2015 took me by surprise. Like many film fans, I bemoan how many sequels are scheduled for release each year and how bloated many stories are getting with excessive running times that give two separate films within the story arc of one. However, when I assembled my list of the top 10 movies of 2015, it included three sequels and a six-hour trilogy that contained numerous stories. And with these movies (and more!) being as great as they are, I'll gladly eat a plate o' crow (and hope to do the same in 2016).

In assembling a top 10, after slotting the titles, I always like to look at how the films I chose speak to one another to represent the year they were released. So what was 2015? In addition to quality sequels that created exciting new characters for women and people of color within their pre-existing worlds, another favorite common thread for the 2015 movies on my list is that six of my top 10 films featured great leading roles for women; four of those even had two female leads! That's damn near equal, and that's damn near great. If original films, sequels and expansive universes are growing to include more gender and more ethnicities, 2015 will serve as a bumper-sticker year when filmgoers let it be known that they appreciate diversity in films.

Another common narrative thread for the films that I loved in 2015 was how years are not the proper measuring stick to judge people and relationships with. But, year-end lists aren't human, and they sure are fun measuring sticks, so this list must go on! As years go, 2015 was pretty darn solid. As such, I'd like to include a few honorable mentions before rolling into my personal top 10 films of 2015. Of the 130+ new release films I saw this year, the oh-so-close-to the top 10 were: The Big Short, Eden, The End of the Tour, Iris, The Look of Silence, Mustang, Son of Saul, Spotlight, Tangerine and While We're Young. And despite not growing up a big Star Wars fan, I was very pleased with the franchise's re-entry and new characters in The Force Awakens.

Thank you sweetly, all, but below are my top 10 darling films of 2015.

10. Creed

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Image via Warner Bros.

In an era of spinoffs and sequels, Creed looked like the least necessary—as Rocky Balboa's story had concluded decently with Rocky Balboa—but in this filmmaking climate, Ryan Coogler's film proved itself to be absolutely necessary. It helps that Coogler was the genesis for the project and brought it to the Italian Stallion (Sylvester Stallone) himself. The Fruitvale Station director was no hired hand. Creed was a passion project. And Coogler picks the boxing movie up off the mat and gives us exactly what we need: not another great white hope.

Michael B. Jordan is Apollo Creed's son, Adonis, who is following his deceased father's boxing two-steps; his father's friend, Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), trains Adonis both in and out of the ring. Although it is refreshing to see a modern black character being built with the type of lore that's almost never used on characters who are under-represented at multiplexes, Creed lacks speeches and soapboxes. It favors hard work and it recognizes the silent, awed communication that hard work elicits. Creed might hit many of the same story pinpoints as the original Rocky, but Rocky never looked like this before. Creed is both light as a feather (an early bout is magnificently filmed in one single take, with precise, gliding movement from cinematographer Maryse Alberti) and stiff as a board (Jordan and Stallone are a perfect match of stubborn—yet respectful—men). Creed is a populist winner that the cinemas needed.

9. 45 Years

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Image via Sundance Selects

Jealousy—and the need for closure—is more frequently associated with young love than with partnerships that have lasted for nearly half a century. 45 YearsAndrew Haigh's third feature film, shows how—within a short timeframe—relationships of unshakeable trust can still be shook up not from misdeeds done, but from information that sits withheld and feelings that go unspoken.

Charlotte Rampling is just as magnificent and heartbreaking as you'd imagine—as a woman who's preparing for her 45th anniversary with her husband the very week that he receives a letter in the mail asking him to identify the body of a girlfriend from 50 years ago—but let us sing the praises of Tom Courtenay, too. Courtenay has the difficult task of making us feel that he does indeed love his wife and will continue to do so, but in this week timeframe his short term priorities have shifted to not only the past, but to a possible alternate reality of his plans from 1962. The performances are tremendous and Haigh's ability to use time as a device to discuss the nuances of a long-term relationship long after the film has finished, is truly marvelous. And it certainly helps that Rampling achieves one of the best final moments in a film in many, many years.

8. Magic Mike XXL

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Image via Warner Bros.

Magic Mike XXL has a one-track mind: to make everyone feel good. XXL isn't about setting up more sequels or setting high stakes and tension. It hopes to relieve your tension, and if you just let go of your expectation of stakes and growth, you could find yourself agreeing that this was the most FUN movie of 2015. In a line of dialogue XXL quickly explains why Matthew McConaughey and Alex Pettyfer's characters are absent: Europe! In a line of dialogue it quickly explains why the gang of strippers are headed to a stripper convention: not to win money, but to show that they can put on the sexiest and most inclusive show there! No stakes, just fun!

