Film Inquiry’s Top 15 Movies of 2015

The cinema is under attack. Streaming services threaten the long-held monopoly that the theater has always had on new releases. Studios spend more and more money on fewer and fewer films that are bigger and bigger yet take less and less risks. And television has emerged as the home of creative visual media in this decade of ours which I know not what to call. So why, why in the world would anyone go to the movies in a modern year like 2015?

Because of the following 15 films of course! This group of movies was voted on and ranked by our entire international staff and represents titles ranging from big budget action to understated dramas, featuring faces both familiar and foreign and running the gamut of human experience and emotion. Thus, I am sincerely excited to bring to you Film Inquiry’s favorite 15 films of 2015.

15. Spectre

Dir. Sam Mendes

Arguably one of the more radical entries in the franchise in terms of structure and narrative flow, Spectre acts almost as a morose antithesis of sorts to its predecessor Skyfall. While the critically-beloved 2012 film was full of flashy frames with the help of highly-revered cinematographer Roger Deakins, Spectre is incredibly meditative in comparison.

With a slower pace, the film is bound to alienate the more vehement fans of Skyfall and invite those more open to something that that toys with the Bond formula to a great degree. It fails to solidify itself as something exceptionally experimental, due to a rushed third act and more. But, it becomes beyond memorable in its audacity to do something truly new with the nearly 60 year old franchise.

The character of James Bond (played by Daniel Craig) is at his most sensitive and vulnerable here, as stakes become more personal at every single turn. As threads and characters from previous Bond films begin to come into play in the story of Spectre, Mendes boldly concocts a film that works well as a summation and endpoint of the Craig Bond series.

All three previous films of Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace and Skyfall bring more emotional weight to the events that unfold within the film. New supporting players come in the form of villain Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz) and love interest Dr. Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux). Spectre gives each character room and time to breath in-between intricate action sequences, which is something many recent efforts in the spy sub-genre have forgotten in a world of fast-paced blockbusters.

With Spectre, director Sam Mendes proves that he holds a larger interest in the myth, legacy and history of Bond, rather than the “badass” persona and action set-pieces that have come to make Bond so iconic in pop culture. – Kenneth Larty

14. Sicario

Dir. Dennis Villeneuve

Tremendous performances. Beautiful cinematography. Great direction. Relevant script. That is what makes a perfect film. Sicario features all of these elements in spades. It deals with issues of gender studies and American involvement, while remaining an incredibly engaging action film.

Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt, and Josh Brolin give some of their best performances to date in a film that grabs an unrelenting hold on you for two hours. Denis Villeneuve continues his streak of bleakness and beauty in Mexico, where the drug trade rages on, no matter how hard the United States attempts to prevent it. Motives are blurry, characters are complicated, and frames are incredibly thematic in a film that most people overlooked. There is no doubt it will be revered for years to come. – Jay Ledbetter

13. Suffragette

Dir. Sarah Gavron

Whenever a film based on historical events is released, a controversy is always to follow. However, despite some initial problems for Suffragette they did not impede its success. Because when something is as well-written and as heart-rending as Suffragette is, you’d have to work pretty hard to put it down.

Abi Morgan is one of the greatest screenwriters currently working in the industry. Her decision to base Suffragette around a fictional character, but also draw from many real life characters and stories, was brilliant. In doing this she allowed herself and the audience to experience the world of the suffragette movement, but to also see it, more acutely, from the position of an average woman at this time.

While there is a lot to learn from the important historical stories being told in the film’s narrative, it is our experience of that world through Maud (played incredibly well by Carey Mulligan) that makes it so palpable. Maud is nothing. She is in a job in which her health has suffered, where she is paid less than a man, where the money she does earn isn’t even her own. She has no power over what happens to herself or her son. Her hands are tied by the sex that she was borne of, and when she tries to fight for her place, she is punished even further. We see her struggle, close up, we learn to understand it, and we ache for her.

While Suffragette perhaps isn’t as perfect as other films made this year, its message is one of the most potent. We, as women, have come so incredibly far. Primarily because of the women who came before us, who suffered for rights that we take for granted. What I took away from this film was my tremendous gratitude for simply being there in the cinema. Because I knew that this small thing was founded on so many great changes that these women suffered to make. And I am incredibly thankful to the makers of this film for reminding me of that fact. – Julia Smith

12. The Look of Silence

Dir. Joshua Oppenheimer

At its best, documentary filmmaking unearths a story that has been buried, forgotten, or negligently dismissed by ruling parties. In this mode, the documentarian shares the duties of the historian, and this historical intervention is Joshua Oppenheimer’s great achievement in The Look of Silence.

