The Best 15 Films of 2014 – A Third Opinion

 

Some years can be easily encapsulated. 2007, for instance, was a notoriously good year for American films, providing the world with adult and thoughtful classics. 2004, by contrast, was perhaps the worst year for American films in recent memory, providing us with very few films of qualitative note (it should be remarked that the better films of the year included Mean Girls and A Dirty Shame, and the Oscars went to forgettable snore-fests like Ray and Million Dollar Baby).

2014, however, is one of the most balanced and nondescript years in a long while. There were a large handful of great films, an equally large handful of outright stinkers, and a big pile of big-budget blockbusters hanging out along the middle. If 2014 was characterized by any one quality, it was that of maturing. Most of the films selected for the following list were about growing out of childhood, teetering into adulthood, or perhaps just enjoying what the world of adulthood had to offer. That may be vague, but in a year this indistinct, it’s hard to find a common thread.

Check Out: William Bibbiani’s Best Movies of 2014 

and Brian Formo’s Best Movies of 2014

 That said, there were a good number of amazing films that came out this year, and – as William Bibbiani declared in his list – winnowing it down to a mere 10 is massively difficult. As such, I have expanded my list to 15 (including one tie) of the best feature films of the year.

As usual, I have missed several of the acclaimed movies, so I should perhaps say that as of this writing I have not seen Selma, Mr. Turner, The Immigrant, The Gambler, or American Sniper. I intend to see these, dear readers. As for now, here are the best films of 2014:  

 

Runners-Up:

The LEGO Movie/22 Jump Street

Chef

Gone Girl

Borgman

Jodorowsky’s Dune


Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.

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