The best films of 2015 (so far)

LIST

Michael Fassbender in 'Macbeth';

Joseph Gordon-Levitt in 'The Walk'; and Monica Bellucci in 'The Wonders'

147

632

Telegraph Film26 October 2015 2:15pm

The cream of the crop: every five-star review given by The Telegraph's film critics this
year, updated regularly

1. Birdman

Credit: Fox
Searchlight/20thCentFox/Courtesy Evere/R
Director: Alejandro G. Irritu
Starring: Michael Keaton, Zach Galifianakis, Edward Norton, Andrea Riseborough,
Amy Ryan, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts
Certificate: 15
Running time: 119 mins
We said: Michael Keaton plays the one-time star of a Hollywood superhero
franchise seeking to redeem himself on the Broadway stage. Keaton, a one-time
Batman himself, "gives the performance of his career" in this "hilarious, beautiful,
film-defying film". Read the full review of Birdman.
2. Selma

David Oyelowo (centre) as Martin

Luther King Jr in Ava DuVernay's SelmaCredit: Atsushi Nishijima
Director: Ava DuVernay
Starring: David Oyelowo, Carmen Ejogo, Tom Wilkinson, Alessandro Nivola,
Giovanni Ribisi, Tim Roth
Certificate: 12A
Running time: 128 mins
We said: British actor David Oyelowo is "electrifying" as Martin Luther King in Ava
DuVernay's "scorching, full-bodied, flat-out great film" about the events that took
place in Selma, Alabama, as members of the civil rights movement fought for the
right for black Americans to vote. Read the full review of Selma.
LIST: Love Frozen? Here are 15 films to watch next

3. Inherent Vice

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Katherine Waterston, Reese
Witherspoon, Benicio Del Toro, Jena Malone, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short
Certificate: 15
Running time: 149 mins
We said: Paul Thomas Anderson's surreally funny Thomas Pynchon adaptation,
which stars a "quietly dazzling" Joaquin Phoenix as a dishevelled LA private eye, is
like no noir you've ever seen. Read the full review of Inherent Vice.
4. Foxcatcher

Credit: Scott Garfield

Director: Bennett Miller
Starring: Channing Tatum, Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo, Sienna Miller, Anthony
Michael Hall, Vanessa Redgrave
Certificate: 15
Running time: 134 mins
We said: The true story of Olympic wrestler brothers Dave and Mark Schultz, and
their fatal dealings with eccentric millionaire John Eleuthre du Pont (played by a
near-unrecognisable Steve Carell), becomes a "smoke-black parable of modern
America", with a screenplay as tense and tuned as piano strings. Read the full
review of Foxcatcher.
5. Whiplash

Miles Teller and JK Simmons in

'Whiplash'Credit: Daniel McFadden
Director: Damien Chazelle
Starring: Miles Teller, JK Simmons, Melissa Benoist, Paul Reiser
Certificate: 15
Running time: 106 mins
We said: Superb performances from Miles Teller as a young jazz drummer and JK
Simmons as his martinet of a mentor are at the heart of this "dazzling, exhilarating
drama". Read the full review of Whiplash.
6. The Duke of Burgundy

Sidse Babett Knudsen and Chiara D'

Anna in Peter Strickland's drama 'The Duke of Burgundy'Credit: Artificial Eye
Director: Peter Strickland
Starring: Sidse Babett Knudsen, Monica Swinn, Chiara D'Anna, Eugenia Caruso,
Kata Bartsch, Fatma Mohamed, Eszter Tompa, Zita Kraszk
Certificate: 18
Running time: 104 mins
We said: Two women who live in a grand old house in the middle of a moss-draped
forest play out an elaborate sex game in this "uniquely sexy and strange film, built on
two tremendous central performances and a bone-deep understanding of cinemas
magic and mechanisms."Read the full review of The Duke of Burgundy.
7. It Follows

Maika Monroe in David Robert

Mitchell's psychological horror 'It Follows'
Director: David Robert Mitchell
Starring: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Jake Weary, Daniel Zovatto
Certificate: 15
Running time: 94 mins
We said: With its marvellously suggestive title and thought-provoking exploration
of sex, this indie chiller is a contemporary horror fan's dream come true. Read the
full review of It Follows.
8. Still Alice

