2015 End of the Year Wrap Up - Sounds of Cinema

Top 10 Films of 2015

What follows are Nathan’s picks of the best films of 2015

1. Room

Directed by: Lenny Abrahamson

Premise: A woman and her son have been held captive for years in a backyard shed. When the boy turns five they plot an escape.

Why It Made the List: Really great movies have the ability to shift our perspective of ourselves and the world. Room is a satisfying story of imprisonment and escape and even if that’s all it was, the movie would give viewers their money’s worth. But Room goes well beyond that and it reaches the audience on both conscious and subconscious levels. This story taps into the primal territory of parent-child relationships. There is no understating the impact of the performances by Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay as mother and son. These actors have a natural rapport and despite the strangeness of their situation there is something instantly and profoundly recognizable about them. That’s especially true of the noble lies that the mother tells her son to cope with their predicament. When the truth is finally revealed, the hurt of the mother and the shock in the boy is palatable. That’s the other remarkable aspect of Room: the way it shakes up our sense of reality. We, like the boy of this movie, go through life accepting what we experience as the truth of reality. This boy’s discovery of a bigger world is so profound because it acts out the process of disillusionment that we all go through as a matter of life. But Room complicates this further still with the mother’s struggle with freedom in the film’s second half. Without making any overtures to pretention, Room mixes an immediate drama of survival with philosophical complexity and it is one of those rare movies that we come out of seeing the world differently. That makes Room the best movie of 2015.

2. Inside Out

Directed by: Pete Docter and Ronaldo Del Carmen

Premise: An animated film that supposes that inside of each person’s head is a control room where five characters who represent our emotions—Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust, and Sadness—operate our mind and manage our personality and memory. In the head of eleven year old Riley, Joy takes the lead until a malfunction strands her and Sadness outside of the control room. They have to make their way back to headquarters for Riley to live an emotionally balanced life.

Why It Made the List: For over twenty years Pixar has been on top of the animation field and Inside Out is among the studio’s best work. This movie exemplifies several of Pixar’s strengths. Chief among them is the skill of the animation. The characters and settings are beautifully rendered with terrific attention to detail, especially in the performances of its characters. Inside Out is a great example of what animation can do; a lot of Hollywood’s animated pictures essentially duplicate physical reality but there are scenes of Inside Out that go into abstraction and the filmmakers take advantage of the animated form. Another Pixar strength on display in Inside Out is its creativity and intelligence. The concept of the story is unlike anything else in the American movie marketplace and the picture respects the intelligence of the audience while telling a story that is emotionally involving. Inside Out also stands out from other animated films in the way that it challenges the viewers. Most family movies being made today underestimate the audience and there is an unwillingness to confront youth with stories of trauma; if Bambi were made today it’s inconceivable that studio executives would allow the mother to die. Inside Out puts its characters in jeopardy and requires sacrifice in order for them to achieve their goals. That sacrifice gives the movie its dramatic power and it’s what makes the film so resonant. Inside Out is a fun adventure but it’s also a sophisticated tale of what it means to grow up and live a healthy and well-rounded emotional life.

3. The Revenant

Directed by: Alejandro González Iñárritu

Premise: Set in the American frontier in the 1820s, a company of fur trappers come under attack from Native Americans. The survivors go on the run and one of them is betrayed and left for dead. He recovers and seeks revenge.

Why It Made the List: The western may not be the box office draw that it once was but the genre remains a place where filmmakers can go to tell compelling stories and to reimagine the past. The Revenant is a more complex movie than it initially appears to be. This film is primarily a tale of survival and revenge and as that it is an extraordinary cinematic experience. The Revenant is exciting and visceral and it has some standout set pieces, namely a bear attack that is among the most realistic and most intense animal attack sequences ever filmed. But The Revenant also reimagines the American West. For most of cinema history, the West was designated as a place of redemption and hope and the wilderness had nourishing and revitalizing properties. Not so in The Revenant. This film retells the legend of Hugh Glass and his presentation in this movie is about as far removed from Daniel Boon as it could be. Despite the intensity of this movie, Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance as Hugh Glass has a lot of subtlety to it and he comes across as a man in a warzone. The West of The Revenant is a battlefield in which Glass must contend against his fellow man and against the elements in order to survive. But the wilderness of The Revenant is both ugly and beautiful and Glass’ struggle gives way to moments that achieve transcendence. Despite all of its violence there is an underlying spiritual quality to The Revenant that elevates it above a revenge tale.

