20 Best Films Of 2015

7. A Most Violent Year

Had A Most Violent Year come out in early 2016, it would have been massive - the coolest guy from The Force Awakens as an anti-Scarface in the most subversive gangster film since Goodfellas directed by one of American cinemas' biggest rising talents. As it is, it was an arthouse hit destined to be rediscovered as Oscar Isaac and J. C. Chandor become more household names. For now it'll have to settle for seventh on this list, an award it fully deserves. This is a gangster flick, but rather than doing that typical thing of just repeating the rise-and-fall arc of Goodfellas (see Black Mass), A Most Violent Year goes against that with real awareness. Abel Morales is the owner of an oil company trying to expand his business in New York at its crime-ridden peak while maintaining his integrity. He doesn't want to embrace the seedy underbelly of the city, but it's a necessary evil as tensions escalate, making for a difficult journey that has its moral compass almost pointing in the right direction. It's a delicious idea and everything about it is brilliant executed, with Chandor presenting all this internal conflict in a subtle, nicely drawn-out way, mastering yet another genre (after banking crash thriller Margin Call and one-man-in-a-boat drama All Is Lost) in the process.