Every year has its great films, its OK films, its weird films, its surprising films. But other than the absolute classics we generally half forget them once the new year is well and truly starting. It’s not that we completely blank them from our minds, we still recognize them and sometimes get hit by the urge to watch them, but we just don’t think about them much any more. The following are ten movies you might have half forgotten that, in our humble opinion, you need to see again. Or see them in the first place, if you didn’t get around to it the first time! We have picked a combination of films that are usually niche, were controversial, underappreciated or hyped, rather than just going for the biggest or most obscure ones we could find, so here’s our personal pick.
1:
The movie: Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
The genre: Space Opera.
For: Followers of the original six, families, science fiction fans, drama fans.
Synopsis: When a young girl living at a scrap yard finds a tiny discarded droid, she doesn’t know how her life is about to change. At the same time, a stormtrooper finds himself questioning the morality of what he has to do for the Empire. As a new Death Star expands and two young force users question their identities, can the rebel alliance step in before it’s too late for anyone?
Why rewatch: For everything. The chases, the brilliant CGI, the interactions between the characters. Not only that, but the next episode will be released in under a year and we want to be up to speed for it! For what it’s worth, maybe rewatch every single film.
2:
The movie: Avengers: Age of Ultron.
The genre: Superhero flick.
For: Families, science fiction fans, superhero fans.
Synopsis: The Avengers have to get back together again when Tony Stark’s efforts at creating a new supercomputer go rogue, destroying Jarvis and inhabiting the internet. The program, Ultron, begins picking people off, for no apparent reason whatsoever… Only later do they discover that he is acting based on a simple, misinterpreted command, in an effort to somehow save humanity.
Why rewatch: Not only is it a visually amazing film, with one of the strongest casts we’ve seen in superhero films in a very long time, but it is also an oddly philosophical film. It forces us to ask the hard questions: what does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be happy? Can we ever do complete good to the world, or is everything always at a cost?
3:
The movie: Inside out.
The genre: Cutesy pixar cartoon.
For: families, children.
Synopsis: Everyone has five operators in their brains, the five basic emotions we can all feel: joy, sadness, anger, fear and disgust. They guide us in our daily actions. But for one little girl, everything goes wrong one day. A single bad event spirals out of control for her operators and as Joy desperately attempts to piece everything back together, they risk losing all the groundwork for her entire personality. Meanwhile, Anger, Disgust and Fear are left controlling her every emotion, she is becoming numb to them and Sadness is confused as to whether she belongs in the girl’s brain at all.
Why rewatch: A great film for kids and adults alike, Inside out explores the importance of our emotions, the reasons for developing emotional depth and an awareness that sometimes things can fly out of our control without this necessarily being a bad thing.
4:
The movie: The Martian.
The genre: Comedy Drama.
For: families, adults, sci fi fans, drama fans.
Synopsis: Based on the Andy Weir novel by the same name, The Martian follows a manned mission to Mars. An unexpectedly strong dust storm forces them to leave the planet in a rush, accidentally leaving Mark Watney behind. As his suit’s telemetery indicates no signs of life, he is left for dead. Actually alive, he returns to the base of operations and begins to record a video diary. His only hope of survival is to make it for four years, until a new crew arrived. Having only enough food for a year, he uses his skills in botany to grow food and keep himself alive, all as the camera rolls.
Why rewatch: The Martian is a touching, funny film which combines a terrible situation with Mark’s optimistic outlook and efforts to survive. It strikes a nerve with many viewers for how well Mark copes with his tragic situation.
5:
The movie: Mad Max: Fury Road.
The genre: Action.
For: adults, action fans, sci fi fans.
Synopsis: Set in the spocalyptic world of Mad Max, in a dry and arid desert where humanity is driven crazy by scarcity, Max struggles to survive. As only the strong can, Max keeps going, fighting the odds and the many enemies that surround him. Furiosa, a woman in the same position as Max, aims to return to her homeland to survive. But both end up in the clutches of a savage gang. To escape and survive, they must power through the desert, working as a team to escape.
Why rewatch: The sheer dramatic action of it. It is absolutely insane, completely unpredictable, the sort of a situation that may occur if humanity was torn to shreds and forced to return to tribalism. Plus, the epic car chase at the end.
6:
The movie: What We Do In The Shadows.
The genre: Black Comedy.
For: adults, horror movie fans, dark comedy fans.
Synopsis: The film follows the making of a documentary about several vampires. They live as close to normal lives as they can in an old house. They have to go about their everyday, or, better said, everynight lives, with the typical human concerns of romance, social kudos and doing the dishes, alongside the concerns about coexisting with other species, such as humans, zombies and werewolves.
Why rewatch: A brilliant modern black comedy, What We Do In The Shadows touches on every type of joke, wastes no space or time on uncomedic or unimpressive scenes. It is one of the busiest black comedies we have seen for a while. And although the film is true to type fantasy and not afraid of being silly, it has a touch of reality to it that blends everything together.
7:
The movie: Jupiter Ascending.
The genre: Space Opera.
For: science fiction fans, drama lovers.
Synopsis: An Australian-American cooperation, Jupiter Ascending follows the life of a girl who thinks she is an ordinary cleaning woman, yet she discovers that the purpose of her life extends far beyond her existence on Earth when a number of rulers from another planet begin to compete over her. She discovers that all of humanity is essentially a farm to create a youth serum, a manufacturing effort.
Why rewatch: Although the scriptwriting is far from the best we have seen, the story is deeply compelling and unnerving. What is more, the CGI and general scenery of the film is beautiful, well worth a look.
8:
The movie: Ted 2.
The genre: Comedy.
For: adults, lovers of Family Guy and American Dad.
Synopsis: A sequel to the 2012 film Ted, Ted 2 follows the story of Ted the sentient teddy bear as he struggles with the issue of his identity. He marries his girlfriend, but after a year their marriage is on the rocks. So they decide to have a child. As Ted is naturally infertile, they seek to adopt… at which point Ted discovers he is not legally considered a person and his rights are slowly stripped of him. Along with a junior lawyer, Ted and his best friend John go on a journey to prove to the courts that Ted is in fact a person, and not property.
Why rewatch: Although the film does touch on serious subjects, it is overall a light hearted, over the top comedy, just like Seth MacFarlane’s other work. It is brilliant to just sit back to when you’ve had a long day, or to enjoy with your friends.
And those are eight films from 2015 we would recommend rewatching, or watching if you never saw them in the first place! Got any ideas or films you would like to recommend? Happy to hear about them in the comments!