are excellent as mouse and cat and Hyams leaves no meat on the bone. This is just an excellent sprint of genre filmmaking culminating in one of the most brutal, cathartic and exhilarating final ten minutes of the year. It’s worth your time for that alone. 

49. Underwater dir. William Eubank

Releasing in the doldrums of January, Underwater looked to be like any other flick a studio had no faith in. That is of course if you’re unlike me. Being the world’s biggest Kristen Stewart fan I know, I’d been ecstatic over her entering full on genre filmmaking after a few years making some of the best films of their years with Olivier Assayas. She (and the film) didn’t disappoint. Essentially Aliens under the sea, Underwater follows Stewart and her ragtag team as they fight to survive a horde of sea monsters. It’s breaking no new ground but as a sci-fi flick dumped in January, it might be the best of its kind. Stewart is completely keyed in and the thing both moves like a freight train and looks gorgeous. You just have to suffer through a little too much TJ Miller but the payoff is glorious.

48. The Invisible Man dir. Leigh Whannell 

After 2018’s bonkers Upgrade, I was always going to be in for whatever project Leigh Whannell did next. That the project ended up being the Invisible Man starring one of the best actors of her generation was almost pure magic. Whannell has tapped into a bold mix of horror, tech and action and has carved out an exciting niche for himself. Upending the classic tale to focus on the titular monster’s victim and how he gaslights her was a stroke of brilliance. Genuinely terrifying and rewarding, it’s the best update of a Universal Monster since Coppola’s Dracula.

47. The Wanting Mare dir. Nicholas Ashe Bateman

Filmed entirely in a warehouse using incredible VFX and stunning miniature work, The Wanting Mare is the rare film that’s truly unlike anything else. First time filmmaker Nicholas Ashe Bateman crafts a haunting, generational tale set in an indeterminate future where the world may have finally given out to climate change. Within this world is a line of women who share the same dream which in turn manifests into reality. It’s a beguiling journey of past ghosts and future hopes, coalescing around a devastating finale. Defies description but demands attention. 

46. The Wild Goose Lake dir. Diao Yi'nian

Yi’nan’s gangster epic blends noir with a bit of martial arts to seamless effect resulting in a sparse thriller dripping with dread. His direction is what drives this, creating frames full of movement both in the center and margins. Gorgeous, neon lighting is kind catnip to most film obsessives and I’m not immune to its charms. The Wild Goose Lake is full of that. At its heart though, it’s an intensely compelling story of sacrifice, misguided love and the lengths one will go to risk it all. One of the most immaculately directed films of the year.

45. She Dies Tomorrow dir. Amy Seimetz

She Dies Tomorrow released smack dab in the middle of quarantine which was perfect because Seimetz managed to capture a collective anxiety better than anyone. It’s languid and surreal but in its depiction of an inexplicable illness that causes its victim to believe they’re going to die the next day, it pinpoints the sheer absurdity of something so traumatic. Sometimes all you can do is laugh because if you don’t the alternative is to scream. This lives on a wavelength all its own and it happens to be the one we’re all struggling through with one another. Hilariously, heartbreakingly horrifying.

44. Jumbo dir. Zoé Wittock

Girl meets theme park ride. Girl falls in love with ride. Girl...makes love to ride? It’s a tale as old as time. As absurd as that premise is, Jumbo manages to not only be wildly funny but emotionally devastating all the same. A clear metaphor for discovering one’s queerness, it’s a fresh perspective that goes in some wonderfully surprising directions. Noémie Merlant is a small revelation, falling head first into the vulnerability that comes with realizing that who (or in this case what) you love isn’t going to sit well with some people. More beautiful than you’d ever imagine.

43. True History of the Kelly Gang dir. Justin Kurzel

Justin Kurzel is a filmmaker who hadn’t fully landed with me until Kelly Gang. In this go-for-broke magnum opus, he rips open old wounds of masculinity and familial bonds while telling the story of Aussie outlaw Ned Kelly. Also finally landing for me is George McKay who gives an earthshaking physical and mental performance, shedding any preconceived notions I've ever had about him. It’s ultra-violent, darkly funny, excessively horny and features a god tier Russell Crowe supporting turn. It’s the only film you’ll see this year with men in dresses making their bloody last stand. It rules.

