The 30 best films of 2020

No two ways about it, 2020 has been an absolute stinker. But see­ing as this time of year is tra­di­tion­al­ly one of giv­ing thanks and being grate­ful, let’s set aside all the bad stuff and take a moment to con­sid­er the many amaz­ing movies which, in spite of every­thing, have made the past 12 months a lit­tle more bearable.

For this edi­tion of our annu­al round-up of our favourite new releas­es, we’ve broad­ened our scope slight­ly, tak­ing into account the numer­ous dis­rup­tions brought about by the pan­dem­ic and sub­se­quent lock­downs. That being said, the below list once again com­pris­es 30 fea­ture films that have received some form of the­atri­cal or dig­i­tal dis­tri­b­u­tion this year, or else are sched­uled to be made wide­ly avail­able very soon.

Check out the full list below, and once you’re done be sure to share your favourite films of 2020 with us @LWLies.

What we said: ​“It’s a danse macabre, the medieval alle­go­ry of humanity’s union in death, and a memen­to mori straight from the plague era – delayed in its release due to COVID-19. Per­haps it’s a bless­ing then that She Dies Tomor­row has emerged now. Rather than drag­ging us down with it, the film is a reminder that it’s alright to be fright­ened, to have days when every­thing feels like too much.”

Read our full review

What we said: ​“And Then We Danced is rev­o­lu­tion­ary, not only for its will­ing­ness to fea­ture a gay sex scene in an envi­ron­ment where the very notion of LGBT+ exis­tence is con­demned, but also for the essen­tial mes­sage weaved into every frame. Cen­tral is Gelbakhiani’s Merab learn­ing to love him­self against the divi­sive back­drop of Geor­gian cul­ture. Lev­an Akin expos­es just how beau­ti­ful a recla­ma­tion of tra­di­tion can be.”

Read our full review

What we said: ​“Lee packs a lot into this film, address­ing black trau­ma, addic­tion, father­hood, white sav­iourism, the inglo­ri­ous­ness of war, vio­lence and hero­ism. To be a war hero in Da 5 Bloods isn’t to storm into vil­lages Ram­bo-style – kick­ing ass and sav­ing the day – it is to be like Mil­ton L Olive III, throw­ing your body onto land mines to pro­tect your fel­low sol­diers and dis­in­te­grat­ing into a pile of blood, sinew and bone.”

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What we said: ​“Ques­tions of her­itage and his­to­ry, of blood­lines and inde­pen­dence, make Mogul Mowgli a sin­cere and bal­anced work, at its best in quick­fire dream sequences, such as Zed’s visions of the mys­te­ri­ous ​‘Toba Tek Singh’. Direc­tor Bas­sam Tariq beau­ti­ful­ly cap­tures the tex­tures of Zed’s world and his father’s mem­o­ries that infil­trate his new under­stand­ing of his life: the dust, ash­es, talc, spices, crushed flowers.”

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What we said: ​“A play­ful and joy­ous cin­e­mat­ic expe­ri­ence; the threads that Moore and Stew­art and screen­writer Will Collins weave togeth­er feel noth­ing short of mag­i­cal. As a whole the revi­sion­ist his­to­ry of Wolfwalk­ers is rous­ing, empow­er­ing in its belief in the need to fight for the envi­ron­ment, and belief in the capa­bil­i­ty of the cur­rent gen­er­a­tion to do so.”

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What we said: ​“Wol­lias­ton, who plays the con­clud­ing part’s unnamed pro­tag­o­nist, is in real life a chore­o­g­ra­ph­er liv­ing in France, attrib­uted with help­ing devel­op con­tem­po­rary African dance in main­land Europe in the 1970s. In the con­text of the film, she’s not pre­sent­ed as hav­ing any appar­ent ties to dance in a pro­fes­sion­al capac­i­ty, but as some­one so deeply touched by the evo­ca­tion of mater­nal grief that she’s inspired to per­form ​‘Moth­er’ from mem­o­ry in her home, her sole audi­ence being any spir­it linked to the young boy in a framed pho­to­graph next to which she lights a candle.”

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What we said: ​“An exceed­ing­ly well-told ghost sto­ry that comes with a par­tic­u­lar­ly intense brand of haunt­ing, as aggres­sive shape-shift­ing spir­its do far more than mere­ly go bump in the night, and as the dirty inte­ri­ors of the house read­i­ly trans­form into liq­uid expans­es of guilt or pri­mal African scenes. Yet at the same time this is an urgent alle­go­ry, as the domes­tic dis­tur­bances crys­tallise the dis­lo­ca­tions that form part of the fur­ni­ture for those who have been forced to go far from home and to be ​‘reborn’ in a new land.”

