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'Big' year: Dann Gire spotlights his top 10 films of 2015

The movies of 2015 started out not very promising. But by the time autumn rolled around, Hollywood (and independent filmmakers) began hitting jackpot after jackpot with diverse, challenging and high-quality works.

If there's a dominant theme to my top 10 live-action, English language motion pictures of 2015, four of them are based on real people and events. Even they are diverse.

One's a comedy, another's a mystery, the third an action tale and the fourth a historical biopic.

The rest of my list includes a hard-wired science-fiction drama, a wild sci-fi action fantasy (is that a contradiction?), a romance, a mother-son story, a crime thriller and an old-fashioned horror tale told in a new way.

So, here are my choices for the best motion pictures of the year. If you'd like to share your top feature of 2015, shoot me an email at dgire@dailyherald.com.

<h3 class="leadin"><span class="x BTO fact box text bold">1. "The Big Short"</span><span class="x BTO fact box text bold"> </span></h3>

A great work of cinematic art? Not quite, but the most ambitious and important movie of the year for Americans. Chicago Second City alum Adam McKay (with co-writer Charles Randolph) fuses facts and dramatic fiction with audacious, outrageous, fourth-wall-breaking devices to create a cautionary work of cinematic journalism that explains why the U.S. economy's mortgage market imploded in 2008.

It's like "Sesame Street," only instead of teaching kids about counting, it teaches us about accountability on a different street: Wall. Ingenious, inspired, illuminating and incendiary.

<h3 class="leadin"><span class="x BTO fact box text bold">2. "Spotlight"</span><span class="x BTO fact box text bold"> </span></h3>

Superbly rendered journalistic procedural tracing how Boston Globe investigative reporters uncover a global conspiracy of corruption and betrayed trust by the Catholic church for its practice of protecting predatory pedophile priests. Tom McCarthy directs a social issue drama presented as a classic detective tale.

<h3 class="leadin"><span class="x BTO fact box text bold">3. "Mad Max: Fury Road"</span><span class="x BTO fact box text bold"> </span></h3>

Thirty years after Australian filmmaker George Miller directed the last of Mel Gibson's apocalyptic Mad Max trilogy, he scores a stylistically sensational cinematic bull's-eye with this wild follow-up starring the omnipresent Tom Hardy as the famous road warrior and stunning Charlize Theron as fighter Imperator Furiosa.

<h3 class="leadin"><span class="x BTO fact box text bold">4. "The Martian"</span><span class="x BTO fact box text bold"> </span></h3>

Ridley Scott's absorbing outer space survival thriller blasts off into the wild black yonder, hitting us with a kajillion Gs of dramatic pressure, never letting up. Matt Damon stars as an American astronaut stranded on Mars in this politically left bookend to Sandra Bullock's politically right "Gravity." Scott presents a compelling portrait of the American character that reminds us how the impossible loses its "IM" when people of differing colors, faiths and politics simply agree to work together.

<h3 class="leadin"><span class="x BTO fact box text bold">5. "Sicario"</span> </h3>

Denis Villeneuve's intense, gut-wrenching crime thriller moves like a panther with efficiency and purpose, creating a de facto terror tale that tests nothing less than our humanity. Emily Blunt plays an FBI agent elbowing her way into the testosterone-heavy organization dedicated to dismantling death-dealing Mexican drug cartels. Realistic crime drama with a creepy horror tale vibe.

<h3 class="leadin"><span class="x BTO fact box text bold">6. "Room"</span> </h3>

Call it a "Room" with a viewpoint, an optimistic testimonial to the resilience of the human spirit, the necessity of hope and the courage of a young mother (a nuanced, stellar performance by Brie Larson). The story involves the abduction and imprisonment of a teen girl. That's all you need to know.

<h3 class="leadin"><span class="x BTO fact box text bold">7. "The Revenant"</span><span class="x BTO fact box text bold"> </span></h3>

Visual poetry meshes with violent, brutal realism in director/co-writer Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's exhausting wild Western survival tale so sparse in dialogue, it could practically be a silent movie. Inarritu reteams with his "Birdman" cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki to tell the bleak story of a left-for-dead mountainman (Leonardo DiCaprio) out to kill the scalawag (Tom Hardy) who murdered his son. The film opens Jan. 8, but was screened for awards consideration as a 2015 movie.

<h3 class="leadin"><span class="x BTO fact box text bold">8. "Bridge of Spies"</span><span class="x BTO fact box text bold"> </span></h3>

Steven Spielberg's fact-based look at the quiet heroism of an American insurance lawyer (Tom Hanks) summoned by the U.S. government to defend an accused Russian spy (Mark Rylance, whose deadpan demeanor and hyphenated eyebrows should net him an Oscar nod). A wonderful reaffirmation of Frank Capra's patriotic belief in the goodness of the common man.

<h3 class="leadin"><span class="x BTO fact box text bold">9. "Carol"</span><span class="x BTO fact box text bold"> </span></h3>

Kinetic chemistry between Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett highlights Todd Haynes' exquisitely detailed period romance (1952) between a younger working-class woman and an older upper-middle-class wife and mother. A story of a couple who hurdle over gender barriers, age barriers and socio-economic barriers.

<h3 class="leadin"><span class="x BTO fact box text bold">10. "It Follows"</span><span class="x BTO fact box text bold"> </span></h3>

In David Robert Mitchell's nightmare world devoid of parents and other authority figures, a teen girl acquires an unusual STD: a sexually transmitted demon that can assume any human form. If It catches her, she'll be ripped to pieces, then It will hunt down her last sexual partner, and so on, and so on.

This fiendishly inventive story uses long, lingering shots that we are constantly scanning for anyone out of place, anyone who could be It. So simple and clean, it's scary!

“Spotlight,” one of the best movies of 2015, stars Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo and Brian D'Arcy James as reporters for The Boston Globe.
Charlize Theron, right, front, plays Imperator Furiosa in “Mad Max: Fury Road,” one of Dann Gire's top 10 movies of 2015.
Matt Damon stars in “The Martian,” an allegory for what people can do when they put their differences aside.
FBI agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) checks out a secret tunnel created by a Mexican drug cartel in the political horror thriller “Sicario.”
Brie Larson plays the mom, Jacob Tremblay plays her son Jack in the crackling domestic/crime drama “Room.”
Visual poetry and realism fill Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's exhausting wild Western survival tale “The Revenant.”
“Bridge of Spies,” starring Tom Hanks, looks at quiet heroism behind the scenes during times of crisis.
Cate Blanchett, left, and Rooney Mara exude slow-burning appeal through solid performances in “Carol.”
A teenage girl becomes infected with a horrific STD in the scary tale “It Follows.”
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