Where The Act of Killing saw murderers reenacting their crimes in the most garish performances imaginable, The Look of Silence depicts a sedated social milieu in which the families of victims live surrounded by their victimizers who still maintain political power over them. Centering on Adi, whose brother was killed in the purge of alleged communists, Oppenheimer confronts the obsequious murderers with the surviving remnant of their crimes.

Adi’s reaction to the murderers’ callous reenactments is the “look of silence” that provides the movie its strongest pathos – his face is unable to express the pain as he struggles to understand the motivations of his brother’s killers. The silent, mournful expression we see on Adi’s face is indicative of the incomprehensibility of the magnitude of the crimes and the denial of responsibility for them.

This movie is not didactic. There is no moral, no lesson to take away and share with your loved ones. Instead, we are left unsettled by our assumptions about the nature of genocide and historical memory. The denial expressed by many of the perpetrators, the sentiment that the past is past and these wounds need to remain closed, reverberates through our own ignorance of these mass killings.

As the movie presents the factual account of this massacre, it also works through the village communities’ own amnesia as we see children of the perpetrators also learning for the first time the horrific nature of their fathers’ actions. It is not (only) our ignorance being indicted, it is the denial of a historical record that would lay responsibility on the blood-drinking mass killers themselves, who chose to hide these gory details even from their family.

Oppenheimer challenges us to not hide behind our squeamishness and overlook these atrocities for a moment longer. In this elegiac, humanized depiction, we are witnessing the function of evil as it engenders forgetfulness, denial, and endless justification. This, then, is a movie that should not be ignored, for that merely repeats the cycle of historical forgetting that prevents a nation from bearing responsibility for its crimes. – Tyler George

11. The Dressmaker

Dir. Jocelyn Moorhouse

Jocelyn Moorhouse’s quirky, unexpectedly moving, and acerbically funny film adaptation of Rosalie Ham’s novel, The Dressmaker, flew in and out of cinemas this year everywhere but the USA. That will remain a mystery to be solved for another day, but 2016 seems hopeful for a domestic release. And boy, oh boy, America, are you in for a treat!

Kate Winslet gives a fantastic performance as the disturbed child returned home, but real mention needs to go to Judy Davis and Hugo Weaving, both of whom absolutely shine gloriously throughout the film. This one is for all of us who ever felt like a black sheep and wanted to exact some revenge. Best to live that out vicariously and watch The Dressmaker. – Jacqui Griffin

10. The Lobster

Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos

Whilst technically a 2016 film in America due to its official release date (11th March), The Lobster was released to international audiences (Europe and Australia mainly) in 2015, which is where I saw it. For me, The Lobster was one of the biggest surprises of 2015, a hilarious deadpan look at relationships, whilst not subtle in its approach, its unflinching unapologetic black comedy makes The Lobster stand out from other sci-fi romance films. The Lobster comes from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos in his English-language feature debut, famous for his brutal depiction of raising children in Dogtooth.

Set in an ambiguous period of time and place, The Lobster is about David (Colin Farrell), who has just had his wife leave him. In the world of The Lobster, society is dictated by people getting into relationships, where the city landscapes are filled with couples (even so far as people who are standing by themselves are questioned by the police and forced to show their marriage papers) and people who want to be single are forced to hide in an underground society that lives in the bush.

Single people are sent to the Hotel, where they have 45 days to find a new partner or they are forced to become an animal of their choosing. Yes, it’s quite a strange premise but one of the film’s biggest strengths is that Yorgos has complete faith in the concept and doesn’t talk down or hand-hold the audience through this strange universe. Information is given through action, rather than blatantly told to the audience, which makes watching the film quite enticing, as you’re just waiting to find out more about what this world has to offer.

Colin Farrell shows that he can be a great actor when given the right material. For every In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths, Farrell has a Total Recall or Winter’s Tale which constantly make you forget that he can be quite engaging. The rest of the cast do terrific work, even if their screen time diminishes as the film goes on, featuring the likes of Ben Wishaw, John C. Reilly, Olivia Coleman, Michael Smiley and Lea Seydoux. Rachel Weisz plays Farrell’s eventual partner, who shows some subtle comedic chops as a woman trying to have a secret relationship in the underground society she lives in.

