Jez Fletcher

This year, I managed to watch all but one of the Oscar-nominated films before the ceremony, missing only the Documentary Short How Do You Measure a Year, although if the director's film from last year is anything to go by, this was no great loss. They were again an excellent set of films, and it was a very entertaining project to undertake once again. There's a reason I try to do this every year, even though it sometimes, during the month of February, feels like millstone around my neck. As usual, I'll count down the films from my favourite to least-favourite, with separate lists for the feature films and the shorts. I'll then fill out my Oscars ballot below, and I'm glad to announce that due to my 1993 short film Jez & His Brother Play Tennis And Struggle With Turning Off The Camera I've been granted membership of the Academy, so this year these votes count. Let's get into it.

1. Tár

Directed by Todd Field

A gripping, compelling and profound film from Todd Field and Cate Blanchett, following Lydia Tár, renowned principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonik (Blanchett), as she prepares to record and perform Mahler's 5th Symphony—a piece that has eluded her throughout her career. It's also about a great deal more than that: with a deep exploration of power, abuse and self-fulfilment. While it doesn't explicitly play out as a thriller, it is a psychologically intense film. Throughout the early stages we see glimpses of Tár photographed surreptitiously through a phone camera, superimposed with vaguely threatening texts. She receives suspicious gifts which she hastily disposes of. She takes drugs for anxiety prescribed for her wife. But the film never leads us down the obvious path here: we are given snippets of an incomplete picture, like fragments of a rehearsal, before Field allows the full orchestra to blast us in the latter third. There is so much that is virtuosic about this film—it is a career high performance from Blanchett, who is utterly thrilling and potent on screen. She commands our attention in way that almost feels against our will—she demands it; we comply. And it's often not easy being face-to-face with that level of intensity. The script from Todd Field is honestly incredible. There is an astonishing amount of detail and craft to it. The way the film unfolds is mesmerising in itself, but when you look backwards for all the links, you see what a complex beast it is. It's also the sort of film which would be fascinating to rewatch even soon after seeing it for the first time—if you can face it. This is true of both the sequences of great emotional upheaval, but also the clever and subtle characterisation which marks an extended opening sequence where Tár is being interviewed for the New Yorker. It could be extremely dry, but it's anything but: it's engaging, but more than that it provides us with an immediately fascinating portrait of the main character. I haven't even spoken about some of the other wonderful elements to this film. Nina Hoss as Tár's wife (and concertmaster of the Philharmonik—a stark fact later in the film) is also incredible in a more subtle but no less complex role. The music and sound design is sublime—and not just because of the moments we spend with Mahler's 5th Symphony. The choices throughout are careful and perfectly evocative—right down to the Besomorph track which plays over the credits. It only drops half a star because of the slight hiccup of the very final scene, which some others may have no problem with. But aside from that, it was a phenomenal experience. Despite it being among some strong competitors, Tár is without equal in the Oscars this year.

2. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

Directed by Laura Poitras

A truly remarkable work of documentary, that sees stalwart of the form Laura Poitras reach new heights. We focus in on Nan Goldin: photographic artist, activist and former addict. It is in these latter two capacities that she takes up a fight against pharmaceutical giant Purdue. Furthermore, she levels her sights on Purdue's owners the Sackler family—well-known in the art world for their extensive philanthropy—for their profiteering off the opioid crisis in America. It is a wonderfully gripping and thematically manifold documentary. We see Goldin, and her activist group P.A.I.N., target art institutions that have accepted donations from the Sacklers (in particular those who immortalise the Sackler name). We see the group's legal fight against Perdue, and their activism to destigmatise drug use. But far more broadly, we take a deep and sometimes unsettling look into the life of our protagonist, told through her own photographs. These are uncommonly stark, candid, confronting and beautiful. Her subjects are the disenfranchised, the marginalised, the queers, the drug-users, the sex workers. But they come with a sense of intimacy and insight that's draws you in. These are the people who make up a community. Goldin shows us her world: These are the people who I live with, laugh with. These are the people I fuck. It is from this sense of community and solidarity that the film gets its power. One of Goldin's subjects is the AIDS crisis of the 80s and 90s—a period she and her community lived through with immense pain. It decimated their ranks and showed starkly how pitiless a government and its institutions can be. We move from the acute intimacy of her photographic portraits, and their sense of belonging, to a sense of being blown apart and scattered like shreds. You understand why Goldin, now, is so fervent that this not happen again. We also delve into the origins of who Goldin was. In particular, her relationship with her older sister who was repeatedly institutionalised by her parents. These same parents end up forcing the young Nan into foster care, with an unloving admission that they never wanted children anyway. It's delicate but soul-clenching how Poitras weaves this tale together in non-linear fashion. It becomes a profound portrait of someone's life, in a way that I've rarely been done before. And despite everything, it's a celebration too. It's a celebration done with glorious, no-fucks-given style. It's laying bare the agony and affliction of a life and showing us: "that's what life, what real living is built on. That's what life is".

3. Everything Everywhere All at Once

Directed by Daniel Scheinert & Daniel Kwan

Another trip into the multiverse—the multiverse we actually want to visit again—with Michelle Yeoh as our favourite coin-laundry operator who may well have the fate of existence itself in her sausage-fingered hands. It took me two trips through Everything Everywhere All at Once to really appreciate it. Sure, the first time I had a whole heap of fun. I related to the thematic content about family, and the lure of the void when the universe itself seems meaningless. I enjoyed the visuals and the costuming and the spectacle. But I also had trouble shutting off the analytical part of my brain which was trying to work out the logistics of dimension hopping, as Waymond Wang frantically explains it piece by piece, and we're then hurled from dimension to dimension. The solution, you would think, is to not think. Let the mechanics wash over you and enjoy it for its story. Don't look too closely at the ideas of stochastic improbability that allow for jumping 'verses, lest they fall apart. In the meantime,you have a hell of a ride to jump on. In reality though, seeing it a second time allowed the logic of the world to settle down. It may not feel true, or real, but the internals of the film have a neat consistency that allowed me to relax. And once I relaxed I realised what a truly wonderful film this was when you just allow yourself to have fun. Taking a breath was what was needed, even though the film gives you very few opportunities for that. Michelle Yeoh is, of course, wonderful as Evelyn, and the second time around I saw the immense charm of Ke Huy Quan as Waymond—the first time, he was the source of too much consternation on my part. There's an intensity to the performances, but these characters have the stature to deliver emotional impact where required as well. Moreover, the second time around, I much more appreciated the utility of the absurd as a plot mechanic. Evelyn reaches more distant universes, branching off from our own long, long ago—Evenlyn is, well, Michelle Yeoh, martial arts film superstar, humans have fingers shaped like long hotdogs and play piano with their toes, a teppanyaki chef is controlled by a sentient raccoon. Statistically more-improbable actions are required for longer jumps, so characters act erratically, comically, launching themselves over a wall and onto a buttplug-shaped award statue. It's bizarre, but by the second viewing, the film earns it, and it makes internal sense. I've not even got into the richness of the editing and the cinematography. There's a wonderful nod to the films of Wong Kar-Wai, expressing the regret of missed opportunities in love, for example. It's all it needs to be technically to live up to its frankly astonishing conception. I could go on. Suffice it to say that it's a film that holds up as a spectacle, but rewards another viewing for all the details you missed the first time around: and I guarantee there will be some of those. What is better, though, is when you're not frantically trying to keep up, you can see it much more clearly. And there's significant emotional and thematic depth. That's what truly makes it a good film.

4. Close

Directed by Lukas Dhont

A truly intimate and heartbreaking film which follows two 13-year-old boys, Léo (Eden Dambrine) and Rémi (Gustav De Waele) who share a deep friendship. When the two start high school, peer pressure and the perceptions of their relationship cause Léo to start pushing Rémi away. It's a really exceptional film, told with sparse narrative from meaningful but often quite transient moments—a discussion in the class room about the kids' hobbies, a shot of Rémi playing the oboe, the two racing their bikes on the way to school. It's that style of filmmaking which draws you in by making you pay attention to the clues, and when it has you right in close it punches you hard. It's also shot mostly in claustrophobic close-ups, usually of Léo's face, so we feel everything he goes through very profoundly. It's a remarkable performance from a young actor who has so much to do, and nowhere to hide. The film really rides on Dambrine, and his output is nothing less than extraordinary. It's also judiciously edited. It runs at well less than two hours, which means that it feels compact and coherent—it makes its point with room to breathe, but it doesn't overstay its welcome or ever feel like it's dragging. Overall, I really loved it, and it was one of the films over the past year that has had the most emotional impact for me. I look forward to seeing what more Lukas Dhont has to offer.

5. Glass Onion

Directed by Rian Johnson

I dearly loved Knives Out; I spent my first time watching it with hearts in my eyes, absolutely rapt and delighted with every trope and subversion. I have to admit there was a little part of me which was apprehensive of whether Rian Johnson and Daniel Craig could recapture the magic with this sequel. It took very little time for me to realise that I could relax, that this was a film to equal the original. Before long I'd left behind the part of me that wants to analyse or unravel it as a film. It was a relief to know I could just enjoy it. And enjoy it I did. This was another film filled with exactly the same kind of loving deconstruction of the whodunnit, and filled with wonderfully captivating characters. Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc is of course wonderful again—perhaps more so as we get to learn more about him as a character, including his flaws and idiosyncrasies. But he is aided by another excellent ensemble: Janelle Monae in particular is stunningly good; electric and magnetic on screen as she works through her character's various modes. Edward Norton plays Musk-esque billionare Miles Bron with a charismatic smarminess, Kate Hudson & Kathryn Hahn are both thrillingly repellent, and Dave Bautista has a really wonderful time as an obnoxious right-wing Twitch streamer. On top of this, Johnson has provided us with yet another thrillingly compelling mystery, which, like Knives Out before us, manages to waylay us at numerous points (including providing the most wonderfully banal red-herring I think I've ever seen). It means that (I'm sure) rewatching the film will be as much of a treat as watching it. This, combined with some wonderfully leftfield production choices (the Philip Glass "bong" was just a constant delight), means that this will stand apart as another glowing entry in Johnson's oeuvre. Where this perhaps even exceeds its predecessor is in the way it sharpens its satire. There's a perceptive and timely skewering of the billionaire class in this film which gives it much more heft than you would believe for such an thrillingly entertaining story. It improves significantly on the general sense of "wealth and entitlement makes you bad" of its predecessor to take some very pointed jabs at particular instances of conspicuous excess. But of course, you can also just ignore this and go along for the ride. I'm so pleased we've got at least one more Blanc mystery coming our way, and based on the success of these, there's probably a long future for the franchise. I only hope it doesn't rob us of whatever brilliant new idea Rian Johnson would have come up with next.

6. Aftersun

Directed by Charlotte Wells

I've taken my time in writing up this film, because it really needed some time to percolate and settle in my brain. In a rather impressionistic style, it recounts a holiday in Türkiye for 11-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio) and her soon-to-be 30-year-old father Calum (Paul Mescal). Told partially through snippets of home-video footage, which get woven in with the main narrative, it also has flash-forwards to Sophie as an adult of Calum's age, and dimly lit shots of Calum dancing at a kind of dark rave. The film has a deeply felt sense of melancholy to it—a sense that the bright sunny beaches of these foreign climes are a garish cover for something darker. Calum is determined to be a good father, and has a strong relationship with his daughter. And yet there's a strong sense of distraction to him—something he can never quite remove, but that he's good as masking. It's a fine, and remarkably subtle performance from Mescal to achieve this. The form and the narrative also helps—it's told in sometimes contextless snippets, much like how you might play back an old video tape of your own holiday. This allows director Charlotte Wells to focus on little interactions between Calum and Sophie in isolation, to introduce something that seems irrelevant but which takes on poignancy as the film progresses. I'll admit that it wasn't until right at the end that the wave of all these little pieces eventually enveloped me, but when it did I was crushed by their accumulation. It's a really quite masterfully done thing—Sophie looking back on this time with her father; the sense of melancholia; adult Sophie's new baby; the dancing in the rave—they combine to form a powerful final realisation. Overall, it was a film that really required some thought, and a little bit of reflection. But once I had that I realised that it was likely one of the most masterful films of the year.

7. The Quiet Girl

Directed by Colm Bairéad

A very subdued and, yes, quiet film about a young girl who is sent away from her family to live with distant relatives for the summer, while her mother has her next baby. There's a fairly alarmingly insouciance from her parents who discard her into the arms of strangers, and the naturally shy Cáit is even more wary of her new surroundings. But over time, we learn gradually more about the couple who take her in. We learn (or suspect) more about Cáit's regular home life, and we start to see something that might be a better life for her. It's very much a film that doesn't give you a lot of information—I love this mode of filmmaking, where things are conveyed with a look, with a word said or unsaid, with a little detail in a character's dress, or the way they hide food for later, when there may not be food to be had. I find it wonderfully engaging, because you're constantly on the lookout for the next clue, and as a result you get fully engrossed in the story. The newcomer Catherine Clinch is wonderfully understated as Cáit, and manages to hold the whole film around her—it's a performance that allows the climax to have maximal impact because of all the work that was done before it. Similarly good are Carrie Crowley and Andrew Bennett as the Matthew & Marilla pair who take her in. It's probably not a film for everyone—but if you like sparse, deliberate and ultimately quite devastating filmmaking, it is certainly one I'd recommend.

8. Top Gun: Maverick

Directed by Joseph Kosinski

I think it's fair to say I was deeply skeptical of this film. Top Gun, for all of its impact at the time of its release, was not the kind of film that was calling out to be revisited, and didn't have the depth of character and world-building to make another visit more than a nostalgia trip. Moreover, there is undoubtedly a role for this film to play in the insidious propaganda of "war and glory", and of the US military being the righteous force for good in the world. But if you can put all of this aside: as a piece of cinema it is a deeply successful one. And in almost all ways it very much outstrips its predecessor. For a start, there's something far more interesting about Maverick's character in this one. He has had a long career as a test-pilot; always with something to prove, always with an oppositional attitude that has stopped his career progression. When he's given one last shot as an instructor at the Top Gun academy, he comes in as a much richer individual. It would be easy to squander this potential though by box-ticking references to the previous film: instead, we are thrown into a far more nuanced world coloured by history and interpersonal conflict. Rooster (Miles Teller) is one of Maverick's students, and the son of Goose, whose death Maverick still feels responsible for. Iceman (Val Kilmer) is now the naval commander who has shielded Maverick's career, but is fighting a life-ending illness. Maverick connects with an old flame, but does so with a lifetime of experience behind him. It's all far more interesting than it had any right to be. Mostly, though, this was a fantastic example of a style of film-making that has been largely superseded by effects and super-heroes. There is something thrillingly real about the stakes here—this isn't about the destruction of the known universe: it's about a man with a mission and his ability to do it against the odds. We care not because we are navy fighter pilots, but because it's an analog for something we face, and something we care about. It's really wonderfully shot as well. It no doubt has a great deal of CGI to it, but it also has a huge amount of genuine heart-thrumming action sequences that are shot using live aircraft. There's something that connected me to it in a much more physical way, and it was far more thrilling as a result. Overall, I genuinely fully enjoyed this film, and that was with a lot of psychic barriers that I'd thrown up before I started watching it. It was honestly joyful that my skeptical expression gradually lessened and eventually turned into rapt entertainment. It's very good film-making.

9. The Fabelmans

Directed by Steven Spielberg

I was pleasantly surprised by this film. From Steven Spielberg, based on his own childhood and family, and in particular focusing on his love of movie making, it has the leaden weight of "Oscar bait" hanging from its presumably elongated neck. But in fact it was a remarkably engaging film for its extended running time, and for all of its introspection. We follow Sam Fabelman (the Spielberg analogue, portrayed by Gabriel LaBelle) as he and his family move across the United States following his engineer father (Paul Dano). Accompanying them is Sam's mother Mitzi (Michelle Williams) and his father's friend "Uncle" Benny (Seth Rogen). Sam develops a love for making and editing 8mm films with help from his friends, and faces the challenges of being a Jew in a sometimes anti-Semitic society. It would be too easy to say this is the film that Spielberg has been waiting his whole career to make. And it's not that. But he's astute enough to realise that there's a good story in the telling of his life, and he engaged the right people to help him do it. Tony Kushner co-authors the script with Spielberg, John Williams writes the score. He's assembled a genuinely excellent cast, with the standouts being Michelle Williams as Mitzi, and amusing one-shot cameos from Judd Hirsch and David Lynch. LaBelle is also a workhorse, having to propel most of the film along its length. And there's good drama extracted from what could have been anyone's family history. There's nothing all that remarkable about the story itself, but in the telling there's a really good understanding of how to keep an audience engaged and entertained. There's something charismatic about everyone on screen, even as they're showing their faults and humanity. It's a delicate thing to get right. I really think we're seeing a resurgence from Spielberg in his latter career. As much as this film might be seen as navel-gazing from him, he's honestly manage to craft something worthwhile and universal from something quite personal. Moreover he's at a stage where he's earned the ability and the right to do that.

10. RRR

Directed by S. S. Rajamouli

A wonderfully joyous, and undeniably bananas piece of Tollywood filmmaking, RRR is an epic that ties together friendship, betrayal and the fight for Indian independence. We follow two historical figures of Indian resistance, Komaram Bheem, and Rama Raju, imagining what it would have been like if they were best buddies. Bheem is in Delhi to rescue a child from his village, stolen by the frankly evil English governor and his wife, while Raju is an undercover police officer trying to stop him. For various reasons, neither of them know this about the other, and they end up effectively falling in love. It's honestly quite sweet. Then come the twists, revealed in typically melodramatic fashion. For all of this, it does feel like a somewhat simple film. The plot is in many ways straightforward, and it's not trying to be a film with some deep, fundamental meditations on the human spirit. This is a film designed to be about watching your heroes on screen just be badass and kick some butt. There are some frankly wild set pieces in this, including the introduction to Raju, where he singlehandedly fights an entirely rampaging mob in his search for a criminal, a wonderful musical number (set to the song which is up for Best Original Song at the Oscars) where Raju and Bheem have to out-dance those rich, snobby English, and a jawdroppingly bonkers scene where the two use a menagerie of captured wild animals in a plot to create chaos in the governor's mansion. It's just a film that can do that. It has no qualms about absolutely suspending believability for the sake of spectacle; it goes as big as it can and then just goes a little bit bigger to tip it over into the ridiculous. It makes it, in so many ways, so stupid, but it's also remarkably freeing for the audience. You might want to pull it apart, but you're too busy just enjoying it, and that makes someone like me realise that if you get the entertainment right, you really just want to stop nitpicking. Turns out, a film can do whatever the hell it wants. That's a wonderfully refreshing experience.

11. The Banshees of Inisherin

Directed by Martin McDonagh

The Banshees of Inisherin is wonderful black comedy, based around a simple premise but delving into deep truths. Pádraic (Colin Farrell) and Colm (Brendan Gleeson) are long time friends living in a small village on an island off the Irish coast. When Colm suddenly decides he no longer wants to be associated with Pádraic any more, it causes Pádraic a crisis of self, and starts an increasingly dark feud between the two. Martin McDonagh has a truly wonderful handle on tragicomedy. It's a style he's very good at, and he uses it to good effect in this film. It's easy to laugh at the peculiarity of the situation and how it's presented, but it's also a way to unmask themes of depression, of rejection, of seeking purpose in one's life. Brendan Gleeson has a subtle but powerful role to play in this—while there's some truly wonderfully and more overt performances from Farrell, and from Barry Keoghan as Dominic, the son of the local garda. There's also some truly wonderful cinematography showing off the harsh beauty of the isle, matched to Carter Burwell's score, and to the plaintive folk tunes that Colm writes. I found the film less successful in its symbolism with regard to the Irish Civil War. It felt heavy-handed, and ultimately a little reductive. If you ignore the parallels McDonagh is trying to draw, then it's fine as a backdrop—the cannons firing on the mainland provide atmosphere rather than commentary on the relationship between Pádraic and Colm. But it's a shame, because it's clear that the message was supposed to be deeper. Overall though, it was a very engaging film—sometimes tragically hilarious, sometimes hilariously tragic. If nothing else, it's another example that McDonagh can craft entertaining but poignant films, even across very disparate styles.

12. Empire of Light

Directed by Sam Mendes

I genuinely enjoyed this rather understated film from Sam Mendes, which seems to have been critically ignored or worse this Oscars season. Olivia Colman plays Hilary, the duty manager of a cinema on the south coast of England in the early 1980s. She's lonely, possibly depressed and forced into fleeting sexual encounters by her boss Mr. Ellis, played wonderfully against type by Colin Firth. Her life changes when she befriends her new, young co-worker Stephen (Micheal Ward). As much as I was afraid this was going to be a movie about the movies, a long tired tradition, this was about a lot more. It was about mental health, and taking chances, about regret and purpose. It was about race and politics in the country of Thatcher. It was nostalgia for the past and a warning for the present. Quite aside from the thematic content, it was also beautiful to look at. Mendes's love of the cinema as an object is on display here, and his eye for detail in production design and photography was wonderfully transporting. I also genuinely liked the script, which was understated but never vague. Hilary is vivacious in all her various guises (even those where she's flattened by lithium), and Olivia Colman is once again magnetic in her role. It is, to some extent, rather ambivalent about mental illness, but Hilary is never unsympathetic. I found Stephen's character a little thin, however, which makes him feel more like a concept than a person—a target for racism, but used to some extent as a plot device rather than to really empathise with the victims of racism. I also found some of the changes in perspective a little jarring. For the most part, our focus is Hilary, and the story is seen through her eyes alone. But later, we start to examine more of Stephen's life, and we start to get scenes solely from him—it's something that takes us out of the interiority and claustrophobia of the earlier parts, perhaps intentionally. But with Stephens character being never fully fleshed out, it means that it feels like these scenes are stretched for emotional content. But overall, there was much to like in this film. The cast in general is excellent—I'm waiting for Toby Jones to get his late-career leading role that earns him an Oscars nod, for instance—the script is mostly very good, and it's overall largely a joy to look at. I think it's a lot better than it's given credit for.

13. Causeway

Directed by Lila Neugebauer

A very solid film, in the subdued story-telling style of independent cinema. Jennifer Lawrence plays Lynsey, who is forced to return home to New Orleans from Afghanistan after suffering a brain injury in an explosion. We see her gradual recovery, and the development of her relationship with James (Brian Tyree Henry) whom she meets by chance. It's a fine, and mostly understated film, as Lynsey and James help each other process their traumas. Lynsey also has to reconcile her life in the military, which gave her a sense of purpose, and an escape from her family life, with the reality that she may now be stuck in this city forever. A vital part of this conflict comes from Linda Emond, who is extremely good as Lynsey's unreliable mother. The film is only up for a single Oscar this time around, and that for the performance by Brian Tyree Henry, who is indeed extremely charismatic and intriguing on screen. Lawrence is, by comparison, more staid, but she well captures the military stiffness that forms Lynsey's shield. It's also a well-crafted script, which places pieces of the puzzle down gradually—allowing them to create the film's narrative drive and emotional impact. A poignant scene towards the end between Lynsey and her brother really draws the whole thing together. It's the sort of filmmaking I really enjoy, and while we've seen similar things to this before, this is a fine example of it. And when you get a fine example of something that you generally really enjoy, you can be sure that it's a successful experience.

14. Navalny

Directed by Daniel Roher

The "documentary as thriller" is alive and well, as shown by this remarkable effort by Daniel Roher focusing on the assassination attempt of Russia's main opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Focusing on the investigation of his poisoning after the fact, while in exile in Germany, Navalny and his team seek to unravel a conspiracy. While the investigation is genuinely fascinating in many ways, and provides a taut narrative about how close Navalny came to death, it's also wildly entertaining. There's an element of farce about how the Moscow4 (as they're dubbed, for amusing reasons) set about the assassination attempt, and their eventual coverup. A particular sequence where Navalny himself prank-calls the suspected perpetrators is honestly one of the most jaw-dropping scenes I've witnessed in many years. It also attempts to provide a realistic portrait of Navalny himself. He's a charismatic man, with a good sense of humour and rapport with his staff. But to be honest, the depiction overall is fairly burnished. While it asks some difficult questions of him, it never really grapples with things like his association with racists and Nazis early in his career. His answers—revolving around the need to build a coalition, and that Russia is still only in a nascent place where it comes to human rights anyway—are evasive, and make me wonder who a future President Navalny might end up being, and whether he will truly herald a break from the world of strongmen and oligarchs. Still, it's a fascinating piece of filmmaking, and a thoroughly engaging one. As far as documentaries go, you rarely get one that has as much intrigue as a scripted political drama. Roher handles the story with much more finesse and skill than other recent attempts (for example, Icarus). That's worth a lot.

15. EO

Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski

A fascinating and ultimately quite dynamic adaptation of Au Hazard Balthazar follows the titular EO, a circus donkey, through various misadventures after the circus is closed down. It's a simple premise, but it allows the director Jerzy Skolimowski to explore little snippets of humanity (good, and most certainly bad) through a natural framing device. There's a reason why you use a donkey for this type of story. They have a natural sense of despondency to them, but a willingness to accept what the world imposes upon them. They're strong, but servile. I feel like humans have a natural empathy for them in a way that we don't for other similar animals, and this allows them to be a powerful conductor for emotion. The soundtrack is another important element in this film's impact. It has extremely striking musical cues to punctuate the action, in particular brash horns which mimic donkey's cries (and, of course, the name of our protagonist). There's always a sense of turmoil, of impending doom, or perhaps a sense of representing the interiority of the donkey's psyche—in contrast with his placid exterior. Plot-wise, it is undoubtedly a little meandering, as EO moves from one situation to another, often with rather contrived methods of escape. After a while it feels like it's repeating itself, and in some ways it seems as though it's marking time until it can progress to its conclusion. Skolimowski is, however, a peculiar director, and one who couches his messages in fairly oblique imagery. We get travel sequences bathed in blood-red lighting, segments involving robot dogs dealing with a similarly uncaring world, drone shots that fly among wind-turbines. There's a suggestion that there's a powerful message all the way through, but it's not until the final scenes that we get any kind of certitude about what he's telling us. It was at times a perplexing film, but by the end there was a sense that that was at least partially the point. While we might not agree with Skolimowski's world view, was can at least appreciate the potency of it.

16. A House Made of Splinters

Directed by Simon Lereng Wilmont

A bittersweet documentary about a Ukrainian institution for children—a temporary one that acts as a safe place before children, often neglected by their parents, get moved to a more permanent home. There's a sense of hope and love within these walls, but never a sense of belonging. Children will be moved on: perhaps to a foster carer, perhaps to a state-run orphanage. Perhaps, if they're lucky, to a relative who can adopt them. We focus on the lives of some of the children as they face these challenges. Most have alcoholic parents—some leave them alone for days while they go on binges, leaving them to fend for themselves. Almost all still have the deep, unflinching attachment to the homes they know, despite this. There are some tales of optimism, and some of desolation. The older children may have been here three or four times. Some are reaching their maximum stay length and will be moved to a far less caring environment as a permanent solution. Some try to run away. Some sneak out to smoke, or find community with criminals. But, starkly, most are just children, doing child-like things. They make friends, they play, they draw, they go to school. Perhaps their conversation slips every now and then ("my parents used to make me drink beer, did yours do that too?"), but maybe they're just looking for something normal. There's also something poignant about focusing in so tightly on this place, when all we generally see of Ukraine nowadays are the broad strokes of the war with Russia. It takes us inside, and in some ways removed from the war, to show us something intimate and human. That can be a very powerful thing.

17. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Directed by Joel Crawford

A very enjoyable animated feature, that harnesses the caricature of Antonio Banderas's Puss in Boots and turns it into a journey of discovery, when he realises he's burned through 8 of his 9 lives and can no longer live his swashbuckling devil-may-care life. Initially finding himself at a home for abandoned kitties, he eventually reunites with Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek) and they team up to carry off the ultimate heist. The plot is serviceable enough, and the cast of characters are enjoyable, including "Goldie" and the 3 Bears (now a crime syndicate), Big Jack Horner, determined to harness magical powers for himself, and Perrito, the eternally optimistic therapy chihuahua. They provide enough substance to allow the film to explore its themes about the chances you get in life, the small moments you can take along the way, and the importance of family, both traditional and found. It's also beautifully animated—taking a hybrid approach in action sequences to give them a wonderful comic-book style. It manages this while still feeling true to the origins of the character in the naissance of 3D animation. But it's a choice that elevates this film while also softening some of the more violent sequences. Most importantly, I saw this film in the cinema with my 6yo and my 2yo and both of them sat rapt and engaged for its full length. If that's not a success then I don't know what is.

18. All That Breathes

Directed by Shaunak Sen

A very deliberately paced documentary that follows the tale of two brothers who run a wildlife shelter for injured black kites in Delhi. The brothers, guided by Islamic teachings, see this work as charity specifically called out as good works in the Quran. They fund their venture with the meagre profits from their business producing soap-dispensers, but seek external funding and training from abroad. But the documentary develops as the story does. It becomes less about the brothers and more about the country. We hear political messages blasted through loudspeakers. We listen to debates on religious freedoms. The family off-handedly discuss their passports, the spelling of their names on their documentation, whether that might cause them trouble. We see the ever increasing number of birds which they care for, the pollution in Delhi, the rains that flood their workshop with sewage. It's meditative. We get long tranches of footage of the wildlife that is now integrated with the city in India—monkeys climbing across the electrical wires, kites feeding off the landfill, frogs illuminated in the night lights of the road. It gives us plenty of time to reflect on what we're seeing, and the many ways we are interconnected. It's not altogether that gripping, and it has no intention of ramming a message down your throat. Its design is to be persuasive in a far more subliminal way, to guide us towards a conclusion that it wants us to make—parallels between its strands that we can make our own decisions about. This can be a very effective way to make a point. Overall, I thought it was a fine piece of film-making. While it wasn't as compelling or impactful as many others this year, it showed a great deal of craft and subtlety.

19. Elvis

Directed by Baz Luhrmann

An undoubtedly very stylish picture from Baz Luhrmann, Elvis tells the tale of The King himself, through the framing device of his long-time manager Colonel Tom Parker. Parker is portrayed by a prosthetics-enhanced Tom Hanks, while Austin Butler takes on the mantle of Elvis. You can see from early on why Butler was cast: he is a pretty magnetic performer, and he has the physical swagger of Elvis when he's performing, as well as being a good vocal match. But, partially due to Luhrmann's always ostentatious direction (he has a habit, for instance, of skipping over things that might be plot relevant in favour of pure spectacle), transferring his swagger to the rest of Elvis's life-story makes it lose a lot of its humanity. Instead, the film tried to be overtly political: in some ways, this is a refreshing surprise given it could have been all style and no substance. And in other ways, it almost feels like a necessity. How can you grapple with the concept of Elvis without examining the debt he owes to the blues, and to the Black folk who brought it to life. It's done in some subtle and some less-subtle ways: from blending Elvis's music with the likes of contemporary musicians such as Denzel Curry, to making the assassination of Martin Luther King a plot point of the film. But the film really struggles when it tries to examine the human drama. There's conflict between Presley and Parker, of course, which has its moments of true tension. But there are also scenes, such as the breakup of Elvis and Priscilla where Luhrmann is out of his comfort zone and Butler is not up to the task of making us feel something. Despite its unwieldy nature though, or perhaps because of all of the manifold pieces jammed together, it ends up feeling like a reasonable portrait of a flawed individual, complete with his contradictions and uncomfortable truths. It was nothing if not A Show.

20. All Quiet on the Western Front

Directed by Edward Berger

It's been almost 100 years since the last time All Quiet on the Wester Front won a Best Picture Oscar, so you can understand why the time might be right to try it again. We follow Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer) an idealistic German youth who joins Germany's war effort with the promise of conquering Paris in weeks. Instead, of course, he's forced into the reality of trench warfare as he watches his friends and comrades die around him. There's no doubt this is a very grim film. It's a hard watch, and very deliberately so. Like the book before it, it is a fervently anti-war film—it shows the brutalities of war starkly and up very, very close. One minute the soldier next to you is chatting to you, the next second they're dead. This is how it is. We see the affect this has on Paul as he develops from wide-eyed youngster, to battle-hardened machine—it's a quite excellent performance from Kammerer to develop this journey. In a change from the 1930 version, there's a parallel story in this film about the armistice negotiations between Germany and France. I wasn't entirely sure about the purpose of this, as it often took us out of the action right as the tension was building up (although perhaps that was the purpose—it's hard enough to watch without being mired in it). It did however show us the disconnect between those in power and those who were actually losing their lives, and Daniel Brühl as the German politician in charge of negotiations had a quiet pain in his performance. I do feel like this kind of film is one to be endured rather than enjoyed, but I do understand the desire and the drive to make films about the horrors of war. It would be too easy to forget what war really means, and perhaps another reminded is just what the world needs right now.

21. The Batman

Directed by Matt Reeves

Let's put aside my concerns about whether we need another Batman film, let alone another Batman franchise running concurrently with the existing Batman franchise, shall we? We can take those as read. If we can manage that, then The Batman is honestly quite good fun. Focusing on Batman as "world's greatest detective", this is effectively a neo-noir, as Batman tries to unravel a series of high-profile murders among Gotham's underworld. It uses its comic-book trappings as a foil, but it would almost be as effective were it shot in black-in-white with Batman as a 1940s Chicago flatfoot. It is actually executes a rather effective plot, as the Riddler taunts and ultimately ties Batman into his plans, while the city police grudgingly use Batman's extra-judicial methods to assist the investigation. It's also the film which perhaps best explores the paradox at the heart of Batman: what is it that causes this reclusive billionaire to become a vigilante. How is this helping the city he says he's helping? How does it hurt it? How does Batman himself cause the same problems he's trying to fix? That's not to say it's overly deep philosophically, but it at least engages with the problem. Robert Pattinson is honestly wasted in the role, but he brings his dark charisma to it anyway, and in an always eclectic career, he's found another strange direction to go in. I also quite enjoyed Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman, although it's a starkly under-written role. And there's a certain thrill from the unceasingly grim production design and shadowed cinematography. All up, I genuinely did enjoy it a good deal. But, admittedly, to get to this point, you do have to ignore the question of its relevance and necessity, plus you have to grapple with its bloated almost 3-hour running time. These are certainly things that make me pause from embracing it wholeheartedly.

22. Argentina, 1985

Directed by Santiago Mitre

Julio Strassera (Ricardo Darín) is a public prosecutor, who is responsible for leading cases brought before the Argentinian court of appeals. After the military's most recent dictatorship is toppled, the prosecution of the former leaders falls to him—a weighty task that involves threats to him and his team, a lack of cooperation from other established lawyers and, ultimately, perhaps even the fate of Argentinian democracy. It's an interesting historical portrait—especially its depiction of the instability of Argentinian society which is used to the brutal rule of the junta. There's a sense of emerging from oppression and bringing things into the light—but it also exposes the fear that's associated with doing that. People might have feared and despised military rule, but its absence is in some ways also an unfamiliar threat. I did find, however, that it was a little underwhelming as a legal drama—and that's largely how it's both billed and performed. After all, the majority of the film is set inside the court room. There's very little in it that's surprising in the way the argument rolls out: which is fine as a historical document of what was probably a long, technical trial. But it didn't really engage me in the plot. It doesn't try to do this, of course—it's more interested in making observations about the state of Argentinian society at the time, and the gradual understanding of the crimes of the dictatorship. Overall, though, it was certainly a solid film, with a good deal to recommend it. But it didn't really manage to feel like the gut-punch of a film it might have been if it took us on a little more of a ride.

23. Women Talking

Directed by Sarah Polley

The women of a Mennonite community somewhere in the United States discover that the men have been drugging and raping them over many years, and they resolve to make a stand. When a vote is tied between leaving the colony or staying and fighting the men, a small group of women are chosen to decide for the whole. The film then revolves around the hayloft where they convene to discuss the fate of the community—11 women, and the young male schoolteacher who, as one of the few left who can write, is tasked with keeping the minutes. What follows is an interesting but perhaps not particularly novel investigation of feminism—the women, often downtrodden in this conservative society, go about deriving the tenets of gender equality from first principles, coming to see through a basic truth about fairness and kindness that they only have one option. It's an interesting exercise, but in some ways it's not a particularly gripping one. I found the script a little leaden at times—it skips around without a lot of rhetoric power, and too often finds itself bogged down in theology. This is necessary given the setting, of course, but it often means it finds itself in cyclical patterns that feel self-perpetuating. There's the potential for this thematic material to be devastating, raw and powerful, and I really feel as though it never reached an emotional climax worthy of it. I thought the performances were fairly solid, although I also found the characterisation lacking distinction—Claire Foy, Rooney Mara and Jessie Buckley's characters all blended into one for me, leaving the older women and Michelle McLeod's Mejal the most fully formed. Better is the understated performance from August Winter as Melvin, a transgender man who looks after the colony's children—their performance is subtle but marked with pain. Also good is Ben Whishaw as the schoolteacher, August, in particular towards the end of the film. Overall though, it felt like a film that was so full of potential that it couldn't realise. Sarah Polley is a director I genuinely love, and this should have been an absolute golden moment of cinema for me. So even though it was interesting, solid and well made—that still feels a little like a disappointment.

24. Triangle of Sadness

Directed by Ruben Östlund

In so many ways, I had a great time with this film. Director Ruben Östlund has a great skill with a kind of dark, depressing satire taken to logical and artistic extremes in some of his previous work, in particular The Square. Triangle of Sadness sees him move to English-language cinema for the first time, and it feels like there's rich fodder here for him to lampoon a fresh segment of society. We first meet Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean), two models, who are together "for the 'gram", and have squabbles over money, gender roles and manipulation while attending one of Yaya's fashion shows. It's a prologue to the main story, which is set on an exclusive luxury cruise. Carl and Yaya run shoulders with oligarchs and retired arms dealers, while waited upon by the staff of the boat, lead by Paula (Vicki Berlin), and the captain of the vessel (Woody Harrelson) who spends most of his time drunk in his cabin. The unfortunate thing about the film is that it really struggles to hone its satire to a meaningful point. It is in so many ways a giddy and hilarious experience, especially as the ship eventually suffers a series of disasters that causes the social order of the cruise to invert. The characterisation and dialogue is honestly wonderful, and it makes individual scenes very entertaining to watch. But by the end of the film, I was expecting a punch—something to really drive the satire home; to make a bigger point about our own current societal inequality, or to provide some kind of call to action. And nothing really manages to provide it. But that, I guess, is not Östlund's way of working. His tool is a mirror, not a scalpel. "Here are some sardonic observations on society", he says, "it's not my job to figure out how to fix them." But this also means that the film ultimately feels shallow, especially after some reflection on what I was meant to take away from it. Still, I was entertained. And that's worth something. It's just disappointing when it could have been so wonderfully trenchant at the same time. That's when the film would have had real impact.

25. Turning Red

Directed by Domee Shi

I so often love the start of Pixar films, which do such a good job of selling their concept. In this case, it's the story of a teenage girl who discovers that excess emotional stress turns her into a giant red panda. It's beautifully juxtaposed with the turbulent time which is puberty, while examining life from the perspective of a young person growing up and making their own way in the world. The problem with this, and certain others of recent times, is that it doesn't really know what to do with it when it needs to create tension and resolve the plot. In this case, it's only really the climax and resolution which fails for me at least, but it still feels as though Pixar has to go big for some reason, when there was something honestly perfect and sweet about keeping the film out of the astral plane and focused on a young girl and her group of friends trying to get tickets to a pop concert. If you ignored that, it's a really lovely film with a lot of heart. But sometimes, smaller is better. The 6yo loved it though, so really, what do I know?

26. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Directed by Dean Fleischer Camp

A sweet film and a small film, Marcel The Shell With Shoes On is a mockumentary following our titular shell (Jenny Slate) who lives with his grandmother Connie (Isabella Rossellini) in a house that is regularly rented out on AirBnB. When the most recent tenant, Dean (the director, Dean Fleischer Camp), arrives and starts documenting Marcel's life, we learn a tale of sadness and ingenuity, as we learn of the loss of Marcel's family, and his life caring for his grandmother. It is not, in fact, a particularly deep film, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have emotional impact. Marcel is a poignant character, steadfast and resourceful, but tinged with a sense of tragedy, and there's something genuinely touching about his depiction, and the portrayal from Jenny Slate. I found the mockumentary format a little disorientating though. Marcel, through Dean, becomes a YouTube sensation, in a metafictional nod to Marcel's genesis, and the insertion of the director always feels a little bit awkward. It is, in some ways, what makes the film feel unique, and what also connect Marcel's world to our own. But the charm of the film lies not in the framing, but in the characterisation. The rest is a distraction. But overall, as far as animated features go, this was a pretty entertaining one, and one with more depth than many you come across. I was surprised, but my 7yo who I watched this with really loved it, and I think that makes it a grand success.

