Sauron shows no signs of stopping even as Isengard crumbles. His eyes are on Minis Tirith, the last beacon of hope for Gondor. While Merry and Pippin are reunited with the Fellowship (though not for too long), Frodo and Sam are now right under Sauron’s eye, behind the gates of Mordor. There’s treachery afoot, battles to win, fathers to impress, and cities to conquer. And a king to return.

Will Middle Earth succumb to evil? Will Sam ever see the Shire again? Will Pippin be a fool until he dies?

Will Frodo destroy the ring?

In this Movie List from The Film Magazine, we are counting down the most impactful, hilarious and memorable moments from the gripping conclusion of Peter Jackson’s fantasy saga, for this: the 10 Best The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Moments.

Follow @thefilmagazine on X (Twitter).

10. Mount Doom Erupts

Inside the volcano things aren’t moving fast enough. The ring isn’t melting. Just as it looks like our King will be defeated, Sauron’s tower falls and the eye implodes. The ground surrounding the heroes disintegrates, taking the orcs and trolls with it.

It’s over. They’ve won.

Or have they?

In the seconds after everyone’s elation, Mount Doom explodes. Everyone looks crestfallen as Sam and Frodo are still up there. This device has been used before with Gandalf and the Balrog, Aragorn and the warg. For a second, this feels different. There is a moment when we truly believe that Sam and Frodo made the ultimate sacrifice.

Recommended for you: 10 Best Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Moments

9. Merry and Pippin Lead the Charge

Vastly outnumbered, Aragorn and his followers head to the black gate to draw Sauron’s eye while Sam and Frodo make the final leg of their journey into Mount Doom. Aragorn’s “not this day” speech is stirring and emotional. This is it. It’s now or never.

“For Frodo!” Is the battle cry.

And, in an army of a thousand experienced soldiers, it is Merry and Pippin who run first. They’ve come so far from the firework stealing miscreants of the first film. They are warriors as brave as any man or elf.

Middle parts of trilogies are often the worst. They have to do so much bridging and they don’t get the satisfaction of story arc conclusions as they are too busy setting up what comes next instead.

The Two Towers does not fall prey to this. It is as exciting as the first film, while having the luxury of our investment. Everyone cares very deeply about what happens to what remains of the Fellowship. A host of new characters are introduced as the battle for Middle Earth continues, the most significant being the people of Rohan. And an extra woman, Éowyn (Miranda Otto), to boot.

The Two Towers is filled with lengthy battles, death and despair, and yet it still manages to be warm-hearted, full of humour and hopeful.

In this Movie List from The Film Magazine, we are counting down the most impactful, hilarious and memorable moments from Peter Jackson’s timeless epic, for this: the 10 Best The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Moments.

Follow @thefilmagazine on X (Twitter).

10. The Nazgûl

The Wraiths were scary enough in The Fellowship of the Ring, but in The Two Towers they’ve been promoted. Now referred to as Nazgûl, which feels more sinister, and on the backs of great dragons, these agents of Sauron really are a force to be reckoned with.

The screeching, sniffing presence of them over the Dead Marshes as Sam and Frodo cower is the taster, but as their giant wingspans cast a shadow over the city of Osgiliath they truly are a sight to behold.

Recommended for you: 10 Best The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Moments

9. The Uruk-hais March

The Two Towers is a film with many battles, and obviously we are rooting for the good guys, but the final march of the Uruk-hais as they approach Helm’s Deep is nothing short of majestic.

Thousands upon thousands of them marching in time, lit by flickering torches, metal clanging and roaring like lions. They have no morals and no fear. The juxtaposition between them and the rag-tag army Aragorn has managed to gather does an excellent job of building tension.  

Middle Earth is under threat as Sauron, a great malevolent force, is gathering power. The lands of men, elves, wizards, and dwarfs have lived for hundreds of years believing the great evil had been vanquished. Wowzers, were they wrong.

It’s all down to the hobbits – long-living, hairy-footed, ale-swigging, home-comfort-loving people about the size of a human child – to fix it. Turns out Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm) has been in procession of a very precious, very dangerous artifact since his exploits in “The Hobbit” 70 years prior.

The task to return the ring is placed in the tiny hands of his nephew, Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood). It’s all fine though, because Gandalf (Ian McKellen) has arranged for a band of warriors, a fellowship if you will, to help him on this perilous journey.

The Fellowship of the Ring thrust director Peter Jackson and its cast members into the stratosphere of fame. While some depictions may be considered problematic by today’s standards, and Lord of the Rings certainly isn’t passing any Bechdel test, the classic struggle of good versus evil means it remains popular over twenty years later.

In this Movie List from The Film Magazine, we are counting down the most impactful, hilarious and memorable moments from Peter Jackson’s timeless epic, for this: the 10 Best Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Moments.

Follow @thefilmagazine on X (Twitter).

10. Gardening

The scene has been set, the Hobbits introduced, and Frodo (Elijah Wood) has begrudgingly accepted his mission. While Gandalf (Ian McKellen) is asserting the grave danger the young hobbit will face, he hears a crack outside. An eavesdropper? A spy from the very depths of Mordor? Or perhaps, just a gardener? Gandalf lunges with his staff, and pulls out of the perennials, Samwise Gamgee (Sean Austin).

This is a great introduction to Sam as it shows his cheek, tenacity, and loyalty.

Recommended for you: The Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit Movies Ranked

9. The Ringwraiths Attack

Tolkien built a very serious world with realms of peril and intense men conversing. Peter Jackson’s rendering of this world adds a much-needed dose of humour. The Fellowship of the Ring is not afraid to poke fun at itself a little bit.

The Ringwraiths are a terrifying sight (and sound). These are the creatures that all of Middle Earth is afraid of. The wraiths with their metal hands and black cloaks attacking pillows hidden beneath the bedspreads in the Prancing Pony is a scooby-doo-esque flash of comedy.

The films that have been selected are, I believe, the peak of cinematic mastery. They span nearly the length of cinema’s existence, and are deliberately chosen to reflect a wide range of genres, countries, and times. One major reason for this is to force myself to list films that are not exclusively 1980s horror movies, which I could quite easily do. The second is because that list would be wrong, as although they could be peak horror, some would undoubtedly be worse than films outside the genre.

Therefore, for better or for worse, at the time of writing, listed from oldest to youngest and with no system of ranking, here are my picks for the 10 Best Films of All Time.

Follow me on X (Twitter) – @KJudgeMental

10. La Voyage dans la Lune (1902)

It is impossible to understate how important this film was.

From the grandfather of special effects, Georges Méliès, come fifteen minutes of sheer adventure, adapting the Jules Verne novels “From the Earth to the Moon”, and “Around the Sun”, along with H. G. Wells’ “First Men on the Moon”, it is a film which pushed the limits of the medium, bringing thrills beyond the stars to the screen for all to see.

Hand-painted frame by frame to add a splash of colour, employing all of Méliès’ stage magic knowhow, it still has the power to captivate to this day, despite being created only seven years after the Lumiere brothers demonstrated their kinematograph at the 1895 December World Fair. The rocket splatting into the eye of the moon is an image almost everyone in the world has seen, despite rarely knowing where it comes from.

It is fun and joyous and, thanks to restoration work and new scores, able to keep its legacy going over 120 years later. Not a single cast or crew member from this film is alive today, yet A Trip to the Moon lives on.

9. Psycho (1960)

We could argue over Hitchcock’s best film for decades. Indeed, many have done, and we still never will agree. Vertigo famously dethroned Citizen Kane in Sight and Sound magazine as the best film ever in 2011, a title the Welles film had held for many decades. Yet Psycho takes my vote for numerous reasons.

Not only is its story iconic – the shower scene one of the greatest sequences in cinema history – and its production history something of legend, but it is supreme mastery of cinematic craftsmanship.

Every shot is glorious, every moment timed to perfection. Suspense is at an all-time high, mystery around every corner. Yet perhaps what is most startling is its efficiency, Hitchcock’s most underappreciated skill. If a scene required 50 cuts, he’d have it. If it required a simple shot/reverse shot with the most subtle of powerful, timed camera cuts to a tighter or a lower angle (see the dinner between Marion and Norman), he did it. It is an exercise in extreme precision, in efficiency of storytelling, and it cuts deeper than almost any other film.

Recommended for you: The Greatest Film Trailer of All Time? Psycho (1960)

Come to Daddy (2019)
Director: Ant Timpson
Screenwriter: Toby Harvard
Starring: Elijah Wood, Stephen McHattie, Michael Smiley, Martin Donovan, Madeleine Sami, Ona Grauer, Garfield Wilson

Come to Daddy is a difficult thing to describe. It’s either a dysfunctional family drama that stops halfway through, or it’s a grotesque horror that doesn’t kick into high gear until the last 20 minutes. Director Ant Timpson usually works in a producing capacity on such oddball projects as Turbo Kid and The Greasy Strangler, and it does share at least some DNA with both of those.

Musician Norval (Elijah Wood) comes to stay with his dad who he hasn’t seen since he was an infant after he receives a letter of invitation out of the blue, but he and Gordon (Stephen McHattie) do not hit it off, and after the latter’s increasingly threatening behaviour and a series of bizarre goings on, Norval finds himself trapped in a strange house and fighting for his life.

None of the main characters we are first introduced to are in any way sympathetic; Norval is an up-himself try-hard who name-drops Chance the Rapper and Lorde to try and impress, and Gordon is a raging alcoholic and an even more raging a-hole. You don’t find yourself hoping these guys are going to get past their differences and get on, but rather that at least one of them has something horrible happen to them as soon as possible (spoiler: it does).

Come to Daddy exists in a strange never-verse, with picturesque New Zealand standing in for somewhere that could be in either hemisphere inhabited by characters from all over in a time that’s only demonstrably modern by its cultural reference points. The pretty scenery matched with gallows humour and nasty imagery is a pleasing enough stylistic juxtapoisiton, but not to the extent that it succeeds in making a larger point about anything.

The film’s first half is a bit of a shambolic slog, too much time is spent with a pair of detestable characters being hostile to each other, but after the first big twist things become a lot more fun in a rather depraved way. We get a surreal stretch where Wood really manages to sell how easy it would be to lose your grip on reality alone in a strange house. By the time Michael Smiley appears for the final act as a hired killer with heavy metal hair, the film might well have brought you round to its unique point of view.

You can see why this went down so well at gore-hungry horror film festivals in 2019 – if there’s one thing the film isn’t lacking in, it’s splatter. Joints are dislocated, blood gushes and things that should not be punctured with BBQ forks are punctured with BBQ forks.

There are a fair few memorable exchanges peppered throughout that also work to increase the overall enjoyment of the film, like Norval’s pertinent question, “If he’s your friend then why is he stabbing you with poo pens and chaining you in your basement?” and a particularly chucklesome insult from Smiley’s character comparing someone’s mother to Michael Heseltine.

Come to Daddy is muddled and inconsistent, but it is a viewing experience unlikely to be duplicated this year. Elijah Wood continues his quest to never play anyone anything like Frodo again and lends his support to a good range of interesting indie film projects, good ideas and bad. As a director Ant Timpson may be yet to prove that he has a unique voice when behind the camera, not just rely on weird stuff just because. While many might just ask, “What the hell was that?”, this could very well be destined for cult classic status by those who really get it.

14/24

This isn’t a ‘my guilty pleasure’ article, a shameful admission that I derive some form of sick satisfaction from an apparently trashy film, though judging by existing articles on Green Street (2005) it feels like it ought to be.

