Best of 2020
A Mid-Decade Check-In on the State of Cinema - Part I
Ten of my Favorite Films from 2020
It’s difficult to believe that the end of 2024 concludes the first half of the 2020s. At face value, it seems incorrect, but it is, in fact, mathematically accurate. Feel free to check my work and count the years yourself. The last five years have been unprecedented in many ways, and I hope this newsletter finds you well amidst global tumult and political upheavals.
Movies have always been an essential part of my life, and the last five years have refashioned the media landscape. The pandemic hobbled theatrical screenings, and they never quite recovered. The model for making and releasing films has entered a new phase, with changes rippling throughout the industry.
As the decade's first half draws to a close, I see how much has changed. However, some things never change. My love of film burns as bright as ever. Movies remains a remarkable medium for telling stories that can move us emotionally, intellectually, politically, spiritually, etc.
This week, and in the weeks leading up to the year’s end, I offer you a list of my ten favorite movies released in a given year.
We begin, of course, with 2020.
What’s your favorite movie released in 2020?
10. Class Action Park
Class Action Park is an HBO documentary about Eugene Mulvihill, an eccentric businessman with dreams of opening an amusement park that places YOU at the center of the action. From 1978 to 1996, his one-of-a-kind amusement park drew thrill-seeking families to Vernon Township, New Jersey. Action Park quickly became a pillar of the small community, offering youngsters summer jobs and generating tourism to keep local businesses afloat.
The jingle of a 1984 television commercial proclaims, “There’s nothing in the world like Action Park.” It’s true, and for good reason.
Mulvihill, a whimsical libertarian, designed rides that you couldn’t find at any other park. That's because other parks employ "qualified engineers" to design their rides with rider safety in mind. Such small-minded concerns did not inhibit Mulvihill, nor did he consider himself liable for the numerous casualties and fatalities for which Action Park ultimately became known.
Mulvihill was a man who would imagine a waterslide with a vertical loop in it, doodle it on a napkin, and have it built. He sent dummies down the slide to assess its safety. They came out the other slide in pieces. Naturally, Mulvihill decided to progress to human trials.
“Uncle Gene,” as the park’s teenage employees knew him, offered $100 to anyone willing to test the slide. Many took him up on his generous offer, coming out the other side bleeding and a few missing teeth but 100 dollars richer. The ride opened to the public, where guests paid for the pleasure of being battered by a slide whose design defied physics. The resultant slide, dubbed The Cannonball Loop, is artistically rendered in the poster above and is just one example of the Action Park’s many ill-conceived attractions.
Class Action Park tells a great story, equal parts hilarious and tragic, of a business venture whose wanton irresponsibility was overlooked amidst the Reagan era, a time of deregulation and lack of oversight, and whose obvious recklessness was an enduring attraction to residents of New Jersey and its surrounding areas.
9. Borat Subsequent Movie Film
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is not a masterwork of cinema, but it is undeniably a movie that reflects the moment. Fourteen years after his first trip to the U.S. of A, Borat Sagdiyev (Sasha Baron Coen) is given a very important mission by the Kazakh government that the film’s title makes evident.
Through a series of foibles and faux pas, Borat arrives in America with his daughter, Tutar (Maria Bakalova). The outrageous antics that ensue expose the malignant sexism festering within Trump’s America, crafted by one of the most gifted satirists of our time whose socially regressive character disarms unwitting participants and grants them a permission structure to say what they truly believe.
In that regard, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm functions as a mirror for American society grappling with a global pandemic under the leadership of Donald Trump. What it reflects isn't flattering but also includes heartening moments of decency to cling to during indecent times.
8. Soul
Nearly all of Pixar’s films are remarkable in some regard, but what makes Soul so impressive is its thematic weight and the grace of its artistry. It is, after all, an animated children’s film that grapples with death and the afterlife.
Most movies designed with kids in mind aren’t willing or able to grapple with such morbid themes. Yet, Soul grabs that thematic third rail and offers a shockingly adept exploration of existential territory usually inaccessible to young viewers. Soul is a tender exploration of life’s meaning whose interiority is as stunning as its top-notch animation.
7. The Father
Watching The Father, it’s quite clear that it was a story originally made for the stage. It’s the story of Anthony (Anthony Hopkins), a man with dementia, and his daughter Anne (Olivia Coleman). Set entirely in Anthony’s apartment, the movie places the viewer within an unraveling mind. Truth becomes muddled as visitors bring conflicting information, the past fuses with the present, and the present becomes increasingly unclear.
Superbly crafted and powerfully acted, The Father is a mind-bending film that rewards perceptive viewers with scraps of clarity and plunges viewers into the terrifying confusion of cognitive decline so intimately one can’t help but be overwhelmed with empathy.
6. Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)
Birds of Prey (and the Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is, by far, my favorite DC movie. Harley Quinn and The Joker have broken up. No longer under the “Clown Prince of Crime’s” protection, all of the enemies Harley has made over the year come calling.
The film doesn’t reinvent the wheel. Structurally, it almost exactly resembles Deadpool. However, Cathy Yang’s female-driven antihero extravaganza is a giddy rebuke of Suicide Squad’s (2016) abysmal rendering of Harley Quinn. Birds of Prey explores themes of violence and misogyny without needing a soapbox to make its point.
