The 20 best films of 2014

1. Boyhood

Richard Linklater, USA

Richard Linklater’s film hinges on the tension between past, present and future and wears its long production and philosophical heft lightly. It feels as effortless as breathing. Precious little happens, yet everything does.

— Ryan Gilbey

☞ Read Ashley Clark’s review

► Watch kogonada’s video essay The long conversation: Richard Linklater on cinema and time

• Now online: The best films of 2016!

2. Goodbye to Language 3D

(Adieu au langage) Jean-Luc Godard, France

Godard’s retina-invigorating ciné-poem… the densest but also the most cinema-bending film on the Riviera, one which made the entire audience squint, blink and panic in unison.

— Isabel Stevens, S&S July 2014

☞ Read Nick Pinkerton’s review

☞ Read Nick Roddick’s Cannes blog post
 Ah Dieu, puns Jean-Luc Dogard

=3. Leviathan

18 votes

UK release date 7 November 2014 in cinemas and on VoD / DVD & Blu-ray 12 January 2015

► Trailer

Andrey Zvyagintsev, Russia

Balances the universality the director has always striven for with a brilliantly etched microcosm of the lawlessness that grips Russia today, where patronage, profiteering and power are intertwined.

— Ian Christie, S&S December 2014

☞ Read Ryan Gilbey’s review

☞ Read Geoff Andrew’s Cannes blog post Big fish to fry

 

=3. Horse Money

18 votes

UK festival release 16/18 October 2014 (London Film Festival)

► Trailer

(Cavalo Dinheiro) Pedro Costa, Portugal

Brazen when it comes to bending cinema’s usual rules about the time and space(s) that characters occupy… a collision between cinematic history and authentic stories of suffering.

— Jason Anderson, S&S December 2014

 

5. Under the Skin

Jonathan Glazer, United Kingdom/USA/Switzerland

I’ve been waiting most of my life for a film that combined the sensibilities of Tarkovsky and Norman J. Warren. Under the Skin was worth the wait. It still haunts me, and I suspect it always will.

— Matthew Sweet

☞ Read Samuel Wigley’s review

☞ Read Away from the picture: Mica Levi on her Under the Skin soundtrack

6. The Grand Budapest Hotel

Wes Anderson, USA/Germany

Anderson’s most complete fabrication yet, a fanatically
and fantastically detailed, sugar-iced, calorie-stuffed, gleefully overripe Sachertorte of a film.

— Philip Kemp, S&S March 2014

☞ Read Philip Kemp’s review

7. Winter Sleep

(Kis uykusu) Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey/France/Germany

Without doubt a formidably achieved, intellectually substantial drama… when Winter Sleep comes alive, it is as
powerful and suggestive as any Ceylan film.

— Jonathan Romney, S&S December 2014

☞ Read Jonathan Romney’s review

8. The Tribe

(Plemya) Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy, Ukraine

Set in a school for deaf teenagers, it reimagines the language of sight and sound (or the absence of sound) in cinema to startlingly original effect; you watch and listen in a way that’s entirely fresh and unfamiliar.

— Jonathan Romney

=9. Ida

Pawel Pawlikowski, Poland/Denmark/France/United Kingdom

A spare, haunting piece of minimalism… crafted with deceptive simplicity, riven with uncertainty… its indelible images are a stark reminder of Bazin’s dictum that film itself is a kind of miracle.

— Catherine Wheatley, S&S October 2014

☞ Read Catherine Wheatley’s review

=9. Jauja

Lisandro Alonso, Argentina/Denmark/USA

Jauja is such a marvellous experience: it shows that film is a medium that can lock up a history (or memories or dreams or nightmares) inside it, then release it in all the splendour of Patagonian skies.

— Kong Rithdee

☞ Read Adrian Martin’s review

☞ Read Thirza Wakefield’s London Film Festival blog post Viggo goes west