2020 in Films: 365 Days, 386 Films, and a Year Full of Cinema!

Usually I post this year end recap on the last day of the year, but like I said in my December wrap-up post, my computer died the day after Christmas so everything has gotten a bit delayed. Obviously 2020 was a very unusual year and you can see that reflected in what I watched. You’ll notice, for example, that I didn’t watch very many movies in June. I also only watched three films in September due to the passing of my Grampa and all that that entailed. I do however feel like I managed to expand the kinds of films I watched and watch a lot of films outside my comfort zone. So, as always, after the cut you can see every film I watched as well as a breakdown by decade, and a highlight of my favorite new-to-me (but not new release) film I watched. If you want to see my monthly recaps you can find those here.

The Cotton Club (encore cut)
And You Act Like One Too
Yours Truly, Andrea G. Stern
The Juniper Tree
Band Aid
Love & Mercy
Champagne
Comme une image (Look at Me)
Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage
Paris est à nous (Paris Is Us)
Cosmos Laundromat
Zaklete rewiry (Hotel Pacific)
A Love Song For Latasha
Aziza
Dragonfly
Walk, Run, Cha-Cha
Cinema Rules Everything Around Me
Moonwalk With Me
Kitbull
A Fall From Grace
Jezebel (2020)
What Did Jack Do?
Miss Americana
(February) Eatnanvulos lottit (Birds in the Earth)
Fainting Spells
37 Seconds
Maggie (2018)
Putney Swope
My Dinner with Andre
The Velvet Vampire
Suzaki Paradaisu: Akashingô (Suzaki Paradise: Red Light District)
Ginza 24 chou (Tales of Ginza)
Horse Girl
Ashita kuru hito (Till We Meet Again)
To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You
Fûsen (The Balloon)
Baby It’s You
Ai no onimotsu (Burden of Love)
Familia sumergida (A Family Submerged)
The Photograph
The Last Thing He Wanted
First Cow
The Age of Adaline
All the Bright Places
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Waga machi (Our Town)
(March) La historia oficial (The Official Story)
El Norte
Honey Boy
The Cruz Brothers and Miss Malloy
Spenser Confidential
Nobody’s Fool (1986)
Lost and Delirious
Home Again
Ueru tamashii (Hungry Soul)
Zoku ueru tamashii (Hungry Soul, Part II)
Lost Girls
Takers
Into The Inferno
Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool
Chasing Trane
Man kann nicht alles auf einmal tun, aber man kann alles auf einmal lassen (You Can’t Do Everything at Once, But You Can Leave Everything at Once)
Still
Hinterland
Aves
Old Man (2012)
Mobilize
Good Intentions (2018)
The Above
Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke
Skipped Parts
The Daytrippers
Bakumatsu taiyôden (Sun In The Last Days of the Shogunate)
You Light Up My Life
If Lucy Fell
Tampopo
Birders
Sitara: Let Girls Dream
Lorena, La de pies ligeros (Lorena, Light-footed Woman)
Emma.
Onna ga kaidan wo agaru toki (When a Woman Ascends the Stairs)
Crip Camp
Anjô-ke no butôkai (A Ball at the Anjo House)
Uncorked
Nippon konchûki (The Insect Woman)
Bacurau
Kokoro (The Heart)
Onna wa nido umareru (Women Are Born Twice)
Sweet Hearts Dance
Mr. Jones
(April) Coffee & Kareem
Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Blow The Man Down
Tigertail