Instead, Yang explores pertinent themes via queered social dynamics between villains or in unobtrusive details like images on wallpaper. Of course, Margot Robbie plays the role with brassy swagger, resulting in one of the greatest characters in the DC’s pantheon.
5. Nomadland
Nomadland tells the story of Fern (Frances McDormand), a widow under economic strain in the autumn of her life. With a comfortable retirement rendered unattainable, Fern spends her winter working at an Amazon warehouse. She lives nomadically the rest of the year, traveling the country and sleeping in the back of her van. The scarcity and loneliness of Fern’s journey are reflected in the stark and sparse environments she passes through.
During production, Nomadland’s cast slept in vans, immersing themselves in the discomforts of nomadic life. The film also features real-life seniors who live a nomadic lifestyle. Some people prefer the freedom it offers. Some are too old to toil away in Amazon warehouses and can’t afford to live out their golden years in a comfortable, stable retirement.
Chloé Zhao’s film is a portrait of an aging generation abandoned by society and failed by the social safety net. The American Dream didn’t come true for these Americans through no fault of their own. Regardless, they model a different way of living that wouldn’t occur to most people. It’s not an easy lifestyle, but it's every bit as meaningful. As Fern goes about her journey, she cultivates a connection to herself, others, and a life whose value isn’t derived from the pervasive materialism of American life.
4. Dick Johnson is Dead
Dick Johnson, father of acclaimed documentarian Kirsten Johnson, is going to die — not imminently, but he's only getting older. As the reaper looms, Kirsten enlists her elderly father in a creative project to celebrate his life and prepare for his death. It's a novel idea for a documentary, which includes elaborate cinematic staging of her father dying in numerous ways. However, Johnson's artistic endeavor to prepare for the inevitable becomes complicated by her father's decline, and the specter of grief looms closer than anyone cares to admit.
It's an exultant, strange, life-affirming portrait of a loving relationship between father and daughter, which also prompts viewers to consider their relationship to loss, death, and grief. I've never mourned so deeply a man I did not know; a testament to the power a great film wields.
3. Sound of Metal
In Sound of Metal, drummer and aspiring musician Ruben Stone (Riz Ahmed) is devastated to learn he’s going deaf. With the loss of his hearing, he stands to lose his sense of self, his relationships, and his livelihood. As he searches for medical solutions, he is beset by financial problems. Surgical intervention is prohibitively expensive, and his insurance company is, of course, unhelpful.
Director Darius Marder’s is an immersive cinematic experience whose sonic dimensions place you in Ruben’s shoes as he refuses to accept the reality of his disability and its implications on how he lives his life and the life he seeks to live.
2. Promising Young Woman
Emerald Fennell's writer/directorial debut Promising Young Woman is a candy-coated cyanide pill. In the wake of life-shaking trauma, Cassandra Thomas (Carey Mulligan) embraces vigilantism to teach “nice guys” not to take advantage of promising young women. In Cassie’s own words, “…every week I go to a club. And every week I act like I’m too drunk to stand. And Every. Fucking. Week. A nice guy just like you comes over to see if I’m ok.”
With Promising Young Woman, the less you know going in, the better. I'll only say it's a pitch-black comedy bolstered by a knockout performance from Carey Mulligan and a structurally flawless screenplay. After seeing the movie for the first time, I sat in silence for upwards of fifteen minutes. I'm not one to sit in silence, but I needed time to process what I had just seen. I felt sick to my stomach, but I rewatched it the next day, and I have watched it many times since. I enjoy it more every time.
1. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
While Portrait of a Lady on Fire was technically released in 2019, it didn’t get a wide release in the US until 2020, so it belongs on this list.
Céline Sciamma’s sapphic period piece is nothing short of incredible, and my experience seeing Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a testament to the film's powerful potential to sweep viewers into another world.
It was the last film I saw in theaters before the pandemic lockdowns. As someone who struggles with OCD, every cough in the (nearly empty) theater made me flinch with concern. Yet, on a Wednesday afternoon in February of 2020, as the world around me spiraled into sickness, I was utterly transported.
In 1760, a painter named Marianne (Noémie Merlant) travels to a remote island off the coast of France. She’s been hired to paint a portrait of Héloïse (Adèle Haenel), a young woman from a wealthy family betrothed to a nobleman in Milan. Héloïse has never met her husband-to-be. Her portrait will be shipped to her betrothed upon completion so that he may see the woman he will call his own.
Deeply discontented by a life that she is unable to influence, Héloïse refuses to sit for her portrait. Marianne furtively goes about her artistic process, getting to know the kept noblewoman. As she gets closer to her subject, they forge a relationship with the potential to free them both.
Every frame in Sciamma’s portrait of queer desire is a painting as the film gently builds to an emotional crescendo that will leave you breathless. Leaving the theater, I felt my passion for cinema rekindled, and my love for Portrait of a Lady on Fire continues to blaze after many years and multiple rewatches. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
I look forward to discussing 2021 next week, my dear film freak.
Wow, 2020 was amazing. Who knew??