Film 2020 – Frank J. Avella's Best of the Year

Considering the wacky and precarious state of the world, which has completely affected cinema, the films released this year have been pretty extraordinary. And please note when I write, "this year," for the sake of argument, I am adhering to the Oscar cut-off release date so 2020 officially began on 1/1/20 and ends on 2/28/21.

I have selected the films I consider to be the Best and I begin with a slew of films that just missed.

Honorable Mention (alphabetically):

"Another Round" (Denmark), "Beginning" (Georgia), "Black Bear," "Borat Subsequent MovieFilm," "Bruce Springsteen: Letter to You," "Collective" (Romania), "Driveways," "Extra Ordinary," "Ghost of Peter Sellers," "The King of Staten Island," "The Life Ahead (La vita davanti a se')" (Italy), "Made in Italy," "Mangrove," "Minari," "Mother's Little Helper," "The Obituary of Tunde Johnson," "The Old Guard," "Pieces of a Woman," "The Prom," "Relic," "Soul," "Summer of 85" (France), "Supernova," "T11 Incomplete" & "The World to Come."

Special Mention

"The Invisible Man"

Horror films are not my thing so imagine my surprise when writer-director Leigh Whannell rejuvenated the genre and made a clever, truly absorbing and actually scary version of this oft-told-tale. Kudos to Elisabeth Moss for outstanding work.

20. "French Exit"

Azazel Jacob's delightfully bizarre offering boasts Michelle Pfeiffer as Frances Price a wealthy, eccentric NY socialite widow who loses her fortune and flees to France with her loyal son, Malcolm (an excellent Lucas Hedges). The ensemble, including the insanely gifted Valerie Mahaffey, rock but it is Pfeiffer, in a performance for the ages, who makes an indelible mark. She is glorious.

19. "The Midnight Sky"

Don't pay any attention to the haters, they're mostly sci-fi geek-crix who can't handle an intelligent, meditative film that isn't loaded with CGI. Director/star George Clooney's work here is his best since "Good Night and Good Luck," as he gifts us a stirring and disturbing drama about loss, ambition, reckless annihilation, reflection and redemption.

18. "The Killing of Two Lovers"

Robert Machoian's first solo feature is a blistering, peeping-tom look at the anguish felt by a couple, with four children, who are separated, but trying to work at reconnecting. Set in rural Utah, the film has an ominous, anxious feel about it and features a bold and devastating performance by Clayne Crawford.

17. "The 40-Year-Old Version"

Writing, directing and starring in a film is rarely a good idea, especially when it's your first feature, but the amazingly gifted Radha Blank pulls it off playing a frustrated playwright who might just have what it takes to be a hip-hop artist. Blank gets everything right in this meditation on creativity.

16. "Let Them All Talk"

I've never seen a bad Steven Soderbergh film and I've seen them all. Here he works with Meryl Streep, Candice Bergen and Dianne Weist, with a script credited to Deborah Eisenberg, which was mostly improvised, to achieve absolutely transfixing results. Streep is in top form. Bergen is hilarious. Weist proves we need to see more of her onscreen. And Lucas Hedges holds his own with these legends.

15. "Boys State"

The best doc I've seen so far this year is Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss's incisive look at what happens when teen boys get together to build a government, using today's politicos as their role models. The results are infuriating, enlightening and provide a peek at our probable future–like it or not.

14. "Cicada"

Directors Matt Fifer & Kieran Mulcare give us a fascinating portrait of a bisexual man (Fifer) who tosses himself into meaningless, often anonymous sexual encounters until he decides to confront his damaging demons. "Cicada" is a rich, nuanced work that delves deep into the psychological dissection of its protagonist. Fifer is a filmic force, his script is dense and honest and his performance, fearless.

13. "Sorry We Missed You"

Ken Loach's devastating portrait of the economically crippling effects on one British family is moving, gut-wrenching and urgent. The film is a dignified modern tragedy with Debbie Honeywood delivering a truly authentic turn as a mother, wife and committed care-worker trying to hold her crumbling world together.