42. The Call dir. Lee Chung-hyun

Mean, shocking and full of twists and turns, The Call is one of the most head spinning thrillers I’ve seen in years.  Following two women separated by a phone call and 20 years, one helps the other prevent her eventual murder...then the film takes a WILD turn. It’s not too often I can say I wasn’t expecting where a film was headed on some level but this does that from scene to scene. The reveals never feel cheap and the gut punches land as effectively as they do because of an intense focus on character. Both women are excellent but it’s Burning’s Jeon Jong-seo who breaks out in a big, bad way. She’s going to be a superstar. Don’t watch a single trailer, go in blind and you won’t regret it. 

41. Deerskin dir. Quentin Dupieux

One of the funniest comedies of the year, Deerskin is kind of indescribable. Recent history’s most forgotten Best Actor winner Jean Dujardin plays a man in the midst of a divorce and midlife crisis who finds a deerskin jacket that instructs him to make snuff films. It’s such a ridiculous premise but Dujardin and Adèle Haenel as his bemused assistant/editor/love interest sell the absurdity impeccably. It’s bone dry but so funny and Dujardin gives the performance of his career, Oscar be damned. He also plays the jacket, itself another incredible performance. It’s wild, wonderful and oddly touching stuff and it only works because of his intense commitment. 

40. His House dir. Remi Weekes

Much like the excellent Atlantique from last year, His House is a horror story centered on the ghosts of colonization and war. This time though, the subjects are transposed to an England that clearly doesn’t want them. Adjusting is hellish as it is but it’s the haunting of an unspeakable act from the couple’s past that terrorizes them in their new home. Remi Weekes’ debut is a masterclass in dread, pacing and imagery, the latter being some of the most beautifully horrific you’ll see all year. Horror is at its best when it can comment on the injustices of the real world. His House is that at its most emotional, honest and bone chilling. 

39. Summerland dir. Jessica Swale

Gemma Arterton should be a much bigger star and Summerland proves it over and over again. Unlike most queer dramas, this never wallows too much in its sadness, opting for a somewhat whimsical approach instead. It’s maybe a bit too earnest and its narrative leaps are such that you either buy them or you don’t but it hit me at just right time this year. Arterton is transfixing as a grumpy hermit of sorts hiding a biting wit and a heartbreaking past, forced to take in a young child. It all has the potential to be oppressively maudlin but it walks the high wire of saccharine and honesty perfectly. So lovely with a massive heart firmly on its sleeve. 

38. Skylin3s dir. Liam O'Donnell 

The fact that Skylin3s exists is nothing short of a miracle. The first was panned by critics and audiences alike but writer Liam O’Donnell stuck to his guns, took over as director and delivered a sequel (Beyond Skyline) so sincerely bonkers that it was impossible to ignore. Back with the franchise’s third outing, he takes it to dizzying and exciting heights. That this franchise is on its third film, each one topping the last in sheer scope and insanity is genuinely delightful. This has grown to become one of my favorite franchises onscreen and it’s because of the heartfelt commitment to bringing B-movie excellence. A lack of budget means nothing to O’Donnell and his crew. And it should mean nothing to you as well because these look as good as anything being put out by Marvel or LucasFilm. Glorious sci-fi cheese with incredible set pieces and instant genre icons in Lindsey Morgan’s Rose and her fun loving alien brother, Trent.

37. Happiest Season dir. Clea Duvall

Continuing her forays into new genres, Kristen Stewart made her debut in a true romcom for the first time in Clea Duvall's delightful Happiest Season. Something of a first, there had never really been a mainstream queer Christmas romcom, this follows a lesbian couple through the difficulties of coming out to family. It hits so many of the traditional romcom beats but I found it to be a refreshingly honest depiction of how sometimes the right choice isn't always the easiest. And it's a brutally accurate look at the "progressive" but secretly repressed (and shitty) wealthy families that make up Pittsburgh's upper crust. And yes, the wild chemistry between Stewart and Aubrey Plaza might derail the whole thing altogether but it's also so good that it almost doesn't matter.

36. Host dir. Rob Savage

The idea of a "found footage" pandemic movie inherently sounds like a bad idea. We're still living through this nightmare and the wounds are still exceedingly fresh. Host however ended up being a brilliant surprise and one of the scariest films of the year. Made over Zoom while we all social distance, director Rob Savage and Co. crafted a frightening 57 minute exercise in sheer terror. The most exciting thing about a film like Host is that you have multiple smaller screens to focus on throughout resulting in an endlessly rewarding experience. There's always something going on in each frame and when your eye catches it, it's an exhilarating mix of joy and horror. Easily the most original film of the year and one that's sure to spawn dozens of copycats. 

