2015 is already behind us, but as always it means I always take a moment to look back. At my movie and blog related goals, the best an worst movies of the year and of course my personal top 10.

The statistics

At the beginning of the year I set myself a goal to watch at least 300 movies. I more than did that. 2015 actually was the year I watched the most films ever, a staggering 373 (a number which actually would be a bit higher if some documentaries I have seen were available on IMDB). If you convert that number of movies into time it means that I watched a total of 44335 minutes, which comes down to almost 739 hours or 30,8 days non-stop movie watching, with an average of one movie every 0.98 day.

Goals

As always I set myself a couple of goals at the start of they year, the question is how far I came in realising them.

Film related goals

– Watch at least 300 movies: As the stats show, I managed to do that..

– 2015 Blind Spot series: I picked out thirteen movies to watch and ended up watching 12 of them (Dangerous Liasons I have not seen). I also didn’t manage to write reviews for all of them, but on average the quality of them was quite high. The only movies which I wasn’t a huge fan of were 10 Things I Hate About You, Nashville and The Right Stuff.

Blog related goals

– Continue my “lost cinemas of Rotterdam” series: Although I actually did do them for the dutch version of my blog I didn’t come around to translating them. As the cinematic history of Rotterdam is big it means there are still some cinemas I have not done, so I’m planning to continue next year.

– Do at least three interviews. I came short here. I talked to director Tyler Measom about his documentary An Honest Liar. Billy Corben talked about his movie Dawg Fight.o

– To finally make my personal top 100. This was a list I started on, but never finished. I finally managed to so and the complete list can be found through the links below:
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– Although I haven’t written about it there was another thing which I managed to reach this past year, which was writing my 1000th review. Quite an achievement I enjoyed making a reality.

My Filmviews tens

When it came to movies I watched I though it was an amazing year, which actually meant I gave five movies a perfect score:
Kung Fury
Inside Out
The Look of Silence
Victoria (review will be up at a later time)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Worst movies

Unfortunately not all movies I saw managed to impress. There was quite a big number which didn’t capture me or really disappointed. The following movies scored a 3 or less:

Aloha
Black Angel
Dracula Untold
Focus
Pixels
Tracers
With This Ring
Barely Lethal
Hotel Transylvania 2
De Masters
Savage Killers
Thy Father’s Chair
Tokarev
Theodore Rex

Top 10

And now it’s time for the most important moment. Which were my ten favourite movies the past year? I have to admit that I found it extremely difficult this past year only picking ten titles. Knowing that there are couple of movies which appear on other lists which I have not seen yet, I realise it could have been even more difficult. After much consideration I finally picked these titles:

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10. Me, Earl and the Dying Girl

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Yes, this movie does contain many typical independent movie ingredients, but if you are not bothered by that than this is a movie that has many highs and lows, not only when it comes to story, but also for the true movie lover. Werner Herzog is regularly shown or referenced and the parodies on classic movies made my heart beat just a little faster.

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9. Ex Machina[/mlprx][mlprx effect=”fadeInRight” delay=”450″][/mlprx]
2015 turned out to be a great year for science fiction and this is the first example of that in this list. Artificial intelligence is quickly developing and I can imagine us experiencing the first example of it in our lifetime. Last year Her already showed a possible implementation of that, this year Ex Machina did the samen, from a slightly different angle. With great roles from Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleeson and of course Oscar Isaac it is an unforgettable movie.

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8. The Martian

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Ridley Scott showed that he still is a master when it comes to science fiction role in another movie where Matt Damon needed to be saved (something Damon seems to have specialised in). A beautiful films which not only convincingly shows how someone would be able to survive on Mars, but also what the human race is capable of. With a tense story and a lot of humor this is a great movie which was just as enjoyable during its second watch.

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7. Mad Max: Fury Road

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It doesn’t happen often that I see movies in the cinema a second time, but for Mad Max I made an exception (I actually saw it three times). The director who also was responsible for Happy Feet and Babe showed that he hadn’t forgotten his roots and although he’s 70, he can still make one of the best action movies that came out during the last couple of years.

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6. Sicario

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I’ve slowly become a huge fan of Denis Villeneuve’s work as a director (Incendies, Prisoners, Enemy) and this was a movie I was very much looking forward to. And what a movie it is! From all the movies in this list, this is the one with the most tense scene around, set at a border crossing. Masterfully shot, with amazing acting and a story which shows the issues related to the drugs trade. Villeneuve proves again that he’s one of the best directors around.

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5. The Look of Silence

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I’ve seen a lot of great documentaries this year, but there was one which stood out to me and that was this one. After The Act of Killing, in which the focus was on the atrocities which occurred in Indonesia a couple of decades ago, director Joshua Oppenheimer now shows how a family of one of the victims deals with it. It makes you realise what humans are capable of doing, even if that’s sometimes difficult to hear/watch.

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4. Star Wars: The Force Awakens

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As I’m not a Star Wars fan I wasn’t really planning on seeing this film anytime soon and was thinking of seeing it somewhere in January when it was a bit quieter. When I received an invitation for the premiere though I couldn’t say no and don’t regret it. This is the first Star Wars movie which actually made me feel something and if the next one manages to do so too I might consider myself a bit of a fan.

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3. Kung Fury

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Yeah, you can have a lot of criticism about this movie. The humor is often stupid, it’s eighties styling could be called gimmicky, but one thing is clear: I enjoyed the hell out of these free 30 minutes of entertainment on Youtube. Thanks to its short length and easy acces I’ve already seen it for times and it made me smile just as much. So I’m not even embarrassed to include this movie in my top 10 in such a high spot.

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2. Inside Out

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Two Pixar movies were released this year and I wasn’t expecting to like the movie about emotions as much as I did. As a father so much in this movie was recognisable to me and at the same time so much was right about this movie that I already knew after seeing it this would end up very high in this list. With this film Pixar shows it is still capable of making a masterpiece.

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1. Victoria

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My number one movie is one which I haven’t heard too many people talk about and which I happened to hear about through a podcast. But I’m extremely happy I did! Victoria is the most impressive thing I saw in 2015. Because how is it possible to make a movie, without any tricks, which consists of a single two hour take in which so much happens which just feel natural? A movie which you should watch without knowing as little as possible, as it will add to your enjoyment of this real time journey through a night in Berlin.

What was you film year like and what were your favourites?