Films of the year / best films you saw for the first time this year

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

There was a film called Dicks and a film called Bottoms?

[Small Man Big Horse]

Cheers, @Small Man Big Horse - you're my go-to guy for indie film tips these days, and Dicks was one of yours.

Thank you, and likewise. And in general I'll happily give any recommendation made in this subforum a shot, there's a few posters who I miss as they aren't about as much as they used to be, but in general this is the first place I go to see if a film is worth watching or not. And then I check to see if Peter Bradshaw likes it, and if he does I of course avoid it at all costs.

[Mister Six]

Bradshaw's reviews do seem to be beamed in from a parallel universe where everything is back to front.

There was a film called Dicks and a film called Bottoms?

And they were both irreverent queer comedies in outlandishly cartoony worlds. And fun!

No no I meant films you've watched this year, but weren't released in 2023.

Ah! No, I did keep track of that but I can't be arsed making a whole list out of it. Maybe if I find myself at a loose end at some point.

[Bad Ambassador]

Made my list of nominations for films of the year:

Films of the Year 2023

Best Film:
American Fiction
Barbie
Dream Scenario
Enys Men
Godzilla Minus One
The Killer
Pearl
Poor Things
Skinamarink
The Zone of Interest

Best Director:
Greta Gerwig (Barbie)
Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest)
Mark Jenkin (Enys Men)
Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things)
Takashi Yamazaki (Godzilla Minus One)

Best Leading Performance:
Nicholas Cage (Dream Scenario)
Colman Domingo (Rustin)
Adam Driver (Ferrari)
Mia Goth (Pearl)
Anthony Hopkins (One Life)
Glenn Howerton (BlackBerry)
Margot Robbie (Barbie)
Emma Stone (Poor Things)
Sydney Sweeney (Reality)
Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction)

Best Supporting Performance:
Jay Baruchel (BlackBerry)
Helena Bonham Carter (One Life)
Nicholas Cage (Renfield)
Penelope Cruz (Ferrari)
America Ferrera (Barbie)
Christian Friedel (The Zone of Interest)
Ryan Gosling (Barbie)
Sandra Hüller (The Zone of Interest)
Jason Schwartzmann (Asteroid City)
Tilda Swinton (The Killer)

Best Original Screenplay:
Asteroid City
Boston Strangler
Dream Scenario
No One Will Save You
Skinamarink

Best Adapted Screenplay:
American Fiction
Barbie
Godzilla Minus One
The Killer
Poor Things

[close]

[Mister Six]

BECAUSE @kitsofan34 DEMANDED IT! All the non-new films I saw in 2024, ranked from best to worst. Well, not all of them - I stupidly deleted the list I'd made a while back, so these are just the ones I logged in Letterboxd after I started using it partway through last year.

1: Encanto (Jared Bush & Byron Howard, 2021; USA)
Peak modern Disney – funny and memorable songs (I avoided Hamilton and its overbearing liberal fans at its peak, so didn't get the Lin Manuel Miranda burnout that many did), lush visuals, inventive and expressive musical sequences, likeable characters and a lot of charm make this a treat. Yeah, there are a few plotholes and it's a bit weird seeing Disney do Gabriel Garcia Marquez-knockoff magic realism with all the edge replaced by fluffy cuddliness, but this is a winner for me.


2: House (Nobuhiko Obayashi, 1977; Japan)
A wonderfully strange and playful psychedelic horror movie that mixes genuinely unsettling gruesomeness with a sort of Banana Splits theatrical aesthetic – all fake-looking sets and deliberately stylised special effects. A group of teenage girls end up trapped in a living mansion that wants to devour them. For all the silliness, it's very tense, and the girls are so likeable that you'll become invested in their attempts to escape.


3: Phantasm (Don Coscarelli, 1979; USA)
I used to see this all the time in Blockbuster, but never got around to watching it until last year. An eerie, dreamlike atmosphere and some really weird concepts combine to form a strange and memorable horror flick. The ending is rubbish, but from what I gather the sequels undo that anyway – I must check them out.


4: Zootopia (Byron Howard & Rich Moore, 2016; USA)
Another slick Disney flick, but at least this one steps away from the princess tropes. I loved this tale of a rabbit cop facing (and enacting) prejudice in an ersatz New York when it came out, and I think it stands up well. It's still a tremendously well-written and smart action-comedy romp, and tackles fairly tough concepts for kids in a way that isn't preachy or condescending.


5: Matilda the Musical (Matthew Warchus, 2022; UK)
Great songs, some smart direction, a fantastic central performance by Alisha Weir and a storming turn by Emma Thompson as Miss Trunchbull (along with very entertaining supporting appearances by Andrea Riseborough and Stephen Graham) make this a joy to watch. The subplot concerning Matilda's imagined story about a circus love affair is a bit wank, but you can't have everything.