27. To Leslie

Directed by Michael Morris

I knew not much about this before watching it, other than Andrea Riseborough's nomination for Best Actress at the Oscars was a "big surprise", and highlighted the weird processes that go into campaigning-but-not-campaigning for the award. It turns out, it's a drama about alcoholism, featuring Riseborough as the titular Leslie: a woman who meanders through the ghosts of her past, after squandering her lottery winnings on partying hard for many years. She eventually ends up in her home town, where she is largely rejected until she meets Sweeney (Marc Maron) who offers her a job at the local motel. Honestly, the main beats of the story are well-worn in the pantheon of cinema. This is a tale of addiction and recovery that we've seen done many times before—and in some ways it's been done a lot better. It's still at times affecting, which I guess is why we keep seeing this type of story. In large part, it's successful due to a performance from Riseborough that is indeed excellent. She manages to inhabit Leslie with a believability that's striking on screen. Less successful though is her eventual redemption arc: we spend a lot of time feeling pity for Leslie, but rarely optimism. So it feels as though there's a slight disingenuousness about where the story ends up going, especially her relationship with Sweeney, the man who succeeds where Leslie's dearest friends and family have failed. I think to a large degree the script is the issue—it spends a lot of time on the characterisation of Leslie, but little time in developing its narrative in a way that would make more dramatic sense. This is particularly true of the very rushed ending, which provides us with a disappointingly abrupt tonal shift. But it's hard to deny that Riseborough is the star, and in my opinion, she deserves the Oscar nomination. Surprise or not; getting this film in front of the eyeballs of the Academy is probably all that was needed to make that happen.

28. Fire of Love

Directed by Sara Dosa

An interesting documentary chronicling the lives of Katia and Maurice Krafft, two married volcanologists, who dedicate their lives to their study. It's pieced together from the vast amount of footage the two filmed as part of their work, and from their home movies sharing their lives. There's a thrill about being so close to the volcanoes here—the Kraffts had a reputation for being more daring in their approach to volcanology than many of their peers—and the pictures of lava, eruptions, and ultimately the "grey volcanoes" that become their speciality are compelling. The director of the film also does a reasonable job of piecing together the home movies into a narrative about their lives. Less successful is the the narration, which is written with bombast—poetic in some ways, but offputting at others—and delivered with idiosyncratic style by Miranda July. It makes some effort to cover the patchwork nature of the visuals, but the seams are still visible a little too often. As such, while it feels like a bit of a treat to see this imagery in a feature film, I wasn't so compelled by the feature and the way it was presented as a whole. It attempts to make it greater than its raw material—but when your raw material is exploding lava, maybe you don't need to make the attempt.

29. Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio

Directed by Guillermo del Toro

This is by far and away the best adaptation of Pinocchio I've seen, even as (or perhaps because) Guillermo del Toro takes liberties with the scattered plot of the original. Pinocchio is a wooden boy carved in a drunken fit of depression by Geppetto, mourning the loss of his own son in the First World War. Brought to life by a wood sprite, Pinocchio is never the son Geppetto has lost, and follows his own meandering path. It's obviously a very beautiful film—made with exquisite stop-motion, and lit in golden hues that make it aesthetically pleasing from start to finish. There's also a sense that this is a labour of love for Del Toro—everything is done with meticulous craft. But we get pretty quickly to the fundamental problem with the three (? more?) adaptations of the story we've had in the last few years, which is that the story of Pinocchio kinda sucks, despite some (if not all) of its themes being quite moving. This film does a little better here than some others—especially its focus on what it means to be a "real boy", replacing one who was lost. But there are things, like the sense of repeated punishment Pinocchio receives for being "a bad boy", which feel stuck in the late 19th century. They're fundamental to the story in some ways, so it always feels as though they're going to pollute any adaptation. However, this film works at other levels. Aside from the beautiful animation, the transplantation of the tale to the inter-war era of Benito Mussolini allows Del Toro to explore some of the darkness at its core in a political context, although this is only partially successful. It certainly makes it a more meaningfully dark film than a Pinocchio story often is. For these reasons, I do consider it a fairly successful adaptation—but I still have a deep problem with the source material, and I really hope that this film is "good enough" to stop people attempting to remake it for a while.

30. Living

Directed by Oliver Hermanus

I've seen Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru many years ago—enough that I only vaguely remember the story, but I do still remember its emotional impact. Living, based on Kurosawa's work, with a new screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro, moves the story to post-war England, where career bureaucrat Mr. Williams (Bill Nighy) learns that he has only months to live, and seeks to find his life's purpose in the little time he has left. The problem I had with this film was that it did seem all too familiar. Afterwards, I went and read the synopsis of Ikiru only to discover that yes, basically every single beat of the plot is followed in chronological order. It's not so much a rewrite as a transplantation, although Ishiguro's dialogue and characterisation is undoubtedly strong. The fact remains though, the setting of mid-century Japan, and mid-century England has a similar level of emotional repression—so the characterisation is common to both. Bill Nighy is genuinely very good in this role, but it's not really a career-defining one. It would in some ways be a rather forgettable film without him though—if it's not a grand highlight, it's at least a punctuation mark, and his presence elevates what could have been a rather flat remake. One of the main issues of making this so closely aligned with the original, though, is that while they're set in a similar time period, the age in which they were made is very different. You can't really ignore 70 years of cultural change, and making this film in 1952, and making it in 2023 is a very different proposition. That makes this film feel naive and static to some extent. I suspect that although it has bestowed the title of "Oscar nominee" on the great Bill Nighy, in a few years, this film will be nothing more than a footnote.

31. Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths

Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu

A disappointing but undeniably beautiful film, Bardo sees Alejandro G. Iñárritu turn his focus inwards and outwards at the same time, in his attempt to make what seems an autobiographical film into one with something to say about universal truths. Unfortunately, it feels very self-absorbed, and rarely has any insight beyond the inner world of his main character. Silverio Gama (Daniel Giménez Cacho) is a Mexican documentarian. His latest film, which provides Bardo's subtitle, is a divisive work of docu-fiction that has been seen as both his crowning achievement and his inevitable downfall. As he prepares to accept a lifetime achievement award, he reflects on his career, his lost child, and his bipartite life, split between Mexico and the United States. It plays very much with style and form as a way to explore a character's internal state, and it is in some ways quite ambitious in what it's trying to do. Gama frequently experiences surreal waking dreams in which symbols and events from his past are made concrete. It reflects his documentary fiction, in which he tries to blur the lines of reality, but much less successfully than the film-within-a-film supposedly does. Gama feels very much like a self-insert from Iñárritu, and watching it often feels like reading someone's angsty, faux-profound diary that he perceives as an unfathomable work of genius. But it's beautifully realised. The cinematography is wonderful, combining beautiful work with light, and long tracking shots which require some real technical skill to choreograph and pull off. There is a real sense of wanting to capture on film the wonder of Mexico, and this is achieved in grand style. Unfortunately, Iñárritu seems to have reached that point in his career where he tries to dive too deeply into introspection. I feel like he should remember that his films need to be entertaining to people other than himself. The fact that he doesn't makes for a film that's difficult to digest, and ultimately probably quite forgettable.

32. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Directed by Ryan Coogler

This film has a very heavy burden on its shoulders. The loss of your main star, and in tragic circumstances, is a difficult thing to write around for a start, but it also forces the film to honour Chadwick Boseman's legacy intrinsically. As a result, it's quite a leaden film. Its pace is much slowed as the characters deal with their grief. It feels like it tries hard to match the emotional response we all had when such a bright star was taken from us in real life. And as a result, it's a film that really struggles to come to terms with its actual plot. The plot, when it finally arrives almost halfway through the film, concerns another mystery nation who also has a source of vibranium, formed by Mesoamericans who took to the oceans prior to colonisation. It tries very hard to replicate the themes of the first film, and it's partially successful, leaving aside the fact that we've seen them before. The story though is largely forgettable. It moves away from the ideas of isolationism versus outreach that were so powerful in the first film, and settles more on a standard "threat of war" motif that is much less morally complex and engaging. Performances are reasonably good across the board, although I found Letitia Wright very much weighed down in her lead role—it's a part that doesn't suit Shuri so well, even a Shuri who is grieving for her brother. Angela Bassett is great as an under-utilised Ramonda, and deserves her rare MCU acting Oscar nom. And the technical side of things is of course very good, although I found some of the set pieces depressingly formulaic, especially having seen films like RRR recently. So overall, I think it probably does its best under difficult circumstances. But I remember feeling this sense of uplift and joy at the way the first film was put together. I feel like this one still has the skill behind it; it's just working with a significant handicap.

33. Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

Directed by Anthony Fabian

I do love Leslie Manville, and so I thought this film might be greater than it seemed on the surface. Mrs. Harris (Manville) a war-widow who works as a cleaner for the wealthy, falls in love with a Christian Dior dress she sees at the house of one of her clients. When she unexpectedly comes into a windfall of cash, she travels to Paris to get one of her very own. It's a paper-thin plot, and as much as it tries to embellish itself with issues of class, it never feels genuinely substantial. The streets of Paris are not the romantic fantasy you might expect, but are instead filled with garbage as the ébouers of the city are on strike. Manville is dismissed at the couture house out of hand until she shows great wodges of hard currency. These suggest the fringes of another, better plot that never eventuates. In the end, there's a remarkable conservatism to it. It's a fairy-tale, not a social statement—and the ultimate goal of the film is wish fulfilment rather than a sense of revolution. Meandering through fairly minor obstacles, Mrs. Harris will eventually get her dress, we can be assured of that. Perhaps she learns something along the way; perhaps she teaches something to those rich snobs. But maybe not. I also had a real problem with the filming. Shot in stark digital, it looks like a documentary, or an on-a-budget TV show more often than not, and that jars with the perception of it as a period piece. I know this is just my own expectations colouring my view: but there's constant cognitive dissonance when everything genuinely looks like it was shot in the 2020s, but is supposed to represent post-war Europe. Manville is a great actress, and she deserves more opportunities to shine. But to be honest, I was disappointed that this is the vehicle she got to do it in. She, and we all, deserve better.

34. Babylon

Directed by Damien Chazelle

This film starts out incredibly strongly—it has a massively vibrant, chaotic and unhinged party scene, complete with deaths, debauchery and an elephant. It's a riotous piece of direction. Knowing the film was 3 hours long, I said "if this film never leaves this party, I'm going to be okay with that". It would be a wild and bold decision. Unfortunately, not only does this not occur, the film turns into that most disappointing of things: "A Salute To The Movies Themselves!". Attempting to show the seamy underbelly of early Hollywood, it falls instead into the easy trap of filmmakers for decades, which is thinking that a story about themselves is intrinsically interesting. We've seen it too many times before. Damian Chazelle does have some skills in the intensity of his production, although his trademarks are starting to get a little too obvious, especially when you put this film side-by-side with La La Land. It gets tiresome after a while, and even Chazelle seems to admit that he can't maintain the pace of the film for its very long running time. Margot Robbie is quite good as the rising silent film star who can't hack it in a changing world (although explicitly juxtaposing her with a screening of Singin' in the Rain is way too on-the-nose), as is Diego Calva as a rising studio producer. Brad Pitt largely sleepwalks through his role, but there's a surprisingly scene-stealing turn from Tobey Maguire as a criminal mobster. But overall, the film didn't hang together nearly well enough as a whole. It feels a little bit like it was being pulled one way into a grotesquerie—a depiction of the fall of Babylon implied by its title—and in another way into a standard Hollywood story about itself. If it had've just stayed to the excesses and energy of the former, I probably would have liked it a whole heap more.

35. Blonde

Directed by Andrew Dominik

Based on the fictionalisation of Marilyn Monroe's life by Joyce Carol Oates, Andrew Dominik's Blonde tells a condensed and dramatised version of Norma Jeane Mortensen's life; from her childhood, longing for a father who may never have existed in any tangible way, to her stardom and eventual death. There was honestly so much, on the surface, that was going for this film. We have a really quite electric turn from Ana De Armas as Marilyn Monroe, navigating a tricky path between melodrama and parody. We have Dominik's distinct visual style, evoking tropes of Hollywood's Golden Age, and whip-fast editing to make the film feel pacier than its length. And although I've not read the source material, I assume it probably has some depth to it that can be explored. Unfortunately, while the visual style is striking, and Ana De Armas manages to cut a strange figure in the middle of it, much of the rest of the film is quite poor. A lot of the problems come from the script, and the personification of Monroe as a perpetual child seeking to build the family she never had. It's patronising both to its subject and to the audience, as we see again and again how the pattern repeats. It's also wildly exploitative—including some really grossly overdone sex scenes that border on abuse (and seriously did we need quite so many leering close-ups of her iconic scene in The Seven Year Itch? No we did not). There's also a really clunking, bordering on offensive treatment of abortion. This is magnified horribly later when Monroe gets pregnant again—the framing of her pregnancy with reference to her earlier abortion is wildly problematic. To quote from my notes I wrote during the film: "You are a fuck for framing it that way you absolute shit of a movie." But like I said, there were some qualities to the production which worked for me—much better than some other films this Oscars season—even when the director picks odd times to switch between fantasy and realism. As much as it feels like Dominik is trying to reconcile Monroe's public persona with her personal life, it ends up feeling like he's taking the most outlandish take on the latter to generate drama. Finally, I'd just like to say that the bottles of beer Adrian Brody carries down to the beach are clearly empty and that annoyed me. Boy I hope someone got fired for that blunder.

36. The Whale

Directed by Darren Aronofsky

A deeply troubled and troubling film. Brendan Fraser launches himself back to our screens as Charlie, a severely obese man who teaches English classes online among visits from his friend Liz (Hong Chau), who is also his nurse, his estranged daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink) and a young missionary who chances upon Charlie when preaching door-to-door (Ty Simpkins). There's honestly the core of a good story here. Charlie left his family to start a relationship with a young male student, who subsequently died. Ellie is still angry at his abandonment. Liz tries to convince Charlie he needs more medical attention than she can provide. And everything is tied together with a recurring essay on Moby Dick, which Charlie has some unexpected attachment to. But it's really hard to overlook the fatphobic heart of the film. Brendan Fraser is honestly quite sympathetic as Charlie, but he's also a caricature in a fatsuit. Aronofsky really goes out of his way to make Charlie as physically repulsive as possible, in a kind of gleeful voyeurism. It's a really awful way of portraying the character—the goal is, I suppose, to have the audience have to grapple with our supposed prejudices. But it's really done in bad faith. While the title is arguably a reference to Moby Dick, it's also clearly designed to be provocative in the same way. The nail in the coffin is the fact that this would have been a successful film were Charlie not portrayed with the same sense of vulgarity. Would this have been just as emotionally resonant if they didn't put Brendan Fraser in a fatsuit? Yep. So why does Aronofsky do it? We can draw our own conclusions. It also suffers from the fate of plays which are adapted for the screen—a sense of claustrophobia and a separation from the naturalism you can get from film. It's a series of vignettes as characters enter, stage left. While the performances are good across the board (Hong Chau definitely deserves her Best Supporting Actress nod, and Samantha Morton makes a very good late appearance as well), there's still a slightly stilted quality to the convenience of having them turn up, one by one at Charlie's apartment. But the point is, there's something deeply unpleasant in its soul—and that really very much limits my enjoyment of the film. It could have been so much better.

37. Tell It Like a Woman

Directed by Taraji P. Henson, Catherine Hardwicke, Lucia Puenzo, Mipo O, Maria Sole Tognazzi, Leena Yadav, Lucia Bulgheroni & Silvia Carobbio

An extremely fractured anthology film of barely related shorts with the vague theme of "women", which isn't really a theme, and which I only had to watch because the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Science's songwriting division has an obsession with Diane Warren. The song which garners Warren her 14th nomination (without win), Applause appears awkwardly in the film and then two or possible seven times over the closing credits. The shorts are extremely variable. The first two, (Pepcy & Kim, and Elbows Deep) are really undercooked. They look and feel like they were rehearsed and filmed in a day between other projects, despite (or perhaps because) they had some big names in them. What's more, both of them have a cringe-inducing PSA-style "this was based on a true story can you believe it!" finale where they introduce you to the real hero behind the film. I was very concerned early on. They fortunately get a little better from here. Lagonero follows a generic Woo Girl-Boss character (Eva Longoria) who returns to her home town in Italy after her estranged sister dies. It at least looks like it had some effort put into its production. A Week in My Life is a softly observed portrait of a single mother in Japan juggling all the elements of her life. It was quite sweet, and definitely one of the strongest in the anthology. I found the next film, Unspoken, perhaps the most resonant and coherent—it's the kind of thing that felt like someone with a true love for the short-film form had control of it. It was nicely shot, and well-contained—with just enough story to make it interesting, but not too much as to make it feel like it suffered too shallow a treatment. Sharing a Ride takes us to the streets of Mumbai, where an affluent cosmetic surgeon shares a rickshaw one day with a transgender model and finds herself conflicted. Thematically, it was perhaps the most interesting, but it was really weirdly handled and it felt like there was little control over the end result. It's also the first instance of Applause and it really feels like it was crowbarred in, when they could have left it as the first music cue over the credits instead. Finally, we have a jarring switch to mid-tier computer animation for Aria, a low-rent, wordless sci-fi about character punching out of their little pink- and blue-coded boxes. As much as it tries to be profound, it ends up too obvious and very disappointing. Overall, it's really not a film—and the anthology element is largely meaningless. I suggest it's better to pick and choose the best parts, and leave the rest on the side of the kerb for an early morning pickup.

38. The Sea Beast

Directed by Chris Williams

This was certainly a film that was eligible for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars. It's longer than 40 minutes, it's animated, and it got a cinematic release in the Los Angeles area. Unfortunately, apart from that, its qualifications for the nomination is has received are much less tangible. Sea beasts have been ravaging human ships for generations, and Captain Crow is one of the bravest hunters of the beasts; he particularly seeks a great red beast who attacked him in his youth. When his adopted son ends up being trapped with the beast, he forges a friendship and I'm just going to trail off because I'm getting a bit bored. I think what many people were crying out for was How To Train Your Dragon, only the dragon is sea-bound, the writing is worse and the characterisation extremely bland, and lucky for you The Sea Beast delivers on this score. It's a film we've seen before, only it's been done less well. Clutching at nice things to say about it, I will say that they've done an excellent job of rendering the water of the oceans. They swirl and foam with remarkable realism. But it's often quite a jarring effect that doesn't work with the fairly straightforward CG animation of the characters, ships and beasts. In fact, it ends up feeling a little bit like someone came up with a great new algorithm to simulate water, and they built a film around the technology using whatever rudimentary building blocks they had. Yeah, overall, this was a bit of a stinker for me. It's very much making up the numbers in the Oscars nominations this year, and I can guarantee you there were at least three or four other films that met those minimum eligibility requirements which would be more worthy in this one's place.

39. Avatar: The Way of Water

Directed by James Cameron

I really don't know where to start with this film. I was deeply skeptical about the whole principle of an extended Avatar series even before I sat down to watch what was a 3+ hour long behemoth. The original was a film that everyone saw once and then immediately forgot about. Perhaps it had some die-hard fans, but I don't think anyone ever really took it seriously as a major piece of filmmaking after the initial hype died away. First up, I found it a frankly breathtaking piece of arrogance from James Cameron that he just threw us back into this world, what, 13? years after the original, knowing honestly that no one really cared enough about this film to rewatch it, and just expected us to remember these characters. There's no recapitulation; there's not even a sense that we're learning about how the characters have grown or what their relationships are like. We get a quick-fire "Sully and Ney'tiri (I had to look up the name) have had some kids cool now back to the CGI", and that's it. But this is emblematic of one of the main problems with the whole film. It's so, goddamn, boring. And the reason is that I just didn't care about these characters—the film spent no time at all (and goddamn, it had so much time it could have spent) making me relate to anyone? The closest you get is a sense that "these are the good guys, these are the bad guys—and you don't want to root for the bad guys, do ya?". That's what the entire emotional affectiveness boils down to. There are, sure, action sequences and glossy water rendering, but these are things which tug at the eyes and not at the soul. Moreover, the script was bananas bad, and I don't at all place the blame on this on the heavy lifting I was expected to do in remembering Avatar 1. There are plot devices which are introduced and then just never mentioned again. Pandora is supposedly being prepped for human habitation, seemingly as a flimsy excuse to put the Na'vi and the humans in conflict again. There's some elixir derived from the Pandoran whales which can provide human immortality—this is brought up once and then nothing further in the film relies on it. Generously, you could say that these are just presaging things that will become more relevant in the next (oh god!) 4 or 5 Avatar films that are already in the pipeline—but in this film they stuck out like the scene in The Room where Tommy Wiseau's mother says she has cancer and everyone just goes on their merry way. One thing the original had going for it was its contribution to CGI—in particular the processing of facial features of the actors onto their Na'vi counterparts. But this is no longer cutting-edge, and it honestly feels like this wasn't significantly better 13 years on. It's amusing to compare this to the much more expressive and evocative style of something like Puss in Boots: The Last Wish which took deliberate steps away from very finely-grained feature rendering. But, as I said, the greatest sin of this film is that it was so dull. So, so, so, so dull. And even now, just two days after I saw it, I can feel the details of the film starting to elude me. I just didn't care what was going on—why should I expend the effort to remember it. My brain has already decided that the plot of The Way of Water is not at all useful information to retain. And the fact that I had to sit through 3 hours and 12 minutes of tedium for so little result ends up making me angry and sleepy. And, to count down the short films, which where we have an entry missing. There just seemed to be no legitimate (or even semi-legitimate) way to watch this in Australia this year. I was extremely pleased that this year we had cinematic releases of the Short Film packages in Sydney—they played at many of the independent cinemas around the city, but only the Live Action and Animation categories. I would have made a special visit to see the Documentaries as well, even though I managed to find the other four by other means. As always, these were a very worthwhile outing, and I'm really so pleased that the Academy continues to honour short films. While there were some questionable choices this year, if the alternative was to not have these categories at all, I know what I'd choose.

1. An Irish Goodbye

Directed by Ross White, Tom Berkeley

A charming black comedy that follows two estranged brothers who return to the family farm after their mother dies. Lorcan, the younger, has Down syndrome and needs care that his mother can no longer provide. His brother lives in London and has no desire to become his guardian. When they stumble upon a wish list of things their mother wanted to do before she died, they resolve to complete the list before going their separate ways. It's a sweet film, and a funny one, despite having a lot of depression and grief in its core. It's about reconnection and grappling with the past. It's obviously about loss. It's also just enjoyable in a way that many of the others in this year's list were not—there were some excellent films that were hard to watch; tense films, films with dark themes, perplexing films. This was heartening and crowd-pleasing, and I think it was also perhaps just the most well-made.

2. The Red Suitcase

Directed by Cyrus Neshvad

A tense film about a teenage girl who arrives solo from Iran to Luxembourg to marry a stranger in an arranged wedding. Her anxiety and reticence match with her fear and naivety in a foreign land as she attempts to find an escape. It's a fine short film—and one which gets the stakes just right. It's thrilling because we learn just enough to care about this character, without getting bogged down in exposition. That's a hard line to walk in a short film, given the limited time you have to work with. There was perhaps a few moments of convenience in the film, where things just fell in a slightly improbably way—although there was certainly no unambiguously happy ending to be had, despite the fact that she manages quite frequently to make an escape at just the right moment. I still think it was one of the stronger films from this year's Live Action shorts contingent. It certainly shows a film-maker with good control of the form.

3. Stranger at the Gate

Directed by Joshua Seftel

An honestly fascinating documentary short, about an ex-soldier who grapples with deeply entrenched Islamophobia after his return from 25 years of fighting the war on terror. The structure of the film is really quite wonderful—you think it's going to be a very different story to the one it ends up telling, and while this feels a little manipulative after the fact, it's hard to deny that it massively increases the power of the film as a result. One of the more engaging documentary shorts I've seen this year.

4. The Martha Mitchell Effect

Directed by Anne Alvergue, Debra McClutchy

A fascinating short documentary on Martha Mitchell, the outspoken wife of Richard Nixon's attorney-general. While Nixon's cadre was openly antagonistic to the press, Mitchell, a strong supporter of the president, manages to engage them and others with her energetic style, and uses them to the advantage of the administration. Then, Watergate happens, Mitchell starts to question the president (and her husband), and she's used as a pawn in a damning game of coverups and gaslighting. It's a portrait of a woman who was falling very much outside the mould of what a proper political wife should be, and how she was punished for it. The "Martha Mitchell Effect" of the title becomes the name of a phenomenon where someone is proven right after being thought crazy or deluded—and it does a good job of examining this prominent example of it. I found it a very engaging documentary about a compelling individual, about whom I knew nothing before watching it.

5. Ice Merchants

Directed by João Gonzalez

A beautiful, wordless animated short, following a father and son who deliver ice from their house high on a mountain top to the village below each day. It has a pleasing sense of the surreal to it, and very handsome artwork in a hand-drawn style. It also seems to try to want to say something about climate change, and consumerism, but it's heavy-handed on the first point, and muddled on the second—to the extent that I'm not entirely sure what it was trying to say (if anything). But it's enjoyable on its own terms, and at a bite-size 11 minutes, it's easily digestible as well.

6. My Year of Dicks

Directed by Sara Gunnarsdóttir

A really quite wonderful short film, about a teenage girl and the sequence of boyfriends she has over a year. It's drawn in an engaging rotoscoped style that's both expressively realistic and able to be used for artistic embellishment—it's the kind of animation the Oscars tends to love. Better is the engagement with the vagaries of teenage life—that sense of wanting to grow up too fast, but also the fear of it, of making mistakes that will shape you into the adult you will become. It manages to do all of this with quite a short running time. I enjoyed it a great deal, even if it was perhaps not as inventive as some of the other examples in this category this year.

7. Le Pupille

Directed by Alice Rohrwacher

A fascinating and perplexing film which takes place in a Catholic orphanage in Italy over Christmas during World War II. In exchange for prayers from the orphans for loved ones away in battle, the townsfolk give food items for the orphanage's Christmas lunch. But it also deals (in wonderfully ironic fashion) with what it means to be good or bad, and even in a world with fairly stark boundaries drawn on this count, we see the innocents, and the nuns, show questionable judgement when it comes to morality. Chief is the Mother Superior, played wonderfully by Alba Rohrwacher whom I mostly know from the films of Laura Bispuri. Stylistically, it's one of the most inventive of the shorts this year as well, telling part of the story through a letter, and through song, while we get rapid-fire editing to juxtapose scenes for satirical purposes. It was also, by the end, a little unsatisfying. I suspect there's something to "get" more than I did—perhaps, for instance, it's more poignant if you grew up with strict Catholicism. But it was good enough to just come along for the ride as well.

8. The Flying Sailor

Directed by Amanda Forbis, Wendy Tilby

A very quick-fire short, about a sailor tossed in the air by a massive TNT explosion who has moments, tumbling in the air, to reflect on his life. It's really beautifully animated with a free-form style that nonetheless manages to feel a little like rotoscoping, with fleshy rendered humanity superimposed on ethereal backgrounds. It's not, perhaps, the most narratively interesting of the Oscar-nominated shorts this year, but I found it honestly rather beguiling.

9. Ivalu

Directed by Anders Walter, Pipaluk K. Jørgensen

A beautifully shot short film about a young Greenlander girl who is searching for her runaway sister. It shows some really wonderfully stark imagery of the island, including its glaciers, tors and bays, and even extracts beauty from the desolation of things like an abandoned military facility. Story-wise I found it a bit predictable, marking fairly well-trodden territory. It also had a disappointing choice to not rely on implication as heavily as it might have—in the end, the reveal is made explicit and the film loses some of its power. Still, it was pleasant to look at, and had some interesting thematic resonance. It could have been truly devastating though with a few changes.

10. An Ostrich Told Me The World Is Fake And I Think I Believe It

Directed by Lachlan Pendragon

An amusing metafictional tale of an office worker who begins to believe that he's a stop-motion animation character when he notices all of the parts of his world that don't make sense. It's clever in some ways, from its framing to its sense of deadpan humour. I think it also wants to be be seen as more profound than it is, which is a fatal flaw when it could be happy being an amusing diversion. But if you don't look too hard at it, you can enjoy it for what it is. It at least has a real spark of originality to it, which is worth a lot.

11. Haulout

Directed by Maxim Arbugaev, Evgenia Arbugaeva

An interesting, almost dialogue-free short about a marine biologist studying walruses in the Arctic. He arrives at a desolated hut, wanders around a bit getting himself set up, until one day he opens the door and all you can see are walruses for miles and miles. This is the "haulout" of the title, and it's quite a remarkable thing to capture on film. The film also makes some belated comments on climate change and the melting of ice floes, which have made the migration and haulout much more extreme year to year. But the film's strength is in its imagery, and it's a good thing that it largely manages to just sit and allow that to wash over us.

12. Night Ride

Directed by Eirik Tveiten

Dang. I really wanted to love this film, and early on there was a wonderful sense of dark comedy as a woman semi-accidentally steals a tram and takes it for a joyride (including picking up passengers). Unfortunately, the plot pivots on a nasty instance of transphobia, and it's patently unnecessary—although the trans character is sympathetic and we are definitely on her side, it's a depiction we really don't need, especially in this time of anti-trans rhetoric. The most annoying thing is that there are other ways you could provide the beats to the story, and keep the good parts. But this was a deliberate choice made by the filmmaker to not do that, and that's a problem. This unfortunately means this is The Whale of the shorts this year.

13. The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse

Directed by Peter Baynton, Charlie Mackesy

First up: this film is gorgeous. It is a beautifully rendered delicate pencil-and-watercolour style which allows for motion and naturalism. I genuinely loved looking at it. Unfortunately, the film otherwise is extremely glib. It follows a young boy who is looking for "home", and meets the titular animals along the way. These animals share little snippets of trite wisdom which vaguely relate to their current state: "honesty is never boring", "asking for help isn't giving up; it's refusing to give up", "home is where it's warm". It makes the film feel like a pocket-sized book of koans rather than an actual story. There's also a strangely common mode of voice-acting in these British shorts of late (I'm reminded of Robin Robin from last year's Oscars), where everything has to be soft-spoken to the point of being devoid of emotion, which adds to the general sense of lassitude. Tom Hollander as the mole is the worst offender here, but I found Gabriel Byrne as the morose horse similarly lacklustre. But it is beautiful to look at. If you just enjoy the visuals, you can probably ignore the fact that otherwise it's a threadbare tapestry of aphorisms.

14. The Elephant Whisperers

Directed by Kartiki Gonsalves

Top 5 time! All of these are worth a listen, at least to the representative tracks here! Remember, these represent the top 0.5% of all the music I listened to this year. Give them a try, and let me know what you think.

5. Christopher Tin, Voces8 & The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - The Lost Birds (contemporary choral)

First up today, we have a really surprising but also deeply beautiful album from composer Christopher Tin, who is largely known for his work on video games. Here, he works with contemporary choir Voces8 on a cycle of pieces surrounding and evoking birds and birdsong. He sets different text to music, including the poems of Emily Dickinson into familiar but exquisite shifting harmonies. There's something wonderful about the way things swell and resolve here, and it turns this music into something exquisite. My top track is indeed a Dickinson poem, The Saddest Noise, which is undoubtedly more poignant for the fact that it's so bittersweet in content. You'll like it if you like: choral music, epic video-game music, and the vast overlap between the two.

4. Vancouver Sleep Clinic - Fallen Paradise (vapor pop)

Vancouver Sleep Clinic · Love You Like I Do

There are always a few albums each year that I really love, but which I may have very easily. Despite listening to 1000 albums every year, there are ten times as many which I don't listen to, even if I screen them. Vancouver Sleep Clinic's Fallen Paradise is one of those albums which very nearly slipped through the cracks—as it was a substitute added in at the last minute by Sam one week when we crossed over and both picked another album. I'm so fortunate he did, because this ended up blitzing the week it was in, and it finds itself here as my #4 of the year. It's a atmospherically beautiful album—finding itself with shifting harmonies, ambient dreampop instrumentation, and ethereal falsetto vocals—you almost get a blues groove underneath some of these tracks. But for all that, it has a wonderfully familiar pop rock structure to the compositions, so while it's taking you on a journey, you're comfortable in the swells and troughs. I love this kind of thing, and I could highlight about half the album as "my particular favourites". Nightfall has some wondeful harmonic shifts in it, Fallen Paradise reminds me of "artist of the year 2019" ViVii, and The Flow manages almost to feel like rock while sacrificing none of its atmosphere. I'll call out here Love You Like I Do, which feels like the most emblematic of the whole. You'll like it if you like: ViVii, dreampop, vapor pop, being assessed for apnoea treatment in British Columbia.

3. Ellevator - The Words You Spoke Still Move Me (indie pop rock)

The Words You Spoke Still Move Me by Ellevator

This one for a long time felt as though it was going to be my Album of the Year. It's a banging album of banging tracks, and albums like that have commonly gone on to top the rankings. We have the pop excellence of the opening number Claws which still remains my top track, or the sultry Charlie IO, or the slightly heavier Slip with a riff based on vibraphone chords. They also has the feeling of one of those bands who are just an album away from really being launched into the stratosphere—one of their tracks features on the next hit TV series, and suddenly everyone knows Ellevator. It's familiar and has all the key elements of popular music, but it also manages to spin it in a way that sounds like they've found their own distinct style. So why is this only #3 of the year, and not higher? To be honest, while this is a great collection of tracks, it lacks something in the whole—the tracks themselves make the album good, but there's not something more than that in the collection. The two (only two) albums above it this year manage to transcend being "a great collection of songs" and become "a great album". There's a difference. Still, this is a fabulous selection of music, and I'll give you Slip as a sample of it. You'll like it if: you want to be ahead of the next big thing, or if you want to be able to lament the fact that Ellevator never really struck it big in 10 years' time.

2. Dim Gray - Firmament (art rock)

Firmament by Dim Gray

In the end, I think my top albums were pretty easy to identify. There were three albums that absolutely gripped me on the first listen: Ellevator's, this one, and the one still to come. Dim Gray hail from Oslo, where they put a cold Nordic spin on atmospheric prog, and evoke a sense of vastness in their use of 70s style synths to build a layered symphonic experience. We start with the lightly shuffled Mare which then turns into the segmented but symphonic darkness of Ashes. But more than that, this is an album where everything is crafted for a whole listening experience. While there are exultant moments in individual tracks, they feel like they're in service of the album—even tracks which take on folk elements (like Cannons) feel like a capricious side-plot that serves as a comparison. Overall, it's huge and monumental. My favourite track is probably Abalus | In Time which has an otherwordly lyrical dance mixed with the wash of a thunderstorm rolling in over the ocean. I'll leave that one for now though, and stick with Ashes which has a better sampling of everything the album has to offer. You'll like it if you like: atmospheric prog; but I honestly feel like even if you specifically don't like atmospheric prog, you'll find something in this.

1. The Blackheart Orchestra - Hotel Utopia (progressive folk)

Hotel Utopia by The Blackheart Orchestra

I’m saving just my Top 5 albums for my final post this year, but today we’ll cut through those which are just on the fringe, and that includes some of my Top 10 albums of the year after all, which means they’re in the top 1% of all the music I listened to this year.

All of these are worth a listen, and like with my last entry, I've attempted to add embedded streaming for representative tracks. Where possible, these are via Bandcamp, which still seems to be the best way to support artists. I've also used Soundcloud if available, but finally resorted to YouTube if necessary. Give them a look, anyway. Anyway, let's get into it...

15. IV and the Strange Band - Southern Circus (contemporary country)

Southern Circus by IV and The Strange Band

Coleman Williams is the great-grandson of country icon Hank Williams (hence "IV"), but has forged his own path musically, and delivers something surprisingly novel on this, his debut album. He takes some classic country tropes and ramps them up with a kind of punk intensity. It's almost like pushing the north poles of two magnets together—there's something thrilling about the conflict, and it makes for a raucous, exciting experience. It manages to be completely true to its roots, but also somehow completely modern at the same time. My personal favourite track is the rock-driven Deep Down, but I'm calling out here I'm Gonna Haunt You, which I think gives a great illustration of the synergy between old and new. You'll like it if you like: country, but want more of an edge to it.

14. Everything Everything - Raw Data Feel (indie pop)

Raw Data Feel by Everything Everything

I was a little conflicted about this album, to be honest. When this hits right, it really hits right. In fact, for quite a while I thought this had a good chance of being my #1 album of the year. So why is it languishing here at the shameful position #14? The truth is, this hits it out of the park with tracks like My Computer, Bad Friday and Leviathan, but it also has tracks where it swing and misses, and it ends up saying like a lot of other mid-level indie pop. It's a classic example of an album where you could have cut out 15-20m of content and made a much tighter album. That's not to try to put you off—after all, it might not be #1 of the year, but #14 is nothing to sniff at. It's just here on the strength of the very top tracks here. I'll leave you with my favourite track, My Computer. You'll like it if you like: slightly off-kilter pop where you can't quite tell what's weird about it.

13. Terence Etc. - VORTEX (experimental RnB)

V O R T E X by Terence Etc.

Terence Nance is a filmmaker, satirist and now recording artist, using the moniker Terence Etc. for his latest artistic pursuit. What he puts together in VORTEX is a really excellent blend of subversive poetry, jazz, hip-hop and soul. He has a really good sultry voice too which can absolutely ride the various modes he needs to adopt across an eclectic album. This is another album which is strong because of its whole composition, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have some brighter spots as well. I'll call out The Merchant of Flatbush; a great piece of music which finishes with a wonderful piece of poetry from Terences' purported lover. You'll like this if you like: a combination of Benjamin Clementine and clipping.

12. Bess of Bedlam - Dance Until The Crimes End (psych pop)

Dance until the crimes end by Bess of Bedlam

Bess of Bedlam is a French duo who play with dreamy psychedelic pop that spans electro and acoustic. But they really hit their sweet spot with their songwriting which weaves effortlessly through tonality and meter shifts, adding a sonic complexity which belies the slightly twee "French-ness" of their (English) lyrics, and the soft folk quality of Fanny L’Héritier's vocals. It's a really idiosyncratic album, and when you listen to (at least) 1000 albums every year, originality counts for a lot. I personally loved What Can We Wise Women Do as a track, but I think I'm going to call out here White Sea, which maybe better exemplifies the unusual elements of the album. You'll like it if you like: artistic European takes on pop.

11. The Crystal Method - The Trip Out (soiltronica)

There's always a place in a year for an album like this. It's not just that it's big, crunchy, breakbeat-forward electronica; it's big, crunchy, breakbeat-forward electronica from an artist who have been doing it well for 20 years. I also admit that there's very often an album in or near my Top 10 of the year which comes from an artist, like The Crystal Method, who I've loved for most of my life. This is another great example from them, as they collaborate with artists like Iggy Pop, former Prodigy guitarist Jim Davies, and rapper King Green but still let their beats do the talking. This is just a style of music I love, and one which we don't see enough of nowadays in my opinion. I'm glad TCM are still here providing us with the goods. My pick here is the (kinda) title track Let's Trip Out, featuring King Green. You'll like it if: you miss the electronica of my favourite year: yester.

10. Regina Spektor - Home, Before & After (anti-folk)

Regina Spektor is always a bit of a surprise for me. I feel like I like her "well enough", but I don't find myself excited from the get-go when she has a new album out. And even on the first pass through this album, where it won my Runner Up of the Week, it felt like it would eventually just fade into obscurity and a couple of years in the future I'd largely have forgotten it. But on relistening I really engaged with her poignant songwriting, her slightly ethereal vocal style and the way she can eke out the comforting and the sinister from the same material. It has a theatricality to it, but it's always used for storytelling. It's also a very rich collection of tracks—from folk pop to dark symphonic electronica. I've picked one of the pieces of dark chamber pop as my pick: Up the Mountain, but I also highly recommend the opening track Becoming All Alone, which is a great bit of storytelling and songwriting You'll like it if you like: excellent songwriting and excellent musicianship. That's basically all there is, right?

