The 20 Best Movies I Watched for the First Time in 2020
Every year I keep a running list of the movies I watched and which I liked best. Why? To be honest, I’m not sure, but perhaps as the result of untreated mental illness. Anyway, here is my ranked list of the best 20 movies I watched for the first time in 2020. This does not include 2020 releases, which I will tally in another list at some point.
20. Your Name. (2016, directed by Makoto Shinkai)
I was going to write “The animation is mind-blowing” but I think in a way this is reductive: the art on screen could look great but the composition, editing and music – in other words, the filmmaking – could still be below par. Not the case here: mind-blowing animation or no, the filmmaking is world-class, a masterpiece of form that would be so even if the art was cruddy. That looking at the art creates a feeling of utter euphoria elevates this masterpiece of form to an unforgettable aesthetic experience.
19. The Living End (1992, directed by Gregg Araki)
Has all of the irony and camp which makes an Araki picture so much fun, with the emotional wallop that makes the best of Araki so essential.
18. One Million B.C. (1940, directed by Hal Roach and Hal Roach Jr.)
A gem. Works as a fun adventure, with effects way more convincing and fluid than I expected. Also, I was sort of moved by the film’s earnest attempt to chart the birth of whatever it is that makes us human and not just homo sapiens. Considering this is attempted in a wholly Darwinist/evolutionary context, I wonder if it would be justified to call this film radical for its time.
17. Starship Troopers (1997, directed by Paul Verhoeven)
Finally watched this beginning to end. I tried a couple times in my teens but I could never connect with the film’s sense of humour. Well, I’ve grown. It’s not breaking news to say this movie is hilarious, but what I didn’t expect was the genuine pathos it managed to develop simultaneous to a consistent tone of satiric contempt. A true achievement by Verhoeven, to introduce all of these Nazi Barbies, humanize them to the point where we are invested in their lives, and then ruthlessly remind us that we’re invested in a bunch of Nazi Barbies. It’s… complex.
16. Basic Instinct (1992, directed by Paul Verhoeven)
2020 was the year I learned to fully appreciate Verhoeven (I also watched and loved Showgirls, a masterpiece). This is both topnotch Hollywood entertainment and something more subtly sinister. Is Michael Douglas, the “hero cop,” just a creation of the psychopathic author at the heart of the story? If so, what does that make us, the audience eagerly lapping up the psychopath’s creation? Movies that make the top five highest grossing films of their year don’t usually provoke these kinds of questions. Oh, and Dorothy Malone is in it!
15. Audition (1999, directed by Takashi Miike)
Do not watch if you are squeamish… and even if you’re not squeamish, you might be after this one. This movie has a lot to say about a subject for which we probably don’t generally feel enough dread, fear and disgust – the movie corrects that.
14. The Housemaid (1960, directed by Ki-young Kim)
I didn’t intentionally place this next to Audition but the two would make a great double feature. What I’m finding about a lot of movies on this list is they present impressive acts of balancing tones, and this is no exception. A marital farce that turns into an ice-blooded thriller, this movie pulls no punches.
13. Shall We Dansu? (1996, directed by Masayuki Suo)
Does Hollywood better than Hollywood. A movie of almost overwhelming emotion, told with a mostly straight face. Gets a little too schmaltzy at the end but what do you expect? 2020 was also the year I discovered one of my new favourite actors: Kôji Yakusho, who stars here and shows up in a very different movie later on this list.
12. Looking for Richard (1996, directed by Al Pacino)
Would it be insincere to call this the greatest Shakespeare film ever made? Of course, I haven’t come close to seeing all of them, but I think this gets at the relationship that a modern viewer has with Shakespeare better than any straight adaptation.
11. High Hopes (1988, directed by Mike Leigh)
Another achievement in tone. Heartbreakingly empathetic and galvanizing while never not being funny and satirical. Could be Mike Leigh’s greatest film.
10. The Fits (2015, directed by Anna Rose Holmer)
One of the most elusive films I’ve seen. Almost mystical. Blocking and staging to rival Ophüls.
9. Devil’s Doorway (1950, directed by Anthony Mann)
Paradoxical film in that it’s easily the most radical pro-Indigenous/anti-racist movie I’ve seen from this period, and yet it stars a white actor in brown-face as the Indigenous hero. If you had this exact same screenplay and execution, but with an Indigenous actor, this could be an anthemic film for the Indigenous cause. Unfortunately, as it is it’s more of an historical curio. But a curio with impactful direction by Anthony Mann and a bracing straightforwardness about historical injustice.
