The Year in Film Review

Why are you smiling? People make mistakes on live television. It

happens. I should know. Now we have Mark Kermode with his review of the

year in film. Welcome to this review of the year

in film. We are here in south London and over the next 30 minutes I will

be looking back over the best films to play in 2015. I know that it is

fashionable to complain that today's Cinema is formulaic franchises and

dreary blockbusters. Back in July, Dustin Hoffman complained that

cinema was currently at an all-time cinema was currently at an all-time

low. He said in the 50 years I've been doing it, it is the worst.

Sorry to disagree but if you think modern cinema has nothing to offer

you are looking in the wrong places. From where I'm sitting, the films

that played in UK cinemas range from black-and-white to colour, from

French to Farsi. There has been few years that have been more diverse.

There has been an awakening. Have you felt it?

Surprise. As always, the year kicked off with awards season. Rather than

one movie running away with the trophies the gongs were scattered

between several films. Here in the UK the BAFTA for best film went to

Boyhood, an extraordinary movie in which we watch a boy grew up. In

America, Birdman was the weather, starring Michael Keaton. I liked

that poster. You wrote this adaptation? I did. You are directing

and starring in it. Other victories included Eddie Redmayne, who won the

best actor BAFTA and Oscar for his starring role as Stephen Hawking.

Well done, Doctor. An extraordinary theory. Thank you. He is in the

awards running once again for playing the title role in the Danish

Girl, in which he plays one of the earliest recipients of gender

reassignment surgery. When it comes to the Best Actor category all eyes

are on Leonardo DiCaprio, who was famously snubbed for Titanic. He is

among the frontrunners for his role in The Revenant. It opens in UK

cinemas in January. For me, the most hotly contested

category at the Oscars was that of Best animated feature. The award

went to Big Hero six but among them were some of my favourites. This was

a sublime version of a 10th century folktale told with charcoal lines.

You could almost feel the Brush Strokes as the proudly hand drawn

animation unfolds. Also in contention...

This was rooted in folklore and was a ravishing tale of fairies blending

magical visuals with music to touch the hearts of young and old alike.

Those stories are all true. It opened in July in UK cinemas

providing yet further evidence that we are enjoying a golden age of

animation, despite the fact that no animated feature has ever won the

Best picture award. It continues to be the most exciting and adventurous

area of cinema, constantly pushing at the boundaries of the artform. My

very favourite film of 2015 is an animation I have re-watched several

times since it opened in the summer which has never failed to provoke

laughter and tears, the brilliant Inside Out. The moving van will not

be here until Thursday. You are kidding. You said it would be here

yesterday. That is what they told me. They are stressed out. I don't

know what to do. I've got a great idea. She is closing in. Watch out.

Grandma... She put her hair up. We are in for it.

Taking place almost entirely within the head of its young protagonists,

it is like a supercharged version of an old comicstrip but turned into

something genuinely profound. When it came to blockbusters, 2015 is

Ridley Scott back at the top of his game with The Martian, an adaptation

of a book about an astronaut stranded on the red planet trying to

stay alive. Matt Damon was terrific in the title role, provoking

laughter and empathy in equal measures. This will come as quite a

shock to my crewmates and the entire world but I'm still alive. It is

going to be four years for another mission to reach me. I've got to

make water and grow food on a planet where nothing grows. If I can figure

a way to make contact, none of this matters. We've got an incoming

message. In your Armstrong. Elsewhere we had the usual superhero

movies, from the money spinning Avengers, which opened here in

April... To the summer flop revival of the Fantastic Four, almost

disowned by the director. We cannot change the past but we can change

the future. This is the end of your world and

the beginning of mine. Then there was Ant-Man, which many believed

would have been better if the original director, Edgar Wright, had

not been replaced. On the plus side, the most talked

about action fantasy was something really rather remarkable. My name is

Max, my world is fire. And blood. Mad Max made technically be a

revival but there is something very modern and original about George

Miller's dystopian movie which saw Tom Hardy's almost speechless

character upstaged at every turn by Charlize Theron. I was born there.

Why did you leave? I did not. I was taken as a child. Stolen. Mad Max

was just one of several films released in the UK in 2015,

suggesting cinema's long established gender bar might be starting to

crack. The key of the London film Festival which opened with

Suffragette was the role of women in film. There's no doubt that cinema

has long suffered from a male biased. It took the Oscars eighth

decades to give the top prize of best director to a female director.

Perhaps we can take heart from the fact that so many of this year's

best films have been directed by women. One of my favourite films of

the year was The Falling, an electrifying British tale of mass

fainting written and directed by Carol morally. That one person is

like three people. The person you think you are, the person other

people see and the person you really are.

Also from Britain came Second Coming, are wonderfully ambiguous

drama about a possible miracle in a secular age with standout turns.

Dad, do you wanted to be a boy or a girl? The baby.

From France came Girlhood, a vibrant and colourful tale of girls in the

food which redefined Morrissey and Street cinema.

-- redefined piracy and -- Paris Street cinema.

The most unexpected of all, from Iran via America... It was a

boundary crossing film, shot in black and white with a Farsi

speaking Kast. It is worth remembering that one of

the most controversially successful films of 2015 was written and

directed by women. 50 Shades of Grey may have won few plaudits but this

was scripted by Kelly Marsell and directed by Sam Taylor Johnson.

Sadly she will not be returning for the sequels.

