The Blu-Ray.com Community Top 25 Films of 2015 (Please Read 1st Post)

[Holmes]

1. The Big Short

[Show spoiler]At once a madcap comedy and a searing sociopolitical polemic, The Big Short concerns a small number of investors who foresee the U.S. housing crisis—the end result of the poorly regulated and fraudulent bundling of subprime mortgages—and devise a credit-default-swap system to, in a sense, wager against the nation's economy. Well-acted by an A-list cast including Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, and Brad Pitt, the film represents a significant creative leap forward for Anchorman and Step Brothers director Adam McKay, who reveals an angrier and more serious voice without sacrificing improvisational buoyancy. The film, as entertaining as it is educational, invites the viewer to guiltily luxuriate in the characters' lucrative prescience while also mourning the felonious and unquenchable soul of an as-yet-unpunished Wall Street. Caper-movie mischief gives way to somber inevitability in the third act.

2. Far from the Madding Crowd

[Show spoiler]Directed by Danish art-house fixture Thomas Vinterberg (The Celebration, The Hunt), this is a lush, wise, and profoundly romantic adaptation of Thomas Hardy's seminal novel, the story of headstrong, newly wealthy Bathsheba and her bid to reconcile her independent spirit with Victorian society's constrictive view of how women should live and love. As she says in an integral scene, "It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in a language chiefly made by men to express theirs." Carey Mulligan is luminous as the impetuous heroine, and the film, sumptuous in both design and photography, vividly brings to life the agrarian milieu Hardy sought to memorialize amid vast industrial change in 19th-century England.

3. Macbeth

[Show spoiler]William Shakespeare's oft-adapted tragedy of prophecy and curdled ambition receives an atmospheric, compact, and ferocious adaptation, one which grounds the play's treachery in a hard and earthen vision of civil-war-beset Scotland. Led by Michael Fassbender as the title despot and Marion Cotillard as a mourning Lady Macbeth, the ensemble cast nicely internalizes the Bard's Elizabethan verse, delivering it as if each word vaulted from their soul in the anguished heat of the moment. They whisper, snarl, and implore rather than recite or grandstand, and the film builds to what may be the most exciting individual sequence of the year: a to-the-death sword fight lit by the orange-red inferno of a forest fire.

4. Anomalisa

[Show spoiler]Charlie Kaufman, the mad and magnificent mind behind the twin Nicolas Cages of Adaptation. and the memory-erasure intricacy of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, contemplates existential dread and romantic trepidation with stop-motion puppetry, and the result is as singular as one could hope for. The delicate film turns on a misanthropic self-improvement writer for whom instantaneous desire is easy, but the predictability of close acquaintance and domesticity is disastrous. This dynamic results not only in piercing drama, but also observational hilarity. And the animation style, in turn otherworldly and almost realistic, provides a whimsical lens through which to view the cyclical and self-defeating human condition.

5. Blackhat

[Show spoiler]Master stylist Michael Mann, whose previous credits include Heat and Collateral, directs this hypnotic and swiftly paced suspense film set in the world of international computer crime; the story begins with nearly simultaneous cyber assaults on a Chinese nuclear plant and the Mercantile Exchange in Chicago and the uneasy formation of an inter-agency investigative team with both American and Chinese participants. Sprinting from the United States to Hong Kong to Malaysia to Indonesia, Mann once again experiments with neon-infused, see-into-the-night digital cinematography and abstract sound design, pushing the envelope of mainstream action cinema, and he aims for admirable verisimilitude in his depiction of coding, online security, and surveillance, as well as his traditional wheelhouse: abrupt, fierce shootouts and chases.

6. Crimson Peak

[Show spoiler]This supernatural Gothic romance is a spellbinding geyser of a film: an Edwardian spectacle of high fashion, grotesquerie, and sensuality directed by macabre specialist Guillermo del Toro (Blade II, Pan's Labyrinth) with the uninhibited enthusiasm of a child in a—very, very eerie—toy store. The title location, an opulent-but-decayed ancestral home slowly descending into the expanse of scarlet clay upon which it is constructed, is a crucial highlight. Del Toro's lavish bump-in-the-night homage can stand proudly alongside the best haunted-house yarns, including The Innocents and the original The Haunting.