Green Street is the story of Matt (Elijah Wood), an American Journalism major who falls from grace after spinelessly taking the fall for a fellow Harvard student’s drug stash, falling in with a London football firm (basically a gang of hooligans) and learning the importance of knowing the “time to stand your ground and the time to walk away”.

I love this film, but everyone who has written about it seems to think it’s a bit crap – even people who do kind of like it…

After reading a few dozen pieces, it seems everybody read Green Street as a run-of-the-mill footie hooligan movie, as though Danny Dyer ought to have featured in a starring role. Now I don’t want to be rude, as everybody is entitled to their own subjective opinions on art, but I think these people missed the point. To me, Green Street is a very grounded story of personal development as well as a critique of the toxicity seemingly inherent in some male circles. The film contains layers of meaning well worth exploring, and I hope that after reading this you will consider rewatching the film or even checking it out for the first time, though there will be spoilers beyond this point, so be warned.

Violence

First off, I’d like to address one of the prominent critiques I’ve seen made about Green Street – its use and potential misuse of violence. It comes up in most reviews of the film, where it is argued that inter-firm conflict is glorified and treated as a positive. I imagine the straw man counter-narrator to myself leaning back in their chair, pushing their glasses to their brow and noting, with fatherly condescension: “violence, you see, is bad.”

So, is violence bad?

Well, yes, I suppose it is, but violence in film is rarely, if ever, just violence.

In Green Street, violence is something of a rite of passage. It at times assigns a good brawl the same principles espoused by Tyler Durden of Fight Club, but when Durden ridicules the Narrator for his lack of combat experience – asking him “how much can you know about yourself if you’ve never been in a fight?” – he is linking a man’s self-worth to some primal combative instinct, which is harmful and untrue. So why is Green Street any different?

Well, when cowardly Matt first becomes involved in a fight, he realises he is “not made of glass” and “the violence grew on [him].” Here, Matt’s increased readiness to do violence is representative of his newfound ability to stand up for himself, and he likes it.

Charlie Hunnam as Pete (left) and Elijah Wood as Matt (right).

Left unchecked, this character moment has the potential to grow out of hand and become toxic, but Green Street does not view violence without critique. There is often deep pathos in acts of violence by virtue of just how unnecessarily banal it all is. Like the Montagues and Capulets, West Ham’s GSE (Green Street Elite) and Millwall’s NTO fight for reasons beyond logic or historical relevance. GSE leader Pete (played with a questionable cockney imitation from Charlie Hunnam) likens the rivalry to “Israelis and Palestinians”, which speaks to the level of shared hatred between firms, though instead of complex historical and political factors at play, their feud boils down to little more than what postcode you live in.

In this absurdity, Green Street pauses to view violence through a different lens, and a more critical stance is adopted.

After witnessing NTO leader Tommy Hatcher’s (Geoff Bell’s) child killed in a petty brawl, Steve (Marc Warren), the former GSE leader dubbed ‘The Major’ gives up the lifestyle and retires into a comfortable middle-class existence. Following a later attack in which Hatcher almost kills Steve, a vast dock-side brawl is set up between both firms as a way to settle the score. Each side draws blood, and Hatcher murders Pete in a violent rage. In this moment, everybody stops fighting, watching on in horror as they realise how far they have taken their ridiculous prejudices and how tightly they have clung to their arbitrarily assigned identities.

Violence is shown in a very neutral light when taken as a whole – Green Street refrains from imposing moral judgement on the concept in its entirety, instead highlighting both violence’s power as a tool and as a vice.

Toxic Masculinity and Male Relationships

Men, and more specifically male identity, are also portrayed with oft-missed nuance. Certainly, these men are far from glorified as many have assessed, their aforementioned antics are not excused as much as the characters themselves are made sympathetic or, short of that, motivated.

