The 17 Best Movies Of 2020 | HuffPost Entertainment

How does one sum up a movie year unlike any other? We could tally the shuttered theaters , lost jobs and delayed blockbusters , or we could evaluate the existential panic that has given Hollywood an industry already prone to existential panic no clear path forward. Things will be normal again, or normal-ish, one day, but when we look back at 2020, it will be easy to think of it as The Year With No Movies.

Of course, thats hardly accurate. No, people didnt congregate in multiplexes for their routine summer popcorn, and the ongoing awards season looks a lot quieter than usual . But during the past several months, weve been treated to a number of first-rate films, most of which debuted via streaming services, video-on-demand platforms and drive-in venues. This list alone contains two Spike Lee joints, five accomplished debuts from first-time directors, a Frances McDormand performance that rivals all the other impeccable Frances McDormand performances, a beguiling documentary about dogs, a genre-defying Brazilian oddity and more must-sees. Even from our living rooms, they made 2020 a little easier.

"Palm Springs"

Hulu

Major studios no longer prioritize original star-driven comedies, which makes Palm Springs feel like a miracle. On paper, Max Barbakows debut feature is a Groundhog Day riff. In practice, its an existential sci-fi rom-com about a couple (Andy Samberg and a lovably feisty Cristin Milioti) tortured by their own anxieties. Doomed to repeat the same day again and again, they embark on an escapade involving beer, a spiteful villain (J.K. Simmons) and a screwballish quest to flee the monotony that surrounds them. With plenty of laughs and at least one important lesson, Palm Springs provides 2020s smartest escapism.

"Palm Springs" is available on Hulu. Read more about the movie here .

"Shithouse"

IFC Films

These days, many of Hollywoods young actors have traded old-school charisma for an unpolished (though no less alluring) relatability. It cant be cooked up synthetically, and some pull it off better than others, like first-time writer, director and actor Cooper Raiff. Among his generations most promising newcomers, 23-year-old Raiff displays a keen ear for everyday conversation and an astute eye for the nuances of what it means to feel lonely. In the talky comedy Shithouse, he portrays a homesick college freshman struggling to adapt to university life the type of emotionally astute male protagonist that didnt use to exist on-screen. At the center of this warm movie is a budding relationship with a jaded RA (Dylan Gelula) and a path toward fulfillment that is funny, honest and enamoring.

Shithouse is available on VOD platforms. Read more about the movie here .

"Da 5 Bloods"

Netflix

Spike Lees most ambitious (and effective) drama since Inside Man, Da 5 Bloods gives us Delroy Lindo as a bellicose Vietnam War veteran disenchanted with his country. Its one of the years mightiest performances, as well as a career-defining achievement for a heavyweight who hasnt always gotten his due. The elements surrounding Lindo are in top form, too. This is a post-war saga, less about the battle itself than its myriad aftershocks. Much will be said about the late Chadwick Bosemans grand turn in Ma Raineys Black Bottom, but the actors charms are subtler and just as effective in Lees hands here. His spectral presence, seen only in flashbacks, lends the film an added poignancy. Like the soldiers reuniting in Ho Chi Minh City to settle unfinished business, he is a ghost of his former self, departed but never forgotten.

Da 5 Bloods is available on Netflix. Read our profile of Delroy Lindo here .

"Driveways"

FilmRise

Two loners a sensitive 8-year-old (Lucas Jaye) and a crusty Vietnam War veteran (Brian Dennehy) forge a cross-generational friendship in Driveways, the lovely sophomore feature from director Andrew Ahn. The unlikely duo become temporary neighbors when the boys single mother (Hong Chau, great as always) ventures to a small New York town to pack up her late sisters home. Over the course of 83 tranquil minutes, the three characters extend one another a generosity that chips away at each persons deep-seated solitude. At the close, the aging vet delivers a poignant monologue about wishing he hadnt let lifes best moments pass him by a heartbreaking but hopeful message that wont be lost on his impressionable young companion.

Driveways is available on VOD platforms.

"Freaky"

Universal Pictures

Movies like these horror movies, comedy movies and especially horror-comedy hybrids dont get the credit they deserve. When something dares to be as entertaining as Freaky, people assume it was easy to make and therefore not worth singling out. But Christopher Landons body-swap slasher romp has a brain and a heart, which is more than we can say for some movies. Giving gender performance a tongue-in-cheek spin, Freaky finds a bullied teenage girl (Kathryn Newton) and an infamous serial killer (Vince Vaughn) waking up in each others bodies. That enchanted switcheroo leads to fish-out-of-water mishaps, plenty of gore and some surprisingly sweet ideas about what it means to locate strength from within. Pair the movie with Happy Death Day, which Landon also directed, and youll get a winning dissertation on genre conventions.

Freaky is available on VOD platforms. Read our profile of Christopher Landon here .

