My 15 Favorite Films of 2020

Remember yesterday when I said that my music list was the one that was least impacted by the pandemic?  Well, today's film list is easily the most colored by it.  COVID-19 may very well have killed the theater industry as we know it.

Usually in the intro to this list, I lament the movies that I hadn't been able to see because they were only released at the end of the year for critics and big cities in order to make awards contention.  This time around we're all basically in the same boat, as there's a long list of movies we thought we'd be getting coming into 2020, but were delayed until next year or later.  Dune, Black Widow, A Quiet Place Part II, No Time to Die, F9, Candyman, Top Gun: Maverick, The French Dispatch, Last Night in Soho, West Side Story, the list goes on -- so many big movies that, to varying degrees, had a shot at making this list were shelved.

As a result, my new movie intake dropped dramatically.  I saw a total of 48 new releases in 2020, compared to last year's 75.  The closing of theaters and delay of tentpole films play a large part in that, but I also didn't feel much desire to watch many of the movies that were released directly to VOD during lockdown.  I probably would have seen something like the poorly received Antebellum in theaters for $7 on a Sunday afternoon in a normal year, but it was much harder to justify watching it at home for $20 when there were so many other options to stream.

So I was left with a difficult decision to make regarding this list: Do I buck tradition and not have 20 films on it for the first time?  The films in my 16 through 20 spots are ones that I liked a fair amount, but they just didn't excite me the way movies that usually qualify for the end of the year list do.  Couple that with having to also write up five more honorable mentions and it just felt disingenuous to attempt to work up the enthusiasm to declare merely solid films as being the best of 2020.  Hence, we have 15 films on the official list this year.  Still, despite the smaller playing field there were a handful of films at the top that were truly fantastic.  2020 wasn't a complete wash when it came to cinema, and this list is here to show some reasons why it wasn't.

The rules: Things are a little different this year since most movies didn't get a theatrical release.  So let's make it easy and consider any film that got their first non-festival release in 2020 -- whether that's theatrically, on VOD, or exclusively on a streaming service -- qualifies for this list.


Honorable Mentions (20-16)
Somehow Borat Subsequent Moviefilm pulled it off -- it may not have matched the highs of its iconic predecessor, but it came closer than anybody could've imagined.  Swallow is not for the faint of heart, but if you can stomach it, the film is an eerie little genre exercise.  As not just an entertaining documentary but a fascinating litmus test for how you feel about the future of politics in America, Boys State is one of the most surprisingly rich watches of the year.  Josephine Decker's twitchy, sensual Shirley is a refreshing spin on the biopic, dispensing of all the tropes you've come to loathe from the format.  Pixar does what they do best with Onward, another one of their swift, imaginative, and moving family films.

15. The Vast of Night (Directed by Andrew Patterson)

There's a reboot of The Twilight Zone on television right now and while it's not bad, it rarely captures the spirit of the original Rod Serling series.  Luckily there's The Vast of Night, which frames itself as an episode of a fictional Twilight Zone imitation and perfectly replicates that vibe.  The film's fidelity to its 1950s setting is astonishing given the budget, which only serves to further the quiet sci-fi paranoia it's trying to portray.  And as a first film, it's impressive how director Andrew Patterson is willing to be patient and chatty.  He's got genuine craft in the way he uses the camera to establish mood and capture the imagination too.  The Vast of Night is a sparse, but incredibly charming late-night thriller tale.

14. Sound of Metal (Directed by Darius Marder)

So many films follow familiar beats that you expect every story to trace those same lines.  That Sound of Metal frequently walks up to the precipice of conventionality and finds a softer, more interesting direction to take the story is one of the main aspects that makes it so impressive.  Following a metal drummer and addict who loses his hearing is a premise that could lead to a heavy dose of overwrought melodrama, but what ends up onscreen is a sensitive portrayal of both acceptance and recovery.  Led by spellbinding performances from Riz Ahmed and Olivia Cooke, along with many deaf actors, Sound of Metal is a raw and emotional character study that finds so much space for empathy.

13. Emma. (Directed by Autumn de Wilde)

There are two main approaches to modernizing an old novel.  You can go the Romeo + Juliet or Clueless route and just set it in contemporary times, or you can go the more subtle route and have it take place in the original setting, but with a more modern tone.  We've gotten two great examples of the latter lately in the form of Little Women last year and now Emma., Autumn de Wilde's take on the classic Jane Austen novel about a meddlesome matchmaker.  This latest adaptation is totally fizzy fun, full of pastel colored sets and costumes, as well as framing and blocking choices that run counter to the composed nature we're used to seeing in these kinds of narratives.  On top of it all, the actual story still follows the beloved plot of the novel, making this film the best of both worlds.  Emma. strikes the perfect balance between radical and traditional adaptation work.

