Clockwise from upper left: Let Them All Talk (Photo: HBO Max), Emma. (Photo: Focus Features), Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Photo: David Lee), One Night In Miami… (Photo: Amazon Studios) Graphic: Jimmy Hasse
We published our list of the best films of 2020 earlier this week. Of course, we stand by our choices, but we’re not so naïve as to think our list would please everyone. Which is why we’re asking:
What film should’ve made our best of 2020 list?
51 Comments
Palm Springs, anyone?
To go? Yes. To watch? No.
Their refusal to give Palm Springs any credit is maddening. But then, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a year-end list that actually reflected movies that are enjoyable to watch.
I love the AVClub and all, but their film criticism tends to venerate more highbrow/niche/arty/esoteric stuff than their TV reviews. I enjoy reading their end of year lists but there’s rarely any room for stuff that’s actually fun to watch.
Dowd gave it a B+ and Siede called it the “definitive 2020 rom-com.”
There’s not an anti-Palm Springs agenda at work.
Isn’t that the issue though? The best romcom of 2020 doesn’t make the Top 25 movies of the year or the 16 honorable mentions.Exceptional genre movies get overlooked in favour of dozens of “worthier” movies.
Eh. I enjoyed it in the moment, but can’t say it had much that lingered on in my head afterwards. The bits that did were more or less just Groundhog Day. I’d watch it again on a lazy stoned Sunday, probably?
Kajillionaire looks twee as fuck.
To be fair, nobody’s better at being that than Miranda July.
Hmmm, fully agree on His House (great film) and really excited to see Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom this weekend (what a cast!) but, of the others, I wanted to like Wild Goose Lake more than I ended up doing (it was “good”, but never quite rose to “great”) while Tenet was a soulless tech-demo that seemed designed for the “shareholders” (as it were) than actual people.
Just want to chime in with more praise for His House. Watched while bored one night thinking it would be kind of a rote horror film and it ended up being one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long while. Really well done, thought-provoking, scary, heartbreaking, it’s just got it all.
Tenet isn’t a movie. It’s a simulacrum of a James Bond picture where each individual scene seems to mean something, but there is zero connecting tissue to hold it all together. It helps that everyone’s speaking in backwards iambic pentameter written by those famous chimps with the typewriters, as filtered through the Nolan Mumbletron 9000—after 20 minutes I turned on the subtitles, which didn’t help at all.I challenge you to watch the one (completely unnecessary) scene with Michael Caine with the subtitles on and not laugh at the absurdity of the words that come out of his mouth. My money says Nolan knew he could never explain his silly VFX gimmick, so rather than try, he just papered it over with pure gibberish.Once of the biggest wastes of money ever put to film.
Perhaps I missed it on the first list, but The Wolf of Snow Lake (RIP Robert Forster) is one of the better films I’ve seen this year, and absolutely should get more recognition.
The Wolf of Snow Hollow*, and yeah!
Wow, typo. Thanks, kinja for not letting me edit that
I’m still holding the torch for Borat 2. Most important movie of the year oddly enough.
How was it important? Are you implying that people saw Rudy digitally pleasuring himself and decided at that point they couldn’t continue to support Trump? The film was certainly good and effectively skewered who they intended to skewer, but I doubt it changed anyone’s mind or affected the election one way or another.
There are so many ways for films to be important besides effecting election results.
I absolutely loved Wolfwalkers. It being on Apple+ probably prevented a lot of people from seeing it but it is such a beautifully animated movie.
Slow year but maybe Relic deserved a mention ? Its fatalist melancholy and efficient visual symbolism will haunt me for a little while.
Woof. Still can’t shake that last shot.
I feel like I’m not in a good headspace for several of these films right now in 2020. It feels like so many of these “best of” lists cannot comprehend that not everyone wants to watch prestige dramas when thousands of Americans are dying each day because of COVID-19. Sorry for being a buzzkill, but that’s just where I’m at right now.
You should check out Palm Springs. It’s funny and profound in its own way.
Yep, I’ve recently just watched tv/movies for some feel good escapism. I haven’t heard of most of the movies listed and haven’t seen any of them. I’m sure they’re great, but not my jam, especially this year.
No love for Onward? I’m not crazy(?) enough to believe that this should be nominated for Best Picture this year but it really hit home for me. I thought it was very moving, even though I know that Pixar is trying to manipulate my tear ducts. I feel like it got the short stick because of when it came out, right when everything was shutting down and we all thought the world was ending.
I didn’t get Onward. The fantasy world theming seemed perfunctory to the story, really only there to provide the “magic” necessary for the plot to function. And what is the message? Seemed muddled an unsure of itself, miles away from Inside Out or even Up.
Deerskin
Really enjoyed Another Round. The premise doesn’t sound very interesting on paper — four middle aged guys go an an alcohol-fueled bender to try and recapture their youthful spirit — and if it were an American movie it would probably be a comedy featuring Ed Helms. But no, instead it’s a celebration of life and loss with a surprising ending.
I found Tenet to be like much of Nolan’s work: very pretty, with a good idea underneath (though convinced that it is smarter than it really is), full of plot-holes, and ultimately (and almost instantly) forgettable. I did see it in the cinema (because in NZ, we can do that safely), and that didn’t really make it any more than a somewhat annoying “meh”
I hate the “don’t think, just gape” line in this listicle so much. Yay, it’s beautifully shot, but other than that it was a jumbled mess. And whoever the sound mixer was should never work again.
