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It's been a weird year, with so many films pushed and not a huge amount of big awards contenders. That might be an opportunity for smaller films to suceed.

Anyway, here are my top films of the year, based on 2020 being the year of its first public release in the world. I've seen a handful of films in fests that won't be out til next year (including Shiva Baby, Gagarine, Violation, and one I produced), but will exclude them

Still to see Nomadland, Promising young Women, The Father, Soul, Minari, Sound of Metal, etc

TOP 10
Saint Maud
Babyteeth
First Cow
Shirley
Boys State
Wildland
Relic
The 40 Year Old Version
Kajillionaire
Wolfwalkers


OTHER GREAT FILMS
Dick Johnson is Dead
David Byrne's American Utopia
Dating Amber
New Order
Another Round
The Vast of Night
Palm Springs

Not much to write home about, though I haven't seen the remaining heavy hitters.

https://letterboxd.com/buscemi1/list/best-of-2020/

Going to hold off sharing my favorites until I get a chance to watch Ma Rainey, Sound of Metal, Promising Young Woman, One Night in Miami, Pieces of a Woman, Black Bear and a few others, but it's been a respectable year considering the circumstances and the awards race has a chance to get really exciting because of the lack of clear favorites and possibility that an early 2021 title that's no one's seen yet comes in and makes a splash.

Buscemi2 wrote: ↑

December 18th, 2020, 4:09 pm

Not much to write home about, though I haven't seen the remaining heavy hitters.

https://letterboxd.com/buscemi1/list/best-of-2020/

Some great films in there Boosch, although for me Bacarau, Varda by Agnes (I bought the Criterion box set), and Copperfield are all 2019 films.

I need to put down all the films I've seen this year. Probably not that much by my standards, but still a good 160/180 if I count all the Korean films I've watched for my festival. But counting only the films released in the US, I won't have that much. I'll take a look at it this week.

Still need to dig into some docs/foreign language titles and wait for Nomadland/Minari, but here's where I'm at right now:
1.The Invisible Man
2.Soul
3.The Trial of the Chicago 7
4.Birds of Prey
5.The King of Staten Island
6.Promising Young Woman
7.Charm City Kings
8.The Old Guard
9.Bad Boys for Life
10.One Night in Miami...
11.Love and Monsters
12.Black Bear
13.Extraction
14.Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
15.Uncorked
16.Freaky
17.Palm Springs
18.Sound of Metal
19.Project Power
20.The Rental

Olay, so I finally took a look at what I watched this year and came up with a list of my favourite films of the year. 4 Korean films, 3 Americans, 2 French and one Chinese.

Top 10, in no particular order :

- Les Choses qu'on dit, les choses qu'on fait (The Things we Say, the things we do) (France)
- The Climb (USA)
- Time to Hunt (South Korea)
- Antoinette dans les Cévennes (My Donkey, my lover and I) (France)
- Never rarely sometimes always (USA)
- Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains (China)
- Be Natural, the untold story of Alice Guy-Blaché (USA)
- A distant place (South Korea)
- Evaporated (South Korea)
- Not in this world (South Korea)

I saw them all before 2020, but if Tigers Are Not Afraid, The Colour Out Of Space or Blood Quantum count, then those are my Best Of 2020.

I really was not a fan of Tigers Are Not Afraid. It felt like it was trying too hard to be like Pan's Labyrinth.

Is it the same "Tigers are not afraid" I saw on the festival circuit in 2017 ? How long will this film be considered a "film of the year" ?

I think it's fair to say it's a 2019 film at the latest, as that's when it was released in more territories. I believe it came out in Mexico in 2017.

I think 2017 was when I saw it too, and I've been recommending it ever since. It seemed to sit on the shelf for ages, but I double-checked and apparently it got a proper North American release in late 2019, so I wasn't off by much. I saw it appear on some Best Of 2020 lists, so I threw it out there one last time.

I think it hit Shudder last year, which might explain its inclusion on some 2020 lists.