The 20 best films of 2015 | Little White Lies

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The 20 best films of 2015

03 Dec 2015

Illustrated poster showing 2 faces in profile, one man and one woman, against a blue background. The text reads "TOP 25 FILMS OF 2016".
Illustrated poster showing 2 faces in profile, one man and one woman, against a blue background. The text reads "TOP 25 FILMS OF 2016".
From Mad Max to Sun­set Song, find out what came out on top in our annu­al count­down of the year’s best releases.

Attempt­ing to dis­till 12 months’ worth of movies into a sin­gle best of’ list is nev­er a straight­for­ward exer­cise, but while there was plen­ty of debate around the order­ing of the cream of year’s bumper crop, the num­ber one spot was decid­ed unan­i­mous­ly. The fol­low­ing count­down com­pris­es 20 of our favourite films to receive a UK the­atri­cal release in 2015, as cho­sen by our staff writ­ers and ranked accord­ing to their indi­vid­ual top 10s. How many have you seen?

Woman with long brown hair standing in front of a vibrant, colourful graffiti wall.

What we said: The char­ac­ters talk trash with as much bite as Nic­ki Minaj, defi­ant­ly spit­ting in the face of good taste. Lines like, You didn’t have to Chris Brown the girl!’ zing from the mouths of Tay­lor and Rodriguez, pro­vid­ing unadul­ter­at­ed joy in the process. There are shades of John Waters-style debauch­ery at times and it’s all the more enjoy­able for it, but it is also sin­cere, unguard­ed and feels lived in.”

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A woman wearing a blue patterned dress and a blue head wrap, standing in front of a blue tiled wall.

What we said: Joan­na Lipper’s doc­u­men­tary is, how­ev­er, a mul­ti­ple issue film. It attains its pow­er by root­ing Hafsat’s strug­gle against a crosshair of dif­fer­ent forces, tak­ing the time to atten­tive­ly and vivid­ly express their source. Using archive footage she tells the sto­ry of Nigeria’s mil­i­tary polit­i­cal history.”

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Colourful, fantastical scene with four cartoon characters and a surreal, imaginary landscape in the background.

What we said: The sharp wit of the writ­ing and detailed imagery of the world-build­ing com­bine in a way that pro­vides end­less sur­face delights and chuck­les. Yet Pete Doc­ter and Ronal­do del Carmen’s film goes deep­er and fur­ther, trav­el­ling in a focused arc from the brain’s well-lit cen­tre to its dark­est reaches.”

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Two men, one wearing a denim jacket and the other a suit, seated at a table, engaged in conversation.

What we said: The film is at once fran­tic and lacon­ic, sprawl­ing and inti­mate, utter­ly con­fus­ing and whol­ly straight­for­ward. It’s shot on film, which seems ger­mane con­sid­er­ing it’s a sto­ry which exists on an excit­ing fron­tier between one era and the next. ”

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Two women with curly hair, one wearing a white jacket and the other wearing a black jacket, having a conversation outdoors.

What we said: Longinotto’s rare skill is in that she makes advo­ca­cy doc­u­men­taries by stealth, espous­ing the work of cer­tain peo­ple and groups with­out ever hav­ing to explic­it­ly state the fact. ”

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Blonde woman with long hair holding a candelabra in a dimly lit room.

What we said: The film pays lip ser­vice to goth­ic chillers like Gaslight and The Inno­cents, but it also chan­nels Hitch­cock (par­tic­u­lar­ly Psy­cho and Noto­ri­ous), Ham­mer mae­stro Ter­ence Fish­er, Polan­s­ki (The Ten­ant and Cul-De-Sac) even Min­nel­li. The film’s great­est vic­to­ry, how­ev­er, it that it val­ues roman­ti­cism over cynicism.”

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Two people - a woman in a blue dress and a man in a black suit and hat - embrace on a grassy field against a backdrop of hills.

What we said: This film is a reimag­in­ing of Alice’s Adven­tures in Won­der­land’ where the white rab­bit leads the way to a dread waste­land of tin­pot can­ni­bal over­lords, fetid bogs, dream caves and ter­rains whose for­mu­la­tion and topog­ra­phy appear to open­ly mock those who attempt to con­quer them.”

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Person in grey garment with arms raised, silhouetted against blue sky.

What we said: Oram’s own thou­sand-yard dead­pan is chill­ing and amus­ing in equal mea­sure, but there’s also very game sup­port­ing turns from Toy­ah Will­cox, Julian Bar­ratt (who spends the entire film clutch­ing a length of Bat­ten­burg) and Julian Rhind-Tutt. I’ve nev­er laughed so hard at the tragi­com­e­dy of three peo­ple hav­ing a qui­et kick-about on an emp­ty field while it’s raining.”

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Woman sitting on bathtub holding vintage telephone, surrounded by greenery.

