The very best films of 2020: From Emma to Hamilton and Parasite

It’s been a tough old year for the film industry - and especially for cinemas.

As the pandemic began to take hold at the start of 2020, shoots were abandoned and the big studios started to pluck their prized blockbusters from the release schedule.

No Time To Die, already delayed thanks to a departing director and an on-set injury for star Daniel Craig, was the first to be postponed, kick-starting a domino effect that saw big ticket releases like Tenet and Wonder Woman 1984 pushed back until later in the year. The eventual decision to move Bond’s release date all the way back to next April was the final straw for some cinemas, including the Cineworld franchise, its sister chain Picturehouse and countless struggling independents, who’d all been counting on 007 to fill seats and sell tickets.

Amid all that doom and gloom, though, 2020 has brought us plenty of brilliant films that are testament to the magic of cinemagoing, from Bong Joon-ho’s history-making Parasite to striking period pieces and a staggering horror debut from Rose Glass. Here are some of our favourites...

Saint Maud

This squirm-inducing horror announced director Rose Glass and star Morfydd Clark as two of the most exciting new talents in film right now. Clark is by turns captivating and chilling as Maud, a devout palliative care nurse consumed by her contradictory feelings for her glamorous patient Amanda (Jennifer Ehle). The resulting conversion attempt turns very sinister very quickly - though the taut script leaves a bit of room for some mordant laughs, too. Every frame of Glass’s 90 minute film is exquisite (or exquisitely weird) with Clark lit up like a Renaissance saint. A rapturous debut. KR

Personal History of David Copperfield

Armando Iannucci’s riotous take on Dickens’ doorstopper of a coming-of-age story gets much closer to the spirit of the source material than a ‘traditional’ adaptation might: he dispenses with some of the plot’s more circumlocutionary turns and gives some of the more insipid characters mercifully short shrift, amping up the mad energy of the book’s best bits. Dev Patel is an unalloyed delight as David and proves himself as a master of physical comedy; his supporting cast is marvellous too, with Hugh Laurie’s Mr Dick, Tilda Swinton’s donkey-hating Betsey Trotwood, Rosalind Eleazar’s Agnes and Ben Whishaw’s full-body-cringe-inducing Uriah Heep all deserving special mention. KR

BFI Player, Amazon, Curzon Home Cinema

Tenet

There was a point sometime in the early summer when it seemed like 2020 might be a blockbuster-free year, as studios swooped in to pull their tentpole releases from the cinematic calendar. Fair play to Christopher Nolan, staunch defender of the film-going experience, for stubbornly releasing Tenet in August after a series of pandemic-induced delays and luring us back to the (socially distanced) cinema. Tenet’s plot is pretty much inexplicable (I’m not even convinced that Nolan himself understands it) and so is Kenneth Branagh’s Russian accent, but after months of streaming on tiny televisions, what a joy it was to see Nolan’s ever-ambitious action sequences play out on the big screen.  KR

Digital download

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

Sacha Baron Cohen gets America. In fact, he gets the world. It’s a good thing someone understands us. In this time of trouble, the mirror held up by Sacha and co is just what we need. His secret weapon in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is 23-year-old Maria Bakalova, the breakout star of the year, who plays Borat’s cage-dwelling daughter Tutar, who he hopes to offer to a high-ranking Republican as a gift. Tutar is transformed, in America, from a “Notsy” into a “Hotsy”. Decked out in fancy clothes, and with the new fake name of “Sarah Jessica Parker Drummond”, she attends a debutantes ball in Georgia.  It’s as beautifully absurd as anything in Brass Eye and proof that humans take an awful lot on trust. COS 

Amazon

A Beautiful Day In The Neighbourhood

The role of much-loved US kids’ TV presenter slash national treasure Mr Rogers is a perfect fit for Tom Hanks, Hollywood’s Nicest Man. A Beautiful Day In The Neighbourhood, based on an Esquire profile from the Nineties, follows cynical journo Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys) as he’s tasked with meeting the great man to write up a quick piece on Rogers for the magazine’s American Heroes issue. He reckons the presenter is too good to be true, and quickly sets about trying to probe for some hidden flaw or darkness - only for his encounters with Rogers to slowly, surely force him to confront his own demons. It’s been a good year for Marielle Heller - as well as A Beautiful Day In The Neighbourhood, she’s also directed a filmed version of Broadway play What The Constitution Means To Me and starred in The Queen’s Gambit as chess prodigy Beth’s adoptive mum. KR