9. Lola Marsh - Shot Shot Cherry (noir pop)

Israeli duo Lola Marsh had one of my very top albums of 2020 with their debut Someday Tomorrow Maybe, and I was eagerly anticipating their follow-up, although with the trepidation that accompanies the difficult second album. So it was thrilling to me that they managed to very nearly match their first effort with this excellent album. It has their same sultry, dark-throated vocals—which do owe something to Lana Del Rey, something you always have to acknowledge with Lola Marsh—the atmospheric arrangements, and the moments of upbeat drive that almost make you want to take them to the dancefloor. I've gone the other direction in my pick here though, with the downtempo noir of Going Back, which is admittedly lifted straight from their first album in style. You'll like it if you like: their first album, and if you didn't like that, I probably can't help you.

8. First Aid Kit - Palomino (indie folk)

A fantastic album that I really forgot about until relistening, despite the fact that it only came out in Novermber. I've enjoyed First Aid Kit well enough in the past, but this is the first time where they've felt really completely polished and fully-formed to me. Each of these tracks is exquisitely produced into what you feel is its ideal form. The blended vocals, the harmonies, and the subtle but well-matched accompaniment in each track—they all add up to an almost crystalline perfect album. But that perfection often lacks a hook or an edge that makes you fall in love with an album, which is why it's not right at the very top here. I almost look at this critically and go "yes, I understand—it's extremely good", without feeling that pull right in my soul. I will say though that this is a great example of an album which knows when to quit—it comes in at a tidy 39-minutes, and it feels like there's a purpose to every track. I'm going to call out the opening track Out of My Head. You'll like it if you like: vocal harmony, solid songwriting, anything First Aid Kit has done in the last 10 years.

7. Crywolf - exuvium [OBLIVIØN pt. II] (experimental downtempo)

exuvium [OBLIVIØN Pt. II] by Crywolf

A truly eclectic and progressive mix of hard industrial rock with ambient downtempo electronica, Crywolf follow up their 2019 OBLIVIØN Pt. I, an album that we missed at the time, with this monumental effort which sounds at time like a less depressed Gary Numan, and at others sounds as though a 90s progressive electronica act decided to get really into shoegaze. In other words, it sounds a little like everything and nothing, and it certainly has the kind of novelty that makes me pay attention. It's hard to really single out tracks, because in isolation they don't give you a sense of the album as a whole, but a personal favourite moment is DATURA [paroxysm], so I'll leave you with that. You'll like it if you like: the music which plays in experimental theatre productions, but you wished worked just as well on its own.

6. Silversun Pickups - Physical Thrills (post-punk revival)

Physical Thrills by Silversun Pickups

I'm a bit late in writing up my Top Albums this year, but it being the first day of 2023, I thought it's probably a good time to look back on the year that was in music, and start writing up my top albums. As has been the case since 2016 (wow, 7 years of this now), Sam and I have listened to over 1000 albums this year, and I've distilled the very best of 2022's music into just a top 25. For the stats-curious: we hit 1032 albums in total this year, of which 938 were actually released in 2022 (that's 91% brand new music). That added up to over 11,000 individual tracks, and almost 717 hours of unique music (that's about an entire month listening 24 hours a day). My Spotify Wrapped said I listened for more than twice this when you take into account relistening and so-on—so it's undoubtedly a big undertaking. In addition to our 2022 albums, we listened to 2 "throwback" albums from previous years each week, and managed complete retrospectives of four different artists' work. This year, the lucky artists were Van Dyke Parks (including the various albums for other artists that he produced and arranged for), Buffy Sainte-Marie, Tracy Chapman, and Blur. Of these, the absolute standout was Buffy Sainte-Marie, who was a revelation to me. For two sides of a fascinating artist, check out My Country Tis Of Thy People You're Dying, one of the best bist of protest folk I've ever heard, or the psychedelic folk rock of Sweet September Morning. Amazing stuff. Anyway, we're not really here to talk about that, but I can't resist putting a little call-out for Buffy. We're here to count down my Top Albums of 2022. I've gone fom 25 to 16 in this post. Tomorrow, I'll count down 15-5, leaving the top 5 for a big reveal in a few days. But lets get started...

25. Bitch - Bitchcraft (experimental queer pop)

Bitchcraft by Bitch

Kicking off the writeups this year we have this pot-pourri of experimental and less-experimental queer electropop from self-styled poet-witch Bitch. It has all the anarchy of true punk, laced with screaming electronic hooks and a consistent use of Bitch's iconic violin. But she also turns in soulful, melodic ballads like Another Wound, which may be the best piece of music on the album. It all makes for a rich and varied experience, always with a very unique and personally engaging world view. As an iconic song from the album though, which represents all the wonderful genre-smashing, I can't go past "Hello Meadow!". You'll like it if you want: Lindsey Stirling, only weirder, and queer rather than fundamentalist Christian.

24. Lack the Low - God-Carrier (avant-pop)

God-Carrier by Lack The Low

Björk had an excellent album this year; it ended up #34, so just missing out on a write-up. But instead we have Lack the Low, an Australian artist who obviously owes some inspiration to the darker parts of Björk's oeuvre. I heard the excellent The Sharpest Knife playing one Saturday morning on our local community radio station, and it immediately thrust God-Carrier on to my listen-list for the following week. She does wonderfully atmospheric electro-prog with a sense of build to her tracks that drives towards an often ecstatic, cathartic finish. While The Sharpest Knife was my introduction, I think the best track is the opener, Rushlight. You'll like it if you want: independent Aussie artists taking barbershop in strange new directions.

23. Kae Tempest - The Line Is A Curve (spoken-word poetry)

kaetempest · Priority Boredom

One of our finest modern poets, Kae Tempest brought back the punch of their spoken-word outings like Let Them Eat Chaos and Everybody Down, leaving behind what I found more introspective and downbeat in their previous 2019 album. This pushes Tempest back into the upper echelons of the year with The Line Is a Curve, another collab between Tempest's gripping delivery with Dan Carey's electronic production—together they provide one of the most potent electronic albums of the year, while Tempest proves once again why they are lyrically such a powerhouse. Hard to single out a track to represent the whole album—its potency comes from the accumulation of the whole—but I've shared here Priority Boredom which I feel is a fabulous entry to the album. You'll like it if you like: contemporary spoken-word poetry or modern electronica. You'll love it if you like: both of the above.

22. Murder By Death - Spell/Bound (gothic country)

Spell/Bound by Murder By Death

Atmospheric indie rock by way of That Haunted Gorge Where All Those Cowboys All Mysteriously Disappeared Exactly 10 Years Ago Tonight, Murder By Death provide a wonderfully dark take on modern Americana. This is all about creating a mood with their sophisticated rock, lashed with country elements. It's music for driving at night through West Texas, or for that hipster bar in Asheville that hasn't quite shaken off its bluegrass roots entirely. This is an album I could absolutely listen to end-to-end and consider it a singular experience. It's hard to single out something again—this is about the whole journey, not the sights along the way—but I'll go with Never Be which I think is possibly the most accessible, even if it's not that emblematic of the whole album. You'll like it if you like: country, but only kinda secretly.

21. Telenova - Stained Glass Love (indie pop)

Stained Glass Love by Telenova

Easily my highest-rated EP of the year, this 5-track outing gets a big boost from having a Track of the Week for the title track, and then following it up with another a few weeks later when we heard the full EP, this time for Silver Lining, which is a wonderfully melancholy bit of downtempo pop that shifts its way through various harmonic peculiarities. As always when this kind of jewel-studded EP appears, you fear that it's just the precursor to a bigger debut album which will seem less novel when it's just "this EP stretched out to 45m long". But presuming that this is a stand-alone, it's a great one. I've highlighted the title track here, but you can spare the 21m to listen to the whole thing. You'll like it if you like: anything of modern indie pop, or 90s downtempo

20. Mice Parade - lapopọ (post shoegaze)

lapapọ by Mice Parade

I came across Mice Parade for the first time at the 2008 Sydney Festival, where I completely eschewed their show, but was waiting outside the Spiegeltent waiting a different performance while they were on inside. I was rapt by their fascinating blend of dreamy shoegaze and complex polyrhythms, even if the sound was muted by the canvas between me and them. Fortunately, since then, while I've not managed to catch them live, I've fallen in love with their albums, and their latest might be their best. It has the same hypnotic drawl of Adam Pierce's vocals (an anagram of "Mice Parade", you'll note), with fluid motivic guitar riffs and multi-layered drum-patterns. This is an album that builds up over time, but I have to call out Eisa Dancers which starts with this ethereal riff (possibly on hammered dulcimer, or on a koto) and builds waves, wending in and out of the dream-like otherworldiness. You'll like it if you like: a novel take on jangly indie rock.

19. Keston Cobblers Club - Alchemy (twee folk)

I've recently very much become attached to the music reviews site At The Barrier, which does a great job of unearthing music that I find nowhere else—they also have a particular focus on various kinds of folk, and this is one of those albums this year which comes solely from ATB. It's an eclectic album, jumping between variations of folk pop, switching out singers and showing off their multi-instrumental prowess. I could call out quite a few song here—Jupiter has a wonderful expansive space-folk sound (is that a thing? it should be), Rigmarole brings in tuba and accordion for a kind of indie-trad sound, Tarantula has a musical theatricality to it to bring the album home. I might just go with one of the early tracks Find My Way, which sits a little more in the centre of everything. You'll like it if: you're not afraid of a bit of a trad folk sound, but still enjoy pop songwriting.

18. Frank Turner - FTHC (alt punk)

Frank Turner is a little hard to classify, because he definitely comes from a punk background, but now turns to a kind of raucous singalong pub rock—he can also pull together a genuinely excellent bit of pop like his satirical Make America Great Again from 2018. Here, he's in more of a heavier, angrier, shoutier style for the most part, even when he sticks with pop tropes like in Haven't Been Doing So Well, or the show-ending Farewell To My City. The standout track for me here though is the wonderful Miranda, a story about reconciling with his father after she came out as trans. You'll like it if you like: hard indie rock, or punk with a soft heart.

17. bis - Systems Music for Home Defence (electropunk)

Systems Music For Home Defence by bis

A great collection of eclectic, shouty electropop that takes the kind of 80s sound back to its post-punk root, and is willing to have fun along with way. I love music that doesn't take itself too seriously (my common refrain is that you should be able to tell that the band is having fun), and this has this feeling all over it. Bis has only released about an album every 5 years or so since 2000, although they've been around since the mid-90s (and broken up then reformed at least once), and you can feel like they're pretty happy just doing what they want—nothing is forced in this album. They've got nothing to prove, and they can do the things that work for them. My pick here is the opening track Lucky Night, which has a pointed satire to it, as well as a super-catchy indie pop sound. You'll like it if you like: 00s electropunk, after big beat went off in a weird direction.

16. Death's Dynamic Shroud - Darklife (slushwave)

Darklife by death's dynamic shroud

Greetings, Oscar buddies! Welcome to my rundown of the 2022 Academy Awards. In the grand tradition of "Jez takes a fun hobby and turns it into a rigorous grinding ordeal", I have managed to once again see every feature film nominated for an award this year (a feat I also managed in 2021, 2019 and 2018). This year, however, I missed one of the short films: the live action film Please Hold, which may still get a release before the ceremony, but has missed the cutoff for "Jez needs to write-up the damn films". This year, sourcing the films was relatively straightforward, with most of the films getting a digital release before the ceremony in some form. Indeed, I only went to the cinema for two films this year: Nightmare Alley and Cyrano, which did eventually get a digital release anyway. As usual, I'll present the total list of films here in order from top to bottom. I've separated out the short films and the feature films, and once again provided (brief) write-ups of the short films as well. Finally, I'll fill in my Oscars ballot, based on how I would have voted if I bothered doing that rather than just scrawling a long spiel about how all politicians are corrupt and democracy is a farce. This year, we start with...

1. Nightmare Alley

Directed by Guillermo Del Toro

I really do understand the appeal of Guillermo Del Toro. He is a singular director with a vision and style which puts him well outside the norm. But at the same time, I feel like there's a very strong disparity of opinion when it comes to his films. Some people adore Pacific Rim, some call Pan's Labyrinth a masterpiece. The Oscars loved The Shape of Water. I might hold up Crimson Peak as perhaps the, ahem, summit of his achievements, for instance. His work has a way of being something to someone, if not everyone. And so it seems with Nightmare Alley, a criminally underrated film that seems to have been swept out of cinemas as quickly as it arrived (I know, I know, it does have a nomination for Best Picture, so "underrated" is a controversial term), and is merely seen as a seat-filler to bulk out the nominees come Oscars time. But this is a genuinely wonderful bit of film-making. From the very beginning, there is a palpable sense of unease that draws you unflinchingly into this world of carnival grifters. It's a world which Del Toro loves and he shows you the intrinsic attraction from the very first scene. But at the same time, there's a balancing repulsion—something we're forced into early with the graphic depiction of a geek ripping the head off a live chicken. There's something quite clever in the casting of the always slightly smarmy Bradley Cooper as Stan Carlisle. He's a charismatic character whom we never really trust, and there's that same sense of attraction and repulsion to him; Cooper, in many ways, plays him with charm, but there's something distrustful about him, intrinsically. Better yet is the wonderfully intense, but equally unsubtle performance from Cate Blanchett as Lilith Ritter, Carlisle's eventual partner in crime. It's again a performance which would fail if it weren't in the perfectly crafted otherworld that Del Toro creates—we need that sense of fantasy, or horror, to be properly captivated. But, once we have it, and we can fully embrace everything that Blanchett gives us, we realise what a rare treat it is to see her wallowing in a character like this. This is, of course, not to mention the exquisite production elements. The malingering sepia cinematography (I can imagine the B&W cut being equally as effective, mind you), the intricate and transporting production design, the costuming, the score from Nathan Johnson (frequent collaborator of his cousin Rian). All of these are wielded with dexterity and flair by Del Toro who knows exactly how to place them for maximum effect. I was captivated throughout—I found this to be a truly wonderful piece of cinema. I imagine that throughout the screening I had a kind of gleeful grimace on my face that stayed with me for hours afterwards. I can only hope there's a re-evaluation of it in its future, and that people give it another good hard look in a few years.

2. West Side Story

Directed by Steven Spielberg

I came into this film with some degree of trepidation. West Side Story is a fine musical and while it was quickly and efficiently moved from stage to screen in 1961, there are always pitfalls with the movie musical—especially in recent years when we've seen a surprising resurgence of the genre. Fortunately, this version is significantly better than many recent musical productions, and indeed it comfortably bests Wise and Robbins' adaptation of the original stage show. There's something magnetic about the film as a whole—from very early on, we are dragged right into this world. There's attention to detail in the production design, the cinematography, the costuming, the makeup. It creates this sense of hyperreality that draws you in to such an extent that it can pummel you with its evocative musical numbers, and emotional beats. I was skeptical of some of the casting, especially Ansel Elgort as Tony, but in some ways he manages to capture the screen presence of a young Brando here as the former streetpunk trying to turn good. Similarly good is newcomer Rachel Zegler as Maria, and standout Ariana DeBose as her sister Anita—a role which really needs some heft applied to it. Recasting Doc as a woman, and getting Rita Moreno (1961's Maria) back for the role is a stroke of genius. But look, there's not a weak point in the cast, right down to the lowliest member of the Jets and the Sharks—all perform with a full-throated commitment and a degree of captivating precision. Even some of the changes made to the book and the numbers made sense in context, even as my inclination was to rail against them in pursuit of musical purity. Perhaps the greatest marker of the film's success though is that I got the same kind of physical reaction you get when you see really great live theatre—there was a connection between performer and audience, a true resonance between the music and the story, and a sense that the craft was perfectly suited to bringing the narrative to life. Really, truly, I was blown away by this film. I'm sorry it was not a financial success, because by any artistic measure it was a triumph.

3. Licorice Pizza

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

A fabulous film from the always compelling Paul Thomas Anderson, who here focuses his lens on the Los Angeles of the 1970s. In broad strokes, it's a love story between Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman, son of Philip Seymour Hoffman), a teen actor, and Alana Kane (Alana Haim, of yes that Haim) a photographer's assistant 10 years his senior. But it's also a film about a place and a time. It has the same kind of kaleidoscopic flair as Anderson's earlier films, but toned with a maturity and purpose that makes it feel surprisingly restrained. We get the Hollywood excess of actors, directors and casting agents, we get the racist owner of a Japanese restaurant and his seemingly interchangeable Japanese wives, we get Bradley Cooper threatening to kill a man for a tank of petrol. And through it all we get a meandering tale of two young people maybe actually finding something real. It is really quite astonishing the performances we get from Hoffman and Haim, neither of whom have graced our screens before. Haim is a real star—she has an incredible presence on screen that feels so real, because of its quirks and its unstudied nature. Hoffman also shows confidence beyond his years as the smooth-talking actor turned waterbed salesman, and there's a weird, unsteady chemistry between the two which constantly propels the film forward. I really loved this film. It was a triumph. A delight. It feels so much like Paul Thomas Anderson, and yet also feels like nothing he's done before—I truly love that he can be at once so iconic and still so fresh.

4. Flee (Flugt)

Directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen

A phenomenally powerful film; part animation, part documentary, which tracks the asylum flight of the pseudonymous Amin, a young, gay Afghan teenager and his family through Russia and Europe. Framed as a conversation between Amin and director Rasmussen, it involves delving deep into his hidden history—and unravelling the lies he's been living with in fear of being deported again. It's a very fine and emotive piece of work, carefully navigating a turbulent narrative with subtlety, pathos and a judicious sense of humour as well. It's a combination that allows for us to connect very quickly with these people at an emotional level, which both draws us in to the story and delivers the impact when the time comes. The animated style is a very clever choice: it allows for recreating the past in the style of the present, which emphasises the connection between who Amin was, and who he is now. Brief archival footage of real events reminds us that Amin is a real person living through real-world events—the switch from animation to photography is often jarring, and again enhances that impact, where a fully animated film would create a sense of distance for the viewer. But none of this would work without such excellent storytelling. It's a film which delivers its story for a purpose, and it's one that resonates with you long after the film is over. That, more than anything, is what makes it so successful.

5. Parallel Mothers (Madres paralelas)

Directed by Pedro Almadóvar

I really feel safe going into a new film by Almadóvar. I know that I'm going to be in for something good, even if he puts me through the wringer. This is certainly true of Parallel Mothers, a story of two single women who meet in the maternity ward of the hospital. Janis (Penélope Cruz) is middle-aged, and her unplanned pregnancy is her chance to have a child. Ana (Milena Smit) is a teenager with a self-obsessed mother. The two connect, and the film follows their relationship from that point on. I've never seen Penélope Cruz better than in this film, which requires a lot of her, and requires that it be done with subtlety. She clearly works well with Almadóvar, and there's a sense of coherence and trust in her portrayal on screen. Smit, as a newcomer, is a fine match, and is for the large part never overshadowed. I was also pleased at how well the script beat back my expectations. It was not crafted in such a way to evoke sharp twists—shock is not its modus operandi—but rarely did I see what was coming up ahead. But at the same time, looking back, there seemed a very natural flow to the film. It made it coherent, but constantly interesting. Of course, it relies on a few classic tropes that feel more common on the screen than in real life—but it's designed to be somewhat melodramatic, so it's easy to forgive these. But it also takes away from the film to try and tease things apart from it—you kind of have to take it on its own terms, and as a whole. That's one of the charm of Almadóvar: he will give you a perfectly crafted film if you accept it as it is. With films like Parallel Mothers, I'm very happy to do just that.

6. Drive My Car (ドライブ・マイ・カー)

Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi

A wonderfully deep and complex film, that manages to make best use of every moment of its 3-hour running time. It's a wide-ranging tale dealing with loss, trauma and recovery; with the consequences of your actions and how you respond to those. It's hard to put into words the plot, as such, but it revolves around Kafuku Yūsuke (Nishijima Hidetoshi), a theatre director working on a production of Uncle Vanya in Hiroshima, and his relationships past and present, in particular with the young woman hired to drive him around during rehearsals, Misaki (Miura Tōko). It's a lot more than its story, although each sequence is perfectly set and executed to further the inexorable march of its thematic content. Kafuku is dealing with grief but unaware of the fact. He reconnects with an actor from his past (Okada Masaki), a violent young man who has recently destroyed his career. He befriends his dramaturg Gong Yoon-soo (Jin Dae-yong) and his wife. And he listens unceasingly to taped recordings of Uncle Vanya, whose production becomes another character in the story. It's remarkable that a film of this length, and with this pacing can maintain such an attraction—there's something deeply beautiful about each scene, and there's meaning and poignancy to every shot. I didn't want to look away not only because I was rapt, but also because there was a fear that at any moment a look from a character, an unspoken word, the way fingers were tapped on a dashboard could hold the key to understanding this story better. And there's something about the characters the evinces empathy—we want to be involved in their lives. We want to understand them better and we want to know them. Every minute of its one-hundred and seventy-nine feel like another precious opportunity to do this. It's a really fine film, especially if you are willing to let it in. I will admit that it's not as immediately captivating as others this year, and it's certainly not going to be for everyone—I'm much more resistant to recommend it to people unless they're prepared and willing to accept it—but it is certainly one of the standouts of 2021.

7. The Tragedy of Macbeth

Directed by Joel Coen

A fine adaptation of Macbeth by Joel Coen, which feels a little bit like it must have been a personal passion project rather than something to make a big impact on the silver screen. I do honestly love a good adaptation of Shakespeare, especially one which feels like it's so resonant with the source material. Denzel Washington is, of course, as fine a choice for Macbeth as he is in just about any role, and in many ways this is one of the most compelling depictions I've seen of the transformation of the character from loyal subject to tyrant king. Frances McDormand as Lady Macbeth was also good, but it was the first time I realised how limited the role is in some ways. I would honestly love to see McDormand taking on the role of Macbeth herself, but now with this under her belt it's probably unlikely to happen. Coen's direction is a standout feature, of course—his execution of a bold vision is stark on the screen, especially with the assistance of Bruno Delbonnel who evokes the cinematography of German expressionist cinema. The sets, lighting and angles make for bold, otherworldly evocations and heighten the sense of drama. Similarly Carter Burwell's score and the eerie performance of the witches by Kathryn Hunter. It has the feeling of one of those Shakespeare adaptations that truly gets the source material and how to make its impact felt by a modern audience. It's the same kind of reaction I had to Kenneth Branagh's uncut 4-hour version of Hamlet, which I consider high praise. Weirdly, for the Oscars, I think they've hit on all the right categories here: Best Actor, for Washington, Best Production Design and Best Cinematography—these at least are the standout facets of a multi-faceted film.

8. The Power of the Dog

Directed by Jane Campion

A fine, meditative outing from Jane Campion, with a pleasingly transformative turn from Benedict Cumberbatch. Phil (Cumberbatch) and his brother George (Jesse Plemons) run a profitable ranch. While Phil is happy with life among the cattle and the ranch-hands, evoking his formative years with mentor "Bronco" Henry, George wishes to marry, and eventually brings a widow, Rose (Kirsten Dunst) and her son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee) to live at the house. What follows is a war of tension, as the resentful Phil torments Rose and Peter, especially the latter whom he sees as needing toughening up to become a proper man. But it becomes a more interesting and occasionally poignantly tragic tale as it goes on, especially as we learn more about the brothers' past. It's a standout piece of direction from Campion who really knows how to evoke mood from setting, and she works particularly well with cinematographer Ari Wegner here. The performances are all excellent, in particular Cumberbatch (which I'm surprised at; generally thinking he's rather one-note), and Smit-McPhee, who deservedly has recently won a Golden Globe for the performance. It's a fine film, and one which I wish I had had the opportunity to experience for the first time on the big screen. There's a sense of potent tension and release that I feel would only have been heightened if you got to experience it in that more impressive setting.

9. King Richard

Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green

I was deeply skeptical of this film. For a start, I was dubious about the entire concept of taking the story of two of the greatest tennis players of all time, black women, and making it instead not about the black women but instead about their father. This was compounded with the idea of Will Smith in the title role, who is sometimes good and sometimes really not. But more than that, I was really wondering where the drama would come from: because we know how the story of Venus and Serena Williams ends. Where's the tension? Fortunately, though, all of these elements are handled quite deftly. In particular, there's an intrinsic joy to the film just because of the dramatic irony of knowing where the Williams sisters eventually go. It makes the unerring confidence of Richard and his daughters seem prescient, where the habitual skepticism of the tennis establishment is held up for ridicule. "Don't you know who that is?" we shout at the screen and through time. Will Smith is actually very good in this role—charismatic but also committed. He leaves behind much of his Will Smith-ness and allows us to connect with the character instead, particularly the implications of his Southern upbringing and run-ins with the KKK. There's excellent support from Aunjanue Ellis as Venus & Serena's mother, and some hard work from the young Saniyya Sidney and Demi Singleton as Venus & Serena. These characters don't take the back seat that I feared—and in some ways the story is about them developing beyond the shadow of their father's famous 85-page plan. There is some tension that plays out as well: Richard butting heads with a series of professional coaches, Richard and Brandy's eventual domestic fights over his bloody-mindedness. But, for one thing, these never feel like the main drive of the story, and secondly they manage to turn the spotlight away from celebrating the flawed Richard and towards his daughters. It's a really well-made film in many ways, and could have been a significantly worse one than what we end up with. That takes a lot of skill, and I give it credit for that.

10. Ascension (登楼叹)

Directed by Jennifer Kingdon

A fascinating film about the rise of middle-class China, and more broadly about capitalism and consumerism in the country. It's impressionistic in form in many ways, and spends much of the first part of the film showing the repetitive work of production lines, making clothes, consumer goods, and (in one particularly memorable sequence) sex dolls. In some ways, this is my favourite kind of documentary. It tells its story through editing and juxtaposition—through little snippets that seem ordinary in isolation, but which grow together to form a powerful narrative. We see little repetitions of an attitude, an expression, something common linking disparate people in different towns. We sense the uneasy coupling of traditional China and the world of hyper consumerism. It's also really quite beautifully shot, capturing something deep in the mundane quality of a factory machine, a ring-light of a social media influencer in a tiny apartment, or an overcrowded artificial wave pool. It's almost satirical the way this is managed—as though it's trying to galvanise the facade of this consumerism. In so doing, it makes you question why it needs to be so gilded, and it makes the reflection on Western culture the obvious next thing to examine. Overall, it's a very clever and satisfying film. I really appreciate everything it manages to do in its running time, and how cunningly it executes it.

11. The Worst Person in the World (Verdens verste menneske)

Directed by Joachim Trier

A melancholy but beautiful film, The Worst Person in the World follows Julie (Renate Reinsve), a young woman looking for "something else" in her life, as she wanders through a series of careers, and a series of men. Particular focus is put on her relationship with Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie), a comic-book artist 15 years her senior, and Eivind (Herbert Nordrum), a barista whom she shares a night explicitly "not cheating" with. It manages to do so much with a fairly elusive plot. It's in some ways a character study of Julie, but it never gives us easy answers, and it scoffs at the idea of providing some sense of satisfying resolution. It's quite dark in places, and evokes a sense of ennui and tragedy, while still arguably being a comedy. It finds that narrow ridge on the blade that separates the two, and slices you with it. It's to Reinsve's credit that she can make Julie so magnetic on screen, when it feels like she's always pulling away from you. She's a character who doesn't let you in. She's an enigma, and at any moment you don't know what she might do next. But at the same time, over time we fall in love with her in the same way Aksel and Eivind do. I really love that this film was nominated not just for Best International Feature, but also Best Original Screenplay—because it is a really well-crafted script, and too often the Original Screenplay category just become "Best Picture Lite". Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt's tale is not an easy one, and it's not obviously clever and entertaining. But it's a film of very fine craft, and of detail that many others in the Oscars this year lack. It's not one of the most outwardly compelling films of the Oscars this year, but it left a real impression on me the more I reflected on it. It's not the kind of film that I devour; it doesn't evoke that same kind of passion. But it may actually be one of the best films of the year.

12. Attica

Directed by Stanley Nelson & Traci A. Curry

A taut retelling of the 1971 Attica prison uprising, featuring interviews with former prisoners and observers about the events of the 4-day takeover, and the conditions that led to the inmate population (which, notably, was largely black) taking over the prison. It's a really quality piece of documentary film making, which manages to evoke the tension of the situation extremely well. It makes for a fairly thrilling piece of cinema, especially as we may suspect (or know) how this, like all prison riots, will end—with brutality. What it also manages to cleverly arrange though is weaving the narrative of the four days with the broader movement for prisoners' rights, and the political atmosphere at the time. While it doesn't explicitly lay blame, the shadows of NY governor Rockefeller and President Richard Nixon loom over the story. Attica doesn't want to make any simplistic generalisations about the takeover, but he wants to tie it in to what we know about the American history of the period. It's a fine documentary not just because it crafted its story well—but because it made us see the stories around it, intrinsically connected to it. In so doing, it has the ability to change your world-view a little, if you'll let it. That's what a truly good documentary can do.

13. Tick, Tick, Boom!

Directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda

I love a screen musical, but so often, when they're done poorly, there's a really hard shift between musical and non-musical sequences. This means the scenes can individually be great (or not), but they always feel at odds with one another. This happens a lot, and it's a mark of Lin-Manuel Miranda's skill with narrative and musical theatre that he avoids that most common pitfall here. It's a tale washed with tragedy if you know what happens to Jonathan Larson (Andrew Garfield), the creator of Rent, who famously died on the night of the show's première, but the film isn't about that at all. It's about Larson struggling early in his career with one of his first shows, being performed in workshop. This is spliced with a staging of Larson's autobiographical second show (the titular tick, tick... BOOM!), which recounts the same period in his life. The structure works so well because it allows for both moments of reflection with music, and for sequences where the music directs the action—two key parts of a stage musical that rarely work on screen. It's a very clever adaptation for this reason. The standout performance is clearly Andrew Garfield in the lead, who is phenomenal as Larson—he's played with a never-absent sense of sympathy, even though you watch his creative drive tear apart his life. The other cast members are fine but not necessarily that memorable—more fun is finding all of the Broadway cameos; a game I'll admit Sarah was more adept at than me. But overall, I did struggle at times to feel a real emotional connection. There was a sense of tension—the "tick, tick" of the title perhaps—and a rolling inevitability to the film, as though it was constantly succumbing to gravity but never hitting the ground, but that didn't translate into something terribly impactful to me: and it constantly felt like it was leading to that moment. Overall, though, it was a really technically excellent film musical, and that accounts for a lot. Moreover, it shows that Miranda has another string to his already over-strung bow, and if this is where he's going in his career, I'm intrigued enough to follow.

14. Belfast

Directed by Kenneth Branagh

A fine film and a change of pace in many ways for Kenneth Branagh—returning to his roots with a semi-fictionalised retelling of his childhood in Northern Ireland, as "the troubles" started to manifest. It's a really beautifully produced film, with a bleak but clear style reminiscent in some ways of the nouvelle vague, with crisp cinematography and jump cuts between unexpectedly short sequences at times. It manages to capture a world over a fairly short time period, focusing on a single street and all within a 97m running time. This last point is something some of the Oscars contenders this year could take a lesson from. The performances are also great across the board—although the film lives and dies on the performance of the young Jude Hill as Buddy, on whom the film focuses. It's a pleasure to say that he's excellent, and manages to evoke the universalities of childhood while living in a world of upheaval. A sub-plot about Buddy's infatuation with his classmate is a particular highlight. Her family is Catholic, his Protestant, which provides a different perspective to the themes of the film. Disappointingly, it's only recognised for the supporting roles of Judi Dench and Ciarán Hinds as Buddy's grandparents—both are solid, of course, but they do feel as though they don't have a great amount to do in comparison to some of the other stars. Overall, I found it a very worthwhile experience, and if it feels like a slightly unusual pick for the Best Picture Oscar, it's not an unworthy one. Next time, let's leave Van Morrison out of it though, yeah?

15. CODA

Directed by Siân Heder

Plotted in a familiar way, but somehow still very compelling, this film follows Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones), a high school senior, who is the titular "child of deaf adults", or CODA. Her parents rely on her for everything from manning the radio on their fishing boat, to translating at doctor's appointments. Meanwhile, Ruby herself discovers a talent for singing and explores this with her music teacher (Eugenio Derbez) and classmate Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo). The tension between the two demands on her life, and in particular what she wants from her future provide the impetus of the story. In many ways, it's something we've seen in coming-of-age films hundreds of times before, even if the particulars of the situation set it apart. The key distinction is that this is told which an honesty and truth that makes the beats of the story resonate more than usual. There are some excellent performances in the film. Troy Kotsur is up for Best Support Actor at the Oscars for her role as Ruby's father, but I found Daniel Durant as Ruby's older brother even more compelling—his role mirrors Ruby's in a way, in that he too is trying to stake out a path for himself, and there are some great moments of conflict between the two of them as they negotiate this. It's also a musical film, a fact which adds a note of tension between Ruby and her parents. It's a tension that sits a little awkwardly in the film—portraying Ruby as purely the future, and her parents squarely as rubes who couldn't possibly understand what she has going on. But it's a point of plot that fits neatly into the conventional structure of the script. Overall, it's a well-crafted film, and for all of its reliance on common form, it manages to stake out a place for itself that feels like its own territory. Is it the best film of the year? No. Is it worth your time? Definitely.

16. Cyrano

Directed by Joe Wright

There's many great advantages to knowing little about a film before you go see it, and it's almost always my favourite way to go into a film. But occasionally it really throws you for a loop, as in Cyrano where half way through one of the opening sequences a character starts singing. While I can see Peter Dinklage on the poster, and I can assume it's an adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac, I was not aware that it was a musical. Indeed, it's an adaptation of the stage musical; itself an adaptation of the original play. And after my initial jarring reaction, it mostly finds its feet in this oeuvre. Dinklage is charming as the lovelorn poet, even as he gets by mostly with a basso sprechgesang in the sung parts. And it's quite a lavishly produced film—with much attention paid to the costuming, the set dressing and the framing. This is something that Joe Wright does very well. It mostly acquits itself as a love story as well—aided from becoming too melodramatic by the gravity lent to the role by Dinklage. I also loved (as always) Ben Mendelsohn as the Duc de Guiche who is suitably balanced between menacing and mincing. But it had a wobbly start, and I'm not entirely sure that it was due to my expectations—I can fully imagine that it could put people off more fully than it did me. But that would be a shame in some ways, because it mellows eventually into quite a good film. Not, perhaps a great film, and maybe not enough to continue Hollywood's current perplexing delight in reviving the movie musical. Overall, though, there's definitely merit to it. Perhaps not as much as it might have hoped, and maybe not enough to revive Wright or the musical in general to the heights they once experienced.

17. Summer of Soul (...or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

Directed by Questlove

A fine documentary on the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969, which had an astounding lineup of artists performing in the heart of Harlem. The documentary wants to celebrate the artistry present in this (supposedly) long lost recordings, but manages to do more by tying what was a celebration into the broader civil rights movement of the mid-20th century. You can enjoy it on either level. There's some great music to hear: Stevie Wonder, B. B. King, Mahalia Jackson, Sly & the Family Stone, Nina Simone. I mean, a documentary of nothing more than the performances would still be a treat. But turning this into an examination of the cultural impact of such a festival—a celebration of blackness—is what elevates it beyond a straight up musical documentary. This is clearly a labour of love for director Questlove, and its presence at the Oscars this year is not merely a reflection of Questlove and his amazing Crocs' presence at last year's Oscars. You can feel it in the way it's been crafted, and the thoughtful comments he provokes from his interviewees. It's much more than a cataloguing—it becomes an examination, and eventually a celebration in the same way as the original festival was. Come for the music, perhaps, but if you stay, you'll get another experience altogether.

18. Dune

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

When you're making a film version of Dune, this is probably about as good as it gets. But in a weird way, Denis Villeneuve's epic two-part adaption (with part 2 still forthcoming) made me re-evaluate David Lynch's much reviled 1984 attempt to do the same. Dune, it appears, is just a really, really hard book to turn into a compelling film. Don't get me wrong: I really, really love the novel. It is a brilliant piece of science-fiction. I'm not at all complaining, in many ways, about the story. But there's something distinctly alien and aloof about the characters, especially when you can't see their internal monologue, and even being familiar with the story it's easy to get lost in the details of the worldbuilding which Villeneuve is compelled to include. We have an interesting assembly of cast, from the ever-present Timothée Chalamet as Paul, Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica, Jason Momoa as Paul's mentor Duncan Idaho, Oscar Isaac as the Duke, a fairly insidious turn from Stellan Skarsgård as the Baron Harkonnen, and some small moments of brightness from Zendaya and Javier Bardem (who we'll see more of in part 2, hopefully). Everyone is fairly solid and rarely playing against type in an awkward way, even though they're rarely very fleshed out as characters. This film is a spectacle, and some of the sequences involving the giant sandworms of the desert, or the attack on Arrakis's capital are thrilling on screen, and show a great deal of skill in making them coherent. But in many ways the lack of engagement with the characters at a human level means the stakes never feel particularly high—do I care if the aloof and cerebral Paul Atreides dies in the first 30m? Apparently, not that much. But at the same time, I can look at this and see, knowing the book, that it's a good adaptation of it. Moreover, I can see the effort that has been put in to making it so. I can also see how it could easily go awry, given that Villeneuve, with all the right elements, managed to make a good film but not a great film. And that makes me feel more sympathy for Lynch and his 1984 adaptation, which most certainly did go awry. I will reserve some judgement until we see the second half, apparently in 2023. After all, it's a monumental story, and it probably deserves to be given its time to open up and breathe. But I was hoping to be swept away by this film, and be waiting in breath-clenched ecstasy for the conclusion. And I wasn't, and I'm not.

19. Raya & The Last Dragon

Directed by Don Hall & Carlos López Estrada

Long ago, dragons and humans lived in harmony in Kumandra, a mythological land modeled on a generalised "south-east Asia". Then came the Druun, a faceless evil which ravaged the land. The humans squabbled over the fight and its aftermath, and the dragons sacrificed themselves to save the land. 500 years later, the kingdom is fractured, and Raya, daughter of a clan chief, is seeking out the last dragon when the Druun re-appear across the land. I was pleasantly surprised by this film, which was darker and more sophisticated than your usual Disney fare. There's a strong emphasis on the mythology here, and a sense of truly inhabiting this world—it has a feeling of being part of a much vaster whole. Just a chapter in an epic about the whole history of Kumandra. It's rare to get that level of world-building in a relatively short animated feature. This is where the film's great strength lies. In many ways, the plot is subservient to the creation of the world—it's beautifully rendered and realised on screen (although it has a vaguely generic "orientalism" that feels occasionally awkward—especially coming from a white director). Raya's quest, and the various band of wacky accomplices she accumulates along the way are just a veneer—but they're also fun (especially Awkwafina as Sisu, the dragon brought back from death). The Disney moral of "working together, not against one another" is transparent, but effective. What I mostly found though was that all of the elements of the standard feature animation formula were present here, but they were done judiciously, so as not to feel overly familiar. That left the visuals, the world-building, and the mythology to wrap you up and just take you along for the ride. And it's a fun ride.

20. The Lost Daughter

Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal

A good directorial debut from Maggie Gyllenhaal, and a fantastic performance from Olivia Colman manage to elevate this sultry tale of a middle-aged woman and her holiday in the Greek Islands. The story of Leda (Colman) is intertwined with a retelling of her past; her relationship with her daughters features prominently, especially as she interacts with a large Italian family after finding their daughter lost on the beach one day. There are some odd choices though, especially with some of the pacing choices—I found the flashbacks often dragged, so that every time a new one showed up I got restless and felt like the "real" story wasn't progressing enough. This is often a risk with a multi-linear story like this, but if handled deftly it can be very powerful. I also found the casting of Jessie Buckley as the young Leda distracting, as I know both her and Colman too well to naturally make the connection between the two characters. However, there is plenty of skill on display here in Gyllenhaal's hands. It's beautifully and fluidly shot with a subtle but effective soundtrack, and manages to capture a melancholic sense of loss quite beautifully. And Colman is still remarkable on screen—I very much hope and expect that we'll see her name on the Oscars ballot again this year. All up, a very reasonable and worthwhile film even with some drawbacks.

21. Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (ལུང་ནག་ན)

Directed by Pawo Choyning Dorji

Ugyen (Sherab Dorji) is a disaffected school teacher in Thimpu who dreams of travelling to Australia to become a singer. In the final year of his teacher training, he is sent to Lunana, an impossibly remote village in the Himalayan foothills, where he becomes the teacher to the small community's children. What follows is an extremely formulaic, but undoubtedly sweet and quite aesthetically beautiful film. It is the classic fish-out-of-water tale in many ways, laced as well with a healthy dose of "Gross National Happiness"-laced propaganda from the Bhutanese film makers. But, in some ways, while you can predict each beat of the film, it doesn't really matter. It's charming in many ways, from Ugyen's eventual assimilation into the village, the cast of spirited children, and the vast beautiful cinematography of the Himalayan valleys where Lunana tends its yaks. It's also fascinating to see cinema from Bhutan—I have not, I'm sure, seen a film from the country before, and so there's a pure enjoyment that comes from experiencing a new culture. In a time when we can't travel and experience this first hand, a film like Lunana fills a certain void in my existence. Finally: I will happily say that the title does not disappoint. Too often a film like this will promise a yak in the classroom, but not actually deliver—or it will only have a few fleeting moments of the yak in the classroom. But Lunana's Norbu is a near-constant presence. That, at least, is worth celebrating.

