That kid deserves on Oscar nomination. He was terrific.
I’m not sure this ranks as the worst Best Picture choice ever made, but it wasn’t my pick. I’d actually argue “Spotlight” was a much worse pick. I watched the movie after it won the award and was gobsmacked it won Best Picture. It wasn’t one of the twenty best movies of 2015. Nothing at all about it was particularly impressive. I get that it’s an important issue (two important issues, really) but come on. “Inside Out” was a better movie. “The Gift” was a better movie. “Chi-Raq” was better. “Ex Machina” was better. I know I disagree with almost everyone in this regard, but I stick by it, just as I will insist to the end of my days that “Captain America: Civil War” is an absolute pile of horse dung.
Anyway, “Boyhood” or “Fury Road” are both pretty good choices.
Boyhood was an incredible film, almost more of a documentary than a movie. It seemed that the cast weren’t even acting, though that’s the thing: they sustained their performances over 12 years! There has not been another film that has achieved what this film did, and the young actors in particular are incredible. It is a story of truth. It does not moralize.
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My top four:
Mad Max: Fury Road: I love car chase movies in general and all Mad Max in particular, but this one took the genre to new levels.
Grand Budapest Hotel: It was quirky without being annoying and charming without being cloying.
Clouds of Sils Maria: I’m surprised I liked this so much. Not the type of movie I usually go for, but it really grabbed me.
Chappie: I know a lot of people didn’t like it, but I loved how, underneath the violence, it was the story of an unexpected child. Who happened to be a sentient robot with bunny ears.
No, seriously, what did you really think? 
Like I said, the IMDB reviews are all over the place. Interesting, but not surprising, that your reaction was so opposite of mine.
I thought The Big Short was outstanding. It’s apples v. oranges, but it noses out Mad Max: Fury Road for me. MMFR was wahsome, but not quite as emotionally impacting, IMHO.
But I keep thinking there is something that nobody has mentioned. (Thinking…)
… and thought of it.
Steve Jobs.
Michael Fassbender is a monster (figuratively… and sort of literally if you saw “Shame.”)
I mulled it over, have to go with Grand Budapest Hotel.
Damnit…it looks like Gravity, The Wind Rises, AND The Ghastly Love of Johnny X all miss the cutoff. 
Ready for some sacrilege? I thought The Wind Rises was boring. I love Miyazaki, but it was terrible. His worst movie, I think.
:ducks:
The Martian, hands-down
When did The Dallas Buyers’ Club come out? Because that was seriously top notch.
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Love this thread idea!
I’m going to post my Top 5 of that time period first, then go back and look at what other people put.
- The Martian
- The Grand Budapest Hotel
- Deadpool
- Hail, Caesar!
- X-Men: Days of Future Past
If anyone is curious to see all my favorites, regardless of year, that list is here. The top 40 are the ones I would rate 10/10; 41-224 are 9/10 (and all 224 get 5/5 from me on Netflix).
It’s not in my top ten for this time period, but it is definitely a very enjoyable romp. The scene in the church is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen.
I thought it was better than OK, quite good: 8/10. But I was set up to expect a total masterpiece, and willing to believe it as there are two Linklater films I would give a 10/10 (*Slacker *and Waking Life), plus two others I give a 9/10 (Before Sunrise and Before Midnight). This one for me turned out to be more in the territory of some of his other “very good but not great” films like Me and Orson Welles and School of Rock.
Now of course, the method of making it is really fascinating. But I was sympathetic to something Julia Turner (Editor in Chief of Slate) said (paraphrasing): “If there were lots of movies shot over a decade plus, would this one be the best one, or are we just getting so excited because no one’s done it before?”
This is in my disc queue, but I haven’t seen it yet. Iranian cinema has impressed me greatly in the last couple years though. I just the other day saw *Persepolis *(which, I know, was released almost a decade ago) and really liked it. And I’m very fond of the neorealist film A Separation as well (which reminds me: About Elly, from the same filmmaker, has been sitting on my Instant Queue unwatched for far too long).
I pretty much agree with all of that (except that I saw Fury Road and liked it but found it vastly overrated). The opening shot of *Gravity *in 3D was amazing.
ORLY? If this counts, then it is actually my #1. Because it *is *my #1. Of all time.
I saw this too, but for me it mostly didn’t work. I thought it was overacted and melodramatically written (I’m especially tired of the trope of the man who is spending his life trying to get back at his father or earn his love or whatever). And I hated that they fell into the trap of making his infidelity this one time thing that he did almost as a favor to the other woman, and now he is showing his nobility by being there for the birth; I prefer infidelity stories that don’t sell out to this kind of PC angle of conventional morality, although those tend to be toxic in terms of attracting audiences.
