In A Year Without Blockbusters We Turned To Streaming

Not a lot of people got to the cinema this year. In fact, the theatre-going experience ground to a halt. Thanks to the pandemic, multiplex lights went out around the globe and film festivals went online. There was a revival for drive-in theatres and streaming… well, streaming just boomed.

That all means a very different top ten film list in 2020 - as voted by The Music editorial team and contributors. There is a lack of blockbusters and for the first time ever a direct-to-streaming film tops our poll.

10. Birds Of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation Of One Harley Quinn)

One of only two ‘blockbusters’ in this year’s list (last year’s was half blockbuster: Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood, Joker, Avengers: Endgame, Toy Story 4 and John Wick Chapter 3), Birds Of Prey was talked about as a flop at first. It stumbled out of the gate due to confusion over its proper title and its January release coincided with the first concerns of COVID’s global spread. But it went on to earn double its reported budget ($200 million and counting at this point) and became one of the last films to top the box office before widespread cinema closures kicked in (it was number one in Australia and is currently ranked as the seventh highest-grossing cinema-attraction of the year). Director Cathy Yan and star Margot Robbie injected this DC film with colour (LOTS OF COLOUR) and spirit - by the time it hit the streaming platforms it was the escapist film we needed in lockdown.

9. Beastie Boys Story

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Our writers put forward a few music films this year - David Byrne’s American Utopia, Laurel Canyon, The Go-Go’s - but Beastie Boys Story was the only one to crack the final ten. Directed by Spike Jonze (last seen on our year-end list back in 2014 with Her), it captured Beastie Boys members Michael Diamond and Adam Horowitz not only wanting to eulogise the late Adam Yauch but to also commemorate their bond as a band of friends. This also marks the first Apple TV+ streaming film to make our lists.

8. Tenet

This film’s low ranking illustrates our change in movie-going habits in 2020 more than anything else in our list this year. Christopher Nolan epics have a tendency to top our annual poll - there was Inception at #1 in 2010 and The Dark Knight Rises at #1 in 2012. [When he’s not number one he’s usually way closer to the top than this - Interstellar at #4 in 2014. Only Dunkirk in 2018 ranked as low as this - and that was probably because it wasn’t your usual Nolan fare.] While other blockbusters were pulled from cinemas, Tenet was the only one to experiment with wide release (Mulan dabbled with a mixed release but didn’t go wide) - hoping to draw people back into cinemas as the world re-opened after the first round of lockdowns. It was a miscalculation that didn’t take into account second and third spikes of COVID around the planet (nor did it take into account the negative reviews). Nolan became the poster boy for the return to cinemas - his heart may have been in the right place (trying to restart an industry hit hard) but the world populous didn’t heed his message. Although currently ranked as the third highest-grossing box office film of the year, Tenet is way behind pre-lockdown release Bad Boys For Life and China’s big epic The Eight Hundred.

7. My Octopus Teacher

Last year no direct-to-streaming features figured in our top films of the year list. However, this year is dominated by streaming platform releases. This is one of five from Netflix, one of seven streamed-release films overall. This viral hit (which got a massive boost in Australia after featuring on Gogglebox) documents one man’s relationship with an octopus. Yes, really. Remember (very) briefly in the ‘90s when videos of people swimming underwater were promoted as a relaxing meditational tool? Well, this is part-that and part-tragic romance. Let’s mark the popularity of this one down to our need for a relaxing meditational tool in 2020.

6. The Trial Of The Chicago 7

Another Netflix film, albeit one that had a limited cinema run here. Directed by Aaron Sorkin (only his second time in the chair, having made his directorial debut with the modestly successful Molly’s Game in 2017), this was never meant for the big screen. Sorkin honed his small screen skills writing critically-praised TV shows Sports Night, Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, The Newsroom and, out-and-out ratings hit, The West Wing (which found itself back in the zeitgeist in 2020 thanks to the US election). Sorkin is all about the words, not the look - and so he knew how to keep this two-hour-plus courtroom drama rolling along. Timing helped increase interest as well - in a year dotted with protests, police violence and a contentious US election, we were primed for a historical retelling of the American 1968 election unrest that led to clashes with police and the arrest of high profile activists, including Abbie Hoffman. It helped that the cast included so-hot-about-now Sacha Baron Cohen (his headline-making, judicial-career-wrecking Borat Subsequent Moviefilm landing not far outside our top ten) and Yahya Abdul-Mateen ll (his film Us made last year’s top ten and he starred in 2019’s Emmy-magnet Watchmen).

