In the year that lasted a decade, the movies helped us to escape like never before. Here are some of our boltholes.
Uncut Gems
Sarah McIntyre says: It is rare that a film as relentlessly propulsive and uniquely gripping as Uncut Gems comes along - probably about as rare and mesmerising as the uncut opal around which a lot of the action centres in this high-octane thriller. From acclaimed sibling filmmaking duo Josh and Benny Safdie, who were behind the excellent 2017 crime-drama Good Time starring Robert Pattinson, Uncut Gems similarly thrives on chaos and a mounting sense of stress that verges on panic-inducing. Adam Sandler puts in a career-best performance as Howard Ratner, a fast-talking Manhattan diamond district jeweller who funds his compulsive gambling habit with increasingly high-stakes dodgy dealings. An endlessly nerve-wracking, visceral assault of a movie.
Saint Frances
Harry Guerin says: Here's a film that would have graced cinemas in even the brightest of summers, managing to move from sad to funny, spiky to tender with such ease that your investment in the characters is absolute. And what characters. The double act to treasure is a 34-year-old misfit (played by the film's writer, Kelly O'Sullivan) and the six-year-old of the title (Ramona Edith Williams) that she's minding until school starts - but everyone has their moment here in a story all about the messiness of life. Saint Frances examines abortion, postnatal depression and more within the deceptively simple set-up, but it never becomes stuck in the issues. Throughout, there's the feeling that better times are just around the corner.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Paddy Kehoe says: This is a cool, almost ascetic work, exploring sexual repression and sexual longing - sides perhaps of the same 18th-Century French coin - between two young women, an artist (Noémie Merlant) and her portrait subject (Adèle Haenel). There is a sense of layers of the past and connections with bygone years toppling onto the present, that repeated motif of portraiture and perception, of desire freed from its shackles in the context of a deeply-founded family story. The movie seems to sag in the middle - there are longueurs in the actual consummation of the affair - but then it manages a wonderful cadenza towards the close. Powerful and profoundly beautiful.
The Lighthouse
Harry Guerin says: Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe bring out the best and worst in each other in The Witch director Robert Eggers' metaphysical Mutt and Jeff, set off the coast of 19th-Century New England. There's plenty of the Bard and Beckett in the brine as Eggers plots a course from merciless black humour to anchors aweigh! insanity in a story where every splash and chill has you burrowing deeper inside your clothes. Pattinson traces his lineage back to the monochrome masters while modern-day man of a thousand faces Dafoe delivers a side-splitting, nail-biting turn that ranks with anything on his CV. Really, you'd need one almighty manifest for all the delights here.
Saint Maud
Laura Delaney says: This brilliantly provocative first feature from writer-director Rose Glass is a supremely immersive psychological horror that builds steadily throughout its tightly-wound, 83-minute run time. Maud (Morfydd Clark) is a troubled private care nurse with dangerously novel ideas about palliative care. Inspired by her devout relationship with God, the pious Maud has big plans to 'save the soul' of a terminally ill has-been dancer (Jennifer Ehle). Clark is crucial to this unsettling mix and delivers a ferocious and wonderfully hypnotic performance that manipulates audience expectations. Saint Maud requires its audience to take a leap of faith, but based on its nerve-shredding ending alone, it's a rare horror movie that deserves to be worshipped.
Waves
Sarah McIntyre says: Writer-director Trey Edward Shults' drama Waves, a family story told in two parts, is dizzyingly ambitious and, at times, almost overwhelmingly intense. Tyler (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) is a high school senior who appears to have it all - a successful wrestling career that could see him land a prestigious college scholarship, a beautiful girlfriend, Alexis (Alexa Demie), and a seemingly supportive, loving family. Underneath the veneer of accomplishment, he's beginning to crack. The sense of unease builds and builds, achieved by the swirling camerawork; loud, disorientating soundtrack and the incredibly nuanced performances of the cast. A hard-hitting cinematic experience that has a long-lasting impact. Never an easy watch, but an affecting one.
Seberg
Paddy Kehoe says: Seberg is a thoughtfully intelligent film, dealing with American actress Jean Seberg's tragic Hollywood years, 1968 to 1971, following her reinvention in Paris in the Jean-Luc Godard classic À Bout de Souffle (Breathless). Director Benedict Andrews exercises caution by eschewing the whole story, the additional dramatic events that befell the Iowa-born actress, who took her own life at the age of 40 in 1979. Any quick search online will reveal material that a less subtle director would seize upon as added value for melodrama. Kristen Stewart is absolutely mesmeric as the titular gamine actress, whose legend began, and some might say ended, in the 1960s with her role in the aforementioned Breathless. Stewart's magnetic performance confirms something we feel reflexively about what Seberg might have been like. Surely, there is Oscar material here.
