by Robert Joseph Butler

An aging actress realizes her career is quickly passing by. Two great animated films in one year, as well as two great wintry westerns in one year. A brilliant study of sexual repression in a period of taboo. A wife discovers that her marriage was based on deception. 2015 was a year that started off rocky. However, it ended very well with numerous end-of-the-year titles. The year’s best films were some of the most intimate, delicate, and honest films released in a while. It was also a year that included visually rich themes, as well as genre films that had familiar stories told in new and refreshing ways. These films below will certainly stand the test of time.

Clouds of Sils Maria

1. Clouds of Sils Maria (d. Oliver Assayas)

Out of all the films released in 2015, “Clouds of Sils Maria” spoke to me the most. It’s a film that you can’t really pin point the exact themes going on because it’s so multi-layered, and it holds great mystery. French filmmaker Olivier Assayas (Carlos, Summer Hours) has crafted the film of his career here, and the interplay between Juliette Binoche, who plays an aging film and theater actress, and her millennial assistant Kristen Stewart is affectionate and tense. Their bond between them is some of the finest onscreen chemistry you will see this year. This is a film that reaffirms how performance, acting, memory, and art matter in an era of Hollywood blockbusters and media TMZ frenzy. Overall, this is a masterful study about the old guard colliding with the new.

Hateful Eight

2. The Hateful Eight (d. Quentin Tarantino)

The Hateful Eight is another great film in Quentin Tarantino’s oeuvre. The film is like watching a great stage play become cinematic with its 70mm presentation. For over 20 years now, Tarantino has paid homage to cinema by speaking the visual language of genre movies. Now he’s going to new heights by playing an ode to cinema itself by bringing back the old tradition of a bygone movie culture thanks to a filmmaker just as passionate and committed to his audience as to his art of filmmaking. As you watch The Hateful Eight, you can’t deny that this is a man who truly loves cinema.

With its limited setting that plays on the tropes of a whodunit mystery and, of course, a reinvention of the western genre, it is perhaps his most verbose film to date. In a way, the film is a mix of Reservoir Dogs meets Django Unchained. The film has a brilliant first half of great twists and turns, and the second half is quite explosive and lurid. While the film doesn’t have the sheer technical genius or the style of Kill Bill or Inglorious Basterds, the film is very much a writer’s exercise and the 70mm is a technical marvel on its own.

Carol

3. Carol (d. Todd Haynes)

Director Todd Haynes once again paints an authentic, honest, and sumptuous portrait of repressed sexuality in a time of patriarchy. Adapted by Phyllis Nagy from the groundbreaking 1950’s “The Price of Salt” by Patricia Highsmith, the film offers elegant cinematography, a complex and heartbreaking love story between the two leads—Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara—and both women deliver wrenching and intimate performances. This is about as intimate and delicate as a love story gets. We experience the internal conflict, complexity, confusion, and alienation in the world these women are confined to. What’s refreshing about this film is that it still lives up to the source material. “Carol” is as moving and poignant as it is a ravishing period piece told by a master of filmmaking.

Anomalisa

4. Anomalisa (d. Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson)

Charlie Kaufman, the brilliant mind behind “Being John Malkovich,” “Adaptation,” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” collaborates with animator Duke Johnson to create one of the year’s most moving and humane films involving animated puppets. The film, a masterful study of modern alienation and the mundane cycle of life, offers a refreshingly unique perspective on loneliness. The film is about a self-help author and motivator, Michael Stone (voiced by David Thewlis). Everyone else around him sounds exactly the same (voiced by Tom Noonan) and he feels completely disconnected on his one-night trip to Cincinnati). Until he meets Lisa (voiced by Jennifer Jason Leigh), who brings Michael hope. The stop-animation is brilliant and the skill with the staging is impeccable for an animated film, Kaufman decides to use a lot of moving shots and long takes. “Anomalisa” is by far one of the most humanistic films of the year, with a film starring animated puppets.

The Revenant

5. The Revenant (d. Alejandro G. Innaritu)

If the meditative stylistic devices of Terrence Malick were applied to an action adventure, the final result would likely resemble Alejandro G. Innaritu’s brooding and visionary epic film “The Revenant.” The film is as concerned with the battle between man and nature as it is with the essence of humanity as a whole, and it is as much a revenge story as it is evocative and spiritual in the tone of Malick and Werner Herzog, and every bit as raw and brutal as a Mel Gibson epic like “Apocalypto.” Everything from the impeccable set-pieces to the awe-inspiring visuals will transport you to 19th century frontier America. Featuring a career defining performance from Leonardo Di Caprio as the fur trapper Hugh Glass, “The Revenant” is a complete tour-de force of visceral filmmaking at its most breathtaking.