Julianne Moore and Alec Baldwin in

Richard Glatzer's and Wash Westmoreland's drama 'Still Alice'
Director: Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer
Starring: Julianne Moore, Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth, Hunter Parish, Alec
Baldwin
Certificate: 12A
Running time: 101 mins
We said: Julianne Moore gives one of her greatest ever performances playing a
professor with early-onset Alzheimers disease in this "gorgeous, piercing"
drama. Read the full review of Still Alice.
9. The Tale of Princess Kaguya

The Tale of Princess Kaguya

Director: Isao Takahata
Starring: Aki Asakura, Yukiji Asaoka, Takeo Chii, Isa Hashizume, Hikaru Ijin,
Takaya Kamikawa
Certificate: U
Running time: 137 mins
We said: Studio Ghibli's lovingly crafted film, based on a 10th-century Japanese
legend about a reluctant princess trying to get back to the forests and hillsides of her
childhood, is a work of "supreme artistry", and a fitting swansong for director Isao
Takahata. Read the full review of The Tale of Princess Kaguya.
10. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence

A Pigeon Sat On a Branch Reflecting

On Existence
Director: Roy Andersson
Starring: Holger Andersson, Nils Westblom, Viktor Gyllenberg, Lotti Trnros,
Jonas Gerholm, Ola Stensson
Certificate: 12A
Running time: 100 mins
We said: Roy Andersson's hyperreal series of comic sketches may be
"untranslatable" cinema, but his film about doom and death and the ineffable
weirdness of human experience willl make you laugh until you weep. Read the full
review of A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence.
11. Mad Max: Fury Road

Mad Max: Fury RoadCredit: Warner

Bros. Entertainment/Jasin Boland
Director: George Miller
Starring: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult
Certificate: 15
Running time: 120 mins
We said: George Miller's return to the apocalyptic world of Mad Max is "nothing
less than a Krakatoan eruption of craziness"; Tom Hardy is "totally commanding"
stepping into Mel Gibson's shoes, and Charlize Theron is "superb" as the film's real
alpha male, the rogue soldier Imperator Furiosa. Read the full review of Mad
Max: Fury Road.
12. Inside Out

Inside OutCredit: Disney-Pixar

Director: Pete Docter, Ronaldo Del Carmen
Starring: Amy Poehler, Mindy Kaling, Diane Lane, Bill Hader, Phyllis Smith
(voices)
Certificate: PG
Running time: 102 mins
We said: Pixar's "searingly beautiful" new film is set inside the head of an 11-yearold girl, with Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Fear and Anger jostling for position. "The first
tear was rolling down my cheek within 30 seconds," wrote Robbie Collin. Read the
full review of Inside Out.
13. Listen Up Philip

Jonathan Pryce and Jason

Schwartzman in 'Listen Up Philip'Credit: Everett/REX Shutterstock
Director: Alex Ross Perry
Starring: Jason Schwartzman, Elisabeth Moss, Jonathan Pryce, Krysten Ritter,
Josphine de La Baume, Jess Weixler
Certificate: 15
Running time: 109 mins
We said: Alex Ross Perry's wince-inducing black comedy about two repellent
literary blowhards a young misanthropic egomaniac (Jason Schwartzman) and a
subtle, Philip Roth-like grotesque (Jonathan Pryce) marks the arrival of a major
new directorial talent. Read the full review of Listen Up Philip.
14. Slow West

Director: John Maclean

Starring: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Michael Fassbender, Ben Mendelsohn, Caren
Pistorius
Cerificate: 15
Running time: 84 mins
We said: Theres everything here from John Ford mythmaking to Coen brothers
mischief-making, plus the sinewy sparseness of Sergio Leone and even a little of
the pride-puncturing slapstick the genre has occasionally attracted in films like
Laurel and Hardys Way Out West and Mel Brooks Blazing Saddles. Read the full
review of Slow West.
15. Song of the Sea

Song of the Sea was nominated for

the Best Animated Feature Oscar this yearCredit: Studiocanal
Director: Tomm Moore
Starring: David Rawle, Brendan Gleeson, Lisa Hannigan, Fionnula Flanagan, Lucy
O'Connell
Certificate: U
Running time: 93 mins
We said: Though its preoccupied with loss, Song of the Sea is a film that can barely
stop itself from giving, and every scene shines with imaginative flourishes that could
only possible in two-dimensional, hand-drawn animation. It's alive to the world in a
way that challenges, and sometimes even defies, adult understanding. The only way
to describe it is childlike. See it and feel four years old again. Read the full review
of Song of the Sea.
16. The Wonders

Monica Bellucci in Alice

Rohrwacher's The WondersCredit: Soda Pictures
Director: Alice Rohrwacher
Starring: Maria Alexandra Lungu, Sam Louwyck, Alba Rohrwacher, Sabine
Timoteo, Monica Bellucci
Certificate: 15
Running time: 110 mins
We said: Alice Rohrwacher, the 31-year-old Italian film-maker, has conjured up a
mesmerising coming-of-age tale: small and sweet in every good way, but alive with a
power that seems to surge up from deep beneath its sun-roughened landscape. Read
the full review of The Wonders.