Amazon, GooglePlay

Shirley

This nightmarish alt-biopic from Josephine Decker re-imagines the life of horror writer Shirley Jackson, the author of stories such as The Haunting Of Hill House and We Have Always Lived In The Castle, through the prism of her chilling tales. The result is a disorientating mood piece that side-steps jump scares in favour of a slowburn sense of dread that will gnaw at you long after the credits have rolled. Elisabeth Moss plays Jackson as thrillingly unhinged, while Michael Stuhlbarg is compellingly awful as her husband. KR

Curzon Home Cinema

The Lighthouse

Mind-blowing horror debut The Witch put director Robert Eggers on the map in 2015. Then, he returned with The Lighthouse, another period piece that’s anything but quaint. In the 1890s, on the coast of New England, Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson) has mermaids and octopi on his mind. A new boss, Irish “wickie” Tom Wake (Willem Dafoe) is an alcoholic, with a Gollum-like attitude to the lighthouse beam (he won’t let Ephraim within a sniff of it). Thanks both to Eggers and Dafoe’s terrifically nuanced performance, Tom is, in every sense, a keeper. Pattison is just as good. It’s a film to cement Eggers’s reputation as one of cinema’s most outrageous poets. If you’re looking for a wild ride, here it be. COS

Amazon

Da 5 Bloods

Black soldiers were disproportionately represented on the frontlines of the Vietnam War, yet the African-American perspective has repeatedly been sidelined in the many, many war films about the conflict. Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, which tells the story of four black veterans returning to the country after nearly four decades, provides a much-needed corrective to that. Led by MAGA-hat wearing Paul (Delroy Lindo, giving a powerhouse performance), their mission is twofold: to find the remains of their fallen comrade Norman (Chadwick Boseman) and to hunt down the chest filled with gold they buried on the battlefield decades ago. Lee’s film is at its most devastating when he weaves together the two wars these soldiers were fighting, with battlefield scenes interspersed with real newsreel footage of civil rights activists. KR

Netflix

Rocks

This gorgeous film about British-Nigerian teenager Shola (Rocks to her friends), and her quest to protect her brother when their mum goes AWOL, was the balm we needed in 2020. Co-written by Theresa Ikoko and Claire Wilson, and featuring a star-making central performance from Bukky Bukray, its cast was compromised of real-life schoolgirls handpicked for the film. Watching them Snapchat and giggle their way across the capital was the freshest big screen depiction of London I’ve ever seen.  JT

Netflix

Parasite

Korean director Bong Joon-ho caused a glorious upset at this year’s Academy Awards when he picked up Best Picture AND Best Director for Parasite – everyone had called it for Sam Mendes’s 1917. But it was the right winner: this satire about the rich and poor swapping lives is a gold-minted future classic. Perfectly paced and full of tightly controlled twists, it’s full of watch-through-your-fingers moments, builds up into a frenzy of violence, and has important things to say about class and privilege, without ever feeling didactic. JT

Amazon

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Corsets, gusty coastal walks and lots of sneaky candle-lit chats: Celine Sciamma’s exquisite late 18th century French historical drama was swoonworthy. A rare look at women through the female gaze, it centred on the love story between upper class Heloise and artist Marianne, who has been sent to paint her portrait. As a study of desire between women and the power of art, it was a work of art in itself.  JT

Curzon Home Cinema, Amazon

Emma.

No one ever complains about a new Jane Austen adaptation, but books this beloved always come under scrutiny whenever anyone new takes them on. Fortunately for Autumn de Wilde and Anya Taylor-Joy, in the title role of Emma Woodhouse, they created a refreshingly modern take on Austen’s gossipiest protagonist, while remaining true to the book. And as Mr Knightley, Johnny Flynn earned himself a spot in the canon of actors who can pull off wearing top hats and tights while still remaining charismatic.  JT

Amazon, GooglePlay

Queen & Slim

One of the most affecting and politically urgent films of the year was Queen & Slim, in which a young black couple’s dull Tinder date ends with them being stopped and searched, before killing a police officer in self-defence. Starring Daniel Kaluuya and the particularly brilliant Jodie Turner-Smith, it’s a cross between an apocalyptic road movie and a cat and mouse chase. Debut director Melina Matsoukas’s previous work on music videos was apparent: the stunning visuals took things up a notch, and made for a must-see big screen experience. JT

