40 Favorite Films of 2015

by Blue_Leaf | created - 07 Dec 2015 | updated - 9 months ago | Public

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1. Amy (III) (2015)

R | 128 min | Documentary, Biography, Music

85 Metascore

Archival footage and personal testimonials present an intimate portrait of the life and career of British singer/songwriter Amy Winehouse.

Director: Asif Kapadia | Stars: Amy Winehouse, Mitch Winehouse, Mark Ronson, Russell Brand

Votes: 55,053 | Gross: $8.41M

2. Anomalisa (2015)

R | 90 min | Animation, Comedy, Drama

88 Metascore

A man crippled by the mundanity of his life experiences something out of the ordinary.

Directors: Duke Johnson, Charlie Kaufman | Stars: David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Noonan

Votes: 75,304 | Gross: $3.76M

3. Carol (2015)

R | 118 min | Drama, Romance

94 Metascore

An aspiring photographer develops an intimate relationship with an older woman in 1950s New York.

Director: Todd Haynes | Stars: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, Kyle Chandler

Votes: 142,374 | Gross: $12.71M

4. The Danish Girl (2015)

R | 119 min | Biography, Crime, Drama

66 Metascore

A fictitious love story loosely inspired by the lives of Danish artists Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener. Lili and Gerda's marriage and work evolve as they navigate Lili's groundbreaking journey as a transgender pioneer.

Director: Tom Hooper | Stars: Eddie Redmayne, Alicia Vikander, Amber Heard, Ben Whishaw

Votes: 199,248 | Gross: $11.11M

5. The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015)

R | 102 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

87 Metascore

A teen artist living in 1970s San Francisco enters into an affair with her mother's boyfriend.

Director: Marielle Heller | Stars: Bel Powley, Alexander Skarsgård, Kristen Wiig, Christopher Meloni

Votes: 33,556 | Gross: $1.48M

6. Everything Is Copy (2015)

TV-14 | 89 min | Documentary, Biography

88 Metascore

A look at the life and work of writer/filmmaker Nora Ephron.

Directors: Jacob Bernstein, Nick Hooker | Stars: Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Amy Adams, Reese Witherspoon

Votes: 1,141

7. Evolution (2015)

Not Rated | 81 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery

77 Metascore

The only residents of young Nicholas' sea-side town are women and boys. When he sees a corpse in the ocean one day, he begins to question his existence and surroundings. Why must he, and all the other boys, be hospitalised?

Director: Lucile Hadzihalilovic | Stars: Max Brebant, Roxane Duran, Julie-Marie Parmentier, Mathieu Goldfeld

Votes: 7,606

8. Ex Machina (2014)

R | 108 min | Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller

78 Metascore

A young programmer is selected to participate in a ground-breaking experiment in synthetic intelligence by evaluating the human qualities of a highly advanced humanoid A.I.

Director: Alex Garland | Stars: Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac, Sonoya Mizuno

Votes: 589,336 | Gross: $25.44M

9. Experimenter (2015)

PG-13 | 98 min | Biography, Drama, History

81 Metascore

In 1961, famed social psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a series of radical behavior experiments that tested ordinary humans' willingness to obey authority.

Director: Michael Almereyda | Stars: Peter Sarsgaard, Winona Ryder, Jim Gaffigan, Anthony Edwards

Votes: 19,685 | Gross: $0.16M

10. Far from the Madding Crowd (2015)

PG-13 | 119 min | Drama, Romance

71 Metascore

In Victorian England, the independent and headstrong Bathsheba Everdene attracts three very different suitors: Gabriel Oak, a sheep farmer; Frank Troy, a reckless Sergeant; and William Boldwood, a prosperous and mature bachelor.

Director: Thomas Vinterberg | Stars: Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael Sheen, Tom Sturridge

Votes: 53,719 | Gross: $12.23M

11. The Fits (2015)

Not Rated | 72 min | Drama, Music

90 Metascore

While training at the gym 11-year-old tomboy Toni becomes entranced with a dance troupe. As she struggles to fit in she finds herself caught up in danger as the group begins to suffer from fainting spells and other violent fits.

Director: Anna Rose Holmer | Stars: Royalty Hightower, Alexis Neblett, Da'Sean Minor, Lauren Gibson

Votes: 5,125 | Gross: $0.17M

12. 45 Years (2015)

R | 95 min | Drama, Romance

94 Metascore

A married couple preparing to celebrate their wedding anniversary receives shattering news that promises to forever change the course of their lives.

Director: Andrew Haigh | Stars: Charlotte Rampling, Tom Courtenay, Geraldine James, Dolly Wells

Votes: 35,137 | Gross: $4.25M

13. The Gift (VI) (2015)

R | 108 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller

77 Metascore

A married couple, Simon and Robyn, run into Gordo, an old classmate. Things take a turn when Gordo begins to drop in unannounced at their house and inundates them with mysterious gifts.

