Lena Wilson's Best Films Of 2020

I’ve been holed up in Brooklyn since early March, save a few treks across state lines via rental car, and on each of those trips I’ve been sure to visit a drive-in. That’s how I caught “Jaws” on the Fourth of July, and “Boys State” and “The Rental.” But half of the movies on this, my top 10 favorite movies of 2020 list, are ones that I saw in honest-to-god theaters way back in the spring. 

READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2020

I try not to get all Scorsese about my love of The Cinematic Experience™, but man, do I miss movie theaters. That immersive experience is simply not replicable in my apartment, where my thoughts continuously wander to what I’ll eat for dinner, why my living room is so messy, or why my upstairs neighbor is so obsessed with the music of Ariana Grande. Many films didn’t make the cut simply because I’ve been unable to give them the viewings they deserve. As such, the few titles that have pierced through my quarantine brain clutter are all rather jarring, moving, or strange. “She Dies Tomorrow” is probably the most meditative quarantine watch on this list – but it’s about anxiety and death.

As it would probably be any other year, this list is crammed with genre films, from polarizing chiller “The Lodge” to WWII sobfest “Summerland.” Four of them are horror movies, five are directed or co-directed by women, and five feature gay lead characters. My taste is no more intentional than anybody else’s, but, to borrow a phrase from Ron Swanson, “I know what I’m about, son.”

READ MORE: The 20 Best Performances Of 2020

It’s definitely my most unhinged Top 10 yet. Read on to share in the madness.

Click here to follow along with our various Best of 2020 lists.

10. “Spiral”
After a run on the LGBT festival circuit, “Spiral” debuted as a Shudder exclusive, which is probably why you haven’t heard of it until right this second (unless you, too, have your nose to the gay horror ground). In a more just world, this would have made a perfect box office bomb-turned cult favorite. It follows Malik (Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman) as he moves to a small town with his partner and stepdaughter in late 1995. Haunted by the trauma of an adolescent gay-bashing and surrounded by dubiously kind neighbors, “Spiral” leads Malik down a confounding path to the truth when his misgivings give way to paranoia. With an exquisite lead performance by Bowyer-Chapman – who would have broken new ground just by showing up as a black, out gay lead in a horror feature – and a delicately balanced script, “Spiral” is a fantastic genre gem.

9. “The Lodge”
The last movie that made me feel as upset as “The Lodge” was Ari Aster’s “Hereditary,” my number one film of 2018. Both films feature jarring, grisly deaths in the first act, fractured families, and ample dollhouse horror, but more importantly, they both expertly manufacture an aura of dread. In “The Lodge,” Riley Keough (who can do no wrong) plays Grace, an ex-cult member turned soon-to-be stepmother to two trauma-rattled children (Lia McHugh and “It” franchise star Jaeden Martell). When the three are snowed in together, resentment and misunderstanding crescendo into violence as Grace slowly unravels. Co-directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala bring the same chilly remove to this film that they did to breakout hit “Goodnight Mommy,” creating an atmosphere that will make you want to rip your own skin off. Despite its narrative foibles, the suffocating environment that Franz, Fiala, and cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis (“Dogtooth,” “The Killing of a Sacred Deer”) trap these characters in is too engrossing to ignore. And once they shake this fragile snowglobe world and send all its pieces flying, it’s practically impossible to look away.

8. “Host”
There is something uniquely horrifying about staring at your own face in a tiny square on your computer every day for months on end. Around May, that sensation made me think of techno-horror tales like “Cam” or “The Den,” but then “Host” came around to introduce us all to quarantine horror. Made entirely via Zoom, “Host” is a beautifully collaborative work of remote genius, in which director Rob Savage directed a group of unknown actors not only responsible for their performances, but also for their camera placements and practical effects. The result is far more than a gimmick: “Host” offers a tight, chilling story that uses each of its lean 56 minutes for maximum effect. It’s got genuinely scary thrills and a timely premise that, ironically, made me feel less alone in my quarantine solitude. I might be eating a horrifying amount of frozen food, but at least I haven’t opened a demonic portal via Zoom seance.

7. “She Dies Tomorrow”
Nothing like a film about contagion, anxiety, and the imminence of death to really round out 2020. “She Dies Tomorrow” curiously observes as panic spreads across Los Angeles, beginning with Amy (Kate Lyn Sheil), a spiraling alcoholic in the throes of a breakup. In her sophomore feature, Amy Seimetz is most attentive to how her audience feels, rather than what we know. And man, do we feel weird these days! “She Dies Tomorrow” is freakishly prescient, most notably in its fixation with contagion: a character who makes art from images of microbes is instrumental in spreading this social disease. Despite its universality, the film is also uniquely personal to Seimetz, who, inspired by her own experiences with panic attacks, named its protagonist after herself and shot much of it in her own home. Fueled by outstanding character actors like Sheil (as seen in “Kate Plays Christine” and Seimetz’s first feature, “Sun Don’t Shine”) and Jane Adams and laden with dreamy visuals, this film haunts long after it ends. Just be prepared to have Mozart’s “Lacrimosa” stuck in your head for the next week.