It may not be a good film but it proved that a movie can be a good

hit without being primarily aimed at teenage boys. More importantly, most

of the truly great performances in this year were by women. In recent

months we've seen Cate Blanchett doing her best work in Carol. Back

in February, Julianne Moore picked up the Oscar and BAFTA for her role

as a woman with early onset Alzheimer's. I cannot find myself.

I've always been so defined by my intellect, my language, my

articulation and now sometimes I can see the words hanging in front of me

know who I am and what I'm going to know who I am and what I'm going to

lose next. Then, the screen was dominated in

Brooklyn, the story of a woman torn between her past and Ireland, and

her future in America. Hello, mummy? Everybody has gone, a lush, I have

nobody. I'm afraid I would not come back. As the Charlotte Rampling, she

gave what was hailed as a career-best performance in 45 Years,

a film about a marriage threatened by the ghosts of the past. I did not

see the point in taking pictures of ourselves. It is a shame. Come on.

What are you doing? I'm not prancing around in the living room at this

time of night! From Italy, we had me a mandrake, the most rewarding film

to date from the director. It is the film-maker struggling to direct a

drama while facing up to the loss of her mother. Emily Blunt took the

lead in this film, about an FBI agent unwittingly dragged into a

cross-border battle with Mexican drug cartels. FBI! You are part of

the team! What is our objective? I'm not American. Who do you work for

now? While it was a work of fiction, Matthew Hyndman's documentary Cartel

Land, provided a dramatic account on drug wars.

Produced by Kathryn Bigelow, Cartel Land was one of the highlights of an

exceptional year for film-making. Other standouts included Sean

McAllister's heartbreaking and timely Assyrian love story, focusing

on a family torn apart by political repression and corruption. Look. My

God. Mr President. Bashar al-Assad. The president of the Syrian Arabian

republic. What you think, when you see that picture? I remember my

mother. These boys take my mother. Do you know why they took her?

Because she wrote a book. This was also the year where Amy, a portrait

of singer-songwriter Amy Whitehouse, became one of the most successful

documentaries ever in UK cinemas. I had nothing new coming out at the

times that represented me or how I felt, I started writing. I won't

write anything unless it was directed personal to me, I would not

be able to tell the story right. -- directly. I'm not a girl trunk to be

a star or be anything other than a musician. How big do you think you

are going to be? I don't. I don't think I'm going to be at all famous.

I don't think I can handle it, I would probably go mad, you know what

I mean? I would go mad. Personally, my favourite documentary of the year

was the man who would be King, an unexpectedly moving account of Jimmy

Ellis. Wedged you come from? I was born in the studio. -- where did. Do

you take off your mask? Only when I go through customs. Julian

Terminator Genisys selector for a late ecstasy of Wilco Johnson, a

film that discovers its own mortality, and discovers the

prospect of death makes him feel more alive than ever. When I

received the verdict, it told me I had ten months to live, and with

chemotherapy, perhaps one year. Chemotherapy makes you very ill.

Actually, I feel fine right now and would rather have my last months

feeling as good as I can. What cannot be killed must be endured. --

cured. Despite a terminal diagnosis, he survived the ordeal, and is

working harder than he did then in the days of Doctor feel-good,

apparently never feeling better. There it is, I'm not dead, I'm

actually on my roof with my telescope and my guitar. And a few

more years. What more could you ask for? Another screen hero who simply

refuses to die is James Bond. Back again in fine style this year,

Inspector. Sam Mendez returned to direct Daniel Craig once again. --

in Spectre. It leads me to speculate exactly why you came? So, James, why

did you come? I came here to kill you. I thought you came here to die.

It is all a matter of perspective. 007... Please excuse the mess.

Everything is a bit up in the air, with the changes and all. Spectre

divided audiences, I admit I am a fan, but in terms of ticket sales,

it was a sure-fire hit. But with sky-high expectations, JJ Abrams's

Star Wars film had the edge. When advanced tickets went on sale,

websites crashed with the weight of traffic. It seems that the force was

not with them. We can't outrun them! We can. We need a pilot. We've got

one. There are stories about what happened. It is true. They are real.

The force. It is calling to you. All in all, 2015 has been a pretty

impressive year for film, but remember, if you want to get the

most from cinema, you need to independent cinemas that are often

showing the most interesting comes around. Streaming services like net

flicks are making waves with films like Beasts of Nope Nation,

featuring Idris Elba. He is just a boy. Hey, boy... The boy is nothing.

The boy is harmless. Does the boy have two eyes to see? Two eyes, Sir!

He has hands to strangle and fingers to pull triggers. Why do you say

that he is nothing? He is very dangerous, you understand me?

Finally, a few years ago industry insiders were predicting the death

of celluloid, saying that films would be shot and shown in digital

only. But Star Wars: The Force Awakens erected JJ Abrams is part of

a growing group of film-makers who remain committed to the idea of

shooting on film. Todd Haynes's Carroll, one of the best films of

2015, was shot on 2016, to give the story grain and texture that it

required -- Carol. And if you want to see the new venting Tarantino

film, you have two C it in the director's referred format. --

Quentin Tarantino film. I don't know, you would be surprised at what

a man would do. You're starting to see pictures,

aren't you? I will leave you with a clip from one of my favourite's of

the year. The classic novel that was shot

using a mix of high-resolution digital and 65 millimetres

celluloid. The past and the future, hand in hand, in Sunset Song. Folks

that once walked, talked, they had taken their pleasure here. She tried

to tell you, but all he said was aye.

And while she thought there would not be a thing they would not

understand together...