Re: Sound mixing — I KNOW! It was bloody awful… and for a film that seemed to feel that it required the actors to do SO MUCH TALKING (it really failed the “show, don’t tell” approach to story) that’s a real no-no.
.
Emma. is still my favorite film of 2020. Anya Taylor-Joy can play anything. She’s both the posh busybody and an endearing young lady trying to find herself.
Seconded. I can’t speak to most of the other films, but I did see Emma. It is a perfect movie. Scripted, cast, designed, acted, directed, edited, etc. with aplomb and glee.Anya Taylor-Joy did a fantastic job, but, for me, the MVP goes to Johnny Flynn as Mr. Knightley. He nailed it. You know exactly who Knightley is and how he feels about Emma right from the start. Beyond that, Flynn manages to play Knightley voicing his disagreements with Emma more as a friend telling another the hard truth when no one else will than as a worldly patenalistic figure chastising a cossetted young woman for her misdeeds. It’s so good. Definitely one of my favorite Austen adaptations.
It’s almost 2021 and we’re still doing this crappy slideshow thing? Cool.
Not sure how much of a U.S. release it got, but Incitement, about Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin in the year leading up to the murder, hasn’t shown up on any lists I’ve seen, and I think it deserves to.Everything I’ve heard about The Painted Bird makes it sound like a 30 Rock parody of a Holocaust film.
Not going back to check but I think I’ve seen exactly two films out of both lists combined. My favorite new releases for this year:FEELS GOOD MAN. Engrossing documentary about the viral journey of Pepe the Frog, and his creator’s battle to regain control of the character.LIVE FROM THE SPACE STAGE: A HALYX STORY. Unexpectedly touching documentary about a prefab sci-fi-themed rock band that played Disneyland for one summer in the 80s. And why shouldn’t a feature-length YouTube video count these days?WOLF WALKERS. Folk tale about a headstrong girl and shapeshifting animals gets everything right that BRAVE got wrong. Gorgeous traditional animation.
I strongly disagree with Cuties. And yes, I actually watched the film with the expectation that the people making a stink about it have only gone as far as viewing the trailer.The film does a fair job of showing the difficulties of trying to fit in and the dangers of young girls wanting to grow up to fast.Then… (SPOILERS, though this is probably moot; you’ve likely already made up your mind if you ever want to watch this or not)The inclusion of such questionable moments as trying to sneak into the school boys room to get a peek at one of their classmates and main girl Amy…bleeding (use your imagination) should’ve been a red flag. About the time that Amy takes a picture of herself (again, I’ll spare you specifics) on a borrowed phone – a phone she stole from a friend of the family and a young man who has no idea what she was using it for and, without context, could certainly end up in an endless shitstorm* if someone finds it on there – is when she ceases to be a likable protagonist. Seriously, I’ve seen villains in movies this year that were less vile.* – And it’s a sign of how sloppy the narrative is that the only fallout is the girls being labeled sluts.
And it doesn’t stop there. Attacking a classmate that called her a slut and pushing another girl into the water (and given her flailing, the girl wasn’t much of a swimmer) so she can take her place in the big dance competition (though the girls were booed for their routine, which, ngl, kind of redeemed things for me). Calling it ‘a Dance Moms and Showgirls mashup’ is entirely accurate, but not very complimentary.
And the ending may be worst of all. Despite all the horrible things she’s done, you don’t get any sense that Amy has learned something or become a better person, yet the film’s final moments stick their fingers in their ears, going ‘la la la la I can’t hear you’ as if to say that she has.All in all, this film is deserving of scorn, but not just for the reasons you’d assume at first glance.
Really insightful “I’m not Karen” commentary there, Karen.
You’re really going after me and not the wacko that listed the movie in the first place? Who does that help?
Your criticism of the movie is “the protagonist does things I don’t agree with morally”? Are you fucking serious?
Wanting a protagonist (and a child, at that) to not be human garbage isn’t as big an ask as you make it seem.
A movie or any other piece of fiction can be interesting, insightful, moving, etc., regardless of whether the protagonist is “good” or “bad”. Children often do dumb things without thinking. That doesn’t make them human garbage. If anything, the movie is honest for showing that, too, rather than the rose-tinted depictions of childhood you mostly see in American entertainment.
I wouldn’t say it deserves inclusion on any best-of-year lists but I enjoyed Let Him Go with Diane Lane and Kevin Costner. Just a solid, gorgeously shot old-school thriller.
The Call was great
“Don’t think, just gape.”There is no more annoying praise than “don’t think, just gape,” which effectively means “this movie is stupid and/or incomprehensible” (both of which are most assuredly true of Tenet), “but pretty to look at.” Yes, Tenet did have some nice locales, set dressings and special effects (if running the film backward is a special effect), but it is SO dumb and SO incomprehensible that you’d have to be mentally deficient to not be irritated by it. It’s a James Bond movie written by a 14yo boy getting high for the first time.
Thank
you for taking the time to publish this information very useful!
LET THEM ALL TALK was surprisingly lovely, and really caught me off-guard. Immediately became a top 20 entry for the year.
The Wicked and the Dark. Scariest movie I’ve seen in a long time.
The Man in the Hat — it’s a quirky, picaresque tale in which Ciaran Hinds plays the eponymous Man, driving across France in a Fiat 500 with a framed photo of a young woman. It’s a string of vignettes, some poignant, some surreal, with great scenery and fabulous musical interludes. It’s got charm in abundance and is almost dialogue-free. I took a chance on it from Amazozn Prime for a couple of quid and it instantly became one of my favourite films of the year.