I started this last year, keeping a list of every movie I see all year (just the new releases) in order to form a definitive set of personal rankings come the following January. My 2014 list started on February 9th when I saw That Awkward Moment starring Zac Efron, Miles Teller and Michael B Jordan (the previous month had been full of 2013 late releases I didn’t make it to before New Year’s Eve). That underrated film stayed in the number one spot for weeks as the studios dumped out all the projects they didn’t believe in during those Oscar-distracted winter months. Slowly (and I mean very slowly) the year began to heat up and my list eventually totalled 110 films, most of which I really liked (though few of which I really loved).
Now, keep in mind that this list is all the 2014 films I saw in 2014, and not a day later. I didn’t get to see, for whatever reason (the extremity of their pre-January limited release, my own bad decision making) quite a few movies that I was pretty sure I would have loved. Lynn Shelton’s Laggies, the great Chadwick Boseman in Get on Up, late-season releases Top Five, Big Eyes, A Most Violent Year, Selma and, the one I’m most upset about missing, Love is Strange with Alfred Molina and John Lithgow. I’m sure I’ll see them soon and maybe I’ll write about them then. In the meantime, here’s my full list of 2014 films. It’s far from comprehensive and it’s wildly subjective but that’s the point- it’s everything I saw (which definitely wasn’t everything) and how I felt about those films (not how objectively good they are). There are great films on this list that I hated and thus ranked dead last (*waves reluctantly at Gone Girl; fears for life*) and less objectively brilliant pieces that touched my heart and edged out dozens of things made with more technical proficiency or daring intellectual ideas.
Feel free to argue; I know you’ll want to: