By Original-Cin Staff

So… how about that 2020, huh. Ever been so happy to see the ass-end of anything in your life?

Yes, the year was a doozy by any metric, and not even remotely funny. And yet. Amid the horrors of worldwide illness and death, economic collapse, joblessness, homelessness, food insecurity, derailed education, depression, and soaring domestic violence to name a few, dazzling rays of light were visible.

Gratitude, and the sense that we can take absolutely nothing for granted, resonated as a theme outside of yoga classes. The oceans and the sky breathed deep as planes and monster cruise ships were grounded. Scientists the world over collaborated on and created a COVID-19 vaccine in record time. Trump lost.

Despite the lockdown and the perilous impact the pandemic had on the entertainment business, movies still got made and released, many of them very good indeed, while we as a society thanked our lucky stars for the diversion they (and lots of streamed content) offered just when we needed it most.

We also saw the Toronto International Film Festival pull off the un-pull-off-able, managing to make great works accessible, in some cases more accessible than usual… albeit without the starry Starbucks celebrity sightings and giddy world premieres.

We at Original-Cin love watching movies and writing about movies and while we had to find alternative ways of doing both in 2020, we still saw some fantastic— and, yes, grisly — stuff while you, dear readers, continued to gift us with your attention. Thanks! As we joyfully elbow-bump 2020 goodbye, we each tally the best and worst of what we’ve seen, and boldly look ahead to a bright new year.

Jim Slotek

Nomadland—You’ll hear more as Oscar time approaches. Chloé Zhao’s road film, and Frances McDormand’s dignified performance, capture a strain of distinctively American homelessness, one spent on wheels. Add to that the reality that towns are losing their reason to exist, and you end up with a movie that will make you think about where society is headed, and what sort of community will rise from the wreckage.

Donbass—A Ukrainian movie awash in Trumpian echoes, from “fake news” to fake optimism to “event actors.” It all takes place in Russian-occupied Eastern Ukraine, where the government’s job is to convince people they are being rescued from a “fascist” Ukrainian government, with elaborate ruses and rewards for Russification. It’s an Orwellian tale, with multiple protagonists learning what reality means in wartime.

David Byrne’s American Utopia—Spike Lee brings the social consciousness and the Talking Heads front-man David Byrne brings the show. Putatively a Broadway production, this is simply one of the most theatrical and imaginative concerts ever filmed, with choreography, poignant moments, and flashes of greatest-hits pure joy.

The Trial of the Chicago 7—Debuting as it did alongside the Borat sequel (also worth seeing), this re-creation of a nadir in American justice is proof that Sacha Baron Cohen is a criminally underrated actor. His depiction of Abbie Hoffman — one of the random Vietnam war protesters who ended up tried as co-conspirators after the debacle of the 1968 Democratic Convention — captures both Abbie’s calculated clownishness and the smarts under the surface. A ton of great performances, including Frank Langella as an unhinged Judge Julius Hoffman.

Bacurau—This was on President Obama’s list. The “hunting humans” premise is old. But this Brazilian film about an isolated town that finds itself digitally erased (even from Google Maps) before a murderous assault by rich foreigners is distinguished by the care and carnality portrayed. There are friends, enemies, affectionately regarded village prostitutes, gang members who’ve been cast out before being welcomed back in a time of need… all preamble to a violent showdown.

What Were They Thinking? Fantasy Island (the TV show reimagined as an empty-headed slasher film), Run This Town (believe it or not, Damian Lewis as Rob Ford is not the most ridiculous thing in this head-scratcher about the late Crack Mayor).

Linda Barnard

Nomadland—Chloé Zhao’s reality-based drama tells the story of Boomers travelling America’s highways, living in vans, campers, and makeshift mobile homes to do hardscrabble, minimum wage gigs for reasons that go beyond paying the bills. They find freedom in their version of the American Dream in this open-hearted, open-road tale. Frances McDormand plays Fern, a 60-year-old woman who has lost everything in the 2008 financial collapse. Her fellow cast members are primarily non-actors; real people who aren’t on the road until better times arrive. They’ve made a choice to live unencumbered lives outside society’s margins. Beautifully shot (Zhao has a thing for magic hour cinematography), Nomadland says big things with a quiet voice.

Lovers Rock and Mangrove—These two segments are part of Steve McQueen’s outstanding Small Axe anthology, a five-film series about West Indian immigrants and first-generation Britons living in London in the 1960s to mid-80s. Both films have outstanding casts and a sense of immediacy that puts the viewer inside the action, whether unwarranted, destructive police raids on a local Trinidadian restaurant and community hub, or the sweaty, packed sexy dance floor at a house party.

Mangrove follows true story of the Mangrove 9, Black activists who pushed back when police violently broke up a protest march demanding an end to police harassment in Notting Hill. Two of the accused defend themselves in courtroom scenes that eclipse The Trial of the Chicago 7 for drama and eloquence.

Lovers Rock takes place over one very full night at a party, from the opening scenes of singing women cooking goat curry in the kitchen, to a new couple’s dawn kiss at a bus stop. The soundtrack is an exceptional groove of disco, pop, reggae, and rock steady that frequently replaces dialogue. When the dancers spontaneously carry on singing Janet Kaye’s “Silly Games” after the record has spun out, it’s a shining moment.

Minari—The title comes from a resilient Korean cooking herb that grows anywhere it’s transplanted. Writer/director Lee Isaac Chung has based his drama in part on his own family story. Seeking a better life, Jacob (Steven Yeun) brings his wife Monica (Han Ye-ri), daughter Anne (Noel Cho) and precocious seven-year-old son David (Alan S. Kim) to Arkansas. A rundown trailer in a remote field is hardly the paradise he’s promised Monica but he insists this is their toehold on better life and the American dream.

The parents work as chicken sexers but Jacob wants more, to farm the land and cultivate Korean vegetables for a growing immigrant population. Youn Yuh-jung is outstanding as Monica’s rough-edged mother, the grandma who comes to live with them to look after the kids but “smells like Korea,” to David’s annoyance. Each character has a path to understanding life in a new country, along with figuring out life in a new version of their family and their relationships with each other. Change is everywhere in this quietly powerful film.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things—The biggest head scratcher of the year was also one of the most satisfying films. Writer/director Charlie Kaufman doesn’t make things easy for us with his adaptation of Iain Reid’s novel and that’s the pleasure of this twisting drama, flecked with hints of horror. Nothing is what it seems, including a key character’s ever-changing name. Delightful Jessie Buckley, whose breakout work in Wild Rose was one of 2019’s best performances, stars. Jesse Plemons plays her morose, newish boyfriend Jake. They’re on a road trip during a snowstorm where she’ll meet his parents for the first time. But what is she thinking of ending? Is it her relationship? Or something dire? And what’s with Jake’s mother (Toni Collette, so terrific)? I love a movie where all you want to do is talk about what it all means when the credits role.

David Byrne’s American Utopia—This is the movie we needed in 2020 and a fitting opening to the virtual edition of the Toronto International Film Festival. Spike Lee directs David Byrne’s joyous, visionary, music-filled happening, that couples the best concert I’ve ever experienced (I saw the 2018 show at Toronto’s Sony Centre) with performance art. The 11-piece band rocks the house, with slick choreography and fluid movement choreographed by Annie-B Parson. This is the movie to get you dancing in the living room and forgetting everything that may have gotten you down this year, if only for an hour and 45 minutes.

What Were They Thinking? Hillbilly Elegy. Perhaps not the worst movie of the year, but I’m calling it because I can’t get over the disappointment of seeing Glenn Close and Amy Adams trying so hard (and failing) to rescue Ron Howard’s weak-willed adaptation of J.D. Vance’s bestseller about stark poverty and the opiate crisis in America’s hillbilly heartland that practically ends on a sunshine and rainbows note. This is the airline version of what should be a horror film — cruel in a year when we’re not supposed to be flying anyway.

Thom Ernst

Nomadland—Frances McDormand is heading for a Best Performance Oscar nomination (and BAFTA and People’s Choice and every Critic’s Circle) in this gentle story of a woman who loses everything, then sets out in a van driving across America to find what is left. Director Chloé Zhao’s film has the temporal pace of Wim Wender’s Paris, Texas (1984) with the compassion of Mazursky’s Harry and Tonto (1974).