7. Ex Machina

[Show spoiler]In his directorial debut, novelist and 28 Days Later screenwriter Alex Garland ponders one of science fiction's most enduring questions—will artificial intelligence elevate or overthrow humanity?—via the intimate and tense interplay of an egotistical inventor, a wide-eyed computer programmer, and a robotic prototype with an alluring female form. Set in a chic and isolated retreat also housing a research facility, Garland's film builds to a provocative series of power plays and fateful decisions worthy of debate.

8. The Gift

[Show spoiler]Another auspicious directorial debut. Australian actor Joel Edgerton, perhaps most widely known stateside for playing Leonardo DiCaprio's elitist romantic rival in The Great Gatsby, not only steps behind the camera for his first feature, but also writes and acts in the film. He delivers a superlative performance as a peculiar man whose outwardly friendly, yet intrusive presence upends the domestic existence of a well-to-do couple. A story of high-school sin visited upon adult life, The Gift is crafted with Rear Window-style formal elegance and calibrated for maximum psychological suspense without once resorting to explicit violence. It perfectly toys with our preconceived notion of which character is trustworthy and which is dubious.

9. Mad Max: Fury Road

[Show spoiler]30 long years after completing his initial—influential—Mad Max trilogy and in the aftermath of a prolonged and reportedly contentious desert production, director George Miller’s sequel-cum-reboot Fury Road defies guarded expectations. It is a blast of boisterous, oil-doused, sun-scorched cinematic invention. Miller uses an extra-large budget to conceive and construct his wildest, most detailed, and most psychedelic stretch of post-apocalyptic wasteland to date, and he places his laconic lone-wolf hero in the service of strong women, one a soldier with a shaved head and an amputated arm played by a fearsome Charlize Theron.

10. Steve Jobs

[Show spoiler]People can debate—and debate, and debate—the fidelity of Steve Jobs the biopic to the actual life of the personal-computing titan, but it is without a doubt a dynamic and sophisticated piece of dialogue-driven cinema. The film employs a focused and unique structure, dramatizing three eventful days in Jobs' 56-year life: on each, he introduces a new, highly anticipated product (starting with the Macintosh in the mid-’80s) while contending with corporate rivalry and personal crisis, including a strained relationship with an unstable ex-partner and her daughter, a girl he refuses to recognize as his biological child. Michael Fassbender, represented for the second time on this list, portrays the title entrepreneur as equal parts charismatic and icy. He captures the paradox of a man whose blend of chic, simple conceptual vision and on-stage showmanship helped democratize computing despite his closed-system megalomania and a fractious relationship with most of his partners and employees. Kate Winslet also delivers a memorable performance as Joanna Hoffman, Jobs' overtaxed advertising executive and part-time conscience.

11. Beloved Sisters
12. Creed
13. Time Out of Mind
14. Chappie
15. True Story
16. The End of the Tour
17. Love & Mercy
18. Phoenix
19. Room
20. What We Do in the Shadows
21. American Ultra
22. Heaven Knows What
23. Mississippi Grind
24. Queen of Earth
25. Fifty Shades of Grey

[Pounder]

Originally Posted by levcore

Working full time gave me the luxury of watching almost 100 new releases last year. You make it sound like we're all privileged when the hard facts are most of work our asses off to be able to indulge in our hobbies in our free time.

[Jacob Anderson]

If anything i think there should be a requirement that you should have at least seen 30, if not 40 movies last year. If some one has only seen 20 movies then there is a pretty good chance they are going to have a couple of movies on their list they didn't even like and i don't think a movie should get points from some one who didn't like it, or even thought it was just okay. But that's just me.

[Ironhorse75]

Originally Posted by Dalekbuster523Bluray

£40 for 20 films I might not even enjoy? No thanks. I'll let my university show me films I would never consider watching myself.

Rent? Outside of the December releases like Revenant, Hateful Eight, and Star Wars, almost everything should have been released for home viewing.

I always thought the list should be 10 min. Not because I can't afford it, but because I feel like anything beyond 10 is arbitrary. It would probably be easier on the tally master.

When the bottom tier of films on your list are only giving 3-2-1 pts, I don't really care what happens to those votes. It would be interesting to see if any of those residual points have ever made a difference though.

[thewerepuppygrr]

Originally Posted by Ironhorse75

Rent? Outside of the December releases like Revenant, Hateful Eight, and Star Wars, almost everything should have been released for home viewing.

I always thought the list should be 10 min. Not because I can't afford it, but because I feel like anything beyond 10 is arbitrary. It would probably be easier on the tally master.

