The Dance of Reality (dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky, 2014)

Every time this comes around, I tie myself in knots over how I’m supposed to pick my top films of the year. I’ll spare you as much of the working as I can, but I’ve settled on a simple premise – if someone somehow sat out 2014, what films would I direct them to first? This is them, in descending order:

Top 10 Films of 2014:
1. Guardians of the Galaxy (dir. James Gunn)
2. The Grand Budapest Hotel (dir. Wes Anderson)
3. The Dance of Reality (dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky)
4. The Guest (dir. Adam Wingard)
5. Snowpiercer (dir. Bong Joon-Ho)
6. Under The Skin (dir. Jonathan Glazer)
7. Cold In July (dir. Jim Mickle)
8. Starred Up (dir. David Mackenzie)
9. Blue Ruin (dir. Jeremy Saulnier)
10. What We Do In The Shadows (dir. Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi)

More Top Films of 2014, in no particular order:

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (dir. Anthony Russo, Joe Russo)
22 Jump Street (dir. Chris Miller, Phil Lord)
Calvary (dir. John Michael McDonagh)
The Lego Movie (dir. Chris Miller, Phil Lord)
Nightcrawler (dir. Dan Gilroy)
Boyhood (dir. Richard Linklater)
Dawn of The Planet of the Apes (dir. Matt Reeves)
Welcome to New York (dir. Abel Ferrara)
Edge of Tomorrow AKA Live Die Repeat (dir. Doug Liman)
Her (dir. Spike Jonze)
The Double (dir. Richard Ayoade)
Big Bad Wolves (dir. Navot Papushado, Aharon Keshales)
Finsterworld (dir. Frauke Finsterwalder)

Top 5 Meh Films of 2014:
Gone Girl (dir. David Fincher)
Godzilla (dir. Gareth Edwards)
X Men: Days of Future Past (dir. Brian Singer)
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (dir. Marc Webb)
Mood Indigo (dir. Michel Gondry)

Top 5 Disappointments of 2014:
Interstellar (dir. Christopher Nolan)
The Zero Theorem (dir. Terry Gilliam)
The Congress (dir. Ari Folman)
A Most Wanted Man (dir. Anton Corbijn)
Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (dir. Francis Lawrence)

Full Disclosure Top 10 Films I’ve missed of 2014:
1. Birdman (dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu) (bit harsh, yes, given it’s only out this week)
2. Leviathan (dir. Andrey Zvyagintsev)
3. The Babadook (dir. Jennifer Kent)
4. Locke (dir. Steven Knight)
5. Maps To The Stars (dir. David Cronenberg)
6. Paddington (dir. Paul King)
7. Citizenfour (dir. Laura Poitras)
8. Only Lovers Left Alive (dir. Jim Jarmusch)
9. Joe (dir. David Gordon Green)
10. Two Days One Night (dir. Luc Dardenne, Jean-Pierre Dardenne)