I watched so many movies in 2020, my decade-old TV literally exploded. By watching over 1,300 feature length films, I broke a Guinness World Record and viewed almost every Academy Award Best Picture nominee (except for The Patriot, which is lost and The White Parade, whose sole copy exists at the UCLA Television and Film Archives). Between directing my first narrative feature in January and watching all of these films, I’ve learned more about cinema in one year than at any other time in my life… and yet, I feel dwarfed by the amount of incredible storytelling still left to explore.
What I’ve written is not a standard list of the “greatest” films of 2020, nor is it rated on a scale from worst to best. Some are less than ten minutes, while others are longer than fourteen hours. It’s not made of purely great movies but also interesting failures and some hilariously terrible ones; stories peppered with those fleeting moments of divine cinematic inspiration. For me, those films can be just as affecting as the mainstays.
I doubt anyone will find themselves liking every film listed here but I hope a few can change some minds, supply some much needed relief, open hearts and give hope.
4 Little Girls (1997; dir. Spike Lee)
12 Angry Men (1957; dir. Sidney Lumet)
25 Ways to Quit Smoking (1989; dir. Bill Plympton)
76 Days (2020; dir. Weixi Chen, Halo Wu, Anonymous)
537 Votes (2020; dir. Billy Corben)
1917 (2019; dir. Sam Mendes)
Abbot and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955; dir. Charles Lamont)
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019; dir. Marielle Heller)
The Above (2015; dir. Kristen Johnson)
A Christmas Story (1983; dir. Bob Clark)
A Deadly Adoption (2015; dir. Rachel Lee Goldenberg)
Affurmative Action (2019; dir. Travis Wood)
Afternoon Class (2015; dir. Seoro Oh)
Agents of Chaos (2020; dir. Javier Albert Botero, Alex Gibney)
Alex Wheatle (2020; dir. Steve McQueen)
Alice Júnior (2019; dir. Gil Baroni)
All About Eve (1950; dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
All In: The Fight For Democracy (2020; dir. Lisa Cortes, Liz Garbus)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930; dir. Lewis Milestone)
All That Jazz (1979; dir. Bob Fosse)
American Boy: A Profile of - Steven Prince (1978; dir. Martin Scorsese)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935; dir. William Dieterle, Max Reinhardt)
Amores Perros (2000; dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu)
Amour (2012; dir. Michael Haneke)
An Education (2009; dir. Lone Scherfig)
Another Round (2020; dir. Thomas Vinterberg)
Anthropocene: The Human Epoch (2018; dir. Jennifer Baichwal, Edward Burtynsky, Nicholas de Pencier)
The Apollo (2019; dir. Roger Ross Williams)
A Recipe for Seduction (2020; dir. Eric Eckelman, Armanda Prisco, Natalie Prisco)
A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (2019; dir. Will Becher, Richard Phelan)
A Soldier’s Story (1984; dir. Norman Jewison)
Awakenings (1990; dir. Penny Marshall)
Bacurau (2019; dir. Juliano Dornelles, Kleber Mendonça Filho)
Bad Day at Black Rock (1955; dir. John Sturges)
Bad Education (2019; dir. Cory Finley)
Bad Girl (1931; dir. Frank Borzage)
BAD WILL HUNTING (2020; dir. Danny Madden)
Bamboozled (2000; dir. Spike Lee)
Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000; dir. Bong Joon Ho)
Batman: The Movie (1966; dir. Leslie H. Martinson)
The Batman Superman Movie: World’s Finest (1997; dir. Toshihiko Masuda)
The Battle Over Citizen Kane (1996; dir. Michael Epstein, Thomas Lennon)
Becket (1964; dir. Peter Glenville)
Beep, Beep (1952; dir. Chuck Jones)
Before the End (2020; dir. Rob Stone)
Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché (2018; dir. Pamela B. Green)
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946; dir. William Wyler)
Be Water (2020; dir. Bao Nguyen)
The Big Shave (1967; dir. Martin Scorsese)
The Big Short (2015; dir. Adam McKay)
Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (2020; dir. Cathy Yan)
