*I choose these dates wholly arbitrarily based upon my U.K residence and the fact that due to my constant following of U.S writers and Awards Season campaigns I feel that many films of the U.K January release feel all too of the previous year. Hence the above arbitrary field of a year has been stated. Now, the list.

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20 . Avatar: The Way of Water (Dir. James Cameron)

Indeed the 8/10 technical marvel that we were promised. In regards to scope, efficiency and craft, one really cannot fault Cameron’s film here. Overall pacing and narrative are far superior here than the simpler first film, however for me personally a middle act slump did take the film down a few points, even if the final act is almost unequivocally a return to Cameron at his best as an action film-maker. The performances and characters feel more of depth here and although Cameron with characters and story is still painting with broad strokes, the overall effect and the skill at which he is painting those tropes and strokes really is a craftsman not just at the top of the game, but making new games and topping them too.


19. Deep Water (Dir. Adrian Lyne)

After 20 years away from film, Lyne finally returned with a film that for so many ways as an amalgamation of different eras, a messy one ultimately, but a fun one all the same. For this was Zach Helm and Sam Levinson, the super-modern Euphoria guy, adapting a 1950’s Patricia Highsmith novel, with Lyne directing it still in the glorious vain of the 80’s and 90’s erotic thrillers that made his name, or at least bolstered it. Here with Deep Water this heady combination of eras and styles does at its best lead to a very entertaining throwback that for its first hour more than lived up to the immense hype that I had placed upon it, and for its second becomes a borderline farcical feature completely filled to the brim with bizarre sequences and one of the truly funniest performance so our time with Tracie Letts as Don Wilson. The films biggest problem of course is its modern day translating from the 50’s era, where the plot of a husband allowing his wife to have affairs to avoid a messy divorce makes an awful lot more sense, here we are just supposed to believe Ben Affleck’s lead character of Vic Van Allen just loves his wife so much he can’t separate from her, in a wicked combination of cuckold fetishisation and love for his wife and daughter. Affleck at times is perfectly cast and is always greatly enjoyable, but there are moments where the choice to have Affleck as this impotent man comes off as unintentionally funny, it’s of course very interesting, but not exactly pulled off to the best it can be. The shining star of the film is of course undoubtedly Ana De Armas. A fine correlation for the film would be that of Basic Instinct.  Two films that are immensely enjoyable throughout but whose first half is infinitely better than the second, with a male lead delivering a mostly knowing and often good but always hilarious performance, and a female lead giving a genuinely excellent turn as the lead.

 

18. Speak No Evil (Dir. Christian Tafdrup)

A truly shocking 9/10 that has stuck with me now for days. It’s quartet of performances are all terrific, it’s writing and direction is very well handled and overall one can’t get away from a finale that will shock you to your core. However this is a film more than it’s unsettling finale, the first hour and ten minutes leading up to it are just as dramatic and unnerving and tense, whilst also being frequently funny. True, this tar-black comedy at it’s darkest, but it’s still enough to get a horrid awkward laugh here and there. Before indeed succumbing to some truly tragic and wonderfully dark horrors. Tafdrup as a film-maker here relishes in not pulling his punches. The film is almost refreshingly horrifying. 


17. Bones and All (Dir. Luca Guadagnino)

A brutal, viscous and sweet 9/10 with great performances, a riveting romantic adventure at its core and a conceit so wickedly perverse and well-made that one can’t help but grow intoxicated by the film’s allure. The films darkness balances with its romance and tender heart, despite being fuelled at its core by grizzly gore, but remains never overly sensationalist or graphic for the sake of guts and gizzards. The film doesn’t pull its punches and although I feel on a first watch my slight hesitance to the abruptness of the ending will be lessened now I know the overall path of the film, the looseness of the film can’t help but feel at times a little too loose, that being said I was never bored.


16. Bros (Dir. Nicholas Stoller)

A wonderfully joyous 8/10 rom-com that wears on it’s sleave and deconstructs many historical elements with its release. Eichner and Stoller have indeed made a film that is as much about its place in queer history on screen, as it is a solid rom-com in its own right. The film does the romance and drama very well, but is by far above all else flawlessly hilarious. Quite literally not a single joke didn’t land for me. Eichner’s sense of humour is mine to a tee, but if it’s also yours, I defy you to not have a good time with this one.


