This week I’ve got sixteen movie recommendations, beginning with six on my list of Best Movies of 2015.
- Mustang, about exuberant Turkish teenage girls challenging traditional repression.
- Creed, the newest and entirely fresh chapter in the Rocky franchise; it’s about the internal struggle of three people, not just The Big Fight.
- The Irish romantic drama Brooklyn is an audience-pleaser with a superb performance by Saoirse Ronan.
- Youth, a glorious cinematic meditation on life with Michael Caine.
- Spotlight – a riveting, edge-of-your-seat drama with some especially compelling performances.
- The Big Short – a supremely entertaining thriller – both funny and anger-provoking.
Here are ten more choices. There’s something for everyone.
- Legend – a true-life story and the best crime drama of 2015. Tom Hardy plays both gangster twin brothers.
- Carol – a vividly told tale of forbidden love.
- Very Semi-Serious – a Must See documentary if you love the cartoons in The New Yorker. It’s showing on HBO.
- Macbeth – an excellent new version of Shakespeare’s exploration of ambition. Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard star.
- Hitchcock/Truffaut – a Must See for serious movie fans, this insightful documentary probes documentary Alfred Hitchcock’s body of work.
- Chi-Raq: Spike Lee’s plea for inner city peace with justice, AND it’s a sex comedy.
- Bridge of Spies – Steven Spielberg’s Cold War espionage thriller with Tom Hanks, featuring a fantastic performance by Mark Rylance.
- Trumbo – the historical drama that reflects on the personal cost of principles.
- Don Verdean – a dark satire on the faux scientists embraced by the Christian Right.
- Spectre – action and vengeance from a determined James Bond.
I’m not a fan of Joy or The Danish Girl.
This week, you can set your DVR for two classic film noir classics on January 9. The 1962 Cape Fear features Robert Mitchum at his most menacing. Kiss of Death includes Richard Widmark’s breakthrough performance as psychopath Tommy Udo.
On January 11, Turner Classic Movies will present Sullivan’s Travels (1941). The great Preston Sturges created this fast-paced and cynical comedy about a pretentious movie director who goes out to be inspired by The Average Man – and gets more of an adventure than he expects. There has never been a better movie about Hollywood. It’s on my A Classic American Movie Primer – 5 to Start With.