Amazon 

1917

Sam Mendes took a simple story – a pair of First World War soldiers must deliver a message across No Man’s Land – and made it technically dazzling. Cleverly filmed and constructed to look like one long shot, the camera followed Lance Corporals Schofield and Blake (George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman) in a way that made for an immersive viewing experience. That, and the fact that an endless parade of A-List British male actors popped up for a cameo, made it prestige cinema.  JT

Amazon

Lovers Rock

This gorgeous film had us pining for packed dancefloors and house parties where the bass makes the walls shake. Steve McQueen’s love letter to the blues party scene of the Eighties tentatively unspools over the course of one big night, opening as 17-year-old Martha (Amarah-Jae St Aubyn, in her first screen role) gives her God-fearing parents the slip, shimmying down a drainpipe to head off to Ladbroke Grove for an evening of dancing and flirting (mostly with Micheal Ward’s Franklin, much to the chagrin of her friend Patty, stuck with his far less charismatic friend by default). The all-singing, all-dancing set pieces are a perfect marriage of choreography and swoony cinematography (courtesy of the wildly talented Shabier Kirchner). KR

BBC iPlayer

Mank

If you’ve never given a moment’s thought to the screenwriter of Orson Welles’ epic, Citizen Kane - Herman J. Mankiewicz, aka Mank - that only proves how much we need David Fincher’s passionate, pulchritudinous, if flawed biopic. An industry insider tells Mank (Gary Oldman), “You always side with the writer!” Fincher’s guilty of the same wonderful crime and in the process concocts a fabulous and moving yarn of his own. Amanda Seyfried deserves a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as starlet Marion Davies and may well get one; Hollywood loves smart girls disguised as dumb blondes. She, Oldman, Tom Burke (as Orson Welles) and Charles Dance (as William Randolph Hearst) inhabit their characters so completely, it’s like watching photos come to life. COS

Netflix

Mogul Mowgli

Mogul Mowgli is one of the funniest, darkest and smartest movies of the year, which is great news for anyone who loves star and co-writer Riz Ahmed. Whether you’re into his music (he’s a fab rapper in real life) or his acting, this film feels like a summation, as well as a canny dismantling, of everything that’s gone before. The plot couldn’t be simpler (man gets ill, man doesn’t like it) but as an experience, Ahmed’s passion project could hardly be more layered. The script, which follows British-Pakistani rapper Zed as he discovers he’s suffering from an autoimmune disease, touches on Islamic lore and cultural appropriation, as well as premature baldness, constipation and the horror of discovering, midway through a conversation, that your girlfriend views you as an ‘ex.’ COS

BFI Player, Curzon Home Cinema

Uncut Gems

2020 got you stressed? Don’t, under any circumstances, watch Uncut Gems. It’s a film that doesn’t build up to some aneurysm-inducing climax, but instead immediately dunks you in it, and keeps your head submerged for 135 minutes. That hysteria is achieved in no small part by Adam Sandler’s lead, the chaotic gem merchant Howard Ratner, making bad decision after bad decision, but also by the Safdie Brothers’ directorial mischief, with clattering conversations and claustrophobic close-ups. It’s a challenge, sure, but amongst all the madness, Sandler’s undeniable magic as an actor shines through. JE

Netflix

Hamilton

The filmed version of the original Broadway production of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s staggeringly successful take on the 10 dollar founding father’s story was meant to land in cinemas some time in 2021. Then the pandemic hit, theatres closed around the world and musical fans were bereft - until the Hamilton movie’s release was mercifully expedited courtesy of Disney+. It’s hard to replicate the theatrical experience in your front room, but this film, directed by Miranda’s long-time collaborator Thomas Kail, gives it a good shot; plus, it’s a thrill for more recent Hamilton fans to be able to see the original cast - Leslie Odom Jr as Aaron Burr, Philippa Soo as Eliza Schuyler and Renee Elise Goldsberry as her sister Angelica - in action. KR

