For Hollywood, 2014 was another year that wasn’t. But while tinsel town continues to sinks in its abyss of big-spectacle, sequels, and pre-pubescent obsession with comic book characters, the rest of cinema continues to run blinding circles around it.
Horror got a meaty surprise with Jennifer Kent’s moody indie effort The Babadook, and social satire lit a stick of dynamite with Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler.
Although I only have one documentary in the list, the genre continues to grow with impressive results. Chuck Workman’s Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles is a must-see for any lover of film. Jodorwsky’s Dune falls in the same category. If you saw Particle Fever or The Unknown Known you know what I mean. Joe Berlinger’s “Whitey: United States of America V. James J. Bulger is as powerful as they come.
In any event, here are the top-ten films of 2014.
10. Fury
The look of David Ayer’s World War II drama is utterly convincing. Every period detail of costume, production design, location, and battle action resonates with authenticity.
The film’s centerpiece sequence takes place inside a quiet German apartment where a mother and her teenaged daughter hide in justifiable fear.
This is the scene that explains why David Ayer made the film, and why “Fury” is a great movie.
9. Foxcatcher
“Foxcatcher” presents a game-changing role for Steve Carell as John du Pont, the politically connected right wing patriarch of “America’s wealthiest family.”
Bennett Miller’s nuanced true-crime drama is sobering allegory for a ubiquitous sort of willfully ignorant, privileged, blueblood Republicans buying power in exchange for fleeting moments of futile glory.
The film functions on multiple levels to observe how the American elite use and abuse power toward the destruction of everything it touches.
8. Citizenfour
Laura Poitras’s fascinating documentary, about the initial contact with and aftermath of whistleblower Edward Snowden’s earth-shattering revelations, provides a stark cinema vérité perspective on America’s biggest political scandal.
Snowden recognized early on that the Obama administration and the media would attempt to deflect the significance of his leaks by attacking his character in Nixonian fashion. For once the spooks got much more than they bargained for.
In his claustrophobic hotel room Snowden’s fearlessness is unmistakable: “You’re [the U.S. government] not going to bully me into silence like you have everyone else.”
7. A Most Violent Year
As with “Margin Call” (2011) and “All is Lost” (2013), Chandor’s latest is a detailed study in complex characters responding to extreme pressures — personal, social, and physical.
Oscar Isaac’s bravura performance during the sequence, and throughout the film, smolders with resolute intent. There is no finer film actor working in the business.
“A Most Violent Year” is essential viewing for film-lovers and for the people least likely to see it.
6. Nymphomaniac: Volume II
Provocative, droll, fearless, and cinematically sexual in unprecedented ways, “Nymphomaniac” (in its proper unedited form) is a four-hour movie with an unknown potential to alter reality.
Charlotte Gainsbourg’s sexually polymorphic character Joe represents an icon of the contradictions of modern day feminist ideologies.
That Joe’s sexually adventurous self-help therapy places her in the presence of an overeducated male exploiter (disguised as her rescuer) puts a sharp grace note that carries on and on and on.
5. Wetlands
Challenging and provocative, co-writer/director David Wnendt’s nervy adaptation of Charlotte Roche’s long-presumed unfilmable popular novel breaks new cinematic ground.
Mapping out the terrain of cinema’s previously uncharted psychosexual possibilities, Wnendt opens up a wide range of Roche’s proto-feminist issues around Helen, an 18-year-old German girl with pressing bodily issues.
Here is a female force of nature that rejects religion and societally imposed rules of conduct, in favor of a DIY approach. Helen represents a different brand of one-percenter. The means and the end are evenly justified.
4. Young and Beautiful
For his latest filmic exploration François Ozon addresses a complex mix of sexual, personal, social, familial, gender-based, and technological issues.
That he does so via a story about Isabelle (Marine Vacth), a beautiful bourgeoisie 17-year-old DIY prostitute, reflects the growth of one of France’s most consistent filmmakers.
Vacth portrays a force of unbridled feminine and intellectual nature. Isabelle has important lessons to teach, as well as to learn. You will never forget this truly mind-blowing film.
3. Goodbye to Language
“Goodbye to Language” is a vibrant think piece about modern man’s constant state of fear of the Frankenstein culture of violence that governments and corporations have created.
“Is society willing to accept murder as a means to fight unemployment?” Godard provokes and dares the viewer to listen and think. Think for yourself.
Godard views the dichotomy between nature and industrial degradation with a sardonic eye. God couldn’t humble man, so he humiliates him. Absurdly visually abstract, the film keeps its audience on their toes.
2. Boyhood
Just when you thought there was nothing new under the sun, Richard Linklater goes and makes the most anti-Hollywood movie ever conceived.
Linklater instinctively de-emphasizes anything that might be construed as “dramatic“ while following the life trajectory of a boy named Mason (played by Ellar Coltrane) from age six to 18 growing up in Texas.
The invisible mechanics of “tempo, tone, mood, time, and place” that Linklater uses to flesh out his preplanned narrative form fit almost perfectly within the rules of a “Dogme 95” film.
1. Mr. Turner
Mike Leigh’s reputation as an unrivaled inventor of cinematic dramaturgy once again over-delivers on his promise.
J. M.W. Turner was a misunderstood artist during his lifetime, but with the help of Mike Leigh, Timothy Spall, and a cast of infinitely gifted actors, audiences can begin to comprehend the life, purpose, and experiences of that tremendously inspired soul.
It is worth noting that the stellar performances from Leigh’s stable of actresses such as Dorothy Atkinson, Marion Bailey, and Ruth Sheen are all of an elevated quality rarely experienced by modern movie audiences.
