Film Honors: 2015

My own personal choices for the year. They reflect not just necessarily what I think is the best or essential cinema, but perhaps resonate with me or inspire, both at the time, and still today. Subject to alter choices if new viewings are worthy enough. Other published Film Honors posts can be found at the menu at the top of the page.

Actor Support

Paul Dano (Love & Mercy)
Idris Elba (Beasts of No Nation)
Oscar Isaac (Ex Machina)
Mark Ruffalo (Spotlight)
Michael Shannon (99 Homes)

Sound Designing

Ex Machina
Mad Max: Fury Road
Sicario
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Relatos salvajes

Special Effects

Ex Machina
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
The Walk

Cast Ensemble

The Big Short
Inside Out
Spotlight
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Relatos salvajes

Actor Lead

Raúl Arévalo (La isla mínima)
Michael Fassbender (Steve Jobs)
Javier Gutiérrez (La isla mínima)
Tom Hardy (Legend)
Mark Ruffalo (Infinitely Polar Bear)

Set Designing

Brooklyn
Cinderella
Crimson Peak
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
The Assassin

Costume Designing

Brooklyn
Carol
Cinderella
Crimson Peak
Mad Max: Fury Road

Score Composing

Michael Brook (Brooklyn)
Thomas Newman (He Named Me Malala)
Stephen Rennicks (Room)
Max Richter (Testament of Youth)
Richard Vreeland (It Follows)

Picture Editing

Ex Machina
La isla mínima
Mad Max: Fury Road
Sicario
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Cinematography

Alex Catalán (La isla mínima)
Cary Fukunaga (Beasts of No Nation)
Emmanuel Lubezki (The Revenant)
John Seale (Mad Max: Fury Road)
Lyle Vincent (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night)

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Actress Support

Olivia Cooke (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl)
Camila Márdila (Que Horas Ela Volta?)
Julianne Moore (Maps to the Stars)
Érica Rivas (Relatos salvajes)
Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina)

Screenwriting Adapted

Jesse Andrews (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl)
Emma Donoghue (Room)
Marielle Heller (The Diary of a Teenage Girl)
Nick Hornby (Brooklyn)
Aaron Sorkin (Steve Jobs)

Screenwriting Original

Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night)
Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley (Inside Out)
Efthimis Filippou, Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster)
Alex Garland (Ex Machina)
Damián Szifron (Relatos salvajes)

Actress Lead

Regina Casé (Que Horas Ela Volta?)
Brie Larson (Room)
Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn)
Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl)
Alicia Vikander (Testament of Youth)

Directing

Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night)
Alex Garland (Ex Machina)
Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster)
George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road)
Damián Szifrón (Relatos salvajes)

Motion Picture

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour) USA / Iran
Beasts of No Nation (Cary Fukunaga) USA
Brooklyn (John Crowley) UK / Canada / Ireland
Ex Machina (Alex Garland) UK / USA
Inside Out (Pete Docter) USA
Mad Max: Fury Road
(George Miller) Australia / USA 
The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos) Ireland / UK / Greece / France / Netherlands
Que Horas Ela Volta? (Anna Muylaert) Brazil
Kaguyahime no monogatari (Isao Takahata) Japan
Relatos salvajes (Damián Szifrón) Argentina / Spain

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The cinema of 2015 was dynamic and vibrant, innovative and sharp – but what did you think? Get those comments flowing in the section below.

Reading, Writing, Arithmetic #14

A great weekend for America in general you might say, what with July 4th celebrations, and then the World Cup victory last night. The women’s contest was thrilling and thoroughly entertaining. In fact, a remarkable tournament in all. The final, though, opened in style. Sadly for you if you tuned in twenty minutes or so after the kick-off. In fact, five minutes late and you’d have missed two Carli Lloyd goals giving USA a ridiculously early lead. The contest was kind of over soon after, and with it the bombarding coverage across the internet was incredible (apart from ludicrous and tasteless Pearl Harbor references) – cyberspace was in danger of imploding because of women playing football. Nice.

What else might you have missed then? Some concise movie lists, invaluable screenwriting opinion, not to mention some refreshingly pleasing photographs celebrating the July 4th weekend across Instagram (which I admit I don’t use myself – should I?). Take a look:

Stars & Stripes: The Best Celebrity 4th Of July Instagrams
By Sarah Lindig (Harper’s Bazaar)

Steven Soderbergh’s 11 Favorite Films

Posted by Leonard Pearce (The Film Stage)

By Jordan Ruimy (Awards Daily)
Parker Posey’s Offbeat Glamour
By Michael Schulman (New York Times)