Favorites of 2015: Jim Healy

January 3, 2016 - 11:19am
Posted by Jim Healy

RISATE DI GIOIA (THE PASSIONATE THIEF)

By Jim Healy, Director of Programming, UW Cinematheque & Wisconsin Film Festival

Of the many movies I saw for the first time in 2015, I've selected 20 that were my favorites. In alphabetical order they are:

ABOUT ELLY (2009, Asghar Farhadi)
BEYOND THE FOREST (1949, King Vidor)
BRIDGE OF SPIES (2015, Steven Spielberg)
CREED (2015, Ryan Coogler)
DAÏNAH LA MÉTISSE (1932, Jean Grémillon)
THE EMIGRANTS (1971, Jan Troell)
GREEN ROOM (2015, Jeremy Saulnier)
THE HATEFUL EIGHT (2015, Quentin Tarantino)
INTRUDER IN THE DUST (1949, Clarence Brown)
KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE (2015, Matthew Vaughn)
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (2015, George Miller)
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: ROGUE NATION (2015, Christopher McQuarrie)
PRIVATE PROPERTY (1960, Leslie Stevens)
RICKI AND THE FLASH (2015, Jonathan Demme)
RISATE DI GIOIA (aka THE PASSIONATE THIEF, 1960, Mario Monicelli)
SHAUN THE SHEEP MOVIE (2015, Richard Starzak & Mark Burton)
SON OF SAUL (2015, László Nemes)
SPOTLIGHT (2015, Tom McCarthy)
SUNSET SONG (2015, Terence Davies)
TANGERINE (2015, Sean Baker)

Here are another 100 titles that I really enjoyed:

