I take making top ten lists very seriously, so the fact that I haven’t seen The Brutalist, Nickel Boys, Real Pain, Babygirl, or September 5, as well as several foreign language and indie movies, makes me more uneasy than I really need to be. For me, the top ten movies are not just movies that I respect but films I want to run out and buy as soon as possible. So I will make the caveat that my top six are locks for me and in the future, if anyone cares, I will probably update in the comments at least to finally add number my number ten.
With all that, this has been a great year for film for me. When most years I have only three movies at most that I love, and usually I see them near the end of the year, this year we started strong and never let up! So here are my current and inaccurate top ten.
9. Spy x Family Code: White For anyone who enjoys watching Spy x Family the show, the movie is simply a longer episode with everything that makes the show fun to watch. Loid being a great spy, and Yor, a great assassin, all while hiding their day jobs from each other. Then Anya, their telepathic daughter trying to keep them together with the understanding a little girl has. It has action, comedy, and cute family moments with a slightly bigger story line, but is just classic Spy x Family. It was what I wanted out of it and it delivered!
8. The Seed of the Sacred Fig With the Iranian protests about compulsory wearing of hijabs as the backdrop, this film details oppression. be it a government over its people or a husband/father over his family. Seeing this ordinary family they appear close but when the parents let their two teenage daughters know their father is now a judge it changes the family dynamic. The pressure the new job puts on their father to do things morally questionable while he and their mother try to rationalize the government’s actions to their skeptical daughters. This leads us down many twists and turns as disagreements disintegrate into paranoia. A compelling drama that showed a different dynamic of fascist control.
7. Late Night with the Devil I am not a horror fan yet this year I tried a bunch since so many were in the zeitgeist, and mostly I was left unimpressed. Then I saw this film and something finally clicked. Using a late night set as the setting and telling us this is a “documentary” of that live show helped create some marvelous tension. The addition of Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss) as a magician and skeptic as a guest on the show never made me doubt something supernatural would happen but it did play with expectations in unexpected ways. With a fever dream of an ending that made me worry we had lost the plot, but ending on the final shot of the stage and all the ramifications of playing around with the devil laid bare, this was a horror film that delivered!
6. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl I love Wallace & Gromit, I loved them since seeing just the end of The Wrong Trousers, then seeing the original three shorts in full in college. The Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is my favorite animated film of all time. So returning to these characters I never doubted I would love this film. But the return of Feathers as the villian, his build-up in fans’ minds all this time, allowed him to come out now to feel truly epic. Feathers holding the Blue Diamond was a visual highlight of the year for me, playing up his obsession even after all this time. The classic duo are as funny and charming as they have always been with their puns and visual wonder, and an especially silly yet also exciting chase scene. Added was a great message about technology, both negative and positive, with the smart gnome Norbot, Wallace & Gromit continues to be at the pinnacle of animated storytelling.
5. Emilia Pérez With the early reviews for this film talking about how it doesn’t hold together in the second half, had too much going on overall, and many wondering why it was a musical, I wasn’t expecting anything great. Especially since Jacques Audiard has been more a solid director for me instead of being someone great. Yet as I watched it I found none of the complaints others had. Its creative use of music and songs I found enhanced the entire viewing experience. From Zoe Saldaña’s already famous singing of “El Mal” to quiet moments of loading guns done to a musical beat, I never knew how or when the music would come but I always found it enjoyable and never detracted from the story or the characters.
Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, and especially Zoe Saldaña are all doing great work. They each have suffered in different ways in the past and are trying to reach a better future for themselves and for Mexico as a country overall. Yet the past is never gone and the ways in which it re-emerges creates new pain and trauma, but the film still leaves us with hope that positive change is possible.
4. Memoir of a Snail I cried so hard at the ending of this film. Then I calmed down, went to the bathroom and cried again. Adam Elliot’s stop-motion film is a wonderful meditation on ideas of loss, self pity, obsession, and family, that gives an aura of melancholy over the entire film. Sarah Snook’s wonderful narration and dialogue as Grace, a young girl separated from her twin brother Gilbert, keeps us enraptured in her experiences as we see the trauma he has endured and also certain level of hope, especially with one of the best quirky old women in film, Pinky, who helps Grace out in many different ways. Even when Pinky is the one needing help, she still gives Grace new lessons. It is a beautifully crafted film with a distinctive animation style, poignant storytelling that should be experienced, and wonderful characters. Just have those tissues ready. (If it helps, my tears at the end were of joy.)
3. Flow The emotions this film gets across with just its visuals and animal noises is incredibly impressive. Cat survives by itself in a world that seems to be empty of people. Then a flood happens and he and several animals have to share a boat and try to survive while dealing with each other’s quirks. Watching a ringed tailed lemur trying to grab all his shiny stuff made me more emotional than most death scenes. This film lives in quiet moments, with us putting human emotions onto animal faces and actions like we do in real life. We are immersed in this beautiful but dangerous world of survival and clan of animals sticking together, having to adapt to changing situations and working with animals that would never interact, but the characters still keep their overall animal personalities. There was one possible supernatural/dream moment I wasn’t certain what I felt about, but it didn’t take away from the simple beauty this film inspired in my mind. A true masterpiece of animation and film with an ending that was fitting in the complex emotions it leaves with you.
2. Challengers Luca Guadagnino finally won me over with this incredible film. The dynamic between the three leads is electric. Their feelings for tennis are intermixed with all of their complex feelings for each other. It is hard to express all the levels of passion, doubt, regret, loathing, and absolute love and acceptance these characters all encompass between each other and on the tennis court. Jumping around in time, the editing work helps build the tension of their relationships as well as the build-up to one of the most intense tennis matches I have ever seen in a movie. I have to also give special praise to the make-up and wardrobe team, who were able to transform them from horny college students to adults with the weight of the world on them.
1. Anora I was looking forward to this film since it went to Cannes and got those incredible reviews, and it didn’t disappoint. This was an interesting viewing experience in how the film changes its style throughout the film. This is all reflected in the lead, Mikey Madison, who has been rightfully praised for her performance. She sells that she lives the life of a stripper and prostitute and knows its rules, and when she gets a chance out she takes it, but is not naive about the problems this could create. She knows this does not happen to women like her but she allows herself to hope. When her husband’s family intervenes, she stands up to herself and lets her opinion of them be known. Even as they are telling her this marriage will not stand as they stumble around in a comedy of errors, she never lets them beat her down. Until we reach the third act and all that she has experienced is emotionally dropped on her. The closing shot will be analyzed for years to come, with individual viewers’ belief about what they think it is about, being used to reflect if you see a level of hope or if it is a final moment of despair. This film took me on a roller coaster of feelings, with its comedic moments making me wonder what this was all leading to, and then when it hit me by the end it all fell into place.
I have to add special shoutouts to Yura Borisov, who is rightfully getting acknowledged for his work here as Igor, possibly the one good person around Anora. But also Karren Karagulian should also be given praise as the bumbling but dedicated Toros, trying to clean up the situation. His comedic timing and yet seriousness for the task made him incredibly enjoyable to watch. This is a film that needs to be seen rather than trying to explain. All that it builds up to, combined with its great performances, is what makes this a special film.
