Films We Watched in 2020

David and I tend to delve into themes — such as watching films from a particular director, genre, era, or country, and 2020 was no different. While the movies on this list were made in such countries as Germany, Mali, Italy, Spain, Finland, Japan, South Africa, Poland, UK, Iran, France, and the U.S., we dove deep into Iranian films, particularly those by Asghar Farhadi, and Finnish films, especially those by Aki Kaurismäki. As a reflection of their brilliance, each of those films we rated at least 7.0 and 8.0.

List of Top 10 Films

To save you the trouble of finding our favorites, here are our Top 10 films from 2020! The list includes documentary series as well as feature films but not those we re-watched.

1. Le Haine
2. Nothing But a Man
3. Blue Collar
4. World War II in HD
5. The Memory of Justice
6. The Secret in Their Eyes
7. Fireworks Wednesday
8. The Idiot
9. Seven Beauties
10. Swept Away

All Films Watched and Ranked

The list below is the complete list of films from 2020 in order of when we watched them — from most recent to the least recent. You’ll see our rating below (which are in whole numbers in keeping with IMDB’s ranking system, though I suspect we would increase or decrease some by .5 if we had our druthers). 

David and I rarely differ when it comes to which films we love and which are shite; I think the only exception on this list is The Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which I vehemently dislike and he really loves. Other than that, we’re pretty much in agreement.

• Meet John Doe (1941) 5.0 Director: Frank Capra
• The Holly and the Ivy (1952) 8.0 Director: George More O’Ferrall
• Timbuktu (2014) 7.0 Director: Abderrahmane Sissako
• The Address (2014) 7.0 Director: Ken Burns
• My Octopus Teacher (2020) 8.0 Documentary Directors: Pippa Ehrlich, James Reed
• Seven Beauties (1975) 8.0 Director: Lina Wertmüller
• Conversation Piece (1974) 8.0 Director: Luchino Visconti
• The Idiot (1951) 8.0 Director: Akira Kurosawa
• Under the Flag of the Rising Sun (1972) 8.0 Director: Kinji Kukasaku
• The White Reindeer (1952) 7.0 Director: Erik Blomberg
• Rebecca (1940) 6.0 Director: Alfred Hitchcock
• A Quiet Place (2018) 8.0 Director: John Krasinski
• The Sleeping Car Murder (1965) 8.0 Director: Costa-Gavras
• Mulholland Drive (2001) 8.0 Director: David Lynch
• Carriage to Vienna (1966) 8.0 Director: Karel Kachyna
• Hour of the Gun (1967) 5.0 Director: John Sturges
• The Heiress (1949) 8.0 Director: William Wyler
• Claudine (1974) 7.0 Director: John Berry
• Tombstone (1993) 7.0 Directors: George P. Cosmatos, Kevin Jarre
• The Suspect (1944) 7.0 Director: Robert Siodmak
• They Call Me Trinity (1970) 6.0 Director: Enzo Barboni
• Nothing But a Man (1964) 9.0 Director: Michael Roemer
• Blue Collar (1978) 8.0 Director: Paul Schrader
• The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) 7.0 Director: Peter Yates
• The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970) 7.0 Director: William Wyler
• The French Connection (1971) 7.0 Director: William Friedkin
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) 8.0 for David; 6.0 for me Director: Steven Spielberg
• The Match Factory Girl (1990) 8.0 Director: Aki Kaurismäki
• Le Havre (2011) 7.0 Director: Aki Kaurismäki
• The Other Side of Hope (2017) 7.0 Director: Aki Kaurismäki
• Chinatown (1974) 8.0 Director: Roman Polanski
• Deliverance (1972) 8.0 Director: John Boorman
• Jaws (1975) 9.0 Director: Steven Spielberg
• The Poseidon Adventure (1972) 7.0 Director: Ronald Neame
• No Man’s Land (I) (2001) 7.0 Director: Danis Tanovic
• WWII in HD 9.0 (2009)
• Sissi (1955) 7.0 Director: Ernst Marischka
• They Were Five (1936) 8.0 Director: Julien Duvivier
• Korczak (1990) 8.0 Director: Andrzej Wajda
• Bone Tomahawk 7.0 (2015) 7.0 Director: S. Craig Zahler
• Bigger Than Life 8.0 (1956) Director: Nicholas Ray
• The Professional (1981) 6.0 Director: Georges Lautner
• The Last Adventure (1967) 6.0 Director: Robert Enrico
• Gettysburg (1993) 7.0 Director: Ron Maxwell
• The Visit (1963) 7.0 Director: Antonio Pietrangeli
• Beauty and the Devil (1950) 7.0 Director: René Clair
• Hungry for Love (1960) 7.0 Director: Antonio Pietrangeli
• La fin du jour (1939) 8.0 Director: Julien Duvivier
• Swept Away (1974) 8.0 Director: Lina Wertmüller
• The Salesman (2016) 8.0 Director: Asghar Farhadi
• The Past (2013) 8.0 Director: Asghar Farhadi
• Fireworks Wednesday (2006) 8.0 Director: Asghar Farhadi
• Boudu Saved from Drowning 8.0 (1932) Director: Jean Renoir
• Nine Queens (2000) 8.0 Director: Fabián Bielinsky
• La Haine (1995) 9.0 Director: Mathieu Kassovitz
• L’Enfance Nue (1968) 7.0 Director: Maurice Pialat
• The Central Park Five (2012) 7.0 Director: Ken Burns
• The Memory of Justice (1976) 9.0 Director: Marcel Ophüls
• The Hunters (1977) 7.0 Director: Theodoros Angelopoulos
• A Hidden Life (2019) 7.0 Director: Terrence Malick
• Mother of Mine (2005) 7.0 Director: Klaus Härö
• The Secret in Their Eyes (2009) 8.0 Director: Juan José Campanella

Have you seen any of the films on our list? Do you agree with our ratings?

If you want more film lists, check out my posts on Films Watched in 2021 and Films Watched (and Rated) in 2022.