4. The Big Short

Directed by: Adam McKay

Premise: Based on the nonfiction book by Michael Lewis. Three groups of financial speculators realize that the US housing market is on the verge of collapse and they take advantage of Wall Street’s greed and corruption, betting against the major banks and the American economy.

Why It Made the List: Since the 2008 financial crash there has emerged an entire genre of “recession cinema,” movies that tell stories of Wall Street’s financial malfeasance. The Big Short is one of the best titles in that genre. Subprime mortgages and the credit default swap market are not cinematic subjects but the filmmakers of The Big Short find ways to make these concepts accessible to a mainstream audience while also being dramatically engaging. The Big Short was also one of the funniest movies of 2015 but its sense of humor is wicked and even subversive. Most of the comedy comes at the expense of the financial class, mocking their ineptitude and stupidity, but the filmmakers also subvert Hollywood’s own populist template. A lot of movies appeal to a mass audience with tales of underdogs who outwit the establishment; the pleasure of a lot of mainstream entertainment is based upon meritocratic values in which the protagonists work hard and struggle against adversity and are eventually rewarded for their tenacity with love and glory. The Big Short uses that same template but the ending of the movie subverts its pleasure; when the housing market collapses and the heroes of the movie have finally won, there is no victory lap. Their prize is bittersweet and at least a few of the characters aren’t sure they want it. That’s what distinguishes The Big Short from the rest of recession cinema. This film doesn’t just critique Wall Street. It’s a critique of the very way we conceive of success.

5. The Martian

Directed by: Ridley Scott

Premise: Set in the near future, NASA astronauts investigate the surface of Mars. When a storm forces the astronauts to abandon their mission, one of them is accidentally left behind and must find a way to survive while NASA executives figure out how to rescue him.

Why It Made the List: For a long time “science fiction” has been a bit of a misnomer in American cinema. Much of what is categorized as sci-fi are really fantasy movies like Star Wars or absurd monster features like Sharknado. But in recent years there’s been a bit more science in Hollywood’s science fiction and The Martian is the perfect marriage of populist entertainment and hard sci-fi. The movie presents us with a man thrust into a struggle to survive which he does by his intelligence and skill. That’s one of The Martian’s most impressive and distinguishing qualities. The story eschews many of the usual components of Hollywood storytelling; it isn’t about characters in competition with each other. Instead, The Martian is about people doing their best and acting earnestly and cooperatively and the film celebrates the human spirit and mankind’s ingenuity and intellect. While indulging the science and grounding the movie in reality, the filmmakers do not lose sight of the drama of their story. In fact, the science is directly tied into the survival of the title character. The Martian succeeds as entertainment because of its humanity and that is largely due to the performance by Matt Damon as the marooned astronaut. Damon is alone on screen for much of the picture and a lot of The Martian’s success is due to his contributions. It’s those complementary elements—the headiness of the science with the humanity of the characters—as well as the movie’s excellent production values that make The Martian one of the best movies of the year.

6. Mr. Holmes

Directed by: Bill Condon

Premise: An elderly Sherlock Holmes (Ian McKellen) struggles with senility and attempts to remember the circumstances of his last case.

Why It Made the List: Sherlock Holmes is the single most frequently dramatized fictional character in all of cinema and in just the past few years there have been several new versions of the detective on television and in feature films. Despite the overabundance of Sherlock Holmes stories, the filmmakers of Mr. Holmes have found an altogether new take on the subject and created one of the most interesting incarnations of the character. Sherlock Holmes is defined by his mental acuity and his ability to notice and retain details. In Mr. Holmes the detective struggles to hold onto those qualities and the movie is about the link between memory and identity. The filmmakers convey that effectively through the nonlinear story. The narrative leaps all over the timeline of events. It is always clear to the viewer when and where any given scene takes place but the fragmented narrative visualizes Holmes’ deteriorating memory. Sherlock Holmes is played by Ian McKellen who is terrific. He has the intelligence and droll humor that have characterized Holmes in virtually every version but McKellen’s frailty and vulnerability makes him accessible. Mr. Holmes is a meditation on mortality and aging; the film has a melancholic tone and Holmes faces a future that is marred by the horrors of modern warfare but there is also hope in his relationship with the son of his housekeeper. Mr. Holmes is a low key but beautifully made movie that repurposes a classic character and makes us think about him and all of the things he represents in a new way.