Love Wedding Repeat
LA Originals
Hausu (House)
Shitoyakana kedamono (The Graceful Brute)
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
Ochazuke no aji (The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice)
Konyaku yubiwa (Wedding Ring)
Sergio (2020)
Ukigumo (Floating Clouds)
Eyes of Laura Mars
Big Night
Ugetsu monogatari
Circus of Books
Sanyangeui sigan (Time to Hunt)
Extraction
Ôsaka no yado (An Inn at Osaka)
A Secret Love
Maqbool
Dangerous Lies
(May) All Day and a Night
The Half of It
Ema
Joyce at 34
Becoming
Selah and the Spades
Clotheslines
Un beau soleil intérieur (Let the Sunshine In)
Carrie Pilby
Loser
Diabolo menthe (Peppermint Soda)
Outside In
Jean of the Joneses
Qarib Qarib Singlle
Galveston
Rough Night
Ophelia
The Weekend
Sword of Trust
Paper Year
Growing Up Female
Janie’s Janie
Betty Tells Her Story
It Happens to Us
Yudie
Second Cousins Once Removed
(June) Janine
She Don’t Fade
Vanilla Sex
Untitled Portrait
The Potluck and the Passion
Greetings from Africa
The Owls
I Am Not A Witch
A Well-Spent Life
Atlantiques
Snow Canon
Big in Vietnam
A Thousand Suns
Liberian Boy
Cane River
And When I Die, I Won’t Stay Dead
Get On The Bus
Chris and Bernie
Inside Women Inside
She’s Gotta Have It
Da 5 Bloods
Several Friends
The Horse
The Final Insult
Quiet as Kept
My Brother’s Wedding
Wasp Network
Disclosure (2020)
Miss Juneteenth
Shirley
Feel The Beat
Songs My Brothers Taught Me
Olivia
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga
(July) Friends With Money
Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn
Valley Girl (2020)
The Rhythm Section
The Assistant
Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado
The Old Guard
Guerillère Talks
Soft Fiction
Land Makar
Suzanne, Suzanne
Audience
Please Give
The Ties That Bind
The Salt Mines
The Transformation
Fatal Affair
Father Soldier Son
Palm Springs
Privilege
Conversations with Intellectuals About Selena
Along Came Polly
Secrets (1933)
The Wind (1928)
The Scarlet Letter (1926)
Walk On The Wild Side
Mimi (2003)
(August) Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind
Summerland
Yes, God, Yes
Radioactive
Thirty Day Princess
Mary Burns, Fugitive
Les Miserables (1952)
Sun Don’t Shine
She Dies Tomorrow
An American Pickle
Shakedown
Coup de foudre (Entre Nous)
Festival
Black and Tan
St. Louis Blues (1929)
I Surrender Dear
A Rhapsody in Black and Blue
A Bundle of Blues
Sing, Bing, Sing
Cab Calloway’s Hi-De-Ho
Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life
Artie Shaw’s Class in Swing
Hoagy Carmichael
The Sleepover
Sex and the City 2
Les enfants du siècle (The Children of the Century)
Bill & Ted Face the Music
Bee Season
(Sept) i’m thinking of ending things
Mignonnes (Cuties)
The Devil All The Time
The Boys in the Band (2020)
(Oct) Dick Johnson Is Dead
Un Voyage Abracadabrant
New York 1911
Planty Krakowskie
Un Voyage Au Caire (Nos Vedettes À L’Étranger)
Over Besseggen På Motocykkel
Belgique Pittoresque: Ostende; Bruges
Svatojánské Proudy
[Trieste, Summer 1939)
Travlor Från London (Londonerbilleder)
Penrod and Sam (1923)
The Brilliant Biograph: Earliest Moving Images of Europe (1897-1902)
Guo Feng (National Customs)
Toodles, Tom and Trouble
Where Lights Are Low