8. Tokyo Sonata (2008, directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
2020 was the year I learned to appreciate Paul Verhoeven, Kôji Yakusho and, most profoundly, the Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa. He’s most well-known for horror movies and, though this is a family melodrama, it generates a certain kind of horror, as in, a horrified acknowledgement of human fragility. Honestly, as movies go, it doesn’t get much better than this, and the following films more or less tie with this in terms of greatness.
7. Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000, directed by Bong Joon-Ho)
The first feature film of Bong Joon-Ho, director of Parasite, and I’m inclined to think this is even better than Parasite. It’s that good. What I can say for sure is that it’s funnier, and that Doona Bae plays one of the most lovable movie characters I’ve come across.
6. Drive a Crooked Road (1954, directed by Richard Quine)
I was quite floored by this simple, devastating Film-Noir. To me, this is the quintessential film about a nice guy who’s manipulated by a femme fatale. What distinguishes this one is the lead performance by Mickey Rooney, and the screenplay by Quine and Blake Edwards. The writing imparts a psychological reality to each of the major characters that is a degree more complex than the typical movie of this era, even the ones with a better reputation than this one. I was particularly impressed by how even the sleazebag villain (Kevin McCarthy) was allowed to make sense, to the extent that I kind of wished things worked out the way he intended. This could be the most underrated movie on this list.
5. Cure (1997, directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
The most unsettling form of horror, to me, is the kind which gives the impression that there’s something evil in the air, something sinister driving things, something which can’t be detected and therefore cannot be beaten. Or cured. This is the kind of dreaded feeling which Kurosawa nails, and he nails it best here. The movie wouldn’t be nearly as effective without Kôji Yakusho in the lead, who’s kind of like Harrison Ford in that he’s automatically compelling, even while seeming to do nothing. This is one that sticks with you.
4. Violent Cop (1989, directed by Takeshi Kitano)
A violent thriller about the cycle of revenge, this is the kind of film which is hard to praise on paper because it sounds just like any other cop thriller, but what sets it apart is Kitano’s genius for visual storytelling. And I don’t use the word “genius” to simply state that Kitano is “good at” directing; I mean that he seems to understand filmic storytelling like no one else has before or since. Although I wouldn’t compare the filmmaking, the ending confrontation feels as epic and substantial as the best of Leone. Kitano was working on that level here.
3. The Forest for the Trees (2003, directed by Maren Ade)
The most affecting film on this list, the saddest, a movie that lays bare human vulnerability to such devastating effect that it makes you want to be a more patient, more empathetic person. Deceptively simple filmmaking (appears to be shot on video) which amounts to one of the most overwhelming endings I can remember. Eve Löbau is perfection in the lead role. One of the greatest!
2. Tale of Cinema (2005, directed by Hong Sang-Soo)
1. The Day After (2017, directed by Hong Sang-Soo)
Every year I chip away at the filmography of this most prolific director, and now that I’ve begun it’s hard to imagine a year where his films do not make the top of a list like this. There’s something a bit magical about the films of Hong Sang-Soo: they are at once very cerebral formal experiments as well as totally relatable relationship dramas with performances that feel utterly candid. He deals in endless, obsessive repetition of certain themes (foremost being the selfish arrogance of men) with fresh results every time.
Tale of Cinema is one of his darkest films, a meditation on suicide, depression and death which is nevertheless as funny as the rest of his films. The narrative changes course in such a way that makes the viewer question if movies are even capable of providing the “identification” we always talk about. Watching it, I wondered if the novelist Susan Choi had seen this film before she wrote Trust Exercise. This movie is also notable for being shot on film, which most of Hong’s films are not, and its 35mm renderings of Seoul are to die for.
The Day After is a simple story about a jerk who uses his job to seduce his young, female employees, and winds up regretting it. Like Violent Cop, what sounds typical on paper is rendered into a singular aesthetic experience via Hong’s cinematic genius. The most “pure” film on this list in that it is about exactly what it is about without the focus shifting or dissolving for a moment. Kim Min-hee galvanizes as a woman who catches on just in time. Austere black and white cinematography and an entrancing musical score complement the story without distracting from it.