Great filmmaking in a horrible year
2020’s best 10 films took the sting out of shuttered theaters
Everything about moviewatching — like so many other aspects of our lives — turned all David Lynch on us this year. In other words, it was sometimes horrifying, sometimes beautiful — and always surreal.
Studios kept changing movie release dates. Theaters kept closing and opening and closing again. New streaming services came out of nowhere. Keeping track of what was out there got about as difficult as trying to figure out what the point of “Tenet” was.
Even the way we watched movies kept shifting. Some of us nestled at home and streamed the living daylights out of everything. Some braved the movie theaters. Others went retro and rediscovered the joys of driveins.
ome studios held back their big-ticket releases until everyone could go back to theaters. When the pandemic persisted, some relented and released major films — like “Mulan” — on streaming platforms. A few did a mixture of streaming and releasing to limited- capacity theaters — but did anyone actually attend?
Given all that strangeness, and the pandemic’s impact on the Hollywood production
schedules, you might think there’d be few contenders for a 2020 Top 10 movie list. And would you be totally wrong. There were so many to consider that the process was agonizing at times.
Still, here are my Top 10 favorite movies of the year.
1. ‘Driveways’
No film this year better symbolized the nation’s desperate need for kindness, compassion and connection than Andrew Ahn’s warm, embracing indie release. In his final role, Brian Dennehy delivers a career high, gently playing a Korean war veteran who befriends a lonely, bullied 8-year-old neighbor (Lucas Jaye) — dubbed “the Professor” since he’s so brainy. The lad and his mom have moved for a brief stint into his dead aunt’s hoarder home in up
state New York. It’s a quiet film reminding us to take the time to reach out, understand and talk to each other, even when we are on opposite sides of driveways.
Can you see it?: Yes, the film is available on several streaming platforms.
2. ‘Nomadland’
What happens when your spouse dies, the industry town you live in gasps its final breath and you have no place to call home? Should you be Frances McDormand’s resilient Fern, you pack up the camper van and journey through America’s heartland, where you make fleeting but unforgettable friendships while working at odd jobs. As she did with “The Rider,” filmmaker Chloe Zhao mixes real characters with fictional ones in her adaptation of Jessica Bruder’s nonfiction book “Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century.” In the process, she holds a mirror up to forgotten Americans, strappy sorts who are barely making ends meet on this restless and rugged range.
Can you see it?: Probably not yet, the film was streamed on limited sites last week to earn awards eligibility and will open in wide release in early 2021.
3. ‘Minari’
Lee Isaac Chung’s quasiautobiographical debut is an uplifting beauty that fondly looks back at a Korean-American family settling on Arkansas farmland, where they hope the American dream strikes a crop of gold next to their mobile home. It’s a realistic, tender, often hilarious remembrance about days past. The scenes between the precocious and too- adorable- for- words son (Alan S. Kim) and his plucky grandmother (scene stealer Youn Yuh- jung) shine brighter than any holiday lights display.
Can you see it?: Probably not, like “Nomadland,” it opened to a brief limited release a week ago and is slated to open wide Feb. 12.
4. ‘Small Axe’
Making one great film in a year is challenging enough, but Oscar-winner Steve McQueen pulled off a fiver with the assistance of Amazon Prime and London’s BBC. His series of films depicted the struggles, triumphs and racism that London’s West Indian community experienced in the late-‘60s- to-mid-‘ 80s, and did it with polish and measured outrage. From the unbelievable courtroom drama of “Mangrove” to the sensual house party “Lovers Rock,” this collection captured a period and a people and defined them with integrity and vision. And what a pleasure to see “Star Wars” John Boyega give an awards-worthy performance in “Red, White and Blue” as a cop fighting racism.
Can you see it?: All are already available on Amazon.
5. “Collective”
Journalism has come under attack from our fakenews president, and that’s part of the reason why Alexander Nanau’s provocative documentary on dirty politicking in the aftermath of a massive 2015 fatal fire in Romania that clogged illequipped hospitals, leading to nearly 40 more people dying while being treated for their injuries, is such an important standout. The film follows the fire aftermath and journalists uncovering hospital mismanagement; it’s not just a brilliant shout at a broken system, but a reminder why a robust press is so necessary. If “Collective” doesn’t provoke a fullthrottle scream, nothing can.
