2014 was a surprisingly good year at the movie theater, with a number of delightful films at the end of the year filling up the Top 10. In fact, I saw about 90 movies released in 2014. There were a lot of really fun movies, but I have to say, similar to last year, the Top 3 movies on this list are truly head and shoulders above the rest. So let's get to it, with some quick housecleaning to do...
A Blast from the Past: Check out the following links for my Top 10 Movies of previous years: 2009 - 2010 - 2011 - 2012 - 2013
A Look to the Future: Check out the link for my Most Anticipated Movies of 2015.
Context: For transparency, here's what I watched and what I missed in 2014.
Potential Listbusters: (some films I didn't see, but heard were good): Blue Ruin, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Love is Strange, Tracks, Under the Skin
15 Honorable Mentions: The Babadook, Big Hero 6, Chef, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Edge of Tomorrow, Hector & the Search for Happiness, The Imitation Game, Joe, Locke, Selma, Starred Up, Still Alice, The Theory of Everything, Wild, What We Do in the Shadows.
And now onto the main attraction...
A chance encounter between a disgraced music-business executive (Mark Ruffalo) and a young singer-songwriter (Keira Knightley) new to Manhattan turns into a promising collaboration between the two talents.
From the writer/director of Once, the critically acclaimed 2006 musical about young song-makers, Begin Again has John Carney once more warming our hearts as we tap our feet along to this delightful film. The movie is not exactly a revelation of plot, but it's well constructed and provides a fresh-feeling, engaging medium for showcasing both spry performances from Knightley (Pride & Prejudice) and Ruffalo (The Kids Are Alright) and spirited musical performances from Maroon 5's Adam Levine and from Knightley, providing her own surprisingly talented vocals. And the soundtrack, holy expletive, you will want to download the soundtrack; as a well-dressed Men's Warehouse founding Mr. Zimmer always used to say, I guarantee it. Overall, it's not the strongest story ever written, but the characters and music are supposed to be the stars anyways and Carney ensures both shine bright enough to make Begin Again one of the best films of the year.
As the Allies make a final push in Europe against the Nazis, a battle-hardened Army sergeant named Wardaddy (Brad Pitt) commands a Sherman tank and his five-man crew (Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Jon Bernthal, Michael Peña) on a deadly mission behind enemy lines.
As a self-proclaimed sucker for both historic films and patriotic war movies, there's little I'm going to like more than a historic war movie. Enter writer/director David Ayer (End of Watch) and his WW2 tank drama, in which he extracts compelling performances from not only his lead in Pitt (Inglourious Basterds), but also from the actors in the tank crew, including a pleasantly surprising strong turn from LaBeouf (Lawless). It's an engaging journey that uniquely captures both human decency in the midst of violent struggle and innocence lost in brutal conflict. With internal turmoil equal to the bombastic external tank battles, Fury is perhaps the best WW2 film to be released since 1998's Saving Private Ryan. Summarily, for the intensity of battle and the development of character, Fury is not a movie for the feint of heart, and not a film to be missed.
8. Gone Girl
With the disappearance of his wife (Rosamund Pike) having become the focus of an intense media circus, a man (Ben Affleck) sees the spotlight turned on him when it's suspected that he may not be innocent.
Count Gone Girl as one of the many films plagued by a box-office curse; when a film makes a lot of money, like Gone Girl's hundreds of millions, it is often overlooked in the Academy Awards (this year's Best Picture nominees have actually set a record for lowest combined earnings since the category was expanded years ago). The fact that the film was not even nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay is absurd (right up there with Leo not being nominated for Best Supporting Actor in Django Unchained in 2012). It is a phenomenal screenplay from Gillian Flynn, based on her own book, that drags the audience from suspenseful conflicts to shocking surprises and back again in a way that engages from start to finish. David Fincher (The Social Network) can over-direct at times, but seems the ideal fit for the movie, as were stars Affleck (Argo) and Pike (Jack Reacher) as the main characters (I won't call either a protagonist or antagonist, for to specify may spoil the film). Pike in particular is fantastic, fully earning her Oscar nod. Ultimately, Gone Girl is a taunt, dark tale, a bit long, but smart enough to fill its time with truly intriguing drama.
7. Guardians of the Galaxy
A group of intergalactic criminals (Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel) are forced to work together to stop a fanatical warrior from taking control of the universe.
