candice d. roberts, phd

Note that this list represents my personal favourite films of this past year— not my critical evaluation or academy awards predictions, though I did want to get this out before awards season heats up in earnest. Without further ado…

Honorable Mentions

Asteroid City

As wholly mesmerizing as early-stage Wes Anderson remains, three of his last four (you could guess the exception: I love dogs) have been among my least favorites in his oeuvre. Wes, are we simply growing apart? That said, and comparisons to his earlier work aside, Asteroid City is an exquisite film. The beauty of it (and Anderson’s entire catalog) is at least partially credited to Robert Yeoman and his masterful cinematography, particularly useful when the story is not so captivating.

Asteroid City is more style than substance, but the average of these two metrics is still higher than most of what makes it to the features stage. Tom Hanks as a soft grumpy grandpa to three little witches adds at least half a star, and there is something about the pretty melancholy of the desert setting that makes it even harder to look away.

Chevalier

I may be the only person I know, actually, who saw Chevalier. Apparently the historical accuracy leaves something to be desired, but that speaks to the lack of verifiable information on Joseph Bologne and his life so that this examination of a scarcely known musician seems ripe for the telling. As musical biopics go, Chevalier may not be in the canon with Amadeus (it does open with a violin duel between the former and the latter!), but it delivered on the promise sold in the trailer: revolutionary-era Paris, scandal, intrigue, period-appropriate bodice ripping, a sweeping score, and at least a modicum of social critique. Troublingly, Lucy Boynton and Samara Weaving looked so similar in the film that I kept mixing up Marie Antoinette and Marie-Josephine; in fact, I couldn’t tell you which was which right now without IMDB. Still, I’ve watched this once in a theater and once on an airplane and would do it again, in either venue.

Gran Turismo

I generally don’t care for video games (somebody somewhere is saying— in reference to the titular Play Station franchise— “It’s not a video game; it’s a sim.”), and I generally don’t care for video game movies. I do, however, enjoy motorsport and films about motorsport so my interest in the latter won out over my disinterest in the former. Among F1 bros and hos, long standing arguments rage on concerning how well simulator skills translate into actual track performance, and Jann Mardenborough, the real life subject of the film, is the guy who gave the pro-simulator crowd the upper hand in the debate. Archie Madekwe (a relative newcomer and in two of my favorite films this year) portrays Mardenborough affably and makes him easy to root for as he builds a warm onscreen rapport with David Harbor’s Jack Salter, a fictional creation serving as the Miyagi to Mardenborough’s Daniel-san. Inclusive of narrative liberties, Mardenborough consulted on the film as well as doing the stunt driving for Madekwe, perhaps the first time the subject of a biopic has doubled themselves. There are enough historical and technical accuracies to keep racing fans entertained (such as filming on-location at iconic tracks Hungaroring, Nürburgring, and Dubai Autodrome), and the movie also provides fine family fun for the uninitiated in the form of “inspired by a true story,” feel-good sports flick. 

Red, White & Royal Blue

I can’t bear to engage with the Discourse™, but I did enjoy this (Amazon original) romantic comedy. It’s not simply good “for a streamer” or good “for a gay movie”; it’s just a good movie. I read (and liked) Casey McQuiston’s book at the behest of my students and found this a thoughtful, fun adaptation. Plus, Uma Thurman’s take on a Texas accent, which doesn’t sound like anybody, anywhere has ever sounded, is singularly, instantly iconic. 

Shortcomings

It’s a good year for Korean Americans in the film industry, and I very nearly put Randall Park’s directorial debut in the Top 10. This is the kind of small, slice of life movie that I relish, and Park’s light touch allows the actors to ground the story. Adapted from a graphic novel by Adrian Tomine, the filmmakers capture some of that comic whimsy in filmic form.

A friend who screened this one with me said, “It almost says something really important about race but then kind of decides it doesn’t want to go there.” I’m not sure I fully agree but appreciate that description; it no doubt opens more conversations than it prescribes solutions and could arguably go from a good to great film by being more forceful. In the end, the protagonist is not making bold choices in his life and that is the story Park tells here. I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention Sherry Cola as the hilarious best friend and standout supporting role; put her in more movies.

Chanel commercial feat. Timothée Chalamet

Top Ten

Barbenheimer

Lumping these two together is a cheat so that I can include eleven films, but it also makes sense given the pop cultural waves generated by Barbenheimer this past summer. There’s so much to say about each that they probably deserve a separate post, but a few notes: Ryan Gosling has no business with those comedic chops. Barbie was clearly made by and with people who are *exactly* the same age as me; in the center of the Indigo Girls/Matchbox Twenty Venn Diagram is me. I am there. I talked to more than one audience member who was disappointed, which I think is partially due to the massive hype. (Hype and the unstoppable force of it in today’s over-mediated media landscape is another other post of its own.) This one brought me arguably more sheer joy than any other movie on this list and made me grateful that the pandemic (or streaming. or cable. or the VHS. or television. or the Red Scare.) didn’t kill cinema after all. (We come to this place…for magic.) 