Les Misérables
Harry Guerin says: France's entry for this year's Best Foreign Film Oscar didn't receive the attention it deserved because of all the Parasite hullabaloo, but anyone who watches this crime-drama will do their word-of-mouth duty. The day after France's 2018 World Cup win, rookie detective Stéphane (Damien Bonnard) starts his first shift under the supervision of racist boss Chris (Alexis Manenti) and the strangely aloof Gwada (Djebril Zonga). Their beat is the Parisian suburb of Montfermeil - the area where Victor Hugo wrote and partly set his novel Les Misérables. In the sweltering heat, all the dominoes are about to fall... A cross between The Wire, Do the Right Thing and Training Day, Les Misérables is brilliantly paced, unbearably tense and a reminder that there are so many great actors whose work warrants further investigation.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Carole Coleman says: How did a children's TV host from Pennsylvania who broadcast in his slippers and a red cardigan get Hollywood movie treatment from Tom Hanks? Because he's Fred Rogers, of course. Rogers was the host of the long-running American series Mr Rogers' Neighborhood and a cultural icon to millions of Americans. A Beautiful Day... tells the sweet true story of what transpired when an investigative journalist (Matthew Rhys) was assigned to write a profile of him. Irish film fans unfamiliar with Mr Rogers' Neighborhood may be inclined to pass this up, but watch and get a real insight into a part of America long gone. Rogers didn't live to see the film, but it's a timely reminder that young children need someone to guide them gently through life's ups and downs. A digital device won't do that.
1917
Harry Guerin says: This is the film Sam Mendes should've made after Skyfall. A heart-in-mouth race against time, the most personal of tributes and the warning from history that we can't hear often enough, 1917 leaves its mark on viewers in different ways. Hopefully, the same will still hold true in another 103 years. Inspired by the service and stories of Mendes' WWI veteran grandfather, it focuses on two men among the masses, Lance Corporals Blake and Schofield (Dean Charles Chapman and George MacKay), as they criss-cross enemy territory. What follows has you checking your watch for all the right reasons as the shocks and twists keep on coming. And with every passing minute, 1917 strengthens its case for inclusion alongside any genre great you choose to mention.
Wolfwalkers
Alan Corr says: Seven years in the making by Kilkenny's Cartoon Saloon (The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea), Wolfwalkers is set in the Marble City during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. It tells the story of an apprentice English hunter, Robyn, who befriends Mebh, a member of a mysterious tribe that is rumoured to shape shift into wolves by night. Mixing magic with a far harsher reality and dealing with issues of divisions between town and country and Ireland and England, Wolfwalkers has been particularly praised for its exquisite animation, which marries a unique 2D style, a woodblock aesthetic and loose expressive line work. An Oscar nomination for Best Animated Film for directors Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart is already being mentioned, something we hear quite a lot about with Cartoon Saloon's work.
The Personal History of David Copperfield
John Byrne says: Armando Iannucci (The Day Today, Brass Eye, The Thick of It, Veep) boldly directs this perfectly pitched, superbly paced and imaginatively filmed version of one of Charles Dickens' greatest novels. The cast is fantastic, which means Dev Patel had to be on top form in the titular role. Alongside him are the likes of Tilda Swinton, Hugh Laurie, Peter Capaldi, Ben Whishaw and our own Bronagh Gallagher and Rosaleen Linehan. The premise is straightforward - David Copperfield takes to the stage to chronicle his complicated life - but what makes the film special is Iannucci's vision, the story rolling along at a tremendous pace, with scenes and situations smashing into each other. It's an absolute joy to watch, recommended to anyone who could do with putting a smile on their face.
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Harry Guerin says: A tour de force by the late Chadwick Boseman in a music drama filled with great performances, Ma Rainey's... is whip-smart, fast-moving, profound and, at times, very funny. It tells the story of a sweltering day in 1920s Chicago when Ma (Viola Davis) and her band rock up to a studio to make a new record. Ma's reign as 'Mother of the Blues' is looking shaky. She's getting older, she's crankier, tired and has youngsters nipping at her heels. Among them is her own trumpet virtuoso Levee (Boseman), another force of nature with lots of big ideas and a very short temper. Boseman's work here deserves a posthumous Oscar nomination - it shouldn't be the only nod for this movie. In the words of Ma's bandleader, "One, two, you know what to do..."