Can I say anything that has not already been said about the Guardians of the Galaxy? Probably not, but it's clear that the superhero space-opera from writer/director James Gunn (Super) is some of the most fun you can have watching a movie and deserved all the attention it received as one of the premiere blockbusters of the year. A quirky third-removed cousin to Marvel's Avengers, the Guardians are more goofy, more sarcastic, more in your face than their Earth counterparts, but in a way that totally works and endears you to a thief, an assassin, a revenge-bent alien, a raccoon, and a tree. The film's unique character helps make it feel less obvious than the typical superhero movie - even if it really may not be working with all that dissimilar a plot from other movies - and it is surely the home-run Marvel wanted it to be (no, I very much doubt the studio thought it was the underdog they tried to cast it as; the true long-shot for success will be next-year's Ant-Man). If you want to have fun, you can find few better sources of unbridled adventure than Guardians of the Galaxy.
6. American Sniper
The pinpoint accuracy of Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) saves countless lives on the battlefield and turns him into a legend. But back home with his wife and kids after four tours of duty, Chris finds that it is the war he can't leave behind.
With the disappearance of his wife (Rosamund Pike) having become the focus of an intense media circus, a man (Ben Affleck) sees the spotlight turned on him when it's suspected that he may not be innocent.
Count Gone Girl as one of the many films plagued by a box-office curse; when a film makes a lot of money, like Gone Girl's hundreds of millions, it is often overlooked in the Academy Awards (this year's Best Picture nominees have actually set a record for lowest combined earnings since the category was expanded years ago). The fact that the film was not even nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay is absurd (right up there with Leo not being nominated for Best Supporting Actor in Django Unchained in 2012). It is a phenomenal screenplay from Gillian Flynn, based on her own book, that drags the audience from suspenseful conflicts to shocking surprises and back again in a way that engages from start to finish. David Fincher (The Social Network) can over-direct at times, but seems the ideal fit for the movie, as were stars Affleck (Argo) and Pike (Jack Reacher) as the main characters (I won't call either a protagonist or antagonist, for to specify may spoil the film). Pike in particular is fantastic, fully earning her Oscar nod. Ultimately, Gone Girl is a taunt, dark tale, a bit long, but smart enough to fill its time with truly intriguing drama.
A group of intergalactic criminals (Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel) are forced to work together to stop a fanatical warrior from taking control of the universe.
Can I say anything that has not already been said about the Guardians of the Galaxy? Probably not, but it's clear that the superhero space-opera from writer/director James Gunn (Super) is some of the most fun you can have watching a movie and deserved all the attention it received as one of the premiere blockbusters of the year. A quirky third-removed cousin to Marvel's Avengers, the Guardians are more goofy, more sarcastic, more in your face than their Earth counterparts, but in a way that totally works and endears you to a thief, an assassin, a revenge-bent alien, a raccoon, and a tree. The film's unique character helps make it feel less obvious than the typical superhero movie - even if it really may not be working with all that dissimilar a plot from other movies - and it is surely the home-run Marvel wanted it to be (no, I very much doubt the studio thought it was the underdog they tried to cast it as; the true long-shot for success will be next-year's Ant-Man). If you want to have fun, you can find few better sources of unbridled adventure than Guardians of the Galaxy.
The pinpoint accuracy of Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) saves countless lives on the battlefield and turns him into a legend. But back home with his wife and kids after four tours of duty, Chris finds that it is the war he can't leave behind.
With my aforementioned affinity for patriotic films despite their obvious nationalistic appeals aside, I want to move beyond conversations about ethnocentrism or war-promotion, because those really miss the point of American Sniper. The context of the film is a controversial war, true, but the focus is on a man in that war; one who developed lethality (yes, I made that word up, 'cause "lethalness" sounds lame) into a mastery, and whose story is wholly captivating in its telling. Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook), in addition to putting on a ton of muscle weight for the role, also delivers subtle but substantial emotional weight, developing a portrait of a man who truly believed in his duty, despite the mental toll it took on him. Operating under strong direction from Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino), American Sniper offers an often visceral and always engaging mix of sniper shootouts and dramatic storytelling.
5. Calvary
After he is threatened during a confession, a good-natured priest (Brendan Gleeson) must battle the dark forces closing in around him.
After he is threatened during a confession, a good-natured priest (Brendan Gleeson) must battle the dark forces closing in around him.