"The Truffle Hunters"

Sony Pictures Classics

Its as if the directors of The Truffle Hunters set out with a question in mind: How infinitely lovely can one documentary be? Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw follow aging Italians and their skilled pooches as they excavate the titular delicacy and participate in the intricate economics surrounding it. Hunters has a certain mournfulness at its edges, chronicling the ways that climate change and deforestation jeopardize the truffle industry. But Dweck and Kershaw, who shot the film themselves with a luscious serenity, do not turn that gloom into the narrative trap it easily could have been. They centralize the fruitful relationships between these humans and their dogs, connections that are nothing if not spiritual and life-affirming.

The Truffle Hunters opens in select theaters Dec. 25 and premieres on VOD at a later date.

"Sound of Metal"

Amazon Studios

Never before has a movie used such imaginative sound design to capture what it feels like to be deaf. Crafting a directorial debut that looks like the work of a seasoned whiz, Darius Marder plunges Sound of Metal in and out of near-silence to reflect the experience of a sober punk-rock drummer (Riz Ahmed) losing his hearing. Ahmed is always ferociously alive on-screen, and this is his most committed performance yet, partly because he resists showboating and instead calibrates the protagonists turmoil in soft gradations. A movie about someone whose passion his safe haven, really might be taken from him, Metal chronicles a man coming to terms with a new reality full of pain, resentment and, finally, peace.

Sound of Metal is available on Amazon Prime Video. Read our interview with Riz Ahmed here .

"The Forty-Year-Old Version"

Netflix

Radha Blank toiled for years as a New York playwright, unable to gain the commercial success that so many of her white peers seemed to achieve. So she trumped them all, turning that struggle into a winsome film in which Blank plays a variant of herself. The Forty-Year-Old Version is a sprightly comedy with a melancholy that runs deep and true. As fictional Radha approaches 40, she finds herself kowtowing to gatekeepers and channeling her frustrations through an amateur hip-hop venture. Stories of artistic travails are hardly new, especially in Hollywood, but Blanks clever perspective resists clich. She is brash but charismatic, tired but not ready to give up. Better late than never, this looks like the start of a flourishing career.

The Forty-Year-Old Version is available on Netflix. Read more about the movie here .

"Bacurau"

Kino Lorber

Weird, hypnotic and profoundly sociopolitical, Bacurau is a genre-agnostic sorta-Western set in the hinterlands of near-future Brazil. The titular town is fictional, and many of the goings-on adopt a magical realism that co-directors Kleber Mendona Filho and Juliano Dornelles explore without fealty to traditional exposition. As the village residents gather to bury a respected matriarch, a corrupt mayor (Thardelly Lima) and a cabal of foreign executioners (led by Udo Kier) learn the hard way that their terrorism wont go unvanquished. Booze and hallucinogens flow, and Bacurau becomes a grisly head trip about the haves and have-nots.

Bacurau is available on VOD platforms.

"David Byrne's American Utopia"

HBO

When things seemed helplessly bleak in 2020, when we couldnt gather in movie theaters or Broadway venues or anywhere else that offers collective catharsis, David Byrne gave us a concert film that felt ripped from the marrow of our unrest. And yet American Utopia captured by Spike Lee with radiant dynamism scours the gloom of the Trump age for something hopeful. In a show comprising greatest hits from his Talking Heads days and his solo catalog, Byrne stresses that the only way forward is together. Utopia is both a protest piece and a big-hearted ode to the better days that lie ahead. Were on a road to nowhere, but no one needs to travel alone.

David Byrnes American Utopia is available on HBO. Read our interview with Byrnes scene-stealing backup dancers here .

"Bad Education"

HBO

In 2018, director Corey Finley made his big-screen debut with Thoroughbreds, a delicious psychodrama about murderous teen girls. His follow-up, Bad Education, scrubs some of that earlier movies stylishness but none of its bite. Based on a true scandal about a cunning Long Island school superintendent caught embezzling millions of dollars, Finley's film offers a taut but nuanced portrait of greed that weaponizes Hugh Jackmans charm. Portraying the antiheroes at the films center, Jackman and co-star Allison Janney use their inherent likability to expose how easy it is for the powerful to dupe those with less a dynamic that screenwriter Mike Makowsky wisely mines for tension and dark humor.

Bad Education is available on HBO. Read our interview with Corey Finley and Allison Janney here .

"Kajillionaire"

Focus Features

Miranda Julys films tend to be love-'em-or-leave-'em affairs. Her whimsical wavelength doesnt suit everyone. But the sweet, pensive Kajillionaire is Julys most grounded movie to date, chronicling a family of Los Angeles grifters who survive by executing two-bit scams. Their droll existence is built on lies and misconceptions about how society operates, which proves especially troublesome for the 26-year-old oddball whos been brought up without realizing how off-kilter her life is. Shes played by an appropriately slouchy Evan Rachel Wood, who becomes a foil for her relentless parents (Debra Winger and Richard Jenkins) when the trio recruits a peppy Oceans Eleven enthusiast (Gina Rodriguez, delivering one of the years funniest performances) to help them pull off a hoax.

