These are the ten best movies that have played (or are moments away from playing) in a theatrical run this year in New York (and maybe some other cities, too, who knows.) How closely will this current list resemble my list in late December, after the onslaught of awards-hungry prestige movies? Not sure. But I feel really strongly about these top four. We’re going to need six masterpieces to get them all off the list. Five through ten? Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them all go.
Oh, and before you jump down my throat, both Under the Skin (review at Film.com) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (review at ScreenCrush) are both very good movies. They’re both tied for 11th place. But neither moved me as much as the ones that made this list. Yeah, that’s right, Dom Hemingway is better than your precious ScoJo hitchhiking movie by a small but real margin. Accept it.
10) Dom Hemingway, Richard Shepard (review at Film.com.)
9) The Missing Picture, Rithy Panh (review at Badass Digest.)
8) The Great Flood, Bill Morrison (review at Film.com.)
7) Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Anthony and Joe Russo (review at ScreenCrush.)
6) Bethlehem, Yuval Adler (review at New York Daily News.)
5) The Lego Movie, Chris Miller and Phil Lord (review at ScreenCrush.)
4) The Immigrant, James Gray (review at Film.com.)
3) Only Lovers Left Alive, Jim Jarmusch (review at Film.com.)
2) Particle Fever, Mark Levinson (review at New York Daily News. Interview at Times of Israel.)
1) Ida, Pawel Pawlikoski (review at Badass Digest.)