Character actor Brendan Gleeson is best known to modern audiences as Maddy-Eye Moody in the Harry Potter films, but from Braveheart to In Bruges (and so many more fantastic roles before, in-between, and after), few have accomplished as eclectic a career. And few have found themselves in such a profound and engaging film as Gleeson in Calvary. An engrossing exploration into the moral heart of a small Irish town, as seen through the eyes of a seasoned priest, one who has been threatened with murder during a secret confession, the film carries all the emotional weight of the best dramas of recent years. You truly feel a priest's struggle to stand faithfully for good among so much doubt and pointed cynicism. Bolstered by a strong supporting cast, but carried largely by the presence of Gleeson and a sharp, well-written script from writer/director John Michael McDonagh (Ned Kelly), Calvary is an obvious top tier film of the year.
The life of a young man, Mason, from age 5 to age 18.
Writer/director Richard Linklater boasts one of the most fascinating filmographies in Hollywood. Linklater and actor Ethan Hawke previously made the Before trilogy, a dramatic series which updates audiences on a couple's romance once a decade (in 1995, 2004, & 2013). Somewhere in making that phenomenal cinematic experiment, they came up with the idea of making a film about the adolescent growth a young boy. Filming for a couple weeks every year, for the past 12 years, Boyhood is the realization of that unlikely dream. The result rises to the challenge of the high-concept idea, providing an unparalleled viewing experience as we watch the fictional Mason grow up, as Ellar Coltrane - the actor who plays him - also matures through the years. As a "biographical-ish" movie, there is not a cut-and-paste clean plot clearly visible in its somewhat excessive run-time, but there is an impressive growth of characters, an exploration of big ideas about life and love and family, and a definitive sense that the childhood/teenage experience is more fully captured here than in any other recent film. Boyhood is an impressive feat you should definitely take the time to watch.
When Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal), a driven man desperate for work, muscles into the world of L.A. crime journalism, he blurs the line between cameraman and participant to become the star of his own story.
One of the biggest snubs this Oscar season was no Best Actor nomination for Gyllenhaal (Prisoners) for his role in Nightcrawler. It's an absolutely absorbing character construction, masterfully put together by Gyllenhaal and writer/director Dan Gilroy (The Bourne Legacy) to perfectly establish a taunt atmosphere that literally kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. As Bloom feels more and more empowered to do whatever it takes to succeed, the audience is drawn deeper and deeper into his narcissism and paranoia, ever questioning how far he will go to get what he wants. And part of what makes Nightcrawler so effective is that we don't always see Bloom's every move, but constantly feel the threat of his existence and the repercussions of his actions. Powered along by a supremely lithe and bilious performance from Gyllenhaal, Nightcrawler is the most tense, well-made thriller of the year.
2. Whiplash
A promising young drummer (Miles Teller) enrolls at a cut-throat music conservatory where his dreams of greatness are mentored by an instructor (J.K. Simmons) who will stop at nothing to realize a student's potential.
A promising young drummer (Miles Teller) enrolls at a cut-throat music conservatory where his dreams of greatness are mentored by an instructor (J.K. Simmons) who will stop at nothing to realize a student's potential.
There is a reason why J.K. Simmons (the Spider-Man trilogy) is pretty well set to receive the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Whiplash. As much as the story is about Teller's drumming protagonist, Whiplash is equally driven by Simmons' powerhouse performance as the antagonistic instructor who simultaneously torments and inspires his students. It is an impressive feat to take a simple story of a young drummer trying to impress his teacher and make it into a terse, reverberating drama as impressive as this film from writer/director Damien Chazelle (Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench). Inspirationally directed by Chazelle, the film is an exhilarating look into the maddening search for excellence that leaves you breathless, particularly after an electrifying climactic scene that you will be utterly unable to take your eyes - or ears - off of for a single second.
A washed up actor (Michael Keaton), who once played an iconic superhero, battles his ego and attempts to recover his family, his career and himself in the days leading up to the opening of a Broadway play.
Just barely edging out Whiplash for best of the year is the surprise hit Birdman, an unparalleled effort from writer/director Alejandro G. Iñárritu (Biutiful). The entire movie is filmed as though it was one long camera shot, a truly spectacular accomplishment if you think about the difficulty involved in achieving such a mesmerizing effect. But more than superb technical prowess, Birdman also boasts a phenomenal story of redemption and legacy, brought to life through truly memorable turns from Keaton (Batman), Edward Norton (The Illusionist), and Emma Stone (Easy A). It's a sometimes bizarre film, but one which is totally enrapturing as Iñárritu and Keaton explore the depths of one man's regrets, fears, and aspirations. Some more insightful critics may point to social commentary about celebrity or artistic expression; frankly I'd just like to point out a genuinely well-made film that demonstrates some of the very best cinematic and dramatic work produced in 2014, well deserving of its praise, and entrenched in the upper echelon of the year's best.
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