Top 10 films of 2015

ANALYSIS/OPINION

It’s been an interesting year at the movies. Thanks to “Star Wars,” “The Avengers” and “Jurassic World,” 2015 will go down in cinematic history as Hollywood’s most profitable in terms of grosses, with nearly $11 billion in ticket sales, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com.

However, as with many other years, the biggest weren’t necessarily the best.

Rating the greatest cinematic offers in any given year is a necessarily subjective proposition, and 2015 offered up many amazing films to choose from. While my inner child was of course ecstatic to return to that galaxy far, far away — and judging by “Episode VII” shattering take-home records around the globe, I was far from alone — the fact is there were many far better films between January and December sitting alongside many a jumbled mess like “Terminator Genisys” and “Aloha.”

More than anything, the best of 2015 was defined by strong performances that elevated the source material to new heights. Between established screen veterans and newer actors, 2015 was indeed the year of the thespian.

Culling it down from the many wonderful offerings was a task in and of itself, so here, then, are my picks for the best films of 2015.

Honorable mentions:

The compelling “Amy” from documentarian Asif Kapadia shows the meteoric rise and sensational downfall of tortured British singer Amy Winehouse, weaving in vintage footage of the chanteuse with interviews of burned lovers, former colleagues and surviving family members.

“Best of Enemies” was the year’s most improbably fascinating documentary, showcasing the tete-a-tete between liberal firebrand Gore Vidal and conservative icon William F. Buckley during the 1968 presidential conventions, in which the two at first politely, if barbedly, sparred on air before spinning into increasingly heated spats and offensive ad hominem attacks — thereby presaging the modern 24-hour cable news channels.

There are simply no limits to Johnny Depp’s talents, as the chameolinelike actor delivered 2015’s single best performance in “Black Mass” as Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger, a street hood who finagled his way onto the FBI payroll while using the agency as a shield as he rooted out Italian control of Beantown’s underworld and consolidated his own power in the process. Mr. Depp is icily fearsome as Bulger, owning absolutely every frame of the film from start to finish with his sneer, set lips and homicidal nature. Captain Jack Sparrow this ain’t.

“Brooklyn,” a sweet coming-of-age story of a young Irish woman finding love and purpose in 1950s New York, showcases a fine performance from star Saoirse Ronan as the young woman caught between old and new worlds.

“Creed,” with Michael B. Jordan as the directionless son of boxer Apollo Creed, who finds his calling in the family trade — and seeks out Apollo’s former frenemy Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) to complete his training. It’s a rather worthy addition to the “Rocky” saga, and it’s also Mr. Stallone’s best performance in years as the aging pugilist battling both his demons and the reality of mortality.

“The D Train,” an underappreciated black comedy, has Jack Black traveling to Los Angeles to meet up with former class king Oliver Lawless (James Marsden) to convince the latter to attend their high school reunion, with the two ending up sharing far more than either thought. Laughter is both plentiful and often painful in this sly character study.

“End of the Tour” boasted the best acting yet from Jason Segel as tormented author David Foster Wallace, joined on the final leg of his publicity blitz for “Infinite Jest” by Rolling Stone scribe David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg), with the two men never quite friends but nonetheless comrades whose lives will never be the same.

“He Named Me Malala” was another superior documentary from Davis Guggenheim (“An Inconvenient Truth”) about Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teen who stood up to the Taliban demanding that girls be educated alongside boys, and was shot in the head for her righteousness. After miraculously not only surviving but recuperating, Malala, now living in England, has continued her crusade alongside her ever-supportive father, Ziauddin.

“I Smile Back” had potty-mouthed comedienne Sarah Silverman as a manic-depressive suburban wife and mom spiraling spectacularly out of control in a tour-de-force performance.

There are simply no words to describe beholding the jarring “Kilo Two Bravo,” a nerve-fraying true-life war film about a British platoon on a routine patrol of an Afghanistan valley they discover — too late — is riddled with anti-personnel mines. With each move possibly their last, the soldiers daintily execute a daring strategy to sidestep their way out of the booby trap while attempting to rescue their injured comrades in the most intense war film since “The Hurt Locker.” Not for the squeamish.

“Learning to Drive” had Patricia Clarkson as middle-aged New Yorker Wendy, whose husband unceremoniously trades her in for a newer model. Having lived carless in Gotham all her life, Wendy learns to drive — in more than one sense — under the tutelage of a Sikh behind-the-wheel instructor (Ben Kingsley), with whom she develops a unique attraction of opposites. Miss Clarkson and Mr. Kingsley positively shine.

Meryl Streep adds yet another amazing acting notch to her resume as an aging L.A. rocker trying to make amends with her estranged adult children in “Ricki and the Flash” from Johnathan Demme (“Silence of the Lambs”).

