So through a combination of busyness and laziness, it’s finally in February that I get round to publishing my list of my favourite films from last year. Added to that laziness and delay is the sad fact I only got round to writing my little thoughts for half the films, so do please excuse the gaps at the top of the list here.
As always, I’ve loved getting to see a breadth of films from all over the world, many of which emerged unexpectedly and totally caught me by surprise. Also given the fact that I watched many of these on streaming services (Netflix and MUBI) can’t help but reflect the way industry is changing and the way we get to view films is changing with it. It’s not all bad, as these services gave me the chance to watch some obscure foreign films that barely got released even in London.
There are trailers linked to all the films below if you want to check any out!
20. Leto (Kirill Serebrennikov; Russia)
18. Midsommar (Ari Aster; USA/Sweden/Hungary)
17. The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos; UK/Ireland/USA)
16. Atlantics (Mati Diop; Senegal/France/Belgium)
15. Burning (Lee Chang-dong; South Korea)
14. In Fabric (Peter Strickland; UK)
13. Toy Story 4 (Josh Cooley; USA)
12. Ad Astra (James Gray; USA)
11. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach; USA/UK)
10. The Farewell (Lulu Wang; USA) 
Whilst I loved getting to see a depiction of ordinary suburban Chinese life and customs which have hardly been seen on cinema screens in the UK before, it’s the way that The Farewell depicts a very specific family crisis yet imbues it with an authenticity and humour that makes it feel universal. It might be a bit hyperbolic to say anyone who has spent time with their extended families will find much to appreciate and relate to here, but it’s true – characters are multi-faceted and contradictory, much tension is unspoken, many situations are awkward. But at heart it’s about a family that loves each other coming together for what could potentially be their last visit to their ageing matriarch. Charming, funny, and just a little emotionally devastating, Lulu Wang has a gift for turning seemingly ordinary dialogue into both realistically ridiculous, and subtly complex.
9. Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria; USA) 
So much about this film could have gone wrong. Based upon a New York magazine article about a group of strippers drugging and stealing from the wealthy men who visit their club, it could have fallen into spurious territory or easily have been tastelessly tone deaf. It’s a credit to writer-director Lorene Scafaria that this headline grabbing set-up becomes a hugely entertaining but thoughtful film about female friendship, toxic masculinity, attitudes towards sex work and conflicting attitudes it creates for those who work in it and those who exploit it, and the continuing struggles of being a woman in what is still a staunchly patriarchal America. Excellent performances all round also help avoid turning characters into stereotypes, and the central friendship between Destiny (Constance Wu) and Ramona (Jennifer Lopez) was one of the most compelling character story arcs I saw all year.
8. Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar; Spain) 
Pedro Almodóvar’s best film since The Skin I Live In from 2011. This may be one of his quieter and more low-key films, but it displays one of the most distinct and authorial filmmakers working today at the height of his creative powers. Grounded by a sensitive central performance by Antonio Banderas, Pain and Glory is an incredibly skilfully told story of film director confronting his later years in life, his creative block and long term illnesses by taking the time to look back over the successes and failures of his past, and the relationships that have defined who he is as a son, an artist, a gay man, a partner. The autobiographical aspects can’t be ignored, but it’s Almodóvar’s genius in blending the features of himself and his previous work that viewers will recognise, with a deeply insightful fictional character study that feels imbued with vitality, humour and sorrow. The best way to describe this film is ‘rich’ – it has a bit of everything really: moving, funny, entertaining, and often profound.
7. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese; USA) 
The ultimate Martin Scorsese greatest hits film. The epitome of so much that defined his oeuvre and made his name. That all these aspects of his previous work can come together and make something so epic, so masterfully told and constructed, and so surprisingly funny that it makes the longest film I’ve ever seen at a cinema just breeze by. Minor quibbles with the otherwise pretty astonishing de-ageing technology aside, it’s the strength of the film’s drive and directorial control that you come to forgive and even love its major indulgences. In the end, it finds Scorsese and screenwriter Steven Zaillian in a reflective mood, mirroring the thrills and successes of gangster Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) with the blistering energy of Scorsese’s back catalogue, yet patiently asks what it all comes to in the end and what satisfaction and meaning a life dedicated to crime actually brings. And in the end, it’s always a pleasure to see Joe Pesci onscreen again in a measured and charismatic turn, and Al Pacino getting the biggest laughs chewing every corner of every scene he’s in. I’m so glad I got to see this on the big screen.