Furthermore, the film features a bombastic classical score, which adds to the film’s sardonic tone. Don’t let the film’s obscure premise put you off, The Lobster is an oddly romantic, funny sci-fi art-house film that sits as one of our favourites of the year. – Alex Lines

9. The Martian

Dir. Ridley Scott

Every once in a while, a movie comes along that is just an absolute joy to witness. Last year, for me at least, The Martian was that film. With its immaculate blend of visual splendor, emotion, humor, and tenseness, it is easily one of the best space movies in years.

The Martian is about an astronaut named Mike Watney (Matt Damon), who was abandoned by his crew on the planet Mars after he was hit by debris in a storm and believed to be dead. Rather than succumb to the desperateness of his situation, though, Watney does everything he can to survive until he can be rescued and brought back to Earth, despite limited supplies and a dwindling source of food.

Such a premise for a film may sound like some you have seen before (think Cast Away meets Gravity), and while The Martian is similarly beautiful, it is also much lighter in tone, with humor that sometimes comes at the most unexpected moments but never seeming out of place.

In the titular role, Matt Damon almost has no choice but to be a charming presence, due to being the sole occupant of the screen for much of the film. Perhaps the most idyllic element of The Martian, though, is that while it is mostly pleasant and comfortable viewing, it also never treads too far into schmaltzy territory or even into the mundane scientific jargon that occupies much of the book from which the film was based. Balance, thy name is Ridley Scott.

Though far from Ridley‘s first foray into sci-fi, The Martian is easily his most grounded film in the genre, and has just the right touch of his immersive and captivating talent. It is truly an enjoyable ride. – Dave Fontana

8. The Hateful Eight

Dir. Quentin Tarantino

The Hateful Eight is a movie that has polarized many a critic and audiences. It’s fair to have vastly opposite interpretations, especially since this is the darkest and bleakest of Quentin Tarantino‘s films. Moreover, his two previous features had rigidly defined heroes and villains. Well, this ain’t that kind of movie anymore. With The Hateful Eight the titular characters are all terrible people, and those who aren’t named despicable get caught in the crossfires, dreadfully paying for it in copious amounts of blood.

There’s still the revisionist themes that Tarantino is playing with here, but it’s not the immediate call-signs of slavery or WWII. No, in The Hateful Eight the reexamination is of an entire genre of fiction than of specific histories. Like a lot of westerns such as The Wild Bunch or Once Upon a Time in the West, The Hateful Eight is undermining established myths of the west and the machoism of men trying to subdue the land to their whims. Much of it is about change equating to death, but more than that it’s about lies and stories.

Most of the characters are liars and disreputable folk with scarlet letters marking them filth. By their own admission they cheat one another in the hopes of gaining tactical advantages and disarming the others. In an ingenious structure, one that blatantly reverts on itself to show what we the viewers already know, the film comes full circle as a piece of self-aware fiction commenting on the importance of intentional fallacies. Nothing brings people together like tall tales and mesmerizing style. He’s a smarty, that Tarantino, I tells ‘ya.

Accompanying the clever prose within a story and subtextual motifs subverted by expectations, Tarantino opted to shoot and display the film on glorious 70mm and Ultra Panavision lenses. The result is a haunting one that is only intensified by Ennio Morricone‘s esoteric score, which signifies impending carnal destruction for those stuck at Minnie’s Haberdashery. The Hateful Eight is a descent into hades, as only Tarantino can envision it. Abandon all hope, ye who are formed in Tarantino‘s nightmarish creation. – Mike Daringer

7. Creed

Dir. Ryan Coogler

It had been nine years since we last saw Rocky Balboa in the ring. In 2015, we witnessed a return to one of Hollywood’s storied franchises. Directed by Ryan Coogler, Creed stars Michael B. Jordan as Adonis Johnson, the son of Rocky’s old friend, Apollo Creed. Anxious and motivated to make a name for himself in the sport on his own terms, Adonis is willing to do whatever it takes to become a champion, even if it means persuading Rocky to become his trainer.

The film succeeds on a number of levels. First off, it manages to embrace the characteristics of the original Rocky film such as the appeal of rooting for an underdog. The appeal  of rooting for a fighter who is just as hungry as he is ambitious to be the best in the world. When most franchises such as this one get rebooted, studios often fail to deliver a film that satisfies audience expectations, hoping that the film will take the franchise to another level for the current generation of fans.