České hrady a zámky
La tempesta in un cranio
Oi apahides ton Athinon
Hubie Halloween
Abwege
The Forty-Year-Old Version
A Romance of the Redwoods (1917)
The Wolf of Snow Hollow
Ballettens Datter
The Serenade (1916)
The Rent Collector
Detained
Moonlight and Noses
When Knights Were Cold
A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting
The Trial of the Chicago 7
Summer (2006)
Michigan Avenue
I-94
The United States of America
Empty Suitcases
Anybody’s Woman (1981)
Luminous Motion
Rebecca (2020)
Gregory Go Boom
Pauline Alone
Woman in Deep
Man Rots from the Head
Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
On the Rocks
David Byrne’s American Utopia
Little Fugitive
Daughters of Darkness
Vampires vs. the Bronx
His House
(Noirvember) Blind Alley
Beware, My Lovely
Croupier
The Sleeping City
New York Confidential
The Desperate Hours
Slightly Scarlet
The Killer That Stalked New York
The Hot Spot
City of Fear
Night Editor
The Dark Past
La vita davanti a sé (The Life Ahead)
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
Monsoon (2020)
Motherless Brooklyn
The Big Steal
The Night Holds Terror
Fourteen Hours
Døden er et kjærtegn (Death is a Caress)
Street of Chance
Loophole
Night Moves (1975)
Strange Impersonation
Abandoned
Quicksand
The Big Night
Hillbilly Elegy
Ladies In Retirement
Take One False Step
Commuters
A Kiss Before Dying (1956)
Manhandled
M (1951)
(December) You Are Not I
Sleepwalk
Middle of the Night
When Pigs Fly
The Bowery (1994)
Happiest Season
Shall We Dance? (2004)
Mank
Comment je me suis disputé… (ma vie sexuelle) (My Sex Life… or How I Got Into an Argument)
Trois souvenirs de ma jeunesse (My Golden Days)
It Happened on 5th Avenue
Terra Sonâmbula (Sleepwalking Land)
Smash Your Baggage
Nomadland
Sound of Metal
Lost in Yonkers
Relic
Misbehaviour
Kranes konditori (Krane’s Confectionary)
Lingua Franca
Funny Boy
Banshun (Late Spring)
Let Them All Talk
The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart
Druk (Another Round)
Tesla
Martin Eden
Kajillionaire
I’m Your Woman
Une fille facile (An Easy Girl)
Yang guang pu zhao (A Sun)
Ya no estoy aqui (I’m No Longer Here)
Time
The Vast of Night
Az én XX. századom (My 20th Century)
Passion Flower
The Personal History of David Copperfield
Driveways
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Four Women
The Diary of an African Nun
Illusions
Praise House
Standing At The Scratch Line
Babyteeth
Small Axe: Mangrove
Small Axe: Lovers Rock
Small Axe: Red, White and Blue
Small Axe: Alex Wheatle
Small Axe: Education
Beyond Tomorrow
Mr. Soft Touch
Holland in ijs (Holland In Ice)
Expeditie naar de Noordpool (Expedition to the North Pole)
Il Natale di Cretinetti (Foolhead’s Christmas)
De kerstman (Ida’s Christmas)
Snowstorm in New York (1926?)
The Snowman
Santa Claus (1898)
Luciferverkoopstertje: Een Kerstverhaal in 1 bedrijf (The Little Match Girl: A Christmas Tale In One Act)
The Mistletoe Bough
Broncho Billy’s Christmas Dinner (Christmas At The Sheriff’s)
Kerstman En Fee (Father Christmas and the Fairy)
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
Sylvie’s Love
Fanny och Alexander (Fanny and Alexander)
We Can Be Heroes
Wonder Woman 1984
Where Are The Children? (1986)