The Bishop’s Wife (1947; dir. Henry Koster)
Blacula (1972; dir. William Crain)
Blocked (2020; dir. Kevin Yee)
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969; dir. Paul Mazursky)
The Booksellers (2019; dir. D.W. Young)
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2020; dir. Jason Woliner)
Born Yesterday (1950; dir. George Cukor)
Boys State (2020; dir. Amanda McBaine, Jesse Moss)
But I’m a Cheerleader (1999; dir. Jamie Babbit)
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992; dir. Francis Ford Coppola)
Breaking Fast (2020; dir. Mike Mosallam)
Brigsby Bear (2017; dir. Dave McCary)
Bunny Hugged (1951; dir. Chuck Jones)
Burrow (2020; dir. Madeline Sharafian)
The Caine Mutiny (1954; dir, Edward Dmytryk)
Call Me By Your Name (2017; dir. Luca Guadagnino)
Candyman (1992; dir. Bernard Rose)
Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2019; dir. Justin Pemberton)
Captain Marvel (2019; dir. Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck)
Castle in the Sky (1986; dir. Hayao Miyazaki)
Cats (2019; dir. Tom Hooper)
The Celluloid Closet (1995; dir. Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman)
The Champ (1931; dir. King Vidor)
Charm City Kings (2020; dir. Angel Manuel Soto)
Children of a Lesser God (1986; dir. Randa Haines)
Chi-Raq (2015; dir. Spike Lee)
Citizen Kane (1941; dir. Orson Welles)
City Hall (2020; dir. Frederick Wiseman)
Clemency (2019; Chinonye Chukwu)
Clockers (1995; dir. Spike Lee)
Collective (2019; dir. Alexander Nanau)
Comic Book Confidential (1988; dir. Ron Mann)
Coming Home Again (2019; dir. Wayne Wang)
Cowboys (2020; dir. Anna Kerrigan)
Creature Comforts (1989; dir. Nick Park)
Crooklyn (1994; dir. Spike Lee)
The Crowd (1928; dir. King Vidor)
Da 5 Bloods (2020; dir. Spike Lee)
Dads (2019; dir. Bryce Dallas Howard)
Dark Victory (1939; dir. Edmund Goulding)
Daughters of the Dust (1991; dir. Julie Dash)
David Byrne’s American Utopia (2020; dir. Spike Lee)
Daylight Savings (2012; dir. Dave Boyle)
Dead End (1937; dir. William Wyler)
Dear Santa (2020; dir. Dana Nachman)
The Death of Stalin (2017; dir. Armando Iannucci)
Deerskin (2019; dir. Quentin Dupieux)
The Defiant Ones (1958; dir. Stanley Kramer)
The Devil Bat (1940; dir. Jean Yarbrough)
The Diary of Anne Frank (1959; dir. George Stevens)
Dick Johnson is Dead (2020; dir. Kirsten Johnson)
Die Hard (1988; dir. John McTiernan)
Disclosure (2020; dir. Sam Feder)
Downfall (2004; dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel)
Dracula Has Risen From the Grave (1968; dir. Freddie Francis)
The Dragon Painter (1919; dir. William Worthington)
East Side Sushi (2014; dir. Anthony Lucero)
The Edge of Democracy (2019; dir. Petra Costa)
Education (2020; dir. Steve McQueen)
The Eleven O’Clock (2016; dir. Derin Seale)
Elmer Gantry (1960; dir. Richard Brooks)
Emma. (2020; dir. Autumn de Wilde)
Enola Holmes (2020; dir. Harry Bradbeer)
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020; dir. David Dobkin)
Eve’s Bayou (1997; dir. Kasi Lemmons)
Faces of Cinema (2020; dir. Ignacio Montalvo)
Fail Safe (1964; dir. Sidney Lumet)
Fantastic Fungi (2019; dir. Louie Schwartzberg)
Father of the Bride (1991; dir. Charles Shyer)
Fear(s) of the Dark (2007; dir. Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre Di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti, Richard McGuire)
Feels Good Man (2020; dir. Arthur Jones)
Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds (2020; dir. Werner Herzog, Clive Oppenheimer)
Fire in the Sky (1993; dir. Robert Lieberman)
First Cow (2019; dir. Kelly Reichardt)
For a Few Dollars More (1965; dir. Sergio Leone)
Ford v Ferrari (2019; dir. James Mangold)
Freedia Got a Gun (2020; dir. Chris McKim)
From Here to Eternity (1953; dir. Fred Zinnemann)
The Front Page (1931; dir. Lewis Milestone)
Galaxy Quest (1999; dir. Dean Parisot)
The Gay Divorcee (1933; dir. Mark Sandrich)
Get on the Bus (1996; dir. Spike Lee)