I have seen it as well (though on DVD or Blu-ray). Looks like I’ll be splitting the difference between the views presented so far. I thought the initial premise was really interesting, and is very likely to play out over the next few decades. But then it sort of dissolved into something else mostly unrelated to that premise, and I found that it fell apart as any kind of believable sci-fi. Overall I would still recommend it however.
Good call (obviously I would say so, based on what I wrote above). *Interstellar *I was kind of meh about–too many fails in terms of hard sci-fi (although I loved the time dilation). But Swiss Army Man and The Lobster are both on my queue, and I’m especially looking forward to seeing the latter as I thought Dogtooth (from the same filmmaker) was brilliant in a uniquely transgressive way, and The Lobster has been getting great reviews.
I don’t think I have this rated as highly as you do, but I do agree that this movie is *vastly *underrated. And the non-actor musicians (who played the gangster couple) did an amazing job.
Interesting. It has been a while, but [spoiler]I don’t really remember thinking it was about being noble. He was an asshole when it came to the coworker, and he destroyed his family over his decision to be there for the baby’s birth. I don’t think it’s noble to choose to fulfill an obligation you already had, particularly when your motivation is based less on being moral and more on “I don’t want to be like my asshole father.” I certainly didn’t look at Locke as being a hero in that film. He was a flawed character with an incredibly difficult set of choices, but none of them were going to be the right or moral choice. All of them were morally wrong, somehow. To me, that was the point of the film.
But, I see where you’re coming from, and if I’d had your perspective on it, that would definitely have impacted my view of the film.[/spoiler]
They’re not non-actors, given that their entire musician personas are as made-up as any other film character. They certainly were acting, it just happens to be the same characters they play in their day jobs as a band.
This is a bit OT, but in the case of both “Interstellar” and “The Martian” - and I have to stress that in general I adored both movies - I was taken a bit out of the movie by the striking lack of the psychological effect of isolation and the passage of time.
In “Interstellar,” most of the crew goes down to the ocean planet for what seems like a few minutes and when they return to the mothership, find their compatriot Romilly (David Gyasi) has lived through 23 years alone. For a person who’s been isolated for 23 years, he seems - well, way too sane. He looks a bit shaken, but he’s not that bad off. A person can’t be isolated on a little ship for 23 years, even taking a few “long stretches” of hypersleep, without being a little damn crazy.
I also found myself a little doubtful as to Mark Watney’s remarkable ability to keep his shit together on Mars in “The Martian.” I’ll grant much of the story hinges on the fact Watney proves determined and resourceful, but even given that, he seems way cheerier than a person in his situation would be. I could have stood for a lot less of whether Sean Bean was going to lose his job and a bit more examination of Mark Watney’s dealing with his isolation and loneliness.
I thought Romilly did seem a bit insane (he also might have been worse off before people came back). And since we don’t know how long those stretches of hypersleep were, I’m willing to cut them some slack on this.
For me the two aspects that I couldn’t swallow were the woo-woo ending but then also the whole scenario with crops failing and no way to do anything about it. The day we have technology advanced enough to go through wormholes to the other side of the galaxy, but are not able to figure out how to save agriculture on a basic level, not even in greenhouses, is just a day I don’t believe we will ever see.
Fair enough!
It has been a while for me as well. I can’t really defend my point other than to say that’s how it struck me at the time. And there were many critics whose opinion I respect who liked it a lot, which is why I saw it in the first place. (it’s possible I would have been more charitable without those high expectations.) I certainly can’t criticize the people involved for just making the typical box office formula pablum. And I’m always game for a well written and acted production that essentially involves just talking. My Dinner with Andre is one of my all-time favorites, and I loved the HBO series In Treatment.
I liked A Separation. Haven’t seen About Elly, but I’ll check it out.
One of my favorite films of the 90s is an Iranian film: Children of Heaven.
Saw it in the theater then bought it immediately when it became available on DVD. I’ve watched it several times since.
I loved *Persepolis *, which of course was made by an ex-pat. She had already long adopted Europe as her home by the time her career began.
The interesting thing about A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, is that the filmmaker isn’t even an ex-pat. She was born in the U.K. and grew up in the U.S. The film is very much an American film… that just happens to take place in Iran and all of the dialog is in Persian. It’s an entirely American crew, an entirely American cast (Iranian-Americans, U.S. born and immigrants), and the entire film- which takes place in Iran- was filmed in California!
For the first half of my first viewing of the film I kept saying to myself, “Wow! The Iranian censors have become really permissive!” After saying that to myself three or four times, finally I just said “What the hell? This is not an Iranian film!!!”
Yes, there is a large gap between “best” and “most enjoyable”. I think lot of posters here are posting the film they like the best, rather than the film they thought WAS the best.