Season’s Greetings!
74 feature films were nominated across fifteen separate ballots in Front Row Reviews’ annual year-end poll. As ever, our scoring system remained: each ballot was ranked, with the top five films receiving 10-2 points and the remaining five receiving a point each; like last year, a further 2 points were given for every mention a film received after its first, in order to favour overall popularity. Without the bonus points, the top ten would not have changed, though its ordering would have been slightly different.
Unlike last year—which ended in a tie—there was a clear if not quite unanimous winner. Of the fifteen voters, four had the eventual winner down as their number one; five others had it in their top ten, while six didn’t vote for it at all.
There were five films in total that received top marks in an individual ballot without breaking into the final list. They were, in order of overall popularity, The Double, CitizenFour, Stations of the Cross, At Berkeley and Concussion. The three highest scoring films not to make the final top ten were Her (20 points), The Double and Mr. Turner (19 each), while the three films to receive the most votes without making the top ten were Her (five votes), The Double and Lilting (four votes each). 39 films—more than half—only received one vote. There was one contributor (see below) whose individual ballot didn’t list any of the final top ten.
Needless to say, from all the Front Row Reviews team, many thanks and very best wishes to everyone who’s enjoyed reading these pages this past year. Here’s to 2015—to Birdman, to The Tribe, to Inherent Vice, to National Gallery, to the new James Bond and to whichever other goodies come our way. See you…
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=8. Calvary
John Michael McDonagh · Ireland/UK · 2014
=8. Leviathan
Andrey Zvyagintsev · Russia · 2014
=8. The Wolf of Wall Street
Martin Scorsese · USA · 2013
=6. Interstellar
Christopher Nolan · USA/UK · 2014
=6. Pride
Matthew Warchus · UK · 2014
5. Gone Girl
David Fincher · USA · 2014
4. Nightcrawler
Dan Gilroy · USA · 2014
3. Under the Skin
Jonathan Glazer · UK/USA/Switzerland · 2013
2. Winter Sleep
Nuri Bilge Ceylan · Turkey/France/Germany · 2014
1. Boyhood
Richard Linklater · USA · 2014
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Individual Ballots
| Alice Bishop | Ollie Charles | Stuart Downey | |
| 1 | Interstellar | The Double | Boyhood |
| 2 | Nightcrawler | Under the Skin | Only Lovers Left Alive |
| 3 | The Square | The Wolf of Wall Street | Gone Girl |
| 4 | Edge of Tomorrow | The Skeleton Twins | You and the Night |
| 5 | We Are the Best! | Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem | Calvary |
| 6 | The Double | Paddington | Obvious Child |
| 7 | White Bird in a Blizzard | Pride | Oh Boy |
| 8 | Her | Lilting | Maps to the Stars |
| 9 | Moebius | Gone Girl | Pride |
| 10 | I Am Divine | Finding Vivian Maier | Ida |
| Sam Flehmann | Alistair Gardiner | Jonathan Glen | |
| 1 | Gone Girl | Boyhood | Winter Sleep |
| 2 | Interstellar | Under the Skin | Calvary |
| 3 | Coherence | The Lego Movie | Nightcrawler |
| 4 | Inside Llewyn Davis | CitizenFour | Boyhood |
| 5 | Blue Ruin | The Grand Budapest Hotel | Her |
| 6 | Boyhood | Interstellar | Under the Skin |
| 7 | They Came Together | The Double | Two Days, One Night |
| 8 | Dawn of the Planet of the Apes | Starred Up | The Wind Rises |
| 9 | X-Men: Days of Future Past | —- | The Double |
| 10 | Life Itself | —- | Life Itself |
| Jen Kilchenmann | Rob Munday | Michael Pattison | |
| 1 | Concussion | Under the Skin | Leviathan |
| 2 | Lilting | We Are the Best! | Winter Sleep |
| 3 | Boyhood | The Wolf of Wall Street | Mr. Turner |
| 4 | Pride | Starred Up | Starred Up |
| 5 | The Imitation Game | Ida | The Wolf of Wall Street |
| 6 | Two Days, One Night | ’71 | Blue Ruin |
| 7 | August: Osage County | 20,000 Days On Earth | Exhibition |
| 8 | Locke | The Golden Dream | The Grand Budapest Hotel |
| 9 | Afternoon Delight | Night Moves | Her |
| 10 | Lucy | Nightcrawler | Edge of Tomorrow |
| Nathanael Smith | Pete Thornton | Matt Turner | |
| 1 | Boyhood | CitizenFour | Winter Sleep |
| 2 | 12 Years a Slave | Mr. Turner | The Wind Rises |
| 3 | Her | Boyhood | A Touch of Sin |
| 4 | How to Train Your Dragon 2 | Nightcrawler | Bastards |
| 5 | The Grand Budapest Hotel | Dawn of the Planet of the Apes | A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness |
| 6 | Calvary | Leviathan | The Missing Picture |
| 7 | Stations of the Cross | The Imitation Game | Mr. Turner |
| 8 | Paddington | Jodorowsky’s Dune | Norte, the End of History |
| 9 | The Wind Rises | Gone Girl | Ilo Ilo |
| 10 | Frank | Pride | Lilting |
| David Upton | Greg Wetherall | Ben Winstanley | |
| 1 | At Berkeley | Stations of the Cross | Boyhood |
| 2 | Pride | The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz | Winter Sleep |
| 3 | ’71 | Goodbye to Language 3D | Leviathan |
| 4 | Under the Skin | Electricity | Calvary |
| 5 | Inside Llewyn Davis | We Are the Best! | Her |
| 6 | Boyhood | Only Lovers Left Alive | The Wolf of Wall Street |
| 7 | A Story of Children of Film | Dawn of the Planet of the Apes | The Past |
| 8 | 12 Years a Slave | The Past | The Invisible Woman |
| 9 | Lilting | 20,000 Days On Earth | Maps to the Stars |
| 10 | A Thousand Times Good Night | Pantani: The Accidental Death of a Cyclist | Locke |
