Benjamin Judge's judgements

Things are getting exciting now. We’re into my top one hundred films of the year. It’s a bit annoying that I need to add extra words to this introduction to avoid the title of the first film coming up on the preview bit on social media but here we are. Top 100. Yes.

100: When Autumn is Coming

I am putting this film at 100 on the list but the truth is I don’t know where to put it, because I only saw the first twenty minutes, because I had to move seats, because the person sitting next to me in the cinema was, to put it bluntly, too middle class to respect other people watching the movie. I got anxious and couldn’t concentrate on the film so I had to leave. This sort of thing happens to me a lot at HOME. People sitting in your seat telling you, “Oh, we are just sitting wherever, unless you want me to move.” I genuinely hate it there. Great film programme but blimey, the middle class, dude. The middle class.

99: Ocean with David Attenborough

Containing some deeply upsetting footage of dredging fishing, this is an important and powerful documentary. Arguably the best thing Attenborough has ever made. You will never look at a scallop the same way.

98: Game Changer

I have read reviews that say that this isn’t S. Shankar’s best film, and it bombed at the box office, but it was my first so I had nothing to compare it to. I just enjoyed the spectacle. Of all the Indian films on my list, Game Changer is probably closest to what most Western audiences think all Bollywood is, the story of a young government inspector trying to win the love of a beautiful woman, broken up by hugely flamboyant song and dance numbers. It is also a (slightly crazed) protest against goverment corruption. I really enjoyed it. Great hero, great bad guy, enormous dance numbers. Yes please.

97: Four Mothers

Basically the story of one man coping with all his friends fucking off to Pride in Maspalomas and leaving their mothers at his house. All those mothers. Imagine it.

96: Captain America: Brave New World

This got a bit of a cool response and I will admit, I enjoyed it more on the second viewing than the first. And then a friend wanted to see it so I saw it a third time. I know that it isn’t perfect. I too wish that they would stop writing stories where Sam Wilson has to prove he is worthy of the shield and just let him get on with using the thing. I think, dramatically, it was probably an error to have him not take a super serum because when a Hulk throws a transit van at him, or what have you, you do start to question why he isn’t dead yet. But… having said all that… I think this film is pretty alright actually.

95: September Says

This story of two sisters living in their own world, struggling to deal with the real one was unlike anything else I saw this year.

94: The Smashing Machine

In what was inevitably seen as a battle of the Safdie brothers, The Smashing Machine got a bit lost in all the Marty Supreme excitement. It’s a shame because the two films are telling very different stories, in very different ways, and this was always intended to be a far quieter and less showy picture. And yes, I am a hypocrite because this is way lower on my list than Marty Supreme, but all I am really saying is just, give The Smashing Machine a chance. The Rock punched a door in half for you. Repay the love, guys.

93: Stolen

I love a ninety minute film. They seem to be getting increasingly rare so a new source of them is always welcome. That that source is India, who are decades ahead of Hollywood’s move toward normalising three-and-a-half hour run times, was a surprise. To me at least. I wouldn’t call myself an expert.

Anyway, Stolen is inspired by the true tragedy of two young men who were lynched by a mob in Assam. It tells the story of two brothers who are falsely accused of stealing a baby while they are actually attempting to help its mother find her. It is both a scream against the influence of social media and really tightly paced thriller.

92: Freakier Friday

A proper old-fashioned family movie. Lots of fun.

91: Presence

Steven Soderbergh seems to be really enjoying his retirement from retirement, setting himself little challenges and seeing where they take him. Presence, a ghost story from the point-of-view of the ghost, uses that premise to tell a story about family and grief.

90: The Bad Guys 2

Wasn’t expecting a lot. Hadn’t seen the first one. Really enjoyed it.

89: Holland

This got such bad reviews that I nearly didn’t watch it. Surely everybody can’t be wrong, can they? I don’t know though, because I thought Nicole Kidman was great in this. All twitchy and not quite aware of her own actions, asking her colleague help her work out if her husband is having an affair while seemingly oblivious to the fact that she is on the edge of having an affair with that same colleague. Making meatloaf. Going to clog dances.

People said it was too quirky. I thought it was the right amount of quirky.

88: The Ice Tower

One of those dreamy European playing with the edges of reality ones. A young girl, an actress and the Ice Queen. Proper classy.

87: Lurker

Théodore Pellerin is outstanding in this as the hanger-on to a musician’s fame who worms his way into their life and then destroys it from the inside out. His motivation is never quite explained, never quite shown. He is unreadable, his face a blank that fake emotions flicker on to and then disappear again. It’s brutal. A horror where the monster is just an insatiable unknowable need.

86: The Fire Inside

There were quite a few boxing movies this year. I really enjoyed this one, that told the story of Claressa Shields and her battles inside and outside the ring.

85: Architecton

An almost glacially paced look at one or two thoughts about architecture. And yes, I know, that doesn’t sound like a compliment. But while this film took its time, and for a long part of it you wonder exactly how bad the circle thing they are making is going to look when it is finished, the final reveal is like a magic trick, revealing a beauty beyond the aesthetic.

84: On Swift Horses

A really old-fashioned (in a good way) Hollywood movie but with a story line you couldn’t have made in the fifties or sixties if you wanted to.

83: Warfare

After the shitshow that was last year’s Civil War, I didn’t hold out much hope for this one but I was pleasantly surprised. Not really a story, Warfare is an attempt to reconstruct the events of a mission from the memories of the people who were there. The refusal to put a narrative onto the events leaves the viewer to draw their own conclusions, and they did, in many and opposing ways, which I think shows the film succeeded in what it was trying to do.

82: Last Swim

It is A-Level results day, but for Ziba the bright future ahead of her might be taken away from her by illness. And so, unbeknownst to anyone but herself, she plans a perfect ‘last’ day with her friends.

This film really brilliantly captured the mood of being a teenager, and somehow managed to fit the entire teenage experience into a single day without it feeling contrived or artificial. The cast are superb.

81: Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

I think this was the first Bridget Jones film I have seen, though the first one was so prominent in popular culture that I think I absorbed it through osmosis, like those people who know exactly what happens in Star Wars without seeing it. I was a bit worried it would be stuffed with call backs and references that only made sense to fans. I needn’t have worried. I understood everything.

The trick to the film working, I think, is having a character who is a bit of a disaster in her personal life but brilliant at her job. It grounds the character. It gives the story an anchor to hold on to. I should probably get round to watching the first three at some point.

80: Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story

A documentary about a writer that, to my shame, I haven’t read anything by. Very interesting.

79: Detective Ujjwalen

A murder mystery with a bit of a Sherlock Holmes vibe. But a Sherlock Holmes who is afraid of the dark.

78: Christy

Sydney Sweeney seems to constantly find herself the battleground of some culture war or other but if we can, I’d like us to ignore all that and just concentrate on her performance in this film. She is brilliant. The film follows the route of a lot of sports dramas but if you watch Sweeney, her reaction to each victory is subtly different, moving from surprise to joy to expectation to gloating to showmanship to showboating, and sometimes back again. Her commitment to the role (and, in fairness, Chad Coleman’s brilliant portrayal of Don King) are what lift the film.

77: A Complete Unknown

Timothée Chalamet is adorable in this wildly historically inaccurate musical biography of Bob Dylan.

76: Saiyaara

This film made more money at the British box office than The Accountant 2 (despite the latter being shown in three times as many cinemas) but, as far as I can tell, didn’t get a single review in a British newspaper. Makes you think, eh?

Anyway, Saiyaara is a bit of a weepy one, with early onset dementia spoiling a love story for everybody. Good film though.