As custom dictates, here are my best of 2015.
Ordinarily, we only review English-language releases, but since many of these films are now available on DVD/BluRay and streaming media, I won’t limit myself here.
5/ Inherent Vice
Ostensibly a 1960s-set crime noir, it was easily the strangest film of the year. Anderson has crafted a hypnotic fever dream of a quality that rivals the best of his previous works – albeit of an altogether different, genre-defying ilk, but one that warrants multiple viewings.
4/ Foxcatcher
A tightly-wound drama set in the world of Olympic wrestling that crackles along with deadly precision – its foreboding tone stays with you long after the credits roll.
3/ Mad Max: Fury Road
A triumphant return for writer/director George Miller’s franchise, it is a better film in its own right than a sequel to what went before. Miller has crafted scenes of chaotic road carnage so memorable and genuinely mental you might question his health and safety regime – but never his mastery of the medium.
2/ Black Souls
Here is an Italian film that reintroduces the dread-laden hopelessness of life in the mafia and, in doing so, reinvigorates the genre. The film reeks of death and regret, while the authentic faces and locations lend a dusty realism that lingers long.
1/ The Duke Of Burgundy
A richly emotional, erotic dreamscape populated exclusively by women who study lepidopterology and have lots of kinky sex. British director Peter Strickland quietly offered a spellbinding work of art that deserves much more attention.
