SO, A LOT OF authors this week have been posting their Top 10 lists of Best Books Read in 2015 and I feel like I should follow suit, but honestly… I haven’t read 10 books in the past year. If I posted a Top 5 list, that would probably encompass almost everything I read — kind of pointless to post that. But I do watch a lot of movies. For many years now, every weekend, on Friday and/or Saturday night, I disappear into the basement around 11 p.m. to watch a DVD on the big-screen TV (and yes, always a DVD. I’m a hard-media fan, and I don’t subscribe to any streaming services. If I watch a movie, I have a copy that I can return to. I’m the same way with books, really, not that I’ve been reading much lately.)
So this year I thought… what if I put together a list of my favorite movies watched over the past year? Well… first I’d have to figure out what I watched. I scoured my Amazon and eBay Order lists for purchase dates, as well as skimmed emails to a couple friends that I tend to chat about movies with to see what I’d talked about DVD-wise this year, and I looked at my DVD rack for things I know I watched/filed in the past few months. Anything that was at all questionable didn’t make my list — so I know there were some more movies that I saw this year. I just don’t have a good record. Then I looked up the directors, year released, and assigned off-the-cuff star ratings (questionable, since my memory sucks and many of these were watched months ago). The end result?
I saw at least 78 movies this year, about 10 of them “re-watches” (I just rewatched the whole Star Wars series, so that covers much of that list!) I tend to focus on directors; I was discovering Alejandro Jodorowsky at the beginning of the year, and Radley Metzger more recently, so there are several from each on this list. It was interesting to see how my list divided by genre, and while you could argue with my categorization on some (I don’t see World War Z as a horror film so much as an Action film), by my counts, I watched 23 horror movies and 18 Science Fiction films. Then a half dozen each of Arthouse, Kids, Comedy and Action. It was a little surprising that horror didn’t dominate the list more, but I was even more surprised to find that none of my 5-star ratings this year went to horror films. Go figure.
My list of movies
Anyway… here’s my list of what I watched and what my favorites were this year. I think I’ll actually keep this spreadsheet going so I have really accurate tracking next year!
Title | Director | Released | Genre | Stars |
The Holy Mountain | Alejandro Jodorowsky | 1973 | Arthouse | 5 |
Ex Machina | Alex Garland | 2015 | SF | 5 |
Camille 2000 | Radley Metzger | 1969 | Arthouse | 5 |
Pitch Perfect | Jason Moore | 2012 | Comedy | 5 |
Birdman | Alejandro Inarritu | 2014 | Drama | 5 |
Spirited Away | Hayao Miyazaki | 2001 | Kids | 5 |
Mad Max: Fury Road | George Miller | 2015 | SF | 5 |
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 | Francis Lawrence | 2015 | SF | 5 |
Firefly: The Complete Series | Joss Whedon | 2002 | SF | 5 |
A Fistful of Dollars | Serio Leone | 1964 | Western | 5 |
Spectre | Sam Mendes | 2015 | Action | 4 |
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. | Guy Ritchie | 2015 | Action | 4 |
World War Z | Marc Foster | 2013 | Action / Horror | 4 |
Iron Man 3 | Shane Black | 2013 | Action | 4 |
