My Favourite Films of 2015

After all the hype and disappointment, I had it in my mind that 2015 had been a poor year for films. Having gone back over the ones I managed to catch, I was happy to see I was wrong. There was one masterpiece and future classic and plenty of others that came quite close.

Here's my list of the ones I enjoyed the most.

Inside Out

 

 

The success of Pixar as a producer of superior family entertainment has been so unwavering that near misses like Cars and Brave are cause for genuine surprise. No danger of that here. Inside Out is my favourite of all Pixar's efforts, and easily the best film I saw this year.

It's a rare pleasure as an adult to sit in a cinema and be able to feel total wonder and joy, but Inside Out delivers big on both. The key to its success is again a commitment to providing entertainment for children and adults alike, delivering a feast for the imagination that carries genuine emotional impact.

One of the hallmarks of a classic is that it is endlessly rewatchable. There's so much to marvel at here that Inside Out is assured of that status.

Wild

 

Cheryl Strayed's quest for meaning and redemption is presented here as a simultaneous forward and backward journey. The further she walks on the Pacific Crest Trail, the deeper into the traumatic events of her past she delves. And as she successfully traverses each subsequent obstacle, so she begins to come to terms with the past and move on with her life. This externalising of her inner struggle is a narrative approach that generates powerful emotional impact. A deeply moving and inspiring film.

Mad Max: Fury Road

 

 

At the heart of this film's success is the relief and joy felt at witnessing the reattainment of greatness by a genre much diminished and maligned. Here is an action movie stripped of convoluted plot and postmodern knowingness, piloted unerringly by a singular vision, with enough depth of character and narrative drive to keep you firmly in tow. Mad Max reminds us that when done right, this is one of the most purely enjoyable movie experiences you can have.

Whiplash

 

So much of Whiplash hangs on the performance of J.K. Simmons as the tyrannical jazz teacher. It's like watching Keyser Soze played by Buddy Rich, a super villain puppet master pulling the strings of determined naïf Miles Teller, and the back and forth sparring between the two is riveting. By the end you're left as battered and exhausted as a punch-drunk prizefighter.

Foxcatcher

 

There's a feeling of dread pervading this film, and it stems from the decay of the American Dream. Here the Olympic ideal and family bonds are corrupted by the perverted Old Money of Steve Carell's John DuPont. Tragic and haunting.

It Follows

 

The scariest and most enduring horror films are those that prey on our deepest subconscious fears, and It Follows adheres to that formula, making it one of the most disturbing viewing experiences I've had since The Descent. Exploiting a fear of growing up and adulthood personified by an unstoppable sexually-transmitted curse, its half-glimpsed horrors linger on in the mind for days.

The Tribe

 

No dialogue. No subtitles. Just Ukrainian sign language. And yet this is no barrier to understanding this tale of organised crime in a school for deaf children. Uncompromising, unflinching, brilliant.

Beasts of No Nation

 

Beautiful, gliding, colour-drenched visuals and an ethereal soundtrack balance out the harrowing events in this tale of child soldiers in Africa. A starker, less deft approach might have been too much to take, but director Cary Fukunaga gives us hope amongst all the horror.

 Carol

 

Aesthetically speaking, Carol is a delight. Shot on grainy film, the wintry greys of New York are gorgeous, and the score is as languid and yearning as Cate Blanchett's trapped housewife. But this is a love story in danger of falling short of real emotion. For all the look and glance stuff between Blanchett and Rooney Mara, it threatens to remain so subtle as to be superficial. Until the final, triumphant scene, that is.

 

 

Macbeth

 

 

What differentiates this adaptation of Shakespeare's play is its focus on grief as the catalyst for Macbeth and his wife's tragic attempts at greatness. From the first shot of their child being laid to rest, to the last of the future king of Scotland, themes of parenthood, lineage and loss are at the fore. It lends great weight to the tragedy to consider that the seeds of Macbeth's doom are sown in the pursuit of power as recompense for the loss of a child.