6: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Stephan Elliott, 1994; Australia)
Bisexual Australian Hugo Weaving gets a call from his lady ex, asking him to reform his drag troupe and bring the show to the hotel she's running. Sensing an opportunity to reconnect with his son, he ropes in irritating narcissist Guy Pearce and burned-out trans woman Terence Stamp for a riotous road trip. This is pretty much as lovable and funny as I remember it being back in the 1990s, but boy, I'd forgotten how bloody racist it is. The only non-white characters are some slightly patronisingly presented Aborigines who barely get any lines, and a South Asian woman who's presented as a conniving lunatic who only wants to fire ping pong balls out of her vag. Yeesh. Oh and there's a bit of "comedy" deadnaming It's a shame, considering how the film is mostly quite kind and empathetic. The rest of it is great, mind, although Stamp feels like he's phoning it in a bit.


8: The Peanuts Movie (Steve Martino, 2015; USA)
I never really liked Peanuts as a kid, finding the generally maudlin mood a bit offputting. This film does a great job of injecting a slightly more upbeat tone into the thing without undermining Charlie Brown's central characteristic of being a self-hating loser. I love the art style, too – even though it's 3D, everything has wobbly lines, as though it were a Charles Schulz drawing brought to life.


9: Bullet Ballet (Shinya Tsukamoto, 1998; Japan)
This ultra stylish revenge thriller about a bereaved office worker who ends up out of his depth in a world of street gangs and thugs is directed by (and stars!) Shinya Tsukamoto, creator of the even more bonkers Tetsuo: The Iron Man. It runs out of steam at the end – basically the moment the protagonist loses his gun – but the first two thirds are dazzling.


10: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (Joel Crawford, 2022; USA)
I don't much like the Shrek films – they have an irritatingly insincere, smug tone that never sat well with me – so I was surprised to be swept along by this flick, which genuinely has a heart, as well as a lovely painted aesthetic. It gets a bit messy at the end, but it's mostly a very funny and charming time.


11: Glass Onion (Rian Johnson, 2022; USA)
I don't know how much more mileage there is in Johnson's deconstructed murder-mystery films, but this was a good enough go, at least, thanks to a fun premise and ace cast. The very end felt contrived, though – one of those "How did they know that wasn't going to (literally) blow up in their face?" things.


12: Wolfwalkers (Tomm Moore & Ross Stewart, 2020; Ireland/Luxembourg/France)
From the makers of The Secret of Kells and The Song of the Sea, another film based around Irish folklore, this time a sort of werewolfy thing (with some obvious queer undertones). Generally charming and well-animated, but left me feeling a bit underwhelmed.


13: About Endlessness (Roy Andersson, 2019; Sweden)
A series of vignettes, some funny, some sad, some a bit baffling. My mate's a massive fan of Andersson and recommended this to me; I didn't really vibe with it on the whole, but I have to admit loving the aesthetic and production design. Worth looking up a making-of, if you're interested.


14: Wendell & Wild (Henry Selick, 2022; USA)
This is a really weird one – it's supposed to be an "adult" animated film, but while it's rather dark and very weird (and features hellbound spirits being farted out of an enormous anus at the start), it also feels very kid-oriented, with its teenage heroine and school setting. Worth watching if only for how odd it is – and how great the designs are.


15: Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio (Guillermo Del Toro, 2022; USA)
Another triumph of design over all else, this is exquisitely made, but left me feeling kind of blah. It's Pinocchio in fascist Italy, basically. Not really sure what the fascist setting really brought to the table, mind. Wish more of it had been set in and around the afterlife, where Del Toro's imagination really seemed to run wild.


16: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr Toad (Ben Sharpsteen, Jack Kinney, Clyde Geronimi & James Algar, 1949; USA)
A double-bill of animated shorts. The Wind in the Willows segment is kind of blah and has some terrible faux-Brit accents, but the Sleepy Hollow half is a lot more fun than I remember, with really imaginative character designs and funny visual gags.


17: Rigor Mortis (Juno Mak, 2013; Hong Kong)
This gorgeous-looking Hong Kong horror film stars Chin Siu-ho as himself – or as a failed version of himself, now long past his days as the star of the Mr Vampire horror flicks and living in a dilapidated and haunted apartment block. It's stylish and weird, with fantastic visuals and some impressively nasty bits, but absolutely shits the bed at the very end with the laziest imaginable twist. What a disappointment!


18: Minions: The Rise of Gru (Kyle Balda, 2022; USA)
Despicable Me 3 was piss-poor, so my expectations were low – low enough that this very mediocre, largely forgettable film ambled right over them. I vaguely recall a pretty amusing martial arts training scene, but the rest of it has evaporated from my memory. It's fiiiiiine. Probably.