Mank—Director David Fincher’s flawed but engrossing story of Herman Mankiewicz has more to say about current politics and how money follows money than it does about the creation of one of cinema’s most noted achievements, Citizen Kane. Gary Oldman is wholly committed to his role of Mank, sometimes overpowering the performances that accompany him. But the film’s real star is Fincher’s faithful— and almost miraculous—recreation of Hollywood of the 30s and 40s.

The Kid Detective—A movie that surprises on all levels: A touching, warm, and yet edgy comedy laced with murder, abduction, and childhood trauma. This is a film about growing up, about parenting, and about the great distance between who we were and who we are.

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Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom—The film will no doubt be noted as having the final performance from Chadwick Boseman. Indeed, Boseman’s performance is a solid reminder of just how great of an actor we lost. The film, based on August Wilson’s play, is filled with all the right moments of conflict and tension. And Viola Davis as the proud, inflexible Ma Rainey has never been better.

Color Out of Space—This is one weird, twisted science-fiction horror tale that is perfectly suited for the weird, twisted style of Nicolas Cage. So, Original-Cin was not so keen on the film, and I get it. This psychedelic freak show is not for all tastes, but it does mark the returned of a fallen-wunderkind director, Richard Stanley.

What Were They Thinking? Bullets for Justice. Pig-humans take over the world and manufacture humans for meat. One man must stop them. This should be fun but is just ugly, nasty and dull. There is no silk in this sow’s ear.

Karen Gordon

Nomadland—Nothing I saw this year moved me as much as Nomadland. Writer/director Chloé Zhao is magic. A minimalist director who captures the soul of her characters by standing back and letting the story unfold in such a quiet way. Frances McDormand stars as a 60-something widow whose ordinary life is upended by the 2008 economic downturn and who is now drawn to living a nomadic life by choice. There’s nothing heavy-handed here, and not a single false moment. This is American indie filmmaking at its finest.

Sound of Metal—With a beautiful central performance by Riz Ahmed, writer/director Darius Marder’s feature film debut is another superb American indie. Ahmed plays Ruben, a sweet-natured heavy metal drummer and recovering addict who suddenly loses his hearing. Marder’s clever audio design lets us into what Ruben is experiencing as he tries to manage the new reality of his life and find a way back to what he thinks of as normal. The film is also a study in inclusive casting; most of the people in the deaf community are played by deaf actors, which further grounds the film.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always—Yet another small American indie film centres on young cousins, 17-year-old Autumn (a breakout role for newcomer Sidney Flanigan) and Skylar (Talia Ryder). When Autumn finds out she’s pregnant and there are no services to help her in their small town, she and Skylar sneak away to New York. Writer/director Eliza Hittman has crafted this quiet film with restraint and built it around a lead character who is not much of a talker. She keeps the movie offhand and observational, but it coalesces around a brief moment of unexpected power and compassion.

The Personal History of David Copperfield—The wickedly satiric Armando Iannucci takes a turn for the sweet and hopeful in this wildly imaginative take on the Dickens classic. Dev Patel, Tilda Swinton, Hugh Laurie, Benedict Wong, Peter Capaldi and Rosalind Eleazar are part of a colour-blind cast playing wonderfully eccentric characters in a story that is so full of joy, tolerance and love, dammit, that it winds up making you happy to be alive. And since this is Iannucci, there’s a subtext about fairness and humanity that would no doubt make the socially minded Dickens proud.

Promising Young Woman—Writer/director Emerald Fennell’s feature film debut is not perfect, but it is shocking, effective, and important. It’s being touted as a female revenge film, but that is too reductionist and sensationalist. What she’s going for — and what she achieves — is a deeper look at the systemic way that sexual exploitation of women, even rape in certain circumstances, is still considered normal and even OK. That she achieves it with a movie that is often darkly humorous is really something. The movie rattled me to the point where I feel it needs trigger warnings. But that’s not a bad thing, because it says things that need to be said. Carey Mulligan does fine work as a med school drop-out whose life was rerouted by something that happened to her closest friend.

What Were They Thinking? The Hollywood Foreign Press, the body that hands out the Golden Globes, made a jaw-dropper of a ruling that has drawn criticisms and charges of racism. They decided that because most of the dialogue is Korean, Minari would compete only in their Foreign Film category. Minari is an American movie, written and directed by American Lee Isaac Chung and starring American Steven Yeun. It’s a superb, semi-autobiographical film based on Chung’s childhood, growing up on an Arkansas farm where his Korean immigrant parents were trying to make a go of it. In other words, in every way — including the fact that his family spoke Korean at home — a beautifully rendered, quintessential American story.