Sicario

6. Sicario (d. Denis Villeneuve)

A thriller from director Denis Villeneuve and the great DP Roger Deakins, who together create a great mood and atmosphere to heighten the world of the drug war. The film is a brilliantly tense and endlessly taut film that explores a world of ongoing conflict and questionable ethics. Everything from the first-rate set-pieces to the unforgettable sequences is nail-biting. The film raises a lot of ambiguity in its ethically driven debate on the war on drugs, and the film offers three superb performances from Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, and Benecio Del Toro. This is certainly a timely morality play.

The Assasin

7. The Assassin (d. Hao Hsiao-Hsien)

This was a film I got lost in, and I just surrendered myself to its masterful and elegiac beauty. In one of the most ravishing and lush film experiences of the year, Taiwanese film master Hou Hsiao-hsien has crafted a sensory martial arts film that’s easily in the vein of Akira Kurosawa. Completely void of plot detail with its enigmatic story, the obtuse narrative is overwhelmed in a justified way by its elegant visuals, lush sounds, and visually stunning compositions that flow in a hypnotic and meditative way. The film transports you to a richly detailed period of 7th century China, and the film ends up offering a brilliant mix of a dream world merged with ripples of history.

The Salt of the Earth

8. The Salt of the Earth (d. Wen Wenders & Juliano Riberio Salgado)

Technically, this film is a 2014 film because it was nominated for Best Documentary at last year’s Academy Awards, but it wasn’t released theatrically until late March of 2015. While it is already being shuffled aside by film critics, while Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Look of Silence” is being crowned as this year’s finest documentary, I found “The Salt of the Earth” to be far more engaging and hopeful. The result is extraordinarily unsettling and powerfully moving. While the film is different than Wender’s previous docs that include “Pina,” “The Beanu Vista Social Club,” and “The Good Life,” this film comes off as an epigraph from world renowned photographer Sebastiao Selgado. The film is very explicit in his accounts and experiences he saw, from the starvation of Ethiopia to the international conflicts in the Middle East, as it emphasizes the past through his lens and photographs, but instead of just focusing on the bleakness his work has discovered, directors Wen Wenders and Sebastiao’s son- Juliano Selgado together focus on the hope and redemption our planet still holds, despite all the cynical and bleak news we often hear from the media.

45 Years

9. 45 Years (d. Andrew Heigh)

Writer-Director Andrew Heigh’s (Weekend 2011) 45 Years is one of the most engaging and profound examinations of love and marriage since Michael Haneke’s 2012 masterpiece Amour. Unlike other films about long-enduring marriages in turmoil, 45 Years doesn’t rely on overly dramatic melodrama, but instead Heigh utilizes small melancholic and nuanced moments that end up carrying a lot of dramatic weight. Haigh allows actress Charlotte Rampling to use a lot of gestures and expressions instead of being overstated. This is a very rich and involving film about secrets and revelations. The final scene is the most poignant final shot of the year as The Platters’ classic song “Smoke In Your Eyes” plays in the background.

Son of Saul

10. Son of Saul (d. Laslo Nemes)

Far from the manipulation or sentimentality that most Holocaust-set films suffer from, “Son of Saul” is a masterfully crafted and emotionally shattering portrait of a man living through the horrors of the Holocaust. Never compromising the horrors or brutality, filmmaker Laszlo Nemes stages the film mostly in tight close-ups as if we are joining Geza Rorig on his doomed journey as the camera guides him through menace and darkness. On this journey, we find empathy, compassion, and care. The film is very harrowing and a difficult watch, but it explores Holocaust history in an affecting and genuine way we haven’t seen since Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List”.

Runners-Up (in alphabetical order)

Ex Machina

Ex-Machina (d. Alex Garland)

Screenwriter Alex Garland (28 Days Later) has helmed an impressive directorial debut with Ex-Machina a film that unfolds like a cat and mouse thriller with its sci-fi futuristic setting and tropes. An anti-patriarchal, futuristic, and cautionary tale about man and machine is very psychological and riveting. Actress Alicia Vikander delivers a truly memorable character as a female droid machine Ava, who’s layers and emotions are every bit as humane as any human character you’ll see from any film from last year.