35. Sylvie's Love dir. Eugene Ashe

Sincerity is a rarity in Hollywood these days. Cynicism has taken over and in ways it's understandable but I'd be lying if I said I didn't often find myself yearning for the melodramas from yesteryear. Eugene Ashe's Sylvie's Love provided 2020 with a much needed boost of earnest, Sirkian romance but through a lens we've never quite seen before. Wearing its love of Old Hollywood and the Golden Age of Television proudly, it's a refreshing and joyous film with astonishing compositions, like Rockwell paintings come to life. Tessa Thompson, always incredible, is as perfect as ever but it's former NFL star Nnamdi Asomugha who's a downright revelation. A startlingly assured presence, he makes for an incredible leading man, one that you can't help but feel like we've been deprived of for years. Thank god he's finally here.

34. Tesla dir. Michael Almereyda

Maybe the most audacious biopic in recent memory, Tesla isn't exactly a retelling of the legendary inventor's life, rather an idiosyncratic tribute befitting of someone who defied explanation himself. Wildly anachronistic, Almereyda makes use of modern day technology, almost as a way of saying none of this would exist with Tesla's ingenuity. Ethan Hawke is devastating as Tesla, eyes perennially glassy with tears like the weight of a future world that only he can see is crushing him at every waking moment. It might not all fully come together but it's a bold swing and one that I wish more biopics would attempt. 

33. Bad Education dir. Cory Finley 

It's easy to forget sometimes how great Hugh Jackman can be because he's either been lost in spandex land or hamming it up in musicals. He's excellent in both of those lanes but there exists a third Jackman, a wonderfully thoughtful and deeply felt Jackman that comes alive in Bad Education. In a darkly funny film filled with a stacked cast of ringers, it's Jackman who walks away with the film in a remarkably touching, maddening and layered performance. On top of that, the depths these people go is both so funny and so upsetting. None of it works without Jackman though. You have to fall in love with him so he can break your heart and boy does he.

32. Luxor dir. Zeina Durra

A travelogue set in Luxor, Egypt, Zeina Durra's journey of past love and loss is a spellbinding experience unlike any other. Languidly paced and exquisitely shot, you follow Andrea Riseborough's Hana as she returns to a city that holds a power over her that she might never slip free of. You're immersed in locale after locale just breathing and vibing with Hana and it's one of the most tranquil experiences I've had this year. I love films with a deep sense of place and this is one of the best.  Within Luxor exists a familiarity even if you've never been. The exciting and serene feelings of exploring a darkened city on a chilly night while the populace bustles in the margins. It's remarkable. 

31. Saint Frances dir. Alex Thompson 

A film like Saint Frances is easy to mess up. A misanthropic millennial takes a job as a nanny for a precocious child and along the way they learn to help each other.  Sweet? Yes. Saccharine? Anything but, Saint Frances is a bluntly honest look at the validity of womanhood, in all its forms and the reassurance that sometimes it's enough to not be enough. Thompson and star Kelly O'Sullivan's script goes in wonderfully surprising directions, never veering into caricature. The women that O'Sullivan's Bridget nannies for both had a chance to be underwritten or devolve into negative stereotypes but the script never fails them. It's a surprising and thoughtful stunner from beginning to end.

30. Birds of Prey dir. Cathy Yan

After the wretched Suicide Squad (maybe my least favorite film ever made), I was hesitant about a Harley Quinn starring vehicle. Sure, Margot Robbie was easily the only highlight of that disaster but could a spinoff escape its predecessor's stench? The answer is a resounding yes. Cathy Yan's Birds of Prey combines fantastical comic book silliness with the awe-inspiring brutality of Hong Kong action to exciting results. Most modern comic book movies are designed to fit the larger narratives that the studio has planned, few ever feel like products of their filmmakers. BoP is a wonderful exception and it's like nothing DC or Marvel has given us in a post-MCU world. Filled to the brim with color, queerness and jaw dropping excitement, it's a marked step up from the usual. Stakes so low that a breakfast sandwich is given the same resonance as saving the world, it's just a refreshing blast and stands out as not only the best comic movie of the year but perhaps the last five.

29. Ainu Mosir dir. Takeshi Fukunaga 

The first of three films on my list from Ava DuVernay's distribution company Array, Ainu Mosir tells the story of a community never really portrayed so personally on film. Array's mission statement is to give films from new perspectives a home and this is no different. A beautifully tender and deeply felt look at Japan's indigenous Ainu people, it follows Kanto, a young boy struggling between two identities. The push and pull between his Ainu culture and the larger Japanese culture around him is familiar yet totally original, a feat rare in film these days. It's the special kind of film whose power is so quietly forceful that by the time it sneaks up on you, you're already crying and not sure when you started.

