THIS PAST MOVIE year I’ve been delighted by, among other things, nonviolent resolutions, a guy talking in a car, an Irish priest trying to do the right thing, and a five-dimensional bookcase. Here’s my list of the 10 best films of 2014 (many more are worthy, but 10 are all that will fit).
10. Pride. A delightful and stirring celebration of marginalized people turning their woundedness into helping others, as LGBTQ activists support the Thatcher-era British coal miners’ strike.
9. The Lego Movie. This turned out to be both the most unpredictably fun and one of the wisest films of the year. A brilliant critique of consumerism and political tyranny, with an ending that inverts the myth of redemptive violence.
8. Love Is Strange. A lovely, mournful romance, as a couple forced apart by prejudice teaches us the meaning of commitment. John Lithgow soars.
7. Interstellar. Extravagant adventure cinema, misunderstood as sentimental. Looked at more closely, the exploration of time is an intelligent grappling with not just how things work, but what God might be—a transcendently loving consciousness wooing us into a rescued future.
6. Ida. A beautiful, aching film about the post-Holocaust transitional generation and the meaning of religion.
5. Birdman. Crazy and deep, Michael Keaton’s finest hour, and a wild ride into the soul of an artist: The vocation that causes its stewards to fly, or crash, or fly while crashing.
4. The Grand Budapest Hotel. Forensic detail mingles with glorious exuberance in Wes Anderson’s melancholic treatment of war, adventure, and regret.
3. The Immigrant. James Gray’s bleak yet hopeful drama evokes the tone and hues of The Godfather; Marion Cotillard is still the best actress working today and Joaquin Phoenix her match. A film about selfish behavior collapsing on itself when it beholds courage.
2. The Congress. The most visually splendid film of the year, and the most moving. Robin Wright works to subvert military-industrial-entertainment superficiality in an extraordinary take on Stanislaw Lem’s novel about identity, love, economics, culture, revolution, and healing.
1. Calvary. High Noon, Diary of a Country Priest, and Ryan’s Daughter walk into the bar where John Michael McDonagh makes films about imperfect people doing perfect things—this time a priest trying to discern just what it means to love God and people at the same time. The magnificent Calvary is various parts horrifyingly absurd, politically challenging, and credibly redemptive.
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