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.
Musings from a Darkened Room 