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

1. Die Hard (1988) - John McTiernan

2. Bad Lieutenant (1992) - Abel Ferrara 

3. Dirty Harry (1971) - Don Siegel

4. Bad Boys (1995) - Michael Bay

5. Cop Land (1997) - James Mangold

6. Cobra (1986) - George P. Cosmatos

7. Deer Woman (2005, TV movie) - John Landis

8. Basic Instinct (1992) - Paul Verhoeven

9. Bullitt (1968) - Peter Yates

10. The Guard (2011) - John Michael McDonagh


Another great cop movie reviewed by Film Excess to date:

Live Free or Die Hard/Die Hard 4.0 (2007) - Len Wiseman 

Other good cop movies and a TV-series reviewed by Film Excess to date (in alphabetic order):

21 Jump Street (2012) - Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
48 Hrs. (1982) - Walter Hill 
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) -John Carpenter 
The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans/Bad Lieutenant (2009) - Werner Herzog 
Chungking Express (1994) - Wong Kar-Wai 
The Crimson Rivers/Les Rivières Pourpres (2000) - Mathieu Kassovitz 
The Dead Pool (1988) - Buddy Van Horn 
Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) - John McTiernan 
The Pledge (2001) - Sean Penn 
True Detective - season 1 (2014) - Cary Fukunaga, Nic Pizzolato, creators

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

16 Blocks (2006) - Richard Donner 
15 Minutes (2001) - John Herzfeld 
22 Jump Street (2014) - Phil Lord, Christopher Miller 
The Car (1977) - Elliot Silverstein 
Coogan's Bluff (1968) - Don Siegel 
Cop Out (2010) - Kevin Smith 
Crime Busters/I Due Superpiedi Quasi Piatti/Trinity: In Trouble Again/Two Supercops (1977) - E.B. Clucher 
Die Hard 2 (1990) - Renny Harlin 
The Enforcer (1976) - James Fargo 
The Heat (2013) - Paul Feig 
The Keeper of Lost Causes/Kvinden i Buret (2013) - Mikkel Nørgaard 
The Killer Inside Me (2010) - Michael Winterbottom 
Shutter Island (2010) - Martin Scorsese 

[34 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

What do you think of the list?
Which cop movies would top your list?
Which cop movies are missing here?
Leave a comment and make your opinions known

The Guard (2011) - J. McDonagh's uproarious crime comedy debut

♥♥♥♥

+ Best Crime Comedy of the Year

Don Cheadle looks apprehensively over at Brendan Gleeson on this poster for John Michael McDonagh's The Guard

A major cocaine deal goes down in remote West of Ireland, where a local cop deals with things in his very own fashion.

The FBI-agent (Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda (2004)) who arrives as the outsider represents the rectilinear present, while Brendan Gleeson (Calvary (2014)) makes a grand impression in the titular role as Sergeant Gerry Boyle, who represents the immovable, eccentric Irishman.
The Guard is written and directed by Irish John Michael McDonagh (Calvary), whose auspicious debut this is. He is the brother of Martin McDonagh (In Bruges (2008)), and he is busy with his next film, another dark comedy, War on Everyone (2015).

Related posts:

John Michael McDonagh: 2014 in films - according to Film Excess
Calvary (2014) - McDonagh stands up to moral decline and for faith and the Catholic church, despite everything
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2011 in films - according to Film Excess    

Watch the hilarious trailer for the film here

Cost: 6 mil. $
Box office: 19.5 mil. $
= Big hit
[The Guard is the biggest Irish movie success in Ireland, overtaking the title from The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006). It received great reviews and a Globe-nomination for Gleeson (Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy).]

What do you think of The Guard?

2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Best of 2014

1. Boyhood - Richard Linklater

2. The Look of Silence - Joshua Oppenheimer

3. The Grand Budapest Hotel - Wes Anderson

4. Looking season 1 - Michael Lannan, creator

5. Calvary - John Michael McDonagh

6. Godzilla - Gareth Edwards

7. Magic in the Moonlight - Woody Allen

8. Nightcrawler - Dan Gilroy

9. Interstellar - Christopher Nolan

10. The Equalizer - Antoine Fuqua

Worst of 2014

1. The Monuments Men - George Clooney

2. Mr. Peabody & Sherman - Rob Minkoff

Other reviewed titles:

A Most Wanted Man 
Dumb and Dumber To
The Expendables 3 
Guardians of the Galaxy 
The Lego Movie 
Love Is Strange 
Non-Stop 
Sabotage 
The Salvation 
Sex Tape 
Speed Walking/Kapgang 
True Detective season 1
The Two Faces of January
X-Men: Days of Future Past 

