Favorite Films of the 2020s Thus Far.

Oppenheimer
West Side Story
Tár
Dune (Parts 1 and 2)
The Zone of Interest
The Holdovers
Skinamarink
The Power of the Dog
The Banshees of Inisherin
The Hater

Oppenheimer
Skinamarink
The Fabelmans
Barbarian
Malignant
Banshees of Inisherin
Avatar 2
Sound of Metal
Top Gun: Maverick
Old (I hated it when I saw it, but goddamit its just never not on my mind)

Good to see you! I've been seeing your feed on Letterboxd from time to time, so I know you've been alive, at least.

1. Red Post on Escher Street (Sion Sono) - The most "life-affirming" movie I've ever seen, a jolt of joy unlike anything else.

2. RRR (S.S. Rajamouli) - Maximalist euphoria, succeeding as a musical, as an over-the-top action movie, as a movie on the bonds of friendship, as a meditation on the cost of revolution, even as a heartwarming romantic comedy!

Those are the big two, everything else is a long ways behind:

Agnes (Mickey Reece) - Warning: I am the only person in the world who likes this movie. It is half riotous exorcism movie spoof (one review called it Scary Movie for exorcism films), and half gentle observation of a woman losing her faith and questioning God. Most people don't connect with one side or the other, but I got a huge laugh out of "My sister was possessed by a demon named Byooooooooon" and was stabbed through the heart with "I was even starting to love God." This is a curious film that won't connect with 95% of people, but those 5% remaining will find something extraordinary.

The Artifice Girl (Franklin Ritch) - A movie about the rights and safety of children, and our responsibilities towards them as adults. Very talky and philosophical, but if you're into movies that are nothing but people discussing ethics for 90 minutes, BOY HAVE I GOT THE FILM FOR YOU.

Emma. (Autumn de Wilde) - They made Jane Austen funny again!

Fast & Feel Love (Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit) - A silly (and very, very funny) spoof movie wrapped around a delicate portrait of youth's aimlessness and avoidance of their problems. In a just world, Urassaya Spurbund (who speaks fluent English in this movie - she plays an American) would be a Hollywood star after a turn like this... but in a just world, Hollywood would be making movies that deserve her talent.

The House (Emma De Swaef, Marc James Roels, Niki Lindroth von Bahr, Paloma Baeza) - An anthology black comedy about homeownership. Yeah, it's a bit niche. The three stories do a great job of connecting with each other thematically, exploring what a house *means* to the people who own it. The tales range from frightening (the first is essentially a haunted house story) to comedic (the second recalls David Lynch's Eraserhead) to heartbreaking (the final story about a landlord whose only tenants are friends that can't pay for the necessary upkeep of her house), with all of them forming a thesis together.

Monica, O My Darling (Vasan Bala) - A wild murder mystery comedy about three men who all plan to murder a woman together... only for things to go very wrong, with our killers trying to figure out what happened before they are caught by the cops or killed by some other unknown murderer. Very breezy with a magnificent original soundtrack.

In alphabetical order:

All Quiet on the Western Front
The Eight Mountains
The Father
Flee
Happening
Promising Young Woman
Society of the Snow
Tár
Wolfwalkers
The Zone of Interest

an even dozen

All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh)
Asteroid City (Wes Anderson)
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)
Decision to Leave (Park Chan-wook)
Dune I & II (Denis Villeneuve)
The Father (Florian Zeller)
May December (Todd Haynes)
Monster (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion)
Spencer (Pablo Larraín)
Top Gun: Maverick (Joseph Kosinski)
West Side Story (Steven Spielberg)

1. Annette
2. Pearl
3. The Holdovers
4. Monster
5. The Worst Person in the World
6 .Oppenheimer
7. Late Night with the Devil (maybe recency bias, but thought it was amazing… liked it way more than everyone else seems to)
8. Another Round
9. Vortex
10. RRR

Da 5 Bloods
Nope
Oppenheimer
Killers of the Flower Moon
Dune: Part II
John Wick: Chapter 4
The Tragedy of Macbeth
The Last Duel
The Invisible Man
Old

i think there are 7 masterpieces i've seen so far:

RRR (Rajamouli, 2022)
The Beast (Bonello, 2023)
Zack Snyder's Justice League (Snyder, 2021)
Cerrar los ojos (Erice, 2023)
Skinamarink (Ball, 2022)
Roller Junkies! (Masters, 2022)
Coma (Bonello, 2022)

if i had to give 3 more great films to round out a top 10, then

DAU. Degeneration (Khrzhanovsky & Permyakov, 2020)
What Do We See When We Look at the Sky (Koberidze, 2021)
Trenque Laquen (Citarella, 2022)

1.Oppenheimer

2.The Zone Of Interest

3.Babylon

4.Dune

5.Killers Of The Flower Moon

6.Past Lives

7.Drive My Car

8.The Banshees of Inisherin

9.The Power Of The Dog

10.Tar

11.The Father