22. The Mitchells vs. The Machines

Directed by Michael Rianda

The Mitchells, a "dysfunctional" family, decides to road-trip across the country to take their daughter Katie to college. While stopped in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in Kansas, the robot apocalypse happens. Suddenly, what was just an awkward family journey becomes a battle for survival. As a film trying to break out of the current mould of CGI animation, there's a good deal to recommend The Mitchells vs. The Machines. It is genuinely packed with jokes, and there are moments of situational comedy that made me laugh out loud sprinkled throughout the film. The CGI animation is augmented by stylised 2D overlays, which evoke Katie's own films—in many ways it's a delight to look at. But there are a lot of ways where the film really fails worse than normal on the maudlin family-appropriate messaging. Its message of family togetherness, despite the individuals' differences, is heavy-handed and very often over-simplistic. It portrays the Mitchells as deeply weird and dysfunctional, when they're really just a middle-class white family from the suburbs who rarely have to deal with real misfortune (I mean, robot apocalypse notwithstanding). The worst you could say about them is that the father and his kids don't share interests. Shocking. It means that the development of the family "learning to work together and trust each other" comes from a slightly disingenuous place. And given that the execution of that message is so heavy-handed anyway, it means that the central message of the film really didn't work at all for me. But like I said, it had redeeming qualities, even if the core was flimsy. If you're just interested in the jokes and the spectacle—there's honestly a lot of fun to be had there. It's certainly better than a lot of this fare usually—indeed, overall, the films getting a nod for Animated Feature at the Oscars this year are a fairly strong bunch in generall—and I appreciate the effort it was making to try to set itself apart.

23. Spiderman: No Way Home

Directed by Jon Watts

I see the broad appeal of the MCU, but it's a truly unwieldy behemoth nowadays and it's really with a good deal of trepidation that I dip my toe in nowadays, knowing that a good deal of the plot will be knowing winks that flash right past me as I blindly stumble on. Couple this with the fact that I've not seen any of the Spiderman films since, I think, the second Raimi version—bypassing Andrew Garfield entirely—and I was in some ways not really looking forward to this. Armed with the Wikipedia synopses of Homecoming and Far From Home, I dived in. It is, for the most part, a fun film. It's a comedy much more than some of the other superhero films of the last year—and there's charm to Tom Holland as Peter Parker and Zendaya as MJ. And the effects are great—that is, after all, what it's nominated for. In some ways, it manages to extract the best of the web-slinging exuberance of Spiderman with the fractal horror of Doctor Strange. I'm also pleased to say that overall the MCU seems to be moving away from the pointlessly crowded action sequences that characterise the Avengers films. There's something quite clear and focused about the battles here. It's more like being on a rollercoaster track than in the middle of a war-zone. However, the film really bends hard to make its premise work, and thus tie all the previous Spiderman incarnations together. It's a film for the fans, and that's fair enough—but it's a film that works more as a mental exercise than as a piece of coherent cinema. It means, in some ways, that the plot and its message are cheapened—and it does poor service to its characters, in particular its female characters, as a result. But it doesn't want you to take it too seriously—after all, it knows that if you do, everything will fall apart. So maybe we just sit back and have fun with the parts that are, indeed, fun. There's something to be said for a film that can manage that, at least.

24. Encanto

Directed by Byron Howard & Jared Bush

Once again Disney beats out its now-stablemate Pixar in terms of animated films. This is no doubt aided by a very solid soundtrack of songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda, but also beats Luca in terms of story and emotional resonance as well. With a Rushdie-esque magical realism, the Madrigal family possess a series of "gifts" bestowing on them magical powers that protect them and the surrounding community. All except Mirabel (Stephanie Beatriz) who, at her coming-of-age, is not given any such power, and Bruno (John Leguizamo) whose gift of precognition is seen as a curse and who is banished from the encanto. It then becomes a story of family, and in the best fashion of such stories, it to some extent ignores the magical elements—or at least, it could as easily be telling a tale devoid of magic in an allegorical fashion. But in some way, as solid as the story is, it does feel like it's bridging the gap between songs. Which, in many ways, is fine, because the music is great throughout, and provides high points to the story in the way of the best movie-musicals. I do think the plot was at times stretched a bit thin, or didn't fit together in a particularly satisfying way (this is actually often a drawback with magical realism which lacks some kind of internal logic), but for the most part this didn't blunt its emotional impact, or the colour and whirl of the experience. All up, a very satisfying experience, and like I said, certainly the better of the two films from the heaviest-hitting animation company this year.

25. Spencer

Directed by Pablo Larraín

Biography as psychological thriller is the name of the game here, as Diana, Princess of Wales (Kristen Stewart) is forced to endure a Christmas with the royals at Sandringham palace—a location which holds ghosts for the princess, being just next door to her childhood home. Early on, there's an extremely good manifestation of the promise, as Diana suffocates on the rigid adherence to ceremony and tradition. It really does feel like a horror film in its early sequences, and both Pablo Larraín's direction and Jonny Greenwood's tense score do much to accentuate this. Unfortunately, I found it struggling to maintain that same sense of momentum throughout the film. There's a reason to this—it wants to show the positives of Diana's personality and her life as well; in particular the relationship with her sons Prince William & Harry. But in some ways that belongs in a different film to the one we feel that Larraín is presenting. I also find that while this is a reasonable characterisation of Diana, there are some certain Kristen Stewart-isms that the actor can't quite escape—in particular there's a common way of holding her head and her mouth which make me lose the impression of the character. It's something I've found in a number of her performances, but it's profound here where she's playing such an iconic individual. I certainly found this more successful that the highly stylised and idiosyncratic Jackie which we had from Larraín in 2016, but I still think that it wasn't as successful as it wanted to be—there was the potential for this to be completely thrilling and emotionally turbulent, and it ended up feeling somewhat blunted.

26. No Time To Die

Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga

A James Bond film has a certain contract to fulfil: vehicle chases, beautiful but dangerous women, a complicated plot that is largely irrelevant to the audience, and some suave one-liners. It's what the audience expects and what the franchise is built on. The Daniel Craig era has attempted with some success to make a more mature realisation of this. But the weight of ending this series is heavy on No Time To Die, and to be honest, I found it only partially successful. It's almost a truism of Bond films that they should largely be self-contained—rarely is a villain or a love-interest recycled; or if they are, it's just in the service of setting up the next one. While this film doesn't start with a clean-slate, it does a lot of laborious work early on to attempt to set up the emotional climax of the film and the series. The problem is that I felt every labour as the film progresses—whereas you can usually let a 007 film wash over you, there was a sense of sincerity to this film that sat ill with everything that came before. It's a problem that also marks the Timothy Dalton era, despite the fact that I think Dalton himself was in fact a fine Bond. Now there are still obviously a lot of good moments in this film. A stylish heist and escape at a Cuban casino, a motorcycle chase up and down the staircases of Matera, a showdown in a monumental facility on a remote island—these are the things you come to a Bond film for, and they don't disappoint. But they're also the things that come easily in this genre—the emotional impact is a lot harder to marshal, and despite trying so very hard at it, the film falters in many ways here. I know I should be trying to give plaudits for attempting something different with Bond. After all, Skyfall managed much more successfully to do this just two films ago, and in some ways this is continuing its legacy. But the fact that during this film I was actually rather nostalgic for some Roger Moore-led overt stupidity means that the film ultimately didn't live up to its goals for me.

27. Free Guy

Directed by Shawn Levy

In the first 30 minutes of this film I was honestly quite enchanted—Ryan Reynolds plays "Guy", an inhabitant of Free City who discovers that the daily robberies at his bank, and the constant tanks and helicopters rolling through the city are due to the fact that he's an NPC in a Fortnite-style open-world video game. It's a charming prospect for a film, and there's some really good jokes, visual comedy and character work in the first part of the film. It helps that the film is largely driven by Ryan Reynold's easy charm, and an excellent turn from Jodie Comer as the real-world player he ends up befriending. Both are great in their roles. But the film really just plummets off a cliff at some point, as they attempt to drive the plot forward with a "megalomaniac tech boss" narrative that results in an attempt to destroy Free City and all of its inhabitants. It's awkward and unnecessary, and in some ways it's a really stupid place to take the film. I know that making films is a complex business, but knowing that this was written as a spec script, and then reworked by the guy who had previously written the abhorrent Ready Player One, you can almost see the places where these two pieces were badly joined together. There's such joy and fun in the concept, and in the jokes which naturally fall out of the premise. To have these bastardised with a really stupid end-of-the-world plot, and an even more offensive romance element just makes me angry. I also spent a good deal of time screaming at the TV for some of the stupid depictions of the technology, but to some extent I have to let that go—there are, undoubtedly, issues with any film if you have a deep enough knowledge of the area. And after all, there are much worse and more fundamental problems with this film to complain about. But at the same time, I can imagine myself rewatching this at some point in the future for all of the fun sequences, skipping over or ignoring all the worst parts (which includes the final real-world scene, which can absolutely fight me). So in the end, this ends up feeling like a film with some merit. It's just annoying that it could have been so much better.

28. Being the Ricardos

Directed by Aaron Sorkin

Despite myself, I had a lot of fun with this film, charting a possibly apocryphal week in the filming of I Love Lucy where Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) has been accused of being a member of the Communist Part in McCarthy-era America. What follows is a time-jumping story of Lucille Ball's relationship with Desi Arnaz (played with slick charm by Javier Bardem), and their work in creating the most popular TV show of the time. The good parts are, to a large extent, what the film is recognised for at the Oscars: Nicole Kidman, whom I always think I don't like as an actress, and yet who constantly surprises me, is excellent at capturing a layered Lucille Ball, both on and off screen. Bardem (despite being a white Spanish actor, rather than a Latino Cuban) manages to capture Arnaz's magnetism, and there's good support from the likes of Tony Hale, Alia Shawkat and J.K. Simmons (who also gets an Oscars nod). And there's a wit to the dialogue which sits well with such a cast. But: I hate to say it, there's a lot I didn't like much about this film too, and the jutting structure of its "Sorkinism" is a large part of it. Much of the dialogue is witty, as you might expect, but the pulse of the story is something we've seen way, way, way too many times before. And moments like Ball defending her one-time registration as a Communist because she "believed in equality for the working man" are just regurgitated from Sorkin's other work. And there are a number of scenes where you can see Sorkin's manipulation now fairly starkly: and honestly some of them made me cringe. Once again, as I said with The Trial of the Chicago 7, Sorkin very badly needs someone to tame his excesses, and I believe that this means he's always a fairly poor choice as a director—particular when directing his own script. He certainly has some merits when it comes to screenwriting—the entertainment of this film does deserve some credit—but unchecked he amplifies his flaws more than his strengths. It's a shame, because there feels like there's a much better film in here—and more than that, it feels like it would only take a bit of editing and a bit of locking Aaron Sorkin in a cupboard for a while to make it so. When the bits that need restraining are so obvious even to me, that makes me feel particularly displeased with the film.

29. Writing With Fire

Directed by Sushmit Ghosh & Rintu Thomas

An interesting documentary about Khabar Lahariya, an Indian newspaper run by Dalit women. In particular, we see the transition of the paper from print to digital, and their growing influence as their readership widens. It's a film that has an observational quality to it—it's in that style of documentary that feels if you point a camera at something interesting for long enough, you'll get an interesting film out of it. There's plenty of interesting sub-plots here, in particular the exposition of corruption within the police force, and the oppression of women. There's a sequence on the elections of Uttar Pradesh, which sees the rise of Narendra Modi's populist BJP party. We see the practice of subtle segregation—of dividing rather than unifying the country. But these are all just slivers that come through Khabar Lahariya's reporting. The film focuses on the newspaper and the women who run it. They are interesting characters, but the film fails in many ways to strongly connect them to the broader picture of modern India, despite how much it's trying. It feels, in some ways, more like a news report itself than something that awakens the spirit. So while I learned a lot about Khabar Lahariya (and indeed, felt them as a force for good in the world), the film itself left me a little cold. I almost wanted the filmmakers to get out of the way—as though they were an unnecessary distraction from the real story. And that's not a good thing for a film in general, much less a documentary.

30. Coming 2 America

Directed by Craig Brewer

30 years have passed since the first Coming To America film was released, and there's a really quite compelling argument to be made that we didn't need a sequel then, and much less so now. Indeed, you can argue all you want about this being an unnecessary film (and you'd be correct). But as far as unnecessary remakes and sequels go, this was at least a little bit unexpected, and it turns out it was reasonable fun too. Eddie Murphy reprises his role as Prince Akeem of the wealthy African nation of Zamunda. Needing to find a male heir to the throne, he returns to New York, where he believes he has a bastard son from his former time there. The film splits its time between Zamunda and New York in a fairly haphazard way, making sure it can hit all the beats of the original. Plot-wise, there's not a lot going on, but it lays down the foundation so that the jokes it wants to make work. It's a character-driven comedy, of course, and there are some new highlights in the film: Leslie Jones is energetic in her role as Akeem's former one-night stand, Wesley Snipes eats up his role as the belligerent general of Nexdoria, and Tracy Morgan provides, well, his usual schtick—but there's always a certain amount of charm to that. It tries to engage with some deeper themes of gender equality, and personal liberty, but these are half-hearted attempts in between ribald jokes, and to be honest, the film probably would have felt more genuine if it had stayed on a path of pure ridiculousness. But there's enough there that's just funny to make it an entertaining film. Even if, as was patently obvious from the first time I ever heard of this film, it was also a completely unnecessary one.

31. Luca

Directed by Enrico Casarosa

A solid if small-scoped outing from Pixar about two sea-monsters who escape to the surface and become human to escape their problems at home. It's a common theme in a coming-of-age film, and in some ways it doesn't tread new ground, despite the conceit at its heart. But it does a reasonable job of threading the elements together, Luca's fear of living the same pointless life as his parents, Alberto's abandonment by his father, and the breaking of a childhood friendship when a love interest arises (albeit, in this case, a stultified and platonic one). But while it's a serviceable telling of an age-old tale, it's honestly not more than that, and it's a surprising direction after the high-concept outings that Pixar has leant towards recently. The 5 year old mostly enjoyed it though, so that's worth something.

32. Four Good Days

Directed by Rodrigo García

A serviceable film starring Mila Kunis as a drug addict trying to get clean, and Glenn Close as her mother who has seen this act too many times before. It's not a truly great film though, and while the actors try to pretend otherwise, there's a reason why this earns itself just a solo Oscar nomination for Best Original Song. That fact is a bit of a backhanded compliment in some ways. "Yes, we're aware of your film", says the Academy, "but no you're not getting any acting or directing nominations". It is, after all, a fair call. It's a mostly predictable film, and sees Glenn Close lurch through another awkward late-career turn—albeit less offensively than in Hillbilly Elegy last year. Mila Kunis is better as her daughter struggling with heroin withdrawal and facing up to her past behaviour. The characterisation feels overly simplistic in some ways, and the film tends to coast without really making too many hard decisions along the way. There's an unflinching quality to the depiction without a sense of raw honesty—it doesn't shy away from tackling a hard subject, but neither does it really lay that subject bare. The song at the end, written by Dianne Warren and performed by Reba McEntire, is largely superfluous to the film itself, but forms a reasonable punctuation mark over the ending credits. But it is a sign that "the Oscar nominated Four Good Days" is a little meaningless, if not strictly disingenuous.

33. Shang-Chi & the Legend of the Ten Rings

Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton

I'm no fan of the superhero genre, and less of the interminable MCU. But I was intrigued by this film with its mostly Asian cast, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, who has done some truly excellent films. It had the possibility of breaking out of its mould and becoming something quite new. But there are strictures that are part of being a franchise that even this film can't escape. There are good parts, of course. There's a general shape to the design built on Chinese mythology which adds a refreshing flavour to the recognisable shape of a Marvel film. Awkwafina is a delight as always as Shang-Chi's offsider, and Simu Liu takes a charismatic turn in the title role. There's also a passable focus on traditional martial arts as the mechanism for fight sequences. Some of these things feel like they're trying to break it out of its mould at least. But I was honestly so bored with the actual plot of the film, which varied in the details but otherwise follows so many of the broad strokes of any other origin story. Even deep-seeded family drama doesn't save it from being listless and pedestrian—jumping meekly from one action sequence to the next. And I've seen that film... let me count... at least 24 times before. Also annoying is the fact that, compared to many films (and particular in comparison to most of the films which get an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects), the CGI is pretty janky. In particular, there are some really awkwardly composited parts that take place in the streets of San Francisco—although they seem better when we move to a later fantasy world where presumably everything can be rendered from scratch. It's enough to even take me out of the world, even when I'm not so sure I want to be there anyway. Yeah, I know, I guess I should stop watching these films. Let people have the things that they love. Don't let Jez and his bad vibes rain on their parade. I'm just annoyed that even when they try so hard to do something different, it still ends up broadly the same as everything that came before it.

34. Cruella

Directed by Craig Gillespie

This is a film that really doesn't need to exist. It's a cynical way to cash in on a story we don't need to hear; over-exerting itself and contorting itself in order to make logical sense of an intrinsically simple cartoon villain. Why, eventually, does Cruella De Vil want to make herself a coat out of 101 Dalmatians? If your answer is anything other than "because she's a Disney villain", then you're as idiotic as the people who commissioned Cruella. Now that I have that off my chest: there's honestly a weird amount of fun to be had in this film. It's visually quite delightful in many ways, from the gaunt depiction of London, to the era-appropriate(-and-slightly-satirical) production design, even to the amount of fun that Emmas Stone and Thompson have in their respective roles. But the true star, in film about fashion design, is the costuming, and costume designer Jenny Beavan must be looking down the barrel of yet another Oscar for her work. Oftentimes, you could just forget the stupid, tortured plot and watch the spectacle swirl around you, as Cruella executes another guerrilla fashion event. While the cast is willing to play up to the campness, Beavan is there throwing literally every part of herself into her work. But it's a really stupid film in many ways, and from a fairly bare 2.5 stars from me at least 2.something of them belong to the costume design, leaving very little to be shared around elsewhere. Ah well. At least we're not going to get endless copies of this kind of thing for the next 10 years. Wait what.

35. The Eyes of Tammy Faye

Directed by Michael Showalter

There are a few films this year which seem like a really good idea executed poorly, and a shining example among the throng is The Eyes of Tammy Faye. It tells the story of the rise of Tammy Faye (Jessica Chastain) and Jim Bakker (Andrew Garfield), who became two of the biggest stars of televangelism. Tammy Faye is portrayed with a kind of manic sympathy by Jessica Chastain, while Bakker is played with oily charm by Garfield. But the performances are the highlights in what's often quite an awkward film. It plays out like a melodrama, and takes a lot of its aesthetic from the plasticky presentation of 80s televangelism, which makes it feel insincere in many ways, despite how hard Chastain is working. The script is also a bit of a bomb for me—it tries to reconcile Tammy Faye's on- and off-screen personas in a way that feels false and simplistic. Tammy Faye is made out to be a tragic hero in some ways but we never really see the humanity beneath the permanent makeup. This is maybe a specific choice, but it means that I was never very emotionally invested in these characters. Moreover, it seems to line up in its sights evangelical Christianity, and prosperity gospel in particular, but it never pulls the trigger, leaving some of the most potent thematic content and satire behind. It feels like there's a great film exposé of televangelism and prosperity theology to be made at some point, but this film is not it—and moreover the fact that this film was a bit of a stinker means that we're unlikely to get the truly biting satire that is needed in the near future.

36. The Hand of God (È stata la mano di Dio)

Directed by Paolo Sorrentino

The Hand of God is a vaguely autobiographical tale evoking the Naples of director Paolo Sorrentino's youth, following the coming-of-age of Fabietto Schisa (Filippo Scotti), his sexual awakening, his languid days of nothingness and eventually a family tragedy. I really struggle a lot with Paolo Sorrentino's films. He feels like an offshoot of the Italian films of the 1960s which prioritised style and impressions over truly great characterisation or story. While I quite enjoyed his foray into English-language film-making with Youth, some of his most acclaimed works have left me feeling really cold, in particular the last time he won an Oscar for The Great Beauty. It was a film that was similarly wrapped up in itself—self-indulgent and insular. There's something about this makes it being autobiographical which makes it worse—it's almost like it was a film just made for Sorrentino's own sake. It's rarely about letting us in on the story, for all it wants to lay bare the story of Fabietto losing his virginity to an elderly neighbour while he dreams of his aunt, and how much it wants to wallow in its sense of adolescent philosophy. The one thing I really appreciated in the story was the scene where Sorrentino, through Fabietto, wants to distance himself from the obvious comparisons to Fellini, even if he can't quite escape it stylistically. There are some nice moments of cinematography though, and through the listless depiction of southern Italy, which shows that there are things that Sorrentino does well. It's just a shame we have to sit through so much of the stuff he doesn't do well to get it.

37. House of Gucci

Directed by Ridley Scott

House of Gucci may not be the longest film this year, but boy it sure felt like it. Trying desperately to be Ridley Scott's Godfather, it's a family epic that very languidly tells the story of two generations of the Gucci fashion house, with particular focus on Patrizia (Lady Gaga), who marries Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver), the socially awkward part-heir to the empire. But it's, honestly, immensely boring. As much as it wants to feel like an epic, it plays out in one long straight line with the conclusion already staked out on the sand ahead of you. And what the film becomes is just a heavy-footed slog to get there. Driver and Gaga are believable enough in their roles, but I care not a jot for their characters—a trait which only increases the longer the film continues—they just get more and more boring and predictable as the story lurches its way forward. In some way, the fact that Driver and Gaga inhabit these roles well just emphasises their blandness. But it could be worse than a boring character being portrayed believably. Exhibit B is Jared Leto as the unpredictable, balding, tracksuit-sporting Paolo Gucci. By all accounts, he was an eccentric in real life, but Leto is allowed to indulge his worst excesses and play him in the film without any restraint. And it's laughable. Or it would be if it weren't also kind of horrific. I can only imagine how hard it was for any of his co-stars to perform manageably while Leto exists in a different plane of reality. Tonally, the performance is bizarre, and doesn't at all fit in with anyone else—it's as though he's performing in a completely different film to everyone else. It might have survived as a tedious but vaguely competent picture without Leto, but his presence really dragged it down to the level where I need to start giving it some degree of scorn. Instead of mid-table mediocrity, this is the sort of film which finds itself near the very bottom of my Oscars ballot this year.

38. Don't Look Up

Directed by Adam McKay

A damn waste of a film. This has an honestly clever satirical premise—what if an Armageddon-style asteroid was hurtling towards Earth and would destroy us all within months, and no-one really cared? What if the scientists who announced this were largely ignored? What if there was more interest in the latest celebrity break-up instead? What if there was a significant "both sides"-ism to the threat? I mean, there's so much fodder there that as a satire it should, if anything, be too on the nose. But I would have much preferred that to the ham-fisted way Adam McKay fails to really make much in the way of a coherent point. This is a film that really lacks incisiveness—it takes the premise and deals with it in the most facile way, shoe-horning in a cast of unlikeable caricatures that bloat the film to breaking point. It says something that you can assemble a cast this good and they mostly suck: Leonardo DiCaprio in particular is shallow and unlikeable as the professor who becomes a Fauci-like celebrity, Meryl Streep (the Great) mindlessly wanders through her role as a populist POTUS, Cate Blanchett and Jennifer Lawrence are largely forgettable despite having a significant amount of screen time. The only saving graces are Mark Rylance as a tech billionaire (even though his role is perhaps the most caricatured and borderline offensive), and Timothée Chalamet as the surprisingly-religious nihilist who turns up late in the piece. But it's not much to save a film with such little artistic merit. Much like McKay's previous films, there's a desire to take serious topics and make them comic, potentially palatable and as a result losing any impact they might have actually had. In the hands of someone else, I can imagine this premise being brilliant. To the short films: again, there was a good deal of strength in these this year, although I watched them in a more piece-meal fashion this year (there was no general digital release of the sets as a whole package this year), and I think that left the intensity drop a little bit. Still, there are some powerful pieces of cinema here, especially in the Live Action and Documentary categories. And, as is traditional, the very bottom entry actually kinda stinks. Once again, I'm so pleased that the Oscars still recognises these categories; it would be a much weaker ceremony without them, and they add a spark of brightness to my Oscars watching every year.

1. The Long Goodbye (live action)

Directed by Aneil Karia

A harrowing punch in the face that uses its slim 11m runtime to brutally critique the direction of modern Britain and the rise of racism as a tool of the oppressors. Riz Ahmed is a powerhouse here, and in some ways he manages to pack more into this sliver of a film than I found in his Oscar-nominated turn for The Sound of Metal. Be wary, but watch it, and take action.

2. The Queen of Basketball (documentary)

Directed by Ben Proudfoot

A truly marvellous short documentary on Lusia Harris, the first woman to be drafted into the NBA after winning three collegiate titles, and representing the USA at the Olympics (where she scored the first basket in Olympic history, and went on to win a silver medal). But after her successful early career, there was no women's league for her to graduate to. She's an amazing character, who delivers her story directly to camera combined with some great archival shots of her playing career. It is honestly a huge pleasure just spending time in her company—she's grateful for her basketball career, but you sense that she's just as grateful for her life outside basketball, and she reminisces with a fondness devoid of any bitterness at how swiftly it was cut short. It was a really lovely film, and I'm pleased that once again that the Oscars recognise filmmaking of this form. Ben Proudfoot (who did another recent favourite of mine, A Concerto is a Conversation) is doing excellent work in this space, and I hope that this is his year.

3. The Dress (Sukienka) (live action)

Directed by Tadeusz Łysiak

A woman with dwarfism works as a maid in a hotel in Poland, and ruminates on her stagnant life of chain-smoking and playing slot machines in the local pub. She sees the potential for change with the arrival of an attractive truck-driver, who promises her a date when he returns from his trip to Ukraine. This is a fine, understated film, that's tinged with a great deal of sadness as Julka contemplates her lonely life, and we see it first hand. But it's not a film with an easily digestible message either—and it's stronger for it. The ambiguity leaves it poised on the brink, and that means we think about it long afterwards.

4. Audible (documentary)

Directed by Matthew Ogens

A fascinating short doco focusing on a group of students at a high school for the deaf—in particular star footballer Amaree who is playing his last season before facing the wider world outside high school. It's really beautifully made, with a particular emphasis placed on the sound design in a way that's both engaging and alienating. It also has a real hook of emotion to it as well, which means that it has stayed with me longer than some documentary shorts this year. I want to know that Amaree is okay going forward in his life. Please, it has to be so.

5. Bestia (animated)

Directed by Hugo Covarrubias

A very dark and rather disturbing animated short, which saves its real kicker for the end, when you finally discover what it is that you've been watching this entire time. It's animated in stop motion, with the human characters portrayed with static, expressionless porcelain heads—it's a conceit that merely feels creepy when you watch it, but takes on deeper meaning when you understand it. It's certainly not a film for everyone—and it's a film that's as unpleasant as it is forceful. But it certainly has impact.

6. On My Mind (live action)

Directed by Martin Strange-Hansen

I was rather charmed by this short film about a man who wanders into a bar at 9am, drinks four shots of cheap whisky, then begs to use the karaoke machine. You can sense turmoil to the character—these are not the actions of a happy man—but in some ways it feels like it's trying to sell you a comedy. It wavers between comedy and drama like Schrödinger's cat, and it's only at the end that we open the box to find out what we've got.

7. BoxBallet (БоксБалет) (animated)

Directed by Anton Dyakov

A film about the unexpected relationship which develops between a ballerina and a boxer. It's done with very expressive animation and exaggerated character design which has a kind of unusual beauty to it. I will admit that there are moments where the lighting and the depictions of characters in three dimensions gets a little uncanny—it slides uncomfortably between the realistic and the stylised at times. But in some ways, that's also what give it its character. I actually think, all up, it was probably one of my picks of the Animated Shorts this Oscars season.

8. Lead Me Home (documentary)

Directed by Pedro Kos & Jon Shenk

A fine short film focusing on homelessness in major US cities, and its root causes. To a lesser extent it focuses on the solutions as well, but it's only to a lesser extent because the solution is generally as simple as "give these people a place to live!". Some beautiful if bleak cinematography, and a real empathy for its subjects. Certainly a film with a good deal of artistic merit, and worthy of its place in the Oscars race.

9. Affairs of the Art (animated)

Directed by Joanna Quinn

A short film narrated from the point-of-view of a woman finally discovering her true passion for art, and reminiscing about her life and her family to this point. This had a really beautiful and expressive pencil-art style to it, which really showed off the skill of the artists behind it. It has a flowing, moving quality to it, coupled with unusual angles that draw you into the world. It does feel to some extent like it's up for its style more than its story, despite the quirky characterisation of Beryl's family. But overall, it's a worthy entry here in the Oscars. It had a good deal of artistic merit, in any case.

10. When We Were Bullies (documentary)

Directed by Jay Rosenblatt

A nicely put together documentary film about the filmmaker remembering an incident from 5th grade when he participated, along with the rest of the class, in an act of bullying. It follows the path he takes in revisiting the incident, tracking down former classmates and his teacher, and visiting the schoolyard where it happened. It's very much a film based around self-reflection rather than catharsis, and yet it manages to avoid feeling self-indulgent or insular. There's a sense that we want a release: to know that everything turned out alright in the end, and it's a powerful statement that director Jay Rosenblatt doesn't give it to us. I think that's the key thing that makes this a more affecting documentary.

11. Take & Run (Ala Kachuu) (live action)

Directed by Maria Brendle

Ala Kachuu, in Kirgyz, while literally meaning "take and run", is the term for forced marriage by abduction still commonly practiced in Kyrgyzstan. This is what happens to Selim, a young girl who moves to Bishkek with hopes of studying at university. It's a film designed to shed light on an awful practice, and it's done with a good deal of restraint. It presents the act and its repercussions almost as reasonable—as part of a long-standing and legitimate tradition—which makes it all the more harrowing. A standout performance from Alina Turdumamatova, and a fine short film overall.

12. Three Songs For Benazir (دری سندری د بینظیر لپاره) (documentary)

Directed by Elizabeth Mirzaei & Gulistan Mirzaei

A notably brief and intentionally fragmented documentary about a young displaced Afghan man and his hopes for his young family. He wants to join the Afghan army, but is torn by his love for his wife Benazir and their new family. Meanwhile, there's easy money to be made harvesting the opium poppy fields. It's a brief but well-targeted view into this world, and it manages to draw the life of this couple in relief over the top of the entire socio-political background in which they find themselves. I've seen more affecting documentaries this year, but I understand why this one finds itself on the Oscars list—it's cleverly done and makes you want to think of all the implications that are on screen.

13. The Windshield Wiper (animated)

Directed by Alberto Mielgo

A very nicely rotoscoped or stylised CGI film that takes in a variety of somewhat misanthropic viewpoints on love. It's quite beautifully presented, and I think that's what the Academy has seen in it in nominating it for an Oscar. But it's also really very limited in some ways. It's extremely heterosexual, extremely male-gazey, and in the end, not nearly as deep as it thinks it is. So while it's a pleasure to look at in some ways, what you end up seeing is not particularly pleasant.

14. Robin Robin (animated)

Directed by Michael Please & Daniel Ojari

To put a cap on another year of our 1000 Albums music project, here’s the complete lists of my top 100 albums and tracks for the year. As well as that, I’ve compiled some Spotify playlists for you to check out which slice and dice my favourites in various ways.

Read the write-ups of my top tracks and albums if you want all the details, but this is the post that just has the lists for the completionists.

The Playlists

Top 30 Tracks, Ranked - You're busy, I get it. You just want to listen to the tracks I wrote up earlier this week? This is the playlist for you. Just the crème de la crème, ranked from #1 to #30. (30 tracks, 2h)

Top 100 Tracks, Ranked - My top 100 tracks in order from #1 to #100. Start at the top and listen to my favourite music of the year. (100 tracks, 6.5h)

Jez's Top Tracks - A wider list of all my favourite tracks of the year. (168 tracks, 11h)

Jez's Top Tracks + Albums - All of my favourite tracks of the year, plus selections from all my favourite albums as well. (213 tracks, 14h)

Jez's Top Tracks, Albums + Much, Much More - This is the big one; a vast all-encompassing selection of the myriad albums we listened to over the course of 2021. All personally selected, but done so in an incredibly promiscuous way. I guarantee that somewhere in here is something you'll love, if you can find it. (1,063 tracks, 68h)

Top Albums of 2021

100. Middle Kids - Today We're the Greatest

99. Landshapes - Contact

98. Porter Robinson - Nurture

97. Oscar Lang - Chew The Scenery

96. Rosemary Lawton - Canvas (folk rock)

95. Danny L Harle - Harlecore (happy hardcore)

94. Hippo Campus - Good Dog, Bad Dream

93. TradArrr - Strange News

92. Creeper - American Noir

91. Fruit Bats - The Pet Parade

90. Emma Stevens - Light Year

89. XIXA - Genesis

88. Inner Prospekt - Canvas Two

87. Dispatch - Break Our Fall

86. Someone & Tessa Rose Jackson - Shapeshifter

85. Cold Weather Company - Coalescence

84. Fools Garden - Captain… Coast Is Clear

83. I Was the Lion & Peter Groenwald - Come to Life

82. Yebba - Dawn

81. Gauvain Sers - Ta place dans ce monde

80. Color Dolor - Blurry Things

79. Matt Sweeney & Bonnie Prince Billy - Superwolves

78. Diablo Swing Orchestra - Swagger & Stroll Down The Rabbit Hole

77. Eliza Shaddad - The Woman You Want

76. Sean McConnell - A Horrible Beautiful Dream

75. Shiny Joe Ryan - Shiny's Democracy

74. Walk The Moon - Heights

73. Sturle Dagsland - Sturle Dagsland

72. Cory Wong & Dirty Loops - Turbo

71. Wing Vilma - Spirit Practice

70. Kratos Himself - Vectors

69. Beans on Toast - Knee Deep in Nostalgia

68. Misty Coast - When I Fall From The Sky

67. Tusmørke - Nordisk Krim

66. Shubh Saran - inglish

65. Moon Taxi - Silver Dream

64. Damian Wilson - Limehouse to Lechlade

63. Mighty Oaks - Mexico

62. Halsey - If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power

61. The Armadillo Paradox - Out of Gas in Oil Country

60. Arnau Griso - Eric Blanch

59. Alicia Walter - I Am Alicia

58. Ian Lockwood - Not Like Other Girls

57. The Small Calamities - Moments of Impact

56. Marina - Ancient Dreams in a Modern World

55. Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine - A Beginner's Mind

54. FOUDRE! - Future Sabbath

53. Pale Ramon - Annie

52. Libera - If

51. Nitin Sawhney - Immigrants

50. Gawain and the Green Knight - A Sleeping Place

49. Brian Finnegan - Hunger of the Skin

48. Wolf Alice - Blue Weekend

47. Hybrid - Black Halo

46. Matt Maltese - Good Morning It's Now Tomorrow

45. Rave The Reqviem - Stigmata Itch

44. The Night Game - Dog Years

43. Lake Street Dive - Obviously

42. Waxflight - Flowers

41. 3D Stas - Bueno Acido

40. Saint Motel - The Orignal Motion Picture Soundtrack

39. Brandi Carlile - In These Silent Days

38. Spellling - The Turning Wheel

37. Red Rum Club - How To Steal The World

36. Walk Off The Earth - Meet You There

35. Only Sun - Tangled Mind

34. Ritual Cloak & Autumn Juvenile - A Human Being is the Best Disguise

33. Saint Motel - The Orignal Motion Picture Soundtrack

32. Shungudzo - I'm not a mother, but I have children

31. Steven Wilson - The Future Bites

30. Grace Petrie - Connectivity

29. The Fratellis - Half Drunk Under a Full Moon

28. The War on Drugs - I Don't Live Here Anymore

27. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Butterfly 3000

26. Passenger - Songs for the Drunk & Broken Hearted

25. Sandhya - Innocent Monster

24. The Lathums - How Beautiful Life Can Be

23. Ross Gay - Dilate Your Heart

22. Pale Waves - Who Am I?

21. Horsey - Debonair

20. Manchester Orchestra - The Million Masks of God

19. Sectlinefor - Kissing Strangers During An Outbreak

18. Strange Bones - England Screams

17. Aimee Mann - Queens of the Summer Hotel

16. Hamish Hawk - Heavy Elevator

15. ViVii - Mondays

14. Clockwise On Fire - Clockwise On Fire

13. Villagers - Fever Dreams

12. The Orange Peels - Celebrate The Moments of Your Life

11. The Zolas - Come Back To Life

10. Lydmor - Capacity

9. The Go! Team - Get Up Sequences Part 1

8. Valerie June - The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers

7. Trace Kotik - Everything Has Been Done, Now Everything Is Possible…

6. Various Artists - The Metallica Blacklist

5. Greta Van Fleet - The Battle at Garden's Gate

4. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - L.W.

3. Chvrches - Screen Violence

2. Pepe Deluxé - Phantom Cabinet Vol. 1

1. Dylan Cartlidge - Hope Above Adversity

Top Tracks of 2021

100. Thee More Shallows - Ancient Baby

99. Tusmørke - Ride the Whimbrel

98. Jeff Tuohy - Murder In A Dancehall

97. Trace Kotik - 100

96. Halsey - Girl is a Gun

95. Henry Jamison & Darlingside - The Parting Glass

94. Frank Turner - Haven't Been Doing So Well

93. Ichiko Aoba - Porcelain

92. ViVii - Smackdown

91. Waxflight - Daughters of Progress

90. Drapht - Robbery - triple j Like A Version

89. Harleymoon Kemp - Love on the Radio

88. Aimee Mann - Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath

87. CHVRCHES - Asking For A Friend

86. La Casa Azul - Entra En Mi Vida

85. GoGo Penguin & Squarepusher - F Maj Pixie - Squarepusher Remix

84. Brian Finnegan - Fathom

83. Ritual Cloak & Autumn Juvenile - Your Turbulent Best Friend

82. Morrisson & Aitch - House & Garage (feat. Aitch)

81. Horsey - Lagoon

80. Dave & Stormzy - Clash (feat. Stormzy)

79. CHVRCHES & Robert Smith - How Not To Drown

78. Elder Island - Sacred

77. Dylan Cartlidge - PTSD

76. Valerie June - You And I

75. Strange Bones - Jungle

74. Vistas - Stuck in Your Head

73. Sangatsu no Phantasia - 幸福なわがまま

72. Sammy Rae & The Friends - Whatever We Feel

71. Ocean Alley - Touch Back Down

70. Pearl Charles - Only for Tonight

69. Ghost - Enter Sandman

68. WALK THE MOON - Can You Handle My Love??

67. Denise Chaila & Jafaris - Anseo (Single Mix)

66. Connor Leimer - Criminals

65. The Night Game - A Postcard from the City of Angels

64. Mighty Oaks - Mexico

63. Manchester Orchestra - Bed Head

62. Anneke Van Giersbergen - I Saw a Car

61. Waterparks - Numb

60. Barenaked Ladies - Flip

59. Sandhya - Monster

58. Woodkid - Guns for Hire (from the series Arcane League of Legends)

57. The Zolas - Yung Dicaprio

56. Middle Kids - Questions

55. Quilloughby & Lisa Simpson - Everyone Is Horrid Except Me (And Possibly You)

54. Takatsugu Muramatsu, Libera & Robert Prizeman - Home

53. Bellowhead - London Town (Live)

52. Alicia Walter - Standing at Your Doorstep

51. The Brother Brothers - On The Road Again

50. Shiny Joe Ryan - Dad's Hat

49. My Morning Jacket - Nothing Else Matters

48. Maggie Lindemann - Scissorhands

47. Wolf Alice - Smile

46. Yebba - How Many Years

45. Peter Groenwald & I WAS THE LION - One More

44. Grace Petrie - The Last Man On Earth

43. Jeremy Zucker - brooklyn boy

42. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Catching Smoke

41. Clockwise On Fire - Latework

40. The Go! Team - A Bee Without Its Sting

39. Kero Kero Bonito - The Princess and the Clock

38. Leah Blevins - Beautiful Disaster

37. Emma Stevens - On a Day Like Today

36. Dylan Cartlidge - Cheerleader

35. Villagers - So Simpatico

34. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Pleura

33. The Lathums - Circles Of Faith

32. Greta Van Fleet - Light My Love

31. Diablo Swing Orchestra - Out Came The Hummingbirds

30. JK-47 & Bronte Eve - Changes - triple j Like A Version

29. Gang of Youths - the man himself

28. Kishi Bashi - For Every Voice That Never Sang

27. Ego Ella May - for the both of us

26. Andréanne A. Malette - Alaska

25. Clockwise On Fire - Dig

24. Crawford Mack - The Last Perfect Day on Earth

23. Pilar Victoria - Flustered Snowflakes

22. Danny Elfman & Squarepusher - We Belong - Squarepusher Remix

21. Only Sun - Switch Off, Fall Off

20. Lord Huron - Drops in the Lake

19. Ross Gay & Mary Lattimore - Burial

18. Lydmor - Someone We Used to Love

17. Ian Lockwood - No Homo

16. Fryars - God Melodies

15. CHVRCHES - Final Girl

14. Pepe Deluxe - 22nd Century Dandy

13. Trace Kotik - Slip

12. Lake Street Dive - Know That I Know

11. Pale Waves - She's My Religion

10. Dear Boy - (On My) Mind

9. Steven Wilson - PERSONAL SHOPPER

8. Landshapes - I'm Mortal

7. audiobooks - The Doll

6. Rave The Reqviem - Holy Homicide

5. Shubh Saran - postradition

4. Gawain and The Green Knight - Birds & Wine

3. Bang Bang Bart - Ramraid the Servo

2. Hamish Hawk - The Mauritian Badminton Doubles Champion, 1973

#10. Dear Boy - (On My) Mind (shoegaze)

Dear Boy produced my #1 track of 2019 with Limelight, and I've been very long in waiting for their debut album so I can listen to it fresh without having heard basically every track as a single beforehand. But I cracked, instead, and listened to this one, because it seemed to so capture that spirit of disaffected, slightly atmospheric pop rock that I loved in 2019. And here we see them again with a top 10 track of the year. As it weaves its 90s guitar pop bassline with reverbed vocals that come out of 80s new-wave, it manages to sound nostalgic but fresh all at once. Now: bring out the fucking album, guys.

