The Best Films of 2014

Not the first time I'm doing this. Just that I've decided to alter the timing, so that this becomes a sort-of-legit yearend thing, unlike the ones I used to make (based on a personal screening period that extended to April of the new year, with the "lists" coming out in May, because I felt the need to see all the "Oscar contenders"--a phrase that bears little meaning to me now).

The time period covered by this roundup ranges from the day after the 2013 Oscars (to account for my 2013 list below) up to Dec. 31, 2014. That means movies that I saw during that time AND which had either 2013 or 2014 commercial releases, because a lot of the good ones obviously don't arrive at our local cinemas on time, if at all.

That's how I've always done it--the inclusion of films that came out this AND the previous year in the current year's roundup--which should explain the absence of the likes of Iñárritu's "Birdman" and Marshall's "Into the Woods" in this list, and their possible appearance in next year's.

Now that I've gotten that out of my system...

I came up with a top 11, as I really couldn't decide which among my final three to drop. And in lieu of omnibus citations, I attached links to pieces by some of my favorite writers, that you may hear from the better qualified (or because my mind is kind of sluggish these days).


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11. Winter Sleep (dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
"Winter Sleep is not some impenetrable or arduous art film, full of ambiguous silences and featureless landscapes. (And I say that as someone who will willingly watch such a thing.) It's a gorgeous and luminous work, driven by amazing scenery and affecting human tragedy."
--Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.

10. The Immigrant (dir. James Gray)
"This is compelling filmmaking, but it doesn't necessarily make a great film. Rather, what makes The Immigrant a great film is the way in which Gray uses actors and his mastery of the unspoken to create a tremendously lived-in, felt-through world. Every space--public or private, interior or exterior--feels authentic, historically and emotionally."
--Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, The A.V. Club.

9. Ida (dir. Paweł Pawlikowski)
"Though strands of plot touch contemporary chords, there is nothing overtly ideological about Ida. Its concerns are predominantly personal and emotional, like watching what transpires when two women pick up a hitchhiking musician on the way to a desultory gig."
--Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times.

8. The Grand Budapest Hotel (dir. Wes Anderson)
"Mr. Anderson is no realist. This movie makes a marvelous mockery of history, turning its horrors into a series of graceful jokes and mischievous gestures. You can call this escapism if you like. You can also think of it as revenge.
--A.O. Scott, The New York Times.

7. Violator (dir. Eduardo Dayao)
"As promotion would call it, the film is a horror story. It is--technically. But there is more to it than that. There is an almost palpable sense of dread looming around his image and sound, an unseen phantom creeping on stretched hallways, mossed terraces and lit hills of asphalt. This phantom is not captured in-frame, but its presence is unmistakable. It is unsettling."
--Armando dela Cruz, Film Police Reviews.

6. Nightcrawler (dir. Dan Gilroy)
"The movie is quite something, and, despite its title, it doesn't really crawl. It scuttles ahead, wide-eyed, antennae waving, on a journey to the end of the night, and toward a future when nothing will not be shown. Don't look now, it tells us. So we do."
--Anthony Lane, The New Yorker.

5. Child's Pose (dir. Calin Peter Netzer)
"Few viewers will come away from "Child's Pose" without strong feelings about Cornelia and her behavior. But even the most passionate judgments might be chipped away after the film's amazing final sequence, which the director begins in a cramped home kitchen and ends by masterfully framing a pivotal encounter in a car's rearview mirror."
--Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post.

4. Boyhood (dir. Richard Linklater)
"André Bazin wrote that art emerged from our desire to counter the passage of time and the inevitable decay it brings. But in Boyhood, Mr. Linklater's masterpiece, he both captures moments in time and relinquishes them as he moves from year to year. He isn't fighting time but embracing it in all its glorious and agonizingly fleeting beauty."
--Manohla Dargis, The New York Times.

3. Maps to the Stars (dir. David Cronenberg)
"Maps to the Stars might be disturbing to those who don't yet realize the corrupt and repugnant culture of celebrity we're all sort of living through right now. Maybe you had to be alive before everything went to shit. Or maybe you look around and you see nothing wrong."
--Sasha Stone, Awards Daily.

2. Norte, Hangganan ng Kasaysayan (dir. Lav Diaz)
"The force compelling us all to stay was the audacity of Diaz's filmmaking. His scenes go on, though not fot the sake of their longevity. The extended takes, at every range (wide shots, close-ups, a flying digital camera that approximates dreams), allow your eye to study the details of the prison cell or the vastness of a woman's farm. They're not long takes so much as deep breaths."
--Wesley Morris, Grantland.

1. Gone Girl (David Fincher)
"The movie's script, by Gillian Flynn, who also wrote the novel, pares down both the discursive and expressive rhetoric of the book as well as its psychology. I suspect that part of the book's appeal is its underlying mythic power. Fincher unleashes that primordial, archetypal fury along with its cosmic irony, making a movie that is a tragedy of our time."
--Richard Brody, The New Yorker.

And eleven more that ought to be in some best-of list, in no particular order: Lilting, Snowpiercer, Night Moves, Le Week-end, Palo Alto, The Skeleton Twins, The Normal Heart, X-Men: Days of Future Past, How to Train Your Dragon 2, The Babadook, Barber's Tales.

Finally, my ten--let's make that twenty--most favorite performances (to make it more fun, listed alphabetically):

• Nina Arianda (Rob the Mob)
• Patricia Arquette (Boyhood)
• Carrie Coon (Gone Girl)
• Essie Davis (The Babadook)
• Mackenzie Davis (What If)
• Adam Driver (What If)
• Lindsay Duncan (Le Week-end)
• Jesse Eisenberg (Night Moves)
• Ralph Fiennes (The Grand Budapest Hotel)
• Paulina Garcia (Gloria)
• Luminita Gheorghiu (Child's Pose)
• Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler)
• Bill Hader (The Skeleton Twins)
• Mailes Kañapi (Mula sa Kung Ano ang Noon)
• Agata Kulesza (Ida)
• Sid Lucero (Norte, Hangganan ng Kasaysayan)
• Julianne Moore (Maps to the Stars)
• Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl)
• Gladys Reyes (Barber's Tales)
• Tilda Swinton (Snowpiercer)

1. The Social Network, dir. David Fincher

2. Blue Valentine, dir. Derek Cianfrance

3. Four Lions, dir. Chris Morris

4. The Town, dir. Ben Affleck

5. Dogtooth, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos

6. Inception, dir. Christopher Nolan

7. In a Better World, dir. Susanne Bier

8. Another Year, dir. Mike Leigh
9. The King's Speech, dir. Tom Hooper

10. Incendies, dir. Denis Villeneuve

ACTOR: Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network)
ACTRESS: Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine)
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Geoffrey Rush (The King's Speech)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Amy Adams (The Fighter)

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ACTOR: Michael Fassbender (Shame)

ACTRESS: Tilda Swinton (We Need to Talk About Kevin)

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Ezra Miller (We Need to Talk About Kevin)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Carey Mulligan (Shame)

ACTOR: Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)

ACTRESS: Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty)

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Doona Bae (Cloud Atlas)

ACTOR: Leonardo DiCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street)

ACTRESS: Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine)

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Dane DeHaan (Kill Your Darlings)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Lea Seydoux (Blue Is the Warmest Color)