Your favourite films you've seen for the first time this year

All the papers and websites have been publishing their lists of the "best" films of 2013, and I find it incredibly dull. What I'm much more interested in is people's favourite films they've seen in the past few months or year, which they had never seen before. It doesn't need to have been released this year. And we're not looking for films you think are objectively, critically "good films" or award recommendations, just films that you really really liked.

Also, please do try to write a sentence or two about why you liked the films; these kind of threads often quickly descend into a list of film titles, which is pretty tedious.

The Kings of Summer:

Wonderful little film about some teenagers running away and building a house in the forest. I loved the sense of freedom and camaraderie, and it genuinely is laugh out loud funny.

The Way, Way Back:

This film and the next one shows Steve Carrell's range as an actor. The first scene is truly shocking in its emotional harshness, but this is another really fun, and really funny, coming of age story.

Dan In Real Life:

I guess it's a romantic comedy, but whereas I normally find them to be tedious and cheesy, this one struck me. The chemistry between Carrell and his impossible love interest is immediate and so believable, and the film is way funnier than it has any right to be.

The Green Mile:

It's 189 minutes and it never drags. Astonishing, heartbreaking film. Probably my favourite Tom Hanks performance. I'm a big fan of Darabont's other Stephen King adaptions (The Mist and Shawshank) so I don't know why it's taken me so long to see this one, but I'm so glad I did. I've also got Fred Astaire's Cheek To Cheek in my iTunes library since seeing this!

The Station Agent:

From 2003 and starring Peter Dinklage (Tyrion on Game of Thrones). Wonderful, heartwarming film about three lonely people finding friendship. Can't recommend it enough.

 

Funny you bring this up, I actually made this list out of curiosity from my Letterboxd account the other day.

1. Bad Girl (1932, Frank Borzage)
2. 7th Heaven (1927, Frank Borzage)
Borzage was my major discovery this year. Bad Girl is an actual masterpiece -- a stunningly funny, warm, sad slice of life about a couple during the Depression. 7th Heaven is similar in some ways, but silent, with religious overtones and a WWII setting. Both are so moving, good-hearted and visually arresting I could hardly stand it.

3. Frances Ha (2012, Noah Baumbach)
Saw this in Manhattan at the IFC in May with my girlfriend. It's such a lovely film -- everyone is saying it's some sort of indictment of our generation or something, but while it talks about its lead character Frances in the context of the economic state of the U.S., didn't Chaplin do the same thing in Modern Times? What the film is really about, though, is building a deep and not necessarily stated bond with someone. It's also wonderful that it focuses on two female characters and isn't a romantic comedy, and doesn't require a love interest for its lead.

4. The Scoundrel (1935, Ben Hecht & Charles MacArthur)
Indescribable. I had to resort to back channels to track down this Oscar winner, a very odd proto-It's a Wonderful Life with Noel Coward (!) as an unmitigated jerk who has to atone for his sore treatment of people throughout his life. It's absorbing, and the acting is incredibly naturalistic for a film of this era.

5. Marwencol (2010, Jeff Malmberg)
One of the finest documentaries I've seen in recent years, about a man who lost his long-term memories after being brutally beaten (for a truly cruel reason that is eventually explained in the film) and retreats from the world into a fantasy city he creates with dolls and models. More winning than it sounds, and quite powerful in its small way.

6. Vacation from Marriage (1945, Alexander Korda)
Don't want to say too much about this one -- it's just a brutally funny film about a couple who discover the larger world separately and find that it changes their personalities and threatens their relationships. Quite observant, and it's wonderful to see Robert Donat and Deborah Kerr take on roles this comedic. In the early part of the film, with both are timid stuffed-shirts, they reminded me of the McFlys at the beginning of Back to the Future!

7. The Dawn Patrol (1930, Howard Hawks)
Available from Warner Archive on-demand, and I suggest you grab it if you like war films of this period like All Quiet on the Western Front. Really sobering and observant, and my first Hawks that isn't a comedy or a Bogart film.

8. Panic in the Streets (1950, Elia Kazan)
Just watched this the other day -- it's a spectacular semi-noir that painstakingly investigates how institutions react to the threat of plague in America, with the complication that it's been brought over by a murdered criminal and now every member of the underworld who had contact with him must be reached and quarantined. So many odd characters and interesting scenes, and a great use of New Orleans locations. I may get contracted with plague myself for saying this, but I vastly prefer this to Kazan's more famous films like On the Waterfront and the execrable Gentleman's Agreement.

9. The House on 92nd Street (1945, Henry Hathaway)
Wonderfully weird film noir from 20th Century Fox sets out as kind of a documentary about Nazi spies in the U.S., using real FBI documents, and has a lot of detail that will be fascinating to anyone interested in that era of law enforcement / espionage. But as it moves on, it gets weirder and weirder, with elements of Vonnegut's much-later Mother Night and 49th Parallel. One of the best propaganda films I've seen.

10. Dementia (1955, John Parker)
I don't even know how to explain this. No dialogue, just an impressionistic look at a woman driven mad and briefly finding liberation in jazz music (!) before she's carted off. Unique and absolutely brilliant.

Honorable mentions: Brokeback Mountain (no clue why I waited so long to see this) and Captain Phillips (I'm a Hanks agnostic but he is extraordinary in this). I notice that I saw very few new foreign language movies this year -- I should work on that in 2014.

 

Frank Borzage was a huge discovery for me as well this year. I saw Seventh Heaven (1927), Street Angel (1928) and Lucky Star(1929). Janet Gaynor's acting in these films is a revelation.

Sparrows (1926). This stars Mary Pickford in her last child role. She and other children are held captive and forced to work. She eventually leads the escape which includes a harrowing crawl on a log over a river of crocodiles.

Wings (1927). The great war film. Spectacular dogfights.

L'Argent (1928). Yes, there's a pattern here. The late silent film era holds a fascination for me. This is a French film basically about the evils of money.

City Girl (1930). The trials of a city girl coping with her new husbands rural family. This looks amazing on blu- ray.

Morocco (1930). I think the best of the American films of Dietrich and director Von Sternberg. Quite a moving ending to this, partly because of no end music.

And a documentary called Electric Edwardians. This is a collection of short films originally shot from 1900-1910 of every day street scenes in the UK. For me the most touching scene is one where some kids are waving to the camera ( to a future they won't live to see). This beautifully scored film collection is a one of a kind look back to a lost world.

 

Awesome! I'm so glad that Borzage's audience is expanding since it seems he was at one time nearly forgotten. The silent and early sound periods are my favorite cinema as well.

Just realized I typed "WWII" instead of "WWI" when talking about 7th Heaven, oops.

 

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

 

Sweet Smell of Success (1957) Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster are great as cynical sleezeballs.

Match Point (2005) Hannah and her sisters meet CSI.

Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) Terrific movie but depressing on so many levels.

Day for Night (Le Nuit Américaine) (1973) Truffaut. Interesting look at making a movie