I am totally stealing content ideas from Filmspotting, this shouldn’t surprise anyone, because the original inspiration for even creating Contra Zoom was their podcast. They started doing episodes about their top films of the year from before their show started. CZP started in 2015, making that the first best of list we made (check out all of our best of the year episodes). So every once in a while, I’ll do the same as Filmspotting and name my top 10 from years before the show started. Here we have my ten favourite flicks from 2014 with some honourable mentions at the bottom.
10. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – directed by Matt Reeves
This is the sequel to a film no one expected to be good (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) and this blew the first one out of the water. Matt Reeves replaced the first films director Rupert Wyatt and he completely elevates this film from what could have been a generic action CGI-fest into something with a powerful message. We get the continued brilliance of Andy Serkis as Caesar, the head ape, but we get introduced to a very complicated villain in Koba played by Toby Kebbell (he later went on to do the motion capture for King Kong in Kong: Skull Island). The action is of course there, but do you ever hate humanity the more you realize that Planet of the Apes, isn’t looking like such a futuristic film and more so like a very near documentary.
9. Edge of Tomorrow – directed by Doug Liman
I didn’t catch this movie when it came out, at the time I was still firmly in the camp that everything Tom Cruise does should be ignored. In the few preceding years he had more misses than hits (Knight & Day, Rock of Ages, Jack Reacher) and I hadn’t come around to accept him for what he really is, a truly dedicated performer on screen who happens to be an insane Scientologist in real life. This movie was mostly ignored by the general public at the time and (sort of) rebranded as Live. Die. Repeat. upon home release. That’s when I saw it. Cruise’s Cage acts like you would expect him to in real life. Cocky, full of shit and would rather be the smug public face over the actual hero, but he lets himself be humiliated time after time in this action version of Groundhog Day. We witness Emily Blunt’s best performance of her career (save for maybe Sicario) as she is the one who whips Cruise into shape to defeat the alien invasion. The stunts are top notch, the story works perfectly for the setting and caused a reappraisal for Tom Cruise as a performer.
8. Wild – directed by Jean-Marc Vallée
Much like the above movie, Wild stars a performer who I’m overly high on. Sure Reese Witherspoon has some classics like Legally Blonde and Election, but I’m not usually in her target demographic of romantic comedies anyways. I had loved Vallée’s French-Canadian film C.R.A.Z.Y., liked The Young Victoria and was mixed-ish on Dallas Buyers Club showing diminishing returns on his promising introduction to me. But in a stunning performance that I didn’t know Witherspoon had in her and unflinching direction by Vallée that didn’t have any of his schmaltz he had been over indulging on, I found myself really loving this story of a woman discovering herself while hiking the Pacific Coast Trail on her own. We get a great dynamic energy between Witherspoon and Laura Dern who plays her mother. By the time we get to a tender love scene near the end of the film between Reese’s Cheryl and a man she had just met, you are fully engulfed in her transformation between her old self and who she needed to become.
7. Whiplash – directed by Damien Chazelle
Chazelle’s breakthrough film gave well liked character actor J.K. Simmons his biggest role to date and made him into a legend. Miles Teller at the time looked to be the next hot young actor after appearing as the lead in The Spectacular Now, a much lauded coming of age film. He did well in this movie playing an aspiring jazz drummer, but this film will ultimately be remembered for Simmons’ sadistic portrayal of the music teacher from hell, Fletcher. Sure at times you question why the cops haven’t been called, like when he throws cymbals at a student and nearly decapitates them, but that doesn’t matter when you’re crapping your own pants as he is needling Teller’s Andrew if he was rushing or dragging. Chazelle made a horror film about following your dreams and made you re-think back to every time you heard the phrase “Good job”, supposedly the two worst words in the English language. Simmons rightfully won an Oscar and Teller and his supposedly difficult to work with reputation hasn’t quite hit the same highs he showed in his work leading up to this film.
6. Grand Budapest Hotel – directed by Wes Anderson
Every year that features a Wes Anderson film, it usually is my most anticipated release. That was no different for 2014 with Grand Budapest Hotel. The casting brought just about every previous Anderson collaborator and a few new names with Ralph Finnes being the most intriguing, a performer to my knowledge hasn’t really done much comedy (In Bruges being the closest thing, and that was an utterly serious role that was funny given the circumstances) in his career. My first watch I was left feeling a bit cold, sure it was visually stunning, as Anderson took his pastel pastiche and framing everything dead center to the extreme, but for some reason it didn’t click. After a rewatch I noticed the beauty in it, the story and set both are layered deeply mirroring each other and Finnes performance became even funnier. It might still not be top tier Anderson for me, but it certainly is the most Anderson!