The Invisible Man
Laura Delaney says: Writer-director Leigh Whannell's (Saw, Insidious), cleverly produced reimagining of HG Wells' sci-fi novel, along with the original 1933 big-screen classic, is a painfully relevant and unsettling mind-bender that deserves your presence. From its opening frames, the film digs its claws in and doesn't let go as Cecilia Kass (Elisabeth Moss) finally escapes the grasps of her controlling partner (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), a famous optics pioneer. Ever the manipulator, he fakes his own death and uses his presence (or lack of) to continue his menacing ways. This socially-aware piece of cinema paints an immensely unnerving portrait of a woman in the clutches of a volatile relationship that becomes even more sinister when her abuser is no longer visible to the naked eye. Moss delivers a soul-shattering performance in a film that really needs to be seen to be believed.
Mank
Harry Guerin says: A thrilling what if?, a masterclass in zingers, a deep focus delight and proof that they can make them like they used to, Mank finds David Fincher turning his late father Jack's screenplay about the writing of Citizen Kane into a mischief-maximising must-see. Archly postulating the old blood-on-the-walls theory that all the heavy lifting on the script for Welles' 1941 masterpiece was done by former newsman Herman 'Mank' Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman), the Finchers' film covers the eternal war between art and commerce, politics, media manipulation, taking a stand, taking the cheque and more. Citizen Kane was nominated for nine Oscars, winning only one - Best Original Screenplay for Mankiewicz and Welles. Mank should have a far better night next April.
Broken Law
Paddy Kehoe says: Offaly writer-director Paddy Slattery's Broken Law is a strikingly engaging movie with an interesting premise as two brothers try to stay on the right side of the law in unusual circumstances. Nothing is as it seems in the slow-burning crime-drama with wayward young lad Joe (Graham Earley) and his garda brother Dave (Tristan Heanue) finding their nerve tested during the investigation of a robbery. To reveal more would be to spoil. Gritty and engaging, this Cain and Abel motif for our times features fine performances all around, with John Connors, Ryan Lincoln, Ally Ní Chiaráin, Gemma Leah Devereux and Gary Lydon also part of the cast. Broken Law's attractive score also features music from Idles, Conor O'Brien's Villagers and Katie Kim.
Finding Jack Charlton
Harry Guerin says: As Finding Jack Charlton reminds us - in this of all years - life doesn't turn out the way you planned it, so enjoy the golden moments when they come along. There are plenty of them here - and a lot more besides. This is a story as much about family and frailty as it is about football. Like Charlton's tenure as Ireland manager, Gabriel Clarke and Pete Thomas' film lifts spirits, and a sense of togetherness will be replenished for many. In its observations of life with dementia, there is an equally important message about devotion to older people, and the debt of gratitude for what we have - or had. The perfect tribute; now with an importance for a country that could never have been imagined when the cameras started rolling.
Onward
John Byrne says: This Pixar offering seems to have divided the reviewing classes in the United States, but for me it's yet another indicator of how strong Pixar remains, despite being swallowed whole by the Disney monolith in recent years. In short, it's a gem. Director Dan Scanlon lost his dad when he was just one, leaving him and his older sibling to be brought up by his widowed mother. That tragic event ultimately led him to Onward, a story of two fatherless teens. The central characters here - two elves called Ian and Barley, voiced by Tom Holland and Chris Pratt - go on a quest to bring their deceased dad back for one day. Onward isn't just great fun and a thrilling quest movie, it's also a touching story about loss and family. Only Pixar could produce a film that can simultaneously put smiles on kids' faces and bring a tear to adult eyes.
Kajillionaire
Laura Delaney says: Miranda July's beautifully off-kilter and fantastically ambitious offering stars Evan Rachel Wood as con artist Old Dol. The success of this wildly original and edgy melodrama hinges upon Wood's raw performance as an emotionally damaged woman who is yearning to be loved and July relishes in giving her character a sense of belonging. Beneath all the idiosyncrasies and unabashed absurd nature of the whole affair, Kajillionaire is bursting with symbolism about the construct of unrealistic family relationships and our struggle to carve out our own identities. Cinematographer Sebastian Winterø invites us into July's wonderfully oddball worldview and creates layers of meaning in every shot, Sam Lisenco's production design sealing the world completely into itself. A poetically rich gem that will alienate some viewers while proving its worth to others.
The Vast of Night
Harry Guerin says: For all the drama about Tenet's cinema release, the best sci-fi film went under the radar of the masses, but anyone who has seen The Vast of Night won't be long in ordering others to do the same. Andrew Patterson's superb thriller is set in 1950s New Mexico, where things start going bleep in the night during a school basketball game. Teenage DJ Everett (Jake Horowitz) and switchboard operator Fay (Sierra McCormick) investigate while nails are pared down to the quick on the other side of the screen. On a budget of $700,000, Patterson salutes the masterworks of Steven Spielberg and John Carpenter and classic TV shows The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits but - in his debut feature - also stakes a claim to his own part of the movie universe with a bravura that really is out of this world. The shape of things to come indeed.
