Wow, and I thought that 2014 had been pretty great. It's been another fantastic year for cinema in 2015, a fairly consistent quality (bar a few stinkers) interrupted by soaring highs at frequent intervals, from films that have showcased new talent in-front and behind the camera to films that prove there is still life in long-running or dormant franchises. Box office be damned, we're talking pure quality here, and it's worth being able to know which films you should have seen in 2015.
As such, below is a list of films that I would consider the "Must See" films released in the UK in 2015. These aren't necessarily the best films of the year, the most artistic or the most "worthy" - these are just great films that I can see having a certain amount of longevity to them, films that impress in a variety of different ways by doing something or multiple things so well that it would a crying shame to have missed out on them.
Bearing in mind that I haven't seen every film released this year, in release date order...
Whiplash
A film about both the risks and rewards of extreme ambition, Whiplash follows aspiring jazz drummer Andrew Neiman as he is tutored by esteemed conductor Terence Fletcher at the prestigious Shaffer Conservatory. With brilliant performances from both Miles Teller and J K Simmons, a great jazz soundtrack and a director who manages to make an extended drum solo one of the most captivating sequences of 2015, Whiplash was an early addition to this list and has firmly remained here ever since.
You can read my full review of Whiplash here.
It's easy to be sceptical of Hollywood in the modern day, with 2015 marking the release of the seventh film in the Fast and Furious franchise, the fifth film in the Terminator franchise, the eleventh and twelfth films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and now the fifth film in the Mission: Impossible franchise, alongside a gluttony of reboots and spin-offs that leave little room in the release calendar for new intellectual properties to emerge. Hell, later this year we are going to be seeing the release of the seventh Star Wars film, the fourth Hunger Games film and the twenty fourth(!) Bond movie - critics of this system have a valid argument when they point out an over-reliance on pre-existing properties.
On the other hand, 2015 has been a great year for cinema so far, sequels and all, and Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation is no exception. Once again we follow IMF agent Ethan Hunt as he attempts to do a mission that some may describe as exceedingly difficult - this time, to prove the existence of The Syndicate, a rogue organisation ("An anti-IMF" in the words of Benji) that have been committing acts of terror all across the globe.