Kim Hughes

Martin Eden—On paper, it’s hard to imagine an odder concept than director Pietro Marcello’s Italian-ized adaptation of Jack London’s 1909 novel about a fervent young man sling-shotting between two worlds, one of privileged entitlement and another of socialist high ideals. And yet everything about this strange and strangely exasperating film (as my colleague Liam Lacey correctly noted in his review) is mesmerizing, not least star Luca Marinelli who, though almost otherworldly in his beauty, is also a supremely gifted actor as his win in Venice for this film attests.

Nomadland—Reshaping a work of non-fiction into a dramatic piece while retaining the source material’s tone is tough, high-concept stuff and very often hazardous, as this year’s reworking of J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy made clear. Yet when it works, the result is Nomadland, director Chloé Zhao’s quietly absorbing adaptation of Jessica Bruder’s deeply illuminating dive into life on the road as being lived right now by scores of older Americans who have, by choice or bad luck, slipped through the mainstream cracks. Zhao’s film got everything about the book right, expanding its central story in ways that made the experience palpable to the viewer. And of course, the great Frances McDormand precisely located her character’s intersection of grit and vulnerability.

Rocks—A tender, good-hearted, scans-as-real female empowerment movie about diverse young women in contemporary London navigating the world’s pitfalls while covering each other’s backs. I loved every minute I spent with this film.

Another Round—Acclaimed Danish director Thomas Vinterberg’s darkly comic drama is perhaps the big-screen’s most audacious illustration of the old chestnut, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Four schoolteachers, all friends and all engulfed by personal or professional ennui (or both) decide to test-drive an arcane hypothesis that adding a small amount of alcohol to everyday life will unlock creative juices. At first, the daytime drinking works brilliantly; history lessons come alive, choir practice soars. In due time, however, the four dial up the dosage and things start to fall apart though not exactly in ways the quartet (or us) might have predicted. Mads Mikkelsen heads an exceptional ensemble cast that conjure men so real seeming we can smell their fear and heartbreak. Rarely has the ostensibly mundane subject of alcohol and its awesome/awful impact on aging, relationships, and work been so thoughtfully or cheekily considered.

Hope Gap—Divorce is almost always ugly, though some are decidedly uglier than others which is the terrain explored by Hope Gap, which finds Annette Bening and Bill Nighy brilliantly embodying longtime spouses coming unglued from each other, much to the agony of their only son, who must navigate the awkward empty space between his rowing parents. It didn’t have the bells and whistles of many other notable titles issued this year, but it sure stayed with me.

What Were They Thinking? Force of Nature. Just what the world needs: another run-of-the-mill art heist troubled cop natural disaster movie with Kate Bosworth billed above Mel Gibson (I know but still) and set in a Category 5 storm. Consider its elaborate art heist, suicidal on-duty cop, unhinged ex-cop, central casting villains, insane firepower, and a wobbly love interest as interest paid on the wasted investment of your time.

Liam Lacey

Nomadland—Chinese-born, English and East Coast–educated Chloé Zhao has an attachment to the American fly-over country, a place she views, as one of her former professors put it, with “a very warm heart but an extremely cold eye.” Her third feature, Nomadland is the heart-stirring film of the year, a drama about personal redemption, featuring a charismatic Oscar-winning movie star, Frances McDormand as well as a quasi-documentary adaptation of Jessica Bruder’s book about itinerant pensioners and the gig economy, with its resonant title: Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century.

Collective—Fifteen years ago, Christian Piu’s The Death of Mr. Lazarescu — a drama about a sick old man seeking medical care over one long night — ushered in the brutally realistic, minimalist dramas of the Romanian New Wave. Alexander Nanau’s cinema verité documentary about corruption in the Romanian medical industry could be its companion piece. The story begins with nightclub fire, a tragedy that was compounded when surviving burn victims kept dying on hospital wards. The film follows investigative journalist Catalin Tolontan as he strips away the levels of official heartlessness in a story with ramifications far beyond the country’s borders.