ALL FALL DOWN (1962, John Frankenheimer)
ANGST (1983, Gerald Kargl)
ANT-MAN (2015, Peyton Reed)
THE ASPHYX (1973, Peter Newbrook)
AVENGING FORCE (1986, Sam Firstenberg)
THE BABY MAKER (1970, James Bridges)
BACHELOR MOTHER (1939, Garson Kanin)
BEWARE OF MR. BAKER (2012, Jay Bulger)
BEYOND THE LIGHTS (2014, Gina Prince-Blythewood)
BLUES IN THE NIGHT (1941, Anatole Litvak)
BORN FREE (1966, James Hill)
THE BRIDGE (1960, Bernhard Wicki)
BROOKLYN (2015, John Crowley)
THE BUBBLE (1966, Arch Oboler)
CARAVAN (1934, Erik Charrel)
CHUCK NORRIS VS. COMMUNISM (2014, Ilina Calugareanu)
COP CAR (2015, Jon Watts)
THE D TRAIN (2015, Jarrad Paul, Andrew Mogel)
DANGEROUS TO KNOW (1938, Robert Florey)
DANGEROUS WHEN WET (1953, Charles Walters)
DAUGHTERS COURAGEOUS (1939, Michael Curtiz)
DAY OF ANGER (1967, Tonino Valerii)
DEAD OF NIGHT (1945, Basil Dearden, Charles Crichton, Robert Hamer, Cavalcanti)
EATING RAOUL (1982, Paul Bartel)
END OF AUGUST AT THE HOTEL OZONE (1966, Jan Schmidt)
EVEREST (2015, Baltasar Kormakur)
THE EXECUTIONER’S SONG (1982, Lawrence Schiller)
FAMILY FILM (2015, Olmo Omerzu)
FEBRUARY (2015, Osgood Perkins)
FIVE FINGERS (1952, Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
THE FORBIDDEN ROOM (2015, Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson)
FOXCATCHER (2014, Bennett Miller)
THE GOOD DINOSAUR (2015, Peter Sohn)
THE GREAT RUPERT (1950, Irving Pichel)
HENRY GAMBLE’S BIRTHDAY PARTY (2015, Stephen Cone)
HERO’S ISLAND (1962, Leslie Stevens)
HESTER STREET (1975, Joan Micklin Silver)
HOLLYWOOD CANTEEN (1944, Delmer Daves)
HOME (2015, Tim Johnson)
IN NAME ONLY (1939, John Cromwell)
IRRATIONAL MAN (2015, Woody Allen)
JAUJA (2014, Lisandro Alonso)
JET STORM (1959, Cy Endfield)
JURASSIC WORLD (2015, Colin Trevorrow)
KEEPER (2015, Guillaume Senez)
A KID FOR TWO FARTHINGS (1955, Carol Reed)
KIDNAP SYNDICATE (1975, Fernando Di Leo)
KING OF THE WILD STALLIONS (1959, R.G. Springsteen)
LA PETITE LISE (1930, Jean Grémillon)
THE LADY IN THE VAN (2015, Nicholas Hytner)
THE LAST MOVIE (1971, Dennis Hopper)
LAZYBONES (1925, Frank Borzage)
LONDON ROAD (2015, Rufus Norris)
THE LONG, HOT SUMMER (1958, Martin Ritt)
LOST SOUL: THE DOOMED JOURNEY OF RICHARD STANLEY’S ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU (2014, David Gregory)
LOVE AND PEACE (2015, Sion Sono)
LUMIÈRE D’ÉTÉ (1943, Jean Grémillon)
MADAME BOVARY (1949, Vincente Minnelli)
MARIE’S STORY (2014, Jean-Pierre Ameris)
MISTRESS AMERICA (2015, Noah Baumbach)
MY SISTER EILEEN (1955, Richard Quine)
THE NIGHTMARE (2015, Rodney Ascher)
NINJA III: THE DOMINATION (1984, Sam Firstenberg)
OKAY, AMERICA! (1932, Tay Garnett)
ONE CROWDED NIGHT (1940, Irving Reis)
PADDINGTON (2014, Paul King)
PETE KELLY’S BLUES (1955, Jack Webb)
PICKUP (1951, Hugo Haas)
A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH REFLECTING ON EXISTENCE (2014, Roy Andersson)
POLLYANNA (1960, David Swift)
PRINT GENERATION (1974, J.J. Murphy)
THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT (1956, Val Guest)
THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE (1958, Vincente Minnelli)
RESULTS (2015, Andrew Bujalski)
ROOM (2015, Lenny Abrahamson)
THE RUSSIAN WOODPECKER (2015, Chad Gracia)
SAPS AT SEA (1940, Gordon Douglas)
THE SEVENTH CROSS (1944, Fred Zinnemann)
SHOW PEOPLE (1928, King Vidor)
THE SINS OF RACHEL CADE (1961, Gordon Douglas)
SPARTANS (2014, Nicolas Wadimoff)
THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SPONGE OUT OF WATER (2015, Paul Tibbitt)
SPY (2015, Paul Feig)
STAR WARS EPISODE VII THE FORCE AWAKENS (2015, J.J. Abrams)
THE STEEL TRAP (1952, Andrew L. Stone)
STINKING HEAVEN (2015, Nathan Silver)
THE SYSTEM (1953, Lewis Seiler)
TENDER COMRADE (1943, Edward Dmytryk)
THE TREASURE (2015, Corneliu Porumboiu)
TURKEY SHOOT (1982, Brian Trenchard-Smith)
UNCLE KENT 2 (2015, Todd Rohal)
VARIETY (1983, Bette Gordon)
THE WALK (2015, Robert Zemeckis)
WHILE WE’RE YOUNG (2014, Noah Baumbach)
WHITE GOD (2014, Kornél Mundruczó)
WHITE SHADOWS IN THE SOUTH SEAS (1928, W.S. Van Dyke)
WILD TALES (2014, Damian Szifron)
THE WISE KIDS (2011, Stephen Cone)
WOMAN ON THE RUN (1950, Norman Foster)
YOU AND ME (1938, Fritz Lang)