Our film staff selected their favorite films of 2015.

Phoenix
Director Christian Petzold has always been interested in Germany’s history, but in his triumph Phoenix he’s equally interested in excavating film history and the relationship between the two.  Phoenix is a Holocaust film from a totally different perspective, showing the struggle to reclaim a fundamentally ruptured sense of self.  Steeped in the glamour and tragic romance of 1940s Hollywood, Phoenix tells a Vertigo-esque story, but snatches it from Hitchcock’s apolitical dreamworld and tells it from a female perspective in the most tragic historical context imaginable.  The unstable forces of identity and desire fuel a feverish descent into an uncanny Berlin netherworld.  And that ending!  Most films are lucky to have one perfect scene, but to have a perfect ending is a film’s greatest gift.  The ending of Phoenix uses music to strike a note in your heart that words could never express. - Joe Blessing

Ex-Machina
Alex Garland, frequent collaborator of Danny Boyle, and the screenwriter responsible for intelligent sci-fi and genre fare such as 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Never Let Me Go, stepped into the director’s chair for the first time with Ex Machina and absolutely killed it. Pulling inspiration from the likes of Stanley Kubrick and subverting Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, Garland's film is structured around a single experiment and maintains an understated creepy tone until it concludes with nightmarish results. Oscar Isaac is wonderfully creepy as a mad scientist who creates a female A.I. named Ava, played by Alicia Vikander in a luminous and seductive breakout performance. This timely thriller features incredibly seamless visual effects, beautiful sleek production design and a fascinatingly unnerving script. All that and it also manages to fit in the best dance scene of 2015. It’s an instant sci-fi classic. - Joseph Hernandez

Amy
Asif Kapadia’s Amy is harrowing and beautiful. To many, she was a tabloid joke, at best. But the film does an incredible job of wiping that slate clean. Amy introduces us to a beautiful young girl who loves to sing. You form a relationship with her, and you care about her well-being. You suddenly find yourself thinking this could end any other way, and it hits hard when you realize it can’t. In a sense, its the classic rock ’n roll story - sex, drugs, ‘n...well, soul music - and every clichė comes with it. Co-dependent hangers-on, a greedy imbecile of a parent, and an inhumane media machine. Constructed exclusively through real camera footage, Amy guides us along via home movies, friends’ camera phone footage, and eventually, high-definition, vulture-esque paparazzi voyeurism. Amy will make you weep, but also make you smile and cherish this talent we lost. It’s a beautiful, stirring film. - Marco Margaritoff

Love & Mercy
Ardent fans of The Beach Boys fans were cautiously excited for this Brian Wilson biopic set during the advent of that album sacred to pop fans everywhere: Pet Sounds. Paul Dano gives a spectacular performance as younger Brian Wilson, immersed in initial success and pressure, drug-fueled bliss and paranoia, while John Cusack plays older Brian Wilson, vulnerable to the max. But, the under-sung hero is Elizabeth Banks as the empathetic Melinda Ledbetter, Wilson’s future wife who saved him from the clutches of the horrifying Dr. Landy, caricatured, maybe, but necessary.  Love & Mercy delivers at full force not only for the Brian Wilson faithful, but for unbelievers, and most importantly, moviegoers. The parallel structure pays off tremendously; Atticus Ross’ sound design is superb; the recreation of famous stills, like a snapshot coming to life, are whimsically inventive. The studio session scenes showcasing Wilson’s creative genius are wholly inspiring.  You’ll find no other biopic as moving and exhilarating. Your heart will swell without it being asked.- Elissa Suh

Carol
It could almost be a case of a film being better than the book. Flawless,tight, each frame rapturous. Two people, in mutually fateful situations and perfectly ripened states, meet. From then on, living in the world is a momentous occasion. Isn’t this what falling in love is about? The luminous Cate Blanchett and magnetic Rooney Mara (looking every bit like a gamine Audrey Hepburn), so perfectly inhabit their peculiarities against the proper, not-yet-unglued 1950s America that we get to see their smoldering gazes melt convention, even while those around them, cannot. Faithful to Patricia Highsmith’s novel, yet adding a grit-chewing scene to Carol’s character, screenwriter Phyllis Nagy momentously delivers chutzpah to this feast. With iconoclastic Todd Haynes’ meticulous lens, simple words and gestures become codes of attraction and seduction. All this, with the winds of Christmas swirling about the lovers as if they were incandescent stars caught within a snow globe, makes Carol an immense pleasure to watch. - Cece Anna