28. Bacurau dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho & Juliano Dornelles

 

Bacurau is a strong contender for the most MOVIE of the year. It starts out like a typical art house film you might find at any festival but quickly descends into total B-Movie insanity. It's a juxtaposition that seems silly to even try and pull off but filmmakers Filho & Dornelles do it remarkably well. It's almost impossible to really describe what exactly is happening in Bacurau and it's the kind of film that rewards going into completely cold. You're either going to be in or out once the reveal hits but you won't come away saying you've ever seen anything like it and therein lies its immense power. I'm still not certain it all worked for me as a whole but I've never stopped thinking about it.

27. On the Rocks dir. Sofia Coppola 

Sofia Coppola has been dinged over the years for being an out of touch product of nepotism. On the Rocks shows that not only does she hear you but she might even agree just a bit. An astonishingly thoughtful and honest examination of her own privilege and place in all of this, Coppola filters her thoughts through a wonderfully zany Italian screwball.  Removed from the personal aspects, it's also just a funny and touching daughter/father film featuring two leads who have remarkable chemistry in those roles. It may leave you with infinitely more questions than answers but like the best Italian screwballs, that's life! And honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way.

26. House of Hummingbird dir. Kim Bora 

Few films knocked the wind out of me harder than House of Hummingbird. Kim Bora explodes onto the scene as an exciting and fresh new voice in South Korean cinema with a film that explores growing up in ways both familiar and different. It's touching and lovely with great performances (particularly from Kim Sae-byuk as our lead's mentor), sure but it's the script that blew me away. Filled with incredible little grace notes, Bora's script is a masterclass in setup and payoff. It's astonishing that this is her debut feature because this is the script of a master. She captures so many little intricacies that might otherwise go unnoticed and her film is all the better for it. A quiet powerhouse of a film.

25. The Assistant dir. Kitty Green 

Hollywood is still very much dealing with the reckoning of women finally speaking out about the endless abuse they've received and nothing has captured the sheer terror of it quite like The Assistant. Set in a production office headed up by a Harvey Weinstein stand-in, it follows Jane, his assistant and her observances of abhorrent behavior. It's a slow burning corkscrew that slowly twists itself into you, never really revealing much of anything leaving you to to surmise the realities based on Julia Garner's incredible performance. It hits on such a specific kind of dread, one where your own inaction could mean devastation for someone else. It raises so many questions, many going unanswered because they're not as black and white when your livelihood is equally on the line. A quiet, powerful stunner.

24. I'm Thinking of Ending Things dir. Charlie Kaufman

One of the most brutal takedowns of idealized romance I think I've ever seen. Kaufman's adaptation of Iain Reid's novel of the same name explores toxic masculinity down to its bones. It's not always men acting out with violence, it's awful self destructive men who map every insecurity on to their partner until they're nothing more than a cypher for you to express yourself through. Never asking them what they think or feel or need or want, it's a harrowing watch seeing that laid so bare. A family dinner turned into a lifetime of anxieties and shortcomings, this movie hurt in more ways than I can truly describe. Jessie Buckley is a superstar. 

23. Possessor dir. Brandon Cronenberg

Picking up where his father left off somewhere around the 90s before he transitioned away from this sort of thing, Brandon Cronenberg's Possessor is easily the year's most disturbingly horny movie. It's also one of the few that I've never felt able to do justice in describing. It's got all the hallmarks you'd expect with name like "Cronenberg" attached but still feels exciting and fresh in its own way. We're lucky yet completely undeserving of two actors like Andrea Riseborough and Christopher Abbott who'll just repeatedly throw themselves into anything. Needs to be seen to be believed.

22. Sound of Metal dir. Darius Marder
 

The power contained within Sound of Metal is one that's so quietly simple yet one that's much needed in a largely ableist society. Perhaps the most sensitive portrayal of deafness I've ever seen, it uses captions and sound design to make the deaf community the prime audience. Those small, yet massively important touches, immediately allow you to engage in ways that lesser films wouldn't. It never talks down to its audience, it simply portrays them with an honesty that feels more impactful than anything aspirational. It's also just a great film, flat out. Riz Ahmed is astonishing in a performance of a lifetime and Paul Raci as his mentor is equally incredible. Never too heavy-handed, it instead opts to force you to sit in silence and in doing so, it's all the better for it.

