Twelve film fights later and we’ve got another finale. As always, my caveat from earlier years still applies: Film Fight is done in a knock-out style and, as such, only picks my favourite film of the year; there are no guarantees about second place.
First up, the films that were good but that did not win their month i.e. the honourable mentions:
- Lincoln
- Zero Dark Thirty
- Robot and Frank
- Compliance
- Trance
- Mud
- The Iceman
- World War Z
- This Is The End
- The East
- The World’s End
- Monster’s University
- Kick-Ass 2
- Filth
- How I Live Now
- Machete Kills
- Captain Phillips
- Anchorman 2
Then the monthly winners:
- January: Django Unchained
- February: Wreck-It Ralph
- March: Cloud Atlas
- April: The Place Beyond the Pines
- May: Upstream Color
- June: Much Ado About Nothing
- July: Pacific Rim
- August: Lovelace
- September: The Way, Way Back
- October: Prisoners
- November: Gravity
- December: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
The winners, as a whole, don’t seem quite as high-quality as some other years, but there are some absolutely fantastic films in there. The Place Beyond the Pines is a powerful look at privilege and family ties. Upstream Color is a wonderfully hypnotic piece of story telling that pulls off its dreamy feel far better than similar films. In Pacific Rim we have the monster movie done well: the story is nonsense but the fights are fun and have weight, despite being CG. Lovelace has two of the best lead performances of the year. While Gravity is spectacular visual storytelling, gripping throughout.
The winner, though, as predicted back in June, is Joss Whedon’s take on Much Ado About Nothing. It’s suitably breezy, funny, delightful, wonderfully shot, and rammed full of excellent performances. This is an absolute masterclass on making Shakespeare feel relevant today, without dumbing down the source material. A well-deserved win.