If I’m counting correctly, I saw 87 movies that were released theatrically in 2014, which may be a new record. In writing about 25 in all for my best of the year list, that’s actually not overkill to say I feel strongly about just over a quarter of the movies I saw this year. Why limit myself for the sake of brevity when there are recommendations to be made and when just about any one of these could become one of your favorites? Here’s ranks 11-25:
A wealthy Japanese family discovers that their 6-year-old son Keita is not their biological son but was switched at birth. Hirokazu Kore-eda takes this high concept situation and turns it into a profound family drama, one that first touches on powerful chords of class divides and blood lines in Japan, but one that also ends on the perfect note.
Perhaps an even greater tearjerker than “The Fault in Our Stars,” Steve James’ “Life Itself” is a celebration of the life of everyone’s favorite film critic Roger Ebert. James is unafraid to show Ebert at his worst, both in his behavior as a competitive and caustic journalist and former alcoholic and in his physical condition undergoing suction from his throat as treatment for his cancer. While loosely based on Ebert’s autobiography of the same name, “Life Itself” finds depth as a documentary exploring movies, film criticism and most notably the people Ebert’s life touched. Everyone from Errol Morris to Werner Herzog to Ramin Bahrani and Richard Corliss are on hand to pay their respects, and it’s a touching remembrance whether you’re a cinephile or not. But it’s most importantly a film about Roger the man more so than just the critic, and James finds room for sweet stories about Ebert’s Chicago Sun-Times colleague Bill Nack and how Ebert came to be a father figure for his wife Chaz’s children and grandchildren. “Life Itself” is the perfect tribute to Ebert’s memory because it doesn’t just fawn over him but it feels as though it is him. It’s warm, loving and funny but also deep, critical and flawed. It’s hard to say if Ebert would’ve loved this movie, but he would have known it all too well. (This blurb originally appeared in Sound on Sight’s annual Best of the Year Poll)
“I Origins” is a film of science and spirituality, using grandly melodramatic gestures to pose a simple question: “What would you do if something spiritual tested your understanding of the world?” Mike Cahill’s film is a feverish, investigative and urgent mystery paced in a way that it earns its broadly dramatic strokes. It’s also beautifully fascinated with the human eye.
“The Wind Rises,” Hayao Miyazaki’s biopic of Japanese aeronautical engineer Jiro Horikoshi, finds Miyazaki grappling with beauty, desolate conflict and melodrama in a way his whimsical career has never allowed him before. It’s full of enchanting displays of flying and color but jarringly edited with the grim realities of war, poverty and disease. “The Wind Rises” is Miyazaki’s most grounded film, but only he could allow it to also take flight.
- Winter Sleep
Talkative, introspective, atmospheric and wonderfully engrossing, the Palme D’Or winner “Winter Sleep” conveys sprawling themes of wealth, morality and privilege across nearly 200 minutes yet never over stays its welcome. Nuri Bilge Ceylan makes a gradual asshole out of his lead character and blows up this tiny, isolated mountain town to capture the scope of all of human behavior. Continue reading “The Best Movies of 2014: 11-25”