As for The Dissolve’s critics, Boyhood proved too powerful to resist. But The Grand Budapest Hotel gave it a run for its money. Beyond that, the results get a lot less predictable. Below you’ll find our readers’ picks for the year’s 50 best movies, a neat mix of personal visions and the boldest blockbusters Hollywood had to offer. Keep reading to find picks for the year's best acting, directing, documentaries, and animated films.
| 1 | Boyhood |
Twelve years in the making, Richard Linklater’s astonishing experiment in narrative filmmaking follows the emotional development of one boy from age 6 to 18, and reveals Linklater’s artistic development in kind.
| 2 | The Grand Budapest Hotel |
Wes Anderson’s latest takes place in an elegant hotel where the service remains impeccable, even as real-world barbarity threatens to check in.
| 3 | Interstellar |
Set on an Earth doomed to extinction, Christopher Nolan’s beautiful, overreaching, often ineloquent science-fiction epic follows a team of NASA explorers scouting a new habitat for humanity.
| 4 | Gone Girl |
David Fincher and Gillian Flynn adapt Flynn’s bestselling novel into a chilling, memorable thriller that reads as an optimal meeting between two minds with similar fixations.
| 5 | Birdman |
Michael Keaton returns to a starring role in a self-referential story of tortured artists directed by Babel’s Alejandro Iñárritu.
| 6 | Under The Skin |
Jonathan Glazer’s abstract, discordant yet daring, and even poignant science-fiction book adaptation follows an alien huntress (Scarlett Johansson) as she travels through Scotland, looking for men to seduce and ensnare, but developing deeper curiosities.
| 7 | Guardians Of The Galaxy |
As Peter Quill—a.k.a. Star-Lord—Chris Pratt leads a ragtag group of interstellar misfits on a thrilling space adventure James Gunn’s appropriately offbeat adaptation of the Marvel cult favorite.
| 8 | Nightcrawler |
Veteran screenwriter Dan Gilroy ineffectively scolds people for getting excited by this cautionary thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal, set in a media-saturated Los Angeles.
| 9 | The Lego Movie |
Ready to dismiss this animated comedy as shameless brand extension? Not so fast! Fusing elements of Toy Story and The Matrix, Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s film leaves room in a busy science-fiction plot for lots of imagination and fun.
| 10 | Whiplash |
Damien Chazelle’s Sundance winner provides a terrific showcase for J.K. Simmons as a music teacher who gets results by terrorizing his students, including a young drumming prodigy played by Miles Teller.
| 11 | Snowpiercer |
South Korean master Bong Joon-ho (The Host) makes his English-language debut with a sharp, allegorical science-fiction thriller about an ice-covered future where all humanity shares the same perpetually moving train.
| 12 | Only Lovers Left Alive |
Proving that there’s still energy left in the tired vampire-romance genre, writer-director Jim Jarmusch and stars Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston find their own idiosyncratic angle.
| 13 | Edge Of Tomorrow |
Part Groundhog Day, part videogame, Doug Liman’s swift science-fiction/action thriller stars Tom Cruise as a reluctant soldier who fights, dies, and repeats, but the film has depth beyond the requisite CGI attacks.
| 14 | Captain America: The Winter Soldier |
Part Groundhog Day, part videogame, Doug Liman’s swift science-fiction/action thriller stars Tom Cruise as a reluctant soldier who fights, dies, and repeats, but the film has depth beyond the requisite CGI attacks.
| 15 | Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes |
After reviving the Planet Of The Apes series with Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, the franchise offers a strong sequel that puts the now-dominant apes into conflict with a pocket of humanity.
| 16 | X-Men: Days Of Future Past |
After an 11-year absence from the X-Men franchise, director Bryan Singer blends together the old and new casts—and past and future timelines—into an unstoppable juggernaut of adventure.
| 17 | The Babadook |
An Australian horror movie summons a terrifying monster out of parental fears.
| 18 | Inherent Vice |
Paul Thomas Anderson’s masterful adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s 2009 mystery novel sends pot-smoking P.I. Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) on a case that signals the changing Southern California culture of 1970.
| 19 | Blue Ruin |
Jeremy Saulnier’s darkly comic revenge thriller about a man woefully ill-suited to exacting revenge bears a strong Coen brothers influence, most significantly in its flawed yet tragically relatable protagonist.
| 20 | Foxcatcher |
Capote director Bennett Miller returns to true crime with this chilling story about a Pennsylvania multimillionaire whose relationship with two brothers, both Olympic wrestling champions, ends tragically.
| 21 | Nymphomaniac: Vol. I |
The first part of Lars von Trier’s latest provocation uses one woman’s complete sexual history to address his career-long preoccupations with gender roles, authoritarianism, religion, obsessive behavior, and lust.
| 22 | Ida |
My Summer Of Love director Pawel Pawlikowski returns to form with an intimate study of a young nun discovering her family history in early 1960s Poland.
| 23 | 22 Jump Street |
Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and stars Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill all return for this sequel to 21 Jump Street. It’s also more or less a remake of 21 Jump Street, and that’s part of its charm.
