It’s December 31st, the last day of the year, and that means it’s time for me to finally weigh in on my top ten movies of 2014, even though I have already done so twice in critics voting.
Top ten lists are always a tricky thing. They’re alive. They breathe, they grow, they evolve; I defy anyone who creates annual top ten lists to tell me, straight-faced, that they still hold to lists they compiled a year ago, two years ago, and that they can recall with clarity what, exactly, led them to designate any given film from any given release slate as “best”. They can’t, but they’ll try to, because that’s just what people do.
So here I am, publishing my third top ten list of the year, though it’s the first that I’ve actually bothered to broadcast across any public channels. I have seen all of the films I want to see, I have thought long and hard about the films that I liked and why, and I have also come to recognize which among them stick with me best. I guarantee that these are movies I will be happy to revisit tomorrow, next week, next month, or next decade.
Without further ado, permit me to present to you my picks for the ten best films of 2014, nakedly and without explanation:
10) Dear White People
9) Song of the Sea
8) The Grand Budapest Hotel
7) Snowpiercer
6) Selma
5) Under the Skin
4) Ida
3) Calvary
2) Inherent Vice
1) The Babadook
(Honorable mentions: Guardians of the Galaxy, Pride, Two Days, One Night, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Locke, A Most Wanted Man, Belle)
A Constant Visual Feast 
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100% agree, ‘The Babadook’ was the best film I saw last year – it’s a shame quite a few people didn’t ‘get it’, expecting a standard ‘jump and scare’ horror.
Thanks man. Glad that I’m not alone in this conclusion, though I do admit that I took me some time to reach it myself. Of course, I realize that we’re still in the minority here, even if the film DID get a lot of praise from critics on release.