12. Soul (Directed by Pete Docter)

"One for me, one for them" is a famous adage in the film world, referring to the mentality some directors have where they balance their careers between more straightforward, commercial fare and weirder, personal material.  Lately it appears that Pixar has mastered the art of "one for kids, one for adults."  It's a technique they employed in 2015 with The Good Dinosaur (the one for kids) and Inside Out (the one for adults), and they were back at it again this year with Onward and Soul.  That's not to say that Soul can't be enjoyed by children, it's just that an existential film about a jazz musician questioning his purpose in life doesn't immediately scream "kid's movie."  Like jazz music itself, the film is unconventional in its rhythm, wandering offbeat as it is ruminates on dreams deferred and the fundamental things that make you who you are.  Meanwhile, it features some of the studio's most trippy and astonishing visuals ever.  Soul shows that Pixar is still pushing itself to move in interesting new creative directions, all while maintaining the strong emotional core they're known for.

11. Mank (Directed by David Fincher)

We can all agree that the last thing anyone needs is a movie that acts as a love letter to cinema itself.  There was alot of worry that Mank would be another one of those, what with its focus on Herman J. Mankiewicz and his process of writing the Citizen Kane screenplay, along with David Fincher's painstaking efforts to recreate the look and sound of Classic Hollywood films.  Thankfully while the film does trigger nostalgic pleasure centers by simply being about a beloved era, Mank is actually quite cynical about the industry, as well as the power of "movie magic."  And its vision of the man at the center is less heroic and more melancholic, showing him eventually succeeding in finishing the script but doing so while suffering endless indignities and learning that having the best bon mots sometimes isn't enough.  It may not be in the upper tier of Fincher's impressive oeuvre, but it's a precise technical flex that has a great deal of fun along the way.

10. Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Directed by Eliza Hittman)

Before you watch Never Rarely Sometimes Always, the title may seem a little unwieldy.  But once you get to the towering scene that gives this film its name, it's hard to imagine it being called anything else.  The latest offering from director Eliza Hittman brings her intimate eye to the story of a 17 year old girl who travels with her cousin to New York in order to get an abortion, after finding out she can't get one in her home state of Pennsylvania without parental consent.  Filmed with an American neorealist sensibility, the film displays the mechanics of the journey in painstaking detail, as complications pile up.  And it all culminates in the aforementioned centerpiece scene, which is so powerfully performed that it shifts the entire film from being a procedural to something more raw and graceful.  It has to be seen to be believed.

9. She Dies Tomorrow (Directed by Amy Seimetz)

Have you ever had the unshakeable feeling that something bad was about to happen?  That paranoia is essentially what animates She Dies Tomorrow, a film about a woman who suddenly becomes convinced she's going to die soon and slowly spreads that anxiety to anyone she comes in contact with.  Like the rest of filmmaker Amy Seimetz's work (her impressive debut Sun Don't Shine, the revelatory TV adaptation of The Girlfriend Experience) this movie is very sly about the information it does and doesn't convey.  You never learn the origin of this fear or whether it's unfounded, which only adds to the dread of experiencing it.  She Dies Tomorrow may not operate on conventional logic, but its elliptical, experimental approach is formally audacious and riveting to watch.

8. Tenet (Directed by Christopher Nolan)

Christopher Nolan lives in a post-logic universe.  If Tenet makes any sense, it's only to him.  For the rest of us, it may seem like a nonsense film with flat characters and faux-smart pseudoscience.  But none of that really matters, because for 150 minutes Nolan invites you into one of the most delirious setpiece generators of the century.  When the film switches to IMAX format, Ludwig Goransson's mind-melting score starts blasting, and one of the many bonkers sequences starts to turn its gears, it's like blacking out and entering a state of nirvana.  Tenet is pure craftsmanship that flows like a work of divine design, moving with an insanely invigorating rhythm and heft.  With spectacle like this, you almost understand why Nolan wanted people to kill themselves going to the theater to see it.

7. First Cow (Directed by Kelly Reichardt)

First Cow plays like a lovely review of your favorite Kelly Reichardt-isms: a tender male friendship, a love letter to the Pacific Northwest, humanity contending with the beauty and brutality of nature, animals as an extension of the human soul, the opportunity of the American frontier, survival under economic strife. That greatest hits feeling initially makes it seem like a minor work from her, but it eventually gets its hooks in you and becomes as arresting as her other films.  Reichardt sketches out the central male relationship in small shifts, preferring to connect these two enterprising grifters with gestures: the sweeping of another's floor without being asked to, encouraging someone's talent, basking in silence together, etc.  It's a technique that runs through the entire film.  Somehow the movie communicates the entire story of the frontier -- the greed, the theft, the ingenuity, the ambition, the conflict, the formation of alliances -- through two men and one gorgeous cow.

