We’re at the end of 2020, and I don’t know how to feel about this year. I doubt I will know how to feel about it for years to come. We’re still in the middle of a tragedy. Thousands are dying every day, and some of us are trying to be as responsible as we can, but the psychic burden and strain placed on us is unmeasurable. In times like these, it almost feels silly to write about movies when there’s so much suffering, and yet perhaps art is the outlet we need most in these trying times. We need some kind of escape or understanding or anything that goes beyond a worldview fueled by anger, despair, and a longing for some kind of hope.

Movies help. They’re not the most important thing, but they help, and in this year, which was personally difficult for me for reasons beyond just COVID, these movies provided a kind of solace by allowing me to consider what they had to say, the emotions they could illicit, and the knowledge that art endures even in the darkest of times. These are the movies that hit me hardest, stayed with me longest, and provided light in the darkness.

10.) The Painter and the Thief

I saw this very late in 2020, but it hit me like a ton of bricks. Benjamin Ree’s documentary starts with a theft. Two paintings by artist Barbora Kysilkova were stolen by Karl-Bertil Nordland. Karl-Bertil is quickly apprehended, but at his trial, he’s befriended by a curious Barbora, who wants to know what he did with her paintings. He was so high he can’t remember, but a bond forms between the two, and then the story starts to morph and change to where the title “The Painter and the Thief’ starts to flip—in a relationship between artist and subject, who is the painter and who is the thief? Karl-Bertil closely observes Barbora, and she starts to use him for her artwork. It’s a unique portrait of a co-dependent relationship between two broken people, and yet even as they use each other, they also offer support and kindness in dark times. You’ve never really seen a movie like The Painter and the Thief, and it will stay with you long after its haunting final frame.

Available to stream on Hulu.

9.) Never Rarely Sometimes Always

Writer-director Eliza Hittman wisely never makes her abortion drama a polemic. It’s not designed to convince, cajole, or comfort. Instead, Never Rarely Sometimes Always offers bracing honesty in the story of rural Pennsylvania teenagers Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) and Skylar (Talia Ryder), who must sneak away to New York City so Autumn can procure an abortion. There’s no support system for these two teenagers except for each other. Watching them pushed through the grinder is gut-wrenching yet never maudlin or nihilistic. Instead, it becomes a story of unbreakable friendship and stunning resolve in a country that is coldly indifferent towards the lives of women.

Available to rent or buy on VOD.

8.) Time

“Success is the best revenge,” says Fox Rich in Garrett Bradley’s documentary. Rich and her husband Rob were convicted of armed robbery, but while Fox received a lighter sentence and was able to raise their children, Rob was sentenced to sixty years despite the fact that it was his first offense and no one was harmed. The closeup on Fox Rich’s story shows an America that is unrelentingly punitive towards its citizens, especially those who are Black. And yet there’s something inspiring in Fox’s constant fight. It’s maddening that she should have to fight at all when the system is so broken, but Bradley’s 20-year close-up on Fox’s life shows that she is not defined simply by struggle. She raised amazing children. She became a leader and an activist. She was unrelenting. And if success is the best revenge, then the best revenge belongs to Fox Rich.

Available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.

7.) Minari

You may not believe this, but as recently as 2014 immigrant stories were used as a cornerstone of the American mythos. Rather than dividing people on the lines of where they came from, we saw immigration—the ability to come from anywhere and make it in America—as one of the best features of our country. That has been lost these recent years in a torrent of hatred, bigotry, and nativism, but in Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari, we see the beauty and the heartbreak inherent in that story. The film follows a South Korean family that has moved from California to Arkansas so that the father (Steven Yeun) can be a farmer, and Chung handles his semi-autobiographical tale with a light touch by telling the story from the perspective of 8-year-old David (Alan S. Kim). Minari reminds us that immigrants aren’t outsiders coming to steal our way of life, nor are they unstoppable saints who live perfect lives. They have a unique story to tell, and Minari shows why we must listen.

In theaters on February 12th.

