Fuller Theological Seminary is an interdenominational seminary which means no one agrees on anything, but everyone tries to get along. When I first came to Fuller as a student, I enrolled in a worship service planning class. I was surprised to discover that my class of 60 students represented 40 different ecclesial backgrounds. We agreed on the basics—meeting regularly matters, Communion and baptism are necessary in some form, singing is good—but we all disagreed on the everything beyond those few essentials. Our class sessions became a time of discussing and disagreeing over how to best structure a worship service. Our assignments (papers, projects, etc.) forced us to put our individual conclusions on paper, but the process of getting there opened our eyes to the beautiful mosaic that is Christian worship around the world.
Compiling this list of the Top 10 Films of 2014 from among the people especially interested in cinema and connected in some way to Reel Spirituality has proven to be a very Fuller-ish process as well. We polled 16 film scholars and filmmakers. They named 61 different films. Out of the 160 votes cast, the most votes any one film received was 11. 44 films received only 1 or 2 votes. The top ten vote getters (by points) claimed 493 of the potential 880 points. Those same ten films took only 73 of the possible 160 votes.
Our method: we asked participants to provide a ranked list of their top ten films of 2014. We awarded ten points for a top placement, nine points for a secondary placement, and on down to one point for films listed tenth. We added up the points. The film with the most points is our number one film of 2014, second most is number two, etc. We did not allow participants to place more than one film in a single place (no ties), and conveniently, no two of our top ten films amassed an equal number of points.
What do all those numbers mean? As with conversations about worship styles at Fuller, we agree on the basics—the top three films on our list were loved by the majority of our group—and we disagree on everything else—at least half of us took exception to the other seven films on the list. Yet here we all are together in community with one another, working together toward our common goal of bearing witness to what God is doing in our lives through cinema and to what God is doing in the world of cinema itself. We’re comfortable disagreeing with one another, because we value conversation more than consensus. The movies are important, but the love we share for them and for each other is more important still. Put another way, the time we spend together talking about movies is more important than the movies themselves.
Our number one and number two films, Calvary and Boyhood, respectively, reflect this. Calvary surpassed Boyhood by a single point in our poll, and both films far outmatched the rest, out-distancing the third place finisher, The Grand Budapest Hotel, by more than twenty points.
Calvary is about disagreeing with others and yet remaining in community with them, about being willing to love others especially when they’re wrong. It’s a film preoccupied with the complexities of the world and challenges to the Christian faith, and it says the way to best love the world is to remain in relationship with it, to have the hard conversations the world wants to have. Boyhood is an homage to the passing of time, to the ways relationships change over time, and to the wonder of being present with one another no matter how much everything around us changes. Boyhood skips over the “big moments” in favor of the time that connects them, suggesting that the “in-between” time is more important than the big events.
Below, you’ll find our list along with a brief comment from one participant for each of out top ten films. Below those ten, you will find the other 51 films without comment that at least one of us voted for along with their respective number of votes and points. Clicking on the title of any film listed will take you to a page listing all the supplemental material we have on that film (articles, reviews, interviews, podcasts, etc.).
On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, we’re going to reveal all our participants’ individual ballots as well as two alternate top ten lists determined by whether or not the participants are primarily film scholars or filmmakers (much like Sight and Sound delineates their decade annual greatest films of all time list).
We hope you enjoy it all. We hope you check out a film or two (or forty) that you haven’t seen yet. We hope you’ll let us know what you think. Thank you for reading and listening and talking with us. We hope this next year of cinema is as full of beauty as the last one. – Elijah Davidson
The Reel Spirituality Top 10 Films of 2014
1. Calvary (11 votes/84 points)
Calvary is a spiritual drama, but not of the Sunday School variety. Rather it weds the beauty of Ireland, the gritty ministry of Father James (Brendan Gleeson), the deep laments of his parishioners, dark Irish humor and the “highly underrated virtue” of forgiveness. While not exactly commercial film fare, it will provide much grist for the mill long after viewers leave the theater. Some viewers might even experience Transcendence in that grist. – Cathy Barsotti
2. Boyhood (10/83)
RIchard Linklater’s twelve-years-in-the-making opus about one young man growing up and his family is a wonder, not because it captures the “big moments in life with striking emotional clarity, but because it captures the small ones. Boyhood lifts up the mundanity of life and makes it anything but mundane. Since Linklater shot it in small segments over the course of his career, we get to see him develop as a filmmaker as well. Boyhood is a rarity – a humble yet ambitious film about the goodness of sheer presence, a light play on the inherent, melancholy beauty of the passing of time, and an ode to the wonder of life. – Elijah Davidson
3. The Grand Budapest Hotel (9/60)
The Grand Budapest Hotel has been called the most Wes Anderson-ish of all of Wes Anderson’s films. As such, you’ll either love the movie or not get it at all. For those of us who do, though, The Grand Budapest Hotel profoundly captures the search for beauty, passion and meaning. – Andy Singleterry
