In an effort to highlight older films, here are the best films I watched this year that were not released in 2023 or 2022. I've also disqualified films from the 1940s, because I'll be writing about several of them for Top Ten lists in the next few months. Entries are unranked and listed below by release date.
Lady Windermere's Fan (1925) - The Ernst Lubitsh directed adaptation of the Oscar Wilde play is less concerned with skewering Victorian moral hypocrisies, and more concerned with touching melodrama. Also, an awful lot of Wilde's dialogue is lost because this is a silent film. However, the actors are excellent, especially May McAvoy as the title character, and Lubitch is a deft hand at engineering farce and pathos.
Havoc in Heaven (1961) - One of the highlights of Chinese animation, created by industry pioneers, the Wan brothers. The film depicts the early days of the famous Monkey King from "Journey to the West," specifically his rebellion against the Chinese pantheon of gods and demons. With character designs taking their cues from Peking opera traditions, this set the standard for the many, many adaptations of "Journey to the West" that followed.
Immortal Love (1961) - One of Keisuke Kinoshita's best domestic melodramas, starring Hideko Takamine and Tatsuya Nakadai as a bitter couple who hate each other throughout their long, eventful marriage. It's a typical love story until it's not, transforming in its second half into this fascinating look at how people cope with disappointments and regrets. It's also got the best performance I've seen from Nakadai, as the crippled, self-loathing husband.
Hollywood Shuffle (1987) - Robert Townsend famously was a struggling actor who observed too many of Hollywood's terrible practices in portraying African-American characters up close. So, he independently wrote, produced, directed, and starred in this scorching satire of Hollywood from the African-American perspective. The film often gets by on sheer enthusiasm more than anything else, but the talent of the filmmakers is undeniable.
Salaam Bombay! (1988) - Mira Nair's film debut follows the progress of life in a poor red light district in Bombay, with a special emphasis on the plight of its street children. The cycles of exploitation, addiction, and vice are especially poignant to witness, as the young hero's hopes are dashed over and over again. There's a lot of shameless heartstring tugging, but the movie is so well made and so humane in its outlook that I couldn't care less.
Running on Empty (1988) - River Phoenix had such a fantastic screen presence. This is the kind of film that could have so easily been maudlin and overdramatic, but between Sidney Lumet's careful direction and Phoenix's performance, the film stays small and intimate and wonderfully personal. They really don't make films like this anymore, where the characters are allowed to be so wonderfully ordinary in spite of their unique circumstances.
Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991) - A startling reminder that the Material Girl, at the peak of her powers, was a cultural force to be reckoned with. The provocation was all on purpose, the controversy was the point, and the music still makes me wanna dance. Madonna herself is often terrible, often admirable, and just so deeply fascinating to watch. Has there ever been another female pop star who embraced her own notoriety like Madonna?
Like Water for Chocolate (1992) - I want this movie to be better than it is, because I love the story and the characters and the whole magical realist approach to the material so very much. However, the execution occasionally falls short, and there are points where director Alfonso Arau clearly bit off more than he could chew. However, when the film works, it's about the most delicious, fantastical, over-the-top romantic cinema you could hope for.
Drag Me to Hell (2009) - It took me a while to warm up to Sam Raimi's charms, which are funnier and sillier than I gave them credit for. This gleefully heightened supernatural tale is all about leaning into the grossness and the weirdness of the pulp horror. You can bet our heroine is going to get what's coming to her, and the audience is going to have a great time. Alison Lohman pretty much disappeared after this film, and it's such a shame.
The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016) - Finally, this is a small, unassuming horror film with a very simple premise, but the participation of Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch make all the difference. Not many horror movies get me to care as much about the characters before all the terrible things start happening to them. I didn't expect much from the film, and discovering it this year was one of my better surprises.
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