The Incredible Suit's Top 10 films of 2015

I'm going to assume you understand what this post is about without a lengthy introductory paragraph, because you wouldn't be here if you weren't colossally intelligent, not to mention devastatingly sexy.

ANT-MAN

I'm no superhero party pooper but I haven't been remotely moved by the Marvel Cinematic Universe since Iron Man Three, so it was a joy to see something as daft and inventive as Ant-Man fizzing up the screen this year. Freed from the shackles of the rest of the MCU (to some extent), Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish's script - or what was left of it - offered a small-scale adventure which nevertheless delivered big LOLs and impressive set-pieces. Here's hoping Paul Rudd spices up Captain America: Civil War as promised, because Cap's real superpower is boring me to death. Review

A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH REFLECTING ON EXISTENCE
Roy Andersson presents his third exhibition of stuffed and mounted examples of the human condition, and it's another litany of drab futility and failure lightened only by the briefest splashes of colourful joy. You could come away from Andersson's films with the impression that he's a terminal pessimist, but that would be to miss the thick, dark seam of LOLs he mines from the eternal crushing misery of existence. And anyway, what he actually is is the proud owner of a unique cinematic vision and the will to spend decades perfecting it for you, the living. Review

THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY
Peter Strickland's strange and erotically-charged tale of love, lingerie and lepidoptery is a beautiful and melancholy exercise in taking genre filmmaking and twisting it into something wildly original. Chiara D'Anna and Sidse Babett Knudsen play the lovers both pretending to be something they're not; the Duke of Burgundy plays himself - but only, tragically, in a deleted scene. Review

THE VOICES
Imagine if Nora Ephron had written Psycho, and you're part-way to understanding the uncategorisable The Voices. Ryan Reynolds is a revelation as the desperately mentally ill Jerry, a reluctant serial killer whose unmedicated candy-floss world conceals a fetid, violent reality that anyone in their right mind would turn to drugs to escape from. Marjane Satrapi displays the biggest balls in cinema this year with a potentially deeply offensive look at insanity which instead delights, shocks and saddens in equal measure. Review

THE LOBSTER
Societal pressures and the ludicrosity of human relationships come under the knife in Yorgos Lanthimos' tremendously original The Lobster, starring Colin Farrell as a man who - quite understandably - does not want to become a lobster. Wickedly stylised and brutally honest, it's a film you love even though it makes you hate yourself and everyone around you. Also the best film this year starring Léa Seydoux and Ben Whishaw, amirite guys?

COHERENCE
Science fiction done right, i.e. with a focus on ideas over budget. A cast you've never heard of pieces together a jigsaw puzzle of a script written and directed by someone else you've never heard of without anyone ever knowing what the picture on the box is. Smart, only occasionally silly and infinitely rewatchable, Coherence is an enormously satisfying throwback to the early career of Christopher Nolan, when wrong-footing his audience to dazzling effect was more important than figuring out where he could squeeze Michael Caine in. Review

STAR WARS EPISODE VII: THE FORCE AWAKENS
The loudest noise in cinemas this year was the thunderous sigh of relief when it was revealed that the new Star Wars film wasn't shit. It's not perfect, but it is bloody great fun, capturing all that was great about the original trilogy (including swathes of its plot) and redeploying those elements for a post-modern blockbuster experience that never winked at its own cleverness. Thrills, revelations, laughs, tears and almost relentless adventure: this is the stuff that Star Wars dreams are made of. Review

MR. HOLMES
Bit of a surprise, this one. There I was, expecting a three-star Sunday afternooner about a bimbling old goat who's forgotten how to solve crimes, when what I actually got was a five-star Sunday afternooner about a bimbling old goat who's forgotten how to solve crimes. Mr. Holmes' genius isn't in its sleuthery though, but in its self-reflexive unpicking of the Sherlock mythology and the labyrinthine look at storytelling. I love that there's room in the world for Holmes films like this, and hope that one day the model might be applied to a certain secret agent popular round these parts. Review

FORCE MAJEURE

The mythical concept of 21st century masculinity is skewered and butchered like a sacrificial cow in Ruben Östlund's wickedly blunt satire on male ego. If you're a 21st century male with no idea what his place in the world is, then this won't help you one jot (although if you're actively concerned about your place in the world then nothing will, get over yourself). It will, however, blow you away with its clinical, loaded cinematography, flawless performances and merciless inspection of your own pathetic worthlessness. Enjoy! Review

INSIDE OUT
Pixar shatters expectations and emotions with equal brutality in this deceptively whimsical deconstruction of the abject horror of growing up. Inside Out - almost certainly my new favourite Pixar film - brings joy and sadness to the screen on multiple levels and with pinpoint accuracy, never putting a foot wrong in its complex and sensitive peek into the terrifying mental state of the average pre-teen. That it does it in what's ostensibly a kids' film, with impeccable gags and the kind of invention that seems beyond human capability, is all the more miraculous. And I just remembered Bing Bong and now I'm a complete state again. Review