Goldeneye (1995; dir. Martin Campbell)
The Green Bird (2017; dir. Maximilien Bougeois, Quentin Dubois, Marine Goalard, Irina Nguyen-Duc, Pierre Pervey)
Greetings from Africa (1995; dir. Cheryl Dunye)
Gremlins (1984; dir. Joe Dante)
Groundhog Day (1993; dir. Harold Ramis)
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967; dir. Stanley Kramer)
The Guns of Navarone (1961; dir. J. Lee Thompson)
H2O (1929; dir. Ralph Steiner)
Hair-Raising Hare (1946; dir. Chuck Jones)
The Half of It (2020; dir. Alice Wu)
Hamilton (2020; dir. Thomas Kail)
Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren & Stimpy Story (2020; dir. Ron Cicero, Kimo Easterwood)
Heaven Can Wait (1943; dir. Ernst Lubitsch)
Heaven Can Wait (1978; dir. Warren Beatty, Buck Henry)
The Heiress (1949; dir. William Wyler)
High School (1968; dir. Frederick Wiseman)
Hocus Pocus (1993; dir. Kenny Ortega)
Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror (2019; dir. Xavier Burgin)
House of Frankenstein (1944; dir. Erle C. Kenton)
Howard (2018; dir. Don Hahn)
Hubie Halloween (2020; dir. Steven Brill)
Hudson Geese (2020; dir. Bernardo Britto)
The Human Voice (2020; dir. Pedro Almodovar)
The Hustler (1961; dir. Robert Rossen)
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932; dir. Mervyn LeRoy)
I Am Greta (English Version) (2020; dir. Nathan Grossman)
I Can Feel You Walking (2021; dir. Rachel Lambert)
If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front (2011; dir. Marshall Curry, Sam Cullman)
Il Postino (1994; dir. Michael Radford, Massimo Troisi)
I Married a Witch (1942; dir. René Clair)
Imitation of Life (1934; dir. John M. Stahl)
I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020; dir. Charlie Kaufman)
In Bruges (2008; dir, Martin McDonagh)
The Informer (1935; dir. John Ford)
In the Heat of the Night (1967; dir. Norman Jewison)
Inland Empire (2006; dir. David Lynch)
In Search of Darkness (2019; dir. David A. Weiner)
The Insider (1999; dir. Michael Mann)
The Invisible Man (2020; dir. Leigh Whannell)
Italianamerican (1974; dir. Martin Scorsese)
I Will Make You Mine (2020; dir. Lynn Chen)
Jane (2020; dir. Quinn Else)
John Lewis: Good Trouble (2020; dir. Dawn Porter)
Johnny Belinda (1948; dir. Jean Negulesco)
Jojo Rabbit (2019; dir. Taika Waititi)
Journey to the End of the Night (2020; dir. Paolo Sorrentino)
Joychild (2019; dir. Aurora Brachman)
The Joy Luck Club (1993; dir. Wayne Wang)
Judgement at Nuremberg (1961; dir. Stanley Kramer)
Julius Caesar (1953; dir. Joesph L. Mankiewicz)
Just Mercy (2019; dir. Destin Daniel Cretton)
Kafka (1991; dir. Steven Soderbergh)
Kajillionaire (2020; dir. Miranda July)
Keyboard Fantasies: The Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story (2019; dir. Posy Dixon)
The Kids Are All Right (2010; dir. Lisa Cholodenko)
Killer of Sheep (1978; dir. Charles Burnett)
The Kingmaker (2019; dir. Lauren Greenfield)
The King of Comedy (1982; dir. Martin Scorsese)
Kirikou and the Sorceress (1998; dir. Michel Ocelot, Raymond Burlet)
Kitbull (2019; dir. Rosana Sullivan)
Kundun (1997; dir. Martin Scorsese)
Lady Bird (2017; dir. Greta Gerwig)
Last Call (2020; dir. Pablo Larraín)
The Last Laugh (1924; dir. F.W. Murnau)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962; dir. David Lean)
Les Miserables (1935; dir. Richard Boleslawski)
The Letter (1940; dir. William Wyler)
Lillies of the Field (1963; dir. Ralph Nelson)
Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice (2019; dir. Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman)
The Lion in Winter (1968; dir. Anthony Harvey)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003; dir. Peter Jackson)
Love and Monsters (2020; dir. Michael Matthews)
Lovers Rock (2020; dir. Steve McQueen)
Madame Curie (1943; dir. Mervyn LeRoy, Albert Lewin)
Mad Hot Ballroom (2005; dir. Marilyn Agrelo)
Maestro (2019; dir. Illogic)
Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound (2019; dir. Midge Costin)
Mangrove (2020; dir. Steve McQueen)