Likewise with Oppenheimer, which I could not imagine seeing on any other screen except for a big, big one. It shook me to my core in Dolby, physically and emotionally. Christopher Nolan has never been better, and you can see the DNA of his craft, evidence of so much of his previous work, manifest in its glorious evolved form in Oppenheimer. Nolan’s muse, Cillian Murphy, has grown into this role beautifully over his career as well, and the rest of the cast, just wow. To have so many heavy hitters in double digits on the call sheet speaks to how revered Nolan is among his peers, and I think Anne Hathaway said (of the film and, specifically, her good friend Emily Blunt’s inspired performance as Kitty): you can tell every single person here came to do their best work. (RDJ, Matt Damon, Josh “Don’t Call It a Comeback” Hartnett, Matthew Modine, Gary Oldman, Kenneth Branagh, David Freaking Krumholz as Isidor Rabi, in a too-brief role that is—no exaggeration—  the heart of the film.) 

All of Us Strangers

For a film about crippling fear, the performances are fearless. As is Andrew Haigh’s overall approach to All of Us Strangers— so unafraid in its exploration of grief, never dictating to its audience and confidently breaking conventions of filmic logic. I didn’t really know the plot details before viewing, and I think that’s best because this is one you experience rather than observing. The rich layers and levels of space, sound, lights variably envelop and then trap you. (One positively visceral club scene you can feel in your chest swept me right back to my youth, or perhaps to trying to recapture it, and I won’t say too much more in case my colleagues are reading this, but it truly reinforces the risk of a key bump this day and age.) Holistically emotional and not rational, Andrew Scott plunges into a truly Freudian portrayal of a main character who is lost in the depths of the world and of his own mind. It could be subtitled Irish/Englishmen With Interesting Faces. In long takes with economical dialogue and warm close-ups, Jamie Bell, Paul Mescal, and Claire Foy create expressions so deep that the audience can crawl in there and live for a while. Each of the four main actors are top notch, but Scott, my god, he breaks your heart. 

American Fiction

Satire is difficult to do well. It has to work on two levels at all times, and while American Fiction excels at the figurative, the literal sometimes falls short. Part of it is undoubtedly that so many different elements of American culture are being satirized that the layers become blurry. I rarely watch a film adaptation without first reading the book, and I didn’t do that this time, but I have to imagine some of those narrative lapses are dealt with more elegantly in the novel form. Nonetheless, this film is sharp, entertaining, and still works very well overall. It is incredibly incisive as a meta-analysis of the publishing industry, and even though the protagonist— necessarily— ends up being the only truly fleshed out character, Jeffrey Wright’s brow deserves the Supporting Actor nod.

Bottoms

The most surprising thing about Bottoms is the brutality. I pictured a kind of slapstick high school comedy in the vein of Mean Girls, and that’s what I get for making assumptions because it subverted nearly every trope and expectation. Part of the Tisch-core movement (lookitup), Emma Seligman teamed up with NYU pals Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri to create this postfeminist satire (question mark).

It belongs in the conversation— albeit a different sentence— with Superbad, Booksmart, et al., but also with hints of if Ghost World was made by the Jackass generation. If there is a moral to the tale, it’s something about accountability and that angst and awkwardness are no excuse for being an asshole. I felt suddenly aware of my own mortality while watching this one, and while I am by no means squeamish, I was caught off guard by the aforementioned violence. Comedic or not there is (and should be) something difficult about watching primarily young femmes and queer people explosively and explicitly punched in the face, beaten and bloodied. That unease seems to be part of what the creators are going for here, and I am thrilled to see an original story with fresh faces at the helm, not afraid to get ugly and weird and funny as fuck. (Shouts to Nicholas Galitzine for proving that she does, in fact, have the range by appearing on this list twice— once as [the spare] Heir to the British Throne/Prince Harry facsimile and in Bottoms as Jeff, the dumbest meanest American jock in this millennium.)

The Boy and the Heron

To still be not just making movies but seemingly at the top of your form into your 80s is quite a feat (I see you Marty Scorcese. Killers of the Flower Moon is not on this list, but you haven’t lost a step.) The Boy and the Heron is everything Miyazaki, simultaneously comforting and surprising. He has already retired and unretired a couple of times, but he has such a beautiful body of work that it almost seems greedy to keep hoping for more. If this is his final film, it would be apropos of his legacy to end asking the questions he loves to ask about life and what we leave behind.

