You can tell how good a year was by how hard it is to compile a list of the top 10 highlights! Such was the diversity of films released in the UK in 2015 that I struggled to whittle down a longlist of about 30 contenders into a top 10 with which I was, if not happy, then at least content. As always, it’s the films that didn’t quite make the cut that tell the real story. For example, Julien Temple’s terrifically life-affirming documentary The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson features in my top 10, but this was also the year of Sean McAllister’s heartbreaking A Syrian Love Story, Matthew Heineman’s gripping Cartel Land, and Jeanie Finlay’s unexpectedly moving Orion: The Man Who Would Be King. Meanwhile, Asif Kapadia’s Amy became the highest grossing British-made documentary in UK cinemas, the cherry on the cake of an exceptional year for factual film-making.

On the drama front, films as diverse as Bill Pohlad’s Brian Wilson biopic Love & Mercy, Nanni Moretti’s touchingly personal Mia Madre, and Kornél Mundruczó’s White God all vied for inclusion, if ultimately edged out by the likes of Todd Haynes’s flawless Carol and John Crowley’s quietly powerful Brooklyn.

It was a particularly heartening year for homegrown cinema, as the oft-maligned UK film industry produced such gems as Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years, Daniel and Matthew Wolfe’s Catch Me Daddy, Debbie Tucker Green’s Second Coming, and Rufus Norris’s ambitious stage-to-screen transfer London Road.The cream of the crop for me, however, was Carol Morley’s infinitely intriguing The Falling, a film that echoed the best work of Nic Roeg and established its director as one of the most exciting talents of her generation. Wonderful, too, to see Terence Davies once more at the top of his game with a long-awaited adaptation of Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song, a project that took 15 years to make it to our screens.

Even the blockbuster market produced some genuine surprises this year. Mad Max: Fury Road proved the most talked-about action film with its show-stopping turn by Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa. Bond was back with Sam Mendes directing Daniel Craig in Spectre, a film that produced spectacular box-office returns while polarising audience responses. In any other year, either of these could have made my top 10 (I’ve seen both of them more than once), and it’s worth noting that my list was compiled before anyone had set eyes on JJ Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens, for which expectations have long been at fever pitch.

Because I have stuck rigidly to the films released in UK cinemas in 2015 (preview and festival screenings don’t count!), such potential Oscar contenders as The Danish Girl and The Revenant were not in the running. Many of the films that opened here this year had played elsewhere previously; Isao Takahata’s The Tale of the Princess Kaguya first opened in Japan back in 2013, while Tomm Moore’s superb Song of the Sea opened in the US (and elsewhere) in 2014; both competed for the best animated feature Oscar in February of this year. It seems that we are currently enjoying a golden age of animation, and it’s significant that my favourite film of the year, Pixar’s Inside Out, is one of three animated features to make my top 10.

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The top spot was hotly contested, with Ana Lily Amirpour’s vampiric A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (which first took a bow at Sundance nearly two years ago) being one of this year’s most boundary-crossing UK releases, and Céline Sciamma’s Girlhood (released in France last year as Bande de filles) redefining both the look and gender of Parisian street-wise cinema. Both these movies took my breath away, subverting expectations and defying categorisation. It’s films like this that make the job of film criticism such a joy; the possibility that every week you may encounter something that reminds you of the magical potential of cinema. If anyone tries to tell you that movies are getting worse, tell them they’re just looking in the wrong place…

Top 10

Inside Out Pixar’s perfectly realised psychological animation is a joy.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night Ana Lily Amirpour’s Iranian vampire western.

Girlhood Vibrant tale of girls in the Parisian hood from Céline Sciamma.

Carol Todd Haynes’s note-perfect Patricia Highsmith adaptation.

The Falling Swooning tale of mass fainting, written and directed by Carol Morley.

Song of the Sea Tomm Moore’s timeless blend of musical and visual magic.

Brooklyn John Crowley directs the flawless Saoirse Ronan.

Sunset Song Ravishing Lewis Grassic Gibbon adaptation from Terence Davies.

The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson Julien Temple tackles a matter of life and death.

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya Sublime Studio Ghibli fable from Isao Takahata.

Turkey

Entourage Hatefully unfunny, toxic TV by-product.