The Big Picture · Top Five
December 8, 2020/ 93 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins · Chris Ryan · Adam Nayman
Sean Fennessey, Amanda Dobbins, Chris Ryan, and Adam Nayman each rank their five best films of a locked-down, streaming-heavy year. Three of the four land on the same movie at the very top.
22 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.
Adam Nayman's Top 5revealed No. 5 up to No. 1
No. 1 - Kelly Reichardt's frontier-friendship film, which premiered at NYFF in 2019 and finally got released this year. Adam calls Reichardt "the great filmmaker of American failure" and says it's the most emotionally engaging thing he saw all year.
No. 2 - Steve McQueen's Small Axe courtroom drama about the Mangrove Nine. Adam has mixed feelings about McQueen generally but singles out a wordless moment (a man pulling his daughter out of a protest march) as the most powerful thing he saw in a movie this year.
No. 3 - Pedro Costa's Portuguese drama about a woman arriving in Lisbon just after her husband's death. Adam calls it the most beautiful piece of filmmaking he saw this year and recommends watching it in a completely dark room.
No. 4 - Ben Berman's anti-comedy special, with Heidecker playing a version of himself performing deliberately bad standup. Adam calls it misanthropic, cathartic, and brilliant.
No. 5 - Garrett Bradley's documentary about a woman's 20-year fight to free her incarcerated husband, built around her own home-video footage, added in after the film was already cut.
Chris Ryan's Top 5revealed No. 5 up to No. 1
No. 1 - Andrew Patterson's $700,000 UFO thriller set in 1950s New Mexico. Chris calls it the best time he had watching a movie all year and says he restarted it the moment it ended.
No. 2 - one of three picks (with Amanda and Sean) that converge on the same film, saved for the episode's finale.
No. 3 - Sean Durkin's marriage-collapse drama with Jude Law and Carrie Coon, set in the mid-'80s. Chris calls Coon's performance his favorite of the year.
No. 4 - Cooper Raiff's debut about a homesick college freshman, which Chris says knocked him back with how emotionally upfront it is.
No. 5 - Rob Savage's 56-minute Zoom-seance horror movie on Shudder. Chris calls it the movie he'll most associate with 2020.
Amanda Dobbins's Top 5revealed No. 5 up to No. 1
No. 1 - Eliza Hittman's film about a Pennsylvania teenager traveling to New York for an abortion. Amanda calls it the movie that felt most set in the real world this year.
No. 2 - Garrett Bradley's documentary, also on Adam's list. Amanda watched it alone in her living room and found the experience of watching someone's private footage there especially moving.
No. 3 - saved for the finale; the third of three picks (with Chris and Sean) that all land on the same film.
No. 4 - Spike Lee's filmed version of Byrne's Broadway show. Amanda calls it her most rapturous and emotional movie-watching experience of the year.
No. 5 (tied) - one of two rom-coms Amanda picked after being encouraged to be idiosyncratic; both were meant for theaters and went straight to Hulu instead.
No. 5 (tied) - the other Hulu rom-com pick, Amanda's platform being "make rom-coms good and quality again."
Sean Fennessey's Top 5revealed No. 5 up to No. 1
No. 1 - David Fincher's black-and-white portrait of screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, the subject of the episode's closing discourse. Sean, Chris, and Amanda all put it in their top five.
No. 2 (tied) - unlike Adam, who picked only one Small Axe film, Sean picked both Mangrove and Lover's Rock.
No. 2 (tied) - the other Small Axe pick, an all-night house-party film Sean says he's never seen anything quite like, built around one long dance-floor sequence.
No. 3 - a documentary about a mock-government summer camp for teenage boys in Texas, directed by Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine.
No. 4 - Pixar's Pete Docter film about where souls come from, premiering on Disney+ on Christmas Day. Sean calls it one of the bleakest existential explorations he's seen in a long time.
No. 5 - Chloe Zhao's film starring Frances McDormand, which Sean saw with Amanda at a drive-in screening, one of the only theatrical experiences either had after February.
Also mentioned raised along the way
The Mank discourse Citizen KaneThe Social NetworkSe7enFight ClubPanic RoomZodiacAlien 3
In passing Martha Marcy May MarlenePhantom ThreadThe Trial of the Chicago 7The TerminatorOnce Upon a Time in Hollywood1917ParasiteThe IrishmanUncut GemsLittle WomenWonder Woman 1984Hillbilly ElegyThe Little ThingsOne Night in MiamiGreenlandTom and JerryMy Neighbor TotoroThe MegEternalsThe RiderInside OutUpToy StoryRatatouilleFinding Nemo35 Shots of Rum
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV The CrownToo Old to Die YoungThe Twilight ZoneNight Gallery
Video games FIFA World Cup Launch Edition
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