Mank (2020; dir. David Fincher)
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020; dir. George C. Wolfe)
Marona’s Fantastic Tale (2019; dir. Anca Damian)
Martin Eden (2019; dir. Pietro Marcello)
MASH (1970; dir. Robert Altman)
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003; dir. Peter Weir)
Maurice (1987; dir. James Ivory)
Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris (1970; dir. Terence Dixon)
Memories of Murder (2003; dir. Bong Joon Ho)
Mice Follies (1954; dir. Joseph Barbera, William Hanna)
Mildred Pierce (1945; dir. Michael Curtiz)
Minari (2020; dir. Lee Isaac Chung)
Miracle (2004; dir. Gavin O’Connor)
Miracle on 34th Street (1947; dir. George Seaton)
Mississippi Burning (1988; dir. Alan Parker)
Monsoon (2019; dir. Hong Khaou)
Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979; dir. Terry Jones)
Mulan (1998; dir. Tony Bancroft, Barry Cook)
The Mummy (1932; dir. Karl Freund)
Nashville (1975; dir. Robert Altman)
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989; dir. Jeremiah S. Chechik)
The National Scream (1980; dir. Robert Awad, David Verrall)
The Nativity Story (2006; dir. Catherine Hardwicke)
The Neighbors’ Window (2019; dir. Marshall Curry)
Netflix’s First Holiday Film Made By Bots (2020; dir. Unknown)
Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020; dir. Eliza Hittman)
Night Moves (2013; dir. Kelly Reichardt)
Nixon (1995; dir. Oliver Stone)
Nomadland (2020; dir. Chloe Zhao)
Norma Rae (1979; dir. Martin Ritt)
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979; dir. Werner Herzog)
Nostalghia (1983; dir. Andrei Tarkovsky)
NOTES ON AN AMERICAN FILM DIRECTOR AT WORK: MARTIN SCORSESE (2005; dir. Jonas Mekas)
Ohayo (2008; dir. Satoshi Kon)
The Old Guard (2020; dir. Gina Prince-Blythewood)
The Olympic Games at They Were Practiced in Ancient Greece (1924; dir. Jean de Rovera)
One Cut of the Dead (2017; dir. Shin’ichirô Ueda)
On the Record (2020; dir. Kirby Dick, Amy Ziering)
Onward (2020; dir. Dan Scanlon)
Original Cast Album: Company (1970; dir. D.A. Pennebaker)
The Other Guys (2010; dir. Adam McKay)
Out (2020; dir. Steven Clay Hunter)
The Painter and the Thief (2020; dir. Benjamin Ree)
Palm Springs (2020; dir. Max Barbakow)
Parasite (2019; dir. Bong Joon Ho)
The Perfect Weapon (2020; dir. John Maggio)
Phase Loop (1971; dir. Guy Sherwin)
The Piano (1993; dir. Jane Campion)
The Pied Piper (1942; dir. Irving Pichel)
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1987; dir. John Hughes)
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019; dir. Céline Sciamma)
Possessor: Uncut (2020; dir. Brandon Cronenberg)
The Pride of the Yankees (1942; dir. Sam Wood)
Princess Mononoke (1997; dir. Hayao Miyazaki)
P.S. Burn This Letter Please (2020; dir. Michael Seligman, Jennifer Tiexiera)
Public Speaking (2010; dir. Martin Scorsese)
Pulp Fiction (1994; dir. Quentin Tarantino)
Query (2020; dir. Sophie Kargman)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981; dir. Steven Spielberg)
Random Harvest (1942; dir. Mervyn LeRoy)
Real Women Have Curves (2002; dir. Patricia Cardoso)
Red Hook Summer (2012; dir. Spike Lee)
Red, White, and Blue (2020; dir. Steve McQueen)
The Remains of the Day (1993; dir. James Ivory)
The Rescuers Down Under (1990; dir. Hendel Butoy, Mike Gabriel)
Restrepro (2010; dir. Tim Hetherington, Sebastian Junger)
Revenge of the Ninja (1983; dir. Sam Firstenberg)
Rewind (2019; dir. Sasha Joseph Neulinger)
Rosewood (1997; dir. John Singleton)
The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! (1966; dir. Norman Jewison)
Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda (2017; dir. Stephen Nomura Schible)
Save Yourselves! (2020; dir. Alex Huston Fischer, Eleanor Wilson)
Saving Face (2004; dir. Alice Wu)
Sayonara (1957; dir. Joshua Logan)
Scare Me (2020; dir. Josh Ruben)
Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street (2019; dir. Roman Chimienti, Tyler Jensen)
Secrets & Lies (1996; dir. Mike Leigh)
