Though the common thinking may be that movies all but disappeared during the first half of 2020—with the coronavirus epidemic chasing many films away from their planned release dates, and theaters around the country shuttering indefinitely—there were at least a handful of worthy films that managed to make their way to theaters or on-demand platforms before and even during the tumult. The titles listed below are our 10 favorite films of the year so far; many are already available to watch at home, a sign of an old industry adjusting to new realities, and new ways to reach audiences.
The Assistant
A film about the put-upon assistant to a raging, abusive (sexually and otherwise) movie producer, The Assistant was inevitably praised for its timeliness. But what’s most admirable about the film is its restraint, the way writer-director Kitty Green so deftly balances explication and implication. The Assistant is an environmental movie, capturing the sights and sounds of a day at work, as Jane (the terrific Julia Garner) struggles to maintain both her dignity and her belief in the job at hand. “Someday this will all be worth it,” she seems to routinely insist to herself. What we see and hear gradually forms a portrait of a terrible system in function, and all the quotidian allowances that must be made to keep it running.
The movie is not about Harvey Weinstein specifically, but rather the ecosystem that kept him empowered for so long. It’s damning and understanding, a chilling and unsensational examination of the mechanics so many are still working under—and, in too many cases, in support of. —Richard Lawson
Bacurau
An isolated town in rural northern Brazil is stalked by something. Yes, by the long, insidious reaches of exploitative corporate and government interests located in faraway cities. But also, in a much more immediate sense, by an actual something. Is it man-made? Extraterrestrial? Supernatural? Juliano Dornelles and Kleber Mendonça Filho’s film lets that mystery linger for a long while, lulling the audience into an eerie dream before disrupting it with brutal, violent fact.
A movie about marginalized people fighting for their lives, Bacurau is a timely political tract—Mendonça Filho’s films have run afoul of the Brazilian government on several occasions, especially in the Bolsonaro era—and it’s also devilishly, startlingly entertaining. A mash-up of genres—but first and foremost a neo-Western—Bacurau is a glorious surprise of a movie, enriching for its muscular filmmaking and its arresting emotional chords of sorrow and triumph. —R.L.
Bad Education
I’ve seen Corey Finley’s film (written by Mike Makowsy) a few times now, and what impresses me more with each rewatching is its ingenious pace. Or, rather, the careful way the film reveals the structure of the thing it’s talking about. Ostensibly concerned with an embezzlement scheme in a prosperous Long Island school district, Bad Education pushes its inquest, scene by scene, toward something profound. It’s a movie about want, the rapaciously American kind that lies at the heart of even the seemingly cleanest of people and institutions.