The 15 best films of a bizarre (and probably historic) year for film

From the streaming services churning out new work with heavyweights (from Mank to Da Five Bloods), to unorthodox productions pleasing massive audiences (American Utopia, Hamilton), to however you want to classify a new 2020 Borat film, 2020 may have been harrowing for films at large but it gave film fans just as many exciting new titles to enjoy as almost any other year.We've whittled down the cache of new films we've seen across screeners, drive-ins, streaming services, and VOD film festivals into a list of the 15 best things we've seen these last 12 bizarre months. More than a platform for some cool Lee facts and face-offs, Be Water again and again shows him as a man of his time pushing for equality across many aspects of his life.—Nathan Mattise || Stream the film on ESPN+.If you would call yourself a Bill & Ted series diehard—the kind who suffered through the uneven cartoon adaptation and has written lengthy online analyses of their Bogus Journey—this blurb isn't for you. And while anyone who's seen Feels Good Man will inevitably refer to it as "the Pepe film" (yep, the same animated frog co-opted by the alt right), this documentary earned a place in our hearts for how thoroughly it understands and explains the way information spreads and evolves in the most unvisited corners of the Internet. It'll definitely give viewers at all levels of Internet savvy something new to think about.—Nathan Mattise || Stream this film on most major VOD platforms (Amazon Prime, Microsoft Store, Google Play, Vimeo on Demand, et al.) You must login or create an account to comment.Join the Ars Orbital Transmission mailing list to get weekly updates delivered to your inbox.