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10. Boyhood
“Boyhood” isn’t quite the masterpiece so many have proclaimed it to be. There’s an unignorable racist subplot about a Hispanic laborer (it’s well beneath filmmaker Richard Linklater’s better judgment), and seeing as the growth of Samantha (Lorelei Linklater) is followed as closely as that of her brother, Mason (Ellar Coltrane), “Childhood” would have been a better title. But these shortcomings seem minor when compared to Linklater’s momentous achievement — an unprecedented, 12-years-in-the-making saga defined by the director’s obsessions with time and the small wonders of adolescent ennui. For Linklater, it’s a magnum opus.
9. Godzilla
Don’t laugh. When one considers the gamble of entrusting budding filmmaker Gareth Edwards (“Monsters”) with a name brand summer tentpole, and his cast of bona fide actors like Bryan Cranston and Juliette Binoche, there is already plenty to applaud about “Godzilla.” But better still is that the movie nearly restores one’s faith in the big-budget blockbuster. It’s shocking to see metropolitan destruction that isn’t tedious; there are restraint and attention to scale that amount to an awe-inspiring creature feature; and the iconic monster, previously a punch line, acts as a symbol of nature as a dispassionate equalizer.
8. Love is Strange
A gay marriage kicks off the narrative of “Love is Strange,” but the movie’s absence of specific gayness is what warrants celebration. New York-based director Ira Sachs crafts a post-gay vision of human beings, all of them inhabiting a world where their bed partners are far from what defines them. Everyday conflicts like employment, bureaucracy and real estate are what these equally flawed Manhattanites face (it helps that they are played by Alfred Molina, John Lithgow and the brilliant Marisa Tomei). Above all, Sachs’ film is about empathy, something that’s essential to every community.
7. Neighbors
In popular media especially, male relationships are depicted with a growing ambiguity when it comes to what constitutes queer behavior. This summer, the frat-boy comedy “Neighbors” leapt out as a testosterone-pumped explosion of sexual confusion. It playfully acts as an equal-opportunity paean to Zac Efron’s enviable form (characters of all ages and sexes take notice), and it’s also an objective, yet unmistakable, riff on the homoeroticism of fraternities. In addition to being supremely funny, “Neighbors” is a reassuring, progressive sign of the times.
6. The Immigrant
Another New York-centric filmmaker, James Gray has directed films about crime (“The Yards”) and romance (“Two Lovers”) that emit the atmosphere of the island he knows so well. Featuring Marion Cotillard as a 1920s Polish immigrant and Joaquin Phoenix and Jeremy Renner as the men who enrich and complicate her life, Gray’s latest is his most personal film and his personal best. It highlights New York as the entry point of the American Dream, and rethinks our “land of opportunity” as a land of double-edged swords.
5. The Grand Budapest Hotel
For those who respect the work of Wes Anderson, but rarely arm to it, “The Grand Budapest Hotel” is a gorgeous antidote. Anderson is a master of meticulous whimsy, but he can alienate viewers, as his bittersweet humor and dollhouse aesthetic have a way of feeling inaccessible. “Grand Budapest,” however, is very much of our world while still being a full Anderson concoction, using its nesting-doll story as a pseudo-revisionist take on European history. Anderson regulars like Bill Murray and Willem Dafoe are terrific, but as a quirky hotelier, Ralph Fiennes gives his finest screen performance.
4. Only Lovers Left Alive
Jim Jarmusch’s “Only Lovers Left Alive” is perhaps the coolest vampire movie ever made. Pairing svelte Tom Hiddleston with ageless Tilda Swinton (they play immortal, bloodthirsty spouses), the film is consummately moody and unfolds in places as disparate, yet equally entrancing, as Detroit and Tangier, while presenting an uncommon respect for the undead. The couple recall the many eras and cultural luminaries they’ve encountered, and revere Jack White in the same breath as Darwin. Ultimately, the title isn’t just a hat-tip to the oldest married couple but a lovesick forecast of what they’ll become.
3. Under the Skin
With his third feature, Jonathan Glazer has garnered comparisons to Stanley Kubrick, and yet, even those flattering remarks feel reductive when considering the transcendence of “Under the Skin.” The influence of “2001: A Space Odyssey” is very noticeable throughout, but Glazer’s creation is so much his own that one shouldn’t indulge the urge to share the credit with a more renowned maestro. Epically stunning yet eerily simplistic, this stark alien yarn explores the notions of a woman coming to terms with her sexuality, but it’s more about a newborn coming to terms with being human.
2. Stranger by the Lake
“Stranger by the Lake” has made noise for incorporating uninhibited, full-frontal sex scenes, but French director Alain Guiraudie surpasses accusations of mere pornography by turning a story about gay cruising into mythical high art. Set in the sole location of an unnamed nude beach where events transpire in a disorientingly cyclical fashion, “Stranger by the Lake” wonderfully revived interest in Guiraudie’s formidable oeuvre. It’s also a fearlessly straightforward study of desire, which can be so limitless it will lead one man to his death.
1. Dear White People
Labels have become both toxins and necessities in our culture, boxing people in while also giving them a crucial place in society. Debut director Justin Simien understands this to an astonishingly lucid extent, and in “Dear White People,” he exploits the setting of a (moderately) multi-cultured Ivy League campus as a playground of ideas, where nearly every facet of modern identity is explored. Simien offers a literate, street-smart swirl of provocative notions and dialogue about the black, white, queer, male and female experiences, and he benevolently gives every character the floor. It’s anyone’s guess how the writer-director was able to deliver something of such even-handedness and uncompromising authority, but his end product is a film that the world needs — right now.
Honorable Mention: “The Drop,” “Foxcatcher,” “Ida,” “Locke,” “Mommy,” “Of Horses and Men,” “Palo Alto,” “The Skeleton Twins,” “Venus in Fur” and “Wild.”
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
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