Caleb John Cushing Looks Back at the Year of 2020

2020 was a unique year to say the least, for a multitude of reasons that exist outside of the sphere of film. A byproduct of society’s pausing was a delay in accessibility for a majority of releases in my home country of the United States. I did my very best to cover what I could, although I was unable to see quite a few powerhouses and acknowledge some major blind spots.

A lot of what I was able to view this year was really wonderful. Some minor let-downs such as Tenet and The Trial of the Chicago 7 were more than made up for by a slew of pleasant surprises from independent filmmakers, along with inventive documentaries and world premieres from streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon Prime. Overall, I would say 2020 was a wonderful year for film, considering all the delays and restrictions and particular circumstances.

When creating a top ten list for any given year, I try to restrict entries to films that first premiered in that year. This leads to leaving out some that were technically released one or two years ago but were only widely seen recently. Some films I truly loved fit this criteria, such as Kitty Green’s The Assistant, Cory Finley’s Bad Education, Kantemir Balagov’s Beanpole, Darius Marder’s Sound of Metal and Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles’s Bacurau. These films almost comprise a top ten list on their own. I truly recommend each and every one of them with my whole heart, but I’m going to exclude them from the list so I can cheat and recommend even more films. Whoever decided ten was the limit, anyway?

Caleb John Cushing’s Favourites:

1. I'm Thinking of Ending Things
2. Feels Good Man
3. Mangrove
4. Shiva Baby
5. Mank
6. Shirley
7. Possessor
8. WolfWalkers
9. The Vast of Night
10. Portrait of a Lady on Fire