I know very little about Formula 1, despite having a dad who is obsessed. Every other weekend, it would dominate the TV and I'd watch the cars go round the tracks over and over again, not quite sure what was happening, but fascinated by the spectacle. A film about F1 is not one that would sit at the top of my "must watch" list, nevermind one directed by Ron Howard who I've never been overly keen on as a director (I'll let him off though thanks to his stint as the narrator on Arrested Development), but Rush managed to surprise me immensely. Focusing on the rivalry between the heavyweight stars of the 1976 season, James Hunt and Niki Lauda (played respectively by Chris Hemsworth and the highly underrated Daniel Bruhl), it felt accessible to someone who isn't too into the sport whilst still being exhilarating viewing to those who know their F1; stuffed with great performances (and the reunion of Green Wing stars Stephen Mangan and Julian Rhind-Tutt) and exciting race scenes, it almost feels like the Friday Night Lights of motorsports.
9. A Field In England
Watching A Field In England for the first time right before bed when it premiered on Film 4 was an awful idea. Ben Wheatley is a director who seems to be able to squeeze every ounce of creepy out of the seemingly mundane in a way that only David Lynch has been able to do. In fact, A Field In England feels like what Lynch would do with Shakespeare. A mix of historical drama and Lynchian psychedelia with a hefty load of Shakespearean lyricism in the dialogue, it's a definite change from the more "kitchen sink" feel Wheatley is most well known for. It's haunting and experimental, managing to make a simple field seem like hell on earth, in part thanks to Michael Smiley's terrifying O'Neill.
8. This Is The End
A film about a bunch of movie stars pissing around should not be as funny as This Is The End is. Loaded with self-deprecating humour, celebrity cameos up the wazoo, and a lot of drink and drugs, it sounds like a recipe for disaster, but the cast, consisting of (only slightly) fictionalised versions of James Franco, Seth Rogen, Craig Robinson et al, manage to turn this fight for survival as the apocalypse hits into a stupidly silly but ridiculous enjoyable romp through showbiz satire and a hell of a lot of "this is so stupid but I'm laughing so hard I can't breathe" type jokes.
7. Django Unchained
Nearly all of Quentin Tarantino's films, regardless of where they actually sit genre wise, have had the DNA of Westerns running through them; but it's only now, 21 years after the release of his first film, that he has taken on the Western genre in Django Unchained. Making the focus on slavery, too, is a bold move by Tarantino that could quite easily have gone horribly wrong. As freed slave Django travels from plantation to plantation with Dr King Schultz dispatching slave owners in the search for Django's wife, the film feels like a buddy movie with a hefty dose of violence and a splash of inevitable controversy. It's stylish, funny, irresponsible, and daring. Basically, it's another Tarantino film!
6. Behind The Candelabra
Steven Soderbergh has had a pretty storied career since he exploded onto the scene in 1989 with sex, lies, and videotape. To bow out from directing feature films with a biopic of the flamboyant pianist Liberace, then, seems a weird choice. And yet, it almost feels like the perfect swan song. Behind The Candelabra, which focuses on Liberace's secret affair with his "assistant", is a stylish and affectionate portrayal of celebrity loneliness and the darker side of the limelight without feeling too polished and dishonest. Matt Damon and Michael Douglas give award-worthy performances, particularly Douglas who is as perfect for Liberace as Jamie Foxx was for Ray Charles. It's outrageous and flamboyant, much like Liberace, and feels like the only way Soderbergh could properly bow out from feature films.
5. Captain Phillips
Not one to sugar coat anything, giving the true tale of Captain Phillips encounter with Somali pirates to Paul Greengrass means that it isn't going to be some "good triumphs over evil" tale of survival. Instead, Captain Phillips is a claustrophobic, extremely tense, and utterly engrossing re-telling of those events with every gritty detail. It's emotionally and morally complex film in which there is no clearly defined good or evil. The pirates, led by a spectacular debut performance from Barkhad Abdi, occupy a very grey area; barely men thrust into this world, not by choice, but because its the only life they know and they need this to survive. Tom Hanks as the eponymous Captain Phillips gives an incredible performance as an ordinary man with no special skills just trying to survive. It's proof that, even after 30 years in the business, Hanks is not losing steam any time soon and is still putting out incredible performances. In any other hands, Captain Phillips could feel like another Hollywood blockbuster, but Greengrass manages to steer the boat into an emotionally complex thriller which doesn't succumb to sentimentality.
