2015: 25 Films

Every year, I try my best to honor the best that cinema had to offer. Each of these films challenged us and provoked us in their own unique way, but altogether they spoke to a collective longing. A drive. Our hopes, anxieties, nightmares, and dreams. The order is somewhat scientific, mostly arbitrary, but these cinematic wonders are all undoubtedly extraordinary.

Music: "Experience," by Ludovico Einaudi.

The 25:

1. The Witch (Robert Eggers)
2. The Revenant (Alejandro G. Inarritu)
3. Victoria (Sebastian Schipper)
4. Ex Machina (Alex Garland)
5. Phoenix (Christian Petzold)
6. The Big Short (Adam McKay)
7. The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino)
8. The Stanford Prison Experiment (Kyle Patrick Alvarez)
9. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller)
10. Sicario (Denis Villeneuve)
11. Spotlight (Tom McCarthy)
12. Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg)
13. Carol (Todd Haynes)
14. 45 Years (Andrew Haigh)
15. Room (Lenny Abrahamson)
16. Anomalisa (Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson)
17. 99 Homes (Ramin Bahrani)
18. Macbeth (Justin Kurtzel)
19. Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens (J.J. Abrams)
20. The End of the Tour (James Ponsoldt)
21. The Tribe (Miroslav Slaboshpitsky)
22. The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthiamos)
23. It Follows (David Robert Mitchell)
24. The Look of Silence (Joshua Oppenheimer)
25. Amy (Asif Kapadia)

Honorable Mentions: Creed, World of Tomorrow, The Martian, Kumiko the Treasure Hunter, Kingsman: The Secret Service.

This video has been put together as a tribute to the films involved and as an editing exercise, and should not be considered under breach of any copyright. All rights are reserved by the creators of the films themselves.