Month: July 2020

The Best Movies of 2020 (So Far)

 

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We are now halfway through the year and as has become an annual tradition here at The End, it’s time to look back at the best movies of the year so far. As I discussed in the 2013 halfway post, the consensus movie-dating system is nonsensical and posits New York as the center of the universe. Far more logical (and much easier to use) is a system reliant on imdb’s dating system, which locates a film in whatever year it first played for an audience. That’s what we use here for all Rankings & Awards as it’s the most fair to all eras and areas. (A dating system reliant on playing in a certain locality I think can be valuable for a publication that is geographically specific, like a local newspaper or website. But here at The End, we have a global reach.)

A by-product of the system is that a number of films that first go into wide-release in any given year actually had their premiere in the year before. A number of the films on many critics’ halfway-point lists will include these films, films that find their proper home here on my 2019 list. And so here we have two lists: the Best Movies of 2020, following the strict imdb dating system, and the Best 2019 Movies of 2020, which includes those films from last year (and a couple from years before that) that you might find on a more chronologically-illogical list. On this list I’m including anything that didn’t get a theatrical release but was made available on VOD and is therefore eligible for this year’s Seattle Film Critics Awards. For obvious reasons, the New York theatrical release standard is even more nonsensical this year. I also have a third list, Best Unreleased Movies of 2019, of last year’s films that have yet to see a New York release and therefore don’t (yet) exist by the standards of most critics. And there’s a fourth list, a halfway version of my annual Best Older Movies list, counting the top movies I saw for the first time this year that are more than a few years old.

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The Best Movies of 2020 (So Far)

1. The Woman Who Ran (Hong Sangsoo)
2. The History of the Seattle Mariners (Jon Bois)
3. Da 5 Bloods (Spike Lee)
4. We Have Boots (Evans Chan)
5. Birds of Prey (Cathy Yan)
6. New York New York (Spike Lee)
7. Be Water (Bao Nguyen)
8. The Cube Phantom (Alan Lau)
9. Enter the Fat Dragon (Wong Jing & Tanigaki Kenji)
10. Long Gone Summer (AJ Schnack)

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The Best 2019 Movies of 2020 (So Far)

1. Yourself and Yours (Hong Sangsoo)
2. Fourteen (Dan Sallitt)
3. Made in Hong Kong (Fruit Chan)
4. Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho & Juliano Dornelles)
5. Ride Your Wave (Masaaki Yuasa)
6. The Grand Bizarre (Jodie Mack)
7. Jallikattu (Lijo Jose Pellissery)
8. Hill of Freedom (Hong Sangsoo)
9. I Wish I Knew (Jia Zhangke)
10. Woman on the Beach (Hong Sangsoo)
11. MS Slavic 7 (Sofia Bohdanowicz & Deragh Campbell)
12. The Wild Goose Lake (Diao Yinan)
13. Weathering With You (Makoto Shinkai)
14. The Whistlers (Corneliu Porumboiu)
15. Young Ahmed (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
16. Disappearance at Clifton Hill (Albert Shin)
17. House of Hummingbird (Kim Bora)

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The Best Unreleased Films of 2019 (So Far)

1. Labyrinth of Cinema (Obayashi Nobuhiko)
2. Chasing Dream (Johnnie To)
3. Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello)
4. Jeux de plage (Aimi Natsuto)
5. A Voluntary Year (Henner Winckler & Ulrich Köhler)
6. Heart (Jeong Gayoung)
7. Demolition Girl (Matsugami Genta)
8. The Bob Emergency (Jon Bois)
9. To Live To Sing (Johnny Ma)
10. Wet Season (Anthony Chen)

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2020 Discoveries (So Far)