If the first Magic Mike was exalting of men's bodies, XXL exalts the ability for both the body and mind to create dual sexual satisfaction. No, I'm not saying that these Tampa bros (Channing Tatum, Joe Manganiello, Matt Bomer, Kevin Nash and Adam Rodriguez; plus their Georgia pickups, Donald Glover and Stephen "tWitch" Boss) have huge intellect, but they do know how to listen to the women they want to please; they are able to turn that into a pleasure infinity symbol that equally gives and receives. XXL is a wholly inclusive romp with an easy to digest message—regardless of race or gender, communicative arousal is fun!—and it delivers that with a centerpiece performance from each cast member that caters to everyone's particular skill set: Tatum's welding! Andie MacDowell's bougie southern accent! Manganiello's goofiness! Glover's free verse! And Boss' boss choreography! If this movie can't make smile, you might want to check your pulse.

7. Clouds of Sils Maria

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Olivier Assayas (Carlos, Irma Vep) might be slyly gleefull if you call his Clouds of Sils Maria "pretentious". Like a cloud, Maria lays a thick haze over what we talk about when we talk about movies vs. film. This film stars Juliette Binoche as a respected actress who, now in her 40s, is receiving less juicy roles and has been asked to play the older part in the very adaptation that made her famous (an 18 year-old intern seduces her 40-something female boss; Binoche's Maria Enders came to fame playing the intern, she's about to embark on the older character). Her assistant, played by Kristen Stewart, runs lines with her and they argue about whether or not the older woman is layered and redeemable or pitiful and pathetic.

The dialogue from the play is haughty, stiff and dead on arrival. Off the clock, the dialogue in which these two characters relate to each other as women—and mentor to mentee—is invigorating, instinctive, energetic. It's an absolute joy to watch Binoche and Stewart act against each other, free of the play and what we consider high art. It's natural. Whenever they're sucked into creative work and discussions of what each other values from creative enterprises (Stewart's assistant sees the melodramatic parallels in Hollywood superhero films), that their natural state of personhood gives way to tension. This very film vs. movie discussion creates a tension that erases the fun of movies by putting friction between the two, between art and perceived lesser art. Assayas' Maria, perhaps pretentiously, says all movies have artistic value. Great! That this statement comes from the innate chemistry between Binoche and Stewart, lifts Clouds into some beautiful terrain.

6. The Diary of a Teenage Girl

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Most films that show the sexual adventures of a young woman tend to punish the fornicating female either physically or via a reminder that lest she change her ways, she'll never be able to be happy and truly loved. Marielle Heller's directorial debut, The Diary of a Teenage Girl, has no such moral to spin, even though the teenaged heroine (Bel Powley) is entering into a disagreeable (on multiple levels) sexual partnership with her mother's (Kristen Wiig) older boyfriend (Alexander Skarsgard).

Heller doesn't want to punish anyone in her film, she wants them to grow. For Powley's Minnie, her growth is to understand that not only is sex just as awesome as she thinks it is, but that owning one's sexuality is linked with owning one's vulnerabilities; not just physically, but also mentally. The Diary of a Teenage Girl is funny and acutely aware of teens ups, downs, creative ambitions and modem of decor. Heller's framing of sexuality is extremely important, as Minnie's body isn't just something she experiences through intercourse, but also studies in a mirror as a way to understand her shape and inform her comic artwork in a field where women's shapes are drawn without any sense of how varied women's bodies actually look. This depiction of sexuality is typically described as "Frank", but this one's wholly "Minnie."

5. Mistress America

In 2015 what we're "supposed" to have achieved by 30 has been dismantled by a recession, increased globalization, student debt, and a looser dating atmosphere that makes us feel like we can always find something better. Many thirtysomethings have the ability to talk about what they've achieved to appear successful to others, but inside they're panicking about not being too far removed from their 18-year-old self. Mistress America is Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig's charming ode to the modern thirtysomething's urge to hit the reset button. And the modern thirtysomething's inherent anthropological curiosity to up-and-comers. Gerwig is Brooke and Lola Kirke is Tracy. They are linked because Brooke's father is going to marry Tracy's mother; Tracy is entering her freshman year at NYU and Brooke lives in Times Square.

When Baumbach and Gerwig write together, they are perhaps this generation's answer to the screwball comedies of Preston Sturges. Sturges' masterworks were released during a post-Great Depression economic boom, and were largely concerned with how people readjusted their values as they received more and more. Baumbach and Gerwig delightfully play with characters who feel behind both their parents' generation and the generation behind them, but they've sure got some admirable pluck and resolve to continue swinging and resetting their goals. Mistress America might be funnier than Frances Ha, as it dances around the shifting ethics that occur when you start comparing yourself to others. The result is the best comedy of the year.

4. Taxi

Jafar Panahi continues to humanize the Iranian people despite being ordered by the Iranian government to cease making movies for 20 years. He was placed on house arrest in 2010. His first film after that order, This Is Not a Film, was defiant of the filmmaking ban. His newest, Taxi, is defiant of his house arrest, as Panahi assumes the role of a taxi driver and picks up various people—in loosely scripted scenarios—and films their interactions via a camera on the dashboard.