Beanpole—Russian director Kantemir Balagov’s drama about the relationship between two women army veterans of the devastating siege of Leningrad is beautifully acted by newcomers, with Iya — a.k.a. Beanpole (Viktoria Miroshnichenko), a gangly young nurse — working in war victims’ hospital, and Masha (Vasilisa Perelygina) as her close friend who returns from the front, wearing medals and scars. Inspired by Nobel Prize-winning writer Svetlana Alexievich’s The Unwomanly Face of War, a collection of interviews with Russian woman, Balagov’s film highlights the intimate, intense performances with his bold, emotional use of colour and framing.

What Were They Thinking? The film that most annoyed me this year was Christopher Nolan’s complicated, Bond-styled time-travel actioner Tenet which, for all its editing razzle-dazzle, ultimately felt as slick and lifeless as a washed-up eel. The film featured a character called Protagonist (John David Washington), Kenneth Branagh as a super-evil Russian oligarch, bullets from the future and the quest for an “algorithm," which can catastrophically invert entropy. “Don’t try to understand it, feel it,” says a character. Or just check the box for “Neither of the above.”

Bonnie Laufer

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom—A masterclass in fine acting, directing, and writing. Set in Chicago 1927 during a recording session, tensions rise between Ma Rainey, her ambitious horn player (Chadwick Boseman), and the white management determined to control the uncontrollable "Mother of the Blues.” Viola Davis gives us yet another stunning performance as this no-nonsense, real-life woman who stood her ground at a time that no woman would dare to, especially an African American woman. While all the performances in this movie are extraordinary, Boseman will completely blow you away in last role before dying of colon cancer at age 43. No one knew that he was sick during the filming of the movie and watching his phenomenal performance now knowing what we know makes it even more poignant.

Promising Young Woman—A film I could not shake after viewing. Carey Mulligan gives a powerhouse performance as Cassandra, a woman who dropped out of medical school following a personal tragedy, and who now goes to bars pretending to be drunk to see which men might try to take advantage of her. She is so traumatized by that tragic event in her past that she seeks out vengeance against those who cross her path. The movie is jaw-droppingly good and being directed by a woman (Emerald Fennell) means chances taken that would never have happened under a man. Promising Young Woman will have people talking long after they watch it and will undoubtedly land Mulligan an Oscar nod.

Nomadland—Frances McDormand is breathtaking in Nomadland. No real surprise, I could watch her read a phone book and still be mesmerized but her portrayal of a woman who embarks on a journey through the American West, living as a van-dwelling modern-day nomad is utterly stunning, heartbreaking, and unforgettable. Director Chloé Zhao gives us a sensitive and nuanced portrait of a transient life, which included real life nomads who worked alongside McDormand. There is no doubt in my mind that McDormand will garner yet another Oscar nod here but it will be a tough race between her and Carey Mulligan for Promising Young Woman.

Minari—A little gem of a movie that took me by surprise. Based on the real-life experiences of the writer/director Lee Isaac Chung, the film focuses on a Korean family who moves to Arkansas to start a farm in the 1980s. My heart went out to this wonderful family struggling to make it in a new country and traumas and heartaches that go with it. A truly wonderful performance from Stephen Yeun (The Walking Dead) as the father who is determined to make his farm work, but the scene-stealing star of Minari is eight-year-old Alan Kim, who plays the role of David in his film debut.

Sound of Metal—One of the most moving and inspiring films I saw in 2020. In it, Riz Ahmed plays a heavy-metal drummer whose life is thrown into freefall when he begins to lose his hearing. The attention to detail and sensitivity shown in this film, especially towards the deaf community, is truly inspirational. This is one movie I hope gets plenty of well-deserved attention come awards season.

What Were They Thinking? Fatman. You lost me at Mel Gibson… even worse: Mel Gibson as a disgruntled bad-ass Santa Claus. Holy Holidays was this movie a huge turd! And even with my huge disdain for Gibson, I even felt a teeny bit sorry for him having to take on a role as degrading and as dumb as this. You would think that the title was enough to have stayed away!

Also, The Witches. Oh, Anne Hathaway, I had such high hopes for you. This abysmal “family” tale based on Roald Dahl’s best-selling book was truly painful to watch. The film is just plain offensive and not just because of Hathaway’s deformed fingers, toes, and terrible accent. It takes a huge departure from the source material by changing both the setting and tone, making it a bore from beginning to end.

Original-Cin Year In Review: 2020’s Best and Worst Movies

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