In an effort to highlight older films, here are the best films I watched this year that were not released in 2024 or 2023. I've also disqualified films from the 1930s, because those have been covered in my various Top Ten lists. Entries are unranked and listed below by release date.
Small Time Crooks (2000) - I can't write off Woody Allen's films, because too much great work from his collaborators exists in them. Take "Small Time Crooks," which has one of the best performances I've ever seen from Tracey Ullman. I also really enjoy the way this goes from a heist comedy to a class comedy back to a heist comedy, with one of the best second act plot twists I didn't see coming.
Pump Up the Volume (1990) - Captures a very specific time and place when radio was the medium of choice for the young and anarchic. The teenage angst is all too familiar, but Christian Slater manages to express it in a way that resonates unusually well in the present day. It's a nice reminder that angry young men don't have to be destructive or hateful in expressing their disconnection with the world.
Matewan (1987) - A coal miners' strike in West Virginia brings a union organizer to a poor mining community that's about to turn into a powder keg. John Sayles does a fantastic job of establishing the time and place, capturing the conflict from multiple POVs, and creating some really hateable villains to root against. The inevitable shootout is impressive, but may be the least interesting part of the film.
Threads (1984) - Far darker and more nihilistic than I was expecting. This made-for-television film about a fictional nuclear attack on the UK famously traumatized a generation of viewers during the Cold War. However, it's not the attack that's so horrific, but the detailed documentation of the effects this has on the survivors and the environment, both in the immediate aftermath and far into the future.
…And Justice For All - (1979) - A Norman Jewison directed dark comedy about the failings of the American legal system. It's best known for the bit where Al Pacino gets to deliver one of his most famous, blistering monologues. However, it's the image of Jeffrey Tambor as an attorney in the middle of a nervous breakdown that really stuck with me. I miss this era of courtroom dramas.
Going in Style (1979) - We've seen so many sentimental "one last heist" movies, it's a shock to discover that this one, from the great Martin Brest, is so cynical as to border on bleak. It's wish fulfillment, but at the same time a pointed critique on how society treats the elderly. George Burns always seemed to be playing a caricature of himself in later years, but here he's dead serious, and a real heartbreaker.
The Demon (1978) - This horrific Japanese melodrama about child abuse is one of the most upsetting things I've ever seen put on film, and it's no longer remotely socially acceptable to make anything like it. The direct violence is fairly minimal, but the psychological oppressiveness is unyielding and deeply painful to witness. This is on a short list of films I know I will never watch again.
Spirits of the Dead (1968) - Roger Vadim, Louis Malle, and Federico Fellini made three of the sexiest, campiest adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe's work ever filmed for this anthology, with the most attractive cast you could have in the 60s. There's Jane Fonda pining for her own brother, Alain Delon being very nasty to Brigitte Bardot, and Terence Stamp all tortured and disheveled. How does this exist?
Come Drink With Me (1966) - We lost the great Chang Pei-Pei this year, a female action star who rose to prominence along with director King Hu thanks to this film. The fight sequences are highly stylized, but expertly staged, with Hu bringing his own influences from Chinese opera and dance to the filmmaking. The inn sequence is still incredibly influential - quoted in the premiere of "The Acolyte," even.
By the Law (1926) - I'm ashamed that I didn't know that film theorist Lev Kuleshov, who the Kuleshov effect was named after, was also a director! "By the Law" is an absolutely fantastic piece of work, about gold miners in the frozen north who have to decide how to deal with a captured crazed murderer. The storm sequences are incredible, and the performances genuinely still chilling to watch.
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