6. Monos (Alejandro Landes; Colombia/USA) 
I love films like Monos. Films that really push the boundaries of what cinema can be in terms of storytelling and experiences, it’s brimming with innovation and a sharp artistic eye, it feels like cinema in its purest form. Almost like a Yorgos Lanthimos film with its otherworldly outsider’s view of a disturbing yet quirky world, Monos is a Colombian film depicting a band of child soldiers atop a mountain. Infrequently visited by a tiny but muscular overseer and tasked with guarding an American hostage, the teens are otherwise left to fend for themselves, combatting both boredom, raging hormones, tribal allegiances and power play, and the distant threat of warfare and violence. The film makes no attempt to explain the context of the situation – we never know the causes of the war or who is fighting, instead focusing solely on the impact these abuses of power have on those stuck on the lowest rungs of society. It’s blisteringly creative and strikingly shot in locations that have never been filmed before, the film is incredible to look at. Strange and challenging, the film is part Lord of the Flies mixed with the psychedelic madness of war a la Apocalypse Now.
I’m sure it won’t surprise any of you that this film, an ode to raves and dance music, would appeal to me so directly. Steeped in a nostalgia for a period when I was barely 1 year old, filmed in stylised black and white, and with a killer soundtrack to boot, Beats was one of the most exhilarating films I’d seen in a long time. Scotland, 1994. Two mates from very different backgrounds, Johnno (Christian Ortega) and Spanner (Lorn Macdonald) attempt to discover a fabled illegal rave as foretold on the pirate radio. Featuring the most awe-inspiring and thrilling depiction of club culture I’ve seen on screen, Beats is a thoroughly entertaining love letter to a time and place when youth culture rallied against the world in a new way and a new breed of music found its prime audience. At its heart in a way is a love story between two friends, both aware that adulthood beckons and life as they know it won’t be the same again.
4. Knives Out (Rian Johnson; USA) 
The most deliriously enjoyable film I saw all year. And judging by the response in the packed screening I saw it in, one the most crowd-pleasing too. A loving pastiche which knows exactly what sort of film it is and doesn’t take itself seriously in the slightest, Knives Out roots itself within the foundations of the classic Agatha Christie whodunit mystery but takes great pleasure in occasionally upturning the conventions of the genre to pull the rug from under the audience. Silly enough to be surprisingly one of the funnier films I saw this year, and not shirking away from deliberately convoluted plotting, at heart the film realises its wire balancing act between surprising the audience but sticking close enough to the familiar tropes to be overwhelming pleasing to watch.
3. Minding the Gap (Bing Liu; USA) 
Nominated for Best Documentary at last year’s Oscars, Minding the Gap at first seems almost a home movie of friends skateboarding. Filmed over several years in the struggling town of Rockford, Illinois, director Bing Liu’s astonishing eye for detail instead turns this into a remarkable portrait of what it means to grow up, when whole lifetimes feel lost because opportunities are scarce, and questions what it means to be a man in a time when notions of masculinity are shifting. Searingly intimate, the very different paths these young men take is presented almost painfully honestly through Liu’s camera: how can life have meaning when it feels like the whole world is against you because of your race, your economic background, your family history. Skateboarding is a release for these guys, but it can only take them so far in life. It’s the background for Minding the Gap as we see them work through hardship and trauma, and offers a film of epic scope and incredible depth, far more so than most fictional dramas can ever hope to depict. I found this very moving.
2. If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins; USA) 
Following up the era- defining Moonlight would be no easy task. But ambition is one thing writer-director Barry Jenkins certainly doesn’t lack, choosing to adapt James Baldwin’s love story, a portrait of African American communities and families banding together in times of oppression. Lush, sweeping and feeling perhaps even more personal to me as Moonlight did, Beale Street feels … with a vitality which embraces you through the screen. Depicting a young black couple torn apart when Fonny (Stephan James) is falsely accused of rape by a racist cop, the film marries this heartbreaking story of the past with a modern eye, offering a critical but actually optimistic and poetic study of America. At its heart it’s an expressionistic love story, Jenkins again proving himself to be one of the most accomplished visual storytellers working today.
