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Edition · 2015
The Year in Film · 2015

Best of 2015

The films that defined 2015 — ranked by IMDb score.


These films defined 2015 — the year's highest-rated releases, ranked by IMDb score. Some are awards bait, some are popcorn fare, some quietly snuck in under the radar. All earned their place on the list.

  1. 01.
    Human

    Human

    2015·Dir. Yann Arthus-Bertrand·191 min·8.6

    A collection of stories about and images of our world, offering an immersion to the core of what it means to be human. Through these stories full of love and happiness, as well as hatred and violence, it brings us face to face with the Other, making us reflect on our lives. From stories of everyday experiences to accounts of the most unbelievable lives, these poignant encounters share a rare sincerity and underline who we are – our darker side, but also what is most noble in us, and what is universal. Our Earth is shown at its most sublime through never-before-seen aerial images accompanied by soaring music, resulting in an ode to the beauty of the world, providing a moment to draw breath and for introspection. This film is a politically engaged work which allows us to embrace the human condition and to reflect on the meaning of our existence.

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  2. 02.
    Doctor Who: The Husbands of River Song

    Doctor Who: The Husbands of River Song

    2015·Dir. Douglas Mackinnon·60 min·8.5

    It’s Christmas Day on a remote human colony and the Doctor is hiding from Christmas Carols and Comedy Antlers. But when a crashed spaceship calls upon the Doctor for help, he finds himself recruited into River Song’s squad and hurled into a fast and frantic chase across the galaxy. King Hydroflax is furious, and his giant Robot bodyguard is out-of-control and coming for them all! Will Nardole survive? And when will River Song work out who the Doctor is? All will be revealed on a starliner full of galactic super-villains and a destination the Doctor has been avoiding for a very long time.

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  3. 03.
    Thani Oruvan

    Thani Oruvan

    2015·Dir. Mohan Raja·159 min·8.4

    An idealistic cop and an ambitious scientist-businessman indulge in a high-stake battle of wits.

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  4. 04.
    Papanasam

    Papanasam

    2015·Dir. Jeethu Joseph·181 min·8.4

    A cinephile tries to protect his family by hiding a heat-of-the-moment murder committed by his daughter by taking cues from the films he has watched. With the victim the son of a cop, can he get away with it?

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  5. 05.
    Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom

    Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom

    2015·Dir. Evgeny Afineevsky·98 min·8.3

    Over 93 days in Ukraine, what started as peaceful student demonstrations became a violent revolution and full-fledged civil rights movement.

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  6. 06.
    Don't F*#% With John Wick

    Don't F*#% With John Wick

    2015·Dir. Josh Oreck·15 min·8.3

    Behind the scenes look at fight choreography and action training.

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  7. 07.
    Premam

    Premam

    2015·Dir. Alphonse Puthren·157 min·8.3

    Three stages in George's life, and three girls he encounters in each stage.

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  8. 08.
    Pathemari

    Pathemari

    2015·Dir. Salim Ahamed·110 min·8.3

    Pathemari features the life of Pallikkal Narayanan who migrated to the Middle-East in the early 1980s, when the Kerala Gulf boom was at its peak.

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  9. 09.
    Kaaka Muttai

    Kaaka Muttai

    2015·Dir. M. Manikandan·109 min·8.3

    Two slum kids yearn to taste a pizza after being enticed by the pizza shop that has opened near their locality. What happens when they manage to find the money to buy one?

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  10. 10.
    Drishyam

    Drishyam

    2015·Dir. Nishikant Kamat·163 min·8.2

    A simple street-smart man tries to protect his family from a cop looking for her missing son who was accidently killed by his daughter.

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  11. 11.
    World of Tomorrow

    World of Tomorrow

    2015·Dir. Don Hertzfeldt·17 min·8.1

    A little girl is taken on a mind-bending tour of her distant future.

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  12. 12.
    Racing Extinction

    Racing Extinction

    2015·Dir. Louie Psihoyos·90 min·8.1

    An unlikely team of activists and innovators hatches a bold mission to save endangered species.

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  13. 13.
    Room

    Room

    2015·Dir. Lenny Abrahamson·118 min·8.1

    Held captive for 7 years in an enclosed space, a woman and her young son finally gain their freedom, allowing the boy to experience the outside world for the first time.

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  14. 14.
    Cercando La grande bellezza

    Cercando La grande bellezza

    2015·Dir. Gianluca Jodice·61 min·8.1

    Drama, documentary

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  15. 15.
    Inside Out

    Inside Out

    2015·Dir. Pete Docter·95 min·8.1

    When 11-year-old Riley moves to a new city, her Emotions team up to help her through the transition. Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness work together, but when Joy and Sadness get lost, they must journey through unfamiliar places to get back home.