4. Selma (8/50)
Right on the heels of #BlackLivesMatter and other protests felt around the world, Ava DuVernay reminds us of the significance and sacrifice behind non-violent resistance in the film Selma. Rarely do we get a close-up look at the dignity of the people who participated in the marches during the Civil Rights Movement. This film provides a glimpse not only of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dynamic leadership during the voting rights march from Selma, AL in 1965, but it also shows the need for social justice today and the power of God’s people when we put action behind the commands to love our neighbor. – Avril Speaks
5. Ida (7/45)
Ida wrestles with the themes of family, identity, loss, and how to have faith in the world vs the safety of the church. These themes are communicated through the film’s masterful cinematography as much as, if not more than, through the film’s sparse dialogue. The result is a film that is as beautiful as it is profound. – Steve Vredenburgh
6. Whiplash (6/44)
Whiplash and its sheer riveting execution of sound and choreography blends with the compelling portrayals of a young musician (Miles Teller) and his teacher (J. K. Simmons) and their exhausting interactions. The film raises questions about the nature of giftedness, craft, formation, and the pursuit of excellence. Additionally, questions regarding vocation and grace should be brought to any conversation with the film, as viewers reflect on how they can live into who God created them to be. – Cathy Barsotti
7. Birdman (6/37)
An actor’s craft merges spirituality with physicality, intelligence with brute force and beauty—within themselves, among each other, and on behalf of civilized audiences that usually prefer to stay compartmentalized. Filmmaker Iñárritu capitalizes on this ancient collusion in layer upon meta-layer of magic and spiritual realism: for location he chose a working theater; for plot he shaved off the epidermis of his lead actor to stretch across the screen like a lit scrim; then he filmed like a bird trapped in a building—frantic, exhausted, near death, and then suddenly free in the thin, forgiving, miraculous air. It doesn’t get any more cinematically or spiritually significant than that. – Lauralee Farrer
8. Under the Skin (5/33)
“Your heart can be corrupted by lust even quicker than your body. Those leering looks you think nobody notices—they also corrupt.” – Matthew 5:28
Men leering at women is such a familiar occurrence that it’s insidiousness can be hard to appreciate. The vast majority of our visual media is not helping either because the message that is repeatedly communicated is that women’s bodies are here for our viewing pleasure. Under the Skin is a film that bucks this trend. Hypnotic, unsettling and unforgettable, this film will do what it’s title suggests. Director Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast, Birth) and his team have crafted a film around Scarlett Johansson that strips the male gaze of its power by reversing this same gaze on an audience largely unaware of what it feels like to be leered at in a predatory way by another being with agency and power. The film suggests that the seemingly innocuous practice of “just looking” can actually be destructive and dehumanizing both for the gazer and the one being gazed upon. What does it mean to be a human being? How do we relate to other human beings who inhabit physical bodies? When we look at other people’s bodies are we cognizant that there is a person with a heart, mind, and soul hiding underneath their exterior? For a sci-fi film with an extraterrestrial protagonist the questions the film poses could not be more human. – Jonathan Stoner
9. Snowpiercer (7/29)
Snowpiercer can best be summed up in one word: audacity. It’s audacious to tell a story this weird and wonderful on this scale. It’s audacious to combine captivating action sequences with economic philosophy. It’s audacious to tell a story illuminating the inequality in our world and to articulate a hope that it could change. And it’s that audacity that makes this film entertaining, enriching and unforgettable. – Andrew Neel
10. The LEGO Movie (4/28)
The LEGO Movie excels in its innovative animation and attention to detail. It champions the power of creativity and imagination and fights against mediocrity and conformity to society. It is also opposed to the notion that everyone has a predetermined role in life, contending that everyone possesses free will and is capable of doing awesome things. – Gary Ingle
The Rest of the List
11. Tie – The Imitation Game (5/20) and The Immigrant (3/20)
13. Gone Girl (4/19)
14. St. Vincent (3/17)
15. Obvious Child (2/16)
16. The Overnighters (4/15)
17. Tie – Alive Inside (3/13) and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2/13) and The Theory of Everything (2/13)
20. Tie – Foxcatcher (3/12) and 20,000 Days on Earth (2/12) and The Skeleton Twins (2/12)
23. Noah (2/11)
24. Tie – Guardians of the Galaxy (3/10) and Inherent Vice (2/10) and Mr. Turner (2/10)
27. Tie – Dear White People (2/9) and Godzilla (1/9) and Ilo Ilo (1/9)
30. Tie – Captain America: The Winter Soldier (3/8) and American Sniper (2/8) and The Lunchbox (1/8)
33. Tie – X-Men: Days of Future Past (2/7) and A Coleção Invisível (Invisible Collection) (1/7) and Goodbye to Language 3D (1/7) and Rudderless (1/7) and Starred Up (1/7) and The Infinite Man (1/7)
39. Tie – Interstellar (2/6) and Holbrook/Twain: An American Odyssey (1/6) and The Babadook (1/6)
42. Tie – Jodorowsky’s Dune (1/5) and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (1/5) and The Salt of the Earth (1/5)
45. Tie – Particle Fever (1/4) and Stations of the Cross (1/4) and We Are the Best! (1/4)
48. Tie – Chef (2/3) and Only Lovers Left Alive (1/3) and The One I Love (1/3)
51. Tie – Coherence (1/2) and Girlhood (1/2) and Happy Christmas (1/2) and Hellion (1/2) and Nightcrawler (1/2) and The Zero Theorem (1/2)
57. Tie – Big Eyes (1/1) and Memphis (1/1) and White Earth (1/1) and The Amber Amulet (1/1) and Wild (1/1) and Wish I Was Here (1/1)