21. Shirley dir. Josephine Decker 

Another year with not one but two excellent performances from Elisabeth Moss. Here, in Josephine Decker's thrilling biopic of horror novelist Shirley Jackson, she's again a revelation. It's not just her performance that makes this so spellbinding though. Decker, taking her surrealist expertise, applies them to a more traditional narrative and crafts perhaps the only biopic befitting of someone as beguiling as Jackson. Like her novels, the film is a tense and sometimes frightening thriller going in wildly unexpected places. None of it works without Odessa Young's stunning transformation. Matching Moss beat for beat, it's the kind of performance we'll remember decades from now as Young ascends to stardom. Like Tesla, it's the kind of biopic that works because it matches its subject's sensibilities instead of trying to tell a straightforward story. Bewtiching stuff.

20. Jezebel dir. Numa Perrier

Numa Perrier's debut feature follows the sexual awakening of a young woman as she discovers herself through sex work. Never coming anywhere close to demonizing the industry, Perrier instead offers an honest, loving and sensual look at something that's been misunderstood for far too long. There's a deep love for this work and the kind of empowerment it offers women who take ahold of the chance to seize agency for themselves. Too often we hear from people who have never even considered it that this work is "degrading" and with Jezebel, Perrier offers a beautiful counterpoint. It's just lovely story of a woman finding herself, her sexuality and her own path forward in the face of tragedy. Tiffany Tenille is remarkable.

19. Tommaso dir. Abel Ferrera

Through his late period muse in Dafoe, Ferrara delivers a touching, surprising and blunt look at the volatility of addiction and anger. He blends multiple styles of filmmaking to try and reconcile his own shortcomings as a father, a husband and a human being and the result is devastating. Ferrara has always been an open and refreshingly candid filmmaker and in Tommaso we see him at his most bare. Nothing is left unsaid and every insecurity and bit of toxicity is shown to the world. This goes in directions I was never expecting, creating breathtaking moments of humanity I've never seen depicted onscreen. There's a moment where Dafoe, with his wife and young child, dances joyously to a throat singer on tv and it moved me to uncontrollable sobs. There's a power to this film that few others even come close to attaining.

18. Da 5 Bloods dir. Spike Lee

A lot's been said about Spike Lee's triumphantly messy elegy to the Vietnam War and how he maps it to modern America's continuous push for civil rights. I just want to focus on Delroy Lindo for a moment. In what might be one of the ten greatest performances I've ever seen on film, Lindo creates a character so full of life and contradictions. It's such a lived in and honest performance and it's astonishing that Lindo approached the role with reservations because you never see it in the end result. He's so committed, eyes burning with a hatred and agony of someone used and abused by his country only to return home and be forgotten, it's a titanic level of acting that should be remembered for eternity. The film itself is excellent and has been parsed by smarter people than myself. But it's Lindo that I keep coming back to. A towering presence that sears into your mind for eternity.

17. Palm Springs dir. Max Barbakow

In what might be my biggest surprise of the year, Palm Springs hit like a delightful ton of bricks. Both a romcom and a time loop film, two genres that are easy to dismiss because they've been done to death, it's such a sincerely earnest journey of self and second, third, fourth and hundredth chances to be a better person. It's also just funny. Hilariously so. It takes risks, does something completely new with the whole time loop thing and Cristin Milioti announces herself as a stone cold superstar. In maybe the most touching film of the year, it reminds us that even in an endless, monotonous cycle there's still room to hope. 

"Everybody's got an Irvine. I hope you find yours, man."

16. Shithouse dir. Cooper Raiff

Few "coming of age" films set in college have ever felt as true to life as Cooper Raiff's debut feature. And that's almost assuredly all to do with the fact that he's 23 years old writing his lived, recent experiences. It's been over a decade since I've been in school but this transported me right back to that time. The anxiety of being alone for the first time in your life, the weird shit you encounter but roll with because you assume that's what being an adult is, the exhilaration of a first love and how that completely throws your sense of self into whack. Shithouse is deeply felt to the point of almost being painful in how much it gets right. Nothing has ever truly captured that nebulous time in your life when just a few months ago you were being treated like a child and now, all of a sudden, you're thrust into situations that you'd usually ask an adult to handle. Keenly observed, funny as hell and a performance from Dylan Gelula that rivals any of the best of the year. Wonderful stuff.