17. Hard to Be a God

A scene from Aleksei German's

'Hard to be a God'
Director: Aleksei German
Starring: Leonid Yarmolnik, Yuriy Tsurilo, Natalya Moteva, Aleksandr Chutko,
Evgeniy Gerchakov
Certificate: 18
Running time: 177 mins
We said: An astronaut visits a mirror planet to Earth, stuck in an eternal Dark Ages,
and witnesses scenes of grotesque barbarity. "Imagine Monty Python and the Holy
Grail directed by Bruegel and youre some way towards grasping director Aleksei
Germans vision", says Robbie Collin. Read the full review of Hard to be a God.
18. 45 Years

Tom Courtenay and Charlotte

Rampling in Andrew Haigh's film 45 Years
Director: Andrew Haigh
Starring: Charlotte Rampling, Tom Courtenay, Geraldine James, Dolly Wells
Certificate: 15
Running time: 93 mins
We said: A couple (Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay) struggles to cope when
the husband learns that the perfectly preserved body of his ex-girlfriend has been
discovered, 50 years after she slipped into an Alpine crevasse. Rampling "rarely been
better" than she is in this "shattering, shivery marital drama". Read the full
review of 45 Years.

19. The Walk

Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Philippe

Petit in 'The Walk'Credit: Sony Pictures Entertainment
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ben Kingsley, Charlotte Le Bon, James Badge Dale
Certificate: PG
Running time: 123 mins
We said: Back to the Future director Robert Zemeckis glimmeringly recreates
Frenchman Philippe Petit's tightrope walk between the twin towers of New York's
World Trade Center, previously told in the documentary Man on Wire. Joseph
Gordon-Levitt makes a thoroughly charming lead, despite his "prononced Franch
acksong", and once we get to the main event, "the camerawork is subtle and
meticulous, the 3D head-spinningly well-applied." Read the full review of The
Walk.
20. Macbeth

Credit: Studio Canal/GenEditorial72

Director: Justin Kurzel
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Sean Harris, David Thewlis, Paddy
Considine, Jack Reynor, Elizabeth Debicki
Certificate: 15
Running time: 113 mins
We said: This is already "one of the great Shakespearean movies," says Robbie
Collin, "built around a pair of cosmically powerful performances from Michael
Fassbender and Marion Cotillard." The text is pared back and key scenes have been
ingeniously re-interpreted. "Everything here is so perfectly in tune with itself that

you might expect the film to feel a little too neatly self-contained and vacuumpacked, like Game of Thrones with an arts degree. In fact its the opposite: raw,
visceral and contagious." Read the full review of Macbeth.
21. SPECTRE

Credit: 2015 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/

Columbia/Jonathan Olley
Director: Sam Mendes
Starring: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, La Seydoux, Monica Bellucci, Andrew
Scott, Dave Bautista, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw, Rory Kinnear
Certificate: 12A
Running time: 148 mins
We said: The 24th Bond film's Day of the Dead-themed opening is "a swaggering
show of confidence from returning director Sam Mendes," writes Robbie Collin. "The
films colour palette is so full of mouth-watering chocolates, coffees and creams that
when the story moves to Rome, the city looks like a $300-million-dollar, fascist
tiramisu." SPECTRE is relentlessly modern, yet "writers John Logan, Neal Purvis,
Robert Wade and Jez Butterworth rub sly references to the Bond canon, and craft
moments of pure flamboyance that belong there: a secret base inside a crater, a spotlit meteor as an interior design feature, a wrestling match in a pilotless helicopter,
two leonine sports cars roaring through the Roman night." Read the full review of
SPECTRE.
22. Tangerine

Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki

Rodriguez in 'Tangerine'

Director: Sean Baker

Starring: Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, Mya Taylor, Karren Karagulian, Mickey OHagan,
James Ransone
Certificate: 15
Running time: 86 mins