Drew’s Top 10 Movies of 2020

2020. What a year. If I didn’t know any better I would’ve assumed that QAnnon actually turned out to be correct and all the deepstate Hollywood pedophiles got corralled by the Trump administration and thrown into prison with how the movie industry has been doing recently. In previous years I was a pretty active theatergoer and stayed on top of new releases as much as I could. With that being next to impossible (or at the very least reckless) given the current state of affairs, a lot of movies I definitely would’ve seen in theaters ended up being barfed out onto streaming services. It’s not that I didn’t watch any movies in 2020, it’s just that I find it difficult to justify watching a new release that I’m only sort of interested in instead of something that’s been in my backlog forever that I actually really want to watch. Either way I’ll be watching it on a laptop. With that being said, there are ten films from 2020 that I did like that are worth checking out.

10. Monster Hunter 

It’s Paul WS Anderson’s world and we’re just living in it. There’s such a specific style and feel to his movies that you either love or hate, but I’d personally take a bullet for the man. I think what makes his video game adaptations work so well is he understands what makes games fun and how to translate that into film. You’re not coming into a Monster Hunter movie for quiet character moments, you come to say “damn that’s a big monster” and watch Mila Jovovich fight it. I get that these sorts of movies aren’t for everyone but they’re very much for me. The editing here is a pretty big improvement over Resident Evil: The Final Chapter and some of the VFX work looks really fantastic. Bummed that I wasn’t able to see this one in a theater but either way it whoops all kinds of ass.

9. Bad Trip

This was briefly available at the beginning of lockdown but was quickly pulled offline after being acquired by Netflix to be released later in 2021, but I watched it forever ago so I’m counting it. It’s always good when a comedy movie is actually funny. Pretty boilerplate hidden camera prank movie, but I think what really makes it work are all the scripted scenes being performed in front of random unsuspecting people as well. It takes what otherwise would’ve been a generally pretty eye-rolley script and turns it into something that’s genuinely heartwarming. I’m excited to revisit this one when it comes out on streaming.

8. Sound of Metal

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect going into this movie. I heard a lot of talk about it being “anxiety inducing” and “terrifying” so I was pretty surprised to find myself watching a very subdued and sympathetic drama film about how sensitive our identities are and how we deal with them changing without warning. So I guess in that way it’s pretty stressful, I had never considered that one day I might just wake up deaf until I watched this movie. If you haven’t watched it, maybe you hadn’t considered it either until reading this list. One day you might not even wake up at all! You’re welcome.

7. Da 5 Bloods

This deserves to be on here for Delroy Lindo’s performance alone, but I also just found the story here to be super fascinating. I love any war movie that looks through the eyes of people that aren’t boots-on-the-ground soldiers and this is no different. Five African-American Vietnam vets returning to the country as a bunch of geezers in modern times opens the door for a bunch of interesting perspectives on the conflict that I had never considered. I feel like this one sort of came and went but a lot of the points it raises about faith, race, empire, and family have really stuck with me and more people should give it a watch.

6. Shithouse

She’s a shit… HOUSE. Been sitting on that one for a while sorry. Cooper Raiff’s debut film Shithouse is a brutally honest and relatable depiction of being an awkward loser living away from home for the first time. Making a movie about growing up through college that isn’t the shittiest student film of all time is no easy task, but he does it with an incredible amount of accuracy and specificity. It would’ve been higher on my list had it not drudged up a bunch of memories that I’ve long suppressed. Raiff is one to watch for sure.

5. Soul

I watched this on New Year’s Eve and what a way to end 2020. Outside of the world ending, last year was an especially challenging year. It was the first time I realized that I truly have no idea what I want out of life. I don’t think you ever really do though, and that’s okay. What other purpose is there to life outside of just living? If this had come out when it was originally scheduled to in June I’m not sure it would have fully had the same impact on me that it did, but I’ve experienced a lot of life in the past year and this really spoke to me. 

4. Murder Death Koreatown

Inherent Vice meets Blair Witch Project made in the age of 21st-century internet conspiracy theories. I totally get why some people thought this dragged, but I was glued to the screen for the entirety of its runtime. It feels less like you’re watching a movie and more like you’re scrolling through the camera roll of someone falling into a schizophrenic mania but does it in such a way that you’re never just watching a crazy person; there’s always a little voice in the back of your head nagging “hey, what if he’s onto something?” Thoroughly entertaining up until the chilling ending. 

3. Promising Young Woman

I can’t imagine any world where my opinion on this movie matters to anyone, but for whatever it’s worth I think it’s really great. There are several scenes in this film that left me feeling deeply disturbed and upset in a way that no movie since Michael Haneke’s Funny Games has. Every creative choice here is done so deliberately and confidently, this film grabs you by your shoulders and screams at you to listen. Carey Mulligan is a national treasure, easily one of the strongest performances I saw all year. Bo Burnham is also fantastic and it’s really great to see him start to show up in some more serious material. He’s definitely playing himself here but he’s such a naturally charming dude that I want him in a supporting role in at least a dozen movies a year. Let’s make it happen Hollywood.

2. Some Kind of Heaven

A documentary about the largest retirement community in the world sounds like a recipe for the dullest movie of all time, but Lance Oppenheim’s debut blew me away. It would be easy to just point cameras at the looney old people doing stupid shit and laugh, but that’s what Twitter videos are for. Some Kind of Heaven instead focuses more specifically on three different people in the community and shows what life is really like for them in what is supposed to be Heaven on Earth for America’s senior citizen population. It depicts a totally bizarre and alien world in a way that doesn’t treat its subjects like aliens themselves. Sad, strange, sweet, and very uniquely human. Loved this a lot. 

1. Tenet

This is the most Christopher Nolan-ass movie of all time but somehow also the first Nolan movie I’ve genuinely loved. The plot here is Metal Gear Solid levels of nonsensical but it isn’t asking you to buy into the story, just the internal logic of the film. I hate to be the guy to tell you to not read into it too much and just have a good time, but this movie is a hell of a time if you don’t try and “figure it out” and instead just sorta vibe with the incredibly choreographed action sequences and mind-bending mechanics. This movie has a pretty lengthy runtime at 2 hours and 20 minutes but there’s virtually zero filler in Tenet, every scene exists to show you something you’ve never seen before and I love it for that. Maybe this movie killed theaters forever and I would have loved to catch it on the big screen but either way, I had an absolutely fantastic time with it.