Director: Joel Edgerton | Stars: Jason Bateman, Rebecca Hall, Joel Edgerton, Allison Tolman

Votes: 172,086 | Gross: $43.77M

14. Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of Belief (2015)

Not Rated | 119 min | Documentary

80 Metascore

A documentary looking at the inner-workings of the Church of Scientology.

Director: Alex Gibney | Stars: Paul Haggis, Jason Beghe, Spanky Taylor, David Miscavige

Votes: 40,907

15. Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story (2015)

94 min | Documentary, Biography

75 Metascore

Harold and Lillian eloped to Hollywood in 1947, where they became the film industry's secret weapons. Nobody talked about them, but everybody wanted them. Theirs is the greatest story never told-until now.

Director: Daniel Raim | Stars: Lillian Michelson, Harold Michelson, Bill Krohn, Stuart Cornfeld

Votes: 940

16. The Hateful Eight (2015)

R | 168 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery

68 Metascore

In the dead of a Wyoming winter, a bounty hunter and his prisoner find shelter in a cabin currently inhabited by a collection of nefarious characters.

Director: Quentin Tarantino | Stars: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins

Votes: 659,736 | Gross: $54.12M

17. Hitchcock/Truffaut (2015)

PG-13 | 79 min | Documentary

79 Metascore

Filmmakers discuss how Francois Truffaut's 1966 book "Cinema According to Hitchcock" influenced their work.

Director: Kent Jones | Stars: Wes Anderson, Peter Bogdanovich, David Fincher, Bob Balaban

Votes: 7,182 | Gross: $0.30M

18. Inside Out (I) (2015)

PG | 95 min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy

94 Metascore

After young Riley is uprooted from her Midwest life and moved to San Francisco, her emotions - Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness - conflict on how best to navigate a new city, house, and school.

Directors: Pete Docter, Ronnie Del Carmen | Stars: Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling

Votes: 785,337 | Gross: $356.46M

19. The Invitation (I) (2015)

Not Rated | 100 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery

74 Metascore

When a man accepts an invitation to a dinner party hosted by his ex-wife, the unsettling past reopens old wounds and creates new tensions.

Director: Karyn Kusama | Stars: Logan Marshall-Green, Emayatzy Corinealdi, Michiel Huisman, Tammy Blanchard

Votes: 119,081 | Gross: $0.23M

20. The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst (2015–2024)

TV-14 | 45 min | Documentary, Biography, Crime

Filmmaker Andrew Jarecki examines the complicated life of reclusive real estate icon Robert Durst, the key suspect in a series of unsolved crimes.

Stars: Andrew Jarecki, Robert Durst, J. Patrick Burns, Dick DeGuerin

Votes: 51,544

21. The Lobster (2015)

R | 119 min | Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi

82 Metascore

In a dystopian near future, according to the laws of The City, single people are taken to The Hotel, where they are obliged to find a romantic partner in 45 days or they're transformed into beasts and sent off into The Woods.

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos | Stars: Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Jessica Barden, Olivia Colman

Votes: 296,376 | Gross: $8.70M

22. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

R | 120 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

90 Metascore

In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a woman rebels against a tyrannical ruler in search for her homeland with the aid of a group of female prisoners, a psychotic worshiper and a drifter named Max.

Director: George Miller | Stars: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Zoë Kravitz

Votes: 1,086,182 | Gross: $154.06M

23. A Man Called Ove (2015)

PG-13 | 116 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

70 Metascore

Ove, an ill-tempered, isolated retiree who spends his days enforcing block association rules and visiting his wife's grave, has finally given up on life just as an unlikely friendship develops with his boisterous new neighbors.

Director: Hannes Holm | Stars: Rolf Lassgård, Bahar Pars, Filip Berg, Ida Engvoll

Votes: 68,483 | Gross: $3.48M

24. The Martian (2015)

PG-13 | 144 min | Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi

80 Metascore

An astronaut becomes stranded on Mars after his team assume him dead, and must rely on his ingenuity to find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive and can survive until a potential rescue.

Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Kate Mara

Votes: 925,218 | Gross: $228.43M

25. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015)

PG-13 | 105 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

74 Metascore

High schooler Greg, who spends most of his time making parodies of classic movies with his co-worker Earl, finds his outlook forever altered after befriending a classmate who has just been diagnosed with cancer.

Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon | Stars: Thomas Mann, RJ Cyler, Olivia Cooke, Nick Offerman

Votes: 138,273 | Gross: $6.74M

26. Mustang (2015)

PG-13 | 97 min | Drama

83 Metascore

When five orphan girls are seen innocently playing with boys on a beach, their scandalized conservative guardians confine them while forced marriages are arranged.