The Voices

Films like The Voices make me glad I don't work in marketing. I mean where do you even start? Here's a film which swerves between awkward comedy and savage horror with wild abandon, whose cast screams "Average Romcom!" at the top of its voice, but whose script dares to address issues surrounding mental illness in a way that would send most mainstream directors running for the hills. How you sell that to a general moviegoing public, most of whom come out in hives if a film can't be described with fewer than two words and a generic poster, is quite beyond me. So spare a thought for the poor souls at distributors Arrow Films, whose job I shall attempt to make easier by suggesting you forget about genre conventions and just watch The Voices with an open mind and a chum to pop your jaw shut during the end credits.

Ryan Rodney Reynolds, far more convincing here as a factory packing monkey than he ever was as an action hero, plays Jerry, a simple guy who - heh - has conversations with his pets and - lol - is a bit awkward around girls. Then, at the insistence of his - haha - cute ginger cat, who - pffft - has a Scottish accent, he REPEATEDLY AND BRUTALLY STABS SOMEONE IN THE CHEST UNTIL THEY ARE DEAD. To suggest that the film's tone has shifted somewhat is an intergalactic understatement. Yet back and forth it goes, playing off Jerry's fumbling relationships with Gemma Arterton and Anna Kendrick against his reluctant descent into serial killer territory. It is, frankly, fascinating to be tossed around in your seat like this by Michael R Perry's mad script and Marjane Satrapi's direction: she steers the film with the assured nature of a captain taking her ship through a superstorm against the advice of everyone around her.

Through all the guiltily chucklesome mayhem (beautifully shot by Maxime Alexandre), we're asked to examine Jerry's mental health via a series of conversations with his psychiatrist (Jacki Weaver), his dog Bosco and his cat Mr Whiskers. Jerry's on medication to "smooth everything off", but this leads to an only-too-real world intruding on the idyllic existence he's built from his own state of mind. Before long you might actually find yourself questioning the very concept of reality, and whether one person's is any less valid than another's just because the chemicals in their brain are out of whack. Of course, when you're talking about serial killers, questions of mental illness rub up against the notion of pure evil, the old nature vs nurture debate is rolled out and hang on are we still talking about a Ryan Reynolds film?

What's notable about The Voices is that none of this is rammed down your throat, but nor is it treated remotely frivolously despite repeated comedic interludes. Satrapi, director of the remarkable Persepolis, is no stranger to Movies With Issues, and though her latest may be tonally all over the place it's a controlled experiment. Both she and writer Perry know they can't hope to address all the complexities of mental illness, so they use serial killing as a metaphor for just about any level of internalised struggle or moment of self-doubt and comedy to sweeten the pill, delivering a film as schizophrenic and likeable as its lead character.

Reynolds employs every ounce of his not inconsiderable charm to keep you on Jerry's side, Gemma Arterton has fun with her posh British totty role and Anna Kendrick is predictably and effortlessly great, but Satrapi is the star here, crafting refreshingly intelligent and original cinema. The Voices is an unexpectedly gleeful delight: bold and independent, with a wilful disregard for mass appeal. It might freak a few people out - and I'll be honest, I've no idea how anyone who suffers from depression or worse might receive it - but it's got rhino-sized balls, and these days that's rarer than a decent Ryan Reynolds film.

Four films I'll be giving a shit about in

CHAPPIE

I'm having real trouble reconciling the Neill Blomkamp / Hugh Jackmanliness of this with the indelible image of Short Circuit's Johnny Five. That said, Blomkamp is still in credit with the Bank Of Suit despite Elysium, so shits will be given in these parts about Chappie. (6th)

 HYENA

Gerard Johnson's feature debut Tony was a low-budget, blackly comic gem starring his cousin Peter Ferdinando as an unassuming serial killer. Their follow-up (in which Ferdinando is unrecognisable as the same guy who played Tony) is a grim, unrelentingly pessimistic look at West London cops, reminiscent of Eastern Promises but without the budget. Give a shit about it if you would like confirmation that the world is a really awful place full of really awful people. (6th)

MOMMY

Precocious Canadian writer-director-and-everything-elser Xavier Dolan is on his fifth film despite being just 25 years old, the talented BASTARD. I've only seen one of his films - the unbearably pretentious Heartbeats - but suspect I will end up looking silly if I don't crack on with the rest of his filmography sharpish. Mommy looks worth giving a shit about if only for its ballsy 1:1 aspect ratio. (20th)

THE VOICES

There is literally no way any poster or trailer can convey what The Voices is like. It's a completely unmarketable film, and anyone going in expecting a slasher flick or a romcom is going to walk out within half an hour. It is both of those things and neither of those things, but what it definitely is is quite brilliant. You should definitely give a shit about it. (20th)