#9. Steven Wilson - PERSONAL SHOPPER (progressive pop)

An epic track, running to almost 10m in length (certainly the longest track in my Top 100 this year, after Soul of Hundred Lives by Inner Prospekt missed the cut), it's a great example of letting a song work naturally through the stages it wants to take. It's a song about consumerism and capitalism, and a song about why it's shitty for just about everyone. But it's weirdly uplifting, because it's wonderfully biting—especially the Tubular Bells-esque sequence when the announcer comes in to list the things we really need in life. It's also a bop.

#8. Landshapes - I'm Mortal (chamber psych)

Contact by Landshapes

A track from very early in the year (in fact, it probably falls into the scope of December 2020, as our eligibility runs December-December), this is a wonderful bit of soft psychedelia. It sounds a little like heavily processed synthpop, but it has a Lana Del Rey-esque chamber quality to it and the swoops of shifting harmonies that really elevate it. It's a really great track that you might have forgotten or missed even if you listened to 1000 albums this year.

#7. audiobooks - The Doll (experimental synthpop)

This is a great thudding bit of minimalist electronica, as it pulses with a four-on-the-floor beat augmented by subtle progression across its run-time. But what really elevates it is the listless vocal line telling the story of a lost doll which adds a black humour to the track. It captures the attention and before you know it, you're caught up in the rhythms—it's reminiscent of 90s artists like Underworld who hook you with something weird, before you realise that what you really like is that drive and pound of the beats they're laying down.

#6. Rave The Reqviem - Holy Homicide (industrial metal)

This is an undoubtedly stupid song—it has a synthpop track structure, driven by a very early-aughts breakbeat, earnest but bombastic religious-themed lyrics, and overdriven guitars to complete the mix. But somehow, it works just so well—and it feels a little bit like one of those structures made out of popsicle sticks that if you remove just one the whole thing would explode. Incidentally, this is (currently), the 5yo's favourite song of all time (tied with Blackpink's DDU-DU DDU-DU, so make of that what you will), and I've heard it significantly more this year as a result of that fact. That may have brought it to my attention more, but it's the quality of the song itself which has propelled it so high.

#5. Shubh Saran - postradition (instrumental jazz prog)

An absolutely monumental piece of music, built around a really solid main guitar riff, that takes on the form of a raga; a place from where improvisations spring. It takes us on a wonderful sonic journey that is at times subtle and contemplative and at other times massive and awe-inspiring. It's genuinely worth listening to and enjoying the ride.

#4. Gawain and The Green Knight - Birds & Wine (chamber folk)

Birds & Wine by Gawain and The Green Knight

A truly lovely bit of folk music from an artist I'd never come across before. It has a pure unadulterated core to its tune and lyrics, which blossoms into something marvellous through woodwind arrangements and an eventual rise in the drama of the vocals. It's not quite as epic as my #1 track of last year (Obedience by Dyble Longdon), but it's cut from the same cloth. It's a truly great track, and well worth a listen.

#3. Bang Bang Bart - Ramraid the Servo (dolewave)

Ramraid the Servo by Bang Bang Bart

Alright, if there's a song in my top ten that I really need to justify, it's this one. It's a comedy track done with recycled synths and a howl of lyrics delivered in broad Strayan. But it's also a fantastic, potent and wonderful protest track. The main idea in this song is that dream we've all had at one point in our lives right? What would my life be like if I just got my shit together enough to ramraid the servo with my Uncle Merv? The idea is funny, but examining that question provides a potent portrait of poverty in Australia. Why is ramraiding the servo seen as this shining goal—what is it, collectively, that makes it seem like a better option than running surveys in the suburban shopping mall. I'm on a disability pension. Dad's on chemo, 4 weeks to live but we reckon he'll keep—we don't process that, my brother just locks himself in the room watching Comedy Central. There's something dark about it, and the chorus, discordant and broad as it is, is a guttural scream. It punches through all of that with "yeah, you and me against the world baby! We're going to make it if we try!" When we... do what? No, not when we get out of here, not when we make our fortune in the movies. When we ramraid a fucking servo. I think it's quite, quite brilliant.

#2. Hamish Hawk - The Mauritian Badminton Doubles Champion, 1973 (chamber rock)

Heavy Elevator by Hamish Hawk

Hamish Hawk's wonderfully titled The Mauritian Badminton Doubles Champion, 1973 starts out with the lyrics: To write a cathedral, I'll need a ballpoint pen It'll sound like "Common People", sung by Christopher Wren What follows is exactly that: Hawk's musical version of St. Paul's in London, an epic monument in sonic form. It's a wonderful affirmation done with a big production, fabulous foundations in its songwriting, and Hawk himself providing the drama through his rich, mellow vocals. It's lyrically inventive, musically rich and just wonderful to listen to. The refrain bursts out with repeats of the question "Isn't this living?", and the answer, while we're listening to this track, is a resounding "yes!".

#1. Greta Van Fleet - Heat Above (hard rock)

#20. Lord Huron - Drops in the Lake (cinematic rock)

A fabulous bit of music, which sounds a bit like if some cowboy travelling across the vast south-west of the US brought along a full orchestra and a theremin player for atmosphere on his solo adventure. It has this dramatic build and narrative across the track that can't help but evoke images of the vast and the intimate. Gorgeous. Listen to it now. I'm doing it as I write this up and I just want to stop and listen to it 3 or 4 more times.

#19. Ross Gay & Mary Lattimore - Burial (spoken word poetry with ambient harp accompaniment)

This is a track which rides more on its poetry than its music, but it's a really wonderful piece, reflecting on the death and burial of the poet's father. Lattimore's accompaniment is an evocative and heart-rending match, that manages to walk the line between melancholy and uplifting, which is matched in the text. Ross Gay is a wonderful discovery for me this year. I will continue to enjoy his p[oetry, but I also hope he attempts a project like this again in the near future as well.

#18. Lydmor - Someone We Used to Love (avant-pop)

Capacity by Lydmor

Lydmor has a wonderful line in gossamer electropop, which is where this track starts out, even though from the first line it has a unrelenting bass drum pulse to it. It manages to build throughout, and breaks into an energetic electro-industrial climax. It's a great piece of music.

#17. Ian Lockwood - No Homo (comedy disco pop)

Without a shadow of a doubt, this is the track that gets stuck in my head more than any other of 2021. It has a simple electro-disco sound with a funk bassline, and honestly some of the stupidest lyrics of the year. But it does it with such confidence and attitude that it all works so well. There's also a wonderful bridge that I won't spoil, but it has to be one of the best bits of comedy (and storytelling) of 2021. Couple it with a catchy chorus that gets its claws into my brain and you end up with a top-20 track of the year for me. Apparently.

#16. Fryars - God Melodies (chamber pop)

A wonderful surprising harmony-driven track that lilts its way through vocal processing and little chamber pop embellishments. It honestly sounds like nothing else (including, sadly, the rest of their 2021 album), and stands out as one of the more unique tracks of 2021.

#15. CHVRCHES - Final Girl (synthpop)

My top track from my #3 album of the year, this is a classic CHVRCHES track done with more rock drive and a darker overall tone. Despite this, it's actually one of the poppier and brighter tunes from Screen Violence. I think it's also the most successful (although if you read my album writeups, you'll know I loved the whole thing), and serves maybe as the last bastion of the CHVRCHES of The Bones Of What You Believe before they move into their next phase. I look forward to continuing my journey with them, in any case.

#14. Pepe Deluxe - 22nd Century Dandy (GENRE)

Phantom Cabinet Vol. 1 by Pepe Deluxé

Hey, how about that, following up my top track from my #3 album with my top track from my #2 album. This is a wonderful pot-pourri of musical styles put into a big theatrical number. A grooving, relentless bassline and a Thievery Corporation style beat drive it forward, while Pepe Deluxé layer a plunderphonic array of sounds over the top. It's just a really enjoyable and fun bit of music.

#13. Trace Kotik - Slip (progressive folk rock)

Everything has been done by now, so now, everything is possible... by Trace Kotik

This is another piece of music that you can absolutely just lose yourself in. It has a folk heart to it, based on simple songwriting that would seem equally at home with just a guitar as accompaniment as it does here with a full, rich production behind it. The first iteration of the chorus is simple; the last is vast and powerful, and the journey to get between the two is where this song will win you over.

#12. Lake Street Dive - Know That I Know (GENRE)

Obviously by Lake Street Dive

I love Lake Street Dive: I saw them live in Sydney in 2017, and they put together a wonderfully fun set of tunes to make you comfortable grooving in your little space in the Spiegeltent. A few albums deep now, they tend to be dependable but conservative jazz rock. But for some reason, this track really stood out as a great bit of music. It has a catchy hook, a great chorus augmented by their horn section and a breakdown that includes a really enjoyable solo from the keys. This was also the track which took out my Track of the Week in what I consider the best week of the music project this year (Lydmor's Someone We Used To Love was runner up), and it's definitely part of the reason I consider that week to be so strong.

#11. Pale Waves - She's My Religion (90s pop rock)

Alright, I've had a bit of a break over the Christmas period, so it's time to count down my top tracks to go with my top albums of 2021. I'll post the first 10 today, but depending on how many imperial stouts I drink tonight, I might have to wait a couple of days to get through #20-1. Anyway, here's #30 through #21.

#30. JK-47 & Bronte Eve - Changes - triple j Like A Version (Australian hiphop)

Absolutely my favourite of triple j's Live A Version tracks this year, indigenous artist JK-47 takes a new turn on Tupac Shakur's seminal 90s hit Changes and makes it truly his own. JK-47 is a superb rapper, and he has good support here in the chorus, but its his lyrical reworkings that make this track so damn memorable. He moves the context from racism in LA in the mid 1990s to racism in Australia in 2021—it's telling to see the differences, but even more telling to see the things which are exactly the same.

#29. Gang of Youths - the man himself (indie rock)

Interestingly, this track and the previous one were my top two tracks in the very last week of the year, forming part of the projects to listen to all of the Like A Versions and the bookmakers' top predictions for what will be on the H100 that we'd not yet heard. I've liked Gang of Youths in the past, but this is honestly I think their best track to date, merging an almost orchestral indie rock chorus with a DnB-style percussion line. It's a great piece of music.

#28. Kishi Bashi - For Every Voice That Never Sang (baroque pop)

For Every Voice That Never Sang by Kishi Bashi

Kishi Bashi is a core part of our music project now, and he released a bunch of new material in 2021, including an EP and a seemingly endless (and unconnected) series of singles. This is the best of them, and follows up my #3 track of 2020 (Never Ending Dream) with this excellent number which is wonderfully poignant and a little more melancholy than the pure pop of last year. It shows him flexing his muscles in some ways, but on its own terms it's a remarkably beautiful song.

#27. Ego Ella May - for the both of us (chamber pop)

for the both of us by Ego Ella May

A truly gorgeous piece of music, with the vocal style of sultry jazz, and the instrumentation of a diaphanous ballad from Hollywood's Golden Age. We get soft string swells, augmented by flute and horns, all with May's expressive and sardonic lyrics. It's a really wonderful bit of music, and I recommend pausing to just take it in for a while.

#26. Andréanne A. Malette - Alaska (dreamfolk)

There's a style of music that seems to hit around the mid-20s of the year for me, which is an atmospheric chamber folk number with suggestive but perhaps unknowable lyrics, like this one from Québecois artist Andréanne A. Malette, sung in French. It's an evocative more than rousing track, although it has a lovely gentle build that moves from ephemeral to powerful.

#25. Clockwise On Fire - Dig (psychedelic electrorock)

Alright, if you've had your fill of gauzy ephemera, then this provides quite a different mood. It's a kicking rhythmically driven rock track, with wubbing bass and wailing guitars over the top. It takes a lot of inspiration from pure electronica, as it lays down a beat and lets that run, but it manages to get me racing from the moment it starts. Top notch.

#24. Crawford Mack - The Last Perfect Day on Earth (alternative folk)

A track of contrasts. In fact, this is a nice one to follow up Clockwise On Fire and Andréanne A. Mallette, because it's almost an amalgam of the two. It starts out like a dreamy folk tune, then smashes into a a big rock drive about half-way though. Somehow it keeps the parts in balance as well, while it lays down its message about climate change.

#23. Pilar Victoria - Flustered Snowflakes (bedroom pop)

This is a standout track in an otherwise fairly nondescript EP of bedroom pop. It starts out with a nice singer-songwriter tune, which then blossoms into a beautifully melodic chorus that melds dreampop with close breathy harmony. It's a bewitching tune in many ways, and one which I get stuck in my head on repeat a lot.

#22. Danny Elfman & Squarepusher - We Belong - Squarepusher Remix (IDM)

Hey, so Danny Elfman didn't just write the theme to The Simpsons, he had a career as a new-wave singer with Oingo Boingo in the early 80s, and released a surprising album of semi-industrial tracks this year, where this originally comes from. This version is given an IDM makeover by one of my favourites in the genre, who takes the underlying, rather introspective, track, and adds blurred basslines, acid synths and a complex breakbeat. Squarepusher also did an excellent remix of nu-jazz group GoGo Penguin, so it might be fair to say that it's the time for a Tom Jenkinson renaissance.

#21. Only Sun - Switch Off, Fall Off (funk rock)

#10. Lydmor - Capacity (avant-pop)

Danish artist Lydmor does a kind of atmospheric synthpop which she describes as "post-feminist youth-solo-electronica-singer-songwriter-chill-out beat-music", and while that doesn't necessarily tell you what her music is going to sound like, it gives you a sense of the myriad influences which infuse her music. As such, it's hard to categorise her music distinctly. But I find myself drawn to the dark electronica which builds to a climax, or the dreampop track that gets punctured with a sudden blast of bassy synth like a foghorn through the mist. There's no question as to my favourite track though, which stood up in a week which I consider to be one of the best in 2021 (it was the week of March 15, in case you're interested). It's a brilliant dark synthpop track that builds to an industrial pummel and rush, while still balancing Lydmor's delicate vocals over the top. It dragged the album into my attention and continued dragging it all the way to my top 10 of the year.

Recommended Track: Someone We Used To Love You'll like it if you like: dark synthy beats that still manage to feel airy and graceful

#9. The Go! Team - Get Up Sequences Part One. (vaguely alterna-J-hip-poptronica)

The Go! Team basically just have a cheat code for my ears, or so it seems. It's almost unfair the way they can so perfectly come up with bouncy hiphop fused pop that so works for me. It seems effortless what they do, as I shovel a seemingly endless pile of Go! Team tracks into my Wheelbarrow of Good Music. Leaving behind the marching band accompaniment of Semicircle (my #1 album of 2017), this is back to the turntablism beats and funky synthesis of their earlier albums. Add Ninja's always welcome semi-rapped lyrics over the top and you hit that sweet spot; the one that makes me turn off clipping and attack damage and gives you 1000 ammo. Again, this is an album with a really huge number of tracks I could single out for praise, each of which is a great example of exactly the formula I so like: World Remember Me Now, Pow and Cookie Scene each have something that both links them to the rest of the album, and gives them their own identity. But I'm going with A Bee Without Its Sting, which I think is perhaps the most coherent and effective pop track while still retaining everything that makes The Go! Team unique. The flute also helps. I'm a sucker for a flute riff.

Recommended Track: A Bee Without Its Sting You'll like it if you like: music that's made up of all the other music genres pasted together

#8. Valerie June - The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers (eclectic roots soul)

I'm not sure there's an album this year that's harder to classify than Valerie June's The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers. With elements of gospel, soul and roots rock, she sings with a mild country twang and the delicate control of vocal jazz, while her band runs through dreampop, blues, RnB and Latin. And yet, there's something marvellously coherent about the whole album—it never feels piecemeal, and you never really feel like it's a messy conglomerate of unrelated styles. It's as though June synthesises her own fully-formed identity from everything else, and makes it seem like the most natural thing in the world. I really love this album as a whole, but that's not to say there's not some standout tracks as well. Along with some of the most interesting interludes of the year, we have some beautiful vocal performances, and ones which use her voice to propel them to great heights. I love the more upbeat and optimistic Smile, the soaring You and I, and the soft Why The Bright Stars Glow which starts the album's slow turn towards home. But this is also an album which is better than the sum of its parts, and if I had to recommend something to listen to, it would be: all of it.

Recommended Track: all of it, or, if I must: You and I You'll like it if you like: vocal performance as an art form, and albums which transcend their individual tracks.

#7. Trace Kotik - Everything Has Been Done By Now, So Now, Everything Is Possible… (indie folk rock)

This was another album that surprised me with its depth in relistening. Like The Orange Peels from yesterday, this won its week, but I never really considered it a serious contender. But, in fact, this is a really awesome collection of music. It takes a kind of folk heart and weaves elements of progressive rock over the top into these monumental tracks that still feel like they maintain a sweet simplicity to them. It's never static, it builds and changes at all moments across the album, which gives it a sense of rising exultation. It's easy for music like this to get caught up in itself—to take itself too seriously or to lose the joy in the music. The fact that this can actually successfully channel folk pop in the vein of Passenger as effects-heavy guitar swells all around is a sign that it never goes too far down the rabbit hole. I have two particular standouts: 100 which opens the album with a rich driving rock, and Slip which builds into an absolute anthem.

Recommended Track: Slip You'll like it if you like: big prog rock sounds, but think the songwriting often drifts too far from pop structures

#6. Various Artists - The Metallica Blacklist (eclectic heavy metal covers)

Running at just over 4 hours in length, it's fair to say that The Metallica Blacklist is a monumental undertaking in more ways than one. A series of artists each interpret their song of choice from Metallica's seminal Metallica (a.k.a. The Black Album), in as wide a variety of styles as I basically listened to across the whole 1000 Albums project. 6 different versions of Enter Sandman, 7 of The Unforgiven, a whopping 13 different versions of Nothing Else Matters. Some are true to style, others are loosely inspired by, or merely sample the songs they cover. Some manage to completely transform a song you know into something else entirely. Ha*Ash transforms The Unforgiven into a Latin folk ballad, My Morning Jacket turns Nothing Else Matters into twee pop so seamlessly you feel like the original is actually the style-bending metal cover. Chase & Status lay down some UK Garage while BackRoad Gee raps over the top of Wherever I May Roam. Saxophonist Kamasi Washington arranges My Friend Of Misery into a wandering free-jazz jam. It showcases the talents of the featured artists, but at the same time reinforces the fundamental quality of the originals. It's such an interesting project—especially because of the fact that they've taken the all-encompassing approach of including so many different versions of the same songs. The typical approach would be to recreate the album track by track—but allowing you to compare versions of the same track is fascinating. Of course, this also means it is, yes, 4 hours long. But I promise you that whoever you are, you'll find something you like in this album.

Recommended Track: My Morning Jacket - Nothing Else Matters (for stylistic metamorphosis), or Ghost - Enter Sandman (for fully understanding the DNA of the underlying song) You'll like it if you like: any style of music, have a passing familiarity with The Black Album, and have 4 hours to kill

#5. Greta Van Fleet - The Battle at Garden's Gate (hard rock)

This was the year of Greta Van Fleet for me. I'd been vaguely aware of them before, and would have at least screened their 2018 debut album. But this year, they burst into my awareness, first with their lead single Heat Above, and then with The Battle at Garden's Gate, a sophomore effort that did not disappoint. There's a consensus, it seems, within the musical literati, that Greta Van Fleet do derivative music. There's particular scorn placed on them for "copying Led Zeppelin" or imitating Rush's Geddy Lee. But I just don't get that at all: because this is great music. So is Zeppelin. The two can co-exist. (And by the way, the last thing Robert Plant released is a series of country songs with Alison Krauss—not without its charms, I'll admit, but not exactly what you want if you're a pure Zeppelin fan). But even the argument that “getting new music in the vein of Zeppelin is worthwhile” sells this album short. It's a fantastic collection of hard rock in its own right—and it is a style which is very much underdone nowadays. There's something about the counter-tenor wail of Josh Kiszka that you don't find even in the classics. Heat Above is a standout—a scream of passion at its height—but the more atmospheric Broken Bells or the sway-with-your-lighter-out showstopper Light My Love are weighty and anthemic pieces of music. I really loved this album, and I'll defend it against the naysayers and traditionalists who are afraid of hard rock moving into the 2020s.

Recommended Track: Heat Above You'll like it if you like: hard rock, as long as you're not being a dick about it

#4. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - L.W. (microtonal psychedelic rock)

I said something about being a dirty little Giz boy or something earlier when I had King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard's other 2021 album, Butterfly 3000, on my list, so I'm really just driving that home when I include a second one, and in my top 5 no less. This is a companion album to 2020's K.G., which was my #2 of last year, so it's fair to say that King Giz doing microtonal music really works for me. In some ways, honestly, I think this is a better and more coherent album even than my #2 of last year—still mixed into one continuous set, this has more iconic and identifiable tracks coming through, each laced with the alien quality of the non-Western tunings of their instruments. I really don't know of anyone doing anything quite like this apart from King Giz, but even the band doesn't let this style define them (as we saw, they had another excellent album out this year that sounds quite different). But I find myself drawn to their microtonal oeuvre in a way I can't quite describe. Sadly, the microtonal night these guys were meant to be doing at Vivid Sydney this year was squashed by Covid—and would have been a rare time to see them in precisely this mode—but knowing how prolific and how constantly inspired they seem to be, I feel like I can look forward to many many more years of being a filthy King Giz piggy.

Recommended Track: Pleura You'll like it if you like: psychedelia—the microtonal tunings just feel like a natural extension of this

#3. Chvrches - Screen Violence (indie pop)

I think that much like King Giz, I will follow whatever Chvrches does with wistful starry eyes. The difference is that there's a fragility to synthpop as a genre that means bad synthpop can be very bad, and there's always the threat that Chvrches could really fall off a cliff at some point. But that point is certainly not Screen Violence, where they deepen and darken their sound, moving it towards more of a guitar-infused indie pop. It's a sonic expansion in some ways, but it's still based on the clever hooky pop songwriting they're known for. The change is a clever move, because it really gives them space to grow, both in this album, and towards the future. What makes this album particularly good though is that while it's a change for the group, they still manage to pack in so many individual tracks that I really love. I could rattle off half the album as particular favourites of mine: pounding club beats in Asking For A Friend, upbeat indie pop in California, introspective rock in How Not To Drown (featuring Robert Smith), or the one that synthesises all of those features together the best, Final Girl. But even singling out tracks feels like a disservice to the album as a whole, where the lesser tracks are better than the best tracks on most of the albums I heard this year. This album is great not just because, well, it's great, but because it suggests a longevity and future direction for the group which is quite exciting.

Recommended Track: How Not To Drown You'll like it if you like: synthpop, but wish it had a bit more weight, y'know?

#2. Pepe Deluxé - Phantom Cabinet Vol. 1 (eclectic electronica)

It's extremely hard to categorise Pepe Deluxé. They're primarily based around sequenced electronica, so that's the easiest box to place them in, but there are elements of art rock, neo-psychedelia, psychojazz and Latin funk—that's without touching on the various sub-genres of electronica it goes through too: triphop, big beat, industrial, acid jazz. It's a big ol' bowl of gumbo; maybe a bunch of stuff that doesn't look like it goes together, but the result is delicious. It's also hard to get a grip on what they want to be as a band. They've been around since the 90s, and this is their first album in 9 years, if you don't count them, apparently, doing the soundtrack to Angry Birds: Go. I really quite love this album—it feels at times so over the top that it's self-satirising, or at least slightly comic. But at the same time, it's just embracing all of its own excess and I love it for that. At one moment it's the overture to a circus that's probably going to kill you. The next it's a guided tour of the Halls of Kalevala, or a little sunny pop ditty in Finnish. It's about as entertaining an album as you could hope to find, and it's extremely worthy taking out my Runner Up Album of the Year.

Recommended Track: 22nd Century Dandy You'll like it if you like: gumbo

#1. Dylan Cartlidge - Hope Above Adversity (soul-pop-hiphop)

Finally, sitting atop the pantheon for 2021 is the remarkable debut album from Dylan Cartlidge, Hope Above Adversity. It's an uplifting and many-faceted album of kicking soul tracks, driven by Cartlidge's infectious attitude and lyrical flow. It's fair to say, that like many (most) of my top albums, it's eclectic—giving us a bit of everything while bouncing to its own grooving beat. There's another common factor with a lot of the albums you'll find high on this list, in that this sounds so fresh and unique, and unlike anyone else. Dylan Cartlidge has something really novel to bring to the table, and he lays it down track after track after track. I love the journey of PTSD, the funky breaks of Hang My Head, the rhythmic drive and rap of Cheerleader. But I also just like spending time in Cartlidge's company—it's an envigorating and heartening experience, and I highly recommend it.

#20. Manchester Orchestra - The Million Masks of God (indie rock)

This is an album which flies under the radar a bit. It's not got a lot of glitz to it or something to grab your attention straight away. But it grows over time and with repeated listenings, as the little riffs and the tunes get more familiar. It's really well-crafted music, with a lot of thought into its production and presentation. Manchester Orchestra have a habit of doing this: with somewhat unassuming albums that I'm quite late at realising are excellent. But spend some time with the likes of tracks like Keel Timing with its persistent drive and evocative bridge, or Bed Head, with its anthemic chorus, and it's hard to deny that it's deep and interesting indie rock.

Recommended Track: Bed Head You'll like it if you like: expansive indie rock that wants a couple of listens

#19. Sectlinefor - Kissing Strangers During An Outbreak (experimental hardcore electropunk)

There is absolutely no denying that this is a divisive pick. You're much more likely to actually vomit blood while listening to Sectlinefor than you are to hit that ol' Spotify heart button. But if, like me, for some reason, you connect with the pure insanity of Jared and Piton, then you're likely to fall deeply in love with it. This is wonderfully abrasive and comic music. It's so over the top, but in a way that stays sonically captivating. It's like a circus set in an abattoir, and where the only acts are basically the routine operations of the abattoir. If that just sounds awful, well... you're not wrong. I also have a history of enjoying artists like this—interestingly a similar artist, Igorrr, got my #19 position last year. But, as they say, this is neither folk dancing nor incest, so you should try it at least once.

Recommended Track: Milk Your Friends You'll like it if you: can sit through more than 30 seconds of it without swearing in Jez's general direction

#18. Strange Bones - England Screams (soiltronica)

There's a style of electronica which is done too rarely nowadays, and this is it. It's the spiritual successor to 90s big-beat, fusing heavy breaks with the aggression and sonic mass of hard rock and metal—a genre I've dubbed "soiltronica" somewhat facetiously. It distinguishes itself from modern DnB and dubstep by having a more pop/rock structure to it, and by shedding the excesses of electronic screeches and white noise. This is a really great album of music. It's for the people who want to love modern heavy electronica, but just don't for some reason. It's got got the energy in it to provoke dancing. Angry dancing. And don't you feel like we could all use a bit of angry dancing in 2021?

Recommended Track: Jungle You'll like it if you: were unabashedly sad when Keith Flint died

#17. Aimee Mann - Queens of the Summer Hotel (chamber pop)

A change of pace after the previous couple of albums, here we have one of the world's current top singer-songwriters just doing what she does best. Instrumented judiciously with some combination of jazz trio and chamber ensemble, Mann creates beautiful little vignettes, each a seemingly perfect little jewel of a song. They're poetically evocative, and matched with a beautiful lacework of melody. It's hard to single out individual tracks here, because each is seemingly so well self-contained, and having a whole collection of them together seems such a rare treat. But there are some that you could point at: Burn It Out with its wonderful cello counterpoint, the pithy You Could Have Been a Roosevelt ("You're doomed to be a Kennedy, when..."), or the chamber waltz of Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath. All of these are great, and they are not alone in a great album.

Recommended Track: Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath You'll like it if you like: excellent songwriting, performed with intimacy

#16. Hamish Hawk - Heavy Elevator (indie singer-songwriter)

I heard the lead single from this album first (the wonderfully titled The Mauritian Badminton Doubles Champion, 1973), and I fell completely in love with it as a track. It was epic and marvellous, vaulting above you and encapsulating you. Hence I came to this album with a huge degree of anticipation. What I was surprised to find is that it was much more eclectic stylistically, running from small-scale ballads to cranking indie rock tracks that drive forwards with a heavy backbeat. But after my initial shock, I realised what a treat that was. We don't just get a phenomenal track and 9 slightly paler facsimiles of it—we get to hear Hamish Hawk in his very many modes, with his contorting, resonant baritone the linking factor. It's very good, and while I understand why I might have been disappointed in it if I just wanted more of The Mauritian Badminton Doubles Champion, 1973, I think in the long run, this is a richer more rewarding album. I haven't come across Hamish Hawk before, so I'm pleased to discover he has two earlier albums to explore as well. Singling out a track is hard, because Mauritian is still clearly the best track here; but it maybe doesn't give you the best sense of what the album offers. So I'll go with a different track instead.

Recommended Track: Bakerloo, Unbecoming You'll like it if you like: Music. Honestly, I think there's a lot to enjoy in this album, and I think it has a pretty broad appeal.

#15. ViVii - Mondays (dreampop)

ViVii got my #1 album of 2019 for their self-titled debut album, which was rich with wonderful layered harmonies and wafting ethereal production. I wasn't sure that their follow-up (the tricky second record) could match their first. And while this isn't #1, it's still extremely high on my list. In some ways this eschews some of the heavy synth qualities of the first album, but brings the dreampop aesthetic to a style of gentle jangle pop. They still bring that sense of slow movement; of luxuriating in the sound as it grooves and reverberates around you. It's an evolution more than a revolution in their sound, and there's plenty to enjoy in it for someone who loved their first album, even as they explore a slightly different space. Interestingly, I found myself drawn to tracks like Smackdown and Rendezvous this time around, which tend to have a little more rock in their DNA, but there are still tracks like Summer of 99 and Fool Alone which are more in the same vein as ViVii the first.

Recommended Track: Smackdown You'll like it if you like: the ViVii album I recommended to everyone in 2019.

#14. Clockwise On Fire - Clockwise On Fire (psychedelic dance rock)

Somewhere in between funk, dance, art rock and breakbeat electronica, you'll find Clockwise On Fire, a Philadelphia duo who jam out with complex, sometimes manic tracks of multicoloured psychedelia. It's a really cool album, ceaselessly energetic and constantly changing. It could be grooving on a flute riff and funk bass (Latework), or driving you with 16-beat freneticism (Turtle), but they never give up the energy or give you a break from it. It's also judiciously short, running just over 30 minutes in length, across 8 tracks, which means that it feels like it's been carefully curated. As a result it feels more packed with gold nuggets than many other similar albums. Each track is carefully placed to show off its best aspect, and to form part of a coherent and pretty exciting whole. I can't go past the opening track though, which has drive and groove and build to it in a really wonderful way.

Recommended Track: Dig You'll like it if you like: dancing while on acid, even though that's a bad idea

#13. Villagers - Fever Dreams (indie folk rock)

Villagers are a really rock-solid band for me. I feel so safe when I hear Conor O'Brien's vocals on a track, despite the fact that his songwriting is often quite singular experience, with a frequently alien quality to it. They've had a number of albums in my top albums of the year lists, including reaching #3 in 2016, and it just feels right that they're here and high again this year. One of the reasons I so consistently like Villagers is that they have such an iconic sound to them—no one else quite sounds like them, and it's really easy to identify when a Villagers song comes on. So while it's true that this album sounds a good deal like The Art of Pretending to Swim or Where Have You Been All My Life, their previous two albums, the fact that no-one else does that means I'm still hanging out a couple of years each time for a dose.

Recommended Track: So Simpatico You'll like it if you like: perfectly produced folk-influenced indie rock, or if you're already a Villagers devotee.

#12. The Orange Peels - Celebrate The Moments of Your Life (indie rock)

This album was a late bolter for me. It won an Album of the Week award from me in July, but I largely forgot about it until I did a bunch of relistening towards the end of the year—it certainly wasn't one of the albums I had earmarked as a potential Top 20 Album of the Year. But experiencing this album anew, I realised what an inventive and rich experience it is. It has a kind of early synthy indie pop style to it, as though it almost wants to break out into hypercolour sprays with every beat. But there's an aloofness to it which keeps it more ethereal and atmospheric. It's a wide-ranging album as well, and I'll admit that it tends to sprawl somewhat in the latter half, but rediscovering it and enjoying it so much makes me in some ways grateful there's so much to it—now, I feel, I have the time to spend on it a lot more, rather than feeling I need to get through it along with the other 24 albums in the week. That makes it feel like the end of the year is the perfect time for an album like this; just like it's time for a good book while you're on holidays.

Recommended Track: Give My Regards To Rufus You'll like it if you like: sprawling art rock that tends towards the atmospheric

#11. The Zolas - Come Back To Life (indie rock)

I clearly like eclecticism in my albums, because this has a wonderful confluence of things as part of its makeup. In many ways, there's a good deal of the alt rock that turned into dance rock in the 00s, with roots back to Oasis, and then the panoply of artists who influenced them. But there's something undeniably modern about this, as it takes on elements of electronica, hiphop and punk to fashion something more novel. There's a lot of individual tracks to like in here: I could highlight Yung Dicaprio if you like early 00s alt rock, or Reality Winner if you want some Amen Break up in you, or Energy Czar if you want a dose of dance-punk. In the end I'm going to highlight a fairly unassuming but nicely written track towards the back of the album which has wonderfully graceful harmonies in the chorus.

Greetings friends! And welcome to yet another year of my 1000 Albums project. This year, we heard a total of 1,172 albums in fact, plus an additional 506 singles not as part of an album or EP. As usual, music is excellent, listening to music is excellent, and I’m here to share with you some of my particular favourite music I’ve heard in the last 12 months.

Posting schedule will be Albums this week, leading up to Xmas, and then Tracks next week, leading up to the new year. I’m writing up my top 30 of each, which I’ll follow with a more exhaustive list of my Top 100 Albums and Tracks of the year, for the sake of completeness.

#30. Grace Petrie - Connectivity (queer folk)

This is a great album, and a great way to kickoff my writeups of the week. Petrie does a wonderfully cynical line in lightly comic folk, backed up by some good country-adjacent instrumentation. This runs from the trad-folk sounds of Storm To Weather, to the bittersweet love song to your straight best-friend The Last Man On Earth ("You won't choose me/Over the last man on earth"). The key thing here though is that it's great folk music at its heart. It's taking some of the quite staid tropes of English trad folk and really claiming them in another space entirely. A clever, amusing, and often quite touching album.

Recommended Track: The Last Man On Earth You'll like it if you like: subverting traditional musical genres

#29. The Fratellis - Half Drunk Under a Full Moon (indie pop rock)

The Fratellis are in a wonderful afternoon period of their careers right now. After the excellent In Your Own Sweet Time in 2018, they've followed up with another album that shows they can still put together a catchy rock tune with the best of them. But more than that, there's a sense that they're very comfortable, and willing to just do the things which bring them joy. One of the best tracks here was released in 2020, Six Days In June, and made my top tracks list last year, but there are plenty of others that bolster the album, and show that 2018's effort was not a surprising bolt from a formerly famous group.

Recommended Track: Living In The Dark You'll Like it if you like: The Fratellis; and who honestly doesn't like The Fratellis?

#28. The War on Drugs - I Don't Live Here Anymore (indie rock)

I'm really pleased to see this album up so high on my list (remember, I listened to something like 1200 albums this year, and screened probably 10 times that many, so #28 is very high). The War on Drugs did a great abum in 2017 as well, and this was an excellent follow up. It channels the early alt-rock movement while still feeling current and novel—there's a lightness to the introspective indie rock that suggests almost a kind of pop hook to everything. On top of this there's something about the way the songs perfectly embody the essence of the songwriting—it's as though you get the sense that the versions of these songs you get on the albums are their ultimate representation, as though there's never going to be a version of these songs that better connects to the core of what they are. This is honestly pretty rare, and to have it so consistently done across an album is rarer still.

Recommended Track: Old Skin You'll like it if you like: perfectly crafted songs in their pure forms

#27. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Butterfly 3000 (psychedelic rock)

I don't know at what point I became a happy little King Giz Boy, but I sure do love what they do now. This is one of two (2) albums that they released this year (another is scheduled for release on New Year's Eve), and this is the more approachable, poppier one. Which isn't to say that they've given up on the deep grooving psychedelia—here, though, it's laced with a dusting of synths and often a beat that you could imagine as much on the dancefloor as the moshpit. There are a couple of standout tracks here, resting on their groove and providing a very chilled out psychedelic experience. My pick goes to Catching Smoke which gives absolutely the best embodiment of everything that's good about this album, and moreove what sets this album apart from King Giz's many other albums.

Recommended Track: Catching Smoke You'll like it if you like: grooving psychedelia, but also getting down on the dance floor

#26. Passenger - Songs for the Drunk & Broken Hearted (folk pop)

It wouldn't be an end of the year list without a Passenger album on it, and the years in which he doesn't release anything feel like they're missing something. This is another fine album from the master of folk pop—catchy, well-written pop songs, done in a pared-back unpretentious way. It's simple in some ways, but he manages to draw out many melodies and moods from the same basic formula. Passenger's distinctive vocals aren't for everyone, but if you're hooked into his songwriting, like I am, the slightly raspy, lispy pronunciation functions the same way as Pavlov's bells did to his dogs. When it comes down to it I like his voice—it's got personality and uniqueness, while still being evocative and true. Again, there was plenty to like in this album, including a long line of leading singles, but I'll go with a classic sounding track that could have been from any moment in his career: Tip of My Tongue.

Recommended Track: Tip of My Tongue You'll like it if you like: easy singer-songwriter pop, and you'll love it if you already like Passenger

#25. Sandhya - Innocent Monster (vocal jazz)

This kicks off with a (ahem) monster of a track (Monster); a raging jazz-rock tune in 15/8, heavy on the bass-end of the piano. It's the grab and pull that draws you into the album. Sandhya's vocals are a competent kind of warbling jazz in the middle register, but get personality and punch when she lets some of the ragged edges show. It's hard to go past Monster as my pick from the album, but there's also the wonderful dirge-like All Purpose Lament, which seems to channel Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun to close it out. All up a great album—not a traditional jazz album by any measure, but one that takes barbershop in strange new directions.