Kajillionaire is available on VOD platforms. Read our interview with Miranda July here .

"First Cow"

A24 Films

Kelly Reichardt is known for making quiet movies about the American West, and this is her finest work yet. A love story without any romance, First Cow finds faith in Cookie Figowitz (soulful John Magaro), an amiable culinarian weathering the punishing terrain of 1820s Oregon. Cookie befriends an enterprising Chinese immigrant (Orion Lee), and soon they're in business together, stealing milk to make primitive donuts that attract the locals in droves. What makes First Cow so remarkable is the bond between its two protagonists, a dulcet relationship that defies the hypermasculine bravado often shown to characterize male friendship. The duo engage in a thrifty capitalism, but what unifies them isnt the money its each other.

First Cow is available on VOD platforms. Read our interview with John Magaro here .

"Dick Johnson Is Dead"

Netflix

Dick Johnson Is Dead started as an experiment: Kirsten Johnson, a noted documentarian, would concoct ways to fake-kill her delightful 80-something father so the two of them could process his dementia diagnosis by confronting death head-on. What resulted is an eloquent, humorous celebration of life. Johnson melds fact and fiction to create an exuberance with few cinematic precedents.

Dick Johnson Is Dead is available on Netflix. Read our interview with Kirsten Johnson here .

"Minari"

A24 Films

Every year, one child performance stands out above all the others. Enter Alan S. Kim, a newcomer portraying 7-year-old David, whose father (the always compelling Steven Yeun) relocates their family to Arkansas in hopes of building a sustainable Korean farm. Minari, a tender drama written and directed by Lee Isaac Chung, is mostly Davids story, even though he has minimal agency as his parents chase an illusory American dream. His unconventional grandmother (Youn Yuh-jung) swoops in to help, and the resulting levity lends the struggles of adapting to new cultures a bit of uplift. With verdant cinematography and a heartening score, Chungs film is a semi-autobiographical examination of what it takes to create a home.

Minari opens in select theaters Dec. 11 and premieres on VOD platforms Feb. 12. Read more about the movie here .

"Promising Young Woman"

Focus Features

Early in Promising Young Woman, Cassie Thomas (Carey Mulligan) a 30-year-old barista living with her parents and still processing a years-old tragedy ambles down a roadway eating a hot dog. Ketchup dribbles across her arms, resembling streaks of blood. Might as well be. Shes just one-upped a man whod come perilously close to raping her. Thats a pastime of hers, even a vendetta: faking drunkenness and flipping the script on potential defilers. Audacious, witty and gloriously over-the-top, Emerald Fennells directorial debut is a parade of images just as striking as that gory weiner. This high-voltage feminist revenge saga skips mawkish empowerment clichs and goes for the jugular.

Promising Young Woman opens in select theaters Dec. 25 and premieres on VOD in January. Read more about the movie here .

"Nomadland"

Searchlight Pictures

Painterly and incisive, Nomadland is a travelogue that forgoes the usual road-movie hallmarks. The expedition in Chlo Zhaos third film belongs to Fern (Frances McDormand), a matter-of-fact widow who lives out of her van in the American West and takes whatever employment she can find along the way. Zhao wrote and directed Nomadland based on Jessica Bruders 2017 nonfiction book of the same name, casting actual itinerants opposite McDormand to achieve an earthiness reminiscent of Zhaos work in The Rider. The results are as unsentimental as they are delicately political, trading overcooked working-class polemics for gentle observations about the human spirit. McDormand has never struggled to shed her movie-star veneer, making her a natural fit for a wanderer whose weathered face is essential to the story. Nomadland luxuriates in the beauty of our country while softly critiquing its white-picket-fence fantasies. No film this year is as ravishing.

Nomadland is now playing in select virtual cinemas and premieres on VOD platforms in February. Read more about the movie here .

Honorable mentions:

Boys State (directed by Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss)

Lovers Rock (directed by Steve McQueen)

Never Rarely Sometimes Always (directed by Eliza Hittman)

Relic (directed by Natalie Erika James)

Saint Frances (directed by Alex Thompson)

Save Yourselves! (directed by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson)

The Vast of Night (directed by Andrew Patterson)

Plus, a handful of must-see performances:

Maria Bakalova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

Jasmine Batchelor, The Surrogate

Carrie Coon, The Nest

Viola Davis, Ma Raineys Black Bottom

Lucas Hedges, Let Them All Talk

Mary Holland, Happiest Season

Mads Mikkelsen, Another Round

Aubrey Plaza, Black Bear