When the bottom tier of films on your list are only giving 3-2-1 pts, I don't really care what happens to those votes. It would be interesting to see if any of those residual points have ever made a difference though.

Doing a mock tally, you'd be surprised at how much they do make a difference. It also means we can recognize titles that are a bit more offbeat, rather than list the same ones over and over again which unfortunately becomes somewhat inevitable with shorter lists.

I don't have any allusions, as a Brit I won't get to have seen enough 2015 titles to make an objective list until at least June of this year. Heck, maybe we should push back the deadline?

Or would that annoy everybody?

[AaronJ]

deleted

(posted final list later in thread)

[MrBlonde]

Originally Posted by AaronJ

1. Carol: It's simply a masterpiece. Subdued and intense at the same time, this film has some of the best acting from the two leads I've seen. On top of the acting, the film was just gorgeously photographed. The production design was as good as it could conceivably be, perfectly evoking the time period. The story was very well written, so excellently demonstrating the emotional toll and difficulties of love, but also the depth of feelings that strong. The ending was simply perfection. What an amazing film.

[levcore]

Well i've posted my list on the first page now, it's the best list on the forum so it's definitely worth checking out

Does Goodnight Mommy qualify? because that's on my list.

[beadelf]

1: The revenant
2: Star wars :force awakens
3: Jurassic world
4: Hateful Eight
5: Mad max-Fury Road
6: The Martian
7: Chappie
8: Creed
9: Good Dinosaur
10:Everest
11: Ex machina
12: In the heart of the sea
13:Inside Out
14:Cinderella
15: Terminator 5
16:Beasts of no nation
17: Legend
18: Lady in the van
19: bridge of spies
20:Joy

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by levcore

Well i've posted my list on the first page now, it's the best list on the forum so it's definitely worth checking out

Does Goodnight Mommy qualify? because that's on my list.

Yes it does.

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by AaronJ

I've finally seen 20 films from last year. There are still a number of films that would probably make my list (like The Revenant) but as of now here's my contribution.

[Show spoiler]1. Carol: It's simply a masterpiece. Subdued and intense at the same time, this film has some of the best acting from the two leads I've seen. On top of the acting, the film was just gorgeously photographed. The production design was as good as it could conceivably be, perfectly evoking the time period. The story was very well written, so excellently demonstrating the emotional toll and difficulties of love, but also the depth of feelings that strong. The ending was simply perfection. What an amazing film.

2. Macbeth: Take my favorite play by The Bard, put two of my favorite actors in the lead roles, have Justin Kurzel perfectly evoke a solemnly grim Medieval Scotland, toss in some great battle scenes, and finalize it all with absolutely stunning cinematography by Adam Arkapaw and you end up with my favorite film of the year. Powerful, beautiful in its ugliness, gripping, bloody, tragic, and drilling into the soul of every human being's essential nature, Macbeth succeeds on every level.

3. Phoenix: This film hit me like a ton of bricks. Nina Hoss turns in a bravura performance in this Christian Petzold film. It's nearly perfect throughout, very personal, very painful, and it has one of my favorite final scenes in all of cinema. I doubt this film will ever leave me.

4. Diary of a Teenage Girl: I would describe this sexual coming of age story set in the 70s as "beautifully uncomfortable." I had absolutely no expectations going in and was engrossed not only by this engaging tale of the eponymous teenage girl (Bel Powley), but by how wonderfully stylistic and evocative it was.

5. Ex Machina: I viewed this as a chilling look at what it means to be a human being. There are questions posed and few answers in sight. The three performances are uniformly excellent, and the direction is spot-on. A memorable film to be sure.

6. Queen of Earth: Elizabeth Moss. A chamber drama. Katherine Waterston. A descent into madness. Violent emotions. That's pretty much all any potential viewer needs to know.

7. Breathe:

8. Mistress America:

9. It Follows:

10. Sicario: Put in SPOILER tags because it's long, not because it contains spoilers. [Show spoiler]

11. Pitch Perfect 2:

12. The Man From U.N.C.L.E.:

13. Faults

14. Age of Adaline:

15. While We're Young:

16. Dark Places:

17. The Duke of Burgundy: A little bit of throwback lesbian erotica revolving around two women who are involved in a D/s relationship. It comes close to working, and I can see what writer/director Peter Strickland was going for. The central performances (the ONLY performances, for the most part) are very good and engaging. The photography is beautiful, in an again throwback manner. Excellent soundtrack, too. But something is missing in the end. I'm not sure what it is.

