Ryan McNeilFilm has a way of making a single image stick with you – of being able to appreciate it as a piece of still photography all its own, and often being taken back to everything else the film had to offer in one quick hit.
In 2014, those images ran the gamut. Some were iconic, but a lot of my selections this year are abstract – often only making sense if you’ve seen the film. Still, all of them tapped a nerve when I saw them and I’ve done my best to collect them here before we close the book on the year.
Note: Special thanks this year to SELMA director Ava DuVernay who answered a random tweet by this humble writer and provided the final image for this year’s post.
Each photo can be identified by hovering your cursor, and clicking any of them will take you to a bigger version of the shot. For the curious, previous years’ entries in this series can be found at the bottom of this post.
I so look forward to these 🙂
I can tell you now our favourite shots of HTTYD2, Immigrant and Force Majeure (which I *just* finished watching), and probably Whiplash and Nymphomaniac will be the same.
I’m already chosen my shots for stuff like Mommy (what did you think of it btw? I don’t remember reading a review) and Gone Girl, but I’ll have to do a lot of thinking for uniformly gorgeous stuff like Grand Budapest Hotel, Under the Skin and even Ida (which I didn’t like as a film but no doubting its beauty).
I still have about 7-8 2014 “essentials” left to watch so I will start making my lists anytime between mid-Jan to min-Feb. I have SOOOOO many categories in mind this time.
Loved MOMMY, I just had a really difficult time articulating why. Once in a while, I bypass writing about something I see theatrically despite how much I love it…and now that I mention it, there are eight such films of the twenty-five selected above!
I swear IDA is taunting me.
It was really hard to narrow down a lot of these films to just one shot – especially Skin, Budapest, and Ida…so I’ll certainly be curious to see which of my “almosts” make your post later this winter.
Totally understand your reaction to Mommy. My friends and I couldn’t talk to each other after watching it for like half an hour. I still can’t explain it to people. My favurite shot from that is my favourite one out of all the films this year. It’s *THAT* moment. (clue: “Wonderwall”)
Funny thing about *THAT* moment? I had it up on the screen and was trying to choose between it and what I ultimately went with. Lindsay pointed out the way *THAT* actually works better in-motion, and less as a static image.
So many iconic images from this year alone!
…and as usual, I wasn’t even able to source all of the iconic images I had in mind for this post!
Fantastic selections! Great idea too Ryan, I just might have to steal it [again] 😛
I stole it from somebody else five years ago, so go right ahead and pilfer. Just make sure you link me so I can see what you chose that I didn’t.
My favourite Interstellar shot. Interesting pick for Nightcrawler. Great post as always Ryan.
Nightcrawler was actually a REALLY tough one, as it was a film I loved visually but in hindsight feels like it was made up of sequences more than singular “shots”…
…does that make sense?
Wow, such a cool post! What a cool idea. Definitely want to see some of the films you mentioned on here. I particularly like the pictures you included for The Fault in Our Stars and Whiplash.
I give you full credit for pointing me towards TFIOS. Of course, one of the tricks to that entry was choosing a moment that was more than just the iconic scene on the bench.