For the casual film-goer, 2015 has started off on relative slow footing. Dumping ground months January and February held few critical or commercial surprise hits – outside of one release featured on this rundown – with anything of worth reserved for festival-going audiences. Barring the outrageous international money-vacuum that is Furious 7, Summer 2015 has proved a touch disappointing with expected giants such as Avengers: Age of Ultron landing softer than anticipation (while still claiming the second biggest opening weekend ever) and big franchise resets like Terminator: Genisys and Jurassic World waiting in the wings with big question marks (and budgets) hanging over their heads.

Nevertheless, a slew of smaller projects, big budget blowouts and festival gems have emerged to content for the “best of year” throne. Though we’ve yet to distribute an A+ yet this year (at this point last year, Boyhood, Whiplash and The Raid 2 had each already claimed one) the crop is nonetheless strong with major Top Ten potential. So join us as we pick through the best 20 films of the year so far.

THE END OF THE TOUR

James Ponsoldt delivered an unexpected knock-out with The Spectacular Now and has only sharpened his craft with his fourth feature, The End of the Tour. The film takes a magnifying glass to the short-lived but techtonic relationship between reclusive rockstar author David Foster Wallace and Rolling Stones reporter David Lipsky. Their anti-didactic sacrament soars when their intellect’s coalesce or crash on hard shoals and the film is made up of very little else. Fans of Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy will find a similar thread of deeply human, conversation-based storytelling that’s rife with emotional and intellectual power that cuts like a machete through stuffed animals. Jason Segel, as Wallace, is better than ever, delivering a performance that I’m more likely than ever to believe might earn him a Best Supporting nod come award’s season.

From our review:

“Danny Elfman drives the whole thing home with a score that elevates Ponsoldt’s emotional arches with heartfelt panache. The result is a soaring independent drama; a Socratic wax on existence itself. Both life-affirming, deeply-affecting and willing to play a dangerous game of bringing you to the brink of tears, The End of the Tour is essential watching – a lovely, beautiful tragedy that will shake you to the bone.” (Full review here)

THE LOOK OF SILENCE

Joshua Oppenheimer walloped audiences with The Act of Killing in 2012 but companion piece The Look of Silence takes a blade to the throat of its predecessor. I can’t think of a documentary this decade that has inspired such a lump-filled throat, that conveyed so much with so little, that played such a menacing staring contest with the devil himself. Instead of giving the stage over to the perpetrators of the Indonesian genocide, Oppenheimer allows ophthalmologist and victim Adi Rukun to conduct a search for empathy in places where it goes to fester and dies. Without being hyperbolic, it punted my soul.

From our review:

“As the agents of genocide repeat “The past is past”, the delicacy of Indonesia’s current political balance becomes a focal point of fiercely high intensity. At one point, a politician threatens Adi – you don’t want things to go back to the way they were, do you? You know how easy that would be, don’t you? In a culture of passive ignorance and totalitarian fear, The Look of Silence is everything and actually has the power to change the world. It’s nervously hopeful and yet completely crushing. It left me hollow, speechless and yet full of life and true fury. It is a film that all human beings should be required to watch, if only to learn an invaluable lesson in empathy and what the world might look like without it.” (Full review here)

INSIDE OUT

Though not yet released, Inside Out premiered at Cannes to true swoons. Hailed as a comeback kid for a studio that desperately needed one, Inside Out had to both overcome a period of lukewarm product and couch itself in the greatness of some of Pixar’s most heralded efforts. Claims of their reclamation of the throne weren’t for naught though, as Inside Out is a return to form of the highest order. Ripe with vibrant characters and a rich, vast, meticulously crafted world that only the infinite expanse of animation can provide, Inside Out is a reminder of why we need animated films. Its extended allegory on why we feel the way that we do makes it just as, if not more, enjoyable for adults as kids.

Full review to follow, in addition to interview with director Pete Docter.

THE WITCH

When I missed my first scheduled screening at this year’s Sundance, I wasn’t all that bummed out. That is, until the buzz struck. People were humming about The Witch being the early festival breakout and it was still only day two. By striking a balanced between the absolutely devilish and the colonially perfumed, The Witch delivered a wholly unique, totally unpredictable twisted take on New England horror. A24 was ready to sweep it up for release and I’d be hard pressed to say that they don’t currently sit on the top crop of films this year (The Witch, The End of the Tour, Ex Machina, Slow West, While We’re Young…) What The Witch lacks in convention (a good thing), it more than makes up for in decadent, bone-clattering atmosphere. It’s an aural experience from its shrill sounds to its blistered cinematography and one that slow burns its way to an absolutely chilling conclusion. While the horror franchise has attempted to facelift itself by modernizing, director Robert Egger proved that taking a step backwards is actually the best way forward.