Disney+

Mangrove

As you’d expect from a film dedicated to George Floyd, the first film in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series contains many weighty and sombre moments. That said, the true story of how a group of Black activists made legal history, in the early Seventies, is also giddy and gleeful. To borrow a line from one of the main characters, some of the jokes here “could make a stuffed bird laugh.” McQueen’s precise visuals, as ever, astound. Notting Hill, for two decades, has been synonymous with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. Fingers crossed, that’s about to change. COS

BBC iPlayer

County Lines

Young London teen Tyler (Conrad Khan) shoves drugs up his bum then takes the train to unpleasant spots in the English countryside where he passes the drugs on to dealers and witnesses and endures horrors. If you were looking for a word to describe writer-director Henry Blake’s horribly timely debut you would not pick “fun”, yet the filmmaking is so sharp I was hooked from the get-go. The grim details he shares with us aren’t the product of his imagination. He’s made a drama out of a real crisis and the result is one of the most haunting films of 2020. COS

Cinemas, BFI Player

I Am Greta

This intimate portrait of the young climate activist, made by Nathan Grossman who has known Greta and her family for years, is exactly what despairing eco-lovers (and parents, and kids) need. The meanies in Thunberg’s life used to be the kids at school and the bullying brought on depression, selective mutism, OCD and an eating disorder. Now the meanies are men like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro - and their vicious words can’t hurt her. It’s a thoughtful, uplifting, smart movie about a small person with a big impact. COS

Amazon

Red, White and Blue

After spending the best part of the last decade in a galaxy far, far away, John Boyega is now done with his Star Wars contract - meaning that one of our best young actors is finally free to devote more time to projects that are arguably more deserving of his talents. First up? A collaboration with Steve McQueen, part of the director’s Small Axe anthology series. Boyega plays real-life cop Logan Leroy, one of few black officers to serve in the Met Police in the Eighties. Red, White and Blue is an urgent, galvanising watch, rooted in the complex dynamic between Logan and his father (played by Steve Toussaint), a victim of police brutality. A lesser filmmaker might have spun Logan’s story into fodder for a feel-good biopic about success against the odds; McQueen offers us something much more honest and thought-provoking. KR

BBC iPlayer

Soul

If you want dumb fun from your animated family movies, you’ve come to the wrong place. Our hero, Joe (Jamie Foxx, voicing the first black Pixar lead), is a failed jazz pianist who teaches in a New York high school. He starts out this high-falutin plot as a regular man, only to transform into his own naked soul to act as an abstract mentor to the as-yet-unborn. His sidekick 22 (Tina Fey) is a gloomy and unbiddable pre-born who likes to quote George Orwell on the evils of state-sanctioned schooling. Onward, Pixar’s other 2020 offering, was sweet and fun. Soul, though, is in a different league. Co-directed and written by Pete Docter and Kemp Powers, this is nourishment for, well, the soul. If you’re feeling kind of blue, help is on its way.  COS

Disney+, December 25

I’m Thinking Of Ending Things

Charlie Kaufman’s latest is so good it induces separation anxiety. The US writer-turned-director has found a new avatar in Jessie Buckley, and she channels his nervous energy with such a sweaty and waspish intensity that it’s traumatic when the credits start to roll. Buckley is an American poet, called Lucy. Or is she? As in all of Kaufman’s best work, the line between people and puppets is blurred. She and her lumpen boyfriend (Jesse Plemons) head off to Oklahoma to meet his loopy parents (Toni Collette and David Thewlis). There’s a twist, and even if you see it coming, you won’t feel cheated. COS

Netflix

Mulan

A rare Disney live-action remake that doesn’t treat the source version as gospel (though we lose the cute dragon) this $200m tale of a young girl who pretends to be a boy to take her father’s place in the army boasts an all-Asian cast and a lead, Yifei Liu, whose emotional life dazzles as much as her fighting skills, while her battalion leader boyfriend has been given the heave-ho, replaced by a workplace equal, a boyish fellow recruit. How Liu manages to look 13 at 33 is anybody’s guess, but we’ll have whatever she’s having. COS

Disney+

Saint Frances

Were you waiting for the missing link between Bridesmaids and Roma? Well you’ll find it in this modest but punchy black comedy about a listless thirtysomething who drifts into nannying for a lesbian couple and their obstreperous six year old. Just as she finds herself inconveniently and unwantedly pregnant by her younger lover. Menstruation, reproductive rights, post-natal depression are all dealt with with wry, gentle humour that pulls at your heart. COS

Amazon