Honorable Mention - The Book Of Life
I have always been a big fan of animated movies. I honestly tend to look forward to the ones that look good more than regular movies. This one didn't strike me as one that I would particularly enjoy. I didn't even bother to check it out in theaters. I watched a bootleg of it online and was so hooked that I tried to find a cleaner copy of it and watch it again. Great story. Different animation and great music. Biggest surprise of the year for me.
10 - It's a Tie!!! X-Men: Days Of Future Past and The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies
Both of them are excellent entries in these excellent franchises. The Hobbit: Battle Of The Five Armies brought about great closure to that trilogy and was the best paced of those three movies by far. X-Men: Days Of Future Past did an amazing job of combining the two casts from both generations of the franchise. I couldn't leave either of these movies off the list.
9 - Guardians Of The Galaxy
Marvel is officially like that person that seems to always perform or come through better when heavily doubted. This movie seemed like the toughest sell that they had taken on by far. Not only did they do it well but it became the biggest movie of the year. They took a tree that only says one word, a wrestler and a relative unknown lead actor and knocked this one out of the park. Very impressive.
8 - Chef
This movie reminded me how great of an actor John Favreau is. He is just as talented of an actor as he is a director. And this movie gave such an awesome take on the balance between loving your work/career and being part of a family or a good parent. It was incredibly simple and one of the better watches of the year.
7 - Earth To Echo
Another movie that I loved because of how simple it was. This movie had minimal effects and a bunch of unknown kids as the cast yet felt more like an event movie like E.T. or the old school "event" movies than overdone special effects monsters like Transformers 17. I wish that they would make more movies like this than the big budgeted and repetitive nonsense.
6 - Gone Girl
Read the book and loved it. Add that to the fact that David Fincher doesn't make bad movies and I couldn't wait to see this movie. And it definitely met my expectations. It did justice to the holy crap moments from the book and definitely left people uncomfortable after it was over and talking about the what if type line of thinking inspired by it.
5 - Edge Of Tomorrow
This is easily the best kept secret of the year. On the surface, it is a sci-fi movie with lots of special effects and Tom Cruise that pretty much tanked at the box office. Yet - I have not heard a single person that did see the movie say that they didn't think it was great or even better than that. I have no idea how word of mouth didn't help this movie more. I thought it was awesome. The chemistry between Tom Hanks and Emily Blunt was great and the Groundhog Day like part of the story provided lots of laughs to go along with the action and drama.
4 - The Judge
I'm sure that this is the movie that people will see on my list and tilt their head like a confused dog. I can't really put my finger on it but I absolutely loved this movie. I thought the performance were great. I thought it was awesome to see Downey Jr play more of a normal guy role. And I felt like all the family dynamics in it felt so incredibly real.
3 - How To Train Your Dragon 2
I will probably never have a bigger emotional connection to a movie or movie franchise than I do to this one. The first one is definitely one of my favorite movies of all time. And this one did not disappoint at all. The animation was just as breath taking. The characters were just as well developed and entertaining and Toothless will always be an amazing movie version of my J-man.
2 - Unbroken
This movie was amazing from beginning to end. It was a great showing of the human spirit and mentality of never giving up. Add in that this movie was directed by Angelina Jolie and its just that much more impressive. The movie was so well done in every way and should end up winning lots of awards for 2014.
1 - Captain America: The Winter Soldier
This movie was amazing on so many levels. One - I think it was so much better than the original. Two - it had the perfect balance of amazing action and amazing story development. Three - it would be an amazing movie even if it wasn't a comic book movie. Part of what made The Dark Knight series so awesome was that they were amazing movies that happen to have the comic book connection/character. This movie was just like that and it is right up there with The Avengers as the best movies that Marvel has created.