7. Beasts of No Nation

Directed by: Cary Joji Fukunaga

Premise: In the midst of a civil war in an African country, a young boy (Abraham Attah) is recruited into an army of child soldiers led by a charismatic commander (Idris Elba).

Why It Made the List: It’s generally understood that war is hell but movies rarely ever achieve that on screen. People want to believe that their lives have some meaning or purpose and stories of violent conflict are frequently softened by romanticizing heroism and noble sacrifices. That’s what makes Beasts of Nation so extraordinary. This picture thrusts the audience into the chaos and barbarity of civil war and it doesn’t make any attempt to manufacture a justification or discover a silver lining. The politics of the conflict are never really explained and that’s actually to the movie’s credit. The filmmakers understand that combat can become an end in itself and this is one of the starkest portrayals of the fog of war ever presented in a feature film. Beasts of No Nation centers on a young man, played by Abraham Attah, whose nation is torn apart by warring factions. He is then recruited into a resistance movement led by a military commander played by Idris Elba. Elba is perfectly cast as the Commandant but it’s Attah’s performance that makes the lasting impression. The boy transforms into a killer and the movie pulls no punches in its portrayal of the barbarity of war. But for as much violence as they see and do, these soldiers are ultimately still boys and the filmmakers of Beasts of No Nation never lose sight of the tension between their barbarity and humanity. Imagery of children in combat is startling and unlike most war films Beasts of No Nation forces viewers to confront what war means.

8. The Diary of a Teenage Girl

Directed by: Marielle Heller

Premise: Based on the graphic novel by Phoebe Gloeckner. A teenager (Bel Powley) growing up in 1970s San Francisco has a sexual awakening and carries on a relationship with her mother’s boyfriend (Alexander Skarsgård)

Why It Made the List: One of the ironies of today’s culture is that young women are sexualized in media to an extraordinary degree and yet there is very little in cinema that deals frankly or honestly with women’s sexual lives. The Diary of a Teenage Girl may not resemble most women’s experiences but the film is distinguished by its boldness and earnestness. This movie deals with a number of hot button issues, namely a relationship between a teenage girl and an older man, but The Diary of a Teenage Girl isn’t a victim narrative. It’s not that the filmmakers believe the relationship is appropriate; they trust in the viewer to recognize the true nature of this relationship and instead focus on the complexity of the title character’s identity and her evolving understanding of herself. There is a lot of sexuality in this movie but there is an authentic awkwardness to much of it that gives the film an honest voice. The Diary of a Teenage Girl isn’t just about lust either. Body is linked to identity and the filmmakers understand, as their title character does, that sexuality can be a transformative experience. There is also a lot in this picture about desire and wanting to be desired and how that relates to our notions of love and self-worth. All of these ideas are wrapped up in a movie that is well-acted and creatively shot and The Diary of a Teenage Girl visualizes the experience of reading someone’s diary, making us privy to her unfiltered thoughts and showing us the world through her eyes.

9. White God

Directed by: Kornél Mundruczó

Premise: A Hungarian film. A teenage girl (Zsófia Psotta) loses her dog. While she searches for her pet, the dog roams the streets and is subject to abuse by animal control and dog fighting rings and eventually leads his fellow canines in a revolt.

Why It Made the List: There is a show business cliché about never making movies with animals or children. White God is led by a child actor and a dog performer and the filmmakers get incredible performances out of both. This film begins as the story of Lili, a teenager who just wants her dog back, but a half hour into the movie the perspective forks and White God is also the story of Hagen, a dog that goes from coddled pet to underground fighter to revolutionary dog pack leader. That summary sounds absurd but the filmmakers of White God make it work by hedging carefully between reality and fable. The filmmakers handle the dog characters brilliantly. The dogs of White God have perhaps a bit more intelligence and personality than a real life canine but they remain animals. The filmmakers are able to establish the dogs as characters by staging scenes from the animals’ point of view and thereby create empathy but without anthropomorphizing them. But as realistic as White God is, the movie also has one paw in the realm of fantasy. This canine revolt recalls something out of Aesop’s Fables and many scenes have an eerie dreamlike quality. The fact that White God is able to present a pack of mixed breed dogs running roughshod over city streets and not collapse into absurdity is itself proof of great filmmaking. That the picture then fashions that story into a social and political allegory makes White God one of the best movies of the year.

10. Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015)

Directed by: Alex Gibney

Premise: Based on the book by Lawrence Wright. A documentary about the origins of Scientology and the religion’s impact on its followers.

Why It Made the List: 2015 was an impressive year for Alex Gibney. In twelve months he released three impressive documentaries: Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine, Sinatra: All or Nothing at All, and Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief. Of these, Going Clear is the best and most provocative. The film explores the origins and beliefs of the Church of Scientology from its creation by L. Ron Hubbard to its current leadership and celebrity spokesmen. Going Clear is an important picture in part because it takes on a powerful organization. Gibney has a history of exposing famous people and influential institutions but he’s also a meticulous researcher and a very good filmmaker. All of those qualities come to bear in Going Clear. It’s technically well produced but it also has tremendous empathy for the people involved in Scientology. Religion is one of those topics that tends to cause derangement especially when it’s discussed in a critical way but the tone of Gibney’s film remains smooth and rational even as it recounts outrages and abuses. But beyond exposing the deceit, corruption, and abuse of a particular organization, Going Clear does something broader. As the subtitle The Prison of Belief indicates, this is a movie about the way people’s credulity and hope are taken advantage of and exploited. This is presented in relation to Scientology but the issues of this film apply to all sorts of beliefs and allegiances, whether religious or secular. Going Clear exposes the madness of blind devotion that seems to characterize our age.

Honorable Mentions

What follows are films that were either runners up to the Top 10 list or other pictures that came out in 2015 that are worth mentioning.

’71 – A young British solider is abandoned on the streets of Belfast at the height of the Troubles. This film was one of the best action pictures of the year and it was a nuanced portrait of civil war.

Anomalisa – This stop motion animated film from Charlie Kaufman was a challenging and frequently beautifully made picture.

Bridge of Spies – Steven Spielberg’s latest collaboration with Tom Hanks told a tense story of triangular diplomacy. Mark Rylance impresses as the Soviet spy.

Brooklyn – This story of an Irish immigrant’s move to New York featured a terrific performance by Saoirse Ronan.

Carol – A passionate love story led by Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.

Cinderella – Disney gave its animated classic a live action remake that had terrific production design and was beautifully shot.

Creed – This spinoff of Rocky was one of the best films in the series and it had a pair of strong performances by Michael B. Jordan and Sylvester Stallone.

Crimson Peak – Guillermo del Toro’s gothic romance was narratively flawed but it featured the director’s characteristically lush visual style.

Ex Machina – A thoughtful sci-fi story of artificial intelligence and the relationship between technology and humanity with some interesting gender politics.

The Gift – The directorial debut of Joel Edgerton was a solid thriller.

Girlhood – A French film about young women growing up amid difficult circumstances. The movie was smart and sensitive and took viewers into places that mainstream films rarely go.

Grandma – A hip and flippant movie with interesting characters and complicated relationships and a great performance by Lily Tomlin in the title role.

The Hateful Eight – Quentin Tarantino’s latest work was both brutally violent and wickedly funny.

Infinitely Polar Bear – A story of mental illness and recovery with Mark Ruffalo as a father with bipolar disorder attempting to raise his daughters.

It Follows – 2015 saw the release of a lot of good and interesting horror titles and It Follows was among the best.

Krampus – The best Christmas horror film since 1984’s Gremlins.

Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter – This adaptation of the Fargo-inspired urban legend was a bizarre and unsettling movie with a great performance by Rinko Kikuchi.

Love & Mercy – Paul Dano and John Cusack play Beach Boys musician Brian Wilson in an ambitious musical biopic.

Mad Max: Fury Road – A technically stunning piece of spectacle that was a little too thin on characterization to make it into the top ten.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl – An idiosyncratic mix of drama and comedy that shot new life into the sick teenager formula.