Pete admits that he is prone to over-committing to firm violence and when we first meet him he is dismissive and brutish towards the diminutive “yank”. His relationship with Matt is the most developed in the film however, and Pete soon grows on Matt as well as the audience. He is charming, protective, good with kids, trusting of Matt and most importantly brave. Not simply knuckle headed and reckless – genuinely brave.

Bravery is a trait coded as being heavily masculine in western culture and when taken to the extreme it can certainly lead to toxic places, however bravery itself is a veritable positive. It is what Matt needs to learn to overcome his obstacles, but it is also what leads Pete to his death. This is how Green Street views coded male traits and male relationships as a whole – neither endorsement nor condemnation, instead the film elects to show both sides of the coin. Outcast Matt finds as much joy in being part of a group, all laughing and drinking, as he finds in building his courage through violence. Fraternity is incredibly important for young men – to have a sense of belonging, kinship and community. Fraternity can also be incredibly damaging for those same men as well as for those around them, just look at where it leads the GSE and NTO… brawling on the docks.

Conclusion

Like with its view of violence, Green Street treats its audience with the respect of allowing them to form their own conclusions on these relationships by taking a rather neutral stance on the issues at hand. This could arguably be a critique of the filmmaking – violence may well be something a creator ought to have a firm stance on, but that is a debate for another day.

This article is in no way me telling you that Green Street is a perfect film – I personally have a lot of criticisms – but these critiques fall on the shoulders of ropey accents, lack of female representation (there are only two women present and neither are what I could, in good faith, call characters), and other more common grievances with the technical aspects of filmmaking.

The heart, story and themes of Green Street, however, are very strong, and I believe the film to be criminally underrated, disregarded by most as trashy low-rent, something the film’s sequels admittedly do little to dispel.

Treated seriously, Green Street is an emotive, ecstatic and, frankly, Shakespearean tale that deserves a second look.

Written by George Forster

You can support George Forster in the following places:

Twitter – @georgeforster48

Have an opinion? Make sure to leave a comment!

6. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Gross USA: $255,119,788
Cumulative Worldwide Gross: $956,019,788
1 Academy Award Nomination
1 BAFTA Award Nomination

The best part of this film was the battle with Smaug.

The previous film had concluded on quite the dramatic moment with the dragon about to wreak destruction on the defenceless Lake-town, and The Battle of the Five Armies brilliantly jumps straight back into the action. There’s fire, there’s destruction, people are dying and the audience is gripped with anxiety for Bard and his sickeningly sweet children.

Bard defeats Smaug, his children survive, and the rest of the villagers who avoided peril all go and meet on the nearby shore. It’s all down hill from there…

We are given a few dramatic moments that we are supposed to care about, but there aren’t strong enough foundations built for us to be particularly moved. Tauriel barely knew Kili, how can she claim to have loved him? Why did the Elves suddenly decide to help the Dwarves for no apparent reason? It is generally a film with poor storytelling and a dependence on expensive CGI to make up for it.

Other than the opening battle, the most popular moments were those that referenced the predeceasing trilogy, such as Galadriel’s encounter with Sauron and Thranduil telling Legolas to seek out Aragorn.

Legolas running up falling boulders was pretty sick too!

5. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Gross USA: $258,366,855
Cumulative Worldwide Gross: $960,366,855
3 Academy Award Nominations
2 BAFTA Award Nominations

For anyone who had read the book at a younger age, it was so exciting to see so many scenes taken directly from the book in this film – the Spiders were just as scary as when we’d read about them years ago and Beorn was just as mysterious and intimidating. This made the film so much more enjoyable for nostalgic reasons, especially comparing it to The Battle of the Five Armies which contains a lot of made up moments that didn’t take place in the book.

The accomplishment in animating Smaug blew away many who’d approached the CG-heavy prequels with a critical eye. Special effects progress so fast that it’s easy to forget how making Smaug talk was a major feat, especially since the dragon was what people were anticipating most about this film. In this respect, The Desolation of Smaug absolutely delivered! The mouth movements of the dragon matched up with what he was saying so perfectly without looking silly, which we all know is far more impressive than a CGI tiger.

4. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Gross USA: $303,003,568
Cumulative Worldwide Gross: $1,021,103,568
3 Academy Award Nominations
3 BAFTA Award Nominations

There were a lot of immediate reactions to this film which criticised it for being a little messy and full of unrelated content. Although many criticised The Battle of the Five Armies for similar reasons, An Unexpected Journey had a different purpose to the last film in the trilogy. After an almost ten year gap since The Lord Of The Rings ended, An Unexpected Journey is our first dip back into Middle Earth; it has to set the scene and starts the story.

The Hobbit Trilogy may have been about one film too long, but this is an opinion only forged in retrospect. In this first instalment, it was exciting to see things like the rock giants fighting in the mountains and Radagast with his woodland pals being intimidated by the Spiders. It felt like a promise for all the goodness that was yet to come, it’s just a shame that the promise was not fulfilled.

Number 10: V For Vendetta 

V for Vendetta is the first but not the last comic book movie on this list. However, it’s not your typical comic book movie such as the likes of the Spider-Man series which was circulating around the same time as it deals with much darker themes, and at its centre is a protagonist who is very much an anti-hero. V for Vendetta was not a huge hit but the overall vision of the film has seemed to drum up quite a cult following. It is a highly political, gripping, intense, chilling and visually stunning adaptation of the graphic novel it is based on. It’s a more mature, complex and sophisticated addition to the genre with some superb acting from Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman, and some outstanding visual effects.

The 10 Greatest Moments of Gunpowder, Treason and Plot in V for Vendetta

Number 9: Batman Begins 

Christopher Nolan brought back Batman in 2005 for the first time since Batman and Robin in 1997, and made Batman Begins the first of his incredibly successful Dark Knight trilogy. As was the case with V For Vendetta, this a darker look at the comic book genre after many more colourful adaptations started circulating. Batman Begins is an origin story that covers many of the true to comic book events that you could possibly need without dedicating too much of the film to them; we get all of the important information without it clogging up the plot. This is the first time we see Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne and Batman, and it is clear that this is a very different portrayal of the hero in comparison to what we have seen in the past. The film is excellent overall, but what is most important is that it sets up two even more brilliant films in the series to come. Christopher Nolan certainly puts his stamp on this film and what he created is beautiful.

10 Best Batman Begins Moments

Number 8: The 40-Year-Old Virgin

The 40-Year-Old Virgin was the first big thing to come from Judd Apatow as a writer and director. In some ways, he created a whole new genre of comedy, as from this film many others of a similar nature were spawned with Apatow connected to them in some way. With a very funny cast that is now synonymous with this type of comedy, and writing from both Apatow and TV-comedy icon Steve Carrell, it was a huge hit in 2005. Steve Carrell, and the likes of Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen, proved that they were the new faces of comedy in this film and have since then gone on to star in some of the funniest films of the decade.

Number 7: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

The Goblet of Fire is the fourth instalment in the Harry Potter series. They managed to do a pretty good job of adapting this to film without it feeling rushed. It is at this point in the series that the story starts to get a lot darker and grittier; the characters are now starting to grow up and, appropriately, more grown up themes are introduced. Our heroes now have to deal with the situations they face in a much more adult way. It is also at this point where the overall story, running throughout the entire series, really gets going and we become more involved. It is a transition point for the films, the characters, and the audience, as each one becomes more developed. Harry Potter is not only one of the biggest and best films of 2005, but was so for every year that a new instalment was released.

