My 10 Favorite Movies* of 2020
* and Limited Series
10) THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7
This is a timely film — an infuriating one, a cathartic one, a motivational one.
With a cast as wide as this and characters as uniquely interesting as these, it’s a gift that not a single performance felt underwhelming. They all captivated my attention when the attention was placed on them. They rose to each other’s level and to the level of the dialogue that was written for them with the predictable snap, crackle, and pop that we’ve come to expect from Aaron Sorkin over the years.
9) I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS
There is a fascinating line being walked here, where this movie is so disorienting and so disturbing at times that you get the unshakeable feeling that it’s going to suddenly turn into the scariest horror movie you’ve seen all year. In some ways, it’s as scary as the scariest horror movies.
There are few things more terrifying than the speed at which time moves us through life. You can think about how you want to do something (like ending a relationship) forever. You can talk yourself into inaction by thinking of the few pros, knowing deep down that they don’t outweigh the cons — but those don’t matter if you push them aside and ignore them all the way to the alter in favor of making the easier, less painful choice. If you don’t plunge the knife in, time will roll over you like a train until the person you don’t love has become a part of you in a way that makes it difficult to see what your life even looks like without them. Your identity will become inexorably linked to that person, to the point that your memories of life are the same, and your everyday experiences are the same. Your name doesn’t matter anymore, your job doesn’t matter anymore. Time has rid you of who you are. Indecision when the stakes were still low has morphed into a behemoth that you can’t even imagine defeating — something you’ve passively ceded your life to. What was once a flake of snow on your windshield is now your car buried beneath a blizzard in an empty school parking lot.
And all you have to do to prevent any of that from happening is make the tough choice. Stab him in the heart. With time, he’ll come back around and sweep his blood from the snow where he once laid, his reality crushed.
8) THE HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR
No, I’m not literally bawling as the credits to a horror series roll on my television, you are. That last episode pushed and pulled on my emotions in a way that few movies or shows ever have. It positively fucked me up.
This is a love story. It’s about trauma and depression, but also recovery and hope for the future. Time takes everything at the end of the day: The people we love, their smells, the sound of their voice — but until it takes us, we have to continue on. We have to bring along all that once made us feel a love so strong that it imprinted itself onto our souls in such a way that wherever we go, no matter how much time passes, like a gentle hand on our shoulder, it’s there, always.
7) WOLFWALKERS
Stunningly detailed, uniquely beautiful, classically hand-drawn animation. Every frame looks like it was eternally worked over, filled edge to edge, foreground and background, with a meticulous attention to detail and deep care for the project. In particular, the shadows, wide shots, and the depictions of the wolf’s senses are breathtaking.
On top of all that, it’s a touching tale exquisitely told. The desires and intentions of all these sympathetic characters are constantly in conflict with one another, making it easy to empathize with every single one of them at any given time. So when their desires and intentions start lining up, the story becomes all the more powerful, leading to an incredibly satisfying end.
6) THE LAST DANCE
Ask any die-hard sports fan: “If you could choose any player, any team, in any particular era to make a documentary about, what would you choose?” They’d shake their heads at their answer before saying it, because they’d think it was already impossible. But then, they’d shrug and say, “Michael Jordan, the Chicago Bulls, during their run of six championships from ‘91 to ‘98.”
The fact that this ten part documentary exists is a treat beyond the english language’s capacity to describe. The fact that it was released in 2020 is nothing short of an absolute miracle.
5) SOUL
That fifteen-second anecdote about the fish and the ocean is going to stick with me for the rest of my life, I just know it.
Given the context of the entire film up to that point, there’s something so profoundly beautiful about the image of Joe playing music from his soul, reading the everyday items that made him feel alive, instead of a book of notes. It’s not the art that makes him feel alive. It’s being alive that makes him feel the need to create his art — just regular old living.
4) PALM SPRINGS
“Today, tomorrow, yesterday — it’s all the same.”
When the days pile up and they start to blend together, you’d better like the person you wake up with every morning. Every day until the day we die is a lot of days. May we all be lucky enough to “learn how to suffer existence” with somebody who makes it worth doing.
This movie is self-aware, it’s funny, and it’s relentlessly charming. Sometimes it makes the time-loop feel like a bottomless pit, devoid of all hope and joy. But most of the time, it almost makes one want to be stuck in a time-loop.
3) ONWARD
A charming adventure story with classic fantasy elements embedded in it. At a tight 102 minutes, not a minute was wasted, and it flew by.
Pixar has a tendency to make me want to go home and wrap my arms around all of my family members — this film was no different. As the oldest of two boys, this one hit home, and it hit hard.
This movie is a masterclass for writing set-up and pay-off. All throughout, knots are being tied from string that was introduced earlier in the film. The third act is as incredibly satisfying as it is because it pulls together things that were set up all across the first two acts and pays them all off, one by one, showing growth and proving that all of these little things along the way were vital to arriving at the place these two brothers needed to be.
2) NORMAL PEOPLE
This beautifully shot, soulfully acted half-hour romance drama doesn’t sound like it should work. But “should” be damned, it absolutely fucking works. I felt all the feelings.
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a happy ending for two characters more in my entire life.
1) HAMILTON
The year is 2015. I’m living in Los Angeles. I’m sitting on my couch one early afternoon with nothing to do, so I decide to download the Original Broadway Cast Recording of Hamilton. I lay down, I close my eyes, and I listen to the whole thing through. Since then, I’ve listened to it so many times that I can’t even begin to guess the number. Few works of art have affected me quite like this musical did. From that first listen, I’ve been saying that Hamilton is the single greatest work of art I’ve ever consumed, and I never even got to see the musical performed live. Lucky for me, I was given this gift to finally experience the stage performance all these years later. It was everything I hoped it would be and more.
Just like how Alexander Hamilton’s legacy widely revolves around his prowess with the pen, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s will too. What he did with this musical is all-time great. Hamilton is the best piece of narrative writing I have ever seen or heard, and quite possibly will ever see or hear in my lifetime. I’m so grateful I’m able to consume these words, and all of the stories that are being told with them, whenever I desire. The Original Broadway Cast Recording has always been enough for me, but now I have options for how I want to experience this masterpiece.