The very act of making this film is defiant and polemic (his niece tries to make her own film during his film, following the rules of the Iranian government), but Taxi is one of Panahi's most joyous and funny works. He enjoys being a jester, but never to mock his fellow Iranians. What unfolds in Taxi should be a mystery from beginning to end, so I won't reveal anything about his passengers. What can be said about Taxi—while still maintaining its Slacker-like aura of spontaneity—is that Panahi has taken an artistic high road and made a love letter to every type of cinema. Each and every film that is in the world holds value for him and that is why he'll continue to make them, despite ordered not to (and also why, not so ironically, Iran will accept his film awards on his behalf; because filmmaking is a valuable face for a nation to the rest of the world).

3. Arabian Nights

Arabian Nights is three two-hour films (The Restless One, The Enchanted One and The Desolate One), each containing separate unlinked tales about the Portuguese economic crisis and the increased unemployment that befell the coastal European country. Some of the tales are mystical and exist on a timeless plane, but many show the colorful ways that people must entertain themselves when work and meaning in society are lacking. Each film contains one or two sections that contain some of the best moments of filmmaking of 2015. Each film also contains one or two sections that ease the audience to sleep, inviting you to drift away. That sleepy state isn't a negative, it actually makes Miguel Gomes' immense undertaking a great adaptation of the structure of one of the oldest collections of stories, 1001 Arabian Nights.

In that ancient collection, Scheherazade spares her life while living with a bloodthirsty king who has been killing new brides each night for many nights, by telling him rapturous stories that delight him, and then stories that make him fall asleep, sparing her life one more night. Eventually her storytelling prowess frees her. What Gomes attempts to do with Arabian Nights is depict the lunacy of the government that put their people in despair, but also depict the spirit of the people through humor and humanity, in hopes that after such a long filmmaking odyssey, they too will be freed from despair. Collectively, Arabian Nights is a masterpiece and does Scheherazade justice.

2. Mad Max: Fury Road

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Image via Warner Bros.

I've already written a lengthy piece about the magnificent ways in which George Miller weaved the defiance of gender oppression into Mad Max: Fury Road. And I stand by it. But that is but one piece of the glorious action masterpiece that is Fury Road. Instead of rehashing that essay, I'd like to take this end of the year time to compliment the most frantic and operatic film of the year.

Mad Max: Fury Road is a franchise engine that's been miraculously jumpstarted as a road movie without a destination. The journey is the destination—so the old travel adage goes—and Miller's journey takes us into orange worlds, blue worlds and new worlds. This Wasteland is where steampunk, fashion runway and WWE personalities meet. Where a perfect and iconic score (from Junkie XL) is matched by precise editing and perfect, zooming camerawork (from John Seale). There's so much madcap energy in Mad Max, it feels like the wheels can come off at any moment and spill into total anarchy. But just as Miller knows how to accelerate, he also knows when to pump the breaks on Max and allow for Charlize Theron's grief to sink in, Tom Hardy's decisiveness to awaken, and personal sacrifices to occur—on the same exact path backward that he originally set them on!—and Fury Road becomes a near-perfect fusion of action and artistic ethos. The mind of this film is full of scorpions and Miller earns that Shakespearian description.

1. Carol

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Image via The Weinstein Company

Todd Haynes (The Velvet Goldmine, Far from Heaven) is perhaps the most undervalued American auteur of the last 20 years. I am not sure if Carol is his best film, but it is officially the one that I love the most. What I love about Carol is how Haynes captures the visual cues of falling in love; how, most often, two people don't fall in love simultaneously. Initially, one has a little more power over the other, and for that love to be maintained, the one who is being pulled will also eventually have to hold equal power.

Carol is about two women falling in love in 1950s New York. One of them, Carol (Cate Blanchett), has privately partnered with a woman before and is more steadfast and confident in her choice to no longer live in secret. The other, Therese (Rooney Mara), is unsure, over-powered, but more observant. I love that Haynes presents the catalyst of their meeting—Therese returning the leather gloves that Carol left at a department store—unpronounced as to whether the gloves were left by Carol on purpose or whether their meeting had become happenstance. I love that there is a noir element to their road trip that parallels Therese's internal detective work of her sexual identity. I love the score (by Carter Burwell). I love the camerawork (by Ed Lachman) and how droplets of rain on a taxicab cling to the window as tightly as your chest feels as it drives away. I love that Blanchett's lipstick line looks so similar to Joan Crawford's and that a character in the film studies Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard so closely. I love the acting that Mara does with her eyes and that Blanchett does with her lips and how both those parts inform the final glorious shot of the film. I fucking love Carol. I really do.

For much more of Collider's Best of 2015 content, click here, and peruse our other editor's Top 10 lists below: