The world turned upside down: Hamilton at 10

One of the things about great art that distinguishes it from the merely good is the way it changes over time. It is malleable, not because anything inherent to the piece changes but because we change. It becomes what we need it to be, meeting the moment to reflect our hopes, our fears, and our insecurities.

When Hamilton debuted on Broadway 10 years ago, we were in Year 7 of the Barack Obama presidency. That presidency, though complicated, at least felt like the needle was moving in the right direction, pointing toward the dream of a more perfect union. It felt like an era of progress, opportunity, and possibility. For whatever flaws and failures you want to discuss from that time, America had at least pushed up against the bounds of what was possible, discovered a way to move forward.

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical reflected this in both execution and theme. Blending hip-hop and R&B with traditional Broadway musical numbers, a mostly non-white cast portraying the all-white Founding Fathers, its story of the fight for change and the need to put the cause above the self – it all spoke to the moment. In a word, it was inspiring. It said: Get out there, change the world, remake it in your image.

Then, 2016 happened. The desire to make America great again is inherently backward thinking, regressive, a challenge to the very notion of progress. It is borne out of fear and an inability or refusal to adapt to a changing world. It is also a weak argument, which to succeed requires only that good people do nothing. As we saw, though many stood, enough good people did nothing.

For this, too, Miranda had given us the blueprint in the form of Aaron Burr. He says nothing, does nothing, stands for nothing. He waits to see which way the winds blow, then follows. He is always behind, whereas progress and change exist at the tip of the spear. The Alexander Hamilton of Miranda’s story proudly – if haphazardly on occasion – carries the spear into battle. The Burrs of the world, who refuse to join the fight, only make it that much harder for the people on the front line to succeed.

The years went on, Hamilton becoming both the most successful musical in history and a flashpoint in the culture wars. The very people who mocked college students for requesting “safe spaces” were aghast when their vice president was booed while attending a performance of the show on Broadway. “How about a little respect and civility?” cried the people in their “Fuck Your Feelings” T-shirts.

Perhaps a few more of them would have survived if we would have printed “Fuck Your Feelings” masks. Oh, right, the pandemic. While the Hamilton cast recording was on its way toward becoming the best-selling cast album of all time, the apparatus put in place to protect the nation – and the world at large – from the next inevitable virus was being dismantled by people more concerned with destroying what came before than building what would come next. Backward thinking, remember?

So, those of us privileged enough to quarantine quarantined. We sought comfort. We sought release. We sought something to make us feel a little more whole, a little more human again. And once more, there was Hamilton.

In early February 2020, Disney paid $75 million to acquire the rights to a filmed version of the Broadway show, featuring the original cast, in one of the most expensive film-acquisition deals in history. The announced plan was to release the film in theaters in October 2021, but you will note that “early February 2020” is about five weeks before everything changed.

Cinemas shut down. Broadway theaters shut down. The world shut down. Apart from whatever else this meant – which we don’t have time to get into here – it accelerated the streaming revolution exponentially. Last Cinema Standing or not, to get my movie fix, I had to stream (though I did attend a fair number of drive-in movies during the lockdown).

The race was on to dominate the streaming landscape. Netflix, of course, had a massive headstart, having been in the game, pushing this radical change for years. Amazon Prime had been around, taking up much of the rest of the marketplace. But, as it became clear streaming was the future, everyone felt the need to get in on the action. Disney being Disney, the Mouse House got in ahead of the curve – pun intended; remember flattening the curve? – and launched Disney+ in November 2019, a mere four months before lockdown. HBO Max launched in May 2020 and Peacock in July that year.

What was Disney to do with this $75 million investment in a film with no theaters in which to play it? Well, bully for them, the company had a streaming service in need of a splashy way to draw subscribers. Nothing could be splashier than a high-quality recording of an era-defining, zeitgeist-capturing musical that was just sitting on a shelf for the theoretical day theaters might reopen. So, Disney dropped Hamilton into the streaming ocean, and more than a splash, it was a tidal wave.

It premiered July 3, 2020. Within a month, an estimated 37 percent of all Disney+ subscribers had watched it. At the time, that translated to 22 million subscribers, and unless they all watched it alone, that meant significantly more than 22 million people had watched it. The weekend of its release, the Disney+ app saw a 72 percent increase in downloads over the week prior. It ended up being the second-most streamed film of 2020, behind only Wonder Woman 1984.

If you were on the internet at the time, you know its impact went far beyond streaming numbers and app downloads. It was inescapable. The memes, the discussion boards, the videos, the fan theories – Hamilton was everywhere. Every theater kid, past and present, came out of the woodwork to celebrate this cultural moment.

I watched it July 6, three days after its release. Then again July 7. And again July 12. It had me. Instantly, I recognized it as the towering artistic achievement that it is. I had just two regrets. First, I lived in New York City during Hamilton’s Broadway heights. I could have seen it, should have seen it, but tickets were going for $500 a seat minimum. The expense felt unjustifiable. This was a large part of the reason Miranda agreed to create a filmed version of the show in the first place: to make it accessible to families without $2,000 to spend on a Broadway show, if they could even get to Broadway.

It’s one of the reasons I prefer film to live theater. The rush of live theater is wonderful. I have acted in a number of shows and sat in attendance for some fabulous productions. But, it’s an experience reserved for those privileged by money and proximity. It is fleeting, existing only for the moment of time in which it