January 2, 2015 at 12:54am

I tried to get this done before the new year, but didn’t quite make it. Just like previous years, these are chosen from the films I saw. I still have at least half a dozen that I thought might have been contenders that I haven’t seen. And to be clear, I’m not saying that these are the best, simply that they’re my favorites. I didn’t struggle much with the order, but if you asked me to order them again in a week, it would probably come out differently.

You’ll notice that a few of these are dated 2013, but I think, in most cases, they weren’t distributed in the U.S. until 2014, so I figure they count.

 

10. The Sacrament (2013): I like Ti West’s work (House of the Devil, The Inkeepers), although it might be too slow for some. Nice touches, especially with the special effects. This will be a familiar story to older folks. The acting and score were good, with but a few missteps. I like that he tries to avoid the “why are you still shooting?” problem with so many found footage films.

9. Nightcrawler (2014): This is on the list almost exclusively because of Gyllenhaal’s performance as Lou Bloom. Despite giving us almost nothing in terms of backstory for Bloom, Gyllenhaal manages to create a fairly complex character so disturbing and slimy (yet compelling) that you’ll feel the need to take a shower after you watch this.

8. Edge of Tomorrow (2014): I’m not sure why Tom Cruise gets so much hate. Even when he’s bad, he’s usually pretty good. Here, with Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) at the helm, and Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects) writing, he’s managed to create an interesting study in character development. Think Groundhog Day meets Starship Troopers. And although Emily Blunt does a great job as Rita, the joy for me was watching Cruise’s Cage progress from weaselly propagandist to battle-hardened soldier.

7. Interstellar (2014): Christopher Nolan’s latest reminded me of some of the great science-fiction films of the 1970s, without seeming overly derivative. There were some really wonderful moments here, such as McConaughey’s wordless reaction to watching years of backlogged messages from home. I’m not sure it completely lived up to its promise, but the attempt was fascinating and—in the end—surprising.

6. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014):   This, for me, was one of the biggest surprises of the year. Although I was a comic-book geek in my younger days, I wasn’t familiar with these characters. I also had doubts about Chris Pratt being able to carry a film. Throw in Vin Diesel as a talking tree, and the bar started considerably low for me. But Pratt is goofishly charming as Peter Quill…I mean Star Lord, and Diesel’s Groot manages to be one of the most endearing animated characters in a long time, with a vocabulary of three words, no less. Fun for the whole family.

5. The Raid 2 (2014):   I wasn’t sure that director Gareth Evans could do better than the original, but this sequel adds depth and development while keeping the outstanding martial artistry of the original. It’s bloody, but also a bloody great movie. The fight in the prison yard is not to be missed.

4. The Babadook (2014):   First-time director Jennifer Kent scores big with this moody, metaphorical horror film that The Exorcist director William Friedkin called the most terrifying film he’d ever seen. And The Babadook is similar to Friedkin’s film in a number of ways. Both films are slow burners, for example, and they both lean heavily on the psychological—Friedkin’s on faith, and Kent’s on guilt.  Some people won’t like this one. That’s fine. To be honest, it almost lost me during the first half, as I found the young lead more than a little irritating. But the second half had the hair on the back of my neck standing up, and I found myself running the film over and over in my head for a few days afterwards, thinking about what it all meant.

3. Cold in July (2014):   I think this one might have been my number one choice if they had cast, say, Billy Bob Thornton in the Don Johnson role. Still, Johnson does well enough, although Sam Shepard is the standout here. The beginning of the film had me thinking it was going to be a “wimp stands up to the bully” thriller, in the vein of Straw Dogs, but I was wrong, and happy to be so. A taut little thriller that will keep you glued to the screen. I was sure that the superb (and somewhat similarly themed) Blue Ruin was going to be on this list, but this one edged it out.

2. Tim’s Vermeer (2013):   This is one of those 2013 films I mentioned, which didn’t really play anything but the festival circuit until 2014. I said in my review this summer that I knew within 15 minutes that this was one of my favorite movies of the year, and it has remained so.

It’s a documentary, narrated by Penn Jillette (he and Teller seem to have produced/directed it), about his friend Tim Jenison, part inventor, part not-so-idle rich guy. To prove his theory that the painter Vermeer achieved such realism in his paintings through the use of something like a camera obscura, Jenison decides that he himself, although not a painter, will try to recreate one of Vermeer’s most famous works. Did I mention that he’s not a painter?

Now I don’t know much about art…or at least I know enough to know that I don’t know enough. So maybe this is all old hat. But I found it utterly fascinating. It was as gripping as any scripted work I’ve seen in a while, and it was an exhilarating feeling to think that by watching the film, I was being made privy to (maybe) answering one of the great mysteries of history. Like waiting to see what was in Al Capone’s vault, but with a much better payoff. (Sorry, Geraldo!)

1. The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014): I’ve been a fan of Wes Anderson’s since Bottle Rocket, and yet I always put off watching his films. When I finally do watch one, I always regret not having done so sooner. No exception here. If you’ve seen any of his films, you a) know that he has a distinctive, quirky style, and b) probably either love it or hate it. I fall in the “love it” camp, and his films keep finding their ways onto my “best of” lists. They must be great fun to make; I know they’re great fun to watch. This one is the story, bookended by a writer’s interview, of hotel manager Monsieur Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) and his lobby boy, Zero (Tony Revolori), an unlikely superhero/sidekick pair who become embroiled in danger and hijinx after one of Gustave’s longtime tenants passes away mysteriously. All done with the quaint charm and style so characteristic of Anderson’s work, where even dark subjects such as murder, dismemberment, and prison seem like they were taken from the pages of a pop-up book.

Honorable Mentions: The LEGO Movie, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Guest, Blue Ruin, Enemy

Most disappointing/Worst films of the year: Leprechaun: Origins, Rage, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Noah, Transcendence