The Best Films of 2015

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This year I was invited to vote in a variety of awards and polls of the best films of the year, each with their own specific rules regarding what was and wasn’t eligible.

First was the Online Film Critics Society, an organisation which I have been a member of for three years now. Their awards were announced on the 14th of December and whilst not all of the winners were my first choices, most were.

The OFCS awards were, more or less, based on U.S. release dates, as was the Indiewire Critic Poll. You can find my top ten for the Best Film category in that poll – the only category I voted in this year – here.

I also put together a top ten based on UK release dates for the HeyUGuys poll and for the 12 Films a Flickering poll conducted by Julien Allen.

The results of Julien’s poll can be found here and my individual top ten here.

One film dominated all of these awards and polls, and rightly so, but there were a great many films worthy of praise in 2015. Below is my top twenty-five for the year, based on new films I saw throughout the year. Films released in any country, online and at festivals all qualified for consideration. I’ve made a list this way for a number of years as it seems to me to be the only way to truly represent a year in film, without being constrained by geographical restrictions based on the whims and often illogical behaviour of distributors.

25. Helmut Berger, Actor
24. Natural History
23. Our Little Sister (My review)
22. 45 Years
21. John Wick (My review)
20. Taxi Tehran
19. The Treasure (My review)
18. Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 2
17. Anomalisa
16. Bitter Lake
15. Sunset Song
14. No No Sleep
13. Beyond the Lights
12. Ned Rifle (My review)
11. Room
10. Son of Saul (My review)
9. Call Me Lucky
8. Spotlight
7. In Jackson Heights
6. World of Tomorrow
5. Magic Mike XXL
4. Inside Out (My review)
3. The Assassin (My review)
2. Carol (My review)
1. Mad Max: Fury Road (My review)

If you’re at all curious as to what films I saw in 2015, you can find the entire list right here.