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What we said: ​“This film knows its pur­pose as a fleet­ing salve for the soul, and serves it gen­er­ous­ly. The momen­tous chal­lenges fac­ing our species won’t be swept away – if any­thing, they’re fore­ground­ed – but they’re made tol­er­a­ble if only for the hour and a half of rap­ture afford­ed by Byrne’s joy­ful nois­es. That’s a pre­cious thing, achieved only through his peer­less tal­ent and con­trol as a show­man. Which is just to say, same as it ever was.”

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What we said: ​“Much of Bacurau’s nar­ra­tive might appear to fol­low that of a stan­dard revenge fan­ta­sy flick. But, to reduce the film a sim­ple expres­sion of hor­rif­ic vio­lence to this would be to under­es­ti­mate its com­plex­i­ty. The film is, with all its tropes and tri­umphs, an intri­cate por­trait of Brazil­ian soci­ety and all the con­tra­dic­tions that exist with­in it. Explic­it and bloody ret­ribu­tive jus­tice from a com­mu­ni­ty that has been wronged by just about every author­i­ty there is appears to dri­ve the plot, but thrum­ming just below the sur­face is a cen­tral theme: arrogance.”

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What we said: ​“Cory Fin­ley delights in show­ing sociopa­thy at its most banal; in Bad Edu­ca­tion, it’s greedy pub­lic school admin­is­tra­tors who insist their hard work for a thank­less job should come with greater resti­tu­tion. The scenes between Jack­man and Alli­son Jan­ney, who plays assis­tant super­in­ten­dent Pam Gluck­lin, are com­e­dy dyna­mite, while Ray Romano – fast becom­ing the king of sup­port­ing roles – is equal­ly delight­ful as real estate bro­ker ​“Big Bob Spicer”, togeth­er mak­ing for one of the best ensem­ble casts of the year.”

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What we said: ​“Rather than the paint-by-num­bers girl pow­er of Cap­tain Mar­vel and Won­der Woman, Birds of Prey presents flawed, mul­ti-faceted women as more than an after­thought in male-dri­ven nar­ra­tives. Quinn’s inces­sant nar­ra­tion dis­tracts a lit­tle from the sto­ry, but oth­er­wise this is a wel­come ton­ic to the grim­dark macho worlds of Bat­man v Super­man and Jus­tice League.”

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What we said: ​“Lib­erté is not a com­e­dy that evokes bel­ly laugh­ter, but one that elic­its coiled amuse­ment at the idea of the micro­dra­mas that arise from such a sit­u­a­tion. Albert Ser­ra man­aged a sim­i­lar tonal bal­anc­ing act in his pre­vi­ous film, The Death of Louis XIV; here though, roles are enforced, cou­plings are sug­gest­ed and then sud­den­ly reneged upon, com­plete sex­u­al equal­i­ty appears to be the rules of the game, though clear class struc­tures remain.”

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What we said: ​“Per­haps death scares us so much because we are so resolved in our pur­suit to ignore it; we waste so much time fear­ing it instead of cel­e­brat­ing life. In a scene near the begin­ning of the film, Dick lays down in his own cof­fin and takes a nap. It’s a mor­bid moment, but Kirsten laughs, and Dick does too. It doesn’t make the pain go away entire­ly, but maybe it’ll make things a lit­tle eas­i­er. Isn’t that what we all real­ly need?”

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What we said: ​“Life’s bit­ter con­tra­dic­tions inevitably take a toll on every human being, but none more so than the writer with plen­ty of time on their hands. The men­tal cost of end­less­ly think­ing and philosophis­ing are read­i­ly appar­ent through­out Pietro Marcello’s mes­meris­ing dra­ma Mar­tin Eden, which trans­pos­es Jack London’s Oak­land-set nov­el about a self-made novelist/​poet who expe­ri­ences suc­cess and cre­ative dis­ap­point­ment dur­ing an unspe­cif­ic moment in 20^th-cen­tu­ry Naples.”

Read our full review in our Mank issue

What we said: ​“What a breath of fresh air Shan­non Murphy’s debut fea­ture is. It stars Eliza Scanlen as Mil­la Fin­lay, a 16-year-old can­cer patient who (yep, you guessed it) devel­ops an infat­u­a­tion with a local né’er-do-well after they meet on a train plat­form on her way home from school. Based on Rita Kalne­jais’ play of the same name, it’s an effer­ves­cent com­ing-of-age sto­ry that man­ages to be hon­est, imp­ish and com­plete­ly dev­as­tat­ing in a sin­gle breath.”