From our review:

“What do 1630, a silver cup, Christian fervor and a goat named Black Phillip have in common? The Witch. Unholy goodness through and through, Robert Egger’s feature film debut is a horror masquerading as a costume drama that’s as beady, black and misshapen as the center of a goat’s eye. Beneath the dirt-stained, leather-bound waistcoats, the perfumed, toity language of the New World, the white bonnets and constrictive girdles, The Witch has a vicious, illict and suspicious center and though admittedly scaled back on “scares” is deeply atmospheric, deeply disturbing and deeply great.” (Full review here)

EX MACHINA

Alex Garland has long been drifting around hollywood backlots, lending his esoteric big screen ideas to other directors to shape into movie form like sandcastles weathering the impending waves. It’s a miracle that any Garland film ever really saw the light of day considering this guy transformed an eerie sci-fi film into a meditation on addiction, a zombie movie into an examination of the corruption of power structures and a movie about clones into a real tear-jerker. Ex Machina though represents some of his best work yet. From the tight nature of its creation – basically three characters on one location – the film is like a beautifully constructed morality play. And play it does. The mind games employed in Ex Machina are as rewarding as the rich tapestry of special effects work (done on the cheap but nonetheless top-notch) and behind the scenes mastery (the score, the glorious score). One of the year’s most provocative and exhaustive sci-fi efforts and one that demands to be seen by any fan of the genre.

From our review:

“In Alex Garland‘s sci-fi opus, Ex Machina – most commonly seen in the phrase “deus ex machina”, meaning “god from the machine” and frequently used to describe convenient plot contrivances (of which Ex Machina has none) – refers to the process by which a machine transcends its “machininess”. The Turing test has come to describe this as-of-yet unrealized phenomenon more specifically. This experiment tests for a “machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human.” Thus the barrier to entry for any truly credible A.I. is sky-high. Not only must you exhibit superlative intelligence but it must also be nigh indistinguishable from that of a human; a tricky task indeed and one that drives the audience to question what it is specifically that makes an intelligence human. Halfway through Garland’s film, a character drives a scalpel into his arm fervently hunting for circuitry. When the aesthetic design and electronic capacities are near impeccable, who’s to say what is man and what is machine.” (Full review here; interview with Alex Garland here)

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

It took a 70-year old man to show Hollywood how they’d been botching blockbusters for the last few decades as Mad Max: Fury Road is a deathly smorgasbord of all engines roaring bombast. A cinematic wildfire in your underpants, Fury Road has culled some detractors with silly claims of narrative gauntness but it only takes one glance into the periphery to see the marvelously ornamented beating heart that is true story telling taking place here. No character wastes a word just as Miller leaves us wanting to know more about the many decorative beasts filing into and out of screen. Think the ominous stork men on their toothpick stilts or the now infamous fire-breathing-guitar-playing Doof Warrior. In a movie generation where such oddities are oft doomed to be over-explained into oblivion, Miller made himself the anti-Joss Whedon by leaving it to our imagination. And by blowing things up for realz.

From our review:

“With as many twists and turns and reversals and goliath eruptions as Mad Max has, it’s hard to believe how it’s feasible to make a film this air-tight, undying and thrilling. Miller seems to understand something that few else can: how to make a literal blockbuster. Achieving a victory this satisfying should be nigh-impossible, but Mad Max is proof to the contrary. Fury Road is exhausting — a two-hour experience that leaves you flat and wasted and yet leaves you wanting so much more. It’s good to be back, but Mad Max: Fury Road was better. So, so, so much better.” (Full review here)

THE OVERNIGHT

A tactile exercise in splicing the DNA of a horror film into the framework of a comedy, The Overnight is a piano wire tight chemistry romp thriving on uncomfortable silences and inimitable sexual tension. From butthole paintings to penis epiphanies, The Overnight dares to go to outrageous, button-prodding places, pushing the boundaries like the Farrelly bros in the 90s, as director Patrick Brice likened the altered reality of the film to. But there’s more depth to the feature than merely the bevy of belly jokes as The Overnight tackles some fascinating human positions, from body image to the challenge of making adult friends.

From our review:

“Brice plays it cool though, creating a rich thematic dichotomy by implying something that might or might not be there. We find ourselves siding with the increasing suspicions of Emily though are equally willing to fall in line with Alex’s assumptions of this just being the “freewheelin’ California lifestyle”. Even more so than in Creep, we can never be certain of who exactly these people are and how roguish their intentions. To chalk the whole film up to a feeling of uncertainly though misses the forest for the trees as this is through and through a brash, hysterical comedy. It just so happens that it’s that rare comedy with layers.” (Full review here; Interview with Jason Schwartzman and Patrick Brice forthcoming.)

