14 So-Called ‘Must-See’ Films In 2014 (That Might Actually Be Worth Watching)

This year's looking to be a good one...

By Alex Leadbeater /

Even though 2015 promises to be the most exciting cinematic year in living memory, marking the return of Star Wars, the culmination of Marvel€™s Phase II and the long awaited team up/battle between Batman and Superman, let€™s not trick ourselves into thinking the next twelve months aren€™t of some worth. With the Academy having their work cut out to whittle it down to just ten Best Picture nominees, rather than having to throw in whatever€™s current to make up the numbers (see The Blind Side, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close), we€™re starting off the new year right. However, you could say once the night of March 2nd is behind us it€™s all over; blockbuster season officially kicks off at the end of that very same month, the earliest we've ever seen. And with it comes the usual tat audiences inexplicably flock to. Michael Bay is churning out another Transformers because it€™s a way to perve on girls and cars without being called a creep, and now Disney have made a tradition of having a mediocre CG-enhanced live-action franchise-hopefuls flop terribly at the box office I wouldn't put too much stock in Maleficent. But, in a bid to remain optimistic about the young year (Auld Lang Syne still rings slightly in the ears), today I'm going to take a look at the most high profile releases coming this year, imaginatively dubbed €˜must-sees€™ by some marketing exec, that could actually help make this year more fondly remembered than the last.

Honourable Mention €“ The Good Dinosaur

Pixar€™s film, which proposes an alternate world that retcons Earth€™s history so humans and dinosaurs live alongside each other was set to appear high up this list until the crushing announcement arrived last year that The Good Dinosaur had been postponed. Placed in autumn 2015 (knocking Finding Dory all the way into 2016), worries are being voiced that this could be another Brave; good, but below potential. Before then we€™re getting Inside Out from masterful director Pete Docter, who helmed both Monsters, Inc. and Up, but that still gives us two years between our Pixar fixes, unprecedented since The Incredibles.