Recommended Track: Monster You'll like it if you like: jazz influences in your rock, or rock influences in your jazz

#24. The Lathums - How Beautiful Life Can Be (indie rock)

The Lathums do some really wonderful throwback indie rock—it feels at one moment that you're back in the era of 80s Cure, but also part of the British Invasion, even with elements of classic heartland rock. But all this adds up to is a band which feels surprisingly apt for right now. There's a sense of nostalgia, perhaps twinged with a hint of disquiet—but the overall effect is quite uplifting. It's a kind of weirdly pure album, and does feel in some ways like a debut: it's open and honest. But it needs to be built on strong foundations for that to really work without seeming twee or self-conscious. My pick is the opening track, which really sets the tone for the rest of the album.

Recommended Track: Circles of Faith You'll like it if you like: any era of pop rock from about 1964 onwards

#23. Ross Gay - Dilate Your Heart (spoken word poetry set to various music)

Here's a new genre that has had a surprisingly strong year (there's another album which we called "spoken word poetry set to various music" in the #30-40 decade, which I'm not writing up). Ross Gay is an American poet who brings a genuinely wonderful performance style to his evocative, heartening poems. He speaks with passion, potency and rhythm, bringing alive his words in a way that maximises their impact. Each of the poems features a guest artist who sets about providing accompanying music. And they are certainly impactful poems, including the meditation on thankfulness Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, to reflections on his father's death and his final resting place, Burial. This latter one is my pick of the album, which is tenderly augmented by atmospheric harp from the great Mary Lattimore.

Recommended Track: Burial You'll like it if you like: spoken word poetry. To be honest, you do probably need to be on board with the idea on some level to love this album

#22. Pale Waves - Who Am I? (90s pastiche alt rock)

There is a certain burgeoning nostalgia for the 90s at the moment, and one of my favourite examples from this year is this album from Pale Waves. Following along with a pop punk kind of aesthetic, but a more classic 90s pop sound, Pale Waves bring some tuneful lyric-forward bangers laced with a reminiscence of the era of emo. For some reason, though, it feels brightly reinventive at the same time. It goes beyond having a same-sex love ballad (although this would have probably torpedoed a commercially released album in the 90s)—there's something that its doing in synthesising the cynicism of the post-grunge alt-rock with a kind of Gen Z optimism. I think it's a style that's due for more attention.

Recommended Track: She's My Religion You'll like it if you like: femme punk, but want it more tuneful and more radio-friendly

#21. Horsey - Debonair (hardcore jazz punk)

Ah, Horsey, what a wonderfully bananas album. It finds itself somewhere between easy jazz rock and highly aggressive punk, and although it's whiplash erratic at points, it always seems to rein it in (pun intended). There's a sense in this album that it's barely containing itself from becoming grindcore—as though it could devolve at any moment into jagged screams about stabbing people. And this is despite the fact that much of it is based around light jazz piano and syncopated but light drum patterns. It's honestly a wonderful sense of tension across the album that provides its own sense of fraught balance—it's not a judicious sense of "everything in its place". It's more like "everything is in the wrong place" which somehow equates to the same thing.

It's Oscars time, people! This year marks only the third time I've managed to watch every feature film nominated for an Oscar (the previous times being 2018 and 2019), and only the second time I've managed to see every nominee (in 2019 I missed some of the short films). What with the world shifting online, and film studios wanting to get paying eyeballs on their films wherever they are, I was able to see many of the films that wouldn't normally have had any kind of release in Australia. In 2018 and 2019, the only reason I managed to see all the feature films was the fact that I happened to be in the US in the immediate period before the Oscars—and even then, only because I was in a major city. That isn't to say that sourcing all of these films was smooth sailing. The film I watched live-streamed from a festival in Berlin at 2am is a testament to that. As usual, I'll present the total list of films here in order from top to bottom. I've separated out the short films and the feature films, but unlike previous years, I've actually provided (brief) write-ups of the short films as well. They deserve it, because as usual they were excellent. Finally, I'll fill in my Oscars ballot, based on how I would have voted if (as I assume will be the case next year) I become a valued member of Hollywood and gain membership to the Academy. Until then, let's go:

1. Nomadland

Directed by Chloé Zhao

Fern (Frances McDormand) lives in a modified panel van, and follows whatever seasonal work she can get across the country. We see pieces of her story, seemingly disconnected, which illustrate her nomadic life, and the people she drifts in and out of contact with. In some ways, there's not much more to it than that in a narrative sense. But it becomes a profound portrait of the modern US, as well as a tender and sympathetic character study of Fern. McDormand has never been better in a role than here, but it's in some ways a fairly subtle performance—she just exists perfectly in this world, which helps create a sense of reality, of truth, which then drew me in to the extent that I felt like I was experiencing all the ridges and troughs of Fern's life myself. The film is bigger than just McDormand though, and director Chloé Zhao has such a phenomenal mastery of her craft that everything just works seamlessly together: the wide, stark cinematography; the subtle but expansive soundtrack; the jumps forward to seemingly unremarkable moments in Fern's life. Everything is done with a perfect sense for the creation of the whole. Moreover, there's such a quality to it that despite this craft on Zhao's part, you never see the craft—I'm one who loves to pull things apart to figure out how they work (films included), and this one seems like a perfect, perhaps magical item that eludes this kind of inquiry. The structure is invisible, the handrails are invisible, so instead of enjoying the film with a kind of distant appreciation, I fell head-first into it. It's hard to distill the experience of watching Nomadland into a write-up like this. There's something completely intangible about it that nonetheless feeds into a sublime and immersive experience. I can't describe why the film so works (that's part of its genius), just that it somehow bypasses the obvious, and hooks directly into your soul.

2. Time

Directed by Garrett Bradley

20 years ago, our film's protagonist, Fox Rich, and her husband Rob rob a bank due to their desperate financial situation. Fox is given a sentence of a few years, while Rob is put away for what should be most of his life. Time follows the crusade of Fox to get her husband released, and more broadly, to end the unfair system of incarceration in the US. This is truly a wonderful film, which takes some of the austere, academic outrage of films like Ava DuVernay's excellent 13th and places it into a deeply personal setting. Director Garrett Bradley expertly edits together Rich's home videos, and footage of her post-release advocacy into an intimate and human portrait of the consequences of America's prison-industrial complex. Fox herself is such a strong and fascinating character. She has the passion and persuasion of a preacher, and frequently delivers her sermons from the pulpits of Louisiana's churches. She has a ready and willing audience on screen, and her fervour is such that we can't help but be drawn in as well. Although her most direct message is delivered through her speeches, there's just as much to be gained by watching her interact with her family and friends, by seeing her do her job at a local car dealership, and by watching her guide her sons towards a better future. There's an added element to the film that comes from the very time of its title. We get to watch these boys, Fox and Rob's sons, grow up, from the bawling toddlers of the early footage, to become the advocates and warriors for social justice they are destined to be, all with the knowledge that every step in their development is achieved while one of their parents remains behind bars. It's in many ways a brutal film, but in just as many ways, it's uplifting, because it has power and purpose behind it. It's the story of a grave injustice, but in its telling, it gives this injustice purpose, and promises a better future. As long as we the viewers are there and able to recognise it.

3. Collective (Colectiv)

Directed by Alexander Nanau

A fantastic documentary on a subject which is seemingly both as small and large as you choose, Collective starts with an investigative report on the disinfectants used in the burn unit of a Bucharest hospital, and ends up exposing widespread corruption within the Romanian government. The documentary follows an investigative team from the Sports Gazette newspaper, in particular Catalin Tolontan, who follows up the deaths of a group of young people who died in a theatre fire—deaths, we note, which caused an uprising in Romania and caused their government to topple. It's beautifully and particularly crafted as a film, and thrilling as a narrative. We start to piece together a sequence of events and related observations, and watch the journalists slowly but surely expose what turns out to be a bigger and bigger story the more they delve. It's a wonderful reminder of the true purpose of a free press, but also a portrait of how impotent it can be in the face of rampant criminality by those in power. It gets infuriating, as people's lives are caught up in a Catch-22 of government bureaucracy, designed to either disguise, or worse perpetuate corruption within the health system. Later in the film, the focus shifts to the inner cadre of the new Health Minister Vlad Voiculescu, as he tries, nobly, to right the ship. But this is again just a device for showing how futile it can feel going up against entrenched power. It's one of the best documentaries I've seen on investigative journalism, but it's also one of the greatest investigations itself into corruption—and director Alexander Nanau does a phenomenal job in keeping the story taut, and the machinations of its subjects tractable. It's film-making of a high order, and there's no surprise that it's found itself on the list for both Best Documentary Feature and Best International Feature at this year's Oscars.

4. Greyhound

Directed by Aaron Schneider

I'll admit it. This is a very unexpected pick to have so high in this list. I'm not at all a war movie fan. Very often, they're a low-grade excuse for jingoism, or a propaganda exercise, or else they highlight the brutality and senselessness of war in a way that actually makes them unpalatable to sit through. Going in, I knew absolutely nothing about Greyhound except that it had Tom Hanks in it (wearing some kind of uniformed cap on the poster), and that it was up for Best Original Sound at this year's Oscars. So my heart dipped when I realised the cap was part of a navy uniform and this was, indeed, going to be a war film. However, slowly but surely, Greyhound assuaged my fears. Clocking in at a tight 91m running time, this a lean and sleek film, that keeps a tight pace and becomes thrillingly immersive. It tells the tale of naval commander Ernest Krause's journey across the Atlantic as part of a supply run from the US to the UK during World War II. During the passage through the "black pit"—the area of the ocean where they have no air support from either the US or the UK sides—the flotilla is hunted by a pack of German U-boats. It's absolutely beautifully executed—managing to be continuously exciting and fraught, while never succumbing to the chaos of many war films. There's something cerebral about the focus on the tactics, the angles of attack and the calculations which have to be made at each moment. The film is largely filled with jargon—the meaning of which you gradually begin to discern, but whose implication is read clearly on the reactions of the crew—it adds to this sense of reality, of total immersion in the film. Part of the success of the film is that it almost entirely eschews what I would usually consider key elements for a successful film. There are scant clues as to Krause's personality. He prays silently to himself a great deal, he drinks coffee but doesn't eat, as his long journey continues he requests different items of clothing from his cabin. A framing device showing him and his girlfriend before his deployment wants to add a human element, but it's honestly largely irrelevant. I'm certainly aware that it's not a film for everybody—there's so little emotion or human connection to it. But this is true of so many thrillers and war films that it's almost refreshing to see them do away with the pretence. To a war-film apostate like myself, this was genuinely captivating and engaging, and that is the mark of a film that breaks out of its mould in a most successful way.

5. The Father

Directed by Florian Zeller

It always seems like a bit of a crapshoot when the words "Directed by X, based on his play" arrive at the start of a film. Often enough, including this year, it's a real struggle to translate a stage production to the screen and make it feel natural. So it was a great relief to me that in The Father it worked so well, and I think that director Florian Zeller can take the credit where I would equally place the blame had it failed. What follows is a powerful portrayal of dementia, from the point of view of the sufferer. Anthony Hopkins plays Anthony, as he interacts with his daughter Anne (Olivia Colman), and the others in his life, some of whom he recognises, and some who appear strangers even as they treat him familiarly. It brings to mind the stories of my grandmother, who would run to the neighbours' house in fear of the strange man (my grandfather) who was suddenly in her house. It's structurally quite a satisfying film, and its clever use of alternating actors and unexpected time-shifts do a better job of portraying what dementia must feel like better than perhaps any other depiction I've seen. We're constantly trying to catch up with what's going on at the same time as Anthony, and we're constantly frightened at the same time, as the world becomes surreal and difficult to understand. We get Anthony's frustration, because the structure of the film is frustrating to us as well—and just when we feel like we have a handle on it, Zeller completely shifts the game again and we find ourselves somewhere else. There are obviously fine performances from both Hopkins and Colman—both of whom show why they're previous Oscar winners—although I feel like Hopkins doesn't quite hold it together all the way through. It's a hard role, though, and it feels like perhaps the wavers in the performance perhaps help to accentuate the character. Overall, it's very fine film-making, and one which is deserving of its accolades, right down to its particularly good editing (thankfully, editor Yorgos Lamprinos also got an Oscars nod). Mostly, it manages to show us more deeply, and perhaps with more sympathy, what is going on inside a powerfully insidious disease.

6. Emma

Directed by Autumn de Wilde

When I first read Jane Austen's Emma, I thought it was a better and more enjoyable story than the favoured Pride & Prejudice. To be honest, though, before seeing this film, it had been a long time since I'd thought about it (or, indeed, seen Clueless), so I'd forgotten the main beats of the story. But fortunately, I was still right about Emma being a more interesting story than most, and Autumn De Wilde's adaptation here is a delight. It's a story which much benefits from humour, and this is delivered in delicious style, as we follow the anti-heroine Emma (Anya Taylor-Joy) as she spins her web in her village of Highbury, while gradually learning to love for herself. This wouldn't succeed without charming performances, and while Taylor-Joy is fine in the title role, it's her support which really shines. In particular Johnny Flynn as Mr. Knightley, Emma's friend and neighbour who's very willing to call out her bullshit. Mia Goth is strong as Harriet Smith, the young girl Emma takes under her wing, and it's fun to have the always compelling presence of Rupert Graves and Bill Nighy. But everyone here has a fine time just-very-slightly overplaying their roles, which very much suits the tone of the film. And I'm of course a sucker for period design and costumes, This being up for Costume Design and Makeup & Hairstyling makes a great deal of sense. It's a lavish picture, beautiful to look at in so many ways. I just had great fun with this. I think it's fine enough to be considered the canonical adaptation of Austen's story, and given my love for this particular Austen story, that places it highly in the annals overall.

7. Minari

Directed by Lee Isaac Chung

A truly beautiful and in many ways understated film about a young Korean-American family trying to succeed in rural Arkansas in the 1980s. Steven Yuen plays Jacob, who has dreams of growing Korean crops to sell to the immigrant community. His wife Monica (Han Ye-Ri) is much more skeptical, and is in particular concerned that their new location far from the cities will threaten their son David who suffers from a heart murmur. There's a lot of resonance here, in particular with the idea of the "American dream", albeit a somewhat romanticised image of the same. The film is sentimental first and foremost, and it doesn't want to overtly engage with the politics and mythology of such an ideal. Instead, it plays out like a straight family drama, and succeeds as a result. It has a really quite beautiful emotional arc to it, especially the developing relationship between David and Monica's mother (Youn Yuh-jung). For some reason though, this feels like it could have had an absolutely devastating emotional impact, and it was truncated for me. I don't mean to say that I wanted more overt drama, because the subtlety is one of the strengths overall. But it did feel to me like it had drawn me in close and then refused to sucker-punch me when I'd let down my defenses. That's probably more to do with me having particular expectations that I need to revise. Overall, though, it's still an extremely strong film and while I might have wanted to be absolutely floored by it, there's strength in the understatement too.

8. Another Round (Druk)

Directed by Thomas Vinterberg

Four teachers gather for a fortieth birthday party and discuss drinking, and their lives, which have become stale and unfulfilling. The conversation turns to a psychiatrist who posits the theory that we are all naturally about 0.05% below our ideal blood alcohol content, and that we'd all be happier, more relaxed and more creative if we were all a bit drunk all of the time. Before long, Martin (Mads Mikkelsen), puts the idea into practice, and starts teaching under the influence. His lessons become more engaging, his students react positively, and he starts to mend his relationship with his wife. Soon, the rest of the quartet join him, under the suggestion that it will be a great scientific experiment. Once they start, however, they push the boundaries. 0.05% is good, so why wouldn't 0.10% be better? How could they take this further? Should it really just be limited to working hours, and so on. It's often easy to turn such an idea into a moralistic tale about the dangers of consumption. But the film is helped by being tonally quite light—it's a dramatic comedy, but a comedy nonetheless, and it is genuinely quite funny in parts, even as it deals with serious topics. And it manages to carefully walk a line between celebrating the pleasures of drinking, and warning of its dangers. That is surprisingly hard to do successfully. Mads Mikkelsen is of course excellent, and manages both sides of his character with aplomb. But all four of the main characters have depth, and the performances required of them are not easy to pull off. Overall, a fine film—it perhaps doesn't have the same emotional impact as Vinterberg's best, but in many ways it's a more subtly crafted and complex film.

9. Promising Young Woman

Directed by Emerald Fennell

A film that really gave me a visceral response while watching it and as I walked out of the cinema, it's also a film whose power I tried vainly to recapture even 24 hours later. Central to the film is Carey Mulligan, playing Cassie Thomas, a woman who feigns drunkenness at bars in order to be picked up by men looking for vulnerable women. We learn this early, but the reasons for her actions are revealed much more slowly. As the film progresses, it drives hard questions on sexual assault, trauma and survival, and is mostly told as a revenge fantasy. It wants to be more than that though, and this is the part I struggle with in the light of day. There's a complex morality in the film, where we see the righteousness of Cassie's campaign, but we also see the prodigious toll it takes on her life. There are moments when she sees it too, and the film carefully (and only somewhat successfully) navigates between Cassie processing her grief to move on, and indulging in her vengeance. But it gives it an awkward juxtaposition of tone. It's clearly intentional, placing Cassie's burgeoning romantic relationship with the charming Ryan (Bo Burnham) in stark contrast to the hate which has powered her for so long. But at the same time, it often feels like each strand impedes the momentum of the other. It's only when one eventually wins out that we roll on to the conclusion. But the power in the film comes from Cassie, played superbly by Mulligan (who is rightly nominated for an Oscar). The "promising young woman" who dropped out of med school finds wonderfully thrilling ways to channel her intelligence and cunning. Moreover, it provides a reckoning and a warning to those who would commit assaults, albeit a warning which is rooted in fantasy. Perhaps that fantasy element is why the film eventually feels more flimsy than I thought as I left the screening. But it's hard to deny that there's catharsis in watching vengeance being wrought, and while the eventual impact of the film is muddled when you reflect on it, there's something to be said for just experiencing it moment-by-moment on screen. It still though remains a "very good" film, rather than an exceptional one.

10. Soul

Directed by Pete Docter

An extremely ambitious film from the Pixar stable, Soul is the tale of a jazz musician/high school teacher (Jamie Foxx) who on getting his big break, abruptly has a near-fatal accident and is forced into an otherworld containing the unborn souls yet to be born on earth. Mistaken for a great scientist here to mentor the young souls, he is paired with Soul 22 (Tina Fey), while he desperately attempts to return to Earth and his one big chance. From a philosophical standpoint, I feel like Soul gets to a good stage of illustrating the state of eudaimonia as I've always understood it. It's a sense both of living a happy and a worthwhile life, and the film explores this theme more than any other. But there's more than just this going on, and while it doesn't all land, you have to admire the audacity of it. The obvious comparison to make is to Inside Out, Docter's last directorial outing for Pixar, which sought again to personify something in the human spirit. Somehow, though, this lacks the same emotional resonance (Inside Out was shattering and uplifting in some ways), even as it deals with deeper themes. While there was a sense that we are looking deep within ourselves, I wasn't as emotionally affected by it. The animation is, of course, exceptional. I feel like nowadays the key thing Pixar needs to do is to design scenarios that they can animate in a more unnatural style, otherwise they're just going to be rendering reality. In this case, the land of the Souls and the Great Beyond are the opportunities for this—but some of the backgrounds in the real world city are startling: more than once I was shocked into thinking it had suddenly morphed into a live-action film. The soundtrack is also fantastic, capturing both jazz and ambient electronica in its wide-sweeping net. There's a good argument to be made for this winning its category for Best Original Score. Overall, it's another fine entry from the Pixar stable, however, and another particularly good one from Pete Docter. If it's less than some of his other outings, well, that just says more about the quality of those than it does about this.

11. News of the World

Directed by Paul Greengrass

I have a lot of time for the paternal presence of Tom Hanks, and this film is a great example of Hanks in exactly this mode. He plays Capt. Jefferson Kidd, a former Confederate soldier who now travels through Texas reading the country's newspapers in small towns. He chances upon a young girl, Johanna (Helena Zengel), who has been brought up by the local Kiowa tribe, and finds himself tied to returning her to her only known relatives. The film, to a large extent, avoids an overt engagement with the politics of the time. It's set in a post civil war era, but this is used as a backdrop more than anything. Kidd is seen as broadly being in favour of reunification (including some notable speeches against separatism), but for the most part the film's focus is on Kidd as a human, and the relationship that develops between him and Johanna. Hanks is good, as always—solid, dependable and just pleasant to watch on screen. Zengel also does well enough in support, but perhaps plays up the "wild girl" trope a little too much at times—beyond what you need to get the idea that she's a young person taken out of everything she knows. It's possibly a film that could have been made more poignant and cutting if it engaged more with the inequities of the time. But there's a power in the choice to put its attention elsewhere as well. Even as the world is going through a tumultuous transition, it says, we need to remember the little human connections that matter. This is not a revelatory film. It's not a film which pushes boundaries or provides a full emotional gut-punch. But it's a film which is warm and comforting, and perfectly enjoyable. There's a place for films like that.

12. Quo Vadis, Aida

Directed by Jasmila Žbanić

Raw and powerful, but masterfully handled, Quo Vadis, Aida? is at once a compelling drawing of the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia, and a deeply personal tale. The titular Aida (Jasna Đuričić) is a translator working with the local UN outpost. When it becomes clear that the town is to be overrun by the Serb army, led by General Ratko Mladić (Boris Isaković), the entire Bosnian population of the town attempt to find sanctuary in the UN compound. What follows is a harrowing story of the lead-up to the massacre, focused on Aida's attempts to save her own family. Đuričić is a powerhouse here, and absolutely worthy of an acting nomination at the Oscars. It's one of the most desperate and affecting performances I've seen in recent years as she tries time and again to use what little power she has to face the ominous inevitability of Mladić's army. But there's good support from other players, including Johan Heldenbergh as the Dutch colonel in charge of the outpost. The film, though, is beautifully drawn through the tension—the massing of people outside the UN compound in the early scenes, the tense negotiations with Mladić, the way in which the UN, seemingly powerless to stop them, allows the Serbs to enter the stronghold, terrorise the refugees, and eventually relocate them, knowing or suspecting what is about to take place. But the film would only be an academic exercise if it were playing out the beats of the massacre as it was told in the news at the time. Without the connection to these characters and the long-shadowed effects on Aida, its impact would be impersonal and distant. The great strength of the film is drawing us in to feel the brunt of the mass killing in a more fundamental way. This, of course, means Quo Vadis, Aida? is a difficult film to watch. It couldn't be otherwise. But it's hard to watch for a reason, and had it pulled punches or achieved less than the psychogenic impact it delivered in the end, it wouldn't be doing justice to its story.

13. Wolfwalkers

Directed by Tom Moore & Ross Stewart

This is the third film in a trilogy of animated films from Tomm Moore all based around some aspect of Irish mythology, after The Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea. I missed the latter, but was underwhelmed by the first, which is why it was a pleasant surprise that I so enjoyed Wolfwalkers. Set around the time of Oliver Cromwell's Lord Protectorship of Ireland, we focus on a young English girl, Robyn (Honor Kneafsey), who has recently arrived with her father (Sean Bean), a wolf hunter tasked with clearing the woods of the predators. Robyn, however, meets Mebh (Eva Whittaker), a young girl who transforms into a wolf at night, and sees the wolves and their caretakers as more than vermin to be exterminated. It's deeper than its folktale origins, however, dealing very nicely with the politics of rebellion, and subjugation, and hitting some surprising emotional depths. In particular Robyn's conflicted love for her father, who represents the destruction of something important, is a great touchstone for psychic turmoil. The animation style is also gorgeous. It captures movement in airy line-art sweeps, while presenting backgrounds as lush as the deep forest and sharply blocky as wood-cut print village buildings. It has an almost jewel-like quality to the presentation—it's like watching everything play out on exquisite stained-glass windows. It's something that I do remember from Kells as well, however, I suspect it's both more successful here, and put to better purpose. It's a fine film, and a fine entry in this year's Animated Feature category.

14. Mank

Directed by David Fincher

Hollywood loves Hollywood, and there's plenty more movies we'll see, I'm sure, like Mank, the tale of Herman Mankiewicz, screenwriter of Citizen Kane. Gary Oldman plays Mank, in a turn that requires perhaps more subtlety than some of his more recent roles, such as caricaturing Winston Churchill. He's extremely good in this role, and it provides a suitable balance for him to show range. The film itself is quite complex, and jumps forward and backwards in time between the present, where Mank is holed up to write the script of what will be his greatest work, and his previous glory days working in the Hollywood studio system. In particular, we explore his relationship with wealthy magnate William Hearst (Charles Dance), whom he will eventually satirise in Kane. Intertwined with this is the politics of the day, in particular the gubernatorial campaign of Upton Sinclair—and it has interesting resonances for progressive politics in the USA to this day. (In some ways, this is a much better exploration of these themes than this season's more overly political films like Aaron Sorkin's The Trial of the Chicago 7). I found some of the other performances a bit timorous, to be honest, in particular Amanda Seyfried, and Tom Pelphrey, who portrays Mank's brother. Others though, like Lily Collins and Tuppence Middleton, provide excellent support in smaller roles. There's very good craft to it in other ways: director David Fincher clearly has a great time playing with some of the cinematic elements of Citizen Kane—odd angles, dramatic lighting and musical cues appropriate to the era. He shows that he's a master of his craft in many ways, and knows what he's doing and why he wants to do it. But overall, there's a certain kind of navel-gazing to films like this. This tries to avoid the self-congratulatory nature of "a long awaited tribute to: the movies themselves!" due to its political themes, and from a very good central performance. There is something a little tiresome though of always seeing these stories through a particular lens. We've seen it a lot.

15. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Directed by George C. Wolfe

Much like Fences before it, and originally from the same author, this feels very much like a filmed version of the play it's based on. That's never necessarily a bad thing for a film, but it often feels quite constricting and limiting in some way or another. Here, though, that may actually be to its benefit. Claustrophobically set in a recording studio in the middle of a steaming Chicago summer, Ma Rainey, the "Mother of Blues", (Viola Davis) is recording a set of tracks for a white studio executive. Meanwhile, disagreements between her backup band in the rehearsal room below become acrimonious, as the narcissistic trumpeter Levee (Chadwick Boseman) has his sights set on forming his own band with songs he's penned. These two performers absolutely lead the way—in particular, Viola Davis is a formidable presence on screen, almost reaching out and grabbing you by the scruff of your shirt. "Yes, Ma", I say, as she eyes me off, not even knowing what I've just agreed to. Chadwick Boseman is also excellent in what is sadly his final film role. But it wouldn't work if there wasn't good support from the likes of Glynn Turman as the band's pianist and Dusan Brown as Ma's nephew. It's a dialogue film, often the case when a play is adapted for the screen, and it lives or dies by keeping you entertained, which it mostly does. There is a sense to some degree of circling around the same topics over and again (Levee's plans for the future, Levee's shiny new yellow shoes, Ma's demands from her manager which continually put off recording the tracks), which end up swirling emotions into a maelstrom, but never feel like they're progressing the story. You can see it being more effective on stage, where you have more of a physical reaction to sharing the space with the performers. But overall, it was a fine film, and it was certainly a worthy performance from Boseman to cap his all too brief career.

16. Judas and the Black Messiah

Directed by Shaka King

Judas and the Black Messiah is the story of how the FBI infiltrated the Chicago Black Panthers in the late 1960s. Specifically, Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) is seen as a terrorist threat—a "black messiah" who can link the militant black power movements. To this end, Bill O'Neal (Lakeith Stanfield), a petty thief, is recruited as an informant. It is an interesting story, and as far as films cataloguing the civil rights movement released in the last 6 months, it's more nuanced and morally complex than films like The Trial of the Chicago 7. The greatest strength of the film is in its performances. Kaluuya is a striking and magnetic presence on screen as Hampton, and he captures the power and charisma of this leader. But he also shows Hampton's humanity, especially in his relationship with Deborah Johnson (Dominique Fishback), who provides a wonderful poetic counterpoint to Hampton's rhetoric. Stanfield is also excellent. Like Sorry To Bother You before it, it's really just a huge amount of fun watching him on screen. He hasn't got the same kind of power and carriage as Kaluuya, but nonetheless he somehow constantly draws attention. The film otherwise is a bit fractured. It manages to work its way through the story from beat to beat, but it never feels particularly inspired. It leans on its actors as a crutch (I mean, to be fair: what a crutch) where you feel it could be making deeper, more cutting political points with its story and its framing. So it's only partially successful overall. But as a vehicle for Kaluuya and Stanfield it works very well.

17. Mulan

Directed by Niki Caro

I know there's a lot that's problematic about this film. I feel it in my bones, from the nearly all-white production crew, to the idea that defence of the state is a guiding principle of righteousness, even to the fact that the film is recorded in English first and foremost. But taken as a story, and a film on its own, it's also genuinely entertaining and even moving at times. I'll admit that I've never seen the original Disney animation (which I'm sure had many of the same issues as above), but this feels like a strangely sober reworking of what I'm sure was more manic, what with Eddie Murphy as a dragon side-kick, and a set of in-film songs. In some ways it's a natural path to take, but some of the other live-action remakes I've seen have tried to keep the tone of the original animation similar. I think Niki Caro was an extremely smart choice for director here, because the thematic material is not dissimilar from her film Whale Rider, and she manages these themes extremely well. She understands how to work the story to embrace the inherent conflict between Mulan's nature and her cultural traditions, but also how to make breaking this conflict satisfying. It's the kind of work that elevates a film—without it, the film would certainly feel unfinished, and perhaps bland, despite the visuals. Caro, of course, handles the visuals very well too. Shot (mostly) in New Zealand, it has a great natural beauty to work with in some of the sweeping battle scenes. There are some great fight sequences, too, capturing the wuxia style well (admittedly in a way that emphasises some of the problems of appropriation above). And the characterisation throughout is solid enough—certainly enough to give it some emotional resonance. We care enough, at least, about Mulan, her commitment to her family and her sense of finding acceptance, that there's a connection there. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised. I admit it's probably too easy for me to overlook some of the issues of the film's production, but having done that, I found a surprisingly engaging experience.

18. Sound of Metal

Directed by Darius Marder

A very solid film surrounding a heavy metal drummer, Ruben, (Riz Ahmed) who discovers his hearing is rapidly deteriorating. Fearing the impact of this on his musical dreams, and the relationship with his band-mate (Olivia Cooke), while still battling the long-shadowed demons of addiction, he struggles with the reality that he will soon be completely deaf. As much as this sounds depressing, it's oddly uplifting in many ways by the end, even as the relationship deteriorates from a long time apart, and Ruben's remaining self-destructive tendencies. There's some excellent support from Paul Raci, a virtually unknown actor who has shot up to awards contention. Both he and Ahmed have scenes you can see playing as part of a "Best Actor/Best Supporting Actor" reel at the Oscars. One of the things I think is meant to be most striking about the film is the use of sound, in particular the absence of it, and the way we see Ruben's hearing loss mirrored in the film. Sadly, though, I found this done in a clunky way in some respects—either it was blatant and on-the-nose, or it was ugly in some way. It's an interesting thing to explore in a film like this, but I'm not convinced it was done successfully here. But while first-time director Darius Marder might have some work to buff out the technical inconsistencies, he knows how to tell a story, and elicits great performances from his cast. And that overall makes for a pretty good film.

19. The Man Who Sold His Skin (الرجل الذي باع ظهره)

Directed by Kaouther Ben Hania

In 2016, I visited the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, and found one of the more unusual pieces on display was "Tim", a man with an elaborately tattooed back, who sat in the museum for 6 months a year on display. Inspired by the piece from Belgian artist Wim Delvoye, The Man Who Sold His Skin translates the story to that of a Syrian refugee (Yahya Mahayni) who is desperate to reunite with his girlfriend in Belgium. He agrees to be the canvas for artist Jeffrey Godefroi (Koen De Bouw), not fully understanding what it then means to be sold as a commodity. The film wants to do a lot, and surprisingly, it's largely successful. It's a film about the long consequences of war. It's a satire of the art world (in a nice piece of meta-fiction, Wim Delvoye, the artist who created "Tim", has a cameo). It touches on the plight of political refugees. And ultimately, despite everything, it's a love story. A lot of the film hinges on Mahayni's performance, and he works very well here. He's desperate and humane, tender and vulnerable with his girlfriend. He's a compelling physical presence when he shifts subtly between being a piece of art, and a human being. He can be both wryly amusing and heart-wrenching. The film has lofty ideals, and it's mostly successful, but there are places where it does fall into narrative traps—where something rings untrue, or where something too convenient pops up for the sake of the story. This is particularly true towards the end of the film. You almost want it to tie everything neatly up, but I actually found it a little unsatisfying. Still, it's a fine film that genuinely links some tough subjects together quite well. Is it at the top of my Oscars list for the year? Well, no, but it's deserving of being in the mix here.

20. Love and Monsters

Directed by Michael Matthews

Honestly, quite a surprise for me was this relatively unassuming monster adventure film from second-time director Michael Matthews. Saving themselves from imminent destruction, humanity launches nukes at an incoming meteorite—only for the fallout from the nukes to rain down on Earth and cause the mutation of its animals and plants into enormous creatures, while humans are forced to retreat into bunkers. Joel (Dylan O'Brien) is separated from his girlfriend (Jessica Henwick) during the initial escape, but discovers she survived in a colony some 80 miles away. Feeling isolated from the others in his own colony, Joel decides to make the arduous trip to find her. It's a film with quite a few surprises in it, and most of them are charmingly worked into the plot. There's a sense of adventure to the film, more than of actual danger, despite the many, many monsters that Joel encounters on his journey. There are also charming interludes from Michael Rooker and Ariana Greenblatt as two travellers Joel meets, and an AI robot (voiced by Bluey star Melanie Zanetti!) who uses the last of her power cells to help Joel use his radio. The visual effects, the only category for which this film is up for Oscars, are quite well done, by a small studio in Adelaide, apparently (it was filmed entirely in Australia, which is no surprise to anyone who can recognise a eucalyptus tree). The design of the monsters is the strongest part, with a wide variety of various mutations presented on screen. Occasionally, the compositing feels a bit janky—compared to some of the heavy-hitters of the industry, there are moments where the lighting on the CGI and the real world doesn't feel quite right. But in a weird way, that almost adds to the charm. Overall, it was a fun little diversion. It's not the kind of film which is going to change the landscape in a serious way, but it's really good to see a film like this—not a sequel, not a remake, and not tied to an already successful franchise—and for it to be as engaging as it is.

21. Better Days (少年的你)

Directed by Derek Tsang

Hong Kong's submission for the 2021 Oscars is this film, set in mainland China, and focusing on a young girl (Zhou Dongyu) suffering severe bullying while studying for her university entry exams. Chances put a young petty criminal (Jackson Yee) in her path and the two form a bond and eventually a romance. In so many ways, this is a good film. It's a harrowing depiction of bullying, that manages to get deep into the trauma it can inflict, especially when tied the stress of life-changing exams. It's a taut police procedural, especially in the latter half of the film. And above all it's a strangely sweet love story. It's also beautifully shot, capturing the dreamlike nightscapes of urban China quite beautifully, even the unbeautiful parts—the fluorescent-lit alleys and squats of the city have a haunting attraction to them through some very good cinematography. However, I really, really hated the tacked on coda, which is an unpleasantly transparent bit of propaganda about how much the Chinese government has done to tackle bullying in schools. It rings hollow (and the wording is meaningless), and in many ways undermines the emotional impact of what preceded it. To some extent, and fortunately, you could almost get away with ignoring it. It's an affix at the end of the film, and in fact only appears after the first credits have rolled. While that left a bitter taste in my mouth, the rest of the film, divorced of that is very good. It's not my favourite of this year's Best International Feature nominees, but it's a solid entry in the slate.

22. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

Directed by Jason Woliner

A diverting farce, with a keener sense of satire than the original film. It was clearly more directly turning its impact to skewering the current state of Trump/Pence America rather than playing purely for shock value, which is more what Borat was known for in his previous appearances. As others have said, Maria Bakalova is excellent as Borat's daughter, adding a much-needed freshness to what you feel could have been a tired rehash. And once there's an injection of new life, and some more pointed satire at its core, I was more willing to sit back and enjoy the ride. Is it a necessary film? Probably not. Even with the eventual real-world shot it gets to take at Trump's then-attorney Rudy Giuliani. But it's an enjoyable film, and more useful as a piece of cultural criticism than the first entry.

23. The Mole Agent (El agente topo)

Directed by Maite Alberdi

An amusing concept with a fairly sweet execution, The Mole Agent involves the 83-year-old Sergio being hired by a private investigator to go undercover in a nursing home to discover potential abuse and mistreatment of the residents. The film works with this semi-comic pretext, and shows Sergio sneakily ingratiating himself with residents of the home, wrestling with his technological gadgets, and giving daily, sometimes rambling reports to his boss via encrypted WhatsApp messages. But it develops from this context into a look at the nursing-home residents themselves and their interactions with Sergio—and becomes not at all the comedy it purports to be. Sergio is charming both as a protagonist of our film, and as a friend to these occasionally long-time residents—repeatedly called "a gentleman" by the largely female cohort, and seen as a potential romantic interest by more than one. It turns more in the last chapters, as Sergio's assignment wears on him, and the truth behind the perceived mistreatment of the residents plays out. It's bittersweet in a way, and fortunately doesn't sour the experiences in the residency to this point. But there's poignancy to it, which it does feel like it needs to some extent. In many ways, the film is not as challenging as if there really were abuse going on, and in others it's making a broader point about residential care like this. Overall, it was mostly successful in what you feel it ultimately set out to achieve—even though the way the film is initially presented quite differently from what you get in the end.

24. Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution

Directed by Nicole Newnham & James Lebrecht

A very solid documentary with two subjects: the first is Camp Jened, a summer camp set up in the late 60s and early 70s to give wheelchair users and other disabled teenagers the chance for a proper camp experience. The second is the disabled civil rights movement which followed in the late 70s. The first section is genuinely uplifting, poignant and genuinely funny in places—these are a set of teenagers doing teenager things, in an environment that lets them do just that, without placing the "othering" barriers they face in their regular life. There are moments of joy as the participants reminisce about their first teenage romance, or playing baseball—everyone is expected to have an at-bat, no matter your physical disability. And of course, they don't shy away from discussions of sexuality as well—they were teenagers after all. The second section broadens the scope significantly, and focuses on some of the protests for equity for disabled individuals in the United States. In particular, sit-ins and direct protests to the government in Washington, which eventually saw the passing of an act giving equal access to publicly funded institutions like schools and mass transit. There's a lot of work done to tie the two sections together, and it's partially successful. The filmmakers (in particular James LeBrecht, who was part of both movements) try to draw thematic links between giving people a basic level of decency in their lives, to let them experience life as anyone should, and spurring that fight for this more broadly. It's less successful, though, in the argument it wants to make, which is that there's a direct link between Camp Jened and the movement itself. It may be true for LeBrecht himself, but the thematic quality is strong enough without trying to string a stronger line between the two. Stronger is the links drawn in the second section between the fight for disability rights and the broader civil rights movement. Some powerful scenes explore the support given to the protests by the Black Panther movement, for instance. It's illustrative of the idea that there's always more work to do; there's another fight, another marginalised group, and that solidarity between causes helps all of the causes together. Still, it's a solid documentary about something I didn't know a lot about. It's interestingly the second film from Michelle & Barack Obama's production company after American Factory, another solidly made doco from last year. They're creating a good catalogue of very decent documentaries chronicling interestingly parts of America which may not be in the spotlight.

25. A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon

Directed by Will Becher & Richard Phelan

An honestly charming film, where our titular sheep comes across an alien, and has to protect him from the authorities. While meanwhile, Shaun's farmer tries to cash-in on the alien frenzy by building an extra-terrestrial theme park (the titular Farmageddon). It's told, as all Shaun the Sheep media, without dialogue and with a density of visual jokes that's quite thrilling. The best parts of this are the homages paid to various science-fiction classics. I'm sure I missed a ton, but there are references to ET, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The X-Files and Wall-E just to name a few. Often these are subtle, and never do they feel like they distract from the story, although often the density of them is such that you feel like their presentation is the main point of the film. The stop-motion animation is clearly a labour here, and it's honestly quite economically done. There's very little cruft in the film; very little that you'd choose to edit out, because they know they have to make each scene and each shot count. It's refreshing in a way. Aside from the references to other media, the main comedy comes through a series of slapstick mishaps, which probably appeals to a younger demographic than me. I tried in vain to convince my 5-year-old son to watch it with me as part of my Oscars binge, but he was consistently uninterested. But having seen it in full, I swear he would absolutely love it. Overall, yeah, it was a tidy, if fairly lightweight outing, andhonestly, looking at it, the only film in this years Oscar noms that I'd consider showing to a very young audience. 5 and a bit years ago I wouldn't have seen the benefit of that quite as much as I do now.