15. The Nest dir. Sean Durkin

A haunted house film where the horrors aren't anything supernatural, just the monstrous creep of capitalism and how it fundamentally destroys people from the inside out. The Nest is maybe an easy film to write off as something as shallow as "rich people problems" but Durkin crafts a tightly wound, bitingly hilarious romp that upends wealth, prosperity and the inherent fallacies of a broken system. The camera work only adds to the dread, slowly zooming in on or pulling out from the most mundane moments, often windows (the windows of a false promise). It's a thrilling observation of the lengths one man will go, family be damned, to have it all and a delightful pissing on the graves of Reagan and Thatcher.

14. Let Them All Talk dir. Steven Soderbergh

Soderbergh's continuous experiments of form and filmmaking constantly leave me in awe and his latest foray is no different. In what sounds utterly boring on its surface, a few women go on a cruise to reconnect, becomes a downright thrilling mystery of sorts in his hands. The largely improvisational  structure allows the cast, particularly Streep who hasn't been this good in over a decade, to access a level of truth largely missing from many films like this. His decision to pace and shoot it like a glossy studio picture is another stroke brilliance, immersing you into the aura of these women and their pitfalls with another. It's a magic trick of a film and one that shouldn't work at all, let alone work this well. 

13. The Forty-Year-Old Version dir. Radha Blank

Exploding onto the scene with her debut feature, Radha Blank immediately feels like a bonafide superstar. Using her own life as a loose basis, her playwright turned rapper at 40 is a jolt of lightening asking the question "why not me?" And she's right! In being exactly who she is, she provides us with the kind of protagonist on screen that we almost never see. It's not just that though, she's full the same life and insecurities of people 20 years younger. We just haven't been given access to this kind of life before. She's a hell of a filmmaker and this is a hell of an opening statement, proving that it's never too late to seize life. While being a constant reminder that in order to do so, the people in power need to start allowing people who don't look like them the proper resources. Hilariously touching and beautifully specific.

12. Martin Eden dir. Pietro Marcello 

People often forget that Cinematography isn't just for pretty pictures to save as your background. It's a vital piece of storytelling that sometimes tells the story of a film better than any script or performance. Such is the case in Martin Eden where one man's journey from having nothing as a proletariat to having everything and more as a tyrannical author, is all told through its excellent camera work. Full of curiosity for life in the first half, the camera captures a world bustling around Martin. As he becomes more self obsessed and fixated on holding power, the camera slowly closes in until it's too much to bear. It's an astonishing feat of filmmaking.

11. First Cow dir. Kelly Reichardt

Kelly Reichardt's lovely tale of two men at a crossroads of American civilization hits harder than ever as capitalism continues to eat the most vulnerable among us. Never angry or biting, Reichardt instead approaches the subject through bittersweet lens and creating a love story of sorts. The men, in creating baked goods from stolen milk from a prized cow, are every struggling worker just trying to make their way in the world. But in a system set on exploitation, people like them were always doomed to fail in some way or another. There's an aching sadness to this view of an America of yesterday that feels startlingly close. There's an intense love for these people, just like all of Reichardt's work, and a contradiction of joyous heartbreak flowing throughout. The best final shot of the year.

10. Driveways dir. Andrew Ahn

Andrew Ahn's tale of struggling to fit in under new circumstances is an emotional wrecking ball. A big reason being the final performance from Brian Dennehy. A powerhouse of a man not always known for his sweetness, Dennehy delivers one of the best of his career as an elderly neighbor slowly becoming friends with a young boy and his mother.  He's so kind and gentle, adding yet another layer to an already legendary career. It's a special piece of work. Finding someone in moments of intense isolation can be difficult and we have to hold onto those special people as tight as we can. Driveways captures all of that and more, showing us that found family is as enriching and sometimes more meaningful than the one's we're born into. It's the kind of film that feels life affirming every time I see it.

9. Never Rarely Sometimes Always dir. Eliza Hittman

Some films have one scene that catapult them into "Best of the Year" territory based on that alone. Thankfully Eliza Hittman's beautiful and thoughtful Never Rarely Sometimes Always is excellent all the way through. But that scene. The titular moment is maybe the most devastating moment in film for 2020 and announces Sidney Flanigan as a major talent that everyone should be excited about. Focusing solely on Flanigan's face, Hittman levels you so profoundly with something as "simple" as a questionnaire. Hittman trusts her audience to feel what her characters feel without ever cutting to an obvious reaction shot or using a swelling, emotional score. It's one of the most humanistic films of the year in that way, forcing you to relate with something so personal and heartbreaking by walking you through every option (or lack thereof) available to someone like Flanigan's Autumn. A monumental deconstruction of how insidiously horrific our patriarchal society is without ever dipping into the obvious.