Meadowland – One of the most underseen and underappreciated films of 2015 features extraordinary performances by Olivia Wilde and Luke Wilson.

Sicario – Denis Villeneuve’s movie about Mexican drug cartel violence was both gritty and beautifully shot.

Spotlight – The story of the Boston Globe’s investigation into the Catholic Church’s child abuse scandal was a solid journalism procedural.

Spy – This spoof of James Bond films was one of the funniest movies of 2015.

Steve Jobs – This well written and smartly executed story of the Apple founder retold a familiar story in a unique way and it features great performances by Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogan, and Katherine Waterston.

Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine – Alex Gibney’s documentary took on the complicated personal life and legacy of Steve Jobs.

The Stanford Prison Experiment – This retelling of the classic psychology experiment was a disturbing portrait of institutional violence.

Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens – JJ Abrams renewed fan faith in the Star Wars series with a piece of fun, crowd pleasing entertainment.

Straight Outta Compton – The musical biopic was an energetic telling of the rise and fall of rap group NWA and it included strong performances by O’Shea Jackson Jr., Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, Neil Brown Jr., and Aldis Hodge.

Trainwreck – Amy Schumer and Judd Apatow made a successful romantic comedy that was fun and intelligent even if it gave into clichés in its second half.

Trumbo – The story of Spartacus screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and his struggle against the Hollywood blacklist of the 1950s and 60s was a satisfying if oversimplified historical tale with a charismatic central performance by Bryan Cranston.

Unfriended – A well-executed, high concept horror picture in which the entire story unfolds in real time through the screen activity of a group of teenagers.

The Walk – The first half was kind of a drag and Joseph Gordon Levitt’s accent sounded a little silly but the second half of The Walk is an incredible piece of cinema.

What Happened, Miss Simone? – A complex portrait of the music career and political activism of Nina Simone.

What We Do in the Shadows – The funniest movie of 2015.

Youth – An artful and nuanced story in which Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel are old men facing mortality.

Good Buzz List

These are films that were released in 2015 and have strong word of mouth, and in some cases award nominations, but Nathan was unable to see them in time for the year end summary, usually because they did not open in southern Minnesota and have not yet been made available for home viewing.

45 Years – The story of a married couple who receive shocking news on the eve of their wedding anniversary. Actors Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling have been praised for their performances and the movie has been recognized at several film festivals and it was named one of the ten best movies of 2015 by the National Board of Review.

99 Homes – Andrew Garfield plays a single father attempting to reclaim his foreclosed home by going to work for a real estate broker played by Michael Shannon whose performance has been widely praised by critics.

Chi-Raq – Director Spike Lee’s newest work was an adaptation of the ancient Greek play Lysistrata by Aristophanes, set against the backdrop of gun violence in Chicago. The film generated quite a bit of interest in the press due to its politics and actress Teyonah Parris has been praised for her performance.

Lady in the Van – In this British film Maggie Smith plays an eccentric old woman living in an automobile. Smith earned nominations at the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs for her performance.

The Look of Silence – Joshua Oppenheimer’s follow up to his 2013 documentary The Act of Killing. The Look of Silence continues Oppenheimer’s examination of the Indonesian genocide of 1965-66. The film has consistently been nominated for awards at film festivals and recognized by critics organizations.

Macbeth – Justin Kurzel’s retelling of William Shakespeare’s tragedy features Michael Fassbender in the title role and Marion Cotillard as Lady Macbeth. The film was well reviewed by critics and the cast has been praised for their performances.

Son of Saul – This Holocaust drama from Hungary has been recognized at several film festivals and by critics organizations.

Great Performances

This is a list of some of the great performances in 2015, although not all of them were in great movies.

Beasts of No Nation – Abraham Attah and Idris Elba give memorable performances as a child soldier and his adult commander amid a civil war.

The Big Short –The entire core cast of this film is quite good but especially Christian Bale and Steve Carrell.

Black Mass – The best parts of this movie are the performances by Johnny Depp and Joel Edgerton as Whitey Bulgar and FBI agent John Connolly, respectively.

Boulevard – One of Robin Williams’ last performances was among his best and most nuanced.

Bridge of Spies – Mark Rylance and Tom Hanks impress as a Soviet spy and his lawyer.