What we said: It real­ly is hard to think of anoth­er movie quite like this, one so nat­u­ral­ly har­monised with the rugged topog­ra­phy of teenage sex­u­al­i­ty but that refus­es to set its stall as Sex Ed 101.”

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Two individuals, a man and a woman, looking intently at each other in a dimly lit setting.

What we said: It may sound like a dra­mat­ic cop out, but Phoenix exam­ines a brand of evil that exists beyond human com­pre­hen­sion, where actions are so devoid of the con­stituents of naked com­pas­sion that one might well become vio­lent­ly detached from any sense of ratio­nal perspective.”

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Man sitting on sofa in rustic wooden room, with dog beside him.

What we said: Is this mak­ing light of men­tal ill­ness? No. Direc­tor Mar­jane Satrapi and scriptwriter Michael R Per­ry both have wild idio­syn­crat­ic imag­i­na­tions and their com­bined indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and com­ic dar­ing have result­ed in a para­dox­i­cal trea­sure trove.”

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Two individuals, a man and a woman, sitting together in a dark setting, with the woman wearing a black leather jacket and the man wearing a floral patterned shirt.

What we said: Cos­ta frames each shot like a sta­t­ic mur­al, drap­ing fig­ures and objects in gulfs of dark­ness which spill forth from beyond the mea­sure of the frame. These dig­i­tal images, beau­ti­ful and grotesque, con­jure a sense of apoc­a­lyp­tic grandeur at eye lev­el, cap­tur­ing dilap­i­dat­ed inte­ri­ors at impos­si­ble angles and moon­lit clear­ings with dis­arm­ing austerity.”

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Grim-faced men inside a battered vehicle, one looking out angrily, another gripping the door.

What we said: Few could have pre­dict­ed that Miller would be bold enough to force his icon­ic hero to take a back­seat in favour of a refresh­ing fran­chise – not to men­tion indus­try – sub­vert­ing fem­i­nist subtext.”

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Man in blue top playing music on turntables in front of audience

What we said: His­to­ry and the pass­ing of time in Eden are pre­sent­ed as entire­ly expe­ri­en­tial, and while the film does rough­ly adhere to a mar­ket­ing syn­op­sis which infers a musi­cal biopic cov­er­ing some 20 years of this spe­cif­ic scene’, it’s much more than a series of care­ful­ly mount­ed Wiki-touchstones. ”

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A Black man in a suit gesticulating and speaking passionately.

What we said: Sel­ma would pass as a great movie what­ev­er the cur­rent news agen­da, as it explores issues of uni­ver­sal import such as the nuances of pop­u­lar protest, the media as a tool for polit­i­cal dis­sem­i­na­tion, how rhetoric can be trans­formed into action, and the fact that rad­i­cal change will only like­ly be achieved by wad­ing through pools of hot blood.”

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A man wearing a dark turban and scarf covering his face, looking directly at the camera.

What we said: Still, it would be ludi­crous to sug­gest that the film attempts to absolve these fun­da­men­tal­ists. On the con­trary, Sis­sako expos­es the soft tis­sue beneath their armour, their crimes made all the more trag­ic by how del­i­cate­ly he’s able to lift the veil.”

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Two men seated in a car, one wearing a black jacket and cap and smiling.

What we said: Taxi Tehran has a grand sense of humour. It rather lov­ing­ly sug­gests that crime and pun­ish­ment are rel­a­tive terms; one man’s seri­ous offence is anoth­er woman’s slap on the wrist.”

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Close-up of a person wearing red eye examination lenses with dials.

What we said: While respect­ing the com­plex­i­ty of both stand­points, The Look of Silence is not an emo­tion­al democ­ra­cy between killers and vic­tims. It is an anguished trib­ute to those that suf­fer bru­tal injus­tice abstract­ly and in the par­tic­u­lar dev­as­tat­ing scheme of this film.”

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A person covered in straw sheaves standing in a golden wheat field.

What we said: The plush splen­dour of the land­scape is a ton­ic for Chris’ woes. It’s her one con­stant. Davies films exte­ri­ors in 65mm and cap­tures the idyl­lic rap­ture of gen­tly shim­mer­ing wheat fields but avoids undue romanticisation.”

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Two women and a man seated at a table, engaged in conversation. The women appear to be discussing something intently, with one woman's hand raised to her face in a pensive gesture. The setting is a cosy, old-fashioned room with floral wallpaper in the background.

What we said: The sto­ry­telling is as clear as a pol­ished win­dow­pane. Every­thing serves the point that love is the still heart of a chaot­ic world: the frost­ed puri­ty of the colours, the state­ly pac­ing, the yearn­ing score by Carter Bur­well, the way that Ed Lachman’s cam­era always drinks in a space before dia­logue kicks in which in turn cre­ates a grace­ful rhythm. Haynes con­ducts all ele­ments as indi­vid­ual instru­ments that come togeth­er in one har­mo­nious chord which means the most pri­mal and won­drous of feelings.”

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What have been your favourite films of 2015? Com­ment below or let us know @LWLies

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