8. Minari dir. Lee Isaac Chung

Lee Isaac Chung's Minari is possibly the most American film of the year. At once hopeful and cynical in its view of the American Dream and how it's meted out to immigrants, Minari is a beautiful and honest work. Its power rests in that it's such a quiet and small film on the surface but underneath rests one of the great, American epics. A poem to the immigrant experience with echoes to the past and future. Its brilliance lied in David, played by Alan Kim. Chung's decision to process struggle and hardship through that of a little boy. You can't help but do anything but empathize and at its hard, film is ultimately an empathy machine. Minari itself plays a totemic role of sorts, the herb acting as metaphor for the family itself. It's something that takes time, love and care to grow and prosper. It's tough work but once it sprouts, there's nothing like it on this earth. A towering achievement.

7. Nomadland dir. Chloé Zhao

I don't think there's a better filmmaker at capturing the heart of the American midwest better than Chloé Zhao. Like her 2018 masterpiece, The Rider, Nomadland a gorgeous and elegiac view of people on the margins of the country. The trick Zhao consistently pulls off with her work is that she's never viewing anyone from a distance, never talking down to anyone. Her films are a love letter to people we almost never see onscreen. They're as personal as it gets, often casting real people to play themselves.  She has such a lovely way of getting honesty out of people and situations and framing them so beautifully. Her casting choices only enhance that. In Nomadland, Zhao works with name actors in Frances McDormand and David Strathairn for the first time but everyone else largely plays themselves as a group of nomadic people living in vans and RVs. Set after the last recession before this one, it hits you in a place that lives somewhere between distressing and hopeful. But, as always, Zhao manages to veer towards the latter in profoundly moving ways and Nomadland might just be her masterpiece.

6. Jallikattu dir. Lijo Jose Pellissery

I haven't felt a jolt of pure adrenaline via film since Mad Max: Fury Road.  Lijo Jose Pellissery's Jallikattu is a film that only crossed my radar because of news item about it being India's Oscar submission next year. By the time the credits hit, I was out of breath and the film had skyrocketed up my year end list. Set in a village in the hills of Kerala, Jallikattu tracks the shocking disintegration of a village and its men as a buffalo breaks free from the local butcher and runs amok. It's a wild piece of filmmaking from start to finish. Choreographed and shot almost like a musical, Pellissery rhythmically builds upon each scene and in turn you breathe along with the film. I love films set in a neighborhood or town where you get to know characters and then have them pop in and out as it goes. This is one of the best to ever do it, right up there with Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. The camerawork is flat out magic and the way it brings villagers in and out of scenes is masterful. There's nothing like Jallikattu and it's a miracle of a film. 

5. Time dir. Garrett Bradley

Speaking of miracles, Garrett Bradley's Time is one of the most beautiful documentaries ever made. Following the exhaustive journey of Fox Rich, a woman trying to get her husband released from an excessively long prison sentence and abolish the whole damn system while she's at it. Through degraded home video footage that she recorded for husband, we see the boundless love this family has for one another. And more importantly, we see the loss of years that the prison complex has taken from them. Never dwelling in sadness though, the film is a celebration of life, determination and of film itself, as a life blood that preserves life for those who don’t have the privilege to experience it with us. In 81 minutes, we don’t necessarily see an entire lifetime. Time, in this case, is what was cruelly stripped from this family. There’s an intimacy to this that’s breathtaking. It builds and builds and the feelings that wash over you in the final ten minutes are indescribable. The best kind of masterpiece, one that quietly wraps itself around you and before you know it you’re sobbing uncontrollably. 

4. Fourteen dir. Dan Sallitt

I've called many of the films on this list "stunners" but few are as truly stunning, front to back, as Fourteen. Tracking the years long friendship of two women, it's nothing inherently special on its surface. But as you settle into the film (and the film settles into you), you start to move with its little grace notes and its passage of time, it wraps itself into your psyche. Sallitt's choice to cut to a few years later every so often without anything cluing you in other than a different partner or a change of hairstyle is so, so brilliant. You feel like you're living life with these two women and experiencing every up and down in real time. It's kind of astounding. It's also refreshingly honest and so keenly observed. If you have a friend like Norma Kuhling's Jo, this will absolutely wreck you. The kind of friend that's oppressively "too cool", dangerous to themselves and others, disappears for months, maybe years...but is also always there when no one else is, who just gets you on a fundamental level like nobody else does. The rapport that you fall right back into like nothing's happened. And then they disappear again and maybe you run into them with a new friend and it's horrifically uncomfortable. Fourteen captures all of that better than any film I've ever seen and it does so while being a film full of heart and love for its two leads. A quiet triumph.

