Top 10: Best debut movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

1. The Way He Looks/Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho (2014) - Daniel Ribeiro

2. I Killed My Mother/J'ai Tué Ma Mère (2009) - Xavier Dolan

3. Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) - Sean Durkin

4. R/R: Hit First, Hit Hardest (2010) - Tobias Lindholm, Michael Noer

5. The Babadook (2014) - Jennifer Kent

6. Armadillo (2010, documentary) - Janus Metz

7. I Love You Phillip Morris (2009) - Glenn Ficarra, John Requa
 

8. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) - John McNaughton

9. Monsters (2010) - Gareth Edwards

10. The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005) - Judd Apatow

Other great debut movies, including a documentary, reviewed by Film Excess to date (in alphabetical order):

(500) Days of Summer - Marc Webb
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006) - Dito Montiel
A Soap/En Soap (2006) - Pernille Fischer Christensen
Alive Inside/Alive Inside: A Story of Music and Memory (2014, documentary) - Michael Rossato-Bennett
Crank (2006) - Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor
Dawn of the Dead (2004) - Zack Snyder
The Deadly Companions (1961) - Sam Peckinpah
Dumb and Dumber/Dumb & Dumber (1994) - Bobby & Peter Farrelly
Everything Must Go (2010) - Dan Rush
Klown/Klovn - The Movie (2010) - Mikkel Nørgaard
MacGruber (2010) - Jorma Taccone
Nothing's All Bad/Smukke Mennesker (2010) - Mikkel Munch-Fals 
Obvious Child (2014) - Gillian Robespierre
The Scent of Green Papaya/Mùi đu đủ Xanh/L'Odeur de la Papaye Verte (1993) - Tran Anh Hung
The Witch (2015) - Robert Eggers 
Zombieland (2009) - Ruben Fleischer 

Other good debut movies reviewed by Film Excess to date (in alphabetic order):

Bullhead/Rundskop (2011) - Michaël R. Roskam
Camping (2009) - Jacob Bitsch
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002) - Peter Care
Demolition Man (1993) - Marco Brambilla
The Driller Killer (1979) - Abel Ferrara
Edge of the City (1957) - Martin Ritt 
Eraserhead (1977) - David Lynch 
Evil Dead (2013) - Fede Alvarez
Fruitvale Station (2013) - Ryan Coogler
The Greatest Showman (2017) - Michael Gracey 
The Haunting in Connecticut (2009) - Peter Cornwell 
Lights Out (2016) - David F. Sandberg 
Mama (2013) - Andy Muschietti
Margin Call (2011) - J.C. Chandor
The Mysterious X/Det Hemmelighedsfulde X/Orders Under Seal/Sealed Orders (1914) - Benjamin Christensen
Primal Fear (1996) - Gregory Hoblit
Shake It All About/En Kort En Lang/Shake It (2001) - Hella Joof 
Strangerland (2015) - Kim Farrant 
Ted (2012) - Seth MacFarlane 
Teddy Bear/10 Timer til Paradis (2012) - Mads Matthiesen 

Mediocre, poor and/or failed debut movies reviewed by Film Excess to date (in alphabetic order):

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) - Chuck Russell
Accused/Anklaget (2005) - Jacob Thuesen
Bachelorette (2012) - Leslye Headland
Blind (2014) - Eskil Vogt 
Delicatessen (1991) - Jean-Pierre Jeunet
District 9 (2009) - Neill Blomkamp
Eagle vs Shark (2007) - Taika Waititi
Eight Legged Freaks (2002) - Ellory Elkayem 
The Element of Crime/Forbrydelsens Element (1984) - Lars Von Trier
The Elite/Eliten (2015) - Thomas Daneskov
The Enforcer (1976) - James Fargo 
Escape from Tomorrow (2013) - Randy Moore
Everything Is Illuminated (2005) - Liev Schreiber
Get Low (2009) - Aaron Schneider 
Harry Brown (2009) - Daniel Barber
Hesher (2010) - Spencer Susser
The Kings of Summer/Toy's House (2013) - Jordan Vogt-Roberts 
Painless/Insensibles (2012) - Juan Carlos Medina

[64 titles in total]

Previous Top 10 lists:

The best action movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best adapted movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best adventure movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best big flop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best B/W movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best true story movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best big hit movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best biopic movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Best 'box office success' movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Best car chases in movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Top 10: Best comedies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Top 10: Best cop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Top 10: Best crime movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 

What do you think of the list?
What debut movies would be on yours?
What worthwhile debut films are missing here?

Armadillo (2010, documentary) - Metz's transfixing, powerful Afghanistan War portrayal

♥♥♥♥♥

1 Film Excess nomination:


Best Documentary: Janus Metz (lost to José Padilha for Secrets of the Tribe)


+ Best War Movie of the Year
 

The human heart merged with a hand-grenade is at the center of this striking poster for Janus Metz's Armadillo

We meet some of the guys that make up the Danish army's Afghanistan Team 7, as they are heading to the Danish base in Helmand in South-Afghanistan to win the hearts of the people there and kill Taliban enemies.

Armadillo is an outstanding war documentary, which has added value for Danes, as watching it for a Dane is almost like flying down to the war and experiencing it with our brothers, sons and grandsons. It is also a tough reckoning for Danes especially, as the film encapsulates part of the change our nation has gone through in the post-9/11 world.
Feature-debuting director Janus Metz (Borg vs McEnroe (2017)) and his photographer Lars Skree capture the soldiers in impressively intimate moments as the adrenaline-hungry big boys that they were, and then we witness how the gravity of the war changes them. The film also portrays real war engagement, which is obviously shot at the risk of death.
Armadillo is a deeply moving and strong film of good forces at work in a hopeless war, and maybe the year's best documentary. Kasper Torsting (Ø (2016, miniseries)) contributed idea elements.

Related posts:

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

 Metz talks to Empire Magazine about the film here

Cost: Estimated 1.5 mil. $
Box office: 2 mil. $
= Some uncertainty (but looks like a big flop theatrically)
[Armadillo premiered 16 May (Cannes) and runs 101 minutes. Filming took place in Denmark and Helmand, Afghanistan. The film opened #1 in its native Denmark, where 118k paid admission to it. It opened #84 to a 3k $ first weekend in 1 theater in North America, where it grossed 14k $ (0.7 % of the total gross). The film's biggest market by far was Denmark with 1.5 mil. $ (75 %), and the 2nd and 3rd biggest were Norway with 391k $ (19.6 %) and France with 44k $ (2.2 %). The film was nominated for a European Film Award, won the Critics Week Grand Prize in Cannes, 3 Bodil Awards (Danish critics' award), 2 Robert Awards (Danish Oscar) as well as other honors. Metz has left documentaries with his second feature, period tennis drama Borg vs McEnroe. Armadillo is certified fresh at 90 % with a 7.6 /10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Armadillo?