Favourite Films, Year by Year

Favourite Films of My Life

Because listicles are cute and easier to write!

When I first saw this going round I was a bit freaked out, but technology comes to the rescue. I use Letterboxd a lot and you can go through the films you’ve logged by year. I fear that some of the lovely LGBT films I’ve watched may not be logged on Letterboxd. I’ve also decided not to add my favourite short films as that would make my life impossible. I’ve put in several runner ups and special mentions. Some years are weaker than others (looking at you 2005, what happened?!)

1988: My Neighbour Totoro

1989: Tongues Untied

1990: Edward Scissorhands

1991: Terminator 2

1992: Malcolm X

1993: Jurassic Park

1994: The Lion King
(special mention Rivers of Grass)

1995: Toy Story

1996: Set it Off
(special mention: Matilda)

1997: Starship Troopers
(special mention: Eve’s Bayou)

1998: Truman Show
(special mention: Rushmore)

1999: The Matrix
(special mentions Toy Story 2, American Beauty)

2000: Bamboozled / X-Men

2001: LOTR Fellowship of the Ring
(special mentions Monsters Inc, Training Day)

2002: LOTR The Two Towers
(special mention: 28 Days Later)

2003: LOTR: Return of the King
(special mention: X2, Old Boy)

2004: Shaun of the Dead
(special mention: Mean Girls)

2005: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (what a shit year!)

2006: Pans Labyrinth

2007: Hot Fuzz

2008: Iron Man

2009: Star Trek
(special mention: Moon, UP)

2010: Social Network
(special mention: Beginners, TOY STORY 3, Inception)

2011: Pariah, The Raid
(special mention: Source Code, Attack the Block)

2012: Avengers Assemble

2013: A crazy year!!!! Her, Iron Man 3, The Heat
(special mention: Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Stoker)

2014: Another ridic year!!! Pride, Guardians of the Galaxy, Raid 2, The Lego Movie, Captian American Winter Soldier, Appropriate Behaviour. I refuse to choose a favourite. Fight me.
(special mentions for a special year: Song of the Sea, Nightcrawler, Wild)

2015: Inside Out, Bessie
(special mention: Major!)

2016: Moonlight

2017: Hidden Figures
(special mention: Get Out, Lego Batman)

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Merely Films 21 I Missed Out On At BFI Blackstar

Late last year, something absolutely wonderful happened.

From October to December, BFI Black Star created a season of film full of Black talent. Week after week I camped out at Southbank, seeing a massive variety of Black films. It was such a glorious thing to have Black faces dominating the screen for weeks and months at a time.

BFI Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVj-rmrMZQw

Unfortunately I still managed to muck it up. There was a lot of films I regret missing during BFI Black Star Season. Some by accident, through overwhelming choice, through timing, being broke, ticket deals that don’t loner cinephiles are allowed to use; at one point where I was going to buy 10 tickets I only gotten 2. Hoping BFI improves on this in the future. I really did see a f*ckton of films. And yet during the late autumn I met so many POC who hadn’t heard of Black Star, or only saw one film, or knew about Film Africa, come to the BFI and still completely miss out on Black Star.

Forever more I will be a strange mixture of smug-strated that I got to be in an audience of 30 people for the UK premiere of Lime Kiln Club, the oldest surviving film with an all black cast, dated 1913 with a display of carefree Blackness and humour. This film could easily have been one of the biggest events of the season, backed up with talks and panels and gif workshops. Instead it was scheduled at 18:15 on a Friday night in one of the smaller screens against Boyz in the Hood with director John Singleton doing a Q&A. I’m pretty sure everyone involved did not mean for it to happen, but it happened. And who knows when the next time this film (in the care of MOMA’s vaults) will be seen in the UK again?

So below, see a list of the top ten films I regret missing so you don’t have to. I urge you to look up these films. Their stories are wonderfully varied, and feature star turns from Black actors throughout the history of cinema, that can only benefit anyone who engages with their work, who don’t see their lives or faces reflected:

1. In the Heat of the Night
   Voted greatest Black Star performance of all time. I can also recommend an amazing book about the creation of modern cinema through inception and production of the 1967 Oscar Best Picture Nominations: Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood by Mark Harris (thoroughly, gorgeously researched, written and presented)

2. Robeson films (The Proud Valley, Song of Freedom, Show Boat)
   Paul Robeson is most likely a literal superhero and mainstream missed out because like, racism. I was very overwhelmed by choice in this one.

3. Stormy Weather
   I want to see this performance on the big screen!
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNKRm6H-qOU

4. Devil in a Blue Dress
   I have heard that Don Cheadle is a BOSS in this

5. Imitation of Life (1959)

6. Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit – this is one of my favourite films ever, I have watched it at least 20 times. It was scheduled against Desmond’s with cast and director Q&A and the Beyonce Symposium on the same Sunday afternoon .

7. To Sleep With Anger plus Danny Glover in conversation.
   Shame on me to miss on events when there’s live talks with legendary actors. Not that I really understood how badass Danny Glover is.

8. House Party

9. and 10. Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassssss Song & Foxy Brown.
   Again with scheduling – you could see one but not quite both on the same night. And then I was double booked with other things.

Best of the Rest…

• Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

• Within Our Gates

• New Jack City

• Bush Mama + Child of Resistance + Diary of an African Nun
  – Because LA Rebellion movement films are very rarely screened!

• Black Christmas
  – A 1977 BBC TV movie starring Norman Beaton and Carmen Munroe. I fear I will never have a chance to watch again unless I screen it myself

• Playing Away
  – A film that plays on my nostalgia of when the West Indies cricket team would kick arse epically. At least this one is available on BFI Player

• Secrets and Lies

• Nothing But a Man

• Claudine

• Beverley Hills Cop

• Waiting to Exhale

  Can’t lie, literally for this GIF:

   

  This, unbelievably, is not an exhaustive list. Did y’all go to Black Star and only see one film? Do you even know what I’m talking about? Let me know, let’s chat!

  www.bfi.org.uk/black–star