TRAINWRECK

2015 has been a year full of surprisingly great comedy. I usually land yoke-side-down with most comedies but with The Overnight, Sleeping With Other People, 7 Chinese Brother, What We Do in the Shadows, Mistress America/While We’re Young enlisted in the genre this year, consider my ears perked. One of the finest examples of mainstream comedy transcending expectations in a big way this year is Trainwreck, a laugh-a-minute affair that serves as both a revival of sorts for Judd Apatow and a cinematic coming out party for Amy Schumer. With Schumer penning the script and pulling double duty as the film’s heavy (supplanting the traditional male schmuck/comedic anti-hero), it’s one of the finest living examples of post-feminism filtered down and exploited for actual guffaws. Most importantly, its progressiveness is matched by a heart-felt story that’s brimming with hearty laughs and a next-level supporting cast.

From our review:

“Take it from the effervescently crass mouth of Amy Schumer, “The title was always Trainwreck. Trainwreck or Cum Dumpster.” Oh Amy, you are such just so…you. From talk radio appearances to gross-out Twitter posts, the Schum has crafted her image on being unapologetically, oh-so-adorably crude and in the context of Trainwreck, it’s miraculous to take in. At last night’s premiere, when an audience member inundated her with compliments, she barked, “Stop trying to fuck me.” She has swiftly become the epitome of 21st century feminism-as-middle finger; the crème de la crème of vagina jokes and reverse slut shaming that will melt the lipstick off housewives and zap the calories off your finger sandwiches with her gloriously nasty one-liners and hysterically sexual non-sequiturs.” (Full review here)

LAMB

If there’s one film to see this year that’ll flex all your emotions wells to the point of popping, it’s Ross Partridge‘s Lamb. Part dark Americana fable and part exhaustingly tense virtue expedition, Lamb is a journey into a decaying soul’s search for redemption in, what appears to be, all the wrong places. Partridge’s bitterly uncomfortable saga tells of a middle aged flunkie (helmed by Partridge) joining forces with a preternaturally judicious little girl (played to perfection by Oona Laurence) with plans to “fix” himself and set this accidental apprentice down a new path. It’s the breed of film that’ll have you squirming in your seat and audibly hoping for everything to work out; a strange, solemn, serene workshop of lightness and dark that burrows into your soul; a foggy palette of narrative novelty that works as a character study and unholy suspense yarn too.

From our review:

“Director, screenwriter and star Ross Partridge unearths a ripe splintering of soul in the fragile, complex love story that is Lamb. Adapted from Bonnie Nadzam‘s sage but harrowing novel of redemption and temptation, Patridge repurposes the byzantine dynamic of Nadzam’s words to co-exist in the cinematic crossroads of nail-ruining suspense and earnest, didactic sentiments of humanity, all the while subtly wedging in thematic elements of Vladimir Nabokov’s will-they-or-won’t-they statutory misgivings.” (Full review here; Interview with Ross Partridge here.)

WILD TALES

Damián Szifron‘s anthological circus of satirical misdeeds and jet black humor may have earned an Oscar nod last year but American movie-goers weren’t privy to the joyous burlesque show that was Wild Tales until this past March. Nearly all of its segments were homeruns – with the beginning few firing no-hitters back-to-back-to-back – and added up to something not only hysterical but sardonic in tone and irreverent in execution. Szifron proved that anthologies weren’t just for horror shorts, that they needn’t be one-offs in a string whose sum is lesser than its conjoined parts, that they could be of singular vision and consistent aesthetic affect. Wild Tales is deadly funny, sharp as a butcher’s knife and a shining beacon of Spanish language filmmaking.

From our review:

“In my screening, Pasternak evoked fits of rampant laughter amongst my audience, a group of mixed ages who were positively tickled. I admittedly was as well. The dark humor and sly satire is presented with a smarmy self-awareness that totally summons the delightfully offbeat tendencies of director and Wild Tales producer Pedro Almodóvar (The Skin I Live In). You can feel the hot, toying breathe of Almodóvar all over this Argentine-Spanish feature.” (Full review here)

Runners Up:

Carving a list of 100 down to just ten is no easy task and one that left many on the cutting room floor. We’d be amiss omitting John McKean‘s nouveau-western Slow West (review here), international hit/super-spy knockout Kingsman: The Secret Service (review here), French new-wave coming-of-age drama Girlhood (review here), apoplectic, mumblecore comedy7 Chinese Brothers (review here), Noah Baumbach‘s millennial trilogy middle child While We’re Young (review here), teen cancer dramedy and Sundance triumph Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (review here), sly SXSW sci-fi Special Jury Prize for Visual Excellence winner Creative Control (review here), New Zealand vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows (review here), SXSW demonic forces in the woods horror The Hallow (review forthcoming) and Peter Strickland‘s mesmerizing lesbian BDSM erotica The Duke of Burgundy (review here).