Brooklyn – This story of an Irish immigrant’s move to New York featured a terrific performance by Saoirse Ronan.

Carol – A passionate love story led by Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.

Creed – This spinoff of Rocky had a pair of strong performances by Michael B. Jordan and Sylvester Stallone.

Concussion – Will Smith was good in an otherwise unremarkable drama about Dr. Bennet Omalu’s investigation in brain damage in the NFL.

The Danish Girl – Eddie Redmayne and Alica Vikander were impressive as Danish artists Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener.

Danny Collins – Al Pacino was very good as an aging rock star.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl – In the title role, Bel Powley gives her character a genuine naiveté of youth while not making her obnoxious or stupid. Kristen Wiig and Alexander Skarsgård are also impressive as her mother and mother’s boyfriend.

The End of the Tour – Jason Segel was very good as late author David Foster Wallace.

Grandma – A hip and flippant movie with a great performance by Lily Tomlin in the title role and Julia Garner and Marcia Gay Harden as her granddaughter and daughter.

The Hateful Eight – Quentin Tarantino’s latest work had an impressive supporting cast including Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, and Bruce Dern.

I Smile Back – Sarah Silverman was very impressive as a woman struggling with mental illness.

Infinitely Polar Bear – A story of mental illness and recovery with Mark Ruffalo as a father with bipolar disorder attempting to raise his daughters.

Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter – This adaptation of the Fargo-inspired urban legend was a bizarre and unsettling movie with a great performance by Rinko Kikuchi.

Love & Mercy – Paul Dano and John Cusack play Beach Boys musician Brian Wilson in an ambitious musical biopic.

The Martian – Matt Damon is alone on screen for much of this film and he successfully carries the movie.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl – Thomas Mann, RJ Cyler, and Olivia Cooke were very good in the title roles of this teen dramedy.

Meadowland – One of the most underseen and underappreciated films of 2015 features extraordinary performances by Olivia Wilde and Luke Wilson.

Mr. Holmes – Ian McKellen brings frailty and vulnerability as well as humor to his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes.

The Revenant – Leonardo DiCaprio provides one of his best performances as frontiersman Hugh Glass and Tom Hardy and Will Poulter are also quite good in supporting roles.

Room – Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay are terrific as mother and son being held captive in a backyard shed.

Secret in Their Eyes – Julia Roberts and Chiwetel Ejiofor were very good in this crime drama.

Sleeping With Other People – The film was a pretty standard romantic comedy but the performances by Jason Sudeikis and Alison Brie elevated the material.

Southpaw – Jake Gyllenhaal and Oona Laurence had a convincing father-daughter relationship.

Spotlight – Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Brian d’Arcy and Liev Schrieber were very good as members of the Boston Globe’s investigate team.

Spy – Jason Statham proved he had a sense of humor and had many of the funniest moments in this film.

The Stanford Prison Experiment – Michael Angarano was frightening as a lead guard, Johnny Simmons and Tye Sheridan were convincing as prisoners, and Billy Crudup was very good as Dr. Philip Zimbardo.

Suffragette – Carey Mulligan was impressive as a suffragette in early twentieth century England.

Trainwreck – Amy Schumer essentially played her comic persona but she was quite good at it.

True Story – James Franco and Jonah Hill were impressive as accused murderer Christian Longo and reporter Michael Finkel.

Trumbo – The story of Spartacus screenwriter Dalton Trumbo had a charismatic central performance by Bryan Cranston and a strong supporting performance by Louis C.K.

A Walk in the Woods – Robert Redford and Nick Nolte were a likable on-screen pair and the film had a funny supporting performance by Kristen Schaal.

Welcome to Me – Kristen Wiig is very good as a disturbed woman who wins the lottery and uses her winning to create her own television show.

White God – The performances by the dogs of this film are impressive.

Woman in Gold –Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds are a fun on screen duo as a Holocaust survivor and her lawyer.

Youth – An artful and nuanced story in which Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel are old men facing mortality.

Bottom 10 Films of 2015

What follows are the very bottom of the cinematic heap for 2015.

1. Aloha

Directed by: Cameron Crowe

Premise: A military contractor (Bradley Cooper) arrives in Hawaii to finalize plans for the construction of an aviation facility. While making a land deal with the natives, he reconnects with a former love (Rachel McAdams) and falls for an Air Force pilot (Emma Stone).

