Is this the last top ten list we’ll see from longtime New Yorker film critic David Denby? Earlier this month, he stepped down from his perch as a critic at the magazine, telling Indiewire, "I will write some longer pieces on movies and other things, contribute to the web when I have something juicy to say. Right now, I’m finishing a book (nothing to do with movies)." (Anthony Lane will remain the sole critic at at the magazine). So, we’ll see what Denby has to say about movies (or not) in 2015, but for now he’s saying goodbye to 2014 and his film critic duties with his top ten list, and leading it off is Pawel Pawlikowski‘s "Ida."
"…at first, the stillness and concentration of his images (the move is set in Communist Poland, in 1961) is startling; then fascinating; then awe-inducing," Denby writes about the movie, which follows a young novice who sets out to investigate her heritage and discovers some surprising news about her past. His praise has been echoed elsewhere across various lists this month, and at the European Film Awards where it had a near sweep of the honors. Meanwhile, the rest of Denby’s top ten is listed alphabetically: no big shockers, though he does throw his weight behind "Snowpiercer" and Frederick Wiseman’s documentary "National Gallery."
Check out the full ten below.
New Yorker magazine David Denby’s Top 10 Films Of 2014
“Ida”
“American Sniper”
“A Most Violent Year”
“Birdman”
“Boyhood”
“Get On Up”
“Mr. Turner”
“National Gallery”
“Selma”
“Snowpiercer”