5. The King Of Staten Island

These end-of-year lists aren’t too big on comedies generally. Occasionally a little indie comedy will sneak in (last year Booksmart at #7, the year before that Lady Bird at #6 and so on) or else we guffaw over a comic book adaptation that’s big on the jokes (Deadpool 2 at #7 in 2018, Thor: Ragnorok at #3 in 2017). Sometimes - just sometimes - we can get a laugh to #1 but only if it falls into one of the two aforementioned categories (Deadpool in 2016, The Grand Budapest Hotel in 2014). But this year we really needed the laughs and no less than three broad Hollywood comedies land in the top five. While it was a streaming hit in the US, this Judd Apatow comedy scored a cinema release in Australia and we were so in need of a laugh we were prepared to sit in a cinema for over two hours to watch this one. It didn’t harm things that the film was a semi-biographical take on the life of the film’s star, and internet boyfriend, Pete Davidson. It also featured Pamela Adlon and here’s a community service announcement about that: if you have not watched Adlon’s TV comedy Better Things then you are not living your best life (GO. WATCH. NOW.).

4. Eurovision Song Contest: The Story Of Fire Saga

So here was the year’s breakout surprise smash. Another comedy, another Netflix success story. From the director of Wedding Crashers and… well, a string of not very successful films since then (there is a Crashers sequel planned though) and starring Will Ferrell, you went into this knowing what is was. It’s cheap laughs (we love ‘em) and a lot of prat falls (we love ‘em even more). But given this was a couple of Americans taking the piss out of a piece of non-American pop culture (Eurovision - it’s in the title), what wasn’t expected is how much heart this has. Oh, and thanks to a stupidly catchy tune from the film going viral (Jaja Ding Dong, anyone?) the soundtrack even charted top 50 in Australia. When the film landed in June, our world was in a dark place, The Story Of Fire Saga offered us all a ray of light (come ooooon, that’s a call back to film’s soundtrack).

3. The Devil All The Time

Okay, so by now we realise why “I’ve finished all of Netflix” jokes abounded across social media in 2020: The Year Of The Lockdown. It’s highly unlikely that this straight-to-streaming film would have got this much attention any other year. Director Antonio Campos had previously made ripples on the festival circuit (his 2016 film Christine even won its star a few awards) and here he was with a role-call of big screen favourites: Tom Holland (who pretty much owned the film), Bill Skarsgard and Robert Pattinson. It was also buoyed by top Australian acting talent Eliza Scanlen and Mia Wasikowska. It’s a twisty combo of sub-plots (maybe one too many) that takes itself very seriously and allows its stars to ACT (there’s lots of accent work and showy flourishes at play). There’s also plenty of gore, some serial killing and even a crazed evangelical preacher. Yep, we had A LOT of time on our hands this year.

2. Palm Springs

Apple TV+ wasn’t the only streaming platform to make its first-ever appearance in our annual film list, this ranking marks Amazon’s first time too. There was buzz surrounding this from the get-go when it premiered at Sundance in January. By the time it landed in Australia is was an immediate word-of-social-media-mouth hit. A feature directorial debut (by Max Barbakow), the streaming-release of the film brought a built-in TV audience with it thanks to star Andy Samberg’s current Brooklyn Nine-Nine popularity. It also helped solidify the rise of Cristin Milioti following a string of ‘I know that face, I’m gonna ImDB that name’ turns in How I Met Your Mother, The Mindy Project, Fargo, Black Mirror and the US No Activity (plus current Netflix hit Death To 2020). This year we needed a rom-com and Palm Springs gave the formula a little twist and landed a big audience.

1. i’m thinking of ending things

And, this is the most 2020 film of 2020. In previous years (as mentioned earlier) this list has been topped by BIG films made for iMax-like experiences: Black Panther in 2018, Blade Runner 2049 in 2017, Mad Max: Fury Road in 2015, Gravity in 2013 and so on. This was the opposite of those movies: a small arthouse project based on a book only the most well-read of your friends know about, directed by a guy who once made a two-hour film about a warehouse that turned into a city. It also launched many a “did anyone else see what I just saw or did I imagine that?” Twitter-conversation. A complex timeline-defiant psychological puzzle, i’m thinking of ending things (and yes, it is all lower case) is the kinda film we might not have had time for in the past. But in the luxury of our home, and all the lockdown time in the world to mull it over, we could soak this up, re-watch if we must and slowly untangle this tale of… well, to say anything more could be a spoiler. Director Charlie Kaufman has previously befuddled us as writer of Being John Malkovich (oh hey, Spike Jonze again), Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (maybe finding his perfect match in director Michel Gondry) and his own directorial debut Synecdoche, New York (the aforementioned warehouse film). And amongst a strong cast that consists of Toni Collette, David Thewles, Jesse “Always Landry To Friday Night Lights Fans” Plemons, Kaufman was lucky enough to land actor-in-ascent Jessie Buckley (she already had our attention in this year’s Fargo outing and starred in our #2 TV show of 2019 Chernobyl). But most importantly for 2020, this film featured a dog that could be memed.

And some films that just missed out but are well worth catching for the full 2020 experience: Queen & Slim, The Hunt, The Invisible Man, Babyteeth, His House, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.