The Best and Worst of 2014

The Best 10 Films of 2014 (Ascending order)

10. Noah – Conquered all my issues with the original Biblical story with incredible spectacle, visual grace and powerhouse performances.

9. Pride – Wonderful historical drama with more than enough laughs and a cast so enjoyable you’ll want to hug them all…twice.

8. Gone Girl – Delicately crafted and gorgeously mounted ‘who-dunnit’ which brings David Fincher back to his A-game.

7. Lone Survivor – Brutal, nihilistic and avoids flag-waving throughout. Career performances from all involved and a well-handled tribute to those who lost their lives is the blood-soaked icing on the cake.

6. The LEGO Movie – Funny, flashy and sumptuously creative. Other toy-based franchises could learn an awful lot from this…I’m looking at you, Transformers.

5. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – State-of-the-art special effects genre picture meets political and philosophical drama. The director risks placing the simians over the human characters and the film is all the better for it.

4. X-Men: Days of Future Past – Simultaneously paves a new path for the franchise and effectively erases the worst parts of it. Bryan Singer’s return is more than a cause to celebrate.

3. The Raid 2 – Flawlessly executed martial arts picture that fuses the thematic structure of The Departed with the one-man army of The Dark Knight (minus rubber suit).

2. The Guest – Helmed by people who know exactly what they’re doing and how to get the best reaction from an audience. It’s gorgeous, gory and an absolute ball from start to finish.

1. Interstellar – As much as I hate to sound like a stuck record, there’s really no competition here: Nolan has crafted a monumental sci-fi drama that brings the works of Lucas, Spielberg and Kubrick into a glorious melange of brains and heart.

The Worst 10 Films of 2014 (Descending order)

10. Divergent – Another dystopian teen franchise that feels dead on arrival. Key features are bland leads and a void-like abyss of humour and wit.

9. If I Stay – Chloe Grace Moretz bats her eyelashes and swishes her hair at the camera for 90 minutes while everyone around her sobs rather annoyingly.

8. A Million Ways to Die in the West – Witless, done-to-death comedy tropes fall flat while Charlize Theron and co. look on in horror. Go back to TV, Seth.

7. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Heroes in a half-assed shell of a movie: ugly to look at, irritating to listen to, it’s a chore from start to finish.

6. Annabelle – A prequel no-one wanted that has a total lack of visual flair, good scares and interesting characters, making it either painful to sit through or bliss to sleep through.

5. Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones – Painfully slow, not scary in the slightest, and all over the place. Paramount, please stop funding these; you’re only making it worse.

4. Devil’s Due – Vomit-inducing garbage to which the label ‘horror’ only applies once you’ve seen the box-office takings.

3. Transformers: Age of Extinction – Michael Bay continues in his quest to burn the nostalgia of the 80’s to the ground and modern action cinema along with it.

2. Tarzan – Childhood-destroying rubbish that looks like the Postman Pat movie trying to mate with the corpse of Avatar.

1. The Other Woman – A handbag full of sick.