| 24 | The Obvious Child |
Gillian Robespierre’s romantic comedy has gotten a lot of attention for its treatment of abortion, but that’s only the most prominent example of its refreshing candor, embodied by star Jenny Slate.
| 25 | Frank |
As the leader of an art-rock outfit called The Soronprfbs, Michael Fassbender spends almost all of this indie film under a giant papier-mâché head. But beyond this quirky touch lie deeper and more troubling observations.
| 26 | Calvary |
The second film from John Michael McDonagh after his success with The Guard hits a much different mood, as Brendan Gleeson plays a priest following Jesus’ road to voluntary self-sacrifice.
| 27 | The Wind Rises |
Hayao Miyazaki’s historical biopic about Japanese aviation engineer Jiro Horikoshi may be his most personal—and likely his last—but moments of astounding beauty are blunted by discordant notes.
| 28 | The Raid 2 |
Gareth Evans’ follow-up to the relentless assault of The Raid is bogged down by a more complicated plot, but it also ups the ante with big, jaw-dropping, bone-crunching action setpieces.
| 29 | Enemy |
Based on the novel The Double by Nobel Prize winner José Saramago, Denis Villeneuve’s metaphysical thriller stars Jake Gyllenhaal in the dual roles of an associate professor who rents a movie and discovers his doppelgänger in the background.
| 30 | The Immigrant |
James Gray’s latest New York story re-creates history with a rare sense of urgency.
| 31 | Listen Up Philip |
James Gray’s latest New York story re-creates history with a rare sense of urgency.
| 32 | Nymphomaniac: Volume II |
Picking up where Volume I left off, Lars von Trier’s arresting opus follows Charlotte Gainsbourg’s protagonist as she becomes desensitized to sex and resorts to desperate measures to get any kind of feeling back.
| 33 | The Double |
In Richard Ayoade’s Dostoyevsky adaptation, the two sides of Jesse Eisenberg’s acting persona—the painfully earnest nice guy and the arrogant, scabrous Mark Zuckerberg type—are exploited to great effect in a dual performance.
| 34 | Locke |
Writer-director Steven Knight, who scripted Eastern Promises and Dirty Pretty Things and created the show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, puts Tom Hardy in the driver’s seat in this powerful morality play on wheels.
| 35 | Fury |
The man behind Training Day, Harsh Times, and End Of Watch applies his obsession with societies of violent men to American tank occupants approaching the bitter end of World War II.
| 36 | Mommy |
Canadian wunderkind Xavier Dolan returns to I Killed My Mother territory with this story of a widowed mother struggling to raise her difficult, often violent son.
| 37 | Force Majeure |
An inciting incident on holiday calls a family’s connection into question in this incisive, pointed drama.
| 38 | We Are The Best |
Three adolescent girls in 1982 Stockholm form a punk trio that has more spirit than rhythm in Lukas Moodysson’s infectious coming-of-age comedy, based on his wife’s graphic novel about her own punk past.
| 39 | Godzilla |
Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla revival isn’t entirely removed from the terrible 1998 version that left the monster in ill health. But this remake’s technical dazzlements make up for its lack of interest in human characters and political metaphor.
| 40 | Big Hero 6 |
Disney reconfigures a relatively obscure Marvel comic into a hugely satisfying animated superhero movie, one that’s in step with current trends while also feeling unique and separate.
| 41 | The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 |
The third entry in the Hunger Games tetralogy is an admirably bleak affair that makes Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) the troubled figurehead of a rebellion against the Capitol.
| 42 | 20,000 Days On Earth |
The past and present of singer-songwriter-novelist-screenwriter Nick Cave is detailed with flourish in this heavily aestheticized documentary that cares more about impression than information.
| 43 | Goodbye To Language |
Working in 3-D for the first time, Jean-Luc Godard synthesizes his ideas about technology and different ways of seeing with a format that allows for a radical layering of images. In short, it’s “Godard: The Ride.”
| 44 | The Guest |
Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey) finds new depths of seduction and menace in a thriller from Adam Wingard (You’re Next).
| 45 | Jodorowsky's Dune |
After the midnight-movie smash El Topo and the brilliant freak-out The Holy Mountain, Alejandro Jodorowsky prepped a mind-blowing adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune that never came to pass. This documentary imagines what might have been.
| 46 | A Most Wanted Man |
In one of his final performances, Philip Seymour Hoffman steps into the icy world of international espionage in a John Le Carré adaptation directed by Anton Corbijn.
| 47 | The Skeleton Twins |
Former SNL co-stars Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig play depressive siblings forced to reckon with the past in this moody drama from director Craig Johnson.
| 48 | Stranger By The Lake |
This riveting story mixes thriller material—furtive public sex, equally furtive murder—with a balanced style that makes inner mysteries as compelling as outward ones.
| 49 | Life Itself |
Roger Ebert’s advocacy helped Steve James’ Hoop Dreams become a sensation. Now James returns the favor with a sensitive, inspiring, warts-and-all portrait of the late critic, who offered lessons on life and death.
| 50 | Starred Up |
Like A Prophet, David Mackenzie and Jonathan Asser’s tremendously powerful Starred Up drops a 19-year-old felon into a complicated, dangerous adult prison system. But in this case, the kid may be the most dangerous thing there.