3. Ema dir. Pablo Larraín

Ema was my first favorite film of 2020. I had quite a few I really dug but Ema was the first of the year that just blew me all the way into another universe. That it only fell to number three is a testament to this beautiful epic. Despite only taking place over maybe months, Ema feels like it traverses space and time as the titular Ema goes on a journey of self expression, liberation and immolation. Figuratively and literally. It's almost indescribable the amount of joy this film brought me, its every fiber pulsing with vibrant life that courses from it into you. The dance sequences have lived inside my head eternally throughout this wretched year and lead Mariana di Girolamo's face is etched in my memory forever. It's a gorgeous, urgent and vivid piece of work from one of my favorite filmmakers alive.

2. Lingua Franca dir. Isabel Sandoval

No single film moved me more in 2020 than Lingua Franca and no filmmaker made more of a lasting impact on me than Isabel Sandoval. Her first film made in the US and since transitioning, she stars, writes, directs and edits this liberating and wrenching masterpiece. Following Oliva, a trans Filipina immigrant who works as a caretaker for an elderly woman, Lingua Franca captures the anxieties of our awful immigration system mixed with finding yourself sexually so beautifully. Sandoval has inspirations everywhere from the tense paranoia of Klute to the sensual artistry of Wong Kar-Wai. However, what's special about her and this film is that despite the influences, it feels like the film of a master all to itself. Her voice is so specific, so uncompromising and she refuses to talk down to her audience or give them easy answers.  The best kind of cinema forces you to engage with it and its creator as they are. It's an empathy machine and as uncompromising as this is, Sandoval creates so much space for love, tenderness and self worth that you can't help but yearn for Olivia's wellbeing at every turn.

 It's also a deeply sensual film, completely free of repression. It's been said by people far more eloquent than myself that we're living in the most sexless period of American film in recent memory. It's something I've noticed more and more each year and that's why Lingua Franca is such a breath of fresh air. Of course, just based on its existence, it's a statement. But the fact that we see a trans woman loving herself, making love and so free in that regard is something I'm not sure I've ever seen on film. It's such an intelligent and lived in piece of work that could only come from an auteur this sure of themselves.  Lingua Franca is a towering achievement and one that will live with me for the rest of my life. It's so rare that midway through a film you realize you're watching the work of a new favorite filmmaker but that's exactly what happened here. 

1. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets dir. Turner Ross & Bill Ross IV

If Lingua Franca moved me the most this year, Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets was the film I came back to the most, especially in moments of despair. There's been a small bit of handwringing over whether this should be classified as a documentary or a piece of fiction and my feelings are kind of at the point of "who gives a shit? It's incredible." Experimental filmmaking at its most pure, BNEP bears witness to the final night of a fictional Las Vegas bar from open to close. You can point to the brilliance of letting the patrons just converse unscripted, letting the crosstalk permeate throughout the air like you're sitting on a stool laughing with everyone else. You can go on at length about the brilliant performances, full of heart, especially a knockout from the ostensible lead, Michael Martin. But I think what makes the film so special, down to its marrow, is that it feels like a joyous swan song to something I'm not sure we'll ever get back. Set against the backdrop of the 2016 election, the film feels like a lost transmission from another time altogether. As our country experiences the creep of fascism and as we're all locked in our houses, a deadly illness ravaging our friends and family, BNEP was like a salve. One that I applied repeatedly. Inside this bar is an America that feels so achingly, devastatingly familiar yet so far away. Drunken disagreements, dancing, hugging, crying, laughing and maybe getting to the heart of what the fuck this all means at the bottom of your fourth beer with some guy you just met. I'm crying even writing this, which sounds dramatic but it's been a dramatic year. 

This is spoiler but for a film like this that doesn't really matter: After waking up on the same couch he's woken up on many times before, Michael realizes his time is up. The bar he's essentially lived in for years is over. As he gathers his things, the bartender from the night before tells him to drive home safely. Taken aback, it hits him with crushing despair that this woman never really paid attention to him. Otherwise she'd have picked up on the fact that he has no car to drive and no home to go back to. As he angrily heads out the door, he looks back and mutters "you had a nice place here."

It sure was, wasn't it?