“True Story” from director Rupert Goold offered decidedly adult performances from Jonah Hill as an investigative journalist and James Franco as Christian Longo, an Oregon man accused of murdering his entire family. Based on the true-crime book of the same name by Michael Finkel, “True Story” has Mr. Finkel’s fictional avatar interacting with Mr. Franco in scenes where the nature of truth itself becomes as much a matter of what the storyteller believes as what the reporter interprets.

Michael Moore was up to his old tricks in the amusingly instructive “Where to Invade Next,” in which the troublemaking Michigan agitprop documentarian shows Americans some ideas we might adopt from our European friends.

In more truth-is-stranger-than-fiction work, “Woman in Gold” gave Helen Mirren yet another chance to top herself as Austrian-Jewish ex-patriot Maria Altmann, who seeks to legally reclaim from the Austrians the famous Gustav Klimt painting that was stolen from her family’s Vienna home by the Nazis on the eve of World War II.

And the top 10 …

10) “Bridge of Spies”

The golden team of Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks reunited for their first collaboration in 11 years for this Cold War drama based on actual events. Mr. Hanks stars as James B. Donovan, a Manhattan lawyer who defends captured Soviet spy Rudolph Abel (Mark Rylance, surely heading for an Oscar nod) in court before being then asked to broker a three-way trade with Moscow: Abel for a U.S. spy plane pilot shot down over the USSR and an American student caught on the wrong side of the nascent Berlin Wall.

Mr. Spielberg, working from a script by the Coen Bros. and Matt Charman, weaves together 1950s paranoia and the walking on tip-toes that were the hallmarks of diplomacy in such a tense time in geopolitics. The ever-reliable Mr. Hanks successfully anchors the film, which never seems lengthy despite its sometimes-languid pace.

9) “Straight Outta Compton”

The story behind the seminal N.W.A album of the same name was a surprise hit earlier this year, but its box office was matched by its quality workmanship. Working with almost an entirely unknown cast, director F. Gary Gray (“The Italian Job”) vividly brings to life late-’80s Los Angeles and the horrifying urban realities for many in South Central L.A. that gave rise to the fury lacing the N.W.A sound — as much a mirror as commentary on police treatment of young black men, lack of economic opportunities and the violent streets that fostered gangs and drugs.

O’Shea Jackson Jr., son of Ice Cube, portrayed his ol’ man in a surreal bit of casting brilliance.

8) “Seymour: An Introduction”

This grand documentary was the profoundly moving debut directorial effort of actor Ethan Hawke, in which he profiles New York piano teacher Seymour Bernstein, who, after a distinguished career in the limelight, stopped performing in public in 1977 without explanation. The film is as much a meditation on art and aging — with the best scene being a powwow between Mr. Bernstein, 88, and Mr. Hawke, 45, with the latter expressing ennui about middle age — as it is a profile of an artist who gently feels the tug of the light once again.

“[Mr. Hawke] admitted [it] was a new concept to him that he could direct the disciplines that he learned from acting into his everyday life so that Ethan the actor and Ethan the person were one and the same,” the genteel subject told me this past spring of his director.

7) “Grandma”

In yet another stellar performance from 2015, Lily Tomlin is Elle, a bohemian Angeleno who has just broken up with her much-younger girlfriend Olivia (Judy Greer) when her granddaughter Sage (Julia Garner) shows up with the news she is pregnant and needs an abortion. Having cut up all her credit cards, Elle takes Sage on a cross-town odyssey in the search for favors and sources of revenue to float the abortion bill.

Astounding performances in this female-centric film abound, with Miss Tomlin joined by Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden as her type-A daughter, Judy, and the late Elizabeth Pena showing up as a local book shop owner.

All this at the hands of filmmaker Paul Weitz, most famous for directing “American Pie,” but now, incredibly, known as a feminist filmmaker.

“The girls in [’American Pie’] are at all times in control in the scenes they’re in,” Mr. Weitz told me earlier this year. “I wasn’t consciously setting out to do a ’woman’s movie’ or a ’feminist movie,’ [with ’Grandma’], it just sort of turned out that way.”

6) “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl”

Movies typically treat death and teenagers as fodder for masked maniacs, but this amazing film from director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (based on a novel by Jesse Andrews, who also wrote the screenplay) treats the subject of young Greg (Thomas Mann) befriending Rachel (Olivia Cooke), a girl with a terminal cancer diagnosis, as not only profoundly humane but also charmingly touching in the way that both of these young people learn more about themselves as Rachel’s condition worsens, with the two even finding the humor of her situation. Wisely, the film avoids turning said relationship into a romance, and gives us other characters we like and care about as they undergo journeys every bit as arduous as Rachel’s.

A perfect film for teens and tweens that is sure to spark frank conversations about that subject they would most like to avoid.

