The Big Picture · Discussion · Top Five
July 2, 2020/ 60 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins
Ringer critic Adam Nayman joins Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins to trade top-five lists of the best movies of 2020 so far, and to talk through what watching movies at home instead of in theaters has changed about how they see them.
16 films across 4 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
Movies at homeon watching everything on a screen that isn't a movie screen
Amanda didn't watch it until Sunday afternoon of opening weekend because the Judd Apatow runtime needed eight free hours. Adam, who wrote about it for the site, says nothing about it demands a big screen, but the habit of seeing things on opening weekend hasn't left him.
Adam's Top Fivebest to worst
No. 1. Kitty Green's minimalist portrait of a production assistant's day in a Miramax-like office. Adam says the first fifteen minutes play like an abstract film about being the first person into the office, and the Matthew Macfadyen phone call does the work of explaining the whole world in one scene.
No. 2, shared with Sean. Andrew Patterson's Twilight Zone-inflected sci-fi debut, spotted by Soderbergh at Slamdance and released on Amazon. Adam has watched it three times and compares its confidence to Spielberg's Sugarland Express.
No. 3, shared with Sean. Kelly Reichardt's frontier friendship film. Adam calls her "the queen of subtlety" and hopes an Oscar nomination might finally widen the audience for a filmmaker who's gone fifteen years mostly ignored outside the Independent Spirit Awards.
No. 4. Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles' Brazilian village-under-siege film. Adam calls it his version of Assault on Precinct 13 with a little They Live mixed in, and saw it at TIFF with a whooping audience.
No. 5. Pedro Costa's hushed drama, cast with non-professionals, about a widow returning to her hometown. Adam saw it at TIFF in a pin-drop screening and says it's the pick that makes him miss theaters most, though he still recommends watching it at home.
Amanda's Top Fivebest to worst
No. 1, shared with Sean. Eliza Hittman's drama follows a Pennsylvania teenager traveling to New York for an abortion. Amanda calls it issue-driven but not preachy, carried by what she calls an incredible performance from Sidney Flanigan.
No. 2, shared with Adam (his No. 1). Amanda points to the Matthew Macfadyen phone-call scene as the moment the film "grabs you."
No. 3. Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering's documentary on the allegations against Russell Simmons, centered on former Def Jam A&R executive Drew Dixon. Amanda singles out a roughly fifteen-minute passage on what going public means for Dixon as a Black woman.
No. 4. Spike Lee's Netflix Vietnam-vet drama. Amanda calls Delroy Lindo's performance the performance of the year, and says she's gone back to rewatch his climactic jungle monologue on its own.
No. 5. Alice Wu's queer teen adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac, Wu's first film since 2004's Saving Face. Amanda calls it proof a Netflix teen movie doesn't have to be the lowest-common-denominator version.
Sean's Top Fivebest to worst
No. 1, shared with Amanda.
No. 2, shared with Adam.
No. 3, shared with Adam.
No. 4. Gavin O'Connor's drama stars Ben Affleck as a washed-up ex-college basketball star coaching his old high school team. Sean pitches it as Bad News Bears meets The Lost Weekend and says it's one of the last movies he saw in a theater before lockdown.
No. 5. Leigh Whannell's Blumhouse reboot with Elisabeth Moss. Sean calls it the last movie that gave him a physical reaction in a theater, saying he went from nervous to excited to laughing.
Also mentioned raised along the way
In passing The PlayerTenetTop Gun: MaverickMankTrolls World TourThe MummyColossal YouthEurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga
Also mentioned ExtractionDen of ThievesThe Trip to GreeceThe GentlemenSaving FaceCasting JonBenetBeach Rats
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV The Last DanceCrashingAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Books She Said
Ads The Bakari Sellers Podcast