The Holdovers

There are too few campus movies made anymore, but perhaps I am occupationally biased toward this oft-maligned motif. Has it been done? Yes. It’s New England in winter and overgrown boys and stunted men and wide shots of 18th Century architecture. It’s Alexander Payne doing Wes Anderson doing Salinger before him. Nonetheless The Holdovers belies an earnestness that makes it more homage than parody, and Payne’s expertise along with Eigil Bryld’s precise cinematography shapes it into something that feels familiar but not derivative. Paul Giamatti’s sweater vest-clad, tough but fair, peacoat professor who believes that books and bourbon are the best gifts… well, I can’t argue with that. I can imagine repeat comfort viewings and a place on the annual holiday movie agenda. 

The Iron Claw

Unlike Gran Turismo, if I didn’t already know a lot about professional wrestling, I’m not sure I would have enjoyed The Iron Claw as much. Luckily it doesn’t seem like that’s the common reaction because I’ve seen a fair bit of positive critical response. Another sports film based in fact, but this one is more devastating drama than uplifting underdog adventure, as the real-life Von Erichs are a family marred with tragedy. There are some fun parts— montages of beefy boys in cutoff jean shorts, pickup trucks, river tubing, cowboy hats and bell-bottoms— an almost Linklater-esque version of Texas in the 1970s and 80s, but those images turn fuzzy days after viewing and what remains is a deep grief. Not that the film itself takes the time to sit in the grief and perhaps that’s my biggest complaint with it; I would have liked to see the survivors grapple more with long term loss, but that’s not really the story Sean Durkin and company are telling here. (The Von Erichs’ real history is, unbelievably, even sadder, and Durkin cut at least two actual family member deaths and other crises from the script because he thought the fictional version, and maybe the audience, couldn’t bear it.) A line in the film, paraphrased, articulates that this movie is not about staying down on the mat but what it looks like to pick yourself up and keep going. Despite the relatively matter-of-fact approach, there was still a theater full of dudes crying about their dads. Resonant. As is especially Zac Efron’s performance, a career masterwork for him.

Past Lives

Unbelievably, Celine Song has never directed a movie before, and her incredible debut film may very well be my favorite of the year. I was surprised to find that she’s a playwright because her vision of the relationship between people and space is so filmic and the dialogue confidently sparse. Past Lives is sad, stunning, heartrending, and beautiful in just about every way that cinema can be. I am so moved by this one that I don’t want to say too much about it because I hope everyone reading will go experience it for themselves. Greta Lee and Teo Yoo are dazzling and create an intimacy such that watching feels like an intrusion; they both deserve all the accolades they’ll get. John Magaro, though, has most challenging role in the film and plays it with such complexity and truth that I will be thinking about his performance for a long, long time.

Poor Things

Sometimes I watch a Marvel movie (which I enjoy; back ye wolves) and think “Not in early filmmakers’ wildest dreams could they envision this.” Alternatively, Poor Things is precisely what Georges Melies’ or the Lumiere Brothers’ wildest dreams might be like. It feels like cinema.

The black & white to something akin to technicolor, the sense of futures past and past futures, the formality, the technique. Because there was Trip to the Moon (and Mary Shelley and, more broadly, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Simone de Beauvoir and Karl Marx, Terry Gilliam perhaps), now there is Poor Things. As in The Lobster and The Favourite, Lanthimos builds worlds that stretch our imaginations, invite us to stretch our image of what our world is and of what it could be. In this one, we are asked whether the world is ultimately a cynical place and if we, as humans, are justified in our cynicism. Through characters who are wholly unsentimental, Lanthimos cleverly draws out a sentimentality from the audience, and more than any of his past efforts, Poor Things seems to leave the door open, just a crack, for something like hope. Brutal, as Emma Stone’s character Bella states, but not in altogether unpleasant way.

Saltburn

So many are gagged (literally and figuratively) over certain *ahem* scenes that I don’t need to relitigate here, but that it has garnered such a polarizing reaction makes me like it even more. I appreciate a film that is decidedly not for everyone, and as a creator I know I would take pride in any work that somebody out there described as “too weird” or “nasty.” Let me clarify that I didn’t find Saltburn shocking for shock’s sake, though it has been accused of such a thing. Barry Keoghan’s heavy lifting and Jacob Elordi’s boy demigod presence are complemented by the overstated, underrated, eccentric excellence of legendary thespian Richard Grant, along with a pitch perfect Rosamund Pike and Carey Mulligan as a scene-stealing Real Housewife of Alice in Wonderland. I found myself disappointed that the lads left Oxford so early in the story (see above my affinity for campus movies), but DP Linus Sandgren quickly swept that longing away as he dazzles us with the titular estate for the rest of the film. (Unsurprising that he gifted the same magic previously to David O’Russell and Damien Chazelle in American Hustle and Babylon, respectively, both jaw-dropping visuals.) With a debut like A Promising Young Woman and Saltburn as a sophomore followup, I cannot wait to see what Emerald Fennell does next.