26. Da 5 Bloods

Directed by Spike Lee

I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. Spike Lee is a director I admire a lot, and I think I set myself up for disappointment after very much enjoying the combination of theme and comedy in BlacKkKlansman, which, unfortunately, this film doesn't emulate. It tells the story of four Vietnam War vets who return to the country to retrieve a bounty of gold bars they discovered during a mission, and hid for decades until they could recover it. Complicating things is the arrival of one of the vet's sons, and the difficulties involved in the process of getting the gold our of the country were they to actually find it. There are parts of this film that are very strong. There's an undeniably powerful central performance from Delroy Lindo as Paul, the MAGA-hat-wearing right winger, still struggling with the effects of the war many many years later. And there's strong support from Jonathan Majors, Clarke Peters and Chadwick Boseman as their squad leader "Stormin'" Norman, seen in flashbacks. But the performances are not subtle—this works well for the character of Paul, suffering from PTSD as he is, but it strains the realism of other characters. Paul is an interesting character, and for the bulk of the film, an interesting symbol—he votes Trump, he challenges the authority of those around him, but he also has deeply ingrained the messages of black liberation he learned from Stormin'. He's looking for a fight against the establishment, against the outsider. Maybe he's just looking to fuck some shit up. There's also some thematically strong material to be uncovered in the treatment of colonialism. I don't want to believe they're accidental, but there are scenes where the group traipse through rice paddies and villages comparing notes on their experiences during the war, while the local Vietnamese people make way for them. They have a great power of examining implied ownership, "I remember when all of this was ours". Towards the end of the film, when the mission is in some sense complete, I felt like Lee makes a choice to obviate that uncomfortable interpretation though, and removes a powerful parallel. One of my great complaints about BlacKkKlansman was the lack of subtlety in its conclusion. Here, there's a strong sense that Lee wants to smack us around the head with a message from the get-go. I understand why. We live in a world where a message can get lost in a quick-fire 140-character interpretation. But here, it diminishes the film twofold: firstly, it makes the early stages melodramatic—at times it feels like it's parodying the war films that came before it, and as much as it would like to be, it's not Apocalypse Now. Secondly, it means that it uses up much of its impact in the first two thirds of the film, meaning the final section peters out. Sure, there's action, there's death, and there's a sense of narrative conclusion—but the messages are delivered early and heavily, and the ending either retreads well-worn territory or worse undermines some of the implied thematic material from earlier. Overall, it is a shame, because you feel like this could have been better—and the fault lies in the handling of material overall. There's strength in the individual elements, but the complexity of weaving them together in a perfectly clear and coherent way ends up winning out.

27. Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga

Directed by David Dobkin

If you don't think too hard about this film, it's possible to have a good deal of fun with it. If you think too hard about it, from just about any angle, it starts to fall apart. It tells the story of the probably-not-brother-and-sister team of Lars (Will Ferrell) and Sigrit (Rachel McAdams) who have lofty hopes of winning the Eurovision Song Contest, and manage to become Iceland's representatives through a series of unlikely misadventures. There are good parts, including the songs, which run through amusing Eurovision pastiches, to the heartfelt Husavík (which provides this film its sole Oscar nomination for Best Original Song), to a magnificent pop medley at a party which introduces a series of cameos from actual former Eurovision contestants. The problems arise when you look at the story, which is honestly quite dull at its core, and draaaaags in the last third of the film. Also, there's annoyingly little care paid to accuracy of the representation of Eurovision. I mean, come on, folks, if you're pitching a movie that's clearly going to appeal to Eurovision fans, don't pretend like the UK won the contest in the previous year, and don't put Spain into a Semi-Final. This is basic stuff, people. But still, if you let it wash over you, it's honestly mostly entertaining, and that's worth something. There are many other films in this years Oscars (including some up for much bigger awards than this), which fail that fairly basic promise.

28. Onward

Directed by Dan Scanlon

Clearly the lesser of Pixar's two films released in 2020, Onward is an amusing enough intermission between more serious films. Set in a world where magic has been superseded by technology (less difficult to master, and accessible to all), the film focuses on two elf brothers, Ian (Tom Holland) and Barley (Chris Pratt) who set out on a quest to meet their long-dead father, and rediscover magic along the way. It's a cute enough concept, from the lucky dip bag or giant roulette wheel that Pixar has to generate film ideas. And it's also a relatively sweet light family dramedy, even though the Worst Chris is part of the main dyad. There are parts that rankle a little bit. Much of the film (outside the core family) is based around characters who feel unreal (and not in the sense that they're a centaur or a pixie). We also don't need more tropes of cops eventually being the good guys who do the right thing in the end. I mean, I get it: it's a stock character for stories like this. They are the Arlecchino or Pulcinella of our era. But really, it's not the character for 2020. Annoyingly, though, while this is certainly worse than Soul, Pixar's other 2020 release, this managed to tap into the emotional impact much more effectively. My main complaint about Soul was that it lacked that gut punch of feeling, and the latter chapters of Onward really provide an unexpected wrench of the heart. This is despite the feeling that it hadn't really earned that up to this point. So I was conflicted to some extent. But it ended up, on balance, probably in the "reasonably worthy" section of Pixar's stable. That's certainly nothing to sniff at.

29. One Night In Miami

Directed by Regina King

Another film that wears its genesis in the playhouse on its sleeve, One Night In Miami is a fictionalised account of a meeting in the hotel room of Malcolm X between X, Cassius Clay, NFL player Jim Brown and rock 'n' roll star Sam Cooke, the evening after Clay wins his first world boxing title. This quartet—who were indeed friends in real life, although this meeting never happened as depicted—discuss civil rights, Islam, their careers, women, and more over the course of the evening, as they each broach topics which they've withheld from the others for too long. It's an odd film in many ways, and in many ways it feels unstructured. It's the kind of thing you can imagine being quite engaging on stage, as the conversation flits back and forth and you can enjoy the banter and the swells and ebbs of emotion. It works less well when everything feels like it needs to be connected to a sense of reality. Because it seems too unreal too much of the time—the dialogue is better suited to that melodramatic suspension you get with theatre, for example. And there's not necessarily an obvious character line for any of these men—they feel more like they're stepping into different roles as the dialogue requires. Brown is a sympathetic sounding board when Clay is expressing his concerns, then changes when it's his turn for a monologue. That's not to say the performances are not good—uniformly they are excellent, with Kingsley Ben-Adir the standout for me as Malcolm X. Leslie Odom Jr., the only one actually up for an Oscar, is also solid as Cooke, but it's a more obvious role for a nomination and gives him more peaks and troughs to work with. In the end, though, it feels more like a fantasy exercise than a coherent piece of cinema that stands on its own. What would these four talk about during their friendship? I mean, it might as well be this.

30. My Octopus Teacher

Directed by Philippa Ehrlich & James Reed

As someone who is used to the David Attenborough style of nature documentaries, it's quite a different experience to watch one like this. Instead of telling a story of "life as a whole", with creatures used to illustrate points about the general, My Octopus Teacher focuses on a single animal, a common octopus who lives in the kelp forests off the coast of South Africa. It's also about the relationship that film-maker Craig Foster develops with the octopus, and if you can get over the slight side-eye-inducing implications of the relationship, it's actually quite tender and sweet. Unlike documentaries where we're forced to view nature as cruel and uncaring—creatures one and all are just fighting for survival, after all—this one makes you care about its subject beyond purely academic means. And given the common octopus has a lifespan of about 2 years, you can imagine that this can induce a sad ending to the film. Foster is a fine underwater cinematographer, and as the film sets out to do, it highlights the great beauty of the kelp forests. In this way, it's attempting the same thing as a more traditional documentary: instil a sense of wonder in the natural world, so that we care about it. To some extent, it ends up achieving the same goals, only with a more limited scope.

31. The White Tiger

Directed by Ramin Bahrani

An awkward film, that I feel like I wanted to like but didn't, The White Tiger is framed as a memoir of the life of Balram (Adarsh Gourav), an entrepreneur in Bangalore, as he relates his story in an email to Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, currently visiting India. Which is fine: frame how you like as long as the story is good. The problem is, I'm not sure the story is good, and I'm not sure that the thematic material is good either. The main focus of the film is on the symbolic "rooster coop"; the mentality that causes the servant classes to stay subservient and loyal to their masters no matter their treatment—and no matter if, like the roosters, they see themselves time and again killed: symbolically, or literally. This is the stronger part of the film's themes, but the path that the narrative takes to show Balram (the White Tiger of the title) breaking free of the coop really rings hollow and untrue. Partially this is due to the tone, which sits uncomfortably between irreverent comedy and psychological thriller. There are films which balance this divide beautifully. But in this film, there's a persistent feeling of never really getting to the truth of Balram (despite living in his head for most of the film). This makes the path he walks seem inconsistent with who he's supposed to be. He frequently makes satirical observations about India under "the Great Socialist" which don't lead naturally to his eventual actions. I don't want to place the blame for this at the feet of Gourav, who I think is actually quite delightful to watch in his role. But in some ways, I was made to feel sorry for him, because I think the story pushes him in strange directions that he constantly has to fight against. Stylistically though, it's a strong film, with a humid, fragrant sense of the Delhi and Bangalore, both from the upper and underclasses. It's beautifully shot, and the soundtrack is killer, balancing the local and international sounds of Modern India. It's hard to tell where the blame lies for some of the narrative elements. This is, after all, based on a Booker Prize-winning novel, which should at least give it some credibility on that front. But it does feel like the issue is fundamental to the story, and that director and lead actor are doing their best. But it could be that something in the book ties this up a lot better than the film does. I just don't think that I liked this enough to warrant jumping into the original source as well.

32. The Trial of the Chicago 7

Directed by Aaron Sorkin

I always try to know as little about films as possible before I see them—it's possibly not the best foundation for providing a good critique, but it's how I extract the maximum enjoyment from films by having little in the way of expectation. Unfortunately, this sometimes backfires, as is the case in The Trial of the Chicago 7. The story is honestly something I didn't know much about, surrounding the arrest and trial of leaders of a protest outside the Democratic Convention in 1968. They're a motley bunch, and the ensemble cast are excellent, in particular Sacha Baron Cohen as Abbie Hoffman, and Mark Rylance as their defence attorney. There's also a fun segment with Michael Keaton, who provides an understated but somehow still compellingly scene-stealing bit. But there was something slightly off about this film for me. Because I was absolutely loving the story of this film, and intrigued by the tension as it played out. And yet always there was this really strong sense of untruth to it—the dialogue was stilted, with no-one sounding at all like a real person, especially when they break into supposedly spontaneous speeches of passion. And the characterisations were weird—everyone was painted in the blank colours of either "good guy" or "bad guy", with the lines so clearly drawn that it suggested an overly simplistic morality. The exception here of course is Joseph Gordon Levitt's conflicted prosecutor, who is almost comically portrayed as a purely good guy forced to be the antagonist against his will. All of this, however, suddenly makes sense, when "Written & Directed by Aaron Sorkin" pops up in the black after the final scene. To be fair, I should have recognised this much earlier, and in hindsight, it's very obvious. I find Sorkin's dialogue compelling, and he spins a good yarn here, but there's constantly the problem with it that it all sounds like Sorkin (again, I should have recognised it), not like the character's he's portraying, or, indeed, real people at all. I also have a distinct problem with Sorkin's directorial style, which is just like his writing, but unrestrained by another hand on the steering wheel. It means there's no one there to recognise and smooth over the weaknesses. It is at least better here than the repugnant Molly's Game, his previous effort in the chair, but that's a low bar. So this takes me to my point about disappointment and expectations. This has the style, the story and the cast of a film I should absolutely be quivering with joy about. But I was constantly frustrated with the decisions taken to make it seem unreal, and to interrupt my immersion. Had I known it was Sorkin from the get-go, I probably would have been able to shrug off the reasons why ("oh, it's Sorkin, yeah whatever makes sense"), and just enjoyed the story.

33. The Life Ahead (La vita davanti a sé)

Directed by Edoardo Ponti

There's much to like in a film like The Life Ahead, not the least being Sophia Loren in a late-career star turn. She plays Madame Rosa, a former sex worker who takes to caring for others' children in her latter years. Into her life comes Momo (Ibrahima Gueye), a Senegalese orphan who steals a pair of candlesticks from her, before being taken under her wing. There's much to the film which feels like it should be good. It's set in the picturesque Adriatic coast of Italy, Loren provides a potent portrait of a strong woman in decline, there's interesting and unexpected musical cues (including Io sì, which is up for this film's sole Oscar nom for Best Original Song), and strong support from the young Gueye and Abril Zamora as Madame Rosa's neighbour (a trans character, played by a trans actor, where their trans-ness is not the focus of their whole deal!). But these feel like a bunch of elements which should accentuate an already good film—and it feels like this isn't that film at its core. For a start, it feels like a film we've all seen before (even if, like me, you've not seen the two (2) different adaptations previously made of the same story), and it's not overly affecting on an emotional level (which is actually something of an achievement given its themes). So the stylistic elements, the bits which felt like good cinema, ended up showing the film as fundamentally weaker than it appeared; just because these elements felt misplaced. In the end, The Life Ahead feels like a film which had watched a whole bunch of very good films, then made itself a "very good film" costume out of shredded newspaper. You might indulgently clap and applaud the effort, but in the end it's not as good as what it's emulating.

34. The One and Only Ivan

Directed by Thea Sharrock

Ivan is a silverback gorilla who lives in a shopping mall as an attraction for customers, and who headlines the daily circus shows. His best friend is a stray dog, and his family is the collection of other performing animals who make up the rest of the show (voiced by a star-studded and extremely underutilised cast). Narrated by Ivan (Sam Rockwell), we see the struggles of the circus, and the eventual desire for the animals to roam free. This is a strange film that feels out of place and out of time in many ways. It's pure family entertainment—not saccharine sweet, but also without any real sense of conflict or much of an edge. It's the kind of live-action family movies Disney made in the past, and which has been superseded by Pixar-style animation or superhero movies. This particular niche has been somewhat abandoned. And while this film has a kind of bland entertainment to it, it does pretty much emphasise why films like this tend to get lost now in the deep recesses of Netflix or Disney+'s streaming catalogue. The pacing is genuinely slow, and there are so few moments when there actually feels like there's either something propelling the story forward or something immediately threatening that needs to be dealt with in the here and now. It's a style that I feel was more popular in family entertainment in the past, but now feels a little bit twee. Cute, perhaps—you can understand why they do it, but the style has moved on. The visual effects, which is what this is up for and Oscar for, are undoubtedly excellent though. We are at the stage where the animators have to pull back on the realism of the animals they are creating; otherwise the personification that the story requires would be lost on characters which feel too alien to relate to. This is particularly true in the way the eyes of the animals are rendered—they have to be able to show recognisable human emotions, but these make them feel slightly uncanny in a pure facsimile of a giant ape or baby elephant. Overall, look: it was fine. For what it was it's even quite charming, in a dull kind of way. That puts it above a lot of other Oscar nominees that are attempting something deeper and falling on their face. This attempted not a lot, and achieved it with flying colours.

35. Tenet

Directed by Christopher Nolan

A film that was way too clever for its own good, Tenet was a mind-puzzle posing as a movie. There's a certain amount of enjoyment to be gleaned from unravelling the complexities of the plot, especially as you learn more about the mechanics of the world these people live in, but it's a film that really requires multiple viewings to properly put together. And to be honest, there's so little emotional attachment drawing me back to want to experience this again. Nolan has forgotten that we need to care about the plot, the characters, well... anything. Something. It's not enough to be intellectually stimulated by solving the problem he's putting in front of me—that's not what you want from a film. I need to want the characters to succeed. I need to care about their journey. Otherwise, I might as well just sudokus on my phone. This had as much impact. This was the first film I saw in a cinema since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, which undoubtedly was a bit of a thrill intrinsically. But that had very little to do with the innate quality of the film. Fortunately I live in a country with a very low incidence of the virus, because I hate to think I risked my health in any significant way in seeing Tenet.

36. The United States vs. Billie Holiday

Directed by Lee Daniels

This was a really quite awkward film, with the promise of something much better. It shows a somewhat fractured narrative of Billie Holiday's life; in particular her drug addiction, her advocacy, and the US government's opposition to her performances of Strange Fruit, the song about lynching in the southern states. You'd want to say that the film is structured around the excellent performance from Andra Day as Billie Holiday, but it's really not. Partially, it's framed with an awkward interview with a white journalist, but the story itself is actually built around Jimmy Fletcher (Travante Rhodes), an FBI agent sent to investigate Holiday's drug use (albeit as an excuse to quash her civil rights activism). The purpose is, partially, to keep Holiday aloof and unknowable, but it also decentres the strongest part of the film, and honestly makes a strong woman's story all about a man instead. There's also a very, very uncomfortable editing style. Attempting to work in some archival footage along with the film, they often adjust scenes, seemingly at random, into black and white, or into low-resolution. This would be fine, except they also abruptly shift in places, cutting away from something that feels half-finished, so the excesses of the other stylistic choices feed into a sense of chaos. It was extremely distracting. Andra Day is, as I've said excellent, and it's telling that she's the sole nominee in this film, although Miss Lawrence provides some sparkle in his film debut, in a fairly minor role. And the music is obviously a treat, playing out as a series of concerts and cabaret appearances by Holiday, including a memorable performance of Strange Fruit itself. But overall there was too much dragging this down. It doesn't even necessarily feel like a bad story, but it was laden with too much embellishment—a rawer and more pared-back film might have allowed the truth and power of its themes to come through a lot more.

37. The Midnight Sky

Directed by George Clooney

High concept, and quite beautiful in its way, The Midnight Sky is nonetheless the movie version of "when are they going to get to the fireworks factory?". It's a deeply annoying film story-wise, because from very early on in the film, it's obvious where it must end up, and the meat of the plot is just it laboriously getting there. In the meantime, it's just not that interesting. George Clooney is relatively good as a terminally ill man left outside the clutches of a global catastrophe, and there's solid support from the crew of a spacecraft returning to Earth, unaware of the disaster. The cinematography is also good, matching the emptiness of space to the desolation of the Arctic. I just really wanted there to be more tension to the film, or even that it didn't resolve in exactly the way you expect. But I suspect that if it hadn't played out along the expected lines it would have been frustrating in a different way. Maybe there's not a way to make this concept good.

38. Pieces of a Woman

Directed by Kornél Mundruczó

Generally, I love a family drama, and this had a lot of potential to draw me in like the best. But this film, following the breakdown of a marriage between Martha (Vanessa Kirby), a well-off woman and Sean (Shia LaBoeuf) her construction-worker husband does little to follow in the great traditions of the family drama. The opening twenty minutes are excellent, as we see a terrifying home-birth play out in real time, ending abruptly with the frantic arrival of paramedics: gruelling for someone who has recently had a baby, as I have, without a doubt, but also surprisingly compelling, and very, very truthful. Sadly, the film does not at all manage to sustain that kind of intensity as it shifts to the aftermath. In some ways, having such a dynamic and compelling opening sequence causes the rest of the film to seem bland by comparison. The story that it takes on after those tense scenes is far less interesting, and the drama it elicits never matches the same level of potency. There are also some strange choices here that don't work. I found Ellen Burstyn's portrayal as Martha's mother decidedly overplayed, to the extent that it started to feel like one of those performances people give when they're parodying soap operas. Perhaps it comes from this character's genesis on the stage, but it's a style that wasn't mirrored by Kirby or LaBoeuf, so I'm more wont to place the blame at Burstyn's feet. As an exaggerated melodrama, it might have worked. But the material doesn't at all lend itself this kind of interpretation. It's far too dark and too heart-wrenching to be perceived wryly. So it just ends up feeling wonky, like it's falling apart in the same way as its titular character. And that's almost certainly not intentional.

39. Over the Moon

Directed by Glen Keane

Based on the Chinese myth of Chang'e, the moon goddess, Over The Moon is a mess of animation following Fei Fei, a young girl who builds a rocket to the moon as part of a far-fetched plot to stop her father from remarrying. Story-wise, this is a shambles. Despite the fact that it opens with a moving sequence following the illness and death of Fei Fei's mother, the film eschews most of the emotional impact rendered in this opening, in favour of brightly coloured zaniness. The strongest parts are those which draw most heavily on the traditional tale, in particular those presented in delicate hand-drawn animation. But there are sequences and characters added that give no narrative benefit, like an extended rap-battle/ping-pong match, a series of biker chickens who seem drawn from a stock characters cut-out book, or a randomly inserted "wacky sidekick" who comes across as a bad parody of Olaf the snowman from Frozen. So much of it seems cynical, rather than naturally flowing from the demands of the story it's trying to tell. That undermines the emotional message of the film, and put me offside enough that I wasn't receptive to the resolution it attempts later. Some of the animation is quite beautiful, like the Joan Miró-inspired design of Lunaria, Chang'e's city on the moon. And the design of some of the Lunarians themselves, who glow with light, provide an ethereal contrast to the more realistically rendered human characters. But even this is, in some ways, undermining the resonance of the film's themes. Films like Wolfwalkers from this year show that you can meld artistic beauty with a fulfilling story without them getting in each other's way. Over The Moon feels like a vain, stuttering rocket-launch by Netflix to catch up with Pixar's huge head start.

40. Pinocchio

Directed by Matteo Garrone

There are two key takeaways from Matteo Garrone's Pinocchio. 1) Good makeup and practical effects can be astonishingly effective, and will still beat CGI hands down if they're done well. 2) The story of Pinocchio is terrible, and honestly never needs to come to our screens again. The good part first: it's a masterclass in makeup effects, especially Pinocchio's, which are all practically done, and look stunningly good. And there's a rich production design, which does create an immersive world. Whether or not you want to be immersed in this story though is something that's surely up for debate. This version apparently sticks quite faithfully to the source material—more than the Disney adaptation (which, somehow, I've managed to avoid for my whole childhood). This, however, just emphasises the fact that the story is bonkers. It's a series of misadventures, and Pinocchio is both constantly in danger, and either exasperatingly unaware of it, or delinquent in his decisions—in very few situations do I feel sorry for him, and for the most part I find him unerringly irritating. It also doesn't help that Pinocchio, as a story, is grim. Really, really grim. I mean, there's poverty, and then there's 19th Century Rural Italian Poverty, and it's depressing. There are moments of great danger, and turmoil, and then there's the by-comparison uplifting parts, like when Pinocchio has to perform back-breaking labour in order to provide a pittance of milk for his dying father. Yes, that's the uplifting part. There's a moral lesson in all of this, of course, but it feels like a lesson very much out of time nowadays. Be a good boy; respect your father; do your lessons; bear the beatings and abuse which you deserve, you little hellion, lest you too get subjected to some cruel magical punishment. It's a guide for scaring your children straight if they lived 200 years ago. Overall, it was probably the best adaptation of Pinocchio there's likely to be. My problem isn't really with this version of it—I just think it's a poor story for a film. Now that we've reached as high as it's going to get, can we please shelve it forever? Possibly behind some other books?

41. Hillbilly Elegy

Directed by Ron Howard

I found something oddly dishonest about this film, supposedly a daring portrait of white working-class America. Following his memoir on which the film is based, it tells the story of J.D. Vance (Gabriel Basso/Owen Asztalos), who comes from Middletown, Ohio, but traces his lineage to the Hillbillies of Appalachia where he spends some summers as a child. He's smart, and determined to break out of his lot in life, eventually gaining a place in the Law program at Yale. There are multiple levels which make this feel off. There's meant to be a tension between the love and responsibility J.D. feels for his family, in particular his mother (Amy Adams) and grandmother (Glenn Close). But way too often this film feels like poverty porn, as though it's objectifying or worse parodying the people it's portraying. It's especially noxious because our perspective is that of J.D., the young man now on the cusp of wealth and success. But worse than that is the fact that it perpetuates the bootstrapping myth of getting out of the cycle of poverty through your own hard work and effort—a particularly nasty myth prevalent in the US, and which doesn't need the clout of people like Ron Howard behind it. Glenn Close honestly takes on some interesting roles, and this could certainly be called interesting. I think here you can probably see her working a little too hard to fully believe her performance, although it is admittedly transformative. Amy Adams is, in some ways, more sympathetic and believable, even though her character symbolises some of the more unpleasant thematic elements of the film. I found Gabriel Basso very unappealing as the adult J.D., but that may just be an accurate portrayal. Better was Owen Asztalos as the teenage J.D. who was perhaps the only character who wasn't caricatured or repellent. Overall, it's a big mis-step for me, and from a director who I think can often do solid things with material that I might not think appealing. We really, really, really don't need films like Hillbilly Elegy right now. With that out of the way, I'd like to also share my thoughts on this year's short film nominees, which were for the large part, excellent. In fact, everything except perhaps the very last entry is something that I would recommend as worthwhile to take a look at. This is not the first time I've managed to see all of the nominees across these three categories, but it's still rare to get them all, as often the Documentary Shorts have a very, very limited release, and some of the Animated films are often tied up very closely with a big studio's strings. Once again, I'm so pleased that the Oscars still recognises these categories; it would be a much weaker ceremony without them, and they add a spark of brightness to my Oscars watching every year.

1. Opera (animated)

Directed by Erick Oh

Starting out little more than a curiosity, like a wimmelbilder come to life, Opera nonetheless becomes a starkly brilliant short film. We slowly pan down a detailed pyramidal structure, then slowly pan back up again. That's all there is to it, in one sense, and in another sense that's missing the point entirely. The intricacies of the rooms of the pyramid slowly play out as a stark portrait of a hierarchical society, one which you don't truly recognise until you come back to the top and see what everything is built upon. The symbolism of the lock at the very top of the structure, and the key at the very bottom is quite beautiful. More beautiful though is just the experience of the film. It's astonishingly animated, and the dark soundtrack is perfectly balanced to the imagery. There's certainly more to explore on each outing with it—you almost want an interactive version so you can take your time scrolling through each room, each character as they carry on their menial existence. In some ways it's completely alien, and in others it's uncomfortable familiar, perhaps in a way we can't define. Perhaps it's showing us a mirror. Perhaps it's showing us a depiction of hell. Maybe it's showing us both.

2. White Eye (עין לבנה) (live action)

Directed by Tomer Shushan

White Eye is ostensibly a simple film. A young man finds his bike, stolen several weeks ago, chained up outside a meat-processing workshop, and he sets out to retrieve it and find out who's responsible. What follows delves into themes of police power, privilege, racism, the plight of refugees and exploitation. This is how you make a short film. The subject is beautifully scoped to the format, being a small incident which develops into a much broader scope with resonances that go well beyond the story of a man and his bike. It's shot with style and flair, but also with the subdued quality of the late evening, it makes it a very beautiful film in many ways, despite its grimy setting. There's beautiful little moments of character (one of the policemen can't shake hands with a woman because he's "religious"; or what the man is prepared to spend 250 shekels on, and what he isn't), and tiny moments where a deeper story is suggested (there's a particular moment when the man finds the meat-workers hiding in a fridge which was, pardon the pun, chilling). It makes the film feel very real, and very immersive for its short length. In some ways, it didn't stand out obviously when watching all the shorts back-to-back this year, but it's one that best stands up to reflection, and one which seems to grow the more you think about it.

3. A Concerto is a Conversation (documentary)

Directed by Ben Proudfoot & Kris Bowers

A really quite beautiful short documentary framed as a conversation between composer Kris Bowers and his grandfather. It's a wonderfully put together little piece, giving a wonderful overview of three generations of life that celebrates the past and the future, and ties them beautifully together with Bowers' music, a newly composed violin concerto. It manages so much in just 13 minutes, far shorter even than most of the other films in the Documentary Shorts category, and manages to poignant, uplifting and thought-provoking all. I really liked it.

4. If Anything Happens I Love You (animated)

Directed by Will McCormack & Michael Govier

Something the Oscars has had something of a dearth of this year is films which actually have me sobbing while watching them. It takes the animated shorts to bring that out, and If Anything Happens I Love You is the film which does it. Told (mostly) without dialogue, we follow a couple seemingly drifting apart, and the reasons for their introspection and trauma are revealed in painful slowness. The film is slow-paced, but picks its moments to hit you with a punch to the soul. Artistically, it's not the most beautiful film in this category, but it does its job in a line-art illustrative style which is still quite effective. But unlike some other films in this category, which seem to place the visuals above the narrative, this has everything to give to the slowly unravelling story. It's powerful, affecting and emotionally devastating.

5. The Letter Room (live action)

Directed by Elvira Lind

A well-made short film about a prison officer (Oscar Isaac) who is assigned to screen the incoming and outgoing mail of the inmates. After he starts to get too involved in the process, he oversteps his mark, with ambiguous results. It's in some ways quite a sweet film, and it's one of those rare situations for a short where it both feels nicely scoped, and also ripe for extension. It does a really good job of putting together all of the beats of a story so that it's quite satisfying on its own, but also creating a world that you feel could be explored in other ways as well. Oscar Isaac is reasonably good, but in some ways he's almost too recognisable for this role, and there's a kind of intrinsic untruth to him as the subdued prison guard. There's no doubt that he sells it though. Better though is Alia Shawkat who appears later and really provides a kind of moral climax to the film. Overall, it's a strong entry, and one which marks its director Elvira Lind as someone to watch in the future.

6. Feeling Through (live action)

Directed by Doug Roland

A rather sweet film about a young homeless man who finds a deafblind person trying to make his way home late at night. The story develops as they connect and in some ways form a fleeting friendship. It's a sweet film in many ways, especially in the way it creates character development in our protagonist in its short running time. It manages to be funny in some places and charming throughout, resulting in quite an affecting conclusion. It's also quite beautifully shot, capturing the liminal quality of a city very late at night. Moreover, it knows exactly the right kind of scope for a short film—too often it feels like shorts try to cram too much story into a short running time. This manages to just scope out this fleeting encounter and spend the time it needs.

7. Hunger Ward (documentary)

Directed by Skye Fitzgerald

2:55am Sydney time: my alarm goes off to let me know it's time to catch the hour-long window that international viewers can see Hunger Ward live from the Human Rights Film Festival in Berlin. I'm very pleased I went to the effort to see this film, because it's a compelling and very affecting production, touching on a small part of the ongoing civil war in Yemen. We follow the doctors and nurses dealing with the fallout of famine in the country—itself the direct result of the fighting in the country. In its 39m running time, it takes the time to just sit with these people, and to really absorb their loss and trauma. There are moments of wrenching pain and discomfort for us, but importantly, there are also suggestions of optimism—something to remind us that the end of the war is worth fighting for. It's illuminating, in particular because the war in Yemen seems to get a back page compared to, for example, the civil war in Syria, even though (am I cynical enough to say "because"?) there's arguably more culpability for this war in the West. In any case, it was worth a 3am wakeup call and a bad night's sleep to catch—if it comes more easily across your path, it's definitely worth your time.

8. Two Distant Strangers (live action)

Directed by Martin Desmond Roe & Travon Free

This film has an infuriatingly good idea to it, which feels squandered. Using a time-loop concept to illustrate the repeating nature of police violence is a powerful move, and the first couple of iterations here in Two distance Strangers are fascinating, tense and quite affecting. Unfortunately, the film really suffers when it tries to develop the concept, especially when the tone tries to shift to semi-comedic (the tone shift borders on offensive), as the nature of the predicament becomes apparent. It feels like it either needs much broader scope (I could see this, for example, turned into a feature film, which is not the case for all of the Live Action shorts this year), or else to be much cut down—it both tries to do too much in its allotted time, and feels like it's not cutting deeply enough into the wound to find the pellet of truth. The two leads are very good though, with Joey Bada$$ charismatic, and Andrew Howard menacing and maddening. I just so wanted it to be better, because I feel like it was close to being brilliant—and "close to being brilliant but not getting there" is quite frustrating.

9. Colette (documentary)

Directed by Anthony Giacchino

A surprisingly moving portrait of the 90-year-old titular Colette, a former (if very young) member of the French resistance during World War II, as she visits, for the first time, the German concentration camp where her brother died. It packs a surprising amount into its short running time, including a great deal of emotional resonance. Colette herself is charming, stoic and mostly circumspect about her life. The film is successful because it manages to show the journey of her character over a very small amount of time, from the almost aloof academic interest in the trip beforehand, to the profound personal impact it ends up having. Some of the framing is a bit strange, including the young historian who accompanies her. She provides historical context, as she has specifically researched the family in the war—but to some extent mutes the impact of the film as a whole where you feel the focus should solely on Colette herself. Still, it's successful and quite well done for a film with limited resources and time to spend on its subject.

10. The Present (الحاضر) (live action)

Directed by Farah Nabulsi

A perfectly decent short film, focusing on the trials placed on Palestinians just to do day-to-day activities when those activities require travelling through an Israeli security checkpoint. The story itself is largely infrastructure, surrounding the man's quest to buy a present for his wife, but it builds in subtle ways to highlight the racism inherent in such an operation. As far as this year's Oscar nommed short films go, this is one of the weaker entries, but that's certainly not to say it was weak.

11. Do Not Split (documentary)

Directed by Anders Hammer

A genuinely good short documentary taking us right into the middle of the 2019-20 independence protests in Hong Kong. Over its short length, it manages to both provide fairly thrilling footage inside the protests, and also to encapsulate the political motivation behind it. Moreover, there's a sense of urgency to the film as a whole—the movement as a whole paused due to the Covid-19 pandemic (partially due to Hong Kongers' previous experience with SARS), but there's this sense of coiled tension. Tension which will be released at the next available opportunity. As a result, the film does to some extent feel unfinished—it's a snippet of a wider story, but compelling enough to make you care about and seek out that wider story. That's often the purpose of a film like this.

12. Genius Loci (animated)

Directed by Adrien Merigeau

It's hard for me to watch the Animated Shorts of this year's Oscars and not compare them to my absolutely favourite film of 2020, the animated short The Quiet, which all of the nominees beat. This is particularly true of Genius Loci which explores things with the same texture of story, and that same sense of living in the liminal space just outside reality. The main draw of this film is its animation, which is beautiful. It works through a number of artistic styles, including soft watercolours, and evocative, blocky woodcuts, which evoke Picasso's Cubism and the abstract modernism of Kandinsky. It is truly the case that each frame could be a worthy still painting on its own. But it does end up feeling a bit too much like that: a series of artworks without a through-line, without a compelling narrative. Or at least, without a narrative that's not so steeped in symbolism that it's largely obfuscated anyway. And that pretty much amounts to the same thing.

13. A Love Song for Latasha (documentary)

Directed by Sophia Nahli Allison

Unfortunately the least of this year's Oscar-nominated documentary shorts is A Love Song For Latasha, which could have been an empathetic and moving story of a life gone too soon, but which was overwrought with stylistic embellishments. These stylistic choices often distracted from the main thrust of the story—and there's certainly something to the story which could have been more affecting were it delivered with a raw, unvarnished presentation. In particular, it had a strong over-reliance on recreated scenes, which were then altered to look like old video tapes. The point here is that there was no documentary evidence of Latasha. In theory this emphasises the fact that she was taken too soon, but in reality, it feels like an indulgence, and creates a sense of untruth. These choices felt a little too much like they were made because they *could* be made, and as though each of these ended up with the conclusion that "more is more". But there's power to the story—in particular the linking of Latasha's death to the 1992 Los Angeles uprising. I feel as though it could have been better presented.

14. Burrow (animated)

Directed by Madeline Sharafian

Cute, fluffy and insubstantial, Burrow introduces a rabbit trying to build a home, and the various obstacles put in his path—in particular the challenges faced when every other burrowing animal chooses the same patch of dirt. It has a lightly charming animation style, owing a fair bit to anime in some instances, but is mostly cute at the expense of everything else. It's not particularly amusing; the story, such as it is, is thin, and whatever conflict arises is quickly forgotten so that the same premise can be repeated over and over again. It's fine, really, and it's clearly a film designed for a different audience than me, but given the competition in this category of the Oscars this year, this is quite clearly in the lower tiers.

15. Yes People (Já-Fólkið) (animated)

Directed by Gísli Darri Halldórsson

Hey folks, I’ve written up my top albums and my top tracks of 2020, but there’s so much music released in a year, and restricting myself to just 30 albums, and 50 tracks is a difficult task.

As a result, I’ve compiled a longer list of my top tracks and albums (without write-ups), for your perusal. This is obviously more for the sake of completeness, but are here in case you’re interested in finding out if I at all rated something you liked this year (or, if you’re Sam, if you want to actually do a detailed comparison).

Want playlists? I’ve got playlists for you too:

My Top 50 Countdown - which I posted yesterday. This provides a sorted countdown of my top tracks from #1 to #50. (50 tracks)

My Top Tracks - a longer list of all the tracks I really rated highly this year. This accounts for a much larger number of artists, and includes most of the tracks I’ve listed below. (169 tracks)

My Top Tracks & Albums - a playlist containing all my top tracks, plus selections from all of my favourite albums of the year. (216 tracks)

My Top Tracks, Albums + Much, Much More - Are you game? Contains a huge, varied collection of music that we listened to this year. I really enjoyed all these tracks, and they provide a much broader collection of albums, artists and genres. (1,014 tracks)

Anyway, without further ado here’s my Top 200 Tracks, and Top 100 Albums:

Top Albums of 2020

100. Winnetka Bowling League - Congratulations (power pop)

99. Locate S, 1 - Personalia (art pop)

98. Dua Lipa - Future Nostalgia (pop)

97. LukHash - Transient Offworld (synthwave)

96. The Drowns - Under Tension (street punk)

95. The Mystic Underground - Wrapped in Riddles (electro disco)

94. Jonathan Wilson - Dixie Blur (Americana noir folk)

93. Mighty Oaks - All Things Go (indie folk rock)

92. Kiesza - Crave (synthpop)

91. Dance Gavin Dance - Afterburner (post hardcore)

90. The O’Reillys and the Paddyhats - Dogs on the Leash (Celtic punk)

89. Warm Digits - Flight of Ideas (krautrock)

88. Dandelion Wine - Le Cœur (Australio dreamfolktronica)

87. Marc Scibilia - Seed of Joy (indie singer-songwriter)

86. Biffy Clyro - A Celebration of Endings (Scottish indie rock)

85. Savant - Void (complextro)

84. Cordovas - Destiny Hotel (Americana folk)

83. TTRRUUCES - TTRRUUCES (wonky pop)

82. The Claudettes - High Times in the Dark (Chicago piano blues)

81. Dustbowl Revival - Is It You, Is It Me (post country)

80. Sea Wolf - Through a Dark Wood (indie folk rock)

79. Cory Wong - The Striped Album (funk rock)

78. Someone - ORBIT II (psych pop)

77. Days N’ Daze - Show Me The Blueprints (H-town thrashgrass)

76. Blossoms - Foolish Loving Spaces (indie pop)

75. Kyros - Celexa Dreams (prog synth rock)

74. Dub Pistols - Addict (dub)

73. Grimes - Miss Anthropocene (dreampop)

72. The Hanging Stars - A New Kind of Sky (psychedelic folk)

71. Neon Trees - I Can Feel You Forgetting Me (indie pop)

70. The Corner Laughers - Temescal Telegraph (folk pop)

69. 3D Stas - Eleven (soiltronica)

68. Pantayo - Pantayo (kulingtang gong pop)

67. The National Parks - Wildflower (folk rock)

66. Pigeon John - Gotta Good Feeling (underground rap)

65. Novo Amor - Cannot Be, Whatsover (indie folk rock)

64. The Explorers Club - The Explorers Club (sunshine pop)

63. Poppy - I Disagree (bubblegum metal)

62. Overcoats - The Fight (indie pop)

61. Chemtrails - The Peculiar Smell of the Inevitable (psychedelic garage pop)

60. Joywave - Possession (indie pop)

59. Heart Bones - Hot Dish (indie pop)

58. Mitochondrial Sun - Mitochondrial Sun (darktronica)

57. L.A. Salami - The Cause of Doubt & A Reason To Have Faith (post blues)

56. Car Seat Headrest - Making a Door Less Open (alt rock)

55. Tunng - Dead Club (folktronica)

54. Butch Walker - American Love Story (glam rock)

53. Polly Scattergood - In This Moment (experimental pop)

52. The Beautiful Fear - The Waltz of the Moonshine Blind (prog rock)

51. The Altogether - Silo (acoustic pop rock)

50. KES - We Home (Trinidadian soca)

49. Man Man - Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-Between (experimental rock)

48. Creeper - Sex, Death & The Infinite Void (horror punk)

47. Darlingside - Fish Pond Fish (indie folk)

46. Enter Shikari - Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible (electronicore)

45. Trixie Mattel - Barbara (drag country)

44. City Mouth - Coping Machine (indie pop rock)

43. Bright Eyes - Down In The Weeds Where The World Once Was (indie rock)

42. The Texas Gentlemen - Floor It!!! (heartland rock)

41. Will Wood - The Normal Album (cabaret rock)

40. Maeve Gilchrist - The Harpweaver (harp folk)

39. rook&nomie - me&you (experimental pop)

38. Steep Canyon Rangers & Asheville Symphony - Be Still Moses (orchestral bluegrass)

37. Fiona Apple - Fetch the Bolt Cutters (art pop)

36. Sea Girls - Open Up Your Head (indie pop rock)

35. Michael Franti & Spearhead - Work Hard & Be Nice (reggae fusion)

34. Oneohtrix Point Never - Magic Oneohtrix Point Never (experimental electronica)

33. Ultrahappyalarm - Critical Daydream (happy hardcore)

32. The Living Tombstone - zero_one (Israeli electro rock)

31. The Flaming Lips - American Head (psychedelic rock)

30. Saint Saviour - Tomorrow Again (experimental folk)

29. Post Animal - Forward Motion Godyssey (psychedelic rock)

28. The Jerry Cans - Echoes (Inuit neo-folk)

27. Aloud - Sprezzaturra (blues rock)

26. The Phenomenal Handclap Band - PHB (psychedelic soul)

25. Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit - Reunions (alt country)

24. Badly Drawn Boy - Banana Skin Shoes

23. MOBS - Cinema Paradiso (80s pastiche pop)

22. Jason Wilson - Sumach Roots (eclectic folk)

21. DMA’s - The Glow (Australio indie rock)

20. Cornershop - England Is A Garden (chamber psych)

19. Igorrr - Spirituality and Distortion (baroque breakcore)

18. Eleventyseven - Basic Glitches (synthpunk)

17. Kate Rusby - Hand Me Down (indie folk)

16. Indigo Girls - Look Long (folk rock)

15. Another Sky - I Slept On The Floor (indie rock)

14. Courteeners - More. Again. Forever (post britpop)

13. Dutty Moonshine Big Band - City of Sin (jazztronica)

12. Nelson Kempf - Family Dollar (art folk)

11. Beans on Toast - The Inevitable Train Wreck (drunken folk rock)

10. Joe Wong - Nite Creatures (baroque pop)

9. Luis Pestana - Rosa Pano (experimental electronica)

8. Sufjan Stevens - The Ascension (art pop)

7. MisterWives - Superbloom (indie pop)

6. Lola Marsh - Someday Tomorrow Maybe (Israeli noir pop)

5. Dyble Longdon - Between a Breath and a Breath (chamber folk)

4. Hugo Kant - Far From Home (downtempo nu-jazz)

3. The Lemon Twigs - Songs For The General Public (alt rock)

2. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - K.G. (microtonal psychedelic rock)

1. Ada Rook - 2,020 Knives (electropop concrète)

Top Tracks of 2020

Following on from Part 1 of my Top 50 tracks, here are the very top tracks I loved this year. It's been a terrible year, of course, but there has been some truly excellent music released. Read on.