1. For Sama (Waad Al-Kateab, Edward Watts; UK/USA/Syria) 
In a year of strong documentaries, For Sama does what factual content can do best – it teaches you about a situation which can be impossible to imagine, offers a deeply personal take on the world which is informative and moving, and it is powerful in a way which could instigate change and discussion. Filmed over several years during the Siege of Aleppo of the Syrian Civil War, our guide is filmmaker and journalist Waad Al-Kateab who documents the ongoing attacks on the city she has called home during her studies. She begins a relationship with a doctor running one of the few hospitals left in the city. After falling pregnant, the couple decide the stay to assist the resistance and help survivors, and she gives birth to Sama, to whom the film is dedicated.
Putting human faces on footage that’s often easy to detach from when seen as news footage, For Sama is tough and hearbreaking. The camera never turns away as mass casualties are brought in to the hospital, and families torn apart, children made orphans. Less a political comment on the context surrounding the war, and more simply a document of how humans survive under extreme stress in the middle of a warzone, it’s often a gruelling and upsetting watch. Not least seeing the children growing up there, playing in the wreckage of burnt out buses and hardly flinching when rockets strike nearby. But it’s a film built on hope – in trying to understand why they stay behind in a warzone, we see the innate importance that comes from caring for one another and the inherent goodness that can be found in relationships of all kinds, most especially in times of crisis. It’s agonising to think that this ever happened and that thousands lived, and thousands more continue to live through this every day. But films like this are important; important to preserve as records in the hope that tragedies like this might one day be a thing of the past. The film is available to screen for free on the Channel 4 website.
Studio Ghibli continue their incredible run with this profoundly mysterious and existential film, which without dialogue is able to ponder some of the deepest feelings of what it means to be alive, to full in love, and to distinguish between surviving and living. The tale of a man who washes up alone on a desert island and how his escape attempt is hampered by a giant red turtle, it’s incredibly beautiful to look at as you’d expect with Ghibli. The scope is impressive, attempting to convey an entire life’s story in 80 minutes. It’s the sudden gut punch of emotions that come towards the end that really leaves a lasting impression.
There were supremely high expectations for this following the great trailer, and thankfully it didn’t disappoint. My appreciation helped by my ongoing fascination with all things Russian (the centenary of the 1917 Revolutions last year provided ample exhibitions to go and see!), Iannucci’s sharp and consistent script did an excellent job of balancing the absurdist dialogue and setpieces with the more serious historical content. Finding sources of humour from true life stories of the extreme self-serving of the Soviet elites mixing with obsessive devotion to the state, yet without glossing over or making light of the numerous atrocities that occurred. A superbly game cast and lush production design help make this potentially stagey set-up feel genuinely cinematic.
Probably the most ubiquitous and downright barmy film made this year; one that has you questioning how it even got made in the first place and made on such a scale and made as assuredly as it was. A film that despite its flaws you end up being very glad for its existence, and I was delighted I got to see it on a big screen where it is best appreciated. It’s a rather remarkable story of a young Korean girl travelling to America in search of her pet super-pig who has been reclaimed by the multinational corporation that bred it. Co-written with Jon Ronson, Bong Joon-ho’s script is frenetic, with many targets in its sight. From the meat industry, multinational corporate culture, down to self-absorption and ethical ‘causes’, it all moves at a pretty breakneck pace and only just about keeps on track, the tone often (and deliberately) veering about wildly. It’s a modern fairytale for adults, at once playful and disturbing. The chase scene through the Korean underground was probably the most exciting scene I’ve seen all year.
Lonergan’s deeply theatrical script is one of the most potent studies of profound grief ever made and showcases his superb eye for finding drama and story that exists behind the everyday mundane lives of unremarkable small town citizens. Excellent performances breathe life into what could be a profoundly bleak story, but despite the showcase of sadness, this is still a story that retains hope in people being able to live full lives in the face of tragedy, and build strong relationships.
I don’t feel I can do this film the level of justice that most critics have offered since it first made waves in 2016. An intimate poetic triptych, as much a personal odyssey of one man coming to terms with himself, as it is a portrait of poverty, addiction and deprivation in Miami. Tarell Alvin McCraney’s script feels deeply personal, and Jenkins’s direction artfully uses delicate camerawork, orchestral music and James Laxton’s lush cinematography to juxtapose the harshness of the surroundings (the school full of bullies, the run-down projects and crack houses) with something more beautiful – in effect, conveying Chiron/Black’s isolation from all around him. Perhaps reflecting the character’s own unease with his sexuality, the film does feel a little dispassionate when it comes to more sensual matters, but as a portrait of a man coming to terms with himself, it can be very special at times.