Director: Deniz Gamze Ergüven | Stars: Günes Sensoy, Doga Zeynep Doguslu, Tugba Sunguroglu, Elit Iscan

Votes: 40,899 | Gross: $0.85M

27. Requiem for the American Dream (2015)

Not Rated | 73 min | Documentary, Biography, News

Renowned academic and author Noam Chomsky elucidates 10 principles of concentration of wealth and power that have led to unprecedented inequality and the hollowing out of the American middle class.

Directors: Peter D. Hutchison, Kelly Nyks, Jared P. Scott | Stars: Noam Chomsky, Alan Greenspan, Malcolm X, Richard Nixon

Votes: 9,886 | Gross: $0.13M

28. The Revenant (I) (2015)

R | 156 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

76 Metascore

A frontiersman on a fur trading expedition in the 1820s fights for survival after being mauled by a bear and left for dead by members of his own hunting team.

Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu | Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Will Poulter, Domhnall Gleeson

Votes: 874,289 | Gross: $183.64M

29. Room (I) (2015)

R | 118 min | Drama, Thriller

86 Metascore

A little boy is held captive in a room with his mother since his birth, so he has never known the world outside.

Director: Lenny Abrahamson | Stars: Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay, Sean Bridgers, Wendy Crewson

Votes: 450,486 | Gross: $14.68M

30. Sicario (2015)

R | 121 min | Action, Crime, Drama

82 Metascore

An idealistic FBI agent is enlisted by a government task force to aid in the escalating war against drugs at the border area between the U.S. and Mexico.

Director: Denis Villeneuve | Stars: Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, Benicio Del Toro, Jon Bernthal

Votes: 476,668 | Gross: $46.89M

31. Sleeping Giant (2015)

Not Rated | 89 min | Adventure, Drama

71 Metascore

While spending the summer in cottage country on the shores of Lake Superior, three teens cope with boredom by testing the limits of their experience.

Director: Andrew Cividino | Stars: Jackson Martin, Nick Serino, Reece Moffett, Katelyn McKerracher

Votes: 1,869

32. Son of Saul (2015)

R | 107 min | Drama, War

91 Metascore

A Jewish-Hungarian concentration camp prisoner sets out to give a child he mistook for his son a proper burial.

Director: László Nemes | Stars: Géza Röhrig, Levente Molnár, Urs Rechn, Todd Charmont

Votes: 51,949 | Gross: $1.78M

33. Spotlight (I) (2015)

R | 129 min | Biography, Crime, Drama

93 Metascore

The true story of how the Boston Globe uncovered the massive scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the local Catholic Archdiocese, shaking the entire Catholic Church to its core.

Director: Tom McCarthy | Stars: Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber

Votes: 502,118 | Gross: $45.06M

34. Straight Outta Compton (2015)

R | 147 min | Biography, Drama, History

72 Metascore

The rap group NWA emerges from the mean streets of Compton in Los Angeles, California, in the mid-1980s and revolutionizes Hip Hop culture with their music and tales about life in the hood.

Director: F. Gary Gray | Stars: O'Shea Jackson Jr., Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, Neil Brown Jr.

Votes: 218,468 | Gross: $161.20M

35. Steve Jobs (2015)

R | 122 min | Biography, Drama

82 Metascore

Steve Jobs takes us behind the scenes of the digital revolution, to paint a portrait of the man at its epicenter. The story unfolds backstage at three iconic product launches, ending in 1998 with the unveiling of the iMac.

Director: Danny Boyle | Stars: Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, Jeff Daniels

Votes: 178,522 | Gross: $17.77M

36. Trainwreck (2015)

R | 125 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

75 Metascore

Having thought that monogamy was never possible, a commitment-phobic career woman may have to face her fears when she meets a good guy.

Director: Judd Apatow | Stars: Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, Brie Larson, Colin Quinn

Votes: 142,755 | Gross: $110.21M

37. Truth (I) (2015)

R | 125 min | Biography, Drama, History

66 Metascore

Newsroom drama detailing the 2004 CBS "60 Minutes" report investigating then-President George W. Bush's military service, and the subsequent firestorm of criticism that cost anchor Dan Rather and producer Mary Mapes their careers.

Director: James Vanderbilt | Stars: Cate Blanchett, Robert Redford, Dennis Quaid, Elisabeth Moss

Votes: 21,232 | Gross: $2.54M

38. What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015)

Not Rated | 101 min | Documentary, Biography, Music

75 Metascore

A documentary about the life and legend Nina Simone, an American singer, pianist, and civil rights activist labeled the "High Priestess of Soul."

Director: Liz Garbus | Stars: Nina Simone, Lisa Simone Kelly, Roger Nupie, Al Schackman

Votes: 14,827

39. The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (2015)

R | 92 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror

84 Metascore

A family in 1630s New England is torn apart by the forces of witchcraft, black magic and possession.

Director: Robert Eggers | Stars: Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, Julian Richings

Votes: 300,719 | Gross: $25.14M



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