1. Mughal-e-Azam (K. Asif, 1960)
2. The Rocking Horsemen (Obayashi Nobuhiko, 1992)
3. Om Shanti Om (Farah Khan, 2007)
4. Duvidha (Mani Kaul, 1973)
5. Mother India (Mehboob Khan, 1957)
6. Lagaan (Ashutosh Gowariker, 2001)
7. The Harder They Come (Perry Henzell, 1972)
8. Original Cast Album: Company (DA Pennebaker, 1970)
9. Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje (V. Shantaram, 1955)
10. Dil Se.. (Mani Ratnam, 1998)
11. Welcome to LA (Alan Rudolph, 1976)
12. Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa (Kundan Shah, 1994)
13. Eega (SS Rajamouli, 2012)
14. Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 (Itō Shunya, 1972)
15. Deewar (Yash Chopra, 1975)
16. Tamasha (Imtiaz Ali, 2015)
17. Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion (Itō Shunya, 1972)
18. The Crazies (George Romero, 1973)
19. Stray Cat Rock: Machine Animal (Hasebe Yasuharu, 1970)
20. Cageman (Jacob Cheung, 1992)
21. Aag (Raj Kapoor, 1948)
22. Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (Aditya Chopra, 1995)
23. Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter (Hasebe Yasuharu, 1970)
24. Devdas (PC Barua, 1936)
25. Stray Cat Rock: Delinquent Girl Boss (Hasebe Yasuharu, 1970)
26. Main Hoon Na (Farah Khan, 2004)
27. Ordinary Heroes (Ann Hui, 1999)
28. Ram Jaane (Rajiv Mehra, 1995)
29. Amrapali (Lekh Tandon, 1966)
30. Fan ((Maneesh Sharma, 2016)
31. Gangs (Lawrence Ah Mon, 1988)
32. emale Prisoner Scorpion: Beast Stable (Itō Shunya, 1973)
33. Batman Forever (Joel Schumacher, 1995)
34. Enthiran (S. Shankar, 2010)
35. The Delinquent (Chang Cheh & Kuei Chih-hung, 1973)

This Week in Rankings

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Since the last update I’ve been a bit more productive, reviewing Johnnie To’s Chasing Dream at Mubi, Tsai Ming-liang’s Journey to the West at InReview Online, and Obayashi Nobuhiko’s Labyrinth of Cinema and Nabwana IGG’s Crazy World at Frame.land. But we’re still locked up in quarantine and I’ve spent most of my movie-watching time catching up on things I’ve not had time for over the last few years, like a bunch of Indian movies, Pirates and Batman movies, and a whole lot of Kaji Maiko and Alan Rudolph.

If you like what I do here or at Seattle Screen Scene, The Chinese Cinema, or anywhere else, please consider donating at my kofi page. Every little bit helps.

These are the movies I’ve watched or rewatched over the last few weeks, and where they place on my year-by-year rankings.

College Hounds (Zion Myers & Jules White) – 18, 1929
Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa) – 1, 1954
East of Eden (Elia Kazan) – 30, 1955
Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger) – 2, 1959
Amrapali (Lekh Tandon) – 15, 1966

Original Cast Album: Company (DA Pennebaker) – 7, 1970
Stray Cat Rock: Machine Animal (Hasebe Yasuharu) – 10, 1970
Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter (Hasebe Yasuharu) – 12, 1970
Stray Cat Rock: Delinquent Girl Boss (Hasebe Yasuharu) – 13, 1970
Stray Cat Rock: Wild Jumbo (Fujita Toshiya) – 16, 1970

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (Mel Stuart) – 18, 1971
Stray Cat Rock: Beat ’71 (Fujita Toshiya) – 20, 1971
Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 (Itō Shunya) – 11, 1972
Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion (Itō Shunya) – 13, 1972
The Greenhouse Jungle (Boris Sagal) – 24, 1972

Female Prisoner Scorpion: Beast Stable (Itō Shunya) – 17, 1973
Female Prisoner Scorpion: #701’s Grudge Song (Hasebe Yasuharu) – 22, 1973
Welcome to LA (Alan Rudolph) – 6, 1976
Body Heat (Lawrence Kasdan) – 28, 1981
Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis) – 13, 1985

The Moderns (Alan Rudolph) – 8, 1988
Batman (Tim Burton) – 19, 1989
Dick Tracy (Warren Beatty) – 20, 1990
Love at Large (Alan Rudolph) – 44, 1990
Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael (Jim Abrahams) – 50, 1990