6. “Birds of Prey”
Just in case you were worried I didn’t have any fun all year, don’t worry: I did see “Birds of Prey.” Averse as I am to DC movies (and superhero movies in general), Cathy Yan did something truly special with this Harley Quinn solo spin-off penned by Christina Hodson. Though it is another female-directed and -fronted franchise add, “Birds of Prey” doesn’t make a hollow stab at sisterhood. It is every bit as joyous and frothy and insane as its protagonist (played by the formidable Margot Robbie), who does things like adopt a hyena and fire off rounds of glitter in the middle of a police station. Rosie Perez and Ali Wong play ex-lovers. Production designer K. K. Barret (“Marie Antoinette,” “Where the Wild Things Are”) goes absolutely buckwild on an abandoned amusement park set. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is there. There are absolutely zero cons to this movie, other than that it made me really want a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, and I don’t eat dairy or gluten.

5. “Beanpole”
Kantemir Balagov’s “Beanpole” is perhaps the most upsetting addition to this list (a high bar), which is not what I was expecting when I went to watch a nominee for the 2019 Queer Palm sight unseen. Perhaps the phrase “Russian historical drama” would have tipped me off. A pitch-black examination of post-war suffering, “Beanpole” makes toxic, homoerotic friendships films like “Jawbreaker” or “Jennifer’s Body” look like episodes of “Barney & Friends.” The titular Beanpole, a towering, pale-blonde woman named Iya (Viktoria Miroshnichenko), cuts a striking figure only heightened by Miroschnichenko’s vulnerability and cinematographer Ksenia Sereda’s lush reds and greens. As beautifully realized as it is harrowing, this is a standout addition to modern Russian cinema, and a film worth revisiting long after this year’s spring release.

4. “Summerland”
The exact opposite of “Beanpole,” “Summerland” is a starry-eyed WWII drama where lesbian romance conquers all. This Gemma Arterton vehicle helmed by Jessica Swale shows the unlikely bond formed between Alice, a cantankerous, Sapphic mythologist, and Frank (Lucas Bond), her war-time ward. Perhaps the best part of this film, as I noted in my own glowing review, is that Alice is not a salty broad because she lost her one true lady-love – she is just one of cinema’s rare, truly misanthropic female protagonists. Arterton’s performance is exceedingly delightful, especially in romantic flashbacks opposite Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and the dramatic events towards the end of the film warmed even my cynical heart. Is the plot mostly preposterous? Yes. Have all the people on Twitter who complain about dour lesbian period pieces seen it yet? Probably not.

3. “And Then We Danced”
For a brief and horrifying hour of quarantine, I thought the last movie I’d seen in theaters was “Dolittle.” I pawed through my ticket stubs like a squirrel unburying its winter acorn stash, and gratefully discovered that my last pre-COVID movie was actually Levan Akin’s “And Then We Danced,” one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. This gorgeous rendering of gay identity in a Georgian dance troupe not only tells a fragile, nuanced story with an incredibly deft touch, it also features a seduction set to the music of Robyn. Though conservative Georgians attempted to storm cinemas when the film was released in its home country last fall, screenings took place as planned – just as protagonist Merab (Levan Gelbakhiani) learns to continue living authentically despite his homophobic surroundings.

2. “Never Rarely Sometimes Always”
I am unabashedly obsessed with director Eliza Hittman, and not just because she was one of the last people I saw before all of New York City shut down in early March. Her stark coming-of-age tales “It Felt Like Love” and “Beach Rats” already rank high among my all-time favorites, and now she’s made “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” which is, in my humble opinion, the most important feature film of 2020. “Never Rarely” follows a pregnant teenager (Sidney Flanigan) from her small Pennsylvania town to New York City as she seeks abortion care with the help of her cousin (Talia Ryder). As in Hittman’s other films, the most important forces at work in “Never Rarely” are those we cannot see. The threat of male violence looms large, yet there is no single male villain. A crisis pregnancy center derails our protagonist’s search for health care, but this film plainly makes its case for abortion access without any political preaching – and without its pregnant teenager senselessly deciding to give birth (sorry, “Juno”). Don’t let an unfortunately timed theatrical release keep you from seeing this one. It’s streaming on HBO Max now.

1. “Possessor”
Brandon Cronenberg (yes, son to that Cronenberg) and I have one very important thing in common: we think Andrea Riseborough is one of the most talented actors working today. In “Possessor,” Cronenberg has written the perfect part for Riseborough, who inhabits each of her roles so fully she manages to look like a completely different person from film to film. Here she plays Vos, an assassin who kills her marks by taking control of other people’s bodies. As Vos grows increasingly violent and struggles to maintain control of a key vessel, her identity fractures. Cronenberg depicts that schism with such ferocity and vibrancy that it is the cinematic equivalent of a slap in the face (or a fire poker to the teeth). If, like me, your two favorite cinematic niches are techno-horror and Stuff Carol J. Clover Would Like, this Freudian surveillance nightmare will make your fucking year.