Top 10 Favorite Movies of 2020 (So Far)

That's Nick. That's Joseph. And today we're here to share our top 10 favorite new releases of 2020 Thus far thus far halfway through the year as is customary at most major outlets and also at ion cinema So I didn't think this was necessary, but you explained why it is and it makes sense to me I believe I believe that this has come to be a custom because by the end of the year, we're so obsessed with all of the Oscar campaigning and all the releases that are held purposefully for the fall to stay in voters minds that there's a whole lot of Releases that just get dumped And especially in a year where we're stuck watching streaming things that people are gonna forget about So yeah, I think it's important to highlight some things that might not be remembered by the end of the year Of a note you watch more movies than I do You're also including films, well, you're not including any Film Festival films I mean you just watch more theatrical releases the night These are films and I believe is as fair that Anybody that wants to have access to them would be able to find them on some streaming platform These don't include your like Berlin feature. No, nothing that hasn't experienced some kind of release to the public So my list will be more pedantic than yours. It's not it's a well curated list And actually I spent time on my back Yes, and but what's funny is because we did at the end of the year list last year and we had some overlap maybe half Neither but we don't repeat any titles between our lists. Yeah, which is interesting So if you're a more fun person, I think you'd like my list and if you're more serious about film, you'll like Nick's list Let's start with number 10. Joseph's number 10 Also, I probably don't remember all of these very well You pick these okay, I remember them well enough. Okay. My number 10 is driveways. Mm-hmm. It's the sophomore Film direct by Andrew on it premiered at the Berlin Film Festival I think in 2019 it's a lovely story of a woman and her young son who moved to an area sort of a more rural area After her sister dies to kind of like clean up the house and sell it and the young both of them develop a relationship With the older neighbor played by Brian Dennehy who's since passed away, which I thought was a really sweet story Mm-hmm. What's your number? My number 10 is a tie. Oh, we didn't say you're gonna have all that I know hurry. I have one time. Go ahead Come on First up. I have a white white day in the sophomore film directed by Iceland's Hillner Palmerson premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival and Critics Week and features a great lead performance by Ingvar Sigurdsson as a Cop whose wife has died and afterwards finds out that she's had an affair I think I really liked it, especially watching it a second time what okay you saw yeah Also at number 10, the tie is Annie Silverstein's directorial debut bowl Which also premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival in uncertain regard? and stars Rob Morgan and Amber Havard Rob Morgan is a aging bullfighter and this little trashy little white girl that lives next door track Vandalizes his house and she's forced to help clean it up and develops a bond with him that they both grow out of but what? I really like the film is besides Rob Morgan who I find consistently underrated. I think he It was equally as good as Mary J. Blige in mud bound. He's also great in last minute black man in San Francisco You can see him as Issa Rae's father in photograph his the great thing about this film is the Chemistry has with Yolanda Ross who I is only in a handful of scenes But I would have loved to see this film focus on their story a little more than this kind of a nerd young white girl But it's definitely worth a watch Distributed by Samuel Goldwyn films. Okay My number nine film is st. Francis a directorial debut of Alex Thompson premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival in 2019. It's a story about a woman who gets pregnant Decides to terminate the pregnancy and then immediately starts nannying for a lesbian couple and then develops a relationship with their child I thought it was a really honest. There's probably the first time I've seen sort of an honest portrayal of an abortion I think obvious child with Jenny Slate kind of does that too? But yeah, this was I think this was a labor of love for the actress that stars in it Sullivan Yeah, what's your number nine? My number nine is a girl missing. It's the seventh feature directed by Japan's Koji Fukada It's got a great lead performance by Mariko Tsutsui And it's about a caregiver who's living in a home and her son ends up Kidnapping the daughter of the people that she works for and the ensuing fallout. It's definitely a slow burn Great character study loved every moment of it Premiered in competition at the 2019 Locarno Film Festival and was distributed streaming via film movement All right. My number eight choice was we summon the darkness. Mm-hmm, which is directed by Mark Meyers He liked his film my friend Dahmer as well. Yes This premiered at some place called the Mammoth Film Festival, but also notably played a Fantasia Fest in 2019. It's about It's like set in the 80s. It's a horror film