4. Gravity
Space is one of those terrifying beauties, like the deep sea. So empty and never ending, being alone in the vast nothingness is probably what terrified me more than the Xenomorph in Alien, or angry Mark Strong in Sunshine. Gravity is a film that feeds off that fear, shoving Sandra Bullock and George Clooney into space to float around after their ship is destroyed by space debris, while remaining utterly beautiful at the same time. Alfonso Cuaron, in my eyes a real visionary, turns the view of the Earth into a sort of malevolent postcard; picturesque but full of destruction. Panoramas of Bullock and Clooney tumbling through space, single-shot sequences that Cuaron is so well known for, all add up to create a film so packed with tension and adrenaline that you feel like you need to have a lie down when it's all over.
3. The World's End
The final installment in the Cornetto Trilogy (which only manages to reach second on my favourite trilogies list thanks to the Before... trilogy, as seen below), The World's End was always going to appeal to me since it's about a good old fashioned pub crawl with old mates. This one is a pub crawl in a town taken over by aliens but, y'know, potato potato. The World's End is a lot darker than Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz and, in that regard, feels like a more mature product, albeit one with a couple of stupid jokes and references to pop/pub culture which made the trilogy so brilliant. It also feels like the culmination of all the ideas Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost have been working towards their whole careers, particularly in regards to Wright who, thanks mainly to his work on Scott Pilgrim vs The World has pretty much perfected how to stage fight scenes, with a number of exciting, kinetic fights throughout the film. The World's End is a film about regrets, about being stuck in a moment instead of growing up, and that manages to be so emotionally dense without sacrificing the humour that made the trilogy what it is. A fitting end to a stellar trilogy.
2. The Spectacular Now
Your teenage years are synonymous with hormones flying all over the place, uncontrollable and unpredictable. It's a period of life rich with possibilities but also with a fear of the unknown as things start to slowly change, physically and mentally. You're told it's the "first day of the rest of your life" but many are unsure what they want to do with the rest of their life yet. It's a period that is rich with stories that have been put to film, some with great results, and some not so great. The Spectacular Now is perhaps the most earnest, warts-and-all, coming of age tale. The coming of age genre is one now so rife with cliches that trying to make one is like walking across a minefield in order to avoid them; The Spectacular Now navigates its way through the minefield deftly and comes across as a sincere portrayal of teenage life, sensitively tackling the issues with ease. The film is helped along by the extraordinary chemistry between the two leads, Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley, who have such a natural chemistry that they feel like a couple that you've known forever. James Ponsoldt (who also directed the criminally ignored Smashed) manages to bring the coming of age genre back down to Earth and, in doing so, creates a truly soulful portrayal of that messy period of life.
1. Before Midnight
Before 2013, if you were to ask me what my favourite movie trilogy of all time was, I'd probably answer Toy Story or, if I was trying to show off, Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colours. Now, after seeing Before Midnight, the Before... trilogy has rocketed up to that top spot, without a question. Midnight is not much different from the previous two entries in Richard Linklater's trilogy, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it. It's a trilogy of people talking. But when the dialogue is so good, who really wants there to be anything else involved? Midnight sees Jesse and Celine on holiday in Greece with their two children, the result of their encounter in Sunset, 18 years after they first met in Vienna. More mature than their younger, carefree selves in Sunrise and also probably Sunset, the conversations focus more on love, marriage and mortality, as well as looking back at their younger lives. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy once again bring their effortless chemistry to their performances as they just converse. There's nothing fancy here, really, and I'm glad there isn't. The Before films have always been strongest when the conversations flow. The Greek Peloponnese doesn't feature as heavily as Paris or Vienna in the previous films, which is a shame because what we do see looks gorgeous, but that's only a tiny little niggle in an otherwise wonderful display of what you can do simply with great dialogue and great chemistry.