The Rocking Horsemen (Obayashi Nobuhiko) – 6, 1992
Batman Returns (Tim Burton) – 15, 1992
Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa (Kundan Shah) – 20, 1994
Mrs. Parker & the Vicious Circle (Alan Rudolph) – 24, 1994
Ram Jaane (Rajiv Mehra) – 34, 1995

Batman Forever (Joel Schumacher) – 37, 1995
Neil Young & Crazy Horse: The Complex Sessions (Jonathan Demme) – 48, 1995
Batman & Robin (Joel Schumacher) – 67, 1997
Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (Karan Johar) – 20, 1998
Love on a Diet (Johnnie To & Wai Ka-fai) – 21, 2001

Kabhi Kushi Kabhie Gham (Karan Johar) – 33, 2001
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Chris Columbus) – 37, 2001
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (Gore Verbinski) – 13, 2003
Love for All Seasons (Johnnie To & Wai Ka-fai) – 36, 2003
Throw Down (Johnnie To) – 2, 2004

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (Gore Verbinski) – 6, 2006
Zodiac (David Fincher) – 7, 2007
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (Gore Verbinski) – 13, 2007
The Rebel (Charlie Nguyen) – 32, 2007
Clash (Le Thanh Son) – 36, 2009

Enthiran (S. Shankar) – 37, 2010
Who Killed Captain Alex? (Nabwana IGG) – 42, 2010
Tees Maar Khan (Farah Khan) – 69, 2010
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Rob Marshall) – 70, 2011
Chennai Express (Rohit Shetty) – 48, 2013

Journey to the West (Tsai Ming-liang) – 5, 2014
Crazy World (Nabwana IGG) – 79, 2014
Tamasha (Imtiaz Ali) – 17, 2015
Piku (Shoojit Sircar) – 55, 2015
Fan (Maneesh Sharma) – 28, 2016

Bad Black (Nabwana IGG) – 30, 2016
Dangal (Nitesh Tiwari) – 53, 2016
20th Century Women (Mike Mills) – 80, 2016
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (Joachim Rønning & Espen Sandberg) – 160, 2017

Labyrinth of Cinema (Obayashi Nobuhiko) – 3, 2019
Chasing Dream (Johnnie To) – 8, 2019
Jallikattu (Lijo Jose Pellissery) – 11, 2019
Heart (Jeong Gayoung) – 26, 2019
The Bob Emergency (Jon Bois) – 40, 2019
Where’d You Go, Bernadette (Richard Linklater) – 51, 2019

The Woman Who Ran (Hong Sangsoo) – 1, 2020
The History of the Seattle Mariners (Jon Bois) – 2, 2020
Da 5 Bloods (Spike Lee) – 3, 2020
New York New York (Spike Lee) – 6, 2020
Be Water (Bao Nguyen) – 7, 2020
Long Gone Summer (AJ Schnack) – 10, 2020

Rankings: 2020-2029

2020:
2020 Endy Awards

1. The History of the Seattle Mariners
2. Lovers Rock
3. Septet: the Story of Hong Kong
4. Wife of a Spy
5. Undine
6. Days
7. Mangrove
8. The Woman Who Ran
9. Her Socialist Smile
10. Still Processing
11. Hold Me Back
12. Da 5 Bloods
13. Inside the Red Brick Wall
14. Tesla
15. We Have Boots
16. Monster Hunter
17. City Hall
18. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
19. Keep Rolling
20. Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes
21. Greyhound
22. The Cure
23. Shock Wave 2
24. The Calming
25. Hubie Halloween
26. Tenet
27. Point and Line to Plane
28. My Missing Valentine
29. Kung Fu Stuntmen
30. Debt Collectors
31. Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue
33. The Invisible Man
34. One Second
35. Hand Rolled Cigarette
36. World of Tomorrow 3
37. Hopper/Welles
38. Lost Bullet
39. Love Aaj Kal
40. Extraction
41. Crazy Samurai Musashi
42. The Eight Hundred
43. The Disciple
44. Love After Love
45. 12 Day Tale of the Monster that Died in 8
46. Birds of Prey
47. Minari
48. Demon Slayer: Mugen Train
49. Emma.
50. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
51. Another Round
52. American Utopia
53. Nomadland
54. Hamilton
55. Leap
56. The Paper Tigers
57. Palm Springs
58. The Rescue
59. Inventing the Future
60. MLK/FBI
61. Sonic the Hedgehog
62. Mank
63. France Against the Robots
64. Promising Young Woman
65. October Rumbles
66. Class Action Park
67. The New Mutants
68. The Cube Phantom
69. Be Water
70. New York New York
71. Visit
72. Long Gone Summer
73. Trial of the Chicago 7
74. Wonder Woman 1984
75. Enter the Fat Dragon

