The Best Movies of 2014

Boyhood. Image courtesy of IFC Films.

2014 was a very good year for movies - so good, in fact, that I had a difficult time whittling down my top 20. In most years, I find that a top 20 is more than enough to represent the best work from the past 12 months, but this year was overflowing with very good films.

So, in addition to the 20 movies I have listed below, I'd also like to throw some love at these films, which just missed my top 20, but would very likely have made it any other year - Ruben Ostlund's "Force Majeure," J.C. Chandor's "A Most Violent Year," Morten Tyldum's "The Imitation Game," Scott Frank's "A Walk Among the Tombstones" and Jean-Marc Vallee's "Wild."

Now, here are my top 20 - 10 runners up and my 10 favorite movies of 2014. And I'd love to hear from you. Post your top 10 films in the comment section.

Runners Up
20. Interstellar (Christopher Nolan)
19. Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev)
18. Ida (Pawel Pawlikowski)
17. Gone Girl (David Fincher)
16. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour)
15. Winter Sleep (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
14. The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson)
13. Life Itself (Steve James)
12. Snowpiercer (Bong Joon Ho)
11. Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy)

Top 10
10. Whiplash (Damien Chazelle)
  9. American Sniper (Clint Eastwood)
  8. The Immigrant (James Gray)
  7. Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh)
  6. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer)
  5. Selma (Ava DuVernay)
  4. Foxcatcher (Bennett Miller)
  3. Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson)
  2. Birdman (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu)
  1. Boyhood (Richard Linklater)