As if the coronavirus pandemic and the closing of theaters hasn’t already made this the weirdest movie year ever, there’s the fact that the best films so far include a Spike Lee joint (OK, that’s not too strange), singing Founding Fathers, an Australian outlaw and a double dose of Elisabeth Moss. And we’re only halfway through 2020!
Here’s the good news amid a flurry of bad: With everyone stuck at home in lockdown since March, a lot of smaller films and hidden gems that most people wouldn’t have seen in a theater setting are suddenly at their fingertips. Theatrical movies like “Trolls World Tour” and “The King of Staten Island” switched to digital platforms to entertain us, and with coronavirus cases spiking just as anticipated films like “Mulan” and “Tenet” were supposed to help reopen theaters, streaming options may play even more of a role as we get closer to whatever odd awards season awaits.
As we navigate an uncertain cinematic future, here are the best movies so far of 2020, definitively ranked:
10. ‘Shirley’
The drama is about as psychologically twisted as a Shirley Jackson story: Set in the early 1950s, Moss plays the famed horror writer and oddball recluse who’s working on a new novel while also messing with the head of the naive woman (Odessa Young) she befriends in an oddly intimate and sinister relationship.