That is what you get with Creed. You may not see Rocky fighting anymore, but he is still an integral part to the success that Adonis achieves in the ring. The strength of Michael B. Jordan’s performance in the film proves that he is a force to be reckoned with for many more fights to come. According to Variety, there is already a sequel planned for a November 2017 release. Creed not only manages to refresh our minds with Rocky’s glory days, but it also keeps us intrigued with what Adonis can accomplish in the future. – Raul Marin

6. Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

Dir. J.J. Abrams

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is, in my mind, a perfect film. Firstly, it delivers on the expectations of pre-existing fans. It brings in original cast members, with stories that suit their now aged characters. It gives visual hints of the history of the saga. Also, it draws on the original films in the creation of its narrative and characters. But more than this, it is just an incredibly well-made film.

The script, a combination of Lawrence Kasdan’s and Abrams’ work has all the marks of a great adventure film. However, what really makes it work is the finesse of Michael Arndt, who I would bet roped in this script to be as good as it could be. Then director Abrams brings it all home with a directing touch that speaks of a man who is focused on story and character, and knows what too many effects can do to a film.

While I could go on and on about the brilliance of The Force Awakens, my enjoyment of it majorly rests on two things, Finn and Rey. Finn is a superb character. He is energetic, resourceful, loyal, but more than that he is charismatic and a delight to watch. While I love him though, I love Rey more.

Rey is without a doubt the most incredible female character I have ever seen on film (and I have watched a lot of films!). Her strength, her tenacity, everything about her is perfect. What is more, I love the way she is treated by her fellow characters. She is respected, and admired, and feared. Rey is truly the first of her kind. A female character that incites the action, but who is allowed to follow it through. As she says to Finn, why is he holding her hand? She knows how to run. Damn straight Mr. Abrams. Damn straight. – Julia Smith

5. Carol

Dir. Todd Haynes

Carol isn’t a love story, so much as it is a story about the intoxicating feeling of falling in love and the bruising heartache of falling back out of it. Whereas director Todd Haynes’ previous films have hidden their emotions behind a commitment to recreating cinematic styles from bygone eras, Carol differs as being his most emotionally direct work to date.

The film is anchored by two central performances: Cate Blanchett gives the title role an ethereal, fading old Hollywood movie star beauty, a larger-than-life figure that even the grounded realism of the film can’t show as being anything other than impossibly glamorous. As Therese, Carol’s soon-to-be lover, Rooney Mara is the audience surrogate, a grounded human being that can’t help but fall head over heels if not in love, then at least into burgeoning infatuation.

I say these are two central performances, but more so than any of the actresses’ other roles to date, these feel like fully lived in characters and not mere acting assignments. They feel of a piece with the film as a time capsule of a bygone era, the filming locations of Cincinnati standing in for a smoke-filled 50’s New York. These don’t feel like performances, as so few actors can make these characters feel so human, so restrained, yet possessing an otherworldly glamour that we mere mortals can barely fathom.

Even as we are shown their relationships with men (and to a certain extent, each other) causing the disintegration of their personal lives, their sexuality never becomes the talking point of the movie. It is entirely irrelevant that they are both of the same sex – how refreshing it is to see a gay love story where their sexuality isn’t repeatedly contextualised or referred to in the narrative. But this isn’t some mere “gay love story”, to be ghettoised based on its sexuality. This is the most human love story of recent years, hidden beneath an impossible beauty that represents cinema in its most gorgeous form. – Alistair Ryder

4. The Revenant

Dir. Alejandro Iñárritu

Alejandro Iñárritu is a man with a vision, and that ambitious sight is to capture the sun and reproduce it forty-feet high for people to see. Following up his Oscar-winning film, Birdman, Iñárritu‘s The Revenant takes Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) on a mountainside trek through the dualism of nature and the inherent binary of humanity.

Glass is left for dead after a vicious bear attack by fellow trapper, John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), but Glass’ resolve to survive and overcome his circumstances leads him to dark places and bright spiritualism.

Enough of the fruity talk. Look, The Revenant is simply off the chain. It’s a huge and sprawling motion picture that went way over budget and the result is one that is utterly luminous. Victor Frankl once wrote, “What is to give light must endure burning,” and that couldn’t be a more accurate description of the movie. Yes, Frankl‘s quote was more about Prometheus’s cost for stealing fire from the gods and bringing it to humanity, but I imply basically much of the same with The Revevant. Sure it cost nearly double what 20th Century Fox had originally planned, but Iñárritu‘s desire to preserve actual sunlight is legendary and epic, and the result is a brilliant one that sets the mind ablaze.

