My Favorite Films of 2015

I've come to that time in the early part of the year when I reflect on the films I found to be the previous year's most exceptional. What an incredible gathering it turned out to be! I whittled my list to 16 this year in the interest of concision; the twenty-six films I compiled from the year before proved to be too much. I'm sure you'll understand. There were those films I hated to omit but I offer them due compensation by bundling them together in an Honorable Mentions list that will follow my top 16. Believe me when I tell you the selection process was no easy task.

I don't know that a common thread links the films on the list but I noticed something that might be called a trend: the number of movies featuring strong female leads. I hope this becomes a habit in 2016.

If you feel I've left off one of your favorite films, please let me know in the comment section below. I hope my list evokes thoughts, some good memories and maybe spark some argumentation.
The list is arranged chronologically and not according to degrees of excellence.

FAVORITE FILMS OF 2015

Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem
Easily one of the best of the year and one of the most powerful. Israeli actress Ronit Elkabetz, who also co-wrote and co-directed the film, gave one of the more amazing performances on-screen last year. The story of an Israeli woman seeking divorce from her husband seems simple and straightforward but as we see, the process becomes an emotionally grueling, bureaucratic nightmare. The woman's struggle to be free from her husband is a powerful metaphor for the plight of women everywhere. Viviane is a character I won't ever forget.

It Follows
This film proves conclusively that a creatively creepy story never needs a bloated budget to achieve maximum terror. Director David Robert Mitchell may have only had a $2 million dollar budget but he wielded it as if it were $100 million.
A woman becomes the target of a malevolent, supernatural force, which she finds impossible to shake. Her efforts to elude said force and free herself from its deadly agenda are the stuff of nightmares. The film deserved more attention than it got.

Ex Machina
Author Alex Garland's directorial debut showed a cerebral film could also be thrilling and tension-filled. The story's ideas about artificial intelligence touches upon ethical and moral concerns. Word to anyone creating humanoids with the capacity for abstract thought; beware of your creation's ideas about self-determination and self-preservation.

Salt of the Earth
Wim Wender's documentary on photographer Sebastiao Salgado isn't merely a bio but a beautiful film about a man whose artistic ambitions are inextricably linked to his humanitarian causes. Wender's images are as striking as those of his subject. The scene that details Salgado's efforts to reforest the land surrounding his boyhood home should serve as motivation for those who care about the planet's welfare.

3 and 1/2 Minutes, 10 Bullets
Director Marc Silver's film arrived during a year when news articles about blacks being gunned down across America (mostly by police) became more commonplace. In Silver's film, we see how it easy it is for a white man with a twitchy trigger finger to loosely interpret what constitutes a threat to his person. That his victim was only guilty of playing his music loudly underscores the travesty of some state's gun laws, which grant gun-owners great latitude in how they apply lethal force. Silver's film is paradoxically rousing and sobering.

A Poem is a Naked Person
A previously unreleased film from the late, great documentary filmmaker Les Blank finally reached movie screens forty-one years after its 1974 birth. Blank's film isn't merely about rock legend Leon Russell but the odd, sometimes surreal world of his home state, Oklahoma. Blank's camera captures some wonderful images; one being an artist painting the surface of an indoor swimming pool inside Russell's soon-to-be recording studio. The beautiful mural is but one memorable shot in a film spilling over with them. We also get Russell's great music and live performances to complete a complete film.

Straight Outta Compton
Overlooked at the Oscars, F. Gary Gray's film about the legendary hip-hop group N.W.A. not only captures the triumphs and travails of five ambitious men en route to stardom but also the violent, bullet-riddled world that inspired their music. Excellent performances all around, particularly by Paul Giamatti and O'Shea Jackson Jr.; Ice Cube's own son. Scenes of the group being harassed by the LAPD seem very current and very relevant.

The Witch
This is really a 2016 film but I was fortunate to catch an advanced screening. If I had to limit my best film choices to three, director Robert Eggers' brilliant, frightening story about an early American colonial family's encounters with a witch would hover at the top of my list, if it doesn't already rest on the summit. The commitment to authenticity is admirable, including period-authentic language and the film's look of deprivation and dirt. Truly an exceptional film.

Goodnight Mommy
Don't let the film's innocent title fool you; nothing about directors Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz's story is so benign. Young, twin brothers become suspicious of their mother after she undergoes cosmetic facial surgery. Unconvinced that the woman living with them is their mother, the boys' distrust leads to some horrific acts of violence. An unforeseen twist arrives in the third act, which helps make sense of the boys' motivations. Darkly psychological, much about the film is designed to make one squirm.

Room
I saw Room the same weekend as The Witch and Goodnight Mommy, which made for a fairly intense, cinematic triumvirate. Brie Larson and young actor Jacob Tremblay offer searing performances as a mother and son who escape an enclosure where they've been kept 7 years. The wrenching aftermath, where the mother must deal with psychological fallout and the boy with a bewildering world he has never seen left me feeling simultaneously teary and in awe of the film's visceral strength. The film was rightly nominated for several Oscars.

Meru
Three world class mountain climbers attempt to scale a seemingly unscalable mountain in the Himalayas named Meru. The story of their second attempt on the mountain and the backstory of their lives lead one through an array of powerful emotions, including fear, excitement, heartbreak and finally joy. What distinguishes this mountaineering film from others is the footage; captured by the climbers themselves. It is an unforgettable story about unforgettable men.

The Martian
Sci-fi films have made a comeback in recent years. Last year's offering in this genre was an absorbing, harrowing and exhilarating story of an astronaut who becomes stranded on Mars. The steps he takes to survive the hostile environment are fascinating and a testament to human ingenuity. The visual and sound effects are stellar (excuse the expression) while the ensemble cast is outstanding. It had been literally decades since I had last seen a Ridley Scott film I actually liked. This film shows what magic he is capable of.

Youth
Paulo Sorrentino's dreamlike meditation on aging is visually mesmerizing and beautiful. One might think an entire story set in a spa in the Swiss alps would impose impossible limitations on a director's vision but nothing seemed to impede Sorrentino. The film's final shot asks us to question veracity of what we've seen. In fact, we often learn that no one and nothing are what they seem.

Joy
David O. Russell strikes cinematic gold again with his story of a woman whose tenacity, grit and smarts become indispensable attributes in her trying ascent to success. Jennifer Lawrence's amazing performance almost blinds us to the film's other standout qualities, like Russell's superlative direction. The film celebrates female empowerment and does so convincingly.

The Revenant
Alejandro Inarritu's gritty and tough film about revenge is also otherworldly and visually breathtaking. Leonardo DiCaprio's performance is sure to garner an Oscar. He is as dazzling as the images of the unforgiving landscapes Inarrritu holds in his lens. The often talked about scene of the grizzly attack and a shot of a horse and rider plunging over a cliff are but two of many searing moments in the film. If The Revenant wins best picture, I myself will hardly object.

Anomalisa
Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson's poignant film is the only one of the aforementioned that is animated. The film manages to be quite moving in spite of the inherent challenges in creating a drama with stop-motion puppetry. A man's struggle to be connected to people meets with some success as he begins a romance with a woman he finds refreshingly unique. But also he finds his anxieties are difficult to overcome and hard to define; leaving him a in an unrelieved state of existential despond.

And so that brings my list to a merciful close. I hope you find some of my choices to be stimulating if not compatible with your own. I also hope you take the time to sample those you may have missed or just find intriguing. Thank you for taking the time to read over my list.

Honorable Mentions: Love and Mercy, Inside Out, Stanford Prison Experiment, The Walk, Steve Jobs, Chi-raq, The Hateful Eight, The Wave, The Big Short and Spotlight.