I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by this one. I’m a fan of Noah Baumbach, but this didn’t feel like it was really going to break new ground. And well, it didn’t really, with its story of an upper-middle class New York Jewish artistic family coming to terms with the unspoken tensions between them following their father’s illness. But the writing is sharp enough, and the characters engaging thanks to some career-best performances, especially by Adam Sandler(!), that this proves to be a genuinely witty and winning portrait of grown up children still weighted down by regret, insecurity and downright eccentricity. It’s still finds room for humour, from sharp insights about the New York art scene, to sillier moments of slapstick.
I was lucky enough to catch a screening of this at the 2016 London Film Festival and was bowled over by this humane and special film about the human stories surrounding organ donations and the medics who perform this magical procedure. A second viewing this year retained much of the cinematic pleasures – it’s a beautifully shot, wonderfully performed film, taking an almost documentarian approach to the medical procedures but offering little moments of expressive characterisation that add an emotional soul to the film. In effect, some characters are sketched only with these little expressive details, but I feel this reflects the ceaseless and fleeting nature of the incredible work the medical staff do yet the immense support and care they offer. It also makes me realise that the central character of Heal the Living is the human heart itself, and its journey from death to rebirth and how it brings new life.
Director and co-writer Dee Rees’ Mudbound is a vast and intimate portrait of the struggles of two American families, one black and one white, living on the same patch of Mississippi farmland in the 1940s. It’s bleak and rooted in tragedy, depicting the generational struggles in pursuit of the American Dream of self-sufficiency, but one in which deep-rooted bigotry, violence and indeed the very land itself crushes these dreams from within. Seemingly breaking the rules of Storytelling 101 by having multiple character voiceovers throughout, these actually grant the story a depth and fluidity which befits the epic scope of this multigenerational story. It has the novelistic feel of a Great American Novel, a little overblown at times, but absorbing, beautiful and moving.
Stories of audience members fainting exaggerated the extremity of this film, but it is undeniably a relentless and gruesome horror, and a remarkable debut by director Julia Ducournau. Confidently shot, wildly inventive and deeply uncomfortable, Raw follows vegetarian Justine (Garance Marillier) as she moves to university to study veterinary science and is forced to eat meat during a hazing ritual. This awakens a long-dormant urge within her, with shocking consequences. Frequently breathtaking and fully exploiting the remarkable counterbalance of the medical setting with Justine’s own personal story, the equation of this developing cannibalistic cravings with her burgeoning sexuality works to a point, but it’s really the intense relationship between Justine and her sister that really drives this wonderfully nasty film which frankly had me gripping my skin.
A superb psychological horror film, brilliantly directed by the now 29 year old Shults with an incredible maturity, intelligence and keen sense of location, pacing and atmosphere. Situated within a cabin in the woods following an unknown infection, the real horror comes from the outside and unseen threats from beyond the barricaded walls. With some genuinely chilling nightmare scenes, and an almost New Hollywood 1970s cinema approach to ambiguity, I was so impressed with how immersive this film was. It may sell itself almost as a supernatural survival film, but it’s very much a human horror story.
The long awaited return of Paul Verhoeven! And while he seemed to have made a move towards greater arthouse respectability with his shift from violent sci-fi to elegantly-shot upper class Paris, that doesn’t diminish the sheer audaciousness of this controversy-totting, surprisingly funny and seedily entertaining film. When Michele (Isabelle Hupert) is sexually assaulted in her home by a masked intruder, she decides to take matters into her own hands. It’s delightfully sly, offering a defiant stab at the notion that womanhood equals victimhood. That a film could dabble in rape, mass murder, and dare to equate Catholicism with sadomasochism, and get away with it, veering on just the right side of tastelessness, is pretty incredible.
What more is there to be said about this film that hasn’t already been discussed, debated, and pored over? Not much, and the immense adoration for this film perhaps raised my expectations to unrealistic heights. But there’s no denying the breathtakingly infectious power of this film, the palpable erotic energy and the charisma of the two leads, Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and Oliver (Armie Hammer). In ways, Call Me by Your Name is pure fantasy – the almost ridiculously beautiful Italian villas in peak summer, everyone sunbathing and looking gorgeous, and love is in the air. But James Ivory’s wonderful script unearths those tiny details, those small gestures and turns of phrase, that turns this ode to first love and sensual pleasure into a heady and stirring thrill, and a universal delight. It resonated with me for days afterwards, and I can’t wait to see it again.
