is a blog about design, technology and culture written by Khoi Vinh, and has been more or less continuously published since December 2000 in New York City. Khoi is currently Principal Designer at Adobe. Previously, Khoi was co-founder and CEO of Mixel (acquired in 2013), Design Director of The New York Times Online, and co-founder of the design studio Behavior, LLC. He is the author of “How They Got There: Interviews with Digital Designers About Their Careers”and “Ordering Disorder: Grid Principles for Web Design,” and was named one of Fast Company’s “fifty most influential designers in America.” Khoi lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn with his wife and three children.
For five years now I’ve been recording every movie I watch in my film diary at Letterboxd. Each month, I post a recap of what I watched the previous month, and at the start of each year I run down the full list of what I saw the previous twelve months. This is that full list, including a ranking of my favorite movies of 2020 (that I’ve been able to watch as of this writing). But first, here is a mildly interesting graph that I created from all of that activity.
Total Movies Watched by Year
That’s a quick overview of how many movies I saw each year since I began actively logging my movie consumption in January of 2016. For those who are counting, that’s actually a total of 1,011 over five years, with “year over year growth,” as they say, for every year…except 2020. I’m not quite sure why.
In theory I had more time for movies than ever during the pandemic—and they were easier to watch, too. I was able to see all but two of my top ten favorites (“First Cow” and “Emma.”) from home in their first run. As a result I probably saw a greater number of genuinely good movies in 2020 than in previous years, when I would have to make the time to trek out to theaters. In fact, compared to previous years when only the top five or so on my lists were movies that I was genuinely enthusiastic about, this year almost the full list of ten fall into that category.
On the other hand, one thing that became clear to me though is that the streaming media platforms still struggle to deliver genuinely good, original productions. Eight of my top ten movies were originally intended for theatrical release but were ultimately diverted to streaming. And only one of the remaining two, Steve McQueen’s highly variegated “Small Axe” series, truly originated with a streaming service. “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” was a thrill, and a triumph for Netflix—for my money among the best things that the service has ever done—but it’s an adaptation of a well regarded stage play by August Wilson. The streaming services have yet to prove that they can turn out quality beyond a very few of their most earnest prestige projects like these and 2018’s “Roma.”
Complaints aside, it’s worth remembering how lucky we are to have this virtually unlimited, on demand library of new and back catalog films to get us through this terrible pandemic. For my family and me, the luxury of retreating into movies while the world seemed to fall apart outside was essential to coping with last year’s lockdowns and the loss of social intimacy. We were even luckier in that before the pandemic hit, we had set up a projector in our basement that allowed us to simulate a small movie theater in the comfort of our own home. And when the weather turned warm, I brought that projector out to the backyard, hung an inexpensive screen on the fence, and we were able to watch movies after sundown in the warm summer air. All in all, I was more grateful for movies in 2020 than ever.
Top Ten
Okay, here’s my list. You can see my full ranking of movies made in 2020 here.
“The Assistant” An ordinary but harrowing day in the life of an idealistic young office worker employed by a horrible person. Extremely subtle and even non-specific while still managing to incredibly explicit.
“First Cow” A lovely, heartbreaking tale of a friendship between two otherwise overlooked bit players in the gold rush of the late nineteenth century.
“Sound of Metal” A drummer in a rock band loses his hearing and the audience joins him in his journey in a way that’s startlingly novel and real.
“Bacurau” A genre picture so weird and unusual that it seems to invent itself as it goes along. Thrilling.
“Tenet” A massively ambitious art film disguised as a summer blockbuster.
“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” An impressively cinematic translation of a stage play, bolstered by amazing performances.
“The Vast of Night” The amazing technical chops that this indie sci-fi thriller pulls off with its tiny budget is impressive, but what’s even better is the wonderfully vivid characters and dialog that sweep you up into the period setting.
“Emma.” They’ll be making new renditions of this endlessly entertaining story forever, but this one is directed with brilliant, lively panache.
“Small Axe: Lovers Rock” By far the highlight of this five-part series because it evokes a deep, joyous mood that we rarely get to see. There’s also an early morning bicycle ride that took my breath away.
“Mank” A potent re-creation of a lost era of artistic industry.