5) “99 Homes”

Once called “the new great American director” by Roger Ebert, Iranian-American filmmaker Ramin Bahrani goes for the throat in this searing indictment of unfettered capitalism and its effect on the downtrodden. “Spider-Man” star Andrew Garfield shows off considerable non-web-spinning chops as Dennis Nash, tossed out of the street alongside mother and daughter in front of the family’s Florida home by real estate shark Richard Carver (the brilliant Michael Shannon), who ekes out a vampiric living evicting the foreclosed and flipping homes for a profit. At first performing odd jobs, Dennis soon goes to work for Carver, in the greatest devil-mentor relationship since “Wall Street.”

In Carver Mr. Bahrani has produced one of the screen’s greatest-ever villains, a soulless opportunist motivated only by gain, and who quickly corrupts his young apprentice much as Michael Douglas’ Gordon Gekko did of Charlie Sheen’s Bud Fox back in the ’80s. With a career of offbeat and volcanic portrayals already to his credit, Mr. Shannon goes for broke with Carver, a demon in suit and tie, and his best work to date.

4) “Theeb”

“Theeb,” from Jordanian-British filmmaker Naji Abu Nowar, tells a simple yet powerful tale of the early 20th century in which a Bedouin boy (Jacir Eid Al-Hwietat) journeys across the unpoliced deserts of the Ottoman Empire with his brother (Hussein Salameh Al-Sweilhiyeen) to serve as guide for a British soldier (Jack Fox). Tragedy awaits young Theeb, who then becomes both captive and protector of the mysterious warrior known only as the Stranger (Hassan Mutlag Al-Maraiyeh) in a relationship that blurs the lines between enemy and ally and leads to a shocking conclusion.

As more and more stories of Muslim extremism populate the news, it is especially gratifying to see filmmakers of Middle Eastern descent provide narratives that aim to buck Western perceptions. “Theeb,” the character and the film, is anything but stereotypical — and indeed transcendent.

“All the things you see happening today, they all come from the redrawing” of the map after World War I, Mr. Nowar told me this fall. “That’s why we set [’Theeb’] during that point — that existential crisis for the region.”

3) “Ex Machina”

The smartest, most compelling science fiction movie in years arrived this spring in the form of first-time director Alex Garland’s (writer of “The Beach” and “28 Days Later”) intelligent, endlessly inventive futurist fable about a quirky billionaire (Oscar Issac) who brings one of his company’s underlings (Domhnall Gleeson) to his remote compound to interact with his android Ava (the very busy Alicia Vikander).

Is Ava in fact alive or merely playing out the programming infused by her creator? And whose duplicity is to be believed — if anyone’s?

Mr. Garland maintains the somewhat-nihilistic tone of his previous screenplays and shows a deft hand in his first effort behind the camera, all the while forcing the audience to ask questions not only about what it means “to be” but also if Ava is in fact applying free will or still operating within the strictures of her directives.

A more thoughtful film hasn’t been made in ages.

(Interestingly enough, stars Mr. Gleeson and Mr. Isaac switched loyalties in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” with Mr. Gleeson as the evil Gen. Hux and Mr. Isaac as Resistance pilot Poe Dameron.)

2) “Spotlight”

In 2001 newly minted Boston Globe editor Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), a Jew, asked his staff why no one was looking too deeply into alleged abuse by pedophile Catholic priests and the Church’s enforced silence upon their victims — a rather provocative suggestion in America’s most Catholic city. Nonetheless, the Globe’s reporters began digging, uncovering more and more victims and ever more levels of institutionalized silence that rocked the country.

A combination detective story and indictment of the complicity of silence, director Tom McCarthy and co-writer Josh Singer remove the veil on a rather painful epidemic in one of the world’s largest institutions. Featuring an all-star cast that includes Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Stanley Tucci, Billy Crudup and John Slattery, “Spotlight” is old-fashioned moviemaking at its best.

1) “Sicario”

I saw “Sicario” over four months ago, yet it continues to haunt me with its bleak worldview, images of drug cartel enemies strung up naked from Mexican bridges, a searing performance from Benecio Del Toro as an assassin of questionable allegiances and motives and, underlying it all, a soul-piercing musical score by Johann Johannsson.

Director Denis Villeneuve and writer Taylor Sheridan bring scorching life to the drug war at the U.S.-Mexico border as an FBI agent (Emily Blunt) is recruited into a shadowy government narc group comprising a snakelike CIA operative who likes to attend meeting without any shoes (Josh Brolin) and Mr. Del Toro as Alejandro, capable of the most horrifying violence as his needs dictate.

The plot propels the characters forward into a contemporary hellscape on both sides of the border, where danger is ever-present and what awaits even the most well intentioned is as often as not a bullet. “Sicario” pulls no punches and leaves no ideal untarnished, leading to a climax of such rawness that even hardened moviegoers will not be unfazed.