Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: 2020 in films

1/01/2021

2020 in films - according to Film Excess

The Top 6 of the Year

1. Another Round/Druk - Thomas Vinterberg + Best Danish Movie of the Year + Best $ Return of the Year: 2.43 times + Best Dramedy of the Year

2. Shorta - Frederik Louis Hviid, Anders Ølholm + Best Action Movie of the Year + Best Debut Movie of the Year + Best Fight Scene of the Year: The laundry room fight + Best Poster of the Year

3. The Good Traitor/Vores Mand i Amerika - Christina Rosendahl + Best Biopic of the Year + Best Historical Drama of the Year + Best Period Movie of the Year + Worst $ Return of the Year: 0.33 times

4. Riders of Justice/Retfærdighedens Ryttere - Anders Thomas Jensen + Best Action Comedy of the Year + Best Revenge Movie of the Year

5. Falling - Viggo Mortensen + Best Drama of the Year

6. Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, VOD - Dave Dobkin + Best Comeback of the Year: Will Ferrell + Best Music Movie of the Year

Other good, recommendable movie of the year:

Klovn the Final - Mikkel Nørgaard

The Bottom 1 of the Year

1. Tenet - Christopher Nolan + Most Overrated Movie of the Year

Other failed, poor and/or mediocre movies of the year (in alphabetical order):

Greenland - Ric Roman Waugh

The Mole: Undercover in North Korea/Muldvarpen - Undercover i Nordkorea, documentary miniseries - Mads Brügger

[10 titles in total]

Notes:

The smallest batch of titles ever to make up an annual best and worst edition comes out of the all-around awful year of 2020, in which the China virus pandemic shut down cinemas across the globe and kept most global releases behind bars, locked away awaiting better times. The depressing facts are also evident from the gross numbers, which have never been lower, with not a single one of the titles here registering any profit yet. The losses and calamities of 2020 furthermore threatens to end cinema culture for good, if cinemas are not helped through the lock-down period, before vaccinations may allow normalization. Another toxic pressure point is the collapse of the theatrical window, as Disney and Warner Bros. have bowed out to VOD for their big 2020 releases, and in the case of Warner Bros. have announced that all of their 2021 slate will go to streaming simultaneously with cinemas.

As uncertain and worrying as the situation and prospects for the future of the theatrical movie landscape appear, some terrific films were released during the year. The year's best is Thomas Vinterberg's full-throttle middle age crisis alcohol dramedy Another Round. Silver goes to debuting Frederik Louis Hviid and Anders Ølholm's testosterone cop chase actioner Shorta, and Christina Rosendahl's intimate, thrilling biopic war drama The Good Traitor takes bronze. Rounding off the Top 6 list are Anders Thomas Jensen's hilarious revenge action-comedy Riders of Justice, Viggo Mortensen's personal dementia drama Falling, and Dave Dobkin's fun music family-comedy Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga.

The Bottom list only has a single title so far, master filmmaker Christopher Nolan's hugely hyped mystery action tentpole Tenet.

Many more - mostly smaller budgeted - titles of 2020 are naturally going to get reviewed and will make it to future editions of the lists, but the year will go down in history books as something of a black hole in terms of theatrical revenue, which it will take substantial effort to overcome in years to come. That means that you as a movie lover have an individual responsibility to head to the theater for as many titles as you can possibly overcome, as soon as it is possible in your area! Help save cinemas: Please use them as much as possible in 2021!

Biggest flops of the year:

[The loss is based solely on the cost and box office earnings for the films. Marketing spends and additional revenue (home video, TV rights and other auxiliary profits) are not taken into account]

1. Tenet - 61.04 mil. $ range

2. Greenland - 14.88 mil. $ range

3. The Good Traitor - 4.88 mil. $ range

4. Riders of Justice - 4.12 mil. $ range

5. Shorta - 1.89 mil. $ range

6. Klovn the Final - 1.78 mil. $ range

7. Another Round - 0.13 mil. $ range

= Combined losses: 88.72 mil. $

2020 titles currently on the watch-list:

Wonder Woman 1984, Bad Boys for Life, Wendy, Onward, Greyhound, Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula, Dream Horse, Unhinged, Crazy, Not Insane, Sputnik, The Duke, Hopper/Welles, The Nest, Nomadland, Love and Monsters, Erna i Krig, The Donut King, Madklubben, Minari

Previous annual lists:

2019 in films - according to Film Excess
2018 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2018 in films - according to Film Excess
2017 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2017 in films - according to Film Excess
2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2016 in films - according to Film Excess

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
2002 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
2001 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

2000 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

What do you think of the lists?
What 2020 titles would make it to your top and bottom lists?
What worthwhile 2020 movies and TV-series are missing on the watch-list?

No comments:

Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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1/01/2021

2020 in films - according to Film Excess

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