2021:
2021 Endy Awards

1. Drive My Car
2. Shadow Kingdom
3. In Front of Your Face
4. Benedetta
5. The Night
6. Licorice Pizza
7. West Side Story
8. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
9. Get Back
10. Karnan
11. Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched
12. Baby Assassins
13. A New Old Play
14. The French Dispatch
15. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair
16. Belle
17. A Writer’s Odyssey
18. Limbo
19. Yellow Dragon’s Village
20. Nothing Serious
21. The Velvet Underground
22. Inu-Oh
23. Matrix Resurrections
24. One Shot
25. The History of the Atlanta Falcons
26. Evangelion 3.0+1.01 Thrice Upon a Time
27. Can’t Get You Out of My Head
28. Drifting Petals
29. Introduction
30. Bergman Island
31. The Falls
32. Dune
33. The Green Knight
34. Old
35. The Power of the Dog
36. Sycorax
37. Just Remembering
38. The Good Woman of Sichuan
39. Cliff Walkers
40. Hell Hath No Fury
41. Justice League
42. Coffin Homes
43. The Worst Person in the World
44. Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time
45. Judas and the Black Messiah
46. Venom: Let There Be Carnage
47. The Battle at Lake Changjin
48. The Voyeurs
49. Kate
50. A Janitor
51. The Witches of the Orient
52. The Last Duel
53. Shaun the Sheep: The Flight Before Christmas
54. Cry Macho
55. Once Upon a Time in Uganda
56. Malignant
57. Pompo: The Cinephile
58. The Card Counter
59. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
60. The Fable: The Killer Who Doesn’t Kill
61. Muppets Haunted Mansion
62. Mad God
63. Spider-Man: No Way Home
64. JFK Revisited: Through The Looking Glass
65. The Suicide Squad
66. Schemes in Antiques
67. Eternals
68. Raging Fire
69. Disney’s FastPass: A Complicated History
70. The Many Saints of Newark
71. No Time to Die
72. Nightmare Alley
73. The Mole Song: Final
74. Queenpins
75. The Great Director
76. King Richard
77. Kid 90
78. Black Widow
79. Cloudy Mountain
80. Who Are You, Charlie Brown?
81. New York Ninja
82. Diary of a Wimpy Kid
83. As We Like It
84. CODA
85. Don’t Look Up
86. House of Gucci
87. Eyes of Tammy Faye
88. Framing Britney Spears
89. Gunpowder Milkshake
90. Woodstock ’99: Peace Love and Rage

2022:

2022 Endy Awards

1. Showing Up
2. The Novelist’s Film
3. The Fabelmans
4. Ponniyin Selvan: Part 1
5. Walk Up
6. Trenque Lauquen
7. Shin Ultraman
8. Captain Ahab: The Story of Dave Stieb
9. Three Thousand Years of Longing
10. Detective vs. Sleuths
11. Decision to Leave
12. The King of Wuxia
13. Apollo 10 1/2
14. Avatar: The Way of Water
15. Tár
16. Where
17. RRR
18. Nope
19. Thirteen Lives
20. Section 1
21. The First Slam Dunk
22. Remembering Every Night
23. The Battle at Lake Changjin II
24. Armageddon Time
25. Crimes of the Future
26. White Noise
27. When Morning Comes I Feel Empty
28. Blue Island
29. The Banshees of Inishirin
30. Ambulance
31. Prey
32. Turn Every Page
33. Mondays
34. Fire of Love
35. How to Score Ten Runs in the First Inning and Lose
36. Vikram
37. Where the Wind Blows
38. Suzume
39. Hustle
40. Elvis
41. Confess, Fletch
42. The Munsters
43. Furies
44. Disney Channel’s Theme: A History Mystery
45. The Sparring Partner
46. The Eternal Daughter
47. The Princess
48. It’s What Each Person Needs
49. New Kung Fu Cult Master (Parts I & II)
50. Dead for a Dollar
51. Snipers
52. Fall
53. Special Delivery
54. The Roundup
55. Lost Bullet 2
56. Eye for an Eye: The Blind Swordsman
57. Bad City
58. Next Sohee
59. A Light Never Goes Out
60. There is a Stone
61. Everything Everywhere All at Once
62. Eo
63. Hand
64. The Northman
65. The Killer
66. Top Gun: Maverick
67. Confession
68. Emily the Criminal
69. Broker
70. The Woman King
71. Don’t Worry Darling
72. Glass Onion
73. Warriors of Future
74. Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness
75. Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday
76. Mutant Ghost Wargirl
77. The Batman
78. The People You’re Paying to Be in Shorts
79. Barbarian
80. Day Shift
81. Death on the Nile
82. The Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks
83. We Are Still Here
84. George Carlin’s American Dream
85. Hansan: Rising Dragon
86. Werewolf By Night
87. The Menu
88. Convenience Story
89. Song of the Assassins
90. Thor: Love and Thunder
91. Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me
92. I Want You Back
93. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Roderick Rules
94. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
95. Scream
96. Wolf Pack
97. Legendary in Action!
98. Morbius

2023:
2022 Endy Awards

1. Rocky aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani
2. 100 Yards
3. Baby Assassins: 2 Babies
4. Oppenheimer
5. Godzilla Minus One
6. The Taste of Things
7. Afire
8. Jigarthanda DoubleX
9. Hidden Blade
10. Killers of the Flower Moon
11. In Water
12. The Boy and the Heron
13. River
14. Menus Plaisirs-Les Troisgros
15. Fallen Leaves
16. Jawan
17. Fist of the Condor
18. The Final Game of Death
19. All Ears
20. Asteroid City
21. Barbie
22. Mad Fate
23. Ponniyin Selvan Part 2
24. In Our Day
25. Plastic
26. Ferrari
27. Anatomy of a Fall
28. May December
29. A Guilty Conscience
30. Poor Things
31. Full River Red
32. Perfect Days
33. John Wick Chapter 4
34. Raid on the Lethal Zone
35. You Hurt My Feelings
36. The Killer
37. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret
38. Ballerina
39. Absence
40. Blackberry
41. Leo
42. The Holdovers
43. The History of the Minnesota Vikings
44. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part One
45. Pathaan
46. Shin Kamen Rider
47. Silent Night
48. Bottoms
49. A Haunting in Venice
50. Napoleon
51. Saga Saga
52. Eileen
53. Past Lives
54. Enter the Clones of Bruce
55. Following the Sound
56. The Zone of Interest
57. Extraction 2
58. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
59. Moscow Mission
60. No Hard Feelings
61. The Wandering Earth II
62. The Roundup: No Way Out
63. Boudica: Queen of War
64. Indiana Jones & the Dial of Destiny
65. The White Storm 3: Heaven or Hell
66. The Breaking Ice
67. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse
68. I Did It My Way
69. Albert Brooks: Defending My Life
70. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3
71. Maestro
72. The Pigeon Tunnel
73. The Super Marios Bros. Movie
74. Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
75. Sakra
76. Vital Sign
77. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
78. Scream VI
79. Kitty the Killer
80: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
81. Diary of a Wimpy Kid Christmas: Cabin Fever

2024:

1. One More Shot