Notes:

This is only a first draft of Film Excess' 2014 lists, because I have only seen and reviewed 26 2014 titles so far, which is far from enough to compile an accurate list. A more comprehensive list will appear on the blog by the end of June. This preliminary list does, however, feature some of the films of the year that have generally been recognized as the best of the year, namely Boyhood and The Grand Budapest Hotel. The third pristine masterpiece of the year (found by me so far) is the less seen Danish-American-Indonese documentary The Look of Silence.
Behind these incredible films, 2014 gave us an awesome new TV-series in Looking, a kaiju smasher for the history books in Godzilla; Irish John Michael McDonagh moved up in the European - and world - director ranks with his great Calvary; Woody Allen charmed with a typical show of gentle force in Magic in the Moonlight; Dan Gilroy flashed an eerie contemporary story in Nightcrawler; Christopher Nolan bested last year's star-cruiser Gravity (in quality) with his vast Interstellar; and Antoine Fuqua and Denzel Washington gave us an irresistible vengeance thriller guilty pleasure in The Equalizer. Out of the list are other great films such as the western The Salvation, the airborne thriller Non-Stop, the animation The Lego Movie and Danish coming-of-age Speed Walking, besides a slew of other good films. 2014 has already been a joyous film year, and one with very few bad films found so far. But they will surely appear as I venture boldly further down into the year's cavern.

Perhaps the next, more elaborate 2014 lists will include some of these titles from my 2014 watch-list, which I literally can't wait to watch:
The Overnighters, Obvious Child, The Babadook, Alive Inside, The Skeleton Twins, Life Itself, Dead Snow 2: Red Vs. Dead, What We Do in the Shadows, Cesar Chavez, They Came Together, The Way He Looks, Kelly & Cal, We'll Never Have Paris, Zero Motivation, Rob the Mob, Walk of Shame, Grace of Monaco, Mr. Turner, The Fault in Our Stars, Force Majeure, The Homesman, Mommy, Maps to the Stars, Kick, Tammy, Hector and the Search for Happiness, Birdman, The Imitation Game, St. Vincent, The Humbling, Before I Go to Sleep, While We're Young, The Good Lie, Tusk, This Is Where I Leave You, I Am Ali, Citizenfour, Serena, Sex Ed, Selma, Annie, Unbroken, The Interview and Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks.

- Happy New Year!

Other years in best and worst lists:

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
2013 in films - according to Film Excess
2012 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
2012 in films - according to Film Excess 

Please, make a comment on Film Excess' 2014 lists
What have been your best and worst 2014 movie experiences?
What has surprised positively and what has disappointed you?
Any movie or TV-series that needs to be on Film Excess' watch-list?

Calvary (2014) - McDonagh stands up to moral decline and for faith and the Catholic church in spite of everything

♥♥♥♥

+ Best Irish Movie of the Year

Brendan Gleeson in ecclesiastical robe for the poster for John Michael McDonaugh's Calvary, (which actually gives away the film's ending, if you analyze its elements)

In confession, Irish Father James receives a random death threat due to the crimes of the past from another man of the cloth. In the week leading up to his possible assassination by the unknown perpetrator  we get to know some of the members of the priest's fairly miserable congregation and the man himself.

Irish writer/director John Michael McDonagh (The Guard (2011)) moves up in the European cinematic 'league' with a more serious film here: Calvary is a religiously themed dramedy that both has society-critical bite and a really good priest-hero in Brendan Gleeson (The Guard), who inhabits the part as the region's fallible lodestar with integrity. 
Calvary also encumbers a contemplative treatment of the dark and widespread sexual crimes of the Irish Catholic church. It is painful to see, how the church, - and basic faith along with it, - has fallen so low in esteem partly also as a regrettable bi-product of this.
Chris O'Dowd (Bridesmaids (2011)) is fantastic in the film, proving his worth to this critic for the first time as an also talented dramatic actor.
The film has beautiful Irish music by Patrick Cassidy (Kill the Irishman (2011)) and a good ending that points forward. Its tone is very permanent in its disdain for what it portrays as bewildered and sinful ways of people today, and this hard-bitten gloom and doom could have done with a splash of sunlight, say in the form of a child. Still the film has terrific characters, writing and performances.

Related posts:

2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Chris O'Dowd shows a hitherto unknown range and dramatic talent in John Michael McDonagh's Calvary

Watch the trailer for the movie here

Budget: 8 mil. $
Box office: 11 mil. $ (and counting)
= Flop

What do you think of Calvary?