Best Films of 2020 [List]

[Hayden]

15) (tie)

Lovers Rock Dir. Steve McQueen
Points: 136

14)

The Vast of Night Dir. Andrew Patterson
Points: 140

13)

First Cow Dir. Kelly Reichardt
Points: 149

12)

Dick Johnson Is Dead Dir. Kristen Johnson
Points: 151

11)

Another Round (Druk) Dir. Thomas Vinterberg
Points: 175

#1's: 1

[Hayden]

10)

American Utopia Dir. Spike Lee
Points: 183

9)

The Trial of The Chicago 7 Dir. Aaron Sorkin
Points: 199

8)

Never Rarely Sometimes Always Dir. Eliza Hittman
Points: 223

#1's: 1

7)

The Father Dir. Florian Zeller
Points: 225

6)

Nomadland Dir. Chloe Zhao
Points: 226

#1's: 1

[Hayden]

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5) Palm Springs
Dir. Max Barbakow
Points: 229

"You get one more sentence."

"OK. Even though I pretend not to be I've realized that I am completely co-dependent but I'm cool with it because I think that life should be shared now and I need you to survive, but it's so much more than that: I know you better than anyone knows you and remember the night that we saw the dinosaurs you said it yourself in order to ever really know anyone you need to know the entire package the good and the bad and I've seen your package and it is excellent Sarah & you're my favorite person that I've ever met and yes I know that it's crazy odds that the person I like the most in my entire life would be someone I met while I was stuck in a time loop but you know what else is crazy odds getting stuck in a time loop... I hope that blowing ourselves up works but it's really irrelevant to me as long as I'm with you and if it kills us well then I'd rather die with you than live in this world without you!"

[Hayden]

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4) Soul
Dir. Pete Doctor
Points: 237
#1's: 4

"Music is all I think about. From the moment I wake up in the morning... to the moment I fall asleep at night. I was born to play. It's my reason for living."

[Hayden]

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3) I'm Thinking of Ending Things
Dir. Charlie Kaufman
Points: 271
#1's: 2

"Coming home is terrible whether the dogs lick your face or not; whether you have a wife or just a wife-shaped loneliness waiting for you. Coming home is terribly lonely, so that you think of the oppressive barometric pressure back where you have just come from with fondness, because everything's worse once you're home. You think of the vermin clinging to the grass stalks, long hours on the road, roadside assistance and ice creams, and the peculiar shapes of certain clouds and silences with longing because you did not want to return. Coming home is just awful. And the home-style silences and clouds contribute to nothing but the general malaise. Clouds, such as they are, are in fact suspect, and made from a different material than those you left behind. You yourself were cut from a different cloudy cloth, returned, remaindered, ill-met by moonlight, unhappy to be back, slack in all the wrong spots, seamy suit of clothes dishrag-ratty, worn. You return home moon-landed, foreign; the Earth's gravitational pull an effort now redoubled, dragging your shoelaces loose and your shoulders etching deeper the stanza of worry on your forehead. You return home deepened, a parched well linked to tomorrow by a frail strand of... Anyway... You sigh into the onslaught of identical days. One might as well, at a time... Well... Anyway... You're back. The sun goes up and down like a tired whore, the weather immobile like a broken limb while you just keep getting older. Nothing moves but the shifting tides of salt in your body. Your vision blears. You carry your weather with you, the big blue whale, a skeletal darkness. You come back with X-ray vision. Your eyes have become a hunger. You come home with your mutant gifts to a house of bone. Everything you see now, all of it: bone."

[Hayden]

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2) Sound of Metal
Dir. Darius Marder
Points: 278

"Ruben, you hurt yourself, you hurt me. I'll hurt myself, too. I'll hurt myself, too."

[Hayden]

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1) Minari
Dir. Lee Isaac Chung
Points: 332

"Minari is truly the best. It grows anywhere, like weeds. So anyone can pick and eat it. Rich or poor, anyone can enjoy it and be healthy. Minari can be put in kimchi, put in stew, put in soup. It can be medicine if you are sick. Minari is wonderful, wonderful!."

[Hayden]

Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/besteverfilms/li...s-of-2020/

[Hayden]

Fun facts / Stats—

Film that appeared on the most lists: Minari
Highest-ranked film not nominated for an Oscar: I'm Thinking of Ending Things (#3)
Hightest-rated entry on Letterboxd and IMDb: American Utopia
Lowest-rated entry on Letterboxd and IMDb: On The Rocks (Letterboxd), Let Them All Talk (IMDb)
Highest box-office: The Invisible Man

Non-English films: 11 (including partial)
Documentaries: 5
Animated films: 4
TV Movies: 4
Plays: 1
Concerts: 1
Directorial debuts: 12

—This is the second year in a row BEA's top film of the year is in Korean.
—Minari was not placed at #1 on anyone's personal lists

[Hayden]

And that's the list

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