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  16. 16.
    Mad Max: Fury Road

    Mad Max: Fury Road

    2015·Dir. George Miller·121 min·8.1

    An apocalyptic story set in the furthest reaches of our planet, in a stark desert landscape where humanity is broken, and most everyone is crazed fighting for the necessities of life. Within this world exist two rebels on the run who just might be able to restore order.

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  17. 17.
    Rangi Taranga

    Rangi Taranga

    2015·Dir. Anup Bhandari·149 min·8.1

    Mysterious events begin to unfold after a reclusive novelist and his wife move back to her ancestral village, followed by a journalist.

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  18. 18.
    Masaan

    Masaan

    2015·Dir. Neeraj Ghaywan·109 min·8.1

    Four lives intersect along the Ganges: a low caste boy in hopeless love, a daughter ridden with guilt of a sexual encounter ending in a tragedy, a hapless father with fading morality, and a spirited child yearning for a family, long to escape the moral constructs of a small-town.

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  19. 19.
    Listen to Me Marlon

    Listen to Me Marlon

    2015·Dir. Stevan Riley·103 min·8.1

    With exclusive access to his extraordinary unseen and unheard personal archive including hundreds of hours of audio recorded over the course of his life, this is the definitive Marlon Brando cinema documentary. Charting his exceptional career as an actor and his extraordinary life away from the stage and screen with Brando himself as your guide, the film will fully explore the complexities of the man by telling the story uniquely from Marlon's perspective, entirely in his own voice. No talking heads, no interviewees, just Brando on Brando and life.

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  20. 20.
    Bajrangi Bhaijaan

    Bajrangi Bhaijaan

    2015·Dir. Kabir Khan·159 min·8.1

    A young mute girl from Pakistan loses herself in India with no way to head back. A devoted man with a magnanimous spirit undertakes the task to get her back to her motherland and unite her with her family.

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  21. 21.
    Spotlight

    Spotlight

    2015·Dir. Tom McCarthy·129 min·8.1

    The true story of how the Boston Globe uncovered the massive scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the local Catholic Archdiocese, shaking the entire Catholic Church to its core.

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  22. 22.
    Talvar

    Talvar

    2015·Dir. Meghna Gulzar·132 min·8.1

    A hardened cop deals with three conflicting perspectives involving a brutal double murder. The case is complicated as the prime suspects are the parents who supposedly killed their teenage daughter.

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  23. 23.
    Manjhi: The Mountain Man

    Manjhi: The Mountain Man

    2015·Dir. Ketan Mehta·124 min·8.0

    After his wife passes away trying to cross a mountain, Manjhi, out of sheer rage, sets on a quest to carve a road through the treacherous mountain.

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  24. 24.
    Bāhubali: The Beginning

    Bāhubali: The Beginning

    2015·Dir. S. S. Rajamouli·159 min·8.0

    The young Shivudu is left as a foundling in a small village by his mother. By the time he’s grown up, it has become apparent that he possesses exceptional gifts. He meets the beautiful warrior princess Avanthika and learns that her queen has been held captive for the last 25 years. Shividu sets off to rescue her, discovering his own origins in the process.

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  25. 25.
    Indru Netru Naalai

    Indru Netru Naalai

    2015·Dir. R. Ravi Kumar·146 min·8.0

    Elango and his astrologer friend Pulivetti Arumugam come in possession of a time machine and start profiting from it. However, their meddling with time prevents the death of a gangster, who begins to wreck havoc in their lives.

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  26. 26.
    The Revenant

    The Revenant

    2015·Dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu·157 min·8.0

    In the 1820s, a frontiersman, Hugh Glass, sets out on a path of vengeance against those who left him for dead after a bear mauling.

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  27. 27.
    Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief

    Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief

    2015·Dir. Alex Gibney·120 min·8.0

    GOING CLEAR intimately profiles eight former members of the Church of Scientology, shining a light on how they attract true believers and the things they do in the name of religion.

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  28. 28.
    Requiem for the American Dream

    Requiem for the American Dream

    2015·Dir. Peter D. Hutchison·73 min·8.0

    Through interviews filmed over four years, Noam Chomsky unpacks the principles that have brought us to the crossroads of historically unprecedented inequality – tracing a half-century of policies designed to favor the most wealthy at the expense of the majority – while also looking back on his own life of activism and political participation. He provides penetrating insight into what may well be the lasting legacy of our time – the death of the middle class, and swan song of functioning democracy.