Reteaming with his director of photography from Birdman, Emmanuel Lubezki, Iñárritu and company are aiming for more Oscar gold and artistic prestige. Some might find the finished work an aggrandizement. Fighting for its due, I say if one merely wants to be bathed in the glow of naturalism amidst a reality dominated by computing banks and digital communication, then this is a healthy breathe of tangible aesthetics and a form of life mostly extinct in modern society. Or you can just enjoy Leo running up and down snowy wilderness trying to kill Tom Hardy. Either way, it’s a great experience. – Mike Daringer

3. Ex Machina

Dir. Alex Garland

Ex Machina was the bottle-blockbuster of the year. It presents big sci-fi ideas (sci-fideas?) in a confined space. Featuring unbelievable performances from Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson, and Alicia Vikander, the film attempts to explain what it means to be human and the lengths humanity will go to in order to obtain some sense of love and value.

You will feel uncomfortably attracted to a robot and uncomfortably in admiration of a certified sociopath (no one, man or woman, can resist Oscar Isaac disco dancing). It is lean, sharp, and compact, making it accessible to the masses, while also being worth multiple viewings from those who comb through films with great depth and grand ideas. Smart sci-fi is becoming harder and harder to find, and Ex Machina is smart sci-fi to the highest degree. – Jay Ledbetter

2. Inside Out

Dir. Pete Docter, Ronnie Del Carmen

Inside Out succeeds on walking a tricky emotional tightrope, balancing some of the most complex emotions Pixar have addressed with a high joke ratio that instantly renders this their funniest film. That it is so emotionally rich and thematically dense whilst having a core cast of characters who are one-note by definition is one of Pixar’s greatest achievements to date – as well as a giant leap forward for imaginative storytelling in mainstream cinema.

Making a movie that dares to explore the mind of a pre-teen girl, a group who are often condescended to in pop-culture, is a mean feat of its own; to make full sense of their emotional intangibilities whilst ensuring the film remains a constant laugh riot may be one of the biggest accomplishments by the studio. This is a rare movie that opens with a truckload of exposition explaining how the world created by the film works – and as it is grounded in emotions relatable to the audience, makes complete sense immediately.

A mark of a true masterpiece is a film that you are replaying in your head repeatedly after watching, liking it even more the more you think about it. Inside Out is one of those films; it will likely become a “core memory” for anybody who sees it. It is the best animated film of the decade so far and has helped rescue Pixar from a self-imposed slump, that even the general disinterest generated from The Good Dinosaur has failed to diminish. – Alistair Ryder

1. Mad Max: Fury Road

Dir. George Miller

It was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away… that a gritty dystopian science fiction action movie got as much recognition as Mad Max: Fury Road did. The Film Inquiry crew chose Mad Max: Fury Road as their favorite film of 2015, beating the second and the rest by a wide margin – but not just Film Inquiry did. Fury Road has received many accolades and nominations, among them 10 Oscar nominations, most notably for Best Picture, and we’re keeping our fingers crossed for it to win!

The world initially only welcomed Mad Max: Fury Road hesitantly – a Mad Max reboot? Starring Tom Hardy (and not Mel Gibson!) as Max? Do we even need a reboot at all? Reboots, remakes and sequels, we’re sick and tired of them! George Miller proved us wrong, and with Fury Road he breathed fresh air into a genre that so desperately needs it.

With Furiosa, dauntlessly portrayed by Charlize Theron, Miller has given us a new strong female lead within the sci-fi genre to admire, and joins the worthy ranks of Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor. Fury Road features primarily strong women with Max taking the back seat, telling a female-driven story, features a magnificent score that adds to the intensity of the film, showcasing extraordinary stunts with minimal use of CGI, a production design to die for and the film gave us the coolest and weirdest background character ever with the guitar-playing Doof Warrior.

Mad Max: Fury Road is a movie that, like its predecessors, will still be studied, appreciated and marvelled over for generations to come. – Manon de Reeper

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These 15 movies show what we have known already going on over a century now; films are the most potent and powerful medium we have yet to devise to convey human stories to one another. The experience of sitting in a darkened theater with anywhere from 0-200 totally strangers and sitting, enraptured, by the constantly shifting flow of light and color is something that has yet to be matched, or even rivaled.

So let them say, as they have for decades, that the cinema is dead! For as you and I know, and as this list illustrates, despite whatever may be levied against it, film will continue to innovate, inspire and entertain. Old and young, high and low, among these films there is something for everybody, instilling hope yet that, though they may no longer flicker, projectors will continue to bask screens in their riveting and revealing glows for longer than any of us care to contemplate.

All right, let’s hear it; how do you think we donked up this one?

(top image: Inside Out (2015) – source: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)