My Favorite Films of 2015

Everyone loves a good top ten list, so here once again are my favorite flicks of the year. Per custom, I’m not listing my favorite 10 films from 2015, since I doubt quite seriously that I saw 10 good films that were actually released in the calendar year. Rather, this is a list of the best 10 flicks I saw for the first time this year, regardless of release date. This system allows for a more accurate list of what I loved this year, and more accurately reflects actual movie-watching habits in this era of streaming, wireless convenience.

1. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) – By far my favorite film of the year, Fury Road fulfilled the secret dreams of every boy who grew up worshiping The Road Warrior (like me). When it was announced that director George Miller was going to bring his iconic post-apocalyptic hero back to the screen after 30 years, I had my doubts about the project. After all, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome sure sucked, and that still stood as everyone’s last glimpse into Miller’s dusty future world. But not only did Miller pull off a flick that wasn’t an embarrassment, he actually created the best film of the series—and one of the greatest action films ever made, frankly.
Mad Max: Fury Road is the ultimate expression of frenetic, frenzied action cinema. It’s one thing to make a film that’s basically one long action sequence, but it’s quite another to make audiences actually care about anything that’s going on (I’m looking at you, The Raid: Redemption!). But Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy command the screen and your attention as the clearly damaged characters in the midst of all the chaos. Their understated, often wordless performances give a real gravity to all the mayhem. And what mayhem! People will be catching up with the action scenes in Fury Road for some time, but what really makes them sing is Miller’s reliance on physical stuntwork and practical effects rather than CGI. Here’s hoping that other Hollywood action filmmakers took notes.
Above all, to me, Fury Road is a masterpiece of visual storytelling. The opening sequences of the film lay out the world and the plot in a matter of minutes, and with an absolute minimum of dialogue. Everything you need to know about this world is shown in these first few minutes, from Immortan Joe’s scary authority to the room where he kept his breeders. Fury Road can play in any country, in any language, and everyone will get what’s going on. And when what’s going on is glorious, non-stop action like this, you’ve got a true classic on your hands.

2. Ex Machina (2015) – This slow-burning masterpiece would probably have been my favorite flick in just about any other year. It’s a claustrophobic, riveting film that takes place almost entirely inside the isolated refuge of a secretive tech mogul. He’s invited an employee of his company up to his estate-cum-nature preserve, but it’s not just a vacation. He’s there to meet the mogul’s latest invention, a fully-functioning AI-controlled female robot, and evaluate how ‘human’ she is. I don’t want to give too much away, because half the fun is the way the film forces you to keep reassessing who you’re rooting for, and who the villain really is. Alicia Vikander turned in my favorite performance of the year as the robot Ava. With just her face visible through the incredible effects, Vikander is heartbreaking as she tries to convince her tester to help her escape her situation. Ex Machina is a fascinating film that I suspect will grow and grow in stature over time into a deserved place as a recognized sci-fi classic.

3. John Wick (2014) – Don’t call it a comeback! Seriously, don’t, because the word “comeback” implies that Keanu Reeves has ever made a flick as good as John Wick. He hasn’t. This slick action vehicle stands as the high-water mark in his career. It’s a riveting shoot-em-up that ranks as the best of the current run of “middle-aged actor becomes violent action hero” flicks that started with Taken. Reeves plays a widowed former hitman whose only affections are saved for the puppy that his late wife left him. A chance encounter with a bunch of dimwitted Russian mobsters leads to an unfortunate fate for the dog. That, in turn, leads to unfortunate fates for a lot of Russian mobsters. Okay, so the plot’s not exactly award-winning stuff, but it’s the execution that makes the film. Scene after scene of propulsive action keep John Wick careening forward to an explosive and satisfying conclusion. An extremely good revenge flick with a surprising amount of heart, John Wick proves once and for all that Keanu Reeves should just focus on action movies and leave stuff like The Lake House to the Ryan Reynolds of the world.

4. What We Do In The Shadows (2015) – This hilarious faux-documentary from New Zealand was the funniest film I saw all year. In the style of a TV reality show, it follows the exploits of a group of mismatched vampires who live together in a large mansion. Despite being born centuries apart, the quartet of vampires has reached a nice understanding as to how to co-exist. They’ve even got a chore board! Things get complicated when one of their ranks turns a young local into a vampire. While it’s good that he can get them into cooler nightclubs, it’s not so good that he goes around telling everyone he’s a vampire. Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords (who also co-wrote and co-directed the flick) is fantastic as the suave vampire Vladislav in one of the best performances of the year, comedy or drama. It’s a really funny movie that you should see right now.

5. Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015) – In case you hadn’t heard, there was a new Star Wars flick released recently. And after wading through the gigantic piles of hype, there was actually a pretty good movie under there! J.J. Abrams’ take on the iconic franchise was a breath of fresh air, a fun, action-packed adventure with nary a senate quorum or trade agreement in sight. In a smart move, Abrams took his time introducing the new characters at the start of the film, then gradually introduced the old-timers. By the time Han, Leia and the rest showed up, you were already invested in the newbies, so the whole flick wasn’t (just) an exercise in nostalgia. Kylo Ren is a legitimately scary villain, while the new heroes Rey, Finn and Poe are engaging and fun. Look, it’s nothing really groundbreaking. It re-hashes a lot of plot beats from the original. A lot. Parts of it make no sense. Captain Phasma is hardly there. But it wildly succeeds in re-revving a franchise that’s been too important in too many peoples’ lives to let it end with sad Darth Vader screaming, “Nooooo!” And doesn’t that count for something?

6. Coherence (2013) – I stumbled across this low-budget sci-fi thriller on Amazon Prime early in 2015 and have been recommending it to people ever since. Coherence is another film that takes place almost entirely in one setting: a suburban house filled with friends at a dinner party. The flick starts out as a sort of shambling indie talk-fest, with a motley collection of friends hanging out. Slowly, the talk turns to a comet that’s passing overhead that night, and the possible strange events it might inspire. Well, that comet somehow exerts a supernatural power over the evening, and things start getting increasingly weird and unsettling. Like a great Twilight Zone episode stretched to feature length, Coherence keeps the twists and turns coming until the very end.

7. Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003) – I finally got around to watching this awesome documentary when it popped up on Netflix this year. It’s a three-hour-long discussion of the various ways Los Angeles has been portrayed on film over the years, made up entirely of clips from films shot in the city. While that might sound awfully dry, the film is anything but. It’s a fascinating look at how narrative films can be viewed as documentary footage by paying attention to what’s going on in the background or settings. It’s not a flick you’re going to watch in one go, but it’s broken up into smaller sections that make it easy to pause and return to. Before watching this flick, I’d never thought about how modern architecture became associated with film villainy, or how you can watch the evolution of gas station or supermarket design by viewing low-budget horror movies. Well, now I have.

8. Furious 7 (2015) – The latest installment of the blockbuster series keeps the melodrama and stunts coming in equal measure. Letty gets her memory back! Dom comes back from the dead! Cars skydive and jump from one skyscraper to another! Paul Walker gets a crappy CGI send-off! Jason Statham! Kurt Russell! And in one of the best film moments of 2015, there’s a slow head-to-toe pan of a bikini-clad Nathalie Emmanuel! Alright, so the flick doesn’t quite reach the dizzy heights of Fast Five or Furious 6, but it’s still got plenty to recommend. Furious 7 was a bit too beholden to CGI for my taste—those shots of the cars leaping out of the Dubai skyscrapers are pretty cheesy. The car chases seemed a lot more impressive before I saw Mad Max, but they’re still pretty good. But the F&F series’ combination of overwrought soap opera elements, slam-bang fights, high-speed chases, and scantily-clad women is a uniquely satisfying one. Fans of the series (like me) weren’t disappointed.

9. Miami Connection (1987)  – Is Miami Connection one of the best films I saw last year? Well, in terms of traditional elements like acting, writing, cinematography, lighting, sound or professionalism, it’s probably actually the worst. But if you’re talking about the films that I had the best time watching in 2015, Miami Connection is solidly in the top ten. I found it airing in the late-night Saturday slot that TCM reserves for its “Underground” fare and instantly fell in love. The story (sort of) follows the exploits of martial arts rock band Dragon Sound as they take on a gang of motorcycle ninjas who are flooding Miami with cocaine. In truth, it’s just a semi-random collection of scenes put together by some people who had no idea how to make a movie. It’s without a doubt one of the greatest “bad” movies I’ve ever seen and had me cracking up from start to finish. You owe it to yourself to witness Miami Connection. At least check out Dragon Sound’s hit single, Against the Ninja!

10. Escape From New York (1981) – Alright, so this is a bit of a cheat. I had seen Escape From New York before this year. Many, many times. Or at least I thought I had. But the fact is, I had never seen the film in anything but the cropped-for-TV, pan-and-scan version that I taped off HBO in the mid-80s. 2015 saw the release of a new BluRay edition of Escape From New York, though. As I watched the glorious widescreen version unfold, it dawned on me that I hadn’t ever really seen John Carpenter’s vision of the film before. The standard-screen TV version cut off huge swaths of the picture, so much so that lots of scenes didn’t really make visual sense when I was watching them in the 80s. But, lo and behold–all of those scenes that I thought Carpenter had left intentionally vague or out-of-focus were actually just products of ham-fisted pan-and-scanning! Suddenly, I could see Carpenter’s burned-out sets and meticulous widescreen compositions as they were meant to be seen. Unsurprisingly, the film is even better when you can make sense of what you’re looking at! Escape From New York has always been one of my favorite films of the 80s. Who knew that I hadn’t even really seen it properly?

Related: My Favorite Films of 2014