Best Movies of 2020 – The Top 10!

So many great movies were released in 2020 that I had to create a Top 40! I already posted #’s 21 – 40, and #’s 11 – 20. Now we get to my Top 10 films of 2020!

#1 – AND THEN WE DANCED – I’m very hard on my gay, coming-of-age films, but writer/director Levan Akin’s powerful story of Merab, a young man in conservative Georgia, who has been training for years for a spot in the National Georgian Ensemble. When a new male dancer arrives Merab starts to see a whole know way of living. There are so many reasons why AND THEN WE DANCED is an outstanding film, from the sensitive and passionate screenplay, to the artful direction and cinematography, but much of the success lies in the hands of the young lead actor Levan Gelbakhiani, a dancer by training, whose every emotion washes over his open, beautiful face so transparently that your heart is always with him. And while this is a gay coming-of-age story there is so much more going on in this film, from Merab’s challenging home life, the rigors of his dance training, but central to it all, that rush of first love and first heartbreak. This one took me by surprise in so many ways, and has stayed with me strongly.

#2 – LIGHT FROM LIGHT – While Paul Harrill’s lovely film is sort of marketed as a paranormal investigation story (and it is that) it’s more about a pair of folks who are haunted by their own circumstances and how they are able to help each other. As a child, Shelia had a couple of visions that came true, and from there she went on to investigate paranmoral occurrences. A widower whose wife died under unusual circumstances hires Shelia to see if his wife’s spirit is still lingering in the house they shared. This is a truly slow burn, but once it’s got its hook in you, you’ll be glad you’re dragged along. The power of these quiet scenes took me by surprise, and the acting by Marin Ireland and Jim Gaffigan is just gorgeous. Josh Wiggins does great as well, as Shelia’s son, who is struggling with some big decisions that are colored by his mom’s history. Lovely cinematography in the Appalachians, and through the potentially haunted house cap things off beautifully. A powerfully and unexpectedly moving film.

#3 – NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS – Eliza Hittman follows-up the impressive BEACH RATS with a somber character study about a young woman from Pennsylvania who travels to New York City with her cousin to get an abortion. Things don’t go quite as planned, and the pair end up having to stay longer than expected, with no money to afford them a place to stay. Hittman found her lead actress in fist-timer Sidney Flanigan and effectively uses tight close-ups where the gifted young woman conveys her doubts and anguish through facial expressions alone. The sequence where the film’s title is explained took my breath away. Eliza Hittman is clearly a director to keep an eye on.

#4 – PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE – It’s so rare in a film to actually watch two people fall in love. It doesn’t happen set to a sweeping score, or in a delightfully sweet montage. It doesn’t happen all at once, with locked eyes, or a catching of breath. It happens slowly, over time, starting perhaps with admiration, then intrigue, perhaps desire, and slowly, that first blush of love. Céline Sciamma, already notable for her films WATER LILLIES and GIRLHOOD, creates an exquisite portrait herself, of a female painter in late eighteenth century Brittany, who is hired to paint the wedding portrait of a very unhappy… and unwilling young woman. As the painter paints, she peers, she gazes, she examines her subject, and in doing so, becomes the object of her subjects gaze as well. Stunningly beautiful, intensely engaging, a technical marvel, Sciamma’s PORTRAIT is a work of art.

#5 – SOUND OF METAL – I went into this film knowing nothing… in fact, I went into it with misinformation. I assumed, from the photo I saw, that it was a documentary about a heavy metal drummer who develops tinnitus. Instead, this stunning narrative follows the difficult path of a young man, a recovering addict involved in a slightly co-dependent relationship with a woman with whom her performs in a quasi-punk, quasi-art due, who damages his hearing to the point of deafness. Featuring a bravura performance by rising star Riz Ahmend, this drummer is entirely focused on a cure, while the community around him works tirelessly to help him to accept his lack of hearing and to adjust to a new way of living. First time director Darius Marder has created s powerful exploration of a man facing a challenge that shakes him to his core identity, and follows him through the arduous journey he must take to adapt.

#6 – SORRY WE MISSED YOU – Ken Loach tackles serious subject, and often his characters are struggling, working-class folk. In this film, he focuses on a family who’s just barely getting by in London: Ricky (Dad) drives a delivery van (think Amazon), Abbie (Mom) does home health care with horrible hours, Seb is technically in high school, but he’d rather be out spray painting some graffiti, and Liza Jae is the youngest, trying desperately to keep everyone happy. Despite best intentions and potential opportunities, things the Proctor family just can’t catch a break, and things just get worse and worse. Arguments turn into fights, things are done that can’t be taken back, but the incredible power of this film is through it all, Loach shows us by the actions of his characters that there is deep, familial love here, despite everything. It’s a tough film that broke my heart.

#7 – FIRST COW – Kelly Reichardt returns to an historic era, this time the 1800’s and the Westward Expansion, to tell a tale of friendship and early entrepreneurship during a rough and tumble time. An out of work cook helps a fugitive Chinaman, forging a quiet friendship then dreaming of what they could do to become successful in a frontier settlement. A number of things come together, the chef’s baking skills, the lack of interesting bread and sweets on the frontier, and the introduction of the first cow in the area, owned by a wealthy landowner who needed some cream for his afternoon tea. Reichardt has evolved into one of my favorite filmmakers, and her attention to detail, her skills with portraying friendships, and her comfort with silence create some beautiful cinematic tales.

#8 – SONG WITHOUT A NAME – Late 80’s Peru, on the precipice of being overwhelmed by terrorism by a group called The Shining Path. First-time feature director and co-writer Melina León paints a portrait of life in both the City, and the outskirts where the indigenous communities live in poverty. She focuses on one young woman, Georgina, who is about to give birth, but is too poor to cover the costs of the clinic. When she hears an ad on the radio of a clinic helping people avoid these costs, she takes the opportunity. Unfortunately, she becomes part of a growing newborn kidnapping movement, and as a poor, migrant woman, she is ignored by both the police and the judicial system. Her only hope is an eager young reporter who is assigned to dig into her story and uncover the truth, even while he is concealing his own truth that could put his life at risk. This grim story is told with powerful visuals the both highlight and counter the harsh life that Georgina faces.

#9 – CAT IN THE WALL – Illustrating both the strong bonds of family, and the gritty, harsh reality of current day life for some in London, CAT IN THE WALL follows a family of Bulgarian immigrants whose lives are thrown into disarray when a conflict with their neighbors over a cat escalates. This artfully written film that feels like improv, but must surely be carefully scripted, gives us a look into a housing development with a mix of residents, and a decision made to renovate the windows despite none of the tenants asking for it. The cost is borne by those who have long-term leases, and lead character Irina, struggling to find work as an architect but making ends meet working in a pub, tries to rally her fellow tenants in protest. Meanwhile, her conflict with her neighbors around the cat, puts her entire family in jeopardy.

#10 – KAJILLIONAIRE – Miranda July is consistent with her quirky characters that deliver powerfully moving messages from both her debut, ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW, and its follow-up, THE FUTURE. In KAJILLIONAIRE, she steps out of the performance aspect of the film sticking to the writing and directing, but allows Evan Rachel Wood to bring to life an amazingly strange, yet wonderful character in Old Dolio, daughter of an aging couple who decades ago stepped away from capitalist society to live a life off the grid, making their ways through cons and grifts. It’s amazing how July can weave such odd and off-putting characters into a narrative that not only reveals, but redeems them with heart and soul.