Chris At The Pictures

Note: these are based on UK release dates.

10. Jurassic World – Heaps of fun, properly scary at times; a full-blooded summer blockbuster

Best bit: The Indominus breaks free

Full review here

9. Brooklyn – Can we make sure Saoirse Ronan is cast in everything ever, please…or at the very least, her eyes?

Best bit: “We’ll have no more discussion about nylons at the dinner table!”

Full review here

8. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 – What’s that Lionsgate? A mega-budget blockbuster with intelligent allegory and a subversive ending…wow, you really weren’t kidding. 

Best bit: “Let’s try the sewers”…no, let’s definitely not.

Full review here

7. Mr. Holmes – Without knowing it, Ian McKellen plays Sherlock Holmes by way of my late grandad.

Best bit: See above

Full review here

6. The Martian – It’s okay, everyone, Ridley Scott is back. Best use of ABBA ever.

Best bit: “Anywhere I step, I’m the first”

Full review here

5. Star Wars: The Force Awakens – I love you, J. J. Abrams, and I want to have your babies.

Best bit: [SPOILER REDACTED]

Full review here

4. Mad Max: Fury Road – Crash. Bang. Wallop. Repeat until applause.

Best bit: Am I allowed to say “All of it”?

Full review here

3. Inside Out – It’s Pixar taking on The Numskulls and is every bit as amazing as that sounds.

Best bit: “Oh no, we’re an abstract!”

Full review here

2. Whiplash – Genuinely thought I’d have a heart attack in the middle of the cinema.

Best bit: He’s not really gonna play right after that cra-oh, bloody hell, he is!

Full review here

1. Ex Machina – Whoever could have predicted that removing the influence of Danny Boyle would be a good thing? Sleek, smart sci-fi where every frame shimmers.

Best bit: The gobsmacked silence during the credits.

Full review here

When the entire audience of a cinema goes silent enough to hear the fingers losing the pin – let alone it hitting the floor – you know a film is working. When it happens not once but twice, three times or more; pure cinematic magic is being performed. In this instance, the wand is a drum stick, and the film is Whiplash, Damien Chazzele’s drama about jazz student Andrew (Miles Teller), a quiet but hard-working drummer determined to rise through the ranks. Believing he’s been given his chance when band master Fletcher (J.K. Simmons) recruits him to a prestigious music conservatory, Andrew soon finds himself pressured to breaking point by teaching methods bordering on psychosis.

At the heart of Whiplash is a furious battle between two of the finest screen performances in years, a furnace of raw talent fuelled by a script sharp enough to cut diamond. Teller is disciplined and nuanced with just the right level of emotional leverage to sell the façade of someone desperate to give their life meaning, whilst Simmons engulfs the screen as a sinewy, black-clad monster that some have compared to Sergeant Hartman of Full Metal Jacket but for my money bears more resemblance to Darth Vader with Tourette’s.

Though there’s drama and tension to spare, the script also manages to find room for laugh-out-loud black comedy and plot twists shocking enough to make M. Night Shyamalan’s hair curl. The interior design and colour palette of the film present a warm, golden-brown hue of wood and brass that lulls you into a sense of calm and comfort before the dialogue snaps you straight back into the drama without pause for breath. The writing also takes into account the effect of our young protagonist’s climb to stardom on those around him, whether it’s his concerned father or the timid young woman with whom Andrew strikes up a brief relationship before the cut-throat path to perfection leads him away.

For those among you worried that your taste in music will put you off the film, fear not: I can’t stand jazz and am bored easily by languorous drum solos but I’ll be damned if I didn’t enjoy the heck out of the music in this film. Every piece of music – especially the titular Whiplash – begins to take on a character of its own as the skill level soars higher and higher and Andrew is forced to play faster, harder and longer than ever before with each passing suite, culminating in a sequence so palpably powerful you’ll be left sporting a knee that won’t stop jiggling up and down.

With the sheer number of individually brilliant elements fused gloriously together, it is no wonder many are hailing Whiplash as a triumph of modern cinema: it is a blood-smeared shot of adrenaline into the slack vein of awards season predictability and makes a more intense, funny and smart study of a tortured artist than Birdman could ever hope to be. Prepare to leave your seat with enough energy to run a mile and back in time for the next showing, and believe me; you’ll want to do just that.

★★★★★