The Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association is out with its annual list of the best movies of the year – and in an era of sequels and franchises, original stories dominated the poll.
One Battle After Another took top honors, followed by Sinners and Marty Supreme. Battle also earned best actor for Leonardo DiCaprio, best supporting actress for Teyana Taylor and best director and screenplay for Paul Thomas Anderson.
KERA's Stephen Becker is a voting member of the group. Here are his picks for the year's best films:
Hamnet
How do you know a movie stuck with you? When you feel yourself welling up a bit just talking about it to someone else. Jessie Buckley gives one of the most deeply felt performances I’ve ever seen as the wife of William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) who are both torn apart when the plague claims their son. You’ll never watch a performance of “Hamlet” through quite the same eyes again. (In theaters)
Sinners
Michael B. Jordan commands my attention in everything I’ve ever seen him in – playing twins almost feels like cheating. He and director Ryan Coogler renew one of the great cinematic partnerships in this story of 1930s gangsters confronted by evil in the Deep South. A dance sequence that traverses the history of Black music in America is possibly the most well-executed scene put on film this year. (On HBO Max)
Marty Supreme
What’s more American than a young striver hell-bent on proving his doubters wrong? Timothee Chalamet straddles the line between naive boyishness and maturing young adulthood as a ping-pong pro prepping for a big tournament to finally show the world the greatness he already knows he possesses. (In theaters Dec. 25)
Frankenstein
Director Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water) has a knack for humanizing non-human characters. So, who better to take a fresh look at this well-worn tale of a doctor determined to defeat death? As with his previous movies, you’ll surely find yourself pulling for the monster. (On Netflix)
It Was Just an Accident
After a chance meeting, a mechanic is finally able to confront the guard who tormented him as a political prisoner. This year’s Palme d'Or winner at Cannes asks us to consider what any of us would do when presented with the opportunity to exact revenge – and what does the action we take say about ourselves? (In theaters)
Blue Moon
Director Richard Linklater keeps it simple in staging nearly the entire film inside the Broadway hangout Sardi’s. That’s where Lorenz Hart has escaped to rather than take in the debut of Oklahoma! – the production that transformed the team of Rodgers and Hart into Rodgers and Hammerstein. Ethan Hawke is the best he’s ever been as his Hart laments a life that could’ve been. (Streaming)
Come See Me in the Good Light
When Colorado poet laureate Andrea Gibson learns she has terminal cancer, their remaining days, hours – even minutes – become precious in this documentary. Director Ryan White turns a death sentence into a story about how to live.
The Perfect Neighbor
This documentary is told almost entirely through police bodycam footage as we witness a long-simmering conflict among neighbors turn deadly. Surely the most inventively told story you’ll see this year.
One Battle After Another
I didn’t swoon nearly as hard for this one as other critics, but it’s definitely praiseworthy for a few standout performances. Namely: Leonardo DiCaprio as an adrift dad jolted back to life when his teenage daughter (Chase Infiniti) is kidnapped by an old nemesis (Sean Penn). Meanwhile, Teyana Taylor grabs you by the lapels as the mother who can’t let domestic life get in the way of her revolutionary mission. It’s at least an hour too long, but its climactic car chase makes up for it.
Jay Kelly
No one will accuse George Clooney of stretching to play an aging movie star looking back on his career and how it affected his off-screen relationships. But what can I say: I like watching a movie star flash that movie-star charm, and nobody does it better. Adam Sandler gives his usual buffoonery a break to lovingly portray our star’s long-suffering manager.
