I try to format this list a little differently every year. Nevertheless, they all have one thing in common: they are always incredibly long. This year, I present a tight seven, appraised briefly with a minimum of honourable mentioning.
Here goes. For the second year running, not a single scripted television program I watched could compete with the rapturous gloss, detail and complexity of a Korean competition show. Before its premiere, my partner and I had been watching a lot of Masterchef. We can never go back. We have been spoiled by the brilliance of this.
And the judges, while almost comically exacting, are never rude. I will say two final things to pique interest. In some jurisdictions, they would surely run afoul of labour laws. But a couple of scripted shows stood out. And Ripley is a genuinely cinematic adaptation of a classic story, in a medium that is quickly transforming into radio with pictures.
It is absolutely not perverse. It is an utterly sincere and almost innocent film about a man who has learned how to be happy most of the time, dirty toilets or no. Perfect Days regrettably does not function as a self-help manual. I saw fewer new movies this year than any other year since lockdown, and only a handful really floored me. Notably, Dune: Part Two is the first version of that story that I have found completely satisfying.
Anora is a surprisingly frothy film for most of its duration, while also building a wonderful portrait of a marginalised character and illustrating how capitalism poisons everything. The other film I truly loved this year, Rebel Ridge , made me a confirmed devotee of Jeremy Saulnier. By most reckonings, Spectral Voice is a side project of the massively successful prog metal project Blood Incantation. But I spent much more time with this release by their shadowy mirror twin, which is eviler by far.