19: One Hundred and One Dalmatians (Wolfgang Reitherman, Hamilton Luske & Clyde Geronimi, 1961; USA)
Yeah, putting this under Minions 2 might seem like heresy, but while the highs are higher, most of it is really padding out a very thin story indeed – and even with the padding, it doesn't even make it to 80 minutes. There's charm here, but it's a weak film from Disney's first big creative doldrum.


21: Moonstruck (Norman Jewison, 1987; USA)
This is one of those films that I've heard about on and off for years but never got around to watching, but sadly it didn't live up to the hype. Cher's a hardass New Yorker about to enter a loveless marriage; Nic Cage is the weird loner she ends up falling in love with. Everything's there for me to adore it, but it just never clicked. Didn't find it funny, didn't like the characters. Disappointing.


21: Ferdinand (Carlos Saldanha, 2017; USA)
Even more forgettable than Minions 2. Charmless, rubbish character designs, boring story – nothing to recommend it here at all. The only thing that amuses is the weird semi-robotic, "lab-grown" bull. But that's it.


22: Evil Dead (Fede Álvarez, 2013; USA)
I watched this ahead of 2023's Evil Dead Rise. This one is by some distance the worst of the two. A terrible, cringy script full of clumsy exposition and tension-killing foreshadowing weighs it down, and largely forgettable direction fails to improve things. There are a handful of interesting shots (the best of which I've helpfully put below) and a couple of Raimi rips, but they only make the rest of the film's mediocrity more obvious.


23: Terrifier 2 (Damien Leone, 2022; USA)
Incredible practical and CGI effects and a great performance by whoever plays the Terrifier himself are all that's going for this. There's one extended torture sequence that's so unpleasant you'll wonder if Leone genuinely needs some kind of help, but the rest of the movie is astonishingly boring. Can't believe Leone thought stretching this out to more than two hours was a good idea.


24: The Old Dark House (James Whale, 1932; USA)
Maybe an intimate knowledge of the horror films of the time will make this horror-comedy actually funny, but in the modern context this is mostly a load of bobbins – slow, boring and desperately unamusing. It's got a really good reputation, but I think a lot of that is just because it was missing for years, and people convinced themselves it was a lost classic rather than a big stinking load of plops.

[The F Bomb]

Really enjoyed that, seen very few of them, but cheers.

[kitsofan34]

Amazing work Mister Six!!!!

[Mister Six]

Thanks @The F Bomb and @kitsofan34!

[Mobbd]

Evil Does Not Exist (Hamaguchi) Like with Drive My Car, I was extremely onboard with this until the end, have reservations about how they both seems to retreat into some sort of familiar art-house territory which I think acts as a narrowing of the film's concern; makes less open and more amenable to psychologising or whatever. Nevertheless Hamaguchi still someone who I will always want to watch for the way he constructs these slightly mysterious film spaces full of room for his characters.

I thought this was quite poor.

The script felt not just minimalist but overly simplistic; I think it just assumed we'd be on the side of the villagers, but they aren't exactly First Nations people being asked to change their generations-old way of life. They are settlers themselves, some of them very recently relocated from Tokyo, and they drive around in SUVs, smoking cigarettes and talking shite. All that was really at stake was the perfectionist ideal of some mediocre modern middle-class people. In the glamping project, it never felt that they were even resisting anything particularly ruinous; the villain was relatively amenable to their concerns.

The public consultation scene was deathly, deathly dull: just people standing up in orderly fashion and saying their rational little piece. It was so long and all shot in flat, flourescent-looking light. It was almost like being in a real meeting. This was followed by shots of people talking on screens and driving around in even more SUVs. So ugly and boring.

The scenes in the woodland and the udon place were relatively pleasant to look at but nothing to write home about.

The ending was utterly pointless. Why?? Why did he do that? What could possibly happen next?

I was really surprised by how poor this was. My local arts cinema is very trustworthy and when something isn't quite right for me it's usually a noble attempt or there's something interesting going on. This was like Neil Breen in terms of its sixth-grade preachiness and unevocative location shooting (except without even the legitimatt lunacy to accidentally light it up). A bad film!

[imitationleather]

I went to see the 25th anniversary re-release of Ratcatcher at Picture House Central last weekend and it was really great. A really top film from a debut director. I'm not very good at talking about why I like stuff so you will just have to trust me on this one.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I went to see the 25th anniversary re-release of Ratcatcher at Picture House Central last weekend and it was really great. A really top film from a debut director. I'm not very good at talking about why I like stuff so you will just have to trust me on this one.

That saw that at the closing day of the Glasgow film festival. After seeing a load of trite soulless dreck from frightfest in the preceding couple of days it really did stand out.

GFT have been doing a retrospective of her work so I got to see Morven Callar looa couple of weeks ago, that was wonderful too.