This has been a weird movie year. Outside of a few exceptions, the studios have been keeping their best films locked up in a vault. Which means the entire 2020 movie slate consisted of scraps. Despite the odds being stacked against them, some underdogs emerged, giving us just enough movies to fill out a best-of list – with a little cheating, of course. Let’s take a look!
10) Run – I’m including Run not because I think it’s a great movie, but because this is the PERFECT type of script you should be writing as a spec screenwriter. It’s mostly contained, which makes it cheap to produce (which means more producers are going to be able to do something with it, which increases the number of people you can send it to, which increases the percentages of you selling it – spec screenwriting is a numbers game, remember). It’s got a fun hook – a mother is keeping her daughter prisoner. And it’s got two roles that actors would love to play. Interesting parts draw strong actors. If you can get a known actor for a script that’s cheap to produce and easy to market (cause of the concept) you are in a very powerful place as a writer. I thought the execution of Run could’ve been a little better. But I definitely enjoyed it.
9) Tenet – Ha! I surprised you, didn’t I? Tenet in your top 10, Carson? Well, stay with me. Yes, I have issues with Christopher Nolan picking narratives more to prove that he’s the smartest guy in the room than to tell a good story. But the reality is, this man’s love for filmmaking, his insane attention to detail, and his desire to create a truly cinematic experience, make all of his movies must-sees. I mean, GOD, does this movie look beautiful. It’s so great to look at. It’s for that reason that it makes my top 10. Tenet is the only movie released this year that’s worth seeing in the theater. And that’s saying something considering we’re in a pandemic.
8) Horse Girl – For those of you who think I hate anything in the indie movie space, you’re going to have to come up with another argument! Cause I loved Horse Girl! Starring Alison Brie, this Netflix film is about a strange woman who used to take care of a local family’s horse but who is then fired because they think she’s being too weird around the horses. This initiates a break from reality where the girl starts waking up in her car miles away from her apartment. The movie is filled with several great scenes, such as when her roommate sets her up with a guy friend for the strangest date ever. I usually don’t like these “going crazy” movies but there’s something special about this one. Check it out!
7) The Vast of Night – We’re bee-lining over to Amazon Prime for this one, which is tonally similar to Horse Girl, although it’s less about a protagonist going crazy and more about my favorite topic – UFOS! Set in a small town in the 1950s and told in real time with both a radio DJ and a switch-board operator, The Vast of Night vacillates between riveting and just plain fun. The director uses these long takes that provide the movie with its own prominent style. Plus, the choice to tell the story in real-time gives it an urgency you don’t often see in indie fare. I’ve always been a fan of adding urgency to period pieces because it goes against the expectation (that everything in the far-off past is slow and deliberate). Gotta keep an eye on this director.
6) Borat 2 – I could talk for years about all the mistakes the industry made to destroy the comedy. But then Borat had to come along and save it! I wince a little at Cohen’s obsession with politics these days. Part of the reason the original Borat was so funny was because that’s all it wanted to be. Funny. Borat 2 is more political in its approach. But the reason that didn’t bother me is because Sascha Baron Cohen still understood that if it wasn’t funny, it wouldn’t matter. So he made sure that “funny first, message second.” And because of the actress who played his daughter was so freaking hilarious, Borat 2 almost achieved the impossible – being as funny as Borat. It didn’t quite get there. But it’s a huge feat of a film, especially considering they shot it a) in a pandemic and b) quickly. I can’t wait for the extended version to come out. There’s supposed to be some hilarious stuff in the outtakes. (By the way, one of my favorite parts is when Cohen and his daughter are in the plastic surgeon’s office and Cohen is going off on some bizarre tangent and the actress playing his daughter is desperately trying not to crack up. You have to look for it or you’ll miss it but it’s one of many great little moments in a hilarious film)
5) Boys State – Nooooooo! No, Carson! No! A documentary film? ? Those don’t count. I hear you, I hear you. Growing up, I always hated reviewers who included documentary films in their Top 10 lists. But the difference here is that Boys State is straight-up entertainment. It’s a bunch of kids who have no idea what they’re doing trying to formulate a virtual government. And it’s the “no idea what they’re doing” part that makes it so fun to watch. The key to a good documentary is a good subject. And Boys State has a handful of great subjects. If the producers were smart, they would turn this into a series. Because the only criticism I had was that it was too short and wasn’t able to cover enough kids to get a full feel of what was going on. For example, the “winner,” or the guy who was elected “president,” at the end, wasn’t even a main character. It would’ve been nice to get to know him beforehand so we felt something about his achievement.
