Movies are finally opening in America—although whether one wants to risk their health to see them in theaters, versus waiting a couple of months for their inevitable VOD debut, remains an ongoing debate. Yet no matter which side of that issue you fall on, 2020 continues to deliver the cinematic goods, once again proving that even without studio blockbusters dominating the marketplace, there are more than enough great dramas, comedies, thrillers, and documentaries to please cinephiles of all stripes. The latest crop of standout titles include three sterling non-fiction efforts, a most unconventional biopic, and a hallucinatory genre work that lets Nic Cage rage. With the fall festival season almost upon us, more outstanding offerings are surely on their way. But for now, these are the 6 best movies of 2020 Must-Watch.
The 6 Best Movies of 2020 Must-Watch #1
First Cow
Directors: Kelly Reichardt | Starring: John Magaro, Orion Lee, Alia Shawkat | Genres: Western, Drama, Arthouse | Subtitles: English [CC] | Audio languages: English
First Cow, Kelly Reichardt's evocative and wise tale of frontier life, begins with the discovery of two skeletons in the woods. An unnamed young woman (Arrested Development's Alia Shawkat) and her dog -- echoing the human-and-canine pair at the center of Reichardt's 2008 road story Wendy and Lucy -- come upon the bones in the modern day Pacific Northwest. Then we flash back to a time when the Oregon territory was far less developed, an era of perilous opportunity and rampant exploitation, and meet Cookie (John Magaro), a bashful and unassuming cook for a team of unruly fur trappers. Eventually, he befriends the wandering King-Lu (Orion Lee), a Chinese immigrant who claims to be fleeing some Russians. The two stumble on an opportunity to make some money: a wealthy landowner (Toby Jones) brings the first cow to the region. Cookie and King-Lu decide to steal the cow's milk at night and use it to bake sweet honey biscuits, which they sell at the local market. The story has an allegorical quality, gently pulling at classic American notions of hope, ambition, and deception. Reichardt, who chronicled a similar historical period in 2010's neo-Western Meek's Cutoff and an equally rich male friendship in 2006's buddy comedy Old Joy, has a gentle human touch that never veers into sentimentality. On a literal and metaphoric level, she knows where the bodies are buried.
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The 6 Best Movies of 2020 Must-Watch #2
The Painted Bird
Directors: Václav Marhoul | Starring: Petr Kotlár, Udo Kier, Lech Dyblik | Genres: Drama, International, Arthouse | Subtitles: English | Audio languages: English
A nearly three-hour black-and-white odyssey through allegorical Holocaust horrors, Václav Marhoul’s The Painted Bird isn’t for the faint of heart. Adapted from Jerzy Kosinski’s celebrated 1965 novel of the same name, Marhoul’s film is a harrowing saga about an unnamed Jewish Boy (Petr Kotlár) who, during WWII, is subjugated to every depraved indignity under the sun at the hands of various Eastern European villagers with whom he temporarily stays. From a witch-y medicine woman who buries him up to his neck (the better to let the crows peck at him) and a bachelor (Julian Sands) with pedophilic inclinations, to a violently jealous old man (Udo Kier) and a young girl with bestial desires, the individuals whom the Boy comes into contact with are a wild, wicked bunch. Nonetheless, amidst such incessant, graphic cruelty, compassion fleetingly materializes in the form of a kindly priest (Harvey Keitel), a Nazi soldier (Stellan Skarsgård) and a Russian sniper (Barry Pepper) who teaches him about “eye for an eye” justice. Crucifixes and fire are twin motifs underscoring this gorgeously austere, bleak tale about intolerance, oppression, dehumanization and the scarring struggle to survive, which descends into darkness with its haunted eyes wide open. Few films are this tough to sit through—or difficult to forget.
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The 6 Best Movies of 2020 Must-Watch #3
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
Directors: | Starring: Peter Elwell, Michael Martin, Shay Walker | Genres: Documentary, Drama | Subtitles: English | Audio languages:
Englis
Bill and Turner Ross’ unique documentary-fiction hybrid depicts the end of the road for The Roaring 20s, a dive bar on the outskirts of the Las Vegas strip where a motley collection of boozehounds come for one final closing-night round of intoxicated camaraderie and revelry. The film’s gimmick is that said drinking establishment is actually located in New Orleans, and its patrons have been cast to play improvised versions of themselves—a formal approach that allows the directors to faithfully capture the entire spectrum of sloppy, joyful, self-pitying, antagonistic and regretful emotions that invariably materialize in (and define) such a joint. Over the course of one sloshed 24-hour period, Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets evokes a pitch-perfect sense of its going-to-seed milieu and equally haggard visitors, with former actor-turned-floor sweeper Michael proving the weary epicenter of its laid-back action. Shot with bobbing, swaying gracefulness that’s in tune with its environment, it’s an evocative, empathetic and altogether unforgettable portrait of life on the fringe, where escape from reality is a constant—if self-destructive—desire, and solace is only found at the bottom of a glass, in the company of fellow drunks.