It's about four girls who are affiliated with like a extremist Christian group and they are killing people but then blaming it on like Satanists. Mm-hmm to sort of kind of like how these Extremist white people are creating violence these black life matters. Yeah lives matter rallies trash But it looks great. I think it's a fun movie. What's your number eight? My number eight is swallow which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2019 It's great lead performance by Haley Bennett the directorial debut of Carlo Mirabella Davis, it's about a woman who Marries above her social class and becomes pregnant It's very constricting marriage and to kind of gain control over her body begins swallowing sharp objects My number seven is the way back Struck by Gavin O'Connor. It's a studio film Warner Brothers It's a film about a basketball coach, which I did not think I would like but it's really not about basketball It's about this coach played by Ben a flack Who is like an alcoholic and this this role is kind of beneath him, but he rises to the occasion there's kind of a twist that We don't expect from something like a uplifting story like this So it was kind of a non-traditional uplifting story. Yeah. All right my number seven is the assistant which It's kind of a difficult film It stars Julia Garner as Jane a young woman that works for a powerful film executive and becomes kind of Weinstein In that capacity. It's very dour film. It is the narrative debut of the documentarian Kitty green played at Sundance and Berlin this year. It was released via bleaker Street. My number six is bad education The sophomore film by Corey Finley who's previous on the star breds premiered at TIFF in 2019 Okay, it's it's based on a true story of a superintendent for a school district in New York who was embezzling money Allison Janney who I can't think of anything. I don't like her in so That's a plus but Hugh Jackman playing a gay man was very satisfying. Yes, I would recommend this film My number six selection is the I believe it's a seventh feature directed by Kelly Reichardt first cow Which actually premiered at the New York Film Festival in 2019, but competed in this year's Berlin Film Festival John McGarvey and Orion Lee play two men in the Oregon Trail era They're fur trappers that end up stealing the milk from the rich man played by Tophie Jones and making sweet delicacies before they're later murdered for their indiscretions As if you familiar with any records films, this is very much in keeping with her style But I loved every minute of it and distributed by a 24 My number five film is the hunt that is the fourth feature directed by Craig Zobel His 2012 film compliance is a must-see It is a universal Blumhouse film. That's Premiered earlier this year. Yeah, it's just about a group of Like extreme liberals who decide to hunt Sort of like uber conservatives whose views clash with theirs, but the beauty of the I mean the film is fun It's very violent, but it's also not as biased as one would think So I like that it had sort of a more sort of objective viewpoint of why everyone's fucked up in this world Greatly performance by Betty Gilpin. Yes Hilary spank who I sometimes have problems with actually enjoyed and she's fun as well Yeah, which is funny. That's that's not your number five and how this list out because my number five is back route Which is kind of the Brazilians equivalent Equivalent of the hunt premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival where it won the jury prize It's the third feature by clever men don't suffer Oh this time he's known in the joint in the co-directing seat by his usual collaborate collaborator Giuliano Dornell's And it's basically based at the titular town, which means Nighthawk after a strange nocturnal bird in the Brazilian hinterlands finds themselves under siege by a group of Racist white people that are trying to eliminate them But the town fights back seen through my Western North American eyes. There's a lot. I probably don't understand particularly Relating to the culture, but even after watching it twice There's a lot to unpack here. It is long but very enjoyable And you don't care and Sonia Braga. Yeah My number four selection is horse girl. Mm-hmm. Just a Netflix film Yeah, well it premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival fourth film directed by Jeff Baina Okay. Mm-hmm. Come on. Oh, it's your selection It's about a young woman suffering from mental health issues She's sort of on the onset of schizophrenia Dealing with the onset of schizophrenia and it's just a very unique portrait of that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is effective my number four the fifth film directed by Josephine Decker Shirley, which is a Interesting evocative biopic of the author Shirley Jackson who's probably best known for her short story the hunt or the lottery or the haunting of Hill House Which has been made into a film several times best by Robert Wise This detail is kind of her at the stage where Shirley Jackson was in a mental unraveling a young intern played by Logan Lerman comes to live in her house to help her professor husband played by Michael Stuhlbarg and Lerman's wife played by Odessa young kind of has a love-hate relationship