10) Gone Girl
A damn good book adaptation and the
closest we’ll ever come to getting a David Fincher rom-com, Gone Girl managed to chill and amuse in
equal measure as the director dissected modern marriage and satirised
mainstream media while still applying his trademark dark overtones. The end
result was the ultimate anti-date movie, capped off by an unflinching
performance from Rosamund Pike.
9) Guardians of the Galaxy
This was a much better year for
comic book movies than 2013 (Thor: The
Dark World anyone? How about The
Wolverine?) and the titular Guardians were the undiscussed breakout stars.
A space opera that included a talking raccoon and a walking tree, this really
should’ve been Marvel’s Green Lantern.
Instead, thanks to clever characterisation and spot-on comedic sensibilities,
it turned out to be its Star Wars.
Good luck beating these guys, JJ.
8) X-Men: Days of Future Past
You’d be forgiven for thinking
Fox has been jealous for some time of Marvel Studios’ success at building a
shared cinematic universe, but after seeing Days
of Future Past, they needn’t be worried. An epic time-travel flick that
echoed The Terminator and matched the
scale and spectacle of The Avengers, DOFP pulled off the near impossible feat
of tying the plot lines of First Class
and the first trilogy into one coherent narrative (more or less). Also, major
kudos should go to Bryan Singer for deciding to sideline Wolverine and make
Professor X the coolest character for once. Best X-Men film so far? Oh, go on
then.
7) 12 Years a Slave
With lynchings, lashings and the
N-word being dropped left, right and centre to varying degrees of xenophobia
over the course of 134 minutes, 12 Years
a Slave was easily the toughest film to sit through this year. As a matter
of fact, it’s amazing it’s taken so long to make a film with this level of
audacity on the enslavement of African-Americans in pre-Civil War era USA. Director
Steve McQueen didn’t shy away from adopting the same uncompromising approach
witnessed in his previous films, while all the actors involved were at the top
of their game, especially Lupita Nyong’o and Chiwetel Ejiofor, who both deserve
long, rewarding careers for their bruising performances.
6) The Wolf of Wall Street
When is a sex & drugs comedy
worthy of being Oscar-nominated? When it is populated with tracking shots,
sudden freeze frames and an ever present voiceover, along with underlying
themes of excess and corruption – in other words, when it is directed by Martin
Scorsese. After the warmth and childlike wonder of Hugo, it made sense for the legendary director to gravitate towards
more adult material and the tale of Jordan Belfort’s real life stock frauds and
coke-fuelled shenanigans was the perfect choice. As for Leonardo DiCaprio, it
was great to see the usually uptight actor let himself loose – here’s hoping
that a road trip comedy with co-star Jonah Hill will be on the cards in the
near future.
5) Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Wiretapping. Government secrecy. Orwellian
surveillance programs. These topics wouldn’t be out of place in an Edward
Snowden biopic directed by George Clooney or Paul Greengrass, but the fact that
they were tackled in the Captain America sequel was a big surprise to everyone.
Here was a movie that not only proved its titular character was way cooler than
people had been giving him credit for (Quinjet? Meet Vibranium shield), but
also that he was the most relevant superhero to the times we live in. Who says
blockbusters can’t entertain AND tackle big questions we’re confronted with on
the evening news? The decision to eschew lavish CGI set-pieces in favour of
more grounded, practically choreographed action scenes didn’t hurt either. With
$700 million now in the bank, good ol’ Cap has deservedly become the single
most popular Marvel hero after Iron Man, which means Civil
War can’t come soon enough.
4) Locke
Locke is the kind of film that should (and most likely will) be on
the curriculum of every screenwriting class in the world come 2015. Ask the
average film student to link the notions of “car” and “thrilling” and they’ll
likely respond with “chase” and “explosions”, rather than “phone calls” and “cement”.
Seriously, if director/screenwriter Stephen Knight has managed to make a
concrete pour the stuff of gripping entertainment, then there’s hope for populist
cinema yet. But of course, it’s not just about the script – driving this
compelling drama (pun intended) is the ever reliable Tom Hardy, who delivers a
quietly powerful performance as he makes a series of life-changing calls from
his car, some fraught, some touching. But he is ably supported by the voices on
the other end of the phone, played by a host of talented British actors from
popular TV shows – including Alice from Luther
and Moriarty from Sherlock, fact fans.
3) Her
The best science fiction films
are the ones that, despite being set in a futuristic fictional world, manage to
speak directly to us by addressing a present issue, and in the case of Her, it’s our ever-growing dependence on
technology for emotional fulfilment. With social networks, matchmaker apps and
online dating services becoming a constant in our day to day lives, is it
really that much of a stretch to believe we will eventually have portable
devices programmed to respond to our emotional needs? Spike Jonze handles the
potentially risible concept with the skill and confidence of an expert filmmaker
and in the process delivers the year’s most unlikely love story, as Joaquin
Phoenix’s isolated writer falls for the artificial intelligence behind his
operating service, Samantha (charmingly voiced by Scarlett Johansson). If all
this still sounds amusing, do yourself a favour and go watch the movie: you’ll
laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll never look at your iPhone the same way again.
2) Nightcrawler
1) Boyhood
Oh, where to begin? There are so
many reasons why Boyhood is the best
film of 2014. Is it perhaps the fact that indie darling Richard Linklater
managed to successfully pull off what could’ve been a doomed cinematic
experiment, i.e. a feature film shot intermittently over a twelve-year period in
order to convincingly portray the growth of a young boy into a young adult? Is
it the fact that said film shoot resulted in the most genuine and endearing
performance not only from newbie Ellar Coltrane, but also the professional
actors playing his parents, Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette? Could it be the
film’s refusal to follow a linear (and therefore unnatural) narrative and
instead stick to reproducing a successions of unrelated events from one
character’s life, like flicking through a family photobook? Or perhaps, with
its shots of CD players being replaced by iPods and a soundtrack ranging from
Coldplay’s “Yellow” to Family of the Year’s “Hero”, the film functions as a
time capsule for the 2000s? Or maybe Boyhood
is simply one of those movies that feels like a classic as you start watching
it. You could almost say it seizes you. Bring on Adulthood.