5. Interstellar – directed by Christopher Nolan
I recently rewatched this film when doing a full ranking of Nolan’s filmography (episode 115: Christopher Nolan Ranked) and I absolutely marvelled at the practical effects in play. Now Nolan has been known for his elaborate set pieces for a while now, but coming off the heels of The Dark Knight Rises, he wanted to do something even more impressive. A lot of people seemed to have been bogged down with how the space and time travel worked and the theory that Nolan is a cold filmmaker uninterested in human connections had to do a double take with this film. Sure there’s the infamous scene of Matthew McConaughey’s Cooper bursting into tears watching videos from his daughter through the years. But for me a scene that also hit quite hard was when Cooper and Anne Hathaway’s Brand go to the water planet and are there for only a short period of time by their standards, but it was literally years and years for their crewmate Romilly who was stuck alone up in the ship orbiting the planet. The long passage of time is something that always overwhelms me (see A Ghost Story). By the time you get to the big end sequence of Cooper trying to send a message back in time to his young daughter Murph, you’re either fully on board or you missed the dock.
4. Mr. Turner – directed by Mike Leigh
This is probably the most underseen film on this list. I watched it because it was nominated for four Oscars in 2015 including Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, Best Costume Design and Best Production Design. It’s a film that tells the story of the last twenty five years of JMW Turner, the British painter known for his impressive landscapes and turbulent marine paintings. There is something about films about artists that just feel so much more beautiful than every other movie. Maybe it’s the added attention to detail, or emphasis on colour and beauty, but whatever it is it’s noticeable and I appreciate it. While this film is stunning to look at, recreating the landscapes that Turner painted, it’s the quiet, dignified performance from veteran British thespian Timothy Spall that steals the show. Spall is mostly known for Wormtail in the Harry Potter films but he has a lengthy career always being an absolute delight in everything he’s in. The film is slower and more meditative than most biopics, but then again I hate most biopics so that is a selling point. Spall won the Best Actor award at Cannes, but sadly missed out on an Oscar nomination, something that would have put him as my own personal frontrunner that year.
3. Selma – directed by Ava DuVernay
This movie came out so late in Oscar season it almost got completely ignored. Thankfully it did secure a Best Picture nomination and won Best Original Song, but it was a travesty that it missed out on having Ava DuVernay become the first woman of colour nominated for Best Director (something not accomplished until six years later when Chloe Zhao was nominated and won this year) and David Oyelowo being nominated, and even possibly winning Best Actor for his portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr. Much like Mr. Turner, Selma focuses on a smaller timeframe than most biopics. The film is centered around the famous march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama and the impact it had on the civil rights movement. It also showcased the extent that the FBI was trying to discredit both King and the civil rights movement, something that is often ignored when talking about the struggles the black community faced. It features a towering performance and cemented DuVernay as a force to be reckoned with.
2. Nightcrawler – directed by Dan Gilroy
The movie that spawned a million memes, but rarely has there been a film that was so adept at turning the magnifying glass on society as a whole. We don’t like to believe that we’re thirsty for blood, violence and death but as Rene Russo’s producer Nina says “If it bleeds it leads”. Just like a terrible car crash on a highway, we too can’t take our eyes off this film that shows the depravedness of human nature and interest. Much like Timothy Spall and David Oyelowo, star Jake Gyllenhaal was also snubbed of an Oscar nomination, one that fans on the internet contend should have been a winner for him. His on the spectrum performance of a man obsessed with getting famous for filming news footage is a horrifying portrayal like nothing else we have ever seen. It was also the big breakthrough for future Oscar nominee Riz Ahmed who played Gyllenhaal’s assistant Rick who meets a tragic end. This movie isn’t for the faint of heart, but it is extremely rewarding nonetheless.
1. Boyhood – directed by Richard Linklater
Is this film a gimmick? Sure, I guess so, even if I hate that terminology. But none of that matters. Every film that gets made is a minor miracle, the fact that this film succeeded in being filmed over the course of twelve years and no major disasters happened and they managed to make a complete cohesive film and it didn’t completely suck is more than a minor miracle, it’s a damn revelation. But we do get to watch Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke and Lorelei Linklater grow up and evolve as performers in front of our eyes. Sure we kinda get the same thing with Linklater’s Before Trilogy, but we never expected to grow with Jesse and Celine. Every scene features of the moment pop culture, fashion, technology and current events and it elevates everything. The meditation on life and growing up is just icing on this delectable cake and frankly this film losing Best Picture to Birdman is a blight on the Academy’s history.
Honourable Mentions: A Most Wanted Man is my most recent watch on this entire list, but seeing Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s final role was heartbreaking. It’s a quiet film that ends on such a note that will leave you reeling.
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) ended up winning Best Picture, and sure I may have thrown some shade on it during the Boyhood entry, I still really love it. The one-take look, the propulsive drum score and the manic performance from Michael Keaton is all top notch.
Blue Ruin might be one of the most brutal revenge films ever made. Director Jeremy Saulnier followed this film up with the equally brutal Green Room, but not yet knowing his style, Blue Ruin hits even harder.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier might be a top five, even a top three MCU film. It is the first film in the series to really play with genre and tone, setting it apart from the rest instantly. Who doesn’t love a good spy thriller?
Timbuku is an intense examination on religious extremism in Mali. It centers around the town of Timbuktu as it is overtaken by jihadists who are hellbent on enforcing sharia law. It shows the conflict of families who just want to live their lives and the ever escalation of religion being the basis for government and justice.
What are your favourite films from 2014? Let me know in the comments below!