with Shirley Jackson played by Elizabeth Moss great Performance as she's writing a novel, which I believe ended up being hangs a man Which I haven't read played at Sundance in Berlin This year and was distributed by neon Okay, my number three selection is on court, which is also a Netflix film directorial debut apprentice penny it would have premiered at the 2020 South by Southwest Festival I've referenced this film several times is what I want like a new black cinema to be like It's just a really smart clever story about a young man who? Is expected to carry on his family's restaurant business, but instead wants to become a master sommelier. Mm-hmm. Yeah number three number three We just saw last week actually is the directorial debut of Jeremy Hirsch the surrogate about a fluent young black woman who decides to be the surrogate for her to gay best friends in New York and Things don't go as planned when the fetus is determined to have the chromosome 4 down syndrome And the moral dilemma they find themselves in fucking fantastic Performance from Jasmine Batchelor who I think if anything that these types of lists, I hope Keep her name around for the end of the year because it's a performance. That's very memorable My number two selection is the Invisible Man another Elizabeth Moss film What was the other one? Mine was surely on my life. Oh, right. Yeah Lee Wannell's third feature. He's better known as the writer of saw and the insidious films. It's a remake obviously Elizabeth Moss is so good. Mm-hmm. I think It's just a fun the pacings great there's a lot of action a lot of scares Definitely worth the watch. Yeah, and also a universal Blumhouse film. So so they can do good. They can do good things. They often do On a budget as well. My number two selection is never rare never rarely sometimes always It's the third feature direct by Eliza Hitman It's basically about two young girls in Pennsylvania who traveled to New York City to get an abortion For one of them to get an abortion newcomer Sidney Flanagan and Talia Ryder excellent, this is a Moving piece of neo-realist cinema that I think is very important for our current climate in the u.s It played at in competition at Sundance and Berlin picked up prizes both Been both festivals the second place prize in Berlin Eliza Hitman who previously did beach rats Which I also was a big fan of Yeah, my number one choice so far in the year is Hansel and Gretel Gretel and Hansel Gretel and Hansel. Yes This movie was so much fun to me. There was a lot of fun. Yeah The performance by the witch what's her name Alice Creech so good of ghost story and Star Trek and sleepwalkers South African actress love her. Yeah film looks great It doesn't have sort of the happy ending that we would expect And it's from Orion pictures the reestablished studio Yeah, this this was a surprise considering the time of year it came out in It's also directed by Oz Perkins third feature who's the son of Anthony Perkins? That's right. Yeah Yeah, and your number one my mobile mobile. My number one is Dow Natasha, which is So it's technically this I guess you could say the second feature by Ilya Karjanovsky whose first film was 2004 is for And it's got a co-directing credit from your Katarina or tell so Dow the Dow films. It was a Supposed to be a biopic about the Soviet science Lev Landau Oh, right, right, right and Karjanovsky started filming that he built this huge city Kind of like Synecdoche, New York the Philip Seymour Hoffman film In 2000 film from 2005 to 2011 everybody on the set was like living the life of 1950s Soviet person And then there was a huge they burned the set in 2011 and then hundreds and hundreds of hours of footage have been Pieced together since then and we've been waiting and waiting there have been multimedia multimedia art installations but as was promised there are a lot of Separate tangential stories that have been called for their own films and the first one was down Natasha which played in competition At Berlin and it won Best Cinematography for Jurgen Jurgis who's known for lensing Haneke's code unknown Natalia Berezhnaya who's Natasha and Olga Chaka Chaka Barnea. I'm saying they're very Russian names wrong Excellent performances as these two women working in this 1950s canteen and it's just almost over the top in how they're just swilling back liquor through most of it until Someone gets called in to be interrogated interrogated and shit hit the fan it there was an open letter by the Russian press against to the Berlin Film Festival that were upset about the values and the questionable filmmaking techniques of the film, but All that set aside I think it's an excellent portrait of fascism and totalitarianism and you can see it at dow.movie slash en because of kovat 19 Karjanovsky had planned on unveiling these Installments all over at film festivals, but he said this was a project made in isolation for people in isolation So you can go watch this and other installments there, okay While important to note I was trying to rush us because you have already reviewed all of these films so they can be found on either our Channel or on island cinema. Yes. So if you want to hear more about them, you can find them elsewhere Anything else? I know that's it. All right