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  29. 29.
    Ennu Ninte Moideen

    Ennu Ninte Moideen

    2015·Dir. R. S. Vimal·167 min·8.0

    Children of two renowned families fall in love amidst orthodox surroundings. When their inter-religious relationship is opposed, the two lovers' situation is fraught with familial pressure, societal culture and blind arrogance.

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  30. 30.
    The Martian

    The Martian

    2015·Dir. Ridley Scott·141 min·8.0

    During a manned mission to Mars, Astronaut Mark Watney is presumed dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. But Watney has survived and finds himself stranded and alone on the hostile planet. With only meager supplies, he must draw upon his ingenuity, wit and spirit to subsist and find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive.

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  31. 31.
    Baby

    Baby

    2015·Dir. Neeraj Pandey·160 min·7.9

    A nascent elite team of the Indian intelligence system perpetually strives to detect and eliminate terrorists and their plots. Officer Ajay leads his team to destroy one such potentially lethal ploy in their biggest operation yet.

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  32. 32.
    Ivy

    Ivy

    2015·Dir. Tolga Karaçelik·104 min·7.9

    After the owner's bankruptcy, the crew is stranded on a freighter for months. Dealing with the stress of isolation, seafarers gradually surrender to madness and terror.

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  33. 33.
    Kung Fury

    Kung Fury

    2015·Dir. David Sandberg·32 min·7.9

    During an unfortunate series of events, a friend of Kung Fury is assassinated by the most dangerous kung fu master criminal of all time, Adolf Hitler, a.k.a Kung Führer. Kung Fury decides to travel back in time to Nazi Germany in order to kill Hitler and end the Nazi empire once and for all.

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  34. 34.
    John Mulaney: The Comeback Kid

    John Mulaney: The Comeback Kid

    2015·Dir. Rhys Thomas·62 min·7.9

    Armed with boyish charm and a sharp wit, the former "SNL" writer offers sly takes on marriage, his beef with babies and the time he met Bill Clinton.

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  35. 35.
    The Hateful Eight

    The Hateful Eight

    2015·Dir. Quentin Tarantino·188 min·7.8

    Bounty hunters seek shelter from a raging blizzard and get caught up in a plot of betrayal and deception.

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  36. 36.
    Straight Outta Compton

    Straight Outta Compton

    2015·Dir. F. Gary Gray·147 min·7.8

    In 1987, five young men, using brutally honest rhymes and hardcore beats, put their frustration and anger about life in the most dangerous place in America into the most powerful weapon they had: their music. Taking us back to where it all began, Straight Outta Compton tells the true story of how these cultural rebels—armed only with their lyrics, swagger, bravado and raw talent—stood up to the authorities that meant to keep them down and formed the world’s most dangerous group, N.W.A. And as they spoke the truth that no one had before and exposed life in the hood, their voice ignited a social revolution that is still reverberating today.

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  37. 37.
    The Big Short

    The Big Short

    2015·Dir. Adam McKay·131 min·7.8

    The men who made millions from a global economic meltdown.

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  38. 38.
    The Second Mother

    The Second Mother

    2015·Dir. Anna Muylaert·112 min·7.8

    After leaving her daughter Jessica in a small town in Pernambuco to be raised by relatives, Val spends the next 13 years working as a nanny to Fabinho in São Paulo. She has financial stability but has to live with the guilt of having not raised Jessica herself. As Fabinho’s university entrance exams approach, Jessica reappears in her life and seems to want to give her mother a second chance. However, Jessica has not been raised to be a servant and her very existence will turn Val’s routine on its head. With precision and humour, the subtle and powerful forces that keep rigid class structures in place and how the youth may just be the ones to shake it all up.

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  39. 39.
    Louis C.K.: Live at The Comedy Store

    Louis C.K.: Live at The Comedy Store

    2015·Dir. Louis C.K.·66 min·7.8

    This material was developed and prepared over the last year or so, mostly in comedy clubs. This special kind of goes back to when he used to just make noises and be funny for no particular reason. It felt right to him to shoot this special in a club to give it that live immediate intimate feeling. The show is about an hour long. The opening act, who is seen at the beginning (good place for an opening act) is Jay London. One of his favorite club comics going way back to the late 80s when he first started in working in New York.

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  40. 40.
    Land of Mine

    Land of Mine

    2015·Dir. Martin Zandvliet·100 min·7.8

    In the days following the surrender of Germany in May 1945, a group of young German prisoners of war is handed over to the Danish authorities and subsequently sent to the West Coast, where they are ordered to remove the more than two million mines that the Germans had placed in the sand along the coast. With their bare hands, crawling around in the sand, the boys are forced to perform the dangerous work under the leadership of a Danish sergeant.

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— End of Chapter —