Can you see it?: Yes, the film is available on several platforms, and is also available on selected independent theater websites as part of the Virtual Cinema series.
6. ‘Bacurau’
In a year of rants and raves, no one creatively funneled frustration with kooky inventiveness quite like the filmmakers behind this gory sci-fi/ Western/thriller mashup. It’s from the Brazilian team of Kleber Mendonca Filho and Juliano Dornelles, and is about a small town in the Brazilian backcountry standing up to corruption and taking no prisoners in the process. It’s viscerally satisfying and loopy in the best way imaginable.
Can you see it?: Yes, it’s available on several platforms.
7. ‘First Cow’
If you prefer Westerns that gallop rather than mosey, you might think Kelly Reichardt’s slow- burner is a bum steer. Your loss, padner. “Cow” is Reichardt’s shining star, a meditation on the friendship of two 1820s Oregon outsiders ( played by Orion Lee and John Magaro) who devise a bovinus scheme to milk the wealthy. Patience is required here, but the rewards are many.
Can you see it?: Yes, it’s available on several platforms.
8. ‘Promising Young Woman’
Director and writer Emerald Fennell outdoes “Gone Girl” with her shattering feminist character study/ thriller that finds Carey Mulligan — in top form — exacting vengeance on a slew of let’s-get-her-wasted toxic males. The twists come fast and are far from predictable, but they’re also jaw- droppingly appropriate, even damningly meaningful.
It’s Fennell’s directorial feature film debut, a provocative talker of the first order from a talented filmmaker.
Can you see it?: Yes, it’s slated for release Dec. 25.
9. ‘Mank’
Even if you don’t give a Rosebud about who actually penned “Citizen Kane,” Marin native David Fincher’s Old Hollywood yarn on the making of the classic remains robust fun for all. Fincher’s late father, Jack, penned this revisionist tale of artistic deceit as viewed through the bloodshot eyes of alcoholic screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman, exceptional) who created with director Orson Welles a film that turned Hollywood on its head. It’s made and performed by masters.
Can you see it?: Yes, it’s available on Netflix.
10. ‘Wolfwalkers’
Pixar came out with two wonderful computer- animated features this year — “Onward” and “Soul” — but Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart’s Irish folklore topped them both; it kept me in its thrall from opening to end.
The hand-drawn animation is gorgeous and the timeless tale about man vs. nature is most topical. It’s a classic of magical storytelling.
Can you see it?: Yes, it’s available on Apple TV+.
Honorable mentions
“Let Them All Talk,” “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” “I Carry You With Me,” “The Personal History of David Copperfield,” “The Sound of Metal,” “Crip Camp,” “The Climb,” “The Midnight Sky,” “The Father, ““Sylvie’s Love,” “The Truff le Hunters,” “Soul,” “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” “Palm Springs,” “Shirley,” “Survival Skills,” “Around the Sun,” “News of the World,” “Embattled,” “The Half of It,” “Boys State,” “Athlete A,” “Da 5 Bloods.”
Here are the “worst” films of 2020 — which we define movies that should have been good but left us woefully disappointed.
• “Irresistible”: What an ideal time to release a stinging satire on political spin doctors, right? Too bad this one was dreadfully unfunny. A real misfire from Jon Stewart, who misdirects the hell out of Steve Carell as a campaign chief.
• “Hillbilly Elegy”: Ron Howard’s choppy Netflix adaptation somehow missed all the best stuff in the J.D. Vance memoir.
• “Project Power”: Netflix’s incohesive car wreck of a superhero movie wasted a talented cast of Jamie Foxx, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Dominique Fishback.
• “Artemis Fowl”: Disney’s sci-fi fantasy was a half-baked and overstuffed turkey that feels like it got sliced, diced and stitched back together during studio rewrites and reshoots. Fans of Eoin Colfer’s book series have every reason to cry foul.
• “The Roads Not Taken”: A high- caliber cast — Javier Bardem, Elle Fanning, Salma Hayek, Laura Linney — and a risk-taking director — Sally Potter — fail in this time-shifting drama offering intersecting narratives of a man’s life. It’s over- earnest, confusing and absolutely frustrating.