15. X (Dir. Ti West)

A wonderfully taut and entertaining 8/10 that is equal parts; intriguing and thoughtful discussion of the clash and comparisons of sex and violence on film, whilst fundamentally being a terribly fun slasher and sexy summertime romp. It is everything it says on the tin and although it may be blunt and far from subtle on its initial purpose statement with one of its characters commenting “it is possible to make a good dirty movie”, West succeeds and despite us not knowing it at the time kicked off our most exciting new horror series in a long time.


14. The Phantom of the Open (Dir. Craig Roberts)

A funny, warm and very well-made 8/10 tale that plays its heart on its sleeve and balances many different styles of comedy and drama to make for a brilliant film, undoubtedly rewatchable for the future. Roberts directs with great craft and Farnaby tells his tale with a beautiful deftness of intentionality and sincerity – both qualities very hard with a film that straddles this many genres and styles and tones. The cast are sublime, but Rylance is without doubt one of the best performances I’ve seen this year. Genuinely one of the great turns, and it makes this wonderful film as successful as it was for me.


13. Armageddon Time (Dir. James Gray)

A tender and rich 9/10 whose stellar screenplay and impeccable performances lead it to be one of the more thoughtful and complex films of the year – if one reckons with the truth and honesty of what is being presented here and does not make this film something it is not, then one will find an excellent work that touches one emotionally as much as it does mentally. Gray has crafted a sincere and rich tale that goes beyond simple memoir and in many ways big and small, macro and micro, talks on certain subjects better than I have seen on screen prior.


12. White Noise (Dir. Noah Baumbach)

A bold and complex 9/10 that does very little to endear its audience one may find, however if one goes along for the ride that Baumbach is offering, then one will undoubtedly find an awful lot to admire and mull over, if not a lot to love or cling to emotionally. Whereas Baumbach’s other films have been simple and immediately impactful dramas and comedies about intellectuals, this is instead a deeply intellectual film, which also I have no doubt will be dismissed by many as empty. I did not find it empty however and laughed and was touched and was awed by the new-found talents of scale and craft that Baumbach has added to his oeuvre.


11. Living (Dir. Oliver Hermanus)

A sublime 9/10 beauty of a piece of film. In actuality the film is perfect in every regard, it’s the sort of film where you want to give it 10/10 as you don’t really know what one could say is wrong with the feature, but overall it feels a little slight in nature one would have to say. However a perfect, if simple, film of this beauty and quality is certainly not something to look down upon. It’s beautiful, profound and elegantly told to a fault. Nighy and Lou-Wood are similarly sublime and overall the film packs a subtle emotional power that can’t be denied. A truly sublime work, indeed.


10. Pearl (Dir. Ti West)

An absolutely glorious 9/10, so wonderfully attune to nearly every one of my specific loves that it seems bizarrely crafted for moi. West and Goth have both outdone themselves giving us a marvellous prequel and fuelling enough anticipation for the third entry that these two films will become some of my most watched in pure anticipation. This is John Waters if he made a pure horror feature, but it’s also an old Hollywood terrifying version of A Star is Born, but then at times it’s this pulpy romance of ‘the farmer’s daughter’. Pearl is homage and nostalgia and perversion, all of which is a concoction far from original, yet tastefully subverted and incredibly original and shocking. A marvellous and devilishly entertaining film for all.


9. The Banshees of Inisherin (Dir. Martin Mcdonagh)

This reunion has led to an 9/10 wonder of a film that grows in my estimation every time I think about it. It’s a film like a parable as I’ve already eluded to and by the time you realise it is as such then you’re already either in or out. This however may be a darker piece than McDonagh’s other films but still has a sardonic and very funny humour to it. The film above all else does in this case end up a showcase of its acting talents, whereas with McDonagh’s other films the main takeaway may very well be the script or direction, for me in this case I found myself coming away heralding the four chief performances above all else. It’s not that the script is not McDonagh’s usual excellence, but rather instead this time that I found the piece best as a sublime performance showcase.


8. The Fabelmans (Dir. Steven Spielberg)

A beautiful, complex and rich 9/10 film that repeatedly zags and subverts rather than following any fashion of dull formula that this film could so easily be reduced to; this is a “love letter to cinema”, but is also a deconstruction on the way it infiltrate a life, and yes it is “a director telling the story of their childhood”, however without any such hesitance on truth or glamorising, nor for that matter melo-dramatizing. Spielberg has in his late career once more made a stunningly marvellous film that can’t help but be admired for all it does and all it doesn’t do for that matter. A touching, effecting and very entertaining drama with a heart as strong as its complex truths and dramas.