25. rook&nomie - soft atrocity (hyperpop)

me&you by rook&nomie

Once I fell in love with the music of Ada Rook earlier in the year, I sought out her other work—and being the prolific artist she is, there were several more releases that fell within the ambit of the 2020 music project. This is a beautiful bit of off-kilter pop, complete with synthpop bubblegum riffs and a combination of softly, sweetly sung lyrics and harsh screams. It’s a killer combination.

24. Will Joseph Cook - Something To Feel Good About (indie pop)

Will Joseph Cook has a kind of effortless charm in writing enjoyable pop tracks, and this is the top effort from his (very late) 2020 effort. This is a pleasantly two-gear track, with almost a soft adult-contemporary verse, that somehow ratchets up the energy in the chorus to make you want to groove. It’s a catchy, very agreeable track.

23. Courteeners - Better Man (britpop)

A beautiful piece of oldskool rock n roll, imbued with the melancholy of 90s and 00s indie rock. It makes it feel undeniably modern, despite the fact that all of its influences are at least 20 years old. Courteeners have provided some excellent music this year, but this track is the best. “I’m trying to be a better man/Whatever that is”. Aren’t we all?

22. MOBS - School’s Out (80s pastiche pop)

A really fun bit of pop from Australian outfit MOBS, who are really leaning into the 80s-ness of modern synthpop. This has exactly the synth set you might expect from a 1988 boy band, delivered with a danceable energy that almost makes you visualise the terrible, terrible video clip that would accompany it. But it’s unashamed about what it is—and the energy it brings as a result is great. My only concern with this song (the better of the two MOBS songs on my wider list here) is that unlike Big World, it doesn’t have a horn section. And really, that’s a criminal oversight.

21. Luis Pestana - Sangra (experimental electronica)

Rosa Pano by Luis Pestana

A great, evocative and unnerving piece of music, working through highly edited plainchant, fuzzy noise and a repeated motif of chiming bells. This whole album from Luis Pestana was an outstanding collection of music, but this is the piece of music which first made me realise how momentous it was.

20. Hugo Kant - High Gravity (downtempo nu-jazz)

Far From Home by Hugo Kant

Hugo Kant is an artist that really came from nowhere for me this year (well, not nowhere: I found it on Bandcamp’s weekly “releases you might like” list), but his brim-filled November album was a clear stand-out, and took out my #4 Album of the Year. This is the top song from it, a plunderphonic downtempo soundscape that matches a complex syncopated rhythm to a menacing bassline with jazz flute twiddles over the top. Who doesn’t like that?

19. The Flaming Lips - Mother I’ve Taken LSD (psychedelic rock)

The Flaming Lips’ 2020 album was the best of their music I think I’ve ever heard. This song nicely captures what was so good about it. It has an almost orchestral trajectory to it, evoking a sense of longing and disassociation perfectly for its psychedelic roots. But the overall effect is not mind-opening, but melancholy and introspective. It’s a great piece of music.

18. eleventyseven - Battlecats (synthpop punk)

I really love this track, but it’s undeniably very stupid. As an exercise, it seems to be trying to cram in as many pop culture references as it can. The cynic in me would love to write it off in the way I wrote off Ready Player One, but there’s something undeniably playful and satirical about it. Couple this with a genuine punk energy—filtered through many layers of synths—and you get a song that’s genuinely a huge, huge amount of fun. It’s certainly enough for me to forget that eleventyseven used to be a purely Christian rock band. We all develop over time, don’t we?

17. Igorrr - Lost in Introspection (baroque breakcore)

Igorrr is an absolutely ridiculous artist who in a perfect world would be shunned like a medieval circus freak. But somehow, his bizarre mix of baroque chamber music, thrashing breakcore beats and operatic vocal lines can absolutely take you on a musical journey. Never is this clearer in the jagged, unnerving Lost in Introspection, which pinballs between overdriven guitar, concert piano, tremolo-laden vocals, all with a constantly shifting meter. You can never predict where it’s going. Even as I’ve heard it about 20-30 times this year it still manages to surprise me.

16. Polly Scattergood - In This Moment (spoken word triphop)

There’s something to this track which reminds me a lot of the great Kae Tempest. Scattergood doesn’t spit truth in the same way, but there’s definitely something poetic to her softly delivered spoken word lyrics, while an almost industrial triphop gives a dark synthwave atmosphere underneath. Even better is the way it builds across the track—it gets more urgent, darker, louder, more immediate. Excellent stuff and absolutely the standout from Scattergood’s album.

15. Dent May - Hotel Stationery (indie fuzzpop)

Late Checkout by Dent May

I don’t make up these genres by the way (a lie: I make up a huge number of these genres, but I didn’t make up “fuzzpop”). What is fuzzpop? I still don’t really know, but this is quite a folkish tune, downtempo and melodic, but incorporating some of the more atmospheric ideas of dreampop and folktronica. There’s something hauntingly beautiful about the melody here, coupled with some touchingly banal lines of lyrics (it opens “I’m writing you a note/On hotel stationery/Just to let you know/You’re extraordinary”, which requires some pleasingly acrobatic scansion). It’s definitely one of the melodies of this year’s music project which I get in my head a lot. That’s certainly the kind of thing which can propel a song quite high in this list.

14. Another Sky - Fell In Love With The City (indie prog rock)

A hauntingly beautiful piece of rock, it’s atmospherically created with glissing guitar riff and lead singer Catrin Vincent’s ethereal vocals. She has a beautifully androgynous quality to her voice, jumping between upper tenor and soaring soprano, and it’s mesmerising instrument to put with this captivating piece of music. I love this piece of music and it absolutely elevated the whole album.

13. Lola Marsh - Like In The Movies (Israeli pop rock)

Not the last Lola Marsh we’ll see in this list, which gives you an indication why this album ended up my #5 album of the year. This is a beautifully put together bit of soft, dreamy rock. Underneath everything it has this gently pulsating bass that grooves back and forward, end which eventually leads to a surprisingly exultant climax, perfectly matched with a swell of strings. It’s a great bit of music.

12. Ada Rook - Reverie (JH Ligation Experiment 1) (breakbeat electropop)

There’s a shudder in this track everytime the overdriven bass thumps the first beat of each bar, it absolutely drives the music forward, but captures perfectly the anguish and anger of this song thematically. This is coupled with industrial synths, beautifully edited vocals which showcase both Rook’s vocal delicateness and her heartfelt screams (an absolute trademark of the artist). This was my favourite track from Rook’s 2,020 Knives, my #1 album of the year, and more than anything it encapsulates everything I loved about that extraordinary collection of music.

11. Trixie Mattel - Video Games (country folk cover)

My favourite Drag Race alumna Trixie Mattel had a whole album of music this year, which included the excellent Malibu. But her top track was this surprise cover of Lana Del Rey, done with a wonderfully atmospheric outlaw country vibe. Trixie’s sweetly clear vocals reverberate beautifully over her ubiquitous autoharp, midnight dark whistling, and subtle tympanies drawing out a sense of dark drama from the song. As far as I’m concerned, this is now the canonical version of this song—it has more atmosphere and more emotion than the original.

10. KES - Na let go / (when ah) Jamdong / (with d) Boss Lady (soca)

I’ve spent some amount of effort in the music project trying to find the particular brand of reggae that I like. It’s something that I feel should exist—upbeat, but still chilled, danceable with island rhythms. Dancehall gets a bit closer, but still isn’t quite in the sweet spot. It turns out, what I was looking for all this time was Trinidadian soca. This has calypso rhythms done with a punchy dancehall drive, and a Latin horn section to really exalt the mood. I realised when listening to KES’s album earlier in the year that this style of music is one of the reasons I so like Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In The Heights, musically often the superior of his shows (or at least certainly the more danceable and upbeat). This track is a medley of three tracks which blend really nicely into each other, and which give you a little journey that never loses its energy. It’s 7 minutes of pure fun.

9. Emerson Hart - Lucky One (heartland rock)

If we’re talking anthemic songs, this has to just about take the prize for the year. This has the kind of song you just want to chant at the top of your lungs with your arm slung around the person next to you in the crowd. Of course, 2020 doesn’t allow for opportunities like that, but I’m glad that Emerson Hart is still providing songs for this purpose anyway. The rollicking 6/8 rhythms perfectly switch between a quietly building verse that smashes into an almost octave-higher swoop at the start of the chorus. The Americana-tinged instrumentation gives it an earthiness that grounds it as well. It’s a great bit of songwriting, and one that I’ll continue singing along to exuberantly. Even if that’s just alone in my room.

8. Uncanny Valley - Beautiful the World (AI dance pop)

You’re forgiven if you’ve never heard of this band. This is in fact the Australian entry in this year’s Eurovision-style AI music competition. Melodically and lyrically, this was written by an AI, and this is absolutely and amusingly evident when you listen to it. But there’s something I absolutely love about this as a concept—how an AI parses and reinterprets music gives us fascinating insights into the patterns we find in music written by humans, and while there are moments of this song which are ridiculous, the input from the AI absolutely takes the music in places that it wouldn’t have gone. Of course, to call this a pure AI track is disingenuous, as it’s very much structured with human help, and part of the joy is the oddities nestling in what’s otherwise a very enjoyable bit of upbeat electropop. But so many of the elements just click for me—I certainly don’t think this is the last AI-augmented track that will end up on my end-of-year lists.

7. Villagers - Did You Know? (indie folk)

Villagers are a band who I hold in very high esteem with regards to the music project. They were a band I came across very early in 2016, just as we’d started the very first music project, and they made me realise just what a valuable experience listening to so much music was going to be. Annoyingly, by our official guidelines for the project (which are that it runs from December to December), this is just outside the released dates, as the EP it came from was released in the last week of November 2019, which was the week after we’d stopped last year’s project. So by the rules, it’s ineligible, but by our own actions, there was literally not a year that it fit into. Anyway, I’m including it because it’s obviously a great song, haunting in melody with a pleasant acoustic backing track that still manages to evoke an eerie atmospheric quality. It’s Villagers back in form for sure, and this is an excellent song, well deserving of a high place in this list.

6. Chemtrails - Uncanny Valley (psychedelic garage pop)

The Peculiar Smell of the Inevitable [LP] by Chemtrails

A really fun track, which owes a lot of its schtick to finding more and more outlandish rhymes for “Uncanny Valley” (“we don’t dilly-dally”, "they don't get pally", “dark trash alley”). My favourite line though is “so I fell a few rungs on the social ladder/Things are bad, but they could be badder”, which is *chef’s kiss* to me. It’s beautifully rounded out with a competently driven surf/garage rock riff or two which provide a persistent bounce and almost a pop punk energy. It’s a catchy little tune that just has those little hooks—the humour, the riffs, the rhythmic push—that absolutely elevate it to song of the year status. It constantly puts a smile on my face no matter how many times I’ve heard it this year.

5. Andy Shauf - Try Again (indie pop)

This is such a beautifully simple song. It has a storytelling element, as Shauf recounts a series of lightly amusing anecdotes in his relationship, all prefaced with “somewhere between drunkenness and chivalry/sincerity/honesty/etc…”. But there’s a beautiful light melody driving it forward, pleasantly augmented by a clarinet counterpoint, which also provides part of the iconic riff between chorus and verse (I still haven’t managed to tease out what else is part of that mix). It’s a simple, sweet bit of music which shows that tracks that capture something unique within a straightforward format can absolutely stand apart.

4. Lola Marsh - Echoes (Israeli pop rock)

Here’s the second track from Lola Marsh in this list. These two tracks (this and Like At The Movies) were always high in my mind, and I thought they were likely to drag the album very close to being my Album of the Year. In the end, they stood out individually a bit more than they did in the album as a whole, but a top 5 finish for its top song provides a nice mirroring for the position of the album. This is melodically and harmonically great, and put together with a style that captures some Lana Del Rey style folk pop and a kind of dark country in the guitars. Best is the swirling harmonies of the chorus, which seem to develop modulations into deeper and darker minor tonalities before bursting out into an exultant burst of resolving suspended chords. It gives me shivers. There’s a different version of this track on the album performed as an outro without any percussion, and both versions work so well you can see why they included both.

3. Sea Girls - Do You Really Want To Know? (indie pop rock)

Here’s possibly the best example of chunky, upbeat pop rock of the year. It follows the formula, sure, especially the split between verse and chorus. But there’s moments of truly exaltant fun—subtle steel drums in the chorus, bringing in an off-beat hihat for the chewy rich instrumental section after each chorus, the stomp-and-chant quality of the vocal line. I love it and it constantly provides a mood boost, no matter how many times I’ve heard it this year. It’s a perfectly constructed pop rock track as far as I’m concerned. I also got great joy earlier in the year watching the 4-year-old unabashedly dancing around the living room to this track. I’ll admit that that image promotes this somewhat in my mind.

2. Kishi Bashi - Never Ending Dream (indie pop)

I am a tiny bit conflicted about this track. Because it’s a stunningly awesome bit of chamber pop—it’s a sound that Kishi Bashi has absolutely made his own over the past 5-10 years, and this is honestly probably the best track Kishi Bashi has ever made. That’s saying something for an artist who has made two albums in my top-of-the-year lists in the past 5 years. The conflict comes from the fact that this was written as the theme song for a children’s CG-animated TV show on Apple TV, called Stillwater, about three kids and their friendly neighbour who is an anthropomorphic panda. Obviously, it being a TV theme is not a disqualifier; I mean one of the greatest pieces of music ever written (“Theme to Ducktales”) was a kids’ TV theme. But part of me wants to believe that there’s a purity to the music that transcends the ties to the commercial. I’m probably being naive. And, I am willing to take this song on its own merits, because it has these in abundance. The chorus is exulaltant, filled with Bashi’s trademark pizzicati and delicate falsetto, and the moments of quiet are pierced by fierce percussive moments of syncopated rhythm. Let’s hope that Kishi Bashi is raking in the sweet, sweet TV theme dollars as a result. A song like this deserves it.

1. Dyble Longdon - Obedience (chamber folk)

Between A Breath And A Breath by Dyble Longdon

Hey folks! After the fun and excitement of counting down my top albums of 2020, I'm launching straight into my top tracks. Today, we're counting down numbers 50-26, which will leave the Top 25 as a Christmas present from me to you tomorrow. I don't know exactly how many tracks I've listened to this year, but I conservatively estimate more than 12,000, which puts these tracks in the top 0.4% of all the music I've heard this year. YouTube versions of the songs are included where possible. I belatedly discovered that I can also embed Bandcamp links as well, which is probably a better option, from a "supporting artists" perspective. If you stumble upon something you like, go buy it on Bandcamp. Apologies if the video clips for any of these are wildly offensive—I have not at all vetted them before embedding them. Enjoy!

50. L.E.J. - Pas Peur (French chamber folk)

I’m starting off this write-up with this excellent bit of folk—a sultry chanson, backed with low strings that develop into a full little chamber ensemble. I’m perhaps demoting this down to a fairly low position because I heard this track as a single, and was thrilling in excitement for the release of their album, which consisted of this song, and a whole bunch of songs that sounded nothing like this song. So it’s a standout, but it’s not necessarily a sign that L.E.J. is an artist I want to follow in general.

49. Avec Sans - Altitude (vapor pop)

When I first heard this track, I loved it a lot, especially the contrast between the restrained, almost plinky verses, and the smash of drums and synths which mark the start of the chorus. The rolls of the hihat and the fuzzy synth bass are overt and intense and I love it. Overall, it ended up not quite being of the same depth and character as many of the tracks above it though.

48. Trixie Mattel - Malibu (pop rock)

Trixie Mattel is such a fascinating artist, and she’s a genuinely great songwriter too—far outstripping most (all?) of her RuPaul’s Drag Race cohort. This is a great bit of pop rock, the kind of thing I absolutely groove along to and sing at the top of my lungs (at least until we get to the falsetto swoop in the chorus). I will absolutely keep following Trixie Mattel’s career as long as she’s producing music.

47. Beans on Toast - Logic Bomb (jazz folk)

The top track from Beans on Toast this year is this jazzy number, performed with his new full band, and filled with pessimistic predictions about the fall of the world through the computers we depend on. I’m far more sanguine about the world he describes, so I’m left to enjoy the groove and the gentle horn riff which launches each new doomsaying verse.

46. Nelson Kempf - Family Dollar (art folk)

A long, slightly meandering adventure in avant-garde folk, with Kempf’s conversational lyrics, found sound recordings like announcements at an airport, and the persistent presence of gently struck marimba or xylophone. It’s a great piece of music, although it’s also one which is hard to think about as a catchy tune—it’s certainly not something that gets in my head all that much, which is probably why it’s languishing a bit in the 40s. But every time I’m reminded of it, and listen to it, I do enjoy going through it again.

45. Marcelyn - Guilloteens (experimental folk rock)

I switched from Google Play Music (shutting down, of course) to Spotify about half way through this year, and as a result, my Spotify end-of-year list was jank, missing anything from the first half of the year, and lacking much of my revision listening. I say all of this because of all the songs I’d heard since switching, this was apparently my most listened-to on Spotify. It’s certainly not a bad song, and it’s a song which won Track of the Week the week it came out—but it’s also languishing in the mid-40s on my end of the year list, so it’s not genuinely a standout. But it is very solid, especially the shifting vocal harmonies from an evocative chorus. It’s certainly a song which makes me keep an eye on Marcelyn in the future.

44. Little Big - Hypnodancer (funeral rave)

It’s one of the great tragedies of 2020 (you know, along with all the sickness and dying) that there was no 2020 Eurovision Song Contest, because Little Big, progenitors of the hardstyle analog “funeral rave” were going to represent Russia. Which possibly would have been one of the only times I would have been cheering for that country come voting time. Anyway, the song they were taking to the competition was not this one, but another called UNO. But this is better, capturing the pop aesthetic into a hard 90s underground techno beat. Maybe we’ll get to see them again in 2021.

43. Walk Off The Earth feat. Harm & Ease - Toxic (eclectic pop cover)

Prolific indie pop coverers Walk Off The Earth have seemingly come up with a neverending stream of singles this year, none of which seem to be obviously pointing to a new album—especially given that their last album (my #2 album of 2019) was released towards the end of last year. But I keep listening to and enjoying their fun cover versions. This one, done with philosophical stablemates Harm & Ease builds into a great, raucous singalong version of one of the millennium’s pop classics.

42. Stormzy feat. Aitch - Pop Boy (grime)

I’m very conscious of the general lack of hip hop on my end of year list. It’s a genre that I think is ill-served by its most prominent examples currently. Kanye, Lil Uzi Vert, Drake—all have an extremely thin production quality and a drawly delivery that lacks the rhythm that really helps the style. But grime (and UK rap more generally) seems to get the point of what makes the style worthwhile. With a kicking beat, rhythmic delivery that lands its rhymes beautifully, Pop Boy is probably the best bit of grime this year. Stormzy and Aitch trading flows is genuinely fun to watch. I’m also glad that I have a new grime favourite after its Godfather outed himself as a raging anti-Semite earlier in the year. Stormzy seems pretty chill by comparison.

41. The Fratellis - Six Days in June (pop rock)

The Fratellis are a band who are absolutely rocking the late era of their career. Their 2018 album In Your Own Sweet Time was an absolutely cracking set of music, and if this lead single is anything to go by, their 2021 album is going to be similar. Swinging in 6/8, and with a horn section to add something of an orchestral sound to their accessible pop rock, this is a great track.

40. MOBS - Big World (80s pastiche pop)

These guys did an amazingly fun album this year, taking a broad kind of funky electropop and embracing all of the biggest 80s tropes. This one leans on the synth horns, and some working synths that you just know have the black and white keys reversed. It’s a jumpy, poppy, danceable track—one of the ones this year that’s most likely to get me grooving.

39. The Lemon Twigs - The One (alt rock)

A great piece of music (albeit one from an even better album), this is almost a kind of throwback alt rock—it has elements of the 80s to it, more poppy than the Cure, but maybe containing a similar kind of theatricality to it. It’s very happy to swing between high tenor vocals and squealing guitars for its drama. But on top of everything, it’s just a great bit of pop rock.

38. The Cuckoos - Weekend Lover (glam rock)

There’s something that you’ll likely see over and over again in this list, especially if you listen to the tracks and look for similarities. And it’s a driving, perhaps slightly repetitive riff in a pop rock song. This has a great one, incorporating bass and synths, and working in counterpoint to the straight up percussion line. It’s something of a formula that works really well for me, and you’ll see it a number of times on this list.

37. MisterWives - It’s My Turn (indie pop)

MisterWives are absolute stars of the music project. In 2017, the last time they really released much music, they had my #1 song of the year for Machine, and also took out #3 on my albums list. This year’s album didn’t do quite as well, but it’s hard to deny there are some pop bangers on it, like this one, their top entry this year. It’s a lot of fun, with manic, colourful energy. Sure, it’s not a #1 track of the year this time around, but I defy you not to have some fun with it.

36. Sammy Brue - Pendulum Thieves (alt country)

A fabulous piece of country rock, about stealing a bit of time back—maybe you want an extra minute with a lover in a perfect moment, or maybe you want to take back a fight. It’s nicely done with an anthemic chorus and some harmonic slide guitar in the background. Great piece of music.

35. TheFatRat feat. Laura Brehm - We’ll Meet Again (pop EDM)

Just a great piece of dance music. It has a great riff that evokes other classic dance numbers from the past 10 years like Clean Bandit’s Rather Be, throwing in a bit of grunty wobble bass for good measure. It’s short and sweet and catchy, and I like it for that.

34. Starbenders - Holy Mother (glam rock)

A track that came out of nowhere the week it was released, because I didn’t overly love the album. But this is just a full-throated bit of stomping glam rock that I couldn’t go past it for song of the week. Incidentally, Sam liked the album a whole bunch more than me and we ended up both giving this particular song a nod. It’s just a raucous, fun bit of music with a singalong chorus I often find myself headbanging along with.

33. Minh Beta - Let’s Fight COVID! (Vietnamese coronavirus pop)

Absolutely one of my iconic songs of 2020, this is a straight up pop banger released as a PSA by Minh Beta about the best ways to stop the spread of COVID-19 in his home country of Vietnam. It also has an excellent video clip[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSiK7U46PfA] with anthropomorphised superhero versions of things like “Wear a Mask”, “Don’t spread Facebook conspiracy theories” and “Don’t share your ice cream cone with your mates”. It’s apparently a re-skin of Minh Beta’s previous track “Viet Nam Oi!”, but we’ll forgive it for being a timely readjustment for a good reason (personally, I credit about 90% of the success that Vietnam has had containing Covid to this song). And also, it just absolutely slaps.

32. Kiesza feat. Lick Drop, Cocanina & Shan Vincent De Paul - Dance With Your Best Friend (pop)

You know this might be the highest track of pure unadulterated pop. There’s nothing subversive or quirky about this—this is just a catchy pop track. It’s helped along its path by some great rapping from Cocanina, and a bit of that laddish vocal quality from Shan Vincent De Paul with the London accent of Rat Boy and Yungblud. Just a fun bit of music.

31. Ultrahappyalarm - Messy Gyaru (happy hardcore)

CRITICAL DAYDREAM by ULTRA HAPPY ALARM

It has been so many years since I’ve heard a true bit of happy hardcore like this. It has all the things I loved about the style in the 90s, but it brings with it a complexity to the production which ensures that you can’t just immediately pick apart the tracks. This was the standout on a great set of variegated techno in Ultrahappyalarm’s EP Critical Daydream. More happy hardcore for 2021, please.

30. Saint Saviour - Taurus (chamber folk)

Instrumentally, this is such a beautiful combination of piano and strings, with cello dominant, and a set of beautifully blending folk voices over the top. Later, it brings in some soft percussion to bring it home. Hauntingly though, the repeated piano ostinato is layered with a counterpoint of vocals in the final section. It gives me chills.

29. Kate Rusby - Love of the Common People (indie folk cover)

I clearly love this song, originally a standard, but most famously recorded by Paul Young, because there were two separate covers this year which reached my end-of-the-week list of best tracks. This, however, is the better of the two. It has a soft kind of electronic folk quality to it, and Rusby’s sweet, unaffected vocals perfectly fit into the mix. I’ll admit that much of the credit for this being so high has to go to the original songwriters—the team that also wrote “Son of a Preacher Man”. TIL.

28. Seazoo - Honey Bee (indie pop rock)

A lovely bit of pop rock, clearly a genre I like, especially when it has a catchy, slightly unusual riff to it. In this case, it’s a repeated rhythmic guitar stab that plays against the snare backbeat, creating this persistent sense of rocking back and forward. The rest of the song is solid enough to keep it moving, and a late guitar solo kicks it into another geat.

27. City Mouth - Sanity For Summer (indie pop rock)

A fantastic bit of upbeat pop rock. It starts with a melodic theme, then absolutely blasts out a manic piano riff which becomes the energetic motor of the track. Mostly, it’s just catchy, energetic music that makes you want to get up and dance. We need tracks like that this year.

26. Cory Wong & Chris Thile - Bluebird (jazz-bluegrass crossover)

Here they are, my Top 10 albums of the year. As always, these are the top 1% of all the albums I heard this year which means, at least statistically speaking, they must be pretty good. The other thing that means they’re good is the fact that, well, they’re all just very good.

#10. Joe Wong - Nite Creatures (baroque pop)

This is one of the albums I heard as part of the period this year where I was up a lot in the middle of the night with a hungry, cranky baby. And it’s a hauntingly good soundtrack for the wee hours of the morning. It has a psychedelic wash to a lot of it, and orchestral-sounding arrangements that blur the line between strings and guitar, plus harp from Mary Lattimore. It has a rich slate of moving harmonic progressions, in the way that I like in the best dreampop. Wong’s voice is a pleasingly melted-chocolate baritone, which works well with the atmospheric swirl. Wong has a history as a composer for TV and film, and you can definitely see the influences of that in this work.

My top track (I have several) is Day After Day, elevated as it is by the presence of an oboe—an underutilised instrument. But other tracks are excellent as well, for example, the title track Nite Creatures, which almost sounds like what The Go! Team would write if they took a lot of LSD in the 70s. Other standouts are Dreams Wash Away, Nuclear Rainbow and Sleeping.

Recommended Track: Day After Day

#9. Luis Pestana - Rosa Pano (experimental electronica)

A fantastic sonic journey, Rosa Pano sounds atmospheric and theatrical from the very first moments, starting with a low drone, before bringing in tuned gongs, atonal synth scrawls and heavily processed vocals. This is never an album that feels weird-for-the-sake-of-weird though—it uses the more challenging elements as dramatic devices. For every moment of atonal noise, there’s a plunge into the cool clear waters of restrained melody. And yet at every moment, I feel like I’m leaning forward in anticipation of that next unexpected element. Pestana does an amazing job at drawing things out just longer than you expect, or giving you exquisite moments of crashing relief. I’ve not felt this level of control over experimental electronica since Roly Porter’s 2016 album Third Law, which also ended up near the top of my end-of-year list.

In some senses this almost feels like the 2020 equivalent of a classic album like Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells. It’s experimental, but has the feeling of narrative to it—elusive though the story might be, something is developing across the scope of the album. As such, it’s difficult, honestly to pick out individual elements—even though Sangra, for instance, contains some of the best bits in the album, it’s even better when it seamlessly moves into Arde Asa. Ao Romper da Bela Aurora brings in choral elements that shock you back into a remembrance of humanity, and Asa Machina provides an engine-like consistency moving you towards the finale. At 31 minutes, it absolutely packs a punch for its short running time, and is absolutely the kind of thing that you can (and perhaps should) consume at once, whole. It’s also the kind of thing I would love to see performed live one day. Hearing this boom over you in a dark room, sharing the experience with other audience members, would be a pretty incredible thing.

Recommended Track: Sangra

#8. Sufjan Stevens - The Ascension (art pop)

It has been a long time since we’ve had a proper solo release from Sufjan Stevens. In fact, his last album, Carrie & Lowell was actually the year before we started listening to 1000 albums a year. So The Ascension felt like a moment that was long coming for the music project. Better yet was the fact that unlike the subdued folk of his 2015 effort, this one feels more like the spiritual successor to his second-to-last album The Age of Adz. That was an album I adored (and saw him perform twice in concert), so I jumped into The Ascension with a great deal of joy. It has Stevens’ trademark ethereal but strident vocals, and layers upon layers of drifting synths. But there’s still a sense that there’s pure folk at its heart. The presentation might change, but so many of these songs you feel would survive either this level of heavy production, or Sufjan singing them with a guitar and no backup.

There are many tracks I love in here, including Make Me An Offer I Cannot Refuse, Tell Me You Love Me, and the harmonically challenging Ursa Major, which feels like the vocals and backing track are in constant tension with each other. I’m going to single out Lamentations though, which adds a surprising rhythmic element to what would otherwise be an extremely subdued, downtempo track.

Recommended Track: Lamentations

#7. MisterWives - Superbloom (indie pop)

In some ways, MisterWives is a victim of its own success with me. For a start, after so loving their 2017 album Connect the Dots, this was labouring under extremely high expectations. Moreover, while I generally try to hold out on listening to singles if I know that an album is imminent, I couldn’t stop myself from picking up the first trickles that came from this album, and then the half-album EP release that preceded it. Which meant that by the time it actually came around to listening to Superbloom, I’d heard approximately 50% of it already. I had missed that moment when all the goodness crashed on me at once. Of course, it’s still an extremely good album—but if the world were a fair and equal place, you feel like this should be a pure lock for my Album of the Year. 

There’s still plenty of great, thoughtful but mostly upbeat pop in this album. Danceable tracks like It’s My Turn and Love Me True are tempered by more atmospheric numbers like Valentine’s Day and Decide to Be Happy, the latter of which feels like it’s channeling a lot of 90s RnB, in the best possible way. Another thing, which made me realise this wasn’t the standout album of 2020, is that it’s an extremely long album (it’s 19 tracks, and over an hour in length), and the quality isn’t entirely consistent. This almost certainly means that tightening up the album would improve the overall quality. As a whole album, it suffers, even though as a collection of great tracks it packs more of a punch, perhaps, than some albums above it in this list.

Recommended Track: It’s My Turn

#6. Lola Marsh - Someday Tomorrow Maybe (Israeli noir pop)

For a long time this year, this was considered the front-runner for me. Coming out as it did in February, and being a clearly great album, everything released later was always compared to it: “is this as good as Lola Marsh’s album?” was a tacit question whenever a new great album came up. This survived most of the challenges, and winds up still in my top ten after what’s been a great year of music. This has excellent moments of songwriting, delivered with a sense of ennui, very appropriate for 2020, even though it was released before the pandemic truly took hold.

There are moments of exceptionally subdued folk songwriting, and elements which expand into rich dramatic presentations. Tracks like Like in the Movies start out with a beautifully simple melody and then build in a series of vast smash cuts to an ecstatic conclusion. The best track, however, is the opening track Echoes, which is melodically beautiful and develops in a number of unexpected but harmonious ways. They seem to know it’s the best track too, because they rework it into the more melodic, less rock-driven closing track Where Are You Tonight?. In some senses it feels like cheating to use the same song twice, but a) it’s such a great song that you don’t mind hearing it again, and b) the reworking is so skillfully done that it feels like both are worthy inclusions on their own merits. But it’s a great album, and one that still feels, 10 months later, like one of the very best of the year.

Recommended Track: Echoes

#5. Dyble Longdon - Between a Breath and a Breath (chamber folk)

This is a bittersweet album, a collaboration between vocalist Judy Dyble of Fairport Convention, and David Longdon, a multi-instrumentalist from the group Big Big Train. Shortly before its release, Dyble died, meaning that this was and is always going to be the only release we get from this duo. And that’s a damn tragedy, because this is a phenomenal album. It is even better as a collaboration, because there’s an inspired synergy between Dyble’s sweet trad-folk vocals and the sumptuous and rich arrangements from Longdon. There’s always a connection between the two, so it never feels like the simple folk qualities are being overwhelmed by post-rock ostentatiousness—often there will be interplay between the vocals and Longdon on flute, for instance, which connects the two elements beautifully.

Best though is the fact that they can use these elements to balance each other, or provide contrasts that generate immensely moving moments of drama. There’s the epic 11-minute France for instance, which feels symphonic in scope, or there’s my personal favourite, Obedience, which ties a beautifully sweet and simple folk tune with an immense prog-rock crescendo. But the album overall is a journey in itself. It’s incredibly sad that this is only perfect moment of collaboration we get from these two.

Recommended Track: Obedience

#4. Hugo Kant - Far From Home (downtempo nu-jazz)

I’m genuinely surprised with how well this held up, but I also remember how much I immediately fell in love with this album when I first heard it (in brief snippets when screening the week’s new releases, and then again when I listened through in full). This is a fabulous set of music, building rich soundscapes around punching downtempo breakbeats. You will notice jazz flute a lot in some of my top picks this year, and here’s another one which uses it extensively. But there’s a rich instrumentation overall here—woodwinds are part, but there’s more of the orchestra utilised at various points where it’s required to provide drama, or an upsurge in emotion from swelling strings.

Even better is when non-Western influences are incorporated to broaden the scope of the sound, or when there’s a deep groove to the bassline that drives a track forward despite anything else going on, such is the excellent Everything Is Transformed. My personal pick is personally High Gravity, which is probably more motif-based, and driven more by its percussion. It’s a high point for me, but others will probably consider tracks like Melancholia, or The Second Sun as more representative of the album overall. But whatever you pick from this album, you’re likely to find something good. It’s an eclectic but extremely enjoyable outing.

Recommended Track: High Gravity

#3. The Lemon Twigs - Songs For The General Public (alt rock)

This is a genuinely fabulous collection of tracks. It’s less of a thematically linked album than some of the others on this list, but the hit rate is quite phenomenal, especially given it’s quite a long album. There’s a genuinely beautiful throwback quality to a lot of these tracks—they feel often enough like they’re unstuck from time. Is this a long lost track from the late 60s psychedelia? Perhaps it’s pop rock from the 80s? Maybe, just maybe, it’s an ultra-hip interpretation of the last 70 years of music from the year of our lord 2020? Whatever it is, it’s exceptional songwriting for the most part, delivered with almost a kind of glam swagger that evokes the early albums of music project darling Kyle Craft.

Singling out tracks is both easy and hard to do, because I love so much of this album. The lead single The One is a particular favourite, but I grew to especially love the meter-shifting Only a Fool the more I heard it. Plus you can’t deny that it starts strongly with the one-two punch of rock driven sing-along Hell On Wheels followed by sunny pop Live in Favour of Tomorrow. But you have to also consider the cabaret charm of organ-or-maybe-calliope heavy Why Do Lovers Own Each Other?. You can see the bind I’m in. It was, to some extent a bit of a surprise to find this as high as it is on this list, but when I look back on the smorgasbord of goodness available from it, it absolutely feels like a correct choice for a Top 3 Album of the Year. 

Recommended Track (aw jeez… let’s go with): Only a Fool

#2. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - K.G. (microtonal psychedelic rock)

The first time I really got into King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard was in 2017, which was happily the year where they set out to record 5 albums in 12 months. What struck me then was that this was a technically brilliant band that managed to maintain a stunning level of quality when you’d expect them to be prioritising quantity. The standout from 2017 for me was Flying Microtonal Banana, their first experiment with non-Western microtonal tunings for their instruments.

Their successor to this, K.G., also done with microtonal tunings, is even better, and it’s perhaps the moment when my generalised love for King Giz turned into something genuinely special. This is a remarkably fine collection of music, played as a zero-gap set and running the gamut from heavy prog rock to swirling psychedelia, 90s electropop and metal. Everything is tinged with the alien from the unexpected xenharmonics, but everything is also bolstered by the technicality of the performers. It’s very easy for this kind of thing to become a mess—to lack structure or to get caught up itself too much. This does none of that, and stays crisp and polished right through to the slamming finale, The Hungry Wolf of Fate.

Recommended track: Intrasport

#1. Ada Rook - 2,020 Knives (electropop concrète)

In my mind, there’s no better album to summarise the year we’ve just had than this sprawling, angry and claustrophobically intimate album from Ada Rook. Rook has been prolific this year, releasing an album as part of the duo rook&nomie towards the very end of 2019, producing and mastering albums for an array of artists whom I’ve also enjoyed, and even turning her hand to industrial grindcore under the name crisis sigil. But nothing is better than 2,020 Knives. There’s a wrenching sense of trauma at the core of these songs—lyrically they can be by turns devastating, heart-breaking or strangely life-affirming. But they’re placed in a strong, aggressive punch of industrial electropop, laced with guttural screams of existence that seem to perfectly match the state of the world in 2020.

It’s not a satirical album though, and it’s not obviously trying to make some sweeping statements on the state of the world. Instead, it’s clearly a deeply personal album—but there’s such quality in the songwriting, the beautifully polished production, the complexity of the rhythms, that something connects and then we start to see our own reflection in Rook’s. And if it connects and hits as often as it does for me—well, it ends up your #1 album of the year. It’s a perfectly fitting album for the year that was 2020.

Recommended track: Reverie (JH Ligation Experiment 1)

And there we have my top albums for 2020. Stay tuned for my top 50 (!) tracks of the year, which I’ll post over the next couple of days. After the Christmas break, I’ll also post my longer list of albums #31-100, and my list of tracks #51-100.