Category Archives: Top 10 Movie of 2015

2015, Academy Award Nominees, Brie Larson, Drama, Jacob Tremblay, Joan Allen, Lenny Abrahamson, Room, Sean Bridgers, Tom McCamus, Top 10 Movie of 2015, William H Macy

Room (2015)

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The Road meets Life Is Beautiful meets Panic Room?

Little-known director Lenny Abrahamson (Frank, What Richard Did) may have just quietly crafted the most beautifully disturbing and profoundly affecting movie of 2015. As I was writing my review for Steve Jobs yesterday, I was trying to remember the last time I was moved to the point of tears while watching a movie. Ironically, while Steve Jobs brought out almost no emotion in me, two of director Danny Boyle’s previous films (Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours) had a profound and lasting impact on me and my life. Those two movies were near perfect, in my opinion. While Abrahamson’s Room is by no means perfect, it is rich, intelligent, gut-wrenching, and unfortunately, it is a little too real.

I will provide spoilers for this movie because it is too important a film not to discuss deeply. I will let you know when these spoilers do occur so you can keep reading for now if you haven’t seen this movie. What I will assume is that you’ve watched the trailer. If you have not, watch the trailer now or do what I did and see the movie. But I would do one of these two things before continuing with this review. I didn’t know how much of an impact Room would have on me going in. I knew a little bit about the film going in. I didn’t know how little I knew. This movie will be on many critic end-of-year top 10 lists and will get some severe Academy Award nominations. I hope that more moviegoers will give this movie a chance. Is it slow? Yes, it is not The Avengers. Is it more important than The Avengers? Yes, it’s like 1000 times more important than that money hog. It might be the most important movie of 2015. It might be one of the most important movies of the last decade. When lesser movies would have stopped, Room stepped full-throttle on the pedal. This is a challenging film to digest, and it will feel uncomfortable at times for many moviegoers. While not currently my favorite movie of 2015 (it’s currently #2 for me), this is the best movie that has been made this year.
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2015, Academy Award Nominees, Action, Benicio Del Toro, Daniel Kaluuya, Denis Villeneuve, Drama, Emily Blunt, Hidden Gems, Josh Brolin, Mystery, Sicario, Suspense, Top 10 Movie of 2015

Sicario (2015)

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With three months left to go in 2015, we have a new contender for the best movie of the year, and the name of that movie is Sicario. This movie is a fantastic ride that will keep you thoroughly engrossed and guessing the entire time. Like many great movies over the last couple of years, the less you know about the movie going in, the more I think you’ll like this movie. For me, this has been the case recently with films like Ex-Machina, The Drop, The Gift, and Chef. All of these were surprises, and each is a movie that I plan on watching again in the future. The same can be said about Sicario. Once you know how the movie ends, you’ll want to watch it again to try and see it again through a new set of lenses. It’s intense. It’s filled with drama. It will leave you with your mouth hung ajar. That is if you let it. This is a movie where you need to pay attention. If you doze off for even a couple of minutes, you might miss something important. If you miss something important, you might feel lost. If you feel lost, you might get frustrated. But if you are willing to work as hard as the movie does, you’ll be rewarded with one of the most exciting, well-crafted, and original movies that you are likely to find this year (or any year for that matter).
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2015, Aldis Hodge, Based on a True Story, Corey Hawkins, Drama, F. Gary Gray, Ice Cube, Jason Mitchell, Keith Powers, Neil Brown Jr., O'Shea Jackson Jr., Paul Giamatti, Straight Outta Compton, Top 10 Movie of 2015

Straight Outta Compton (2015)

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Straight outta Compton and straight into the Oscar buzz. It’s early, and I guess this movie is forgotten about come Halloween time (just like most of the great films released in the first eight or nine months of each year are). Still, for right now, this movie is hot with audiences (over $100 million grossed after eight days) and critics (89% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) as just about any other movie of the year. As I will explain in my review below, Straight Outta Compton didn’t do anything (besides the music itself) that was amazing on its own, but it did do just about everything well. I wouldn’t call it the surprise hit of the year as many other movies flew much further under the radar (Ex Machina and The Gift are the two that come to mind for me). Still, it was perhaps a movie that had the potential to be very good or very bad depending on the acting, which part of the story would be told, and, most importantly, the movie’s direction. I’ll talk more about F. Gary Gray (The Negotiator, The Italian Job) later in the review, but, long story short, he nailed it. Straight Outta Compton was his most challenging work to date and his most impressive and, while I think it’s an extreme long shot based on the history of the Academy and its voting, his name could still be swirling around as a dark horse for Best Director come December.
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2015, Drama, Jason Bateman, Joel Edgerton, Joel Edgerton (D), Mystery, Rebecca Hall, Suspense, The Gift, Top 10 Movie of 2015

The Gift (2015)

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Joel Edgerton’s (Warrior, Exodus: Gods and Kings) The Gift is easily the surprise hit of the summer. Creepy and suspenseful, this movie is a clinic on developing characters and entrenching viewers fully into the storyline. I saw the film in a probably 75% full theater, and you could hear a pin drop during the film’s quieter moments. Everyone was all-in on the story, and nobody seemed to know where it was headed because of the oohs and aahs at each new twist. Based on its 93% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I did not doubt this movie would be good. However, I did not watch a preview beforehand (purposefully), nor did I know anything about the film other than when somebody said the night before my viewing that they heard it had a crazy twist. Therefore, before I get into my review, I would suggest stopping reading and avoiding as much reading or trailer-watching as possible about the film. Long story short, see the movie.
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2015, Academy Award Nominees, Alex Garland, Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleeson, Drama, Ex Machina, Fantasy, Mystery, Oscar Isaac, Science Fiction, Sonoya Mizuno, Suspense, Top 10 Movie of 2015

Ex Machina (2015)

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Sometimes when you see a movie that you know nothing about, you are treated with an unknown little treat…a film that will stick with you forever. Ex Machina is that movie this year. My comparison here is to the Brad Pitt/Morgan Freeman gem Seven. It was a movie in which I knew nothing. I had only heard that it was a movie I must see through word of mouth. Seven probably has a place forever reserved in my all-time top 25. That’s how good it was. But I think a lot of this initially high rating was because of how in awe of it I was when I saw it in a such a small, rickety stage theater converted to a movie theater in Lexington, VA, in the fall of 1997. Now, Ex Machina is not in the class of Seven. But like Seven, it is a gripping, carefully scripted movie, and one that will stay in your head for a very long time after its viewing. Ex Machina will be hard to beat for the best movie of the first half of 2015.
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