Selena (1997; dir. Gregory Nava)
Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989; dir. Steven Soderbergh)
Shadow in the Cloud (2020; dir. Roseanne Liang)
She Dies Tomorrow (2020; dir. Amy Seimetz)
Shiva Baby (2020; dir. Emma Seligman)
The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts the Tonight Show (2020; dir. Yoruba Richen)
The Snake Pit (1948; dir. Anatole Litvak)
The Snowman (1982; dir. Jimmy T. Murakami, Dianne Jackson)
The Snowy Day (1965; dir. Mal Wittman)
The Song of Bernadette (1943; dir. Henry King)
Soul (2020; dir. Pete Docter, Kemp Powers)
Sounder (1972; dir. Martin Ritt)
Sound of Metal (2019; dir. Darius Marder)
South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut (1999; dir. Trey Parker)
Spellbound (1945; dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018; dir. Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman)
Spielberg (2017; dir. Susan Lacy)
Spy (2015; dir. Paul Feig)
STAYDIUM (2020; dir. GEIL Comedy)
Stop Making Sense (1984; dir. Jonathan Demme)
The Story of Film: An Odyssey (2011; dir. Mark Cousins)
The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936; dir. William Dieterle)
Straight Up (2019; dir. James Sweeney)
Summer of Sam (1999; dir. Spike Lee)
The Surrogate (2020; dir. Jeremy Hersh)
Surrogate Valentine (2012; dir. Dave Boyle)
The Swamp (2020; dir. Daniel DiMauro, Morgan Pehme)
Tales from the Hood (1995; dir. Rusty Cundieff)
Tender Mercies (1983; dir. Bruce Beresford)
Tenet (2020; dir. Christopher Nolan)
Terminator: Dark Fate (2019; dir. Tim Miller)
Thelma & Louise (1991; dir. Ridley Scott)
There’s Something in the Water (2019; dir. Ian Daniel, Elliot Page)
They Live (1988; dir. John Carpenter)
This is Cinerama (1952; dir. Merian C. Cooper, Gunther von Fritsch, Ernest B. Schoedsack, Michael Todd Jr.)
Threads (2017; dir. Torill Love)
Tickling Giants (2016; dir. Sara Taksler)
Tigertail (2020; dir. Alan Yang)
Time (2020; dir. Garrett Bradley)
Totally Under Control (2020; dir. Alex Gibney, Ophelia Harutyunyan, Suzanne Hillinger)
The Trial (1962; dir. Orson Welles)
The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020; dir. Aaron Sorkin)
The Truth (2020; dir. Hirokazu Kore-Eda)
Twin Peaks: The Return (2017; dir. David Lynch)
Twins (1988; dir. Ivan Reitman)
Two of Us (2019; dir. Filippo Meneghetti)
The Ugly Duckling (1939; dir. Jack Cutting, Clyde Geronimi)
Uncle Frank (2020; dir. Alan Ball)
Uncut Gems (2019; dir. The Safdie Brothers)
Unspoken (2019; dir. Patrick G. Lee)
Use Cups (2019; dir. Joe Pelling, Brendan O’Hare, Cory Snearowski)
Us Kids (2020; dir. Kim A. Snyder)
Victim (1961; dir. Basil Dearden)
The Voice in Your Head (2020; dir. Graham Parkes)
The Watermelon Woman (1996; dir. Cheryl Dunye)
The Wedding Banquet (1993; dir. Ang Lee)
Weiner (2016; dir. Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg)
Why Horror? (2014; dir. Nicolas Kleiman, Rob Lindsay)
Wild at Heart (1990; dir. David Lynch)
Wilderlove (2020; dir. Connor Ryan)
WILDFIRE (2015; dir. Hugues Opter, Pierre Pinon, Nicole Stafford, Valentin Still, Arnaud Tribute, Shang Zhang)
The Willoughbys (2020; dir. Kris Pearn, Cory Evans, Rob Lodermeier)
Wind (1996; dir. Marcell Iványi)
Witness for the Prosecution (1957; dir. Billy Wilder)
The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020; dir. Jim Cummings)
The Wolf’s Call (2019; dir. Antonin Baudry)
Wolfwalkers (2020; dir. Komm Moore, Ross Stewart)
Wonder Woman (2017; dir. Patty Jenkins)
Working Girl (1988; dir. Mike Nichols)
World of Tomorrow Episode 3: The Absent Destinations of David Prime (2020; dir. Don Hertzfeldt)
Wrinkles the Clown (2019; dir. Michael Beach Nichols)
The Wrong Man (1956; dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
Wuthering Heights (1939; dir. William Wyler)
The Yakuza (1974; dir. Sydney Pollack)
Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942; dir. Michael Curtiz)
Zea (1981; dir. André Leduc, Jean-Jacques Leduc)
Zero Hour! (1957; dir. Hall Bartlett)