12. "Tenet"

"Dunkirk" was my favorite film of 2017. "Interstellar" did not hook me. So I came to Christopher Nolan's "Tenet" with a degree of skepticism. And I left completely bedazzled and wanting to see it again. Sure it hurt my brain a bit but what an awe-inspiring ride! Nolan is one of the few filmmakers who still believes in the big screen spectacle, does not rely on CGI and insists on challenging his audience. Good for him. Great for us!

11. "The Outpost"

Rod Lurie's modern day war masterwork brings the true story of a 2009 Taliban attack on U.S. soldiers to bracing and visceral life. Based on a Jake Tapper best seller, "The Outpost" gracefully respects the men who fought by allowing the audience to get to know them before the engrossing battle sequence. And Caleb Landry Jones stands out in a terrific ensemble.

10. "News of the World"

Paul Greengrass gives us a thoughtful, captivating portrait of the post-Civil War world that is both lyrical and harsh. Tom Hanks, in one of his best recent performances, plays a man whose occupation is to go from town-to-town reading "news" to Texans. He stumbles upon a feral 10-year-old (an extraordinary Helena Zengel) and sets on a journey to bring her home. This gorgeously shot film contains startling parallels with today's society that signify our inability as a species to evolve. Yet is somehow finds hope in the muck.

9. "The Father"
Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman deliver two of the finest performances of 2020 in this heartbreaking film, directed and co-written (with Christopher Hampton) by French novelist Florian Zeller, based on Zeller's play. This transcendent work burrows into the wildly erratic mind of an elderly man with dementia in a way that was so keen and emotionally resonant, it made my heart hurt.

8. "The Mauritanian"

Tahan Rahim sears the screen in Kevin Macdonald's relentless telling of the true story of Mohamedou Ould Salahi's horrific experience in Gitmo detention as the accused mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks and how a lone attorney fought for his rights when everyone demanded a scapegoat. This is Jodie Foster's best role in decades and the film is simply riveting.

7. "One Night in Miami"

Regina King's absolute knockout of a feature directorial debut, based on the play by Kemp Powers, wonders what the meeting between Malcolm X, Cassius Clay (soon to become Muhammad Ali), Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown might have been like (a convergence that actually took place). The quartet of actors, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Eli Goree, Leslie Odom Jr., and Aldis Hodge respectively, deliver powerhouse performances, with Ben-Adir setting the screen ablaze with a truly unforgettable embodiment.

6. "Ammonite"

Francis Lee's audacious film is a paradox–delicate yet rough, exquisite yet unrefined. And Kate Winslet is truly astonishing in a restrained performance seething with pent-up desire and longing. Set on the southern coast of England in the 1840s the story explores the budding relationship between a stoic paleontologist (Winslet) and a young married woman (a superb Saoirse Ronan) recuperating after a miscarriage. Much like "God's Own Country," Lee's last sexually-charged film, this endeavor is bold, brave and breathtaking.

5. "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom"

George C. Wolfe creates a superlative adaptation of the classic August Wilson play (screenplay by Ruben Santiago Hudson) with a bittersweet, brilliant performance by the late Chadwick Boseman and a commanding and stunner of a turn by Viola Davis in the titular role. "Ma Rainey" has much to say about the appropriation of black art but it also speaks to how artistic expression can transcend all the negative, if only for a fleeting moment.

4. "Promising Young Woman"

One of the most audacious and bracing films of 2020, Emerald Fennell's dark comedy (her feature debut) centers on a devious and crafty young woman bent on seeking revenge for the horrific treatment of a close friend. Carey Mulligan gives the best female performance of the year in a film that is never predictable and steamrolls to a climax that had me thinking about it for days afterwards – and rushing to watch it again. The first significant #MeTooAndFuckYou movie.

