With most studios pushing their big films into 2021 because of the coronavirus, 2020 is going to be a year movie watchers forget. In general, I would agree to that. The two at the top are impressive, at least.
So the question becomes, what do we remember this movie year for? For me, it’s 3 things:
- Coming of age stories were excellent this year. Half of the top 10 are about younger people growing up in new, interesting ways, plus some daring almost hits like Unpregnant really tried to take that genre to a new place.
- The year streaming services also came of age. Netflix and Amazon battled it out this year, releasing quality movie after quality movie to help everyone get through just an awful year for the planet. Disney Plus cracked the top 10. Hulu came close to a top 10 movie, and HBO Max started flexing its muscles this year too.
- Steve McQueen gave us a movie anthology, one we haven’t seen in years, with the Small Axe Series.
- The best film of the year is one of the best documentaries of the last 10 years.
Honorable Mentions:
I hope 2021 makes for a better movie watching year, but until then, here’s some of the highlights to watch until you receive your Covid vaccine…
| 10 | Crip Camp |
| I doubt many of you have heard of Camp Jened. In the 1970’s, a bunch of hippies started this camp in upstate New York to give physically disabled individuals a chance to get away and have a relatively normal summer vacation like anyone else. The first half is totally hilarious and fun, but then, something amazing happens. Energized by their ability to learn from one another, these campers decide it’s time to fight for their rights, leading them to civil activism that becomes the American Disabilities Act. Funny and inspirational? What more could you want? |
| 9 | The Sound of Metal |
| Riz Ahmed takes us on a strange, but welcome journey. A heavy metal drummer losing his hearing, Ahmed checks himself into a facility to help him learn how to live with his new existence. What could have been melodramatic is not because of a wonderful, sort of unexpected screenplay, Oscar worthy sound design, and a great performance from Ahmed, who will hopefully show up in more things soon. |
| 8 | The Assistant |
| If you want to see how hard it’s been for women to work in toxic work environments, this is sadly, a great example. Julia Garner would seemingly be an ideal candidate for anyone to hire: she arrives first and leaves last every day, and works her ass off the whole time. Surrounding her? A well designed suffocating environment where we never see outward abuse, but know it’s there through snide comments like “Don’t sit on the couch” or “He’s gonna hire outside the company” instead of promoting a female manager. Garner’s performance showcases all that repressed anger and sadness as she does what she has to, but hates herself for having to do it. |
| 7 | Yes, God, Yes |
| A wonderfully pitched coming of age satire. Natalia Dyer plays a sexually curious but shy Iowan girl who attends Catholic High School. She goes on a kairos trip, this relatively real, insane excursion where we get a series of brilliant takedowns on the tenants of abstinence only education and veiled piety of the Church, never losing sight of Dyer’s story about not just a sexual awakening but a come to Jesus moment with how the world really operates. |
| 6 | The Invisible Man (2020) |
| The Invisible Man has been around since talking cinema was created. Usually the story focuses on the man himself, and his complicated relationship with being seen/unseen. Leigh Whannell turns the tale on its head in 2020, making Adrian Griffin a control freak, with Elizabeth Moss #MeToo’ing herself out of a frightening situation. The movie then becomes a treatise on how the world is built to distrust truth telling damaged women, while also making sofas and armchairs seem disarmingly menacing. |
| 5 | The Half of It |
| This movie should have been melodramatic nonsense. Instead, Alice Wu’s tale is a gentle, sweet tale about good people learning about things they don’t understand. Daniel Diemer and Leah Lewis are dynamite together, forming a wonderful friendship while they both pine for Alexxis Lemire. Lemire is also delightful, taking what would normally be a manic pixie dream girl and making her something much deeper and more interesting. It’s rare entertainment when a movie can tell a great story without resorting to absurd melodrama, but this one pulls that off miraculously. |
| 4 | Never Rarely Sometimes Always |
| This powerful film is about emotional withholding during harrowing circumstances. Sidney Flanigan and Talia Ryder are sensational as a pair of teens heading to New York from rural Pennsylvania. Distress permeates each scene, as Eliza Hittman’s story goes through the minutiae of what an underage girl with no support systems has to go through to get an abortion. The movie keeps from hitting despair though Flanigan and Ryder’s friendship: rock solid, and downright heroic as nothing needs to be said for each to help the other during their times of need. |
| 3 | The Small Axe Anthology |
| And Amazon wins the 2020 streaming wars! A 5 film story that cements Steve McQueen as one of the best filmmakers of this new era. Transporting us to the West Indian community of London in the mid to late 1900s, McQueen paints a picture of a community’s history, including pieces about civil rights, education, policing, and kung fu fighting. I suggest watching it in order: Mangrove>Lovers Rock>Red, White, and Blue>Alex Wheatle>Education. My personal ranking: 1. Red, White, and Blue 2. Mangrove 3. Education 4. Lovers Rock 5. Alex Wheatle Of all the films that came out this year, this is a rare gem that will get a Criterion Collection release for all its ambition and artistry. |
| 2 | The Father |
| Anyone who’s had a family member with dementia will talk about how scared their elderly relative has become because they lose track of time and place and their memory betrays them. Florian Zeller and Anthony Hopkins bring dementia to frighteningly to life in The Father. Zeller shoots the movie like a horror film, constantly inserting the audience into Hopkins’s head by unmooring time and memory with random entrances from random people. Plus, Hopkins’s performance is incredible at showcasing inner fear being masked by an old man too scared to admit he’s scared and helpless. It’s heartbreaking and powerful in equal measure. |
| 1 | Collective |
| An exciting documentary that plays more like a political thriller. When a fire breaks out at the Collectiv Nightclub in Romania, some people die, but even more die at the hospital from burns, a strange result. Enter a sports journalism website, who somehow leads an incredible investigative journalism piece which uncovers layer upon layer of corruption inside the government. The movie is an equally great journalism movie and icy warning at the institutional failure of anyone who tries to crusade and clean up the system in place. About as good as any documentary could be made. |