Santa Sangre | Alejandro Jodorowsky | 1989 | Arthouse | 4 |
El Topo | Alejandro Jodorowsky | 1970 | Arthouse | 4 |
Score | Radley Metzger | 1974 | Arthouse | 4 |
The Licorice Quartet | Radley Metzger | 1970 | Arthouse | 4 |
St. Vincent | Theodore Melfi | 2014 | Comedy | 4 |
Borat | Larry Charles | 2006 | Comedy | 4 |
The Grand Budapest Hotel | Wes Anderson | 2014 | Comedy | 4 |
The Theory of Everything | James Marsh | 2014 | Drama | 4 |
Big Eyes | Tim Burton | 2014 | Drama | 4 |
Sugar Cookies | Theodore Gershuny | 1973 | Erotic Thriller | 4 |
Lady in the Water | Ron Howard | 2006 | Fantasy | 4 |
100 Bloody Acres | Cameron Cairnes | 2012 | Horror | 4 |
Deadheads | Brett and Drew Pierce | 2011 | Horror | 4 |
Rubber | Quentin Dupieux | 2010 | Horror | 4 |
Botched | Kit Ryan | 2007 | Horror | 4 |
Cemetery Man | Michele Soavi | 1994 | Horror | 4 |
Antichrist | Lars Von Trier | 2009 | Horror/Drama | 4 |
The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water | Paul Tibbitt | 2015 | Kids | 4 |
Ponyo | Hayao Miyazaki | 2008 | Kids | 4 |
Star Wars: The Force Awakens | J.J. Abrams | 2015 | SF | 4 |
Avengers: Age of Ultron | Joss Whedon | 2015 | SF | 4 |
Tomorrowland | Brad Bird | 2015 | SF | 4 |
Looper | Rian Johnson | 2012 | SF | 4 |
Lucy | Luc Besson | 2014 | SF | 4 |
Melancholia | Lars Von Trier | 2011 | SF/Drama | 4 |
The Dance of Reality | Alejandro Jodorowsky | 2013 | Arthouse | 3.5 |
We Are What We Are | Jim Mickle | 2013 | Horror | 3.5 |
Maniac | William Lustig | 1980 | Horror | 3.5 |
The Girl in Room 2A | William L. Rose | 1974 | Horror | 3.5 |
Four Flies on Grey Velvet | Dario Argento | 1971 | Horror | 3.5 |
Ilsa: She Wolf of the S.S. | Don Edmonds | 1975 | Horror | 3.5 |
Prey (Alien Prey) | Norman J. Warren | 1981 | Horror/SF | 3.5 |
Hotel Transylvania 2 | Genndy Tartakovsky | 2015 | Kids | 3.5 |
Ender’s Game | Gavin Hood | 2013 | SF | 3.5 |
Jodorowsky’s Dune | Frank Pavich | 2013 | SF | 3.5 |
Pixels | Chris Columbus | 2015 | SF/Comedy | 3.5 |
Sin City: A Dame to Kill for | Frank Miller / Robert Rodriguez | 2014 | Action / Noir | 3.5 |
Get Smart | Peter Segal | 2008 | Comedy | 3 |
Boyhood | Richard Linklater | 2014 | Drama | 3 |
Nekromantik | Jorg Buttgereit | 1987 | Erotic Horror | 3 |
Exotic Malice | Joe D’Amato | 1980 | Erotic Horror | 3 |
Sex and Black Magic | Joe D’Amato | 1980 | Erotic Horror | 3 |
The Awful Dr. Orlof | Jess Franco | 1962 | Horror | 3 |
The Playgirls and the Vampire | Piero Regnoli | 1960 | Horror | 3 |
Inside Out | Pete Docter | 2015 | Kids | 3 |
The Peanuts Movie | Steve Martino | 2015 | Kids | 3 |
Under the Skin | Jonathan Glazer | 2013 | SF | 3 |
The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein | Jess Franco | 1973 | Erotic Horror | 2.5 |
Paranormal Activity 3 | Heynry Joost, Ariel Schulman | 2011 | Horror | 2.5 |
Nothing | Vincenzo Natali | 2003 | Comedy | 2 |
Nympha | Ivan Zuccon | 2007 | Erotic Horror | 2 |
Paranormal Activity 2 | Tod Williams | 2010 | Horror | 2 |
Moriturus | Raffaele Picchio | 2011 | Horror | 1 |
REWATCHED | ||||
Star Wars 1-6 | George Lucas | 1977 | SF | 4 |
Gremlins | Joe Dante | 1984 | Horror/Comedy | 4 |
Serenity | Joss Whedon | 2002 | SF | 4 |
Mad Max | George Miller | 1980 | SF | 4 |
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior | George Miller | 1981 | SF | 4 |
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