3. "The Trial of the Chicago 7"

Aaron Sorkin's sophomore debut as a writer-director ("Molly's Game," being his first) drops like a genuinely frightening house of horrors-mirror into our past--a painful reminder that the more things change the more they seem to stay the same in this country. Led by a firecracker cast that includes Sacha Baron-Cohen, Jeremy Strong, Eddie Redmayne, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Frank Langella and Mark Rylance, "Trial" is a nail-biting, powerful drama that inspires hope, something we all desperately need right now.

2. "Nomadland"

Chlo� Zhao has adeptly adapted Jessica Bruder's acclaimed book about itinerant older Americans roaming the West and delivers a sublime work that examines one year in the life of a seemingly stubborn but truly independent woman named Fern (embodied fully by Frances McDormand), a widow who has chosen to live out of her camper van and take small jobs to survive. Along the way Fern encounters many other nomads (most of them real, like the amazing Swankie!) and each vignette has profound meaning. McDormand is luminous in a performance of exquisite grace and wonder.

1. "Mank"

David Fincher's "Mank" is an homage to the Hollywood filmmaking of yore, but it is also a sharp depiction of the creation of one of the most celebrated and controversial films of all-time, "Citizen Kane." It also provides startling commentary on our current political climate by telling a turbulent past story. Gary Oldman perfectly manifests Herman J. Mankiewicz, an alcoholic writer about to pen his masterpiece. And Amanda Seyfried delivers a bravura turn as the misunderstood Marion Davies. Fincher does his late father proud in delivering a work of cinematic mastery. "Mank" is one of the most significant films of our 2-decade old millennium. It's timely, critical and necessary.

Performances:

LEAD FEMALE

1. Carey Mulligan in "Promising Young Woman"
2. Kate Winslet in "Ammonite"
3. Frances McDormand in "Nomadland"
4. Vanessa Kirby in "Pieces of a Woman"
5. Viola Davis in "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom"

Honorable Mention: Meryl Streep in "The Prom" & "Let Them All Talk,"
Michelle Pfeiffer in "French Exit" & Sophia Loren in "The Life Ahead"

SUPPORTING FEMALE

1. Amanda Seyfried in "Mank"
2. Olivia Colman in "The Father"
3. Ellen Burstyn in "Pieces of a Woman"
4. Helena Zengel in "New of the World"
5. Yuh-Jung Youn in "Minari"

HM: Marisa Tomei in "The King of Staten Island," Vanessa Kirby in "The World to Come" & Kristen Scott Thomas in "Rebecca"

LEAD MALE

1. Chadwick Boseman in "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom"
2. Gary Oldman in "Mank"
3. Tahar Rahim in "The Mauritanian"
4. Anthony Hopkins in "The Father"
5. Colin Firth in "Supernova"

HM: Orlando Bloom in "Retaliation, Clayne Crawford in "The Killing of Two Lovers" & Delroy Lindo in "The 5 Bloods"

SUPPORTING MALE

1. Kingsley Ben-Adir in "One Night in Miami"
2. Sacha Baron Cohen in "The Trial of the Chicago 7"
3. Tom Pelphrey in "Mank"
4. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in "The Trial of the Chicago 7"
5. Eli Goree in "One Night in Miami"

HM: Brian Dennehy in "Driveways," Caleb Landry Jones in "The Outpost" &
David Strathairn in "Nomadland"

DIRECTOR

1. David Fincher for "Mank"
2. Chloe Zhao for "Nomadland"
3. Emerald Fennell for "Promising Young Woman"
4. Aaron Sorkin for "The Trial of the Chicago 7"
5. Regina King for "One Night in Miami"

HM: Francis Lee for "Ammonite," George C. Wolfe for "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" & Christopher Nolan for "Tenet"

Top 13 Queer-themed films
1. "Ammonite"
2. "Cicada"
3. "Summer of 85"
4. "The Obituary of Tunde Johnson"
5. "T11 Incomplete"
6. "The Goddess of Fortune (La Dea Fortuna)"
�7."I Carry You with Me"
8. "Los Fuertes (The Strong Ones)"
9. "Dramarama"
10. "Sublet"
11. "Dating Amber"
12. "Uncle Frank"
13. "A Skeleton in the Closet"
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