1880s: 0
1890s: 01
1900s: 06
1910s: 12
1920s: 19
1930s: 18
1940s: 15
1950s: 34
1960s: 9
1970s: 27
1980s: 27
1990s: 26
2000s: 15
2010s: 56
2020s: 111

This year my percentage of films watched by women was almost 50/50 (roughly 41% I think) and I have to give a shout out to the programmers at Criterion Channel where most of these films were watched. They have done such an excellent job of making the filmographies certain women filmmakers that used to be hard to find extremely accessible to their subscribers. I was able to watch a few films in 2020 that I had been trying to track down for years. They also put several filmmakers on my radar that I had never heard of. You absolutely love to see it.

And You Act Like One Too
Yours Truly, Andrea G. Stern
The Juniper Tree
Band Aid
Comme une image (Look at Me)
Paris est à nous (Paris Is Us)
A Love Song For Latasha
Aziza
Dragonfly
Walk, Run, Cha-Cha
Cinema Rules Everything Around Me
Moonwalk With Me
Kitbull
Jezebel (2020)
Miss Americana
Eatnanvulos lottit (Birds in the Earth)
37 Seconds
Maggie (2018)
The Velvet Vampire
Familia sumergida (A Family Submerged)
The Photograph
The Last Thing He Wanted
First Cow
Honey Boy
The Cruz Brothers and Miss Malloy
Nobody’s Fool (1986)
Lost and Delirious
Home Again
Lost Girls
Man kann nicht alles auf einmal tun, aber man kann alles auf einmal lassen (You Can’t Do Everything at Once, But You Can Leave Everything at Once)
Still
Hinterland
Aves
Old Man (2012)
Mobilize
Good Intentions (2018)
The Above
Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke
Skipped Parts
Birders
Sitara: Let Girls Dream
Emma.
Crip Camp
Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Blow The Man Down
Circus of Books
The Half of It
Joyce at 34
Becoming
Selah and the Spades
Clotheslines
Un beau soleil intérieur (Let the Sunshine In)
Carrie Pilby
Loser
Diabolo menthe (Peppermint Soda)
Outside In
Jean of the Joneses
Qarib Qarib Singlle
Galveston
Rough Night
Ophelia
The Weekend
Sword of Trust
Paper Year
Growing Up Female
Janie’s Janie
Betty Tells Her Story
It Happens to Us
Yudie
Second Cousins Once Removed
Janine
She Don’t Fade
Vanilla Sex
Untitled Portrait
The Potluck and the Passion
Greetings from Africa
The Owls
I Am Not A Witch
Atlantiques
Snow Canon
Big in Vietnam
A Thousand Suns
Liberian Boy
Chris and Bernie
Inside Women Inside
Miss Juneteenth
Shirley
Feel The Beat
Songs My Brothers Taught Me
Olivia
Friends With Money
Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn
Valley Girl (2020)
The Rhythm Section
The Assistant
Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado
The Old Guard
Guerillère Talks
Soft Fiction
Land Makar
Suzanne, Suzanne
Audience
Please Give
The Ties That Bind
The Salt Mines
The Transformation
Father Soldier Son
Privilege
Conversations with Intellectuals About Selena
Mimi (2003)
(August) Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind
Summerland
Yes, God, Yes
Radioactive
Sun Don’t Shine
She Dies Tomorrow
Shakedown
Coup de foudre (Entre Nous)
The Sleepover
Les enfants du siècle (The Children of the Century)
Mignonnes (Cuties)
Dick Johnson Is Dead
The Forty-Year-Old Version
A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting
Michigan Avenue
I-94
The United States of America
Empty Suitcases
Anybody’s Woman (1981)
Luminous Motion
Gregory Go Boom
Pauline Alone
Woman in Deep
Man Rots from the Head
On the Rocks
Little Fugitive
Døden er et kjærtegn (Death is a Caress)
Commuters
You Are Not I
Sleepwalk
When Pigs Fly
The Bowery (1994)
Happiest Season
Terra Sonâmbula (Sleepwalking Land)
Nomadland
Lost in Yonkers
Relic
Misbehaviour
Kranes konditori (Krane’s Confectionary)
Lingua Franca
Funny Boy
Kajillionaire
I’m Your Woman
Time
Az én XX. századom (My 20th Century)
Four Women
The Diary of an African Nun
Illusions
Praise House
Standing At The Scratch Line
Babyteeth
Wonder Woman 1984

Every year I watch some movie for the first time that is the exact right movie for who I am now and what I need in my life. This year that movie was The Age of Adaline. I did not see it when it first came out because that was A Year With Women and this film is indeed written and directed by men. I’m really glad I finally gave this film a watch. It’s the kind of fantasy that I really enjoy: sort of magical realism in that the bulk of the action could actually happen, but then one fantastical element kicks the action into gear. In this case it’s that Adaline (played by Blake Lively, in a very confident yet breezy performance) gets into a freak accident involving freezing water and lightning and stops aging. What I loved so much about the film is how complex Adaline is in the film. Although she’s essentially in hiding, due to her disorder and a run in with the government at the height of the Red Scare, she has lived a relatively full life. She’s traveled. She’s learned languages. She indulges her passion for learning and history. She seems like the kind of woman I would want to be friends with. The film also has two wonderful performances from Harrison Ford and Michiel Huisman as her would-be suitors. Ford really seems to sink his teeth into this role, something we haven’t seen from him in quite awhile, while Huisman is just incredibly charming. What I love so much about their story is that they feel like equals intellectually and while there is a physical attraction, it’s their intellectual connection that pushes their relationship forward.

I watched this movie about a dozen times in 2020 (I bought the Blu-ray almost immediately after the first watch). I’m not sure the marketing did the depth of the film – nor Lively’s performance – justice, but I hope more people will discover it like I did and give it a chance. If you are in the US, you can find it streaming on Hulu.

So that was my 2020 in films. I hope to keep up gender parity in my viewing again this year and already have so many on Criterion Channel (and some that I DVR’d from when TCM showed nothing but films directed by women over three month’s last Fall), so I think it’ll be much easier this year. I also have tickets for five films by women directors that are premiering at Sundance this year all set for the end of this month. While I truly miss seeing all my friends at festivals, I do enjoy being able to watch festival premieres from the ease of my home. I wish there were a happy medium somewhere.

In terms of what I plan to do next with my career – I really don’t know! I’m taking some time to just breathe a bit. Catch up on my sleep. Try to recharge my creativity. Hopefully something great will come my way. Until then, there’s always the movies!