7. Bodies Bodies Bodies (Dir. Hilena Reijn)

A fresh, entertaining, dark and hilarious 8/10 whodunit that not only has a terribly satisfying conclusion to it’s mystery, but also most importantly has a great ride along the way and is one that even with the reveal now known to me I will certainly return to in the future. Reijn does a great job directing a stellar script from DeLappe, with not a single bad performance in the bunch in the whole ensemble. Everybody is on the same page and with a film with this difficult a tone to balance, the fact they succeed as well as they do is the greatest achievement of all.


6. Top Gun: Maverick (Dir. Joseph Kosinski)

An 8/10 all rounder. Cruise is an auteur here, there’s no other way to say it anymore. Although the stellar contributions of all involved, in particular the rest of the cast and Kosinski as director, are frequently stellar. One simply cannot remove the fact that Cruise is undeniable as a force of nature keeping action films alive in so many ways. It is the sorry state of affairs that every conversation around this film will be plagued by the ominous phrase “they don’t make ‘em like this anymore”, and they don’t, but maybe they will. This may very well be a beacon. For pound for pound this is one of the best action movies of the decade, really only topped by other Cruise ventures, and packs an emotional punch and significant increase in drama and craft than the first one did. Evolutions in the world of film-making have been utilised to make a sterling addition to the Top Gun cannon and one of the great contributions to action films of the past 25 year or so.


5. Tar (Dir. Todd Field)

This is case where one must grant a 10/10. This is incredibly elegant work from all involved, chief amongst them Field and Blanchett, who both offer some of the best work of the year in the film. It’s been a very solid year for film and especially in the world of horror and there are times when this feels more akin in that conversation even than anywhere else. But Tár is above all else a sublimely told character study that is an encapsulation of a time without pretentions to bias or even it seems an interest in orating on the subjects. It’s simply provocative verité film-making that builds a world of realism, before thrusting you into unknowns. Tár is indeed for me one of the great films of the year thus far.


4. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Dir. Rhian Johnson)

Conversations of which is better will come, but for now I can comment that for me Glass Onion is certainly another 10/10. Such a tightly crafted and perfect epic of this scale has not been seen in a long time in the world of the murder mystery and its a joyous and incredibly successful venture I must say. A broad and incredibly enjoyable expansion. 


3. Jackass Forever (Dir. Jeff Tremaine)

A downright hilarious 10/10 thrill ride. No film makes one convulse with such genuine and immediate reactions than these films and Forever is no such break from the formula. An outrageous farce of insane proportions all bolstered by the absolute documentarian joy of capturing true friends have a great time. Their laughter is infectious and joyous, it is true and it is plenty effecting. Our laughter blends with theirs and we find ourselves all laughing, all joint together, all in sight of one pure goal – have a god-damn great time.


2. Nope (Dir. Jordan Peele)

A truly excellent 9/10 that grows and grows for me in estimation as each moment goes by. Although one can easily point towards Get Out being Peele’s best film just pound for pound, I have to say that I preferred Us and even more so now I feel I prefer Nope too. These bigger, broader and more conceptual films do have the leeway that the narratives become messier and perhaps even overlong, however for me this is more than an easy give and take when it comes to the completely sublime grand movie-making and brilliantly fanciful ideas driven screenplays we are receiving. I know there’s been a lot of snobbery from critics commenting on those people claiming Peele as the best horror director in history, as if he’s the only one who has ever made three great films back and to back – however, although this is of course untrue, the fact still remains that perhaps there is no filmmaker currently working in the worlds of genre fiction that has made three more instantly iconic and instantly memorable films of this calibre. Long may it continue, please Mr Peele.

 

1.Babylon (Dir. Damien Chazelle)

A bold 10/10 epic that is as much a rush of pure and just as elegant as it is athletic film-making as it is a disgusting, vile, adrenaline ride of vulgarity and depravity. It does have all the beauty and elegance and filmic wonder of a La La Land, but also has a completely relishable distaste and lack of glamorisation of history. This is pure honesty told with language and profanity based anachronisms, but always the honesty at the heart of it. It’s thrilling, it’s unstoppable, it’s Chazelle going to new levels. It feels like an apocalypse statement on ‘films about films’, it feels like Chazelle throwing everything at the wall and somehow watching it stick, it feels and is for me a masterpiece of its kind. You really will love it or hate it, and I feel almost cynically predictable in the fact that I did unabashedly adore the film. 

 

-       -   Thomas Carruthers