6. On the Rocks (Directed by Sofia Coppola)

The protagonists of Sofia Coppola films have aged with her career, starting with the teen girls of The Virgin Suicides in 1999, so finally tapping into middle age anxieties with On the Rocks feels like a logical next step.  It turns out her exploration of womanhood is just as deft as ever, no matter what stage of life she focuses on, as the film takes its well-worn premise and grounds it in a signature warmth and humanity.  On the Rocks also wrings career-best performances from Rashida Jones and Bill Murray, whose father-daughter rapport is complex and lively, the kind that you need for a caper flick like this.  The way it dispenses with traditional arcs and resolutions may make it seem like a minor work, but its low-key charm feels rare and magical.

5. The Assistant (Directed by Kitty Green)

The Assistant -- a movie that follows the assistant of a powerful showbiz executive -- could've coasted on being about issues made prominent during the #MeToo movement, and it would've gotten praise just for that.  Thankfully, it is a genuinely terrific film.  Director Kitty Green shoots the entire thing in masterful static compositions that heighten the sense of anxiety, discomfort, and roiling tension that comes with the workaday indignities that the main character (played with an excellent subtlety by Julia Garner) faces.  There are so many indulgences that the story could partake in but doesn't, and the austerity of its choices -- the fact that the tyrannical boss never actually appears onscreen, the abuses being mostly implied rather than shown -- are carefully considered thematic choices.  The Assistant is the rare Sundance darling that actually lives up to its hype, a bold examination of power dynamics that plays out as a death by a thousand cuts.

4. Da 5 Bloods (Directed by Spike Lee)

The primary narrative around Vietnam vets are the stories about soldiers returning to a country that shunned them, but if you were black (and therefore disproportionately sent to fight and die there) America never really loved you in the first place. Your people built a nation against their will and still had never been afforded dignity. That's the idea that hangs over Da 5 Bloods, of White America setting the terms that we can never meet, told through the story of two oppressed classes fighting one another in a quest for capital. But it's also so much more than that, dense from the starting gun, as it weaves a tale of fathers and sons, oppressors and subjects, lover and friends thrown together in a stew. It's funny and exciting and haunting. It's also a little scattered and distended in that Spike Lee way, but it all leads to an emotional climax that's more devastating than anything I've seen in a while.  In a year where most of the masters sat out, Lee showed up and showed everyone how it's done.

3. The Lodge (Directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala)

The slow-burn is what's en vogue in horror right now, but many films employ it so artlessly, and we have to suffer through too many droning slogs because of it.  Anyone looking to make one well should use The Lodge as a reference point, as it mounts its dread perfectly.  It's a glacial movie, but it's never boring thanks to the precise framing and deliberate movement, which always leaves you feeling on edge and attuned to every detail.  Directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala like to turn the screws on their characters, and they do so with a particular cruelty here, ultimately in service of a meditation on punishment, both who deserves it and how much is enough.  The Lodge is a rattling film, one that's entrancing from the very start and doesn't let up for its entire runtime.

2. I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Directed by Charlie Kaufman)

You can always count on Charlie Kaufman to deliver self-lacerating metafiction that causes the viewer to question reality, and even though I'm Thinking of Ending Things is based on somebody else's novel, its neuroses feel in line with what we've come to expect from him.  And yet the film, one of the boldest things I saw all year, still feels like a surprise.  On one level it's a searching essay on aging, regret, whether art is anything more than a collection of influences, the role of women in stories written by men, and a dozen other therapy topics Kaufman is sorting through.  Parsing the elliptical way those ideas are presented can be a little tedious on first viewing, but luckily it's completely electrifying on a surface level.  When the film is cycling between garrulous banter, cringe comedy, eerie horror, and absurd surrealism at such a rapid pace, it feels like truly anything can happen, and just about everything does.  Even if it weren't a bum year, I'm Thinking of Ending Things would still dazzle.  Only Charlie Kaufman could give us something this uniquely stirring.

1. Fourteen (Directed by Dan Sallitt)

Depicting the slow dissolution of a friendship is hard to do, but Fourteen pulls it off and does so beautifully.  It tells the story of friends Mara and Jo over the course of a decade, as we see Jo declining from her mental illness through the eyes of Mara.  There's a naturalism reminiscent of great filmmakers like Maurice Pialat and Eric Rohmer in the conversations and dynamic between the two, where you see Jo's magnetism and emotional neediness along with Mara's maternal mollification and increased weariness in subtle details, while weeks, months, and years pass in quiet cuts.  The fact that it accumulates with so many tiny observations makes it all the more devastating.

Well, that wraps things up for my best films of 2020 list.  I love reading other lists, so feel free to share yours in the comments.  Or if you have any thoughts on my list, then you can do that too.  To see a complete ranked list of all the 2020 films I've seen this year, along with a list of my favorite performances and some other data, you can find them on this Google Doc.


Previous lists
2019

2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013