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The 6 Best Movies of 2020 Must-Watch #4
The Wild Goose Lake
Directors: | Starring: HU Ge, GWEI Lun Mei, LIAO Fan, WAN Qian, QI Dao, HUANG Jue, ZENG Meihuizi, ZHANG Yicong, CHEN Yongzhong | Genres: Documentary, Drama | Subtitles: English | Audio languages: 中文
As with his prior Black Coal, Thin Ice, Chinese director Diao Yinan’s The Wild Goose Lake has a coiled intensity that amplifies its romantic fatalism. Diao’s neo-noir follows a gangster named Zhou Zenong (Hu Ge) who, after killing a cop in a criminal enterprise gone awry, partners with a “bathing beauty” prostitute named Lu Aiai (Gwei Lun Mei) in order to reunite with his estranged wife Yang Shujun (Wan Qian), all so she might collect the reward on his head. Rife with betrayals, manhunts and shootouts, the auteur’s narrative is constantly taking sharp, unexpected turns, and the same is true of his breathtaking direction, which reveals unseen figures, and twists, via elegant camerawork and expressionistic flourishes that are married to a realistic depiction of rain-soaked Wuhan and its lawless lakeside communities. Hunted by police captain Liu (Liao Fan), Diao’s protagonists are engaged in a deadly game that’s played in silence because they all inherently know the rules, and their sense of purpose is echoed by the film itself, which orchestrates its underworld conflicts with bracing precision. Plus, it boasts 2020’s most gruesomely inventive use of an umbrella.
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The 6 Best Movies of 2020 Must-Watch #5
The Assistant
Directors: | Starring: Julia Garner, Matthew Macfadyen, Makenzie Leigh | Genres: Drama, Suspense | Subtitles: English | Audio languages: Englis
The systemic culture of indifference and cruelty that often forms around a powerful serial abuser gets put under the microscope in this studiously observed New York office drama, which draws inspiration from the behavior of Harvey Weinstein while intentionally blurring some of the details. We never learn the name of the tyrannical boss in the story and the exact nature of his crimes are never fully revealed; instead, Julia Garner's assistant Jane, a Northwestern grad fresh off a handful of internships, provides our entryway into the narrative. The movie tracks her duties, tasks, and indignities over the course of a single day: She makes copies, coordinates air travel, picks up lunch orders, answers phone calls, and cleans suspicious stains off the couch. At one point, a young woman from Idaho appears at the reception desk, claims to have been flown in to start as a new assistant, and gets whisked away to a room in an expensive hotel. Jane raises the issue with an HR rep, played with smarmy menace by Succession's Matthew Macfadyen, but her concerns are quickly battered away and turned against her. Rejecting cheap catharsis and dramatic twists, The Assistant builds its claustrophobic world through a steady accumulation of information. While some of the writing can feel too imprecise and opaque by design, Garner, who consistently steals scenes on Netflix's Ozark, invests every hushed phone call and carefully worded email with real trepidation. She locates the terror in the drudgery of the work.
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The 6 Best Movies of 2020 Must-Watch #6
Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Directors: | Starring: Sidney Flanigan, Talia Ryder, Théodore Pellerin | Genres: Drama, Arthouse | Subtitles: English | Audio languages: Englis
With New York essentially shut down, Never Rarely Sometimes Always' portrait of a busy and often cold city takes on a new resonance. Barely articulating their plans, Autumn and Skylar get on a bus with an overly large suitcase and little else. As they bounce between Planned Parenthood locations in Brooklyn and Manhattan, they live as transients, their home base becoming the especially grim Port Authority. Hittman's two previous features, Beach Rats, streaming on Hulu, and It Felt Like Love, streaming on Prime, both take place in Brooklyn summers.
"I always knew that I wanted [Never Rarely] to take place in the winter, because I wanted the weather to be another obstacle," Hittman says. "In conceiving of it, I felt like somewhere along the way my logic became that Port Authority was as much of the city they ever got to experience and it becomes a microcosm for the city. It becomes a safe place for them to be at night until they are kicked out. They are not there to be tourists and that's the reality. They are there to find the right clinic. I don't think New York is such a pleasurable place to visit for everyone." The cumbersome luggage was a detail Hittman picked up from a magazine article that revealed women "always overpack" when they arrive in the city for abortions. "It became symbolic for the burden of having to take this journey alone," Hittman adds.
Hittman worked with Planned Parenthood throughout the process of writing Never Rarely. The depiction of Autumn's treatment by the organization is starkly realistic -- neither particularly glamorous nor bleak, but worlds away from the anti-abortion propaganda she's bombarded with when she visits a doctor back in Pennsylvania. In that sense, the film becomes a portrait of how limited healthcare is in the U.S., especially for women. "I was thinking about all the vulnerable people in this country who don't have access," Hittman says.
And while Autumn and Skylar don't speak much, we get a full sense of who they are through their little gestures. Autumn disappears into music. Skylar refreshes her makeup even in the most desperate of circumstances. "I felt it was really important to reinforce that there is such a deep stigma in this country around talking about things like teenage pregnancy and abortion that I felt like I always knew part of the rules and logic of the script was that they couldn't talk about it, but that they knew and could understand and support each other through this experience," Hittman says.
As for how people consume the film now in the privacy of their homes, Hittman just wants it to get to the same audience for which it was always intended: Young women. "First and foremost, I hope young women discover it, young women in this country who would identify with the main character, obviously. It's an ongoing conversation that we keep having about how we can reach them."
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