Why It Made the List: It is hard to imagine a film more poorly executed than Aloha. There is so much wrong with this movie that its failure is a wonder to behold. If the credits didn’t tell us that Cameron Crowe wrote and directed this film we might speculate that Aloha was the product of a first time filmmaker or that it was helmed by the son of a studio executive who financed his kid’s film project as a graduation gift. Aloha is that sloppy and that incoherent. It is as though the movie were made by someone who had never seen a motion picture before. The story never provides even the most basic expository information about who the characters are and what they’re up to. The actors flail through a script in which no one behaves like a recognizable human being and everyone speaks in corny platitudinous dialogue. The movie even fails at basic cinematic grammar. One scene doesn’t lead logically to the next and many shots don’t fit together in any kind of discernable way. Aloha is a train wreck of a motion picture and its sheer incompetence makes it the worst film of 2015.

2. Entourage

Directed by: Doug Ellin

Premise: A feature film addendum to the television show. Movie star turned filmmaker Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) is in the final stages of post-production of his directorial debut but financial troubles cause headaches for agent-turned-studio head Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven).

Why It Made the List: Defenders of the Entourage television show insist that the series was a satire of show business and bro culture. That satire is entirely lost in the Entourage movie. This film is a monument to chauvinism and stupidity with the filmmakers and the characters congratulating each other for being insufferable, soulless hacks. If the best show business satires expose the artifice of fame, Entourage represents the very worst. It is the cinematic equivalent of a bootlicking Hollywood yes-man whose only barometers of value are Twitter followers and notches on the bedpost.

3. The Loft

Directed by: Erik Van Looy

Premise: A remake of the 2008 Belgian film. A group of five married men go in together on a flat and use it to carry on illicit affairs. Things take a turn for the worse when they discover a female corpse handcuffed to the bed.

Why It Made the List: Several films of 2015 wore their misogyny on their sleeve and among the worst offenders was The Loft. The movie opens with a female murder victim found naked, face down, and handcuffed to a bed. That is an apt metaphor of the characters’ and the filmmakers’ regard for women. It isn’t simply that the men of The Loft are cheaters and murderers; it’s that these idiots feel entitled to treat women like property and the filmmakers find tension not in what they’ve done but in the possibility that they might get caught.

4. Hot Tub Time Machine 2

Directed by: Steve Pink

Premise: A sequel to the 2010 film. Since discovering a time machine, a group of friends have made themselves wealthy by preemptively cashing in on fads and technological advances. When someone attempts to kill them, they travel into the future in an attempt to find and foil the culprit.

Why It Made the List: The first Hot Tub Time Machine was not a great movie and its worst moment was a stupid coda sequence tagged onto the ending. That coda was expanded into Hot Tub Time Machine 2 and it’s every bit as useless as it sounds. This sequel is stupid and crass but more than anything, it’s lazy. Throughout the movie it’s obvious that the script was never completed and the actors are stalling, trying to distract us from the fact that there is no reason for this movie to exist.

5. Unfinished Business

Directed by: Ken Scott

Premise: A salesman (Vince Vaughn) leaves an established company to start his own business with two other men (Tom Wilkinson and Dave Franco). After a year their business venture faces bankruptcy unless they can close a deal, leading to a weekend of misadventures.

Why It Made the List: In the ten years since Wedding Crashers the Vince Vaughn formula has worn thin and Unfinished Business represents the complete collapse of Vaughn’s template. Not only is it unfunny and uninspired but it’s ugly as well. Scenes of Tom Wilkinson ogling young women alternate with comedy bits ridiculing a developmentally disabled adult played by Dave Franco. What’s most remarkable about this film is the way it completes Vince Vaughn’s transformation into Adam Sandler. Stupidity, crudeness, and laziness are their shared trademarks and Unfinished Business is Vince Vaughn’s Jack and Jill.

6. Get Hard

Directed by: Etan Cohen

Premise: A millionaire (Will Ferrell) is convicted of fraud and sentenced to serve time in San Quentin penitentiary. He hires a working class African American (Kevin Hart) to prepare him to survive in prison although his mentor has no experience being incarcerated.

Why It Made the List: In Get Hard Will Ferrell’s character recruits an African American to prepare him for life in prison. The filmmakers probably thought they were making Stir Crazy or Blazing Saddles but instead of sending up stereotypes they work their way through every conceivable racist and homophobic cliché. If this was intended to be ironic it isn’t. And if Get Hard is supposed to be some kind of statement about white collar crime it isn’t that either. It’s just two overrated comedians coasting on lazy and mean-spirited jokes.

7. War Room

Directed by: Alex Kendrick

Premise: An American family nearly comes apart due to the husband’s work schedule and bad attitude. Under the guidance of a wise older woman, the wife looks to prayer for help.

Why It Made the List: The faith-based audience is underserved by Hollywood and they deserve better than trite and sentimental garbage like War Room. Everything about the making of this movie is bad but its cinematic failings aren’t the worst of it. War Room has a despicable message for its female audience: if your husband verbally abuses you, neglects your children, and steals from his employer then you should ignore his faults and wait for him to come around. And it delivers that message with all the nuance of a carnival barker.

8. Seventh Son

Directed by: Sergey Bodrov

Premise: Based on the novel The Spook’s Apprentice by Joseph Delaney. A fantasy adventure in which a young man (Ben Barnes) begins an apprenticeship under a knight (Jeff Bridges) and learns to fight evil spirits.

Why It Made the List: Every year there is another failed attempt to launch a young adult fantasy series but the fiasco that is Seventh Son goes well beyond the usual Dungeons and Dragons rip-off. There is a glut of fantasy titles right now and apparently the filmmakers of Seventh Son saw all of them and learned nothing. This film fails at virtually every facet of fantasy storytelling while slogging through one cliché after another. Seventh Son runs less than two hours but it feels longer than The Hobbit.

9. The Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence)

Directed by: Tom Six

Premise: An insane prison warden (Dieter Laser) and his accountant (Laurence R. Harvey) attempt to bring order to a state penitentiary by stitching all of the prisoners together mouth to anus.

Why It Made the List: It’s redundant to criticize Tom Six’s Human Centipede project for being gross or obscene. That’s the point. But Six’s artistic pretentions hit a wall in The Human Centipede 3. Tom Six fancies himself a satirist and he seems to think he was making Natural Born Killers or Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom but what he’s actually done is more like a penis etching on a bathroom stall. It’s unartful, pointless, and stupid and Six’s desperation to shock the audience just comes across as obnoxious.

10. Fantastic Four

Directed by: Josh Trank

Premise: An adaptation of the Marvel comic book. A group of young scientists teleport to another dimension and are imbued with superpowers.

Why It Made the List: By all accounts the making of the Fantastic Four reboot was a troubled production and it’s unclear whether this mess was the fault of director Josh Trank, the result of interference by 20th Century Fox executives, or some combination thereof. But in the end all that matters is what’s on the screen and 2015’s Fantastic Four was a disaster. From its miscast actors to the incoherent storytelling and the sloppy special effects, Fantastic Four was one of the worst comic book movies in recent memory.

Trends of the Year

Man vs. Nature

This year several films portrayed characters struggling against the elements and against the animal kingdom.

Impressive Child Performances

Child actors can make or break a movie and several of this year’s pictures featured impressive performances by young actors.

Show Business Documentaries

There were quite a few show business documentaries released in 2015. Some of them were fan driven and a few shed light on tragic performers or movie productions that went off the rails.

Feminist Stories

Despite women’s continued underrepresentation in motion pictures, several films included explicit or implicit feminist themes.

Sexist Movies

Lest we get too excited about movies with feminist ideas, there were also plenty of movies made by knuckle dragging silverbacks.

Horror Comedies

There was a tremendous number of horror comedies released in 2015 and some of them were quite good.

Movies about the 1950s

There were a few movies set in the 1950s with some making parallels with today’s culture.

Nostalgia Driven Movies

Audiences were nostalgic for the properties of the 1980s and 90s and many films played to that with soft reboots and sequels to franchises from decades ago.

Spy Movies

2015 included new installments in the James Bond and Mission: Impossible series as well as movies that parodied those franchises.

Box Office Disappointments

A few movies of 2015 made over a billion dollars but quite a few others were box office disasters with several scoring some of the worst opening weekends ever.

Back to Year Index