6.) Palm Springs

When I caught this film at Sundance back in January, I had no idea its Groundhog Day-esque tale about how badly we need other people would be one of the defining texts of the pandemic. But here we are, and Max Barbakow’s terrific feature is at turns hilarious and at others surprisingly poignant. The film shows that left alone to our own devices, life is empty and meaningless. We can fill it with amusements and diversions, but we’ll be right back where we started and stuck with all our demons. No one makes it out alone, and in a time when so many human connections were strained or severed, Palm Springs became an emotional powerhouse for showing how much we need other people, especially if we’re being hunted by J.K. Simmons.

Available to stream on Hulu.

5.) Soul

Another year, another Pixar movie on a year-end Top 10 list. What a shocker. But while Pixar continues its supremacy in storytelling, Soul feels like an incredibly different movie from the studio despite the reliable hallmarks of using a buddy-picture framework. While Pixar movies typically succeed at appealing to both adults and children, Soul feels like the first movie in the studio’s history targeted more at adults. It’s a film with big ideas about what it means to be alive, and how in a society where we’re conditioned to be “productive members”, our lives and what gives them meaning is far more than simply what we produce. In a year where so much was taken from us, I was grateful for a movie that reminded us that it’s okay just to exist.

Available to stream on Disney+.

4.) Lovers Rock

All five films in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology are terrific, but none of them transported me quite likeLovers Rock. The film doesn’t really have much of a plot or even characters to speak of. It’s incredibly experiential as it invites us into a reggae house party in 1980 in West London. What makes Small Axe such a miracle of filmmaking is how it doesn’t define itself simply by white oppressors’ impact on a Black community, but rather showing the pride, vivaciousness, and bonds that make this community so worthwhile. A film like Lovers Rock reminds us that all communities, especially those belonging to immigrants who have bonded together away from their homeland, have something special and beautiful to offer. Lovers Rock is wise enough to let the viewer simply soak in that experience.

Available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.

3.) Promising Young Woman

This was a jolt when I saw it back in January, and I’m still feeling the shockwaves. With her debut feature Emerald Fennell tackles rape culture using a sly subversion of the rape-revenge thriller, and instead implicates everyone who’s complicit in a system that allows women to be targeted and cast aside while “nice guys” continue living in comfort. Anchored by Carey Mulligan’s astounding performance, Promising Young Woman is an uncompromising and searing experience that’s designed to provoke conversations that are long overdue.

Currently in theaters.

2.) Sound of Metal

I saw this movie all the way back in September 2019, and when a film manages to still stick with you over a year later, you know it’s pretty special. Darius Marder’s movie follows Ruben (Riz Ahmed in an Oscar-worthy performance), a rock drummer who’s rapidly losing his hearing. With uncompromising insight, Sound of Metal shows what happens when we keep trying to chase the life we lost, and how we become addicted to the life we thought we would have. Through its ingenious sound design, Sound of Metal puts us right into Ruben’s world and shows that being deaf isn’t a state of being broken. Where we break is when we can’t accept the things over which we have no control.

Available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.

1.) Nomadland

I don’t want to be grandiose and say that Nomadland will restore your faith in humanity, but it kind of restored my faith in humanity. Writer-director Chloé Zhao doesn’t try to excuse an America where the American Dream was finally finished off in the Great Recession, nor does she try to sugarcoat the hardships of working-class Americans. Instead, she manages to find the beauty in the space in between and in the things that can’t be taken from us. We see this world through the eyes of Fern (Frances McDormand), a woman who has lost her husband, her job, and even her town. But nothing can take away the awe she feels when she looks at the natural beauty in our world or the rich, interesting lives of her fellow nomads. Nomadland strips away the last remnants of the American Dream, and awakened from that collective delusion, we can see America and ourselves for what they are. In a year where America was brought so low by the pandemic and our politics, Nomadland embraced that which endures, and that which we must hold onto if we’re to retain our humanity.

In theaters on February 19th.

Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order): Bill & Ted Face the Music, Boys State, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, My Octopus Teacher, and One Night in Miami…

Check out all of our Best of 2020 coverage.