18. Mad Max: Fury Road: I know that so many people loved this, and maybe not seeing it in the theater diminished it for me. But I thought that it was thin as tissue paper. Yes, there were lots of action/chase sequences, vehicles smashing into each other and blowing up, and there were all sorts of (in my mind) goofy elements like a guy with a flame-throwing guitar. But during the action sequences I found myself looking at my watch a lot. They seemed interminable. And beyond those? No character development, beyond that between Cheedo and Nux -- who, IMO, were the most interesting characters in the film. No real thematic foundation. The plot was fine, such as it was. But it didn't really go anywhere. I'm not sure what this film was trying to accomplish other than have lots of explosions. As I said in other threads, I can understand that others really enjoyed it. But I guess I'm not the target demo for this sort of thing anymore.

19. The Girl in the Book: I watched this for three reasons: The story sounded and interesting, I like Emily van Camp, and Michael Nyqvist is excellent. Well, Emily did a good job, Nyqvist was good as usual, but the story just sort of turned into a slightly more adult Lifetime movie. There was a lot of potential here, but I don't feel as though the filmmakers were willing to go down the road that would have allowed for that potential to blossom. There was definitely one shining star here, though. Ana Mulvoy-Ten plays a younger version of Emily van Camp's character, and she's spectacular. If she continues acting, hers will be a very interesting career to follow. She's the highlight.

20. Big Sky: This wanted to be a good movie, and it could have been. The premise was interesting and Bella Thorne gives a good performance in the lead. But somewhere along the way, at about the halfway mark, the film completely loses its purpose and flies off in multiple directions, almost abandoning the strong premise on which it was built. It's a shame.

Just so you know. You'll probably need to edit your list on the first page as only one list will be accepted as it will skew the results.

[spectre08]

Foggy's list makes me feel like a slacker.

[The Debts]

Originally Posted by spectre08

Foggy's list makes me feel like a slacker.

Same. It has such flair and attention to detail towards it.

[MarkJ801]

Originally Posted by MarkJ801

My temporary list for now. I haven't been able to see nearly as many movies this year so I still have a lot of catching up to do.

1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
2. The Revenant
3. Room
4. Straight Outta Compton
5. The Martian
6. Ant-Man
7. It Follows
8. The Hateful Eight
9. Creed
10. Inside Out
11. The Night Before
12. Trainwreck
13. Jurassic World
14. The Big Short
15. The Walk
16. Mad Max: Fury Road
17. The Good Dinosaur
18. Everest
19. Minions
20. Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials

Updated my list, but I still have a bunch I need to see.

[imsounoriginal]

Still have a few movies left to see, but I've done write-ups for the movies included as of now. Hope y'all check it out and like it. (Shoutout to Foggy, copped his list design a bit )

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...28&postcount=7

[AaronJ]

Originally Posted by Foggy

Just so you know. You'll probably need to edit your list on the first page as only one list will be accepted as it will skew the results.

Of course. I don't know why I didn't think of that. Thanks.

[spectre08]

Originally Posted by spectre08

1. Ex Machina
2. Mad Max: Fury Road
3. It Follows
4. Inside Out
5. Creed
6. Jupiter Ascending
7. The Martian
8. Sicario
9. Dope
10. The Hateful Eight
11. The Look of Silence
12. What We Do In the Shadows
13. Avengers: Age of Ultron
14. Ant-Man
15. Chappie
16. Ted 2
17. Kingsman: The Secret Service
18. No Escape
19. The Intern
20. Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials
21. The Divergent Series: Insurgent
22. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2
23. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
24. Tomorrowland
25. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

posted my list

[spectre08]

oops. I forgot Lost River came out this year. I squeezed it between Jupiter Ascending and The Martian and kicked Rogue Nation off the bottom of the list

[Talleyrand]

Hey I see Wild Tales being posted a lot, even though it came out in 2014. Was it's wide release in 2015? (I thought I saw it in 2014 but I could be wrong.) Because I am pretty sure it will sneak on my list if so.

Thanks

[Jasonic]

Originally Posted by Talleyrand

Hey I see Wild Tales being posted a lot, even though it came out in 2014. Was it's wide release in 2015? (I thought I saw it in 2014 but I could be wrong.) Because I am pretty sure it will sneak on my list if so.

Thanks

Only film festivals in the US during 2014, didn't get a limited/wide release till 2015, so yeah it counts for 2015.