Whilst Call Me by Your Name has deservedly dominated much of the critical praise for this year, I feel in a way this film, its British cousin, has been a little bit underserved. Not that it wasn’t well received, but when I consider these two films together, the similarities are palpable and it feels genuinely quite difficult to consider one better than the other when both take such unique approaches to similar stories. In many ways, this film is sexier and perhaps even more achingly romantic, the sheer bleakness of the setting for lead character Johnny (Josh O’Connor) making the sudden spark of attraction towards Romanian farmhand Gheorghe (Alec Secareanu) imbuing the film with an overwhelming rush of warmth and possibility. A very British love story, rooted deeply within the director’s own adoration of the Yorkshire Dales, but it’s the sheer authenticity of the central couple, thanks to two remarkable performances, that really resonates. In which other film could the act of adding some cheese to a plate of spaghetti feel so wonderfully amorous?
Jordan Peele has achieved something pretty remarkable with his feature debut. Delicately balancing Ira Levin-style domestic horror with a state-of-the-nation address on perceptions of race in middle class liberal America, as well as some deftly handled comedy, this is a superb thriller that intelligently unpacks thrills whilst being simply an entertaining blast that had audience members cheering at the screening I was in. Peele has certainly done his homework – his handling of the thriller elements has a classical feel to it, yet probably no film this year captured the zeitgeist of the mood in America, and its financial success speaks for its massive popularity.
I absolutely adore this film. Inspired by his own mother and the women of his early years, Mike Mills’s deeply personal, stylishly shot and instantly cool film about growing up in California in 1979 and the women who had a big impact on his life is fantastically idealistic, but supremely likeable. Helped by a witty, charming script and some fantastic characterisations by the excellent cast, this stood out as a warm-hearted story of a makeshift family, the complicated dynamics between a mother and a son who she feels is growing up and away from her, and about teenage self-discovery and indeed how discoveries of all kinds (cultural, sexual, personal) can offer new pleasures in life, even in adulthood. That it has a killer soundtrack to boot only ticks extra boxes for me.
Oh my, it’s hard to properly convey the wonders of this film beyond a teary-eyed squeal of joy. Clocking in at only just over an hour long, but packing more genuine affection, heart and soul than many films can fit in twice that length, Courgette is a children’s film that is unafraid to shy away from difficult subjects (neglect, death of parents) and does so with such a warm and delicate approach. Thanks to Celine Schama’s sensitive script and the playfully quirky animation, this potentially heartbreaking story is given a sense of wonder and hope, with buckets of charm. I dare anyone not to fall in love with it.
The sheer achievement of this film is pretty staggering when I think about it. Cleverly adapted from Sarah Waters’s novel Fingersmith, transposing the setting from Victorian London to Japanese-occupied Korea, The Handmaiden shows director Park Chan-wook at the height of his powers. From the sumptuous production design, the distinctly fluid camerawork and some fantastically committed performances, everything about this film is top notch. At its heart is a masterful piece of storytelling, drawing from Waters’ evocation of Victorian gothic literature and turning it into a twisting erotic thriller which delights in pulling the rug from under the viewer’s feet, and draws you in with lush period details with a darker edge, and the promise of alluring mystery. I was lucky enough to see the extended two and a half hour Director’s cut, and it’ll be interesting to see the original cut too.
Sean Baker’s masterful follow-up to 2015’s Tangerine, itself one of the most exciting films I’ve seen in recent years, is an charming, colourful and heartbreaking humanist portrait of modern homelessness in Florida. Finding lyrical moments through shots of seemingly ordinary things, this is storytelling through showing, not telling, and this is perhaps The Florida Project’s greatest strength, as it switches seamlessly through showing the wondrous excitement of play and exploration from a child’s-eye view, to the bleaker picture for the grown-ups, hidden behind the colourfully tacky knock-off Disney castle facades. That it can be both an intoxicating picture of childhood let loose, and a scathing portrait of deprivation and poverty in one of the most developed nations in the world is remarkable. Sean Baker again proves himself one of the most distinctly talented directors around, making modern-day neo-realist films without losing a sense of heart or humour.
A film unlike any other this year, one which dares you to believe in so much but can get away with proving and solving very little. It’s an intense ride, where conventions of storytelling are thrown out the window and trampled underfoot. Robert Pattinson is deeply impressive as Connie, a low-level thief who gets his dependent younger brother in jail after roping him into a bank robbery. What follows is a protracted, unpredictable and frequently shocking midnight odyssey, one where Connie’s desperate attempts to get money end up causing immense harm to everyone around him.
Musings from a Darkened Room 