4) Palm Springs – One of the first things you have to ask yourself when you’re writing a loop movie is, do you want to begin with the main character discovering the loop? Or do you want to start the movie with him already in the loop? It’s a difficult question because it results in two completely different movies. Which is why I found Palm Springs to be so clever. It does both. It takes one character who’s been in the loop for hundreds of years and pairs him with another character who just fell into the loop for the first time. Which leads us to the second clever thing about Palm Springs. When you’re writing a romantic comedy, you’re trying to pair two people up in the most interesting way possible. And yet, all of the “ways” you can pair people up have already been used. Until Palm Springs. What’s more interesting than pairing someone at the beginning of the loop with someone who’s been in it forever? That’s going to create a really unique dynamic. I have nothing but good things to say about Palm Springs. It’s such a fun little film.
3) The Invisible Man – The Invisible Man is the prototype for how to put entertainment first and message second. If you want to know why nobody’s talking about movies like Never Rarely Sometimes or His House, it’s because those movies put all their chips on message first, THEN entertainment. Outside of a few hardcore film aficionados, nobody cares about message-first movies. They always always always do terribly at the box office. Which is why I appreciate The Invisible Man so much. There hasn’t been a movie since the #metoo movement started that has done more to shine a light on toxic masculinity than this one. And guess why? Because Jason Blum and the writer sat down and first asked the question, “How do we make a good movie?” God I wish more of today’s writers took the same approach. Yet going off the Black List, it’s clear we’re teaching too many writers the wrong approach.
2) The Platform – Oh my God, I love The Platform!!! Love it love it love love love it. This was the most surprising film of the year for me. I had no idea it existed until it showed up on Netflix. It also reinforces how important concept is. The movie is in another language yet it reached number 1 on Netflix. That only happens when you have a great concept. The idea of a table of food going down 200 levels and each level of people having the choice of whether to eat what they want or what they need so that the levels below them could also eat was such a brilliant way to allegorize our top 1% having all the money and everyone else fighting for the scraps. The moment where it hooked me was seeing that our protagonist, who was only 30 levels down, was left with scraps by the time the table showed up on his floor. Knowing that the table still had to go down 10 floors. 30 floors. 100 floors. What were those people eating? I still shudder thinking about it. Loved this film.
1) Into The Night – Yes! Okay! I admit it! I’m cheating. Into the Night is a TV show. But it’s only technically a TV show. The six-episode story about a small group of passengers attempting to keep a plane on the dark side of the planet (since sunlight kills you), is told in the spirit of a feature film. Clear goal. Giant stakes. Tons of urgency. This was so freaking good. I haven’t been this excited to watch each successive episode of a TV series since the first season of Lost. And Lost is a good comparison for this. It’s a group of people who are all hiding individual secrets type of story. But my favorite part of it is the uniqueness of the urgency. I’m always telling writers that, if you want to add tension and momentum to your scripts, add urgency. Trying to keep a plane in the darkness while this giant spinning rock does everything in its power to catch up to you was as cool as urgency gets, in my opinion. Even better, these super-high-concept shows always botch the climax. The climax in Into The Night had to be one of the most harrowing episodes of television I’ve ever watched – trying to get to a secret bunker whose location they’re not even sure of as the sun is rising in the east. Oh my God! I still get goosebumps thinking about it. The show was so successful, they’re making a second season. Ironically, it doesn’t look like that season is going to have any urgency. Curious to see how they’re going to make that work!
Don’t forget to share your favorite movies of 2020 in the comments section! Seeing as streaming makes it harder and harder to keep up with every movie that’s been released, I’m sure everyone here would love a new “Oh, I haven’t heard of that” movie suggestion or two.
