10. “Son Of Saul”
The list of first-time filmmakers who’ve played in competition at Cannes is a short one, and the list of those that won prizes is even smaller. That László Nemes’ debut “Son Of Saul” won the Grand Prize on the Croisette certainly marks it out for attention, but those who haven’t seen it yet (it opens finally in the U.S. next week) probably aren’t yet prepared for the gut-punch power and masterful filmmaking on display from the Hungarian director (a former assistant to Bela Tarr). The tremendous Geza Rohrig plays an Auschwitz Sonderkommando, a Jewish prisoner forced into aiding the Nazis in the concentration camps, who discovers what he believes is the body of his estranged child in the gas chambers and sets out to give him a proper burial. Filmmakers have been grappling with the horrors of the Holocaust for 70 years now, but few such films have been as powerful as Nemes’, who uses long, Lubezkian takes and astonishing sound design to throw you into a vision of the camps that take on an almost heightened level of nightmarishness, while never letting you forget that there is nothing even remotely heightened about it. Even if you’ve seen “Schindler’s List” or “Shoah,” this filmmaker makes you feel as if you’re bearing witness to those unprecedented atrocities, and thus makes sure that you’ll never, ever forget what happened. [Read our review]
9. “Brooklyn”
Brimming with charm, John Crowley’s “Brooklyn” is an earnestly sweet tale that never feels cloying or manipulative. It’s an old-school story told in an old-school way: Saoirse Ronan plays Eilis, a young Irish woman who leaves her small town for New York, where she finds a new home and a new love with an Italian man (a sigh-inducing Emory Cohen) in her new neighborhood. “Brooklyn” is simple, never deviating from its central characters or introducing obstacles into their path for obstacles’ sake. The wide range of emotions felt by Ronan’s Eilis feels earned within the film, and the actress’s blue eyes clearly communicate each of her thoughts. She has previously wowed us in films like “Hanna” and “Atonement,” but her work here feels like a new level of adult achievement. Shot by Yves Bélanger, it’s a golden look at 1950s Ireland and New York City, filled with François Séguin’s perfect production design and Odile Dicks-Mireaux’s gorgeous costumes. But the film isn’t all sweetness and light; Eilis’s early days in New York are dominated by loneliness and isolation, and the event that sends her back to Ireland sent us into tears. However, it’s impossible to leave “Brooklyn” feeling anything but joy, as well as the desire to immediately see it again. [Read our review]
8. “Spotlight”
Tom McCarthy has been producing relatively solid dramedies for a handful of years. But this year, we got a peek at a couple of new sides of the director. The first was the godawful Adam Sandler fiasco “The Cobbler” (which occupies a spot on our Worst Of The Year list). But the second was this incredibly sure-footed and rigorous take on the Boston Globe team that broke the news of the sexual abuse scandal and cover up in the early aughts. McCarthy snagged an impressive cast for the gig (Michael Keaton,Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber), all of whom are in top form and none of whom dominate the film, which is just how it should be. “Spotlight” is the definition of an ensemble film —it’s a story of teamwork and trust and one of the finest depictions of journalism since “All The President’s Men” (a connection that has been made repeatedly, but happens to be true). Despite being as exacting as it is, “Spotlight” manages keep the plot moving and maintains some of the sharpest tension of the year. It’s a film of moral quandaries and ethical obligations, where the city of Boston stands as one of the most compelling characters. It’s easy to imagine “Spotlight” in the hands of a different director, prone to overstuffing the film with melodrama and exploitation of this tragedy. Fortunately, we got McCarthy’s: it’s a deeply affecting, satisfying film and an impressive technical achievement. [Read our review]
7. “Room”
Nothing about director Lenny Abrahamson‘s previous work could have prepared us for the emotionally visceral gut punch of “Room.” Based on a best-selling novel by Emma Donoghue, who also adapted her book for the screen, this picture is about Jack (Jacob Tremblay), a loving, energetic, and imaginative 5-year-old boy who spent his entire life imprisoned in a ten-feet-by-ten-feet room with his mother (Brie Larson). In order to raise Jack in this horrific environment with any semblance of normalcy, Ma makes him believe that the room is the only place that exists in the world and that all the people and places he sees on TV are in a different galaxy. All of the information we get about Ma and Jack’s predicament builds up to one of the most pulse-pounding, nail-biting, any other review buzzword cliché-generating sequences we’ve seen in a long time. Even though the thriller elements are laid to rest about halfway through “Room,” there’s still a tremendously engaging emotional journey ahead, where Abrahamson smartly avoids every trap for conventional melodramatics that the basic story elements would seem to lay out for him. The performances from everyone involved are extraordinary, especially for a story that’s ripe for hysterical dramatics. Tremblay carries the entire emotional weight of the picture with an exceptional display of natural empathy and energy, and Larson’s more than his match. The premise suggested a film that could have been almost impossibly bleak if Abrahamson put a foot wrong: instead, it’s deeply human. [Read our review]
6. “Inside Out”
The last few sequel-heavy years aside, Pixar has built up such a reputation for brilliance that when the studio makes a film deemed only ‘pretty good,’ as with the currently-in-theaters “The Good Dinosaur,” you can feel disproportionately disappointed. But that certainly wasn’t the reaction to “Inside Out,” released earlier this year and which is certainly Pixar’s most ambitious film and easily one of its best. Set inside the head of young Riley, whose emotional turmoil after moving to San Francisco sends the personifications of Joy (Amy Poehler) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith) into the deepest recesses of her mind, it’s a remarkably mature yet accessible look at what makes us tick and which grapples with an elusive truth —sadness isn’t just unavoidable, it’s necessary— that so-called grown-up movies would cross the street to avoid. But this being from Pixar, and in particular from “Up” director Pete Docter, it’s also a total, well, joy —bright, exciting, funny (was anything funnier this year than the film’s closing credits? Or the gum commercial? Or the ‘abstract thought’ section? or (repeats ad infinitum)… “Inside Out” is fleet-footed, light of touch, beautifully voiced and impossibly touching. The bar’s been raised once again. [Read our review]