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What we said: ​“By now we know that the #MeToo move­ment hasn’t solved the deep-root­ed prob­lems of sex­u­al abuse and coer­cion with­in the enter­tain­ment indus­try, but it has shone a light on them. The Assis­tant is a fit­ting­ly aus­tere, uncom­fort­able film, mak­ing use of a drea­ry, mut­ed colour palette and office-based white noise rather than music in order to under­score Jane’s iso­la­tion, but also the way women are forced to throw them­selves into their work to pre­vent think­ing about the dark­er issues which plague the industry.”

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What we said: ​“Sib­lings Bill and Turn­er Ross have made a film which, on its sur­face, offers a vale­dic­to­ry salute to a musty insti­tu­tion that is in trag­ic decline: the Amer­i­can dive bar. They check any sense of judg­ment or con­ser­v­a­tive moral­is­ing at the door and trace a bac­cha­na­lian binge across a sin­gle night at a crum­my-look­ing Las Vegas snug called The Roar­ing 20s as its staff and reg­u­lars gath­er to toast this tum­ble­down tavern’s final day in operation.”

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What we said: ​“The tone is rem­i­nis­cent of the unflinch­ing­ly sin­is­ter, qua­si-sur­re­al Dog­tooth by Yor­gos Lan­thi­mos, and even boasts a cer­tain class-clash lit­er­ary pedi­gree, recall­ing the likes of Eve­lyn Waugh’s ​‘Vile Bod­ies’ and William Thackery’s ​‘Van­i­ty Fair’. Yet there’s a won­der­ful speci­fici­ty to Par­a­site which makes it such a cap­ti­vat­ing film: piv­ot­ing from hys­te­ria to grotesque on dime, it’s a blood­thirsty farce, yet even when the sto­ry can be applied to just about any cap­i­tal­ist soci­ety in the world, it serves as a reminder of how fear­less and inno­v­a­tive South Kore­an film­mak­ing con­tin­ues to be.”

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What we said: ​“Biopics of mod­ern Hol­ly­wood tend to skew toward tired Oscar-bait hagiog­ra­phy – but David Finch­er is David Finch­er, and his take on the genre proves it is pos­si­ble to present a his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tive with­out star­ry-eyed rev­er­ence. His rep­u­ta­tion as a per­fec­tion­ist pre­cedes him but it pays div­i­dends in a film like this; metic­u­lous­ly designed to look and sound like a con­tem­po­rary of Cit­i­zen Kane rather than a film mere­ly about Kane, it’s Netflix’s rich­est pro­duc­tion to date, com­plete with a bewitch­ing Trent Reznor and Atti­cus Ross score that wouldn’t feel out of place in a 1940s screw­ball comedy.”

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What we said: ​“Every frame of Céline Sciamma’s film could hang in a nation­al gallery. Cos­tume design­er Dorothée Guiraud des­ig­nates the women with com­ple­men­tary colours: red for Mar­i­anne and green for Héloïse. DoP Claire Math­on, mean­while, out­lines the fig­ures against the bril­liant blues of the sea and sky. All of this could be stuffy in the wrong hands, but Sciamma’s film­mak­ing is star­tling­ly mod­ern and full of energy.”

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What we said: ​“With a cast of first timers ground­ing the dra­ma, Rocks is both a love let­ter to com­mu­ni­ty and a nod to Black women who sel­dom get to be girls. The cen­tral group of Rocks , Sumaya (Kosar Ali), Khadi­ja (Tawhe­da Begum), Yawa (Afi Okaid­ja), Sabi­na (Anas­ta­sia Dymitrow) and Agnes (Ruby Stokes) speak to one anoth­er with the free­ness and short­hand that comes nat­u­ral­ly from attend­ing an all girl’s school, unre­strict­ed by self-doubt or male attention.”

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What we said: ​“In one remark­able scene, Buck­ley recites from Pauline Kael’s scathing review of John Cas­savetes’ A Woman Under the Influ­ence as if it’s her own stream of con­scious­ness. The deci­sion to ref­er­ence one of the most famous films about a woman men­tal­ly unrav­el­ling with­in a film osten­si­bly about a woman men­tal­ly unrav­el­ling appears at first a wry Kauf­man­ism, but the more one thinks about it – in light of what pre­cedes the moment and what comes after – the stranger it all becomes.”

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What we said: ​“Bradley empha­sis­es con­nec­tions through mon­tage, as Fox makes the same emo­tive and artic­u­late plea at speak­ing engage­ments and she’ll appear notice­ably old­er in some more than oth­ers. The evoca­tive use of the tin­kling, frag­ile piano music by Ethiopi­an ​‘singing nun’ Ema­hoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou is a mas­ter­stroke of con­text, link­ing these black-and-white images to some bygone era, mak­ing the film feel like the lost reels of a silent classic.”

