Worth watching

Best films of 2020 so far (and where to stream them)

We were debating, in one of my film critic organizations, how to approach awards season in this most peculiar year, and when to publish our annual awards. Various members weighed in on the topic (January 2021 seemed to have the most momentum) before one veteran critic came in with their own burning hot take: “There’s no reason to do any awards this year,” he wrote in an email, to paraphrase, “because nothing worth seeing has come out yet.”

I disagreed with him at the time and still do. Yes, it has been a year of disruption, missed opening dates, and general chaos in the industry, as covid-19 has rocked studios and indies to their core — such that the real year of miserable viewing might come in 2021, after all these productions have been ground to a halt for so long — but there has still been an assortment of outstanding work, albeit released directly to streaming.

Don’t be so quick to give up on 2020, even if few of the Big Deal releases actually come to pass this calendar year. Here’s a batch of excellent films well worth your streaming time (and, in some cases, the extra dollars it will take to see them), along with where you can check them out.

“7500”

What: An airplane hostage thriller involving a single pilot and a group of terrorists.

Why: Surprisingly well staged, with flourishes of atmospheric suspense and interesting psychology that belies its action-genre sounding premise. Also, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is excellent as the beleaguered pilot, desperately trying to protect the crew and passengers, including the mother of his child.

Where: Amazon Prime

“Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets”

What: A “documentary” about the last day and night of a dive bar in Vegas that draws its regulars for one last hurrah.

Why: Turns out not to be a doc, but rather, a carefully staged

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is an airline pilot under siege in the claustrophobic thriller “7500,” which takes place almost entirely in the cockpit of a commercial jet during an attempted hijacking.

The cinematic faces of 2020 (so far): (From left) A regular sleeps it off in the Ross brothers’ “sort-of” documentary “Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets”; a disabled teenager helps another one down the road in the documentary “Crip Camp”; Texas high school student Robert MacDougall speechifies in the documentary “Boys State”; and Sidney Flanigan plays a pregnant teenager who travels to New York for an abortion in “Never Rarely Sometimes Always.”