Harry Potter Movies Ranked

Number 6: Capote 

Possibly one of the finest performances from the late Philip Seymour Hoffman is in this critically acclaimed 2005 film. So much so that he went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actor in this very role. Based on the life of author Truman Capote, as he develops a relationship with a killer he is researching for a crime novel, Capote received universal praise upon its release in 2005. Where the story and cinematography are is excellent, it is Hoffman’s performance that elevates this film to a higher level of success. In Capote, Hoffman cements himself as one of the acting greats as he captures every characteristic of this person perfectly. The film is moving and interesting, and Philip Seymour Hoffman is truly captivating.

Number 5: Sin City 

Sin City was released at a time when comic book movies were really picking up steam and were at the forefront of the box office. Sin City broke comic book movie conventions in every way as it was gritty and disturbing, and was completely for adults. Already a highly popular graphic novel, this was the film that grown up comic book movie lovers were waiting for. Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller did not just make a film adaptation, they completely captured the essence of the graphic novel and they brought these characters to life in a way that any fan would be proud of. Sin City is smart, sexy, stylish and violent, with an all star cast, seamless directing, and stunning cinematography.

Number 4: Jarhead 

Jarhead is one of the 2000s’ best war films. If you are expecting a war film with action-packed scenes, a fast-paced plot, and a ton of explosions, then Jarhead may not be the film for you – it is a very realistic depiction of modern warfare and is not a story of good vs bad; it is a representation of trying to live a life within war – it defies all expectations and shows something true to life. Some criticisms of this film at the time of its release were that it had no message or political stance, but that is the point of Jarhead; it is purely a film about the characters and how they deal with being a marine. The cinematography is spectacular and the characters are interesting and captivating, and this is mainly down to the brilliant casting.

Number 3: Serenity 

Serenity is any sci-fi lovers dream, especially to those who were fans of the TV show ‘Firefly’. Where this is a film completely for the many disgruntled fans of the TV show, it also brings in non-fans with its action packed story and incredibly likable characters. Nathan Fillion’s Captain Malcolm Reynolds leads his band of outcasts on a western adventure in space; what is there not to love about that? It is a far more human story than you may expect from a sci-fi film, where the characters are strong and intelligently thought out – even if you had not been familiar with the characters from ‘Firefly’, they are so well developed in Serenity that the film could stand very well on its own. Although it has a lot of action, Serenity never seems to lose sight of the plot; the script is amazing and the cast give some incredible performances. Joss Whedon did an excellent job of giving the Firefly fans the ending they so desperately wanted and created an incredibly well rounded sci-fi film that anyone could enjoy.

Number 2: Walk The Line

This multi-award winning film depicts the life of rock music legend Johnny Cash, with outstanding performances from Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon. The film was given the label ‘Oscar Worthy’ well before its release, and sometimes when this happens it is hard to believe the hype, but with Walk the Line the label was completely accurate. Joaquin Phoenix transforms into Johnny Cash, in a way that no one thought possible – the unique thing about Cash was his look and his voice there was no one else like him, yet Phoenix embodies him so comfortably. Even with this performance, Reese Witherspoon still manages to steal the show with her portrayal of June. The word to describe Walk the Line would be ‘satisfying’, as you will not walk away from this film feeling cheated or disappointed. It is a movie all about the characters, and when the characters are people in real-life we are so familiar with, it is important that they shine on screen in the way that they do in Walk the Line.

Number 1: Brokeback Mountain 

An absolute masterpiece from Ang Lee, with unforgettable performances from Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger, and a beautiful story, Brokeback Mountain is the best film of 2005. In many cases films fail to transcend the controversy that surrounds them, but that was not the case with Brokeback Mountain, nor was it trying to be controversial to begin with. It is a poignant look at the notion of unexpected love that is all-consuming and makes you question who you are; the fact that it is two men is irrelevant. Every moment is there to make you feel and there is never a wasted frame. It is honest and raw, and poetic to its core. There are no tricks and no illusions in this film, it is just natural and beautiful. It is rare that we come across a film like this and it is one that will stand as a great film for a very long time. Number one: Brokeback Mountain.

Fabric Love: Costume in Gay Cinema