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What we said: ​“Eliza Hittman’s work as a film­mak­er is always under­stat­ed, remark­able in its pre­ci­sion and hon­esty. Her pre­vi­ous fea­ture, Beach Rats, depict­ed inter­nalised homo­pho­bia with a sim­i­lar acute­ness, and Nev­er Rarely Some­times Always nails the dis­turb­ing real­i­ty of repro­duc­tive rights in Amer­i­ca today, high­light­ing how few options are avail­able to vul­ner­a­ble women and how the pro-life lob­by has become pow­er­ful to the extent many women feel no con­trol over their own body.”

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What we said: ​“The resid­ual impres­sion is that these women are trapped and there’s noth­ing in their super­nat­ur­al under­stand­ing that changes this. The chord Deck­er plucks with Shirley is from the inte­ri­or world, where women’s wild ener­gies have the room to play out in full. It’s the same place from which fic­tion flows, and the thwart­ed can have their day to do with what­ev­er they will. Deck­er shows us the real cage and she shows us the imag­i­nary free­dom – a sanc­tu­ary that is weight­ed with more impor­tance than any real-life devastation.”

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What we said: ​“Aside from the fact that this is Roy Andersson’s most naked­ly mov­ing film to date, there’s still much fun to be had from guess­ing how he’s phys­i­cal­ly able to cre­ate these mag­i­cal moments. Aside from a few exte­ri­or shots here and there, every­thing is filmed using sets and stages, and you’re left to mar­vel at just how he man­aged to, say, have a full-sized train pass through a sta­tion, or fash­ion a street scene where there are tiny fig­ures work­ing away behind shop windows.”

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What we said: ​“Emer­ald Fennell’s debut fea­ture comes at a time when this intro­spec­tion feels more vital than ever, forc­ing us to con­front our ten­den­cy toward com­pla­cen­cy in the face of unpleas­ant home truths. It seems ridicu­lous that we keep hav­ing to go over this basic prin­ci­ple, but the sys­tem is fucked from the top down, and we’re all caught in its web, hope­less­ly kick­ing out in attempts to find a way through. For as long as we have been mak­ing art we have been using it as a means to both process trau­ma and hit back at the flaws of the soci­ety that has birthed and raised us. ”

Read more in our Promis­ing Young Woman issue

What we said: ​“Although in the social por­trai­ture is bleak in First Cow, there is a lush­ness in the green land­scapes, the white light and the warm and respect­ful way that Cook­ie and Lu inter­act with their world and each oth­er. There are visu­al and the­mat­ic par­al­lels with Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace, as well as Kel­ly Reichardt’s own Old Joy from 2006. The meek may not inher­it the earth, but dur­ing the fleet­ing moments that they are allowed to com­mune with it, there are flick­ers of the peace that could be.”

Read our first-look review

What we said: ​“Nomad­land might recall the work of Ter­rence Mal­ick and Kel­ly Reichardt, but Zhao is not ​“the next” any­one – she’s the first Chloé Zhao, and to speak of a film­mak­er only in terms of what came before is to do them a dis­ser­vice. Zhao’s tal­ent for cap­tur­ing the fringes of mod­ern Amer­i­ca with­out any hint of melo­dra­ma or voyeurism builds a deep trust between sto­ry­teller and sub­ject, and it’s thrilling to see her evolve with each new project. The melan­choly lyri­cism of Nomad­land is some­thing tru­ly spe­cial, and this qui­et mar­vel of a film deserves your attention.”

Read our full review in our Mank issue

There has been some debate over whether Steve McQueen’s anthol­o­gy about Black resilience and tri­umph in London’s West Indi­an com­mu­ni­ty qual­i­fies as a TV minis­eries or a series of films. For his part, the direc­tor has stat­ed that the five stand­alone sto­ries com­pris­ing Small Axe were con­ceived and pro­duced as fea­ture-length films – and who are we to argue with him.

For the sake of this list, how­ev­er, we’ve decid­ed to group Man­grove, Lovers Rock, Red, White and Blue, Alex Whea­tle and Edu­ca­tion togeth­er, because while each has its own dis­tinct cin­e­mat­ic mer­its, col­lec­tive­ly these films rep­re­sent some­thing greater for the medi­um, and sin­gling out just one for praise didn’t seem right. A major artis­tic achieve­ment and a water­shed moment for Black British cul­ture, Small Axe is by turns defi­ant, joy­ous and sober­ing in its depic­tion of the every­day real­i­ties of racial prej­u­dice and injus­tice, the insid­i­ous per­sis­tence of which makes McQueen’s state­ment all the more urgent and affecting.

What have been your favourite films this year? Let us know @LWLies