Aand we’re back!  And we brought lists!

Is Star Wars: The Force Awakens the biggest movie of the year?

Is Mad Max: Fury Road that important?

Is Spotlight really that big of a deal?

Stay tuned to find out…!…?

Our Top 10 Movies of 2015

Number 10

Star Wars: The Force Awakens
It’s Star Wars. It’s pretty good. It’s just good enough to get onto this list. And maybe it’s lucky that it didn’t come out in a better year, because otherwise it might not belong on this list at all. Read the review >>

Number 9

The Martian
An impressive movie all around, a movie we greatly enjoyed, and one that we’re certain you’ll enjoy. We just didn’t love it as much as the rest of the movies on this list. Read the review >> 

Number 8

The Hateful Eight
Sort of a weird bottle episode of a Tarantino movie, it still boasts unmistakable direction, impressive performances, and most of everything we look for in these types of movies. That it ended up in our number eight spot is sheer coincidence but also very impressive. We’ve seen better Tarantino movies, we’ve seen Tarantino movies we enjoyed more, but almost any Tarantino movie in any year is always going to be among the year’s best. Plus, Kurt Russell, so…. Read the review >>

Number 7

Steve Jobs
Wildly overdramatic, grossly inaccurate, and really only good in very specific and very insular ways. A triumph of scripting over storytelling. And we loved it. Read the review >>

Number 6

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
In a year with seemingly more major spy movies than any before — Kingsman, [the creatively titled] Spy, Spooks: The Greater Good, Bridge of Spies, a new Mission: Impossible, and a new James Bond — it’s the one that nobody remembers or talked about that left the biggest and best impression on us. Of the seven, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is the only one that really made us want to see more.

Number 5

The End of the Tour
For writers, maybe for writers only, and a movie that affirms every hope, illusion, and fear we writers tend to have. We liked it.

Number Four

Mr. Holmes
A very small movie in a year full of sequels to some of the biggest movies of all time, it nevertheless looms large on the year with a narrative and acting that outstrips everything else we saw from 2015. Read the review >>

Number 3

When Marnie Was There
If you really, really want to find a 2015 movie to make you cry, we recommend starting here. Utterly haunting, memorable, and so real. Read the review >>

Number 2

Avengers:  Age of Ultron
Age of Ultron may have been all over the place in terms of plot and tone and it may not be the sequel you were looking for, but at its best it’s some of the strongest superhero fiction to ever make it to the screen, with a conclusion that ushers in a new age of Avengers members who trade in pure star power for dysfunctional weirdness. And that’s so Avengers. Read the reviews from a nerd and a normal >>

Number 1

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Maybe it’s not technically the best movie of the year, maybe it’s the poster child for indie movies at their most cloying, and maybe we don’t even agree with its essential message, but it’s still the most heartfelt, clever, and genuinely hilarious movie of the year.

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So Close

• Amy
• Creed
• Mad Max:  Fury Road
• The Peanuts Movie
• Room

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Movies that missed the deadline for Top 10 consideration (‘cause normal people couldn’t see them in 2015)

• Anomalisa
• The Revenant

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Other movies we saw in 2015

• American Ultra
• Ant-Man
• Black Mass
• Bone Tomahawk
• The Big Short
• Cinderella
• Dope
• Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection ‘F’
• Ex Machina
• Fantastic Four
• Furious 7
• The Good Dinosaur
• Infinitely Polar Bear
• Inside Out
• Insurgent
• Kingsman: The Secret Service
• Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol
• Pitch Perfect 2
• Sicario
• Spectre
• Spotlight
• Spy
• Straight Outta Compton
• Ted 2
• Terminator: Genisys
• Tomorrowland
• Trainwreck
• Trumbo
• What We Do in the Shadows

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The 2015 movies we missed but meant to see

• Bridge of Spies
• The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2
• The Lobster
• Paddington

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And the 2015 movies we did see but probably shouldn’t have

• Jurassic World
• Taken 3
• The Visit

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Which means…

Our Star Wars: The Force Awakens review is coming next week(!)

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Our 2015 movie reviews