And below you’ll find the rundown for all of 2020. You can also see Letterboxd’s automatically generated overview of my year here. Or You can turn back time and see what I watched in 2019, in 2018, in 2017, and in 2016. Finally, you can always keep up with what I’m watching by following me on letterboxd.com—where I’m also writing tons of capsule reviews.
“Early Man” (2018) ★★½ Charming but weightless, and disappointingly short on ambition for an Aardman film.
“Zazie dans le Métro” (1960) ★★★½ Bananas dream logic from the dawn of the French New Wave.
“Hidden Figures” (2016) ★★ Does everything by the book, which means it contains almost zero surprises.
“Contagion” (2011) ★★★★ Rewatched. Its prescience is frightening and illuminating but it’s also maybe the best medical thriller ever made.
“Onward” (2020) ★★★★ Doesn’t broadcast its artistry as loudly as Pixar’s more prominent features, but still deeply felt and satisfying.
“Clockwatchers” (1997) ★★★½ Mostly excellent meditation on the mundanity of office life a quarter century ago(!?). Worth it just to see Parker Posey at the height of her powers.
“Shoulder Arms” (1918) ★★★★ Chaplin at the battlefront. Filmed a century before Sam Mendes’s “1917” and every bit as technically accomplished, plus funnier.
“Jojo Rabbit” (2019) ★★½ Seems to have been made on a dare because there can be no other reason for this movie to exist.
“The Invisible Man” (2020) ★★½ This movie seems to have a very important message of some kind. It was hard to tell amidst all the screamingly obvious clichés.
“Spies in Disguise” (2019) ★★ A feast of CG texture mapping, and that’s about it.
“Birdman of Alcatraz” (1962) ★★★★ Rewatched. An issues movie about penology that veers on the didactic, but Burt Lancaster carries the whole thing with his uniquely fragile hyper-masculinity.
“Emma” (1996) ★★★ I could watch another dozen remakes of this story.
“Tangled” (2010) ★★½ Disney seems to think it can outsmart stereotypes by playing into them.
“The Lighthouse” (2019) ★★★½ Sumptuously crafted but a disappointingly predictable rendering of lunacy.
“Based on a True Story” (2017) ★★ Roman Polanski brings together two intensely watchable actresses, concocts a tantalizing conflict for them, and forgets to do anything with it all.
“Sons of the Desert” (1933) ★★★½ The sheer delight of Laurel and Hardy’s slapstick genius, stretched to its narrative limits.
“Vendetta of a Samurai” (1952) ★★★★ An unsparing indictment of the falsity of combat glory, wrapped inside a samurai flick.
“Knives Out” (2019) ★★★★ Rewatched. Had a ball again.
“Arctic” (2018) ★★★★ Sturdy man versus nature drama.
“Bad Education” (2019) ★★★ Superb direction can’t quite save this script from itself.
“Ali” (2001) ★★★★ Rewatched. A bit meandering but nevertheless mesmerizing, especially the first ten minutes.
“Fast Color” (2018) ★★★ Promising cast and premise, flat production.
“Spirited Away” (2001) ★★ Yes it’s amazing! No it didn’t work for me.
“Ip Man 4: The Finale” (2019) ★ Cheap, sentimental conclusion to a franchise that deserved better.
“Kedi” (2016) ★★★ Irresistible documentary somehow manages to render street cats in Istanbul as more vivid characters than most movies starring people.
“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” (1986) ★★★★ Rewatched. What the grown up world was supposed to be like.
“Batman & Robin” (1997) ½ Entirely deserves every last bit of scorn ever tossed its way.
“Batman Returns” (1992) ★ Rewatched. Tiresomely fetishistic, and largely forgettable.
“Batman Forever” (1995) ★½ Rewatched. Not a good movie, but the costumes were ace.
“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (2000) ★★★★½ Rewatched. Like a TV season finale so transcendent there’s no need to watch all the episodes that preceded it.
“The Little Prince” (1974) ★★½ Not without its charms, but sunk by the irritating titular performer.
“Big Hero 6” (2014) ★★ Rewatched. Its reverence for tech is not holding up well.
“My Brother’s Wedding” (1983) ★★★★ Imperfect but transfixing tragedy set in South Central LA.
“Never Goin’ Back” (2018) ★★★★ A morally reprehensible but briskly made triumph.
“Extra Ordinary” (2019) ★★★½ Yet another Irish indie in which an unattached driving instructor speaks to the dead and battles a one-hit wonder rockstar, to largely amiable effect.
“The Report” (2019) ★★★★ Setting aside the vanity of a screenwriter directing a movie about a guy writing something so important that middle-managers and executives want to water it down, this meticulous reckoning with Bush-era torture is terrific.
“Speed” (1994) ★★★½ Rewatched. A good example of how a dumb movie can achieve greatness.
“Top Gun” (1986) ★½ This thinly plotted recruitment film remains aesthetically undimmed, but it’s also still just as empty-headed as ever.
“Uncle Buck” (1989) ★½ Disappointingly few laughs; I added a half-star out of fondness for John Candy.
“Revanche” (2008) ★★★★ A taut, expertly directed subversion of the revenge thriller form.
“Sullivan’s Travels” (1941) ★★★ Rewatched. A pointed declaration of ideals about comedy vs. realism that’s not particularly funny or realistic.
“Bacurau” (2019) ★★★★ Bonkers B-movie set in Brazil that continually reinvents itself, thrillingly.
“The Truman Show” (1998) ★★★½ Rewatched. Charming but maybe most commendable for neutralizing Jim Carrey’s insufferability.
“Greed” (2019) ★★ Steve Coogan as anti-hero is so entertaining that this message movie mostly forgets to deliver its message until the end when it skirts by with lip service.
“Captain America: The First Avenger” (2011) ★★ Rewatched. Supposedly benign but takes a lot of offensive liberties with race and history.
“Millions” (2004) ★★★ Smartly directed fable of a kid’s experience dealing with the death of a loved one? I’ll take it. Corny sermonizing on the power of faith? Not so much.
“Monsters University” (2013) ★★★½ I know these back catalog Pixar sequels are not supposed to be well regarded but I really liked this one.
“Motherless Brooklyn” (2019) ★★ Edward Norton did his homework and he wants you to know it.
“The Shop Around the Corner” (1940) ★★★★½ Rewatched. Warmly imagined romantic comedy about pre-War Hungary.
“Sleuth” (1972) ★★★★ A delicious acting feast rolled up in a parlor room whodunit.
“Star Wars” (1977) ★★★½ Rewatched. Enjoying this movie today requires not just suspension of disbelief but also summoning up a willful ignorance of all the crap sequels that have followed.
“The Birth of a Nation” (1915) Talk about complicated. A disturbingly well-made paean to hatred and bigotry.
“An American Pickle” (2020) ★★ Starts off with crackle, then limps along to a whimpering finish.
“The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) ★★★½ Rewatched. The best made installment of the entire series, but perhaps not essential at all.
“The Traitor” (2019) ★★½ Goes deep inside the Italian mafia, reveals surprisingly little.
“How to Build a Girl” (2019) ★½ Shamefully squanders a terrific premise: excavating the way British music weeklies used to build up and tear down bands.
“Dazed and Confused” (1993) ★★★ A great hangout movie, sure, but in retrospect, quite toxic.
“The Violent Men” (1955) ★★★★ An old western with a terrifying view of how power is amassed.
“Lost in America” (1985) ★★½ Albert Brooks was ahead of his time, but not by much.
“Con Air” (1997) ★★ Rewatched. Holds its audience in starkly low regard.
“Stop Making Sense” (1984) ★★★★ Rewatched. Piercingly clear document of a band at a point where they finally figured out how to align their bizarre impulses with widespread accessibility.
“Only Angels Have Wings” (1939) ★★★★½ Rewatched. An intoxicatingly grubby little story of people lost at the edge of the world.
“Enola Holmes” (2020) ★½ I was totally signed up for this thriller about Sherlock Holmes’s super smart little sister, but it turned out to be not very smart at all.
“A Few Good Men” (1992) ★★★½ Rewatched. Not a masterpiece but for a movie where not a lot really happens on screen aside from some shouting, it’s remarkably entertaining.
“Black and Blue” (2019) ★★★ Pretty creaky policier, but there are still some vital ideas at work here.
“Captain America: The Winter Soldier” (2014) ★★½ Rewatched. For every smart narrative decision it makes, it follows up with a really dumb one.
“Phantom Lady” (1944) ★ Paper-thin noir peddling psychobabble as verisimilitude.
“Rebecca” (2020) ★★ Not terrible except for the fact that it invites direct comparison with Hitchcock’s classic.
“Deathtrap” (1982) ★★★★ A twisty murder thriller that’s maybe not so incredibly twisty, but it’s so tautly executed by the underrated Sidney Lumet that it’s a pleasure just to go along for the ride.
“Small Axe: Mangrove” (2020) ★★½ It’s shocking to watch a movie by Steve McQueen, one of the masters of nuance and subtlety, that’s clumsy and obvious.
“The Phantom Tollbooth” (1970) ★★ A swing and a miss at making a prestige picture from animation legend Chuck Jones.
“The Widow Couderc” (1971) ★★★★ A mysterious stranger who happens to look exactly like Alain Delon comes to a small French village and meets a widower who happens to look like Simone Signoret. Nothing too surprising happens, but the emotional authenticity that emerges is palpable.
“Avengers: Age of Ultron” (2015) ★★ Rewatched. My kids are also into Marvel! Serves me right.
“Tampopo” (1985) ★★★½ A variety pack of Japanese love letters to good food. Defies description but delicious.
“Arsenic and Old Lace” (1944) ★★½ Rewatched. I remembered this being airtight and laugh out loud funny, but on rewatch it’s wildly uneven and little more than amusing.
“Small Axe: Lovers Rock” (2020) ★★★★Not everything quite lines up in this mood-first callback to West Indian nightlife in London ca. 1980, but it’s nevertheless a rapturous, irresistible romantic fairy tale on the order of “Before Sunrise.”
“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” (2016) ★★★½ Rewatched. Unpopular opinion: this is the best thing Disney has done with this franchise.
“I’m No Angel” (1933) ★★★ Like a pop song that’s little more than an irresistible groove, this thinly plotted comedy rides Mae West’s charm and attitude until you can’t say no.
“Let Them All Talk” (2020) ★★½ Steven Soderbergh asks: what if “Da 5 Bloods,” but by Woody Allen?
“Time Bandits” (1981) ★½ Not sure if this was made for kids or Terry Gilliam’s id, but it’s really noisy and uneven.
“Mank” (2020) ★★★½ Affecting re-creation of a lost Hollywood from David Fincher, our most underperforming auteur.
“First Cow” (2019) ★★★★ A lovely, minor footnote of a story about the 19th century frontier. Beautifully soft spoken and then, in the third act, remarkably effective at building tension.
“My Favorite Wife” (1940) ★ Cary Grant and Irene Dunne in a desperate attempt at recapturing the magic of “The Awful Truth.”
“The Muppet Christmas Carol” (1992) ★ When Gonzo is the straight man, things are not particularly Muppet-y, and not particularly fun.
“Back to the Future” (1985) ★★★★ Rewatched. A marvel of set-it-up and pay-it-off Hollywood storytelling.
“Other Music” (2019) ★★★ A sweet requiem for the lost hipster paradise of the world’s coolest record store.
“To Catch a Thief” (1955) ★★★★ Rewatched. Staggeringly gorgeous. One of the rare times when the form itself is so refined it matters more than the content.
“Soul” (2020) ★★★★ A hodgepodge of different movies. The least interesting of them is Pixar’s standard “secret, anthropomorphized world of things you usually don’t pay attention to” redemption tale. But when it lets its human characters actually be human, it soars.
“Mulan” (1998) ★★ Not particularly memorable, though not particularly terrible.
“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” (2020) ★★★★ A thrilling cinematic adaptation of a powerful stage script.
“Sound of Metal” (2019) ★★★★ At times this largely humorless drama about hearing loss threatens to be standard humorless indie fare, but it surpasses all of that by expertly putting the audience in its protagonist’s shoes. Also, absolutely killer opening scene.
“Small Axe: Alex Wheatle” (2020) ★★★ Another example of a story that would have been much better served as its own full-length feature than as an installment in an overly ambitious mini-series.
“It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946) ★★★★★ Rewatched. I’ll never be able to not cry when I watch this, I guess.