Inside Out

Inside Out (d. Pete Doctor & Ronnie Del Carmen)

The finest work by Pixar since “Toy Story”, the film is by far Pixar’s most nuanced and cerebral work yet. The film is universal in appeal; anyone who watches it will find a glimpse of themselves. You will perhaps find your own joy, sadness, and insecurities in this film. The film asks you to tap into your own psyche as you watch it. It’s a poignant coming-of-age story about the complexities of growing up. The character of Joy (voiced wonderfully by Amy Poehler) is perhaps Pixar’s most endearing character yet.

Love & Mercy

Love & Mercy (d. Bill Pohland)

With the breadth of time and emotion in its exploration, Bill Pohland’s “Love & Mercy” is a sprawling and intimate biopic of Beach Boys front man Brian Wilson and his trials and tribulations with mental illness. Instead of getting overwrought and suffering from regular biopic trappings, the film instead displays Wilson (in a great dual performance by John Cusack and even greater Paul Dano as Young and Older Brian Wilson) that shows Wilson’s mental turmoil without ever being manipulative. Instead, Pohland uses complexity, and the transformation of Brian’s illness with his encounter with Melinda (Elizabeth Banks) is filled with compassion and empathy. The film is rich in period detail, time, setting, and character, and is by far the most refreshing and aesthetically satisfying biopic since Todd Haynes’ “I’m Not There.”

Q&A: David Cronenberg on Maps to the Stars and his 'cathartic' first US shoot - The Verge

Maps to the Stars (d. David Cronenberg)

Brutal and rich in satire, it’s like Mulholland Drive done David Cronenberg style, Maps to the Stars is a brilliant film that only gets better with each viewing. By far, Cronenberg’s most underrated film of his career and a haunting portrait of just how relentless and ruthless Tinseltown can be. Julianne Moore has never been so menacing, yet it is far from a one-dimensional performance, and it has some vulnerable ties to it. In fact, the film hints at being one-dimensional, yet Cronenberg and writer Bruce Wagner end up adding layers to the film that are uncomfortably comical and equally shocking. Certainly, the film is up there with A History of Violence, Videodrome, and eXistenZ as being one of Cronenberg’s most subversive. The film features a very impressive cast led by Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, John Cusack, Olivia Williams, Evan Bird, Robert Pattinson, and a cameo by Carrie Fisher. Both Jullianne Moore and Mia Wasikowska deliver outstanding, Oscar nominated level performances!

Mistress America

Mistress America (d. Noah Baumbach)

I ended up placing “Mistress America” on this list because it’s by far the funniest and sharpest comedy of the year. It’s also one of the warmest films, and I couldn’t help but root for the characters until the end. As evidenced by his uproariously comical “Frances Ha” and 2005 masterpiece “The Squid & The Whale,” Baumbach truly cares about his characters, and he always builds his flawed characters in such a way that you walk out hoping they get their lives together. “Mistress America” is by far the most optimistic and joyful film of the year, a film that brought a smile to my face from beginning to end. Co-writer and lead Greta Gerwig is the most hilarious actress working today. I hope she gains a larger audience and more exposure in years to come.

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs (d. Danny Boyle)

Together, with a heart-pounding, energetic, and sharp script by the great Aaron Sorkin, and Danny Boyle’s electrifying direction, they have created a verbose film that unfolds like a brilliant stage play. The story unfolds with vignettes in separate time periods of Steve Jobs’s release and launches of his breakthrough technological debuts. All have a similar structure, yet each one has a great arc for the character of Steve Jobs, played brilliantly by Michael Fassbender. Kate Winslet is superb as his adviser and his conscience. Like Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight”, who would have thought such verbose and talky scripts would turn into such rich cinema?

Honorable Mention–Other Strong Titles of 2015

Amy
Best of Enemies
The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn
Creed
Eden
The End of the Tour
Girlhood
Hard to be a God
Heaven Knows What
I’ll See You in My Dreams
It Follows
James White
The Look of Silence
Mustang
Phoenix
Queen of Earth
Room
Shaun the Sheep
Spotlight

Tangerine
White God

Most Overrated Films of 2015

Chi-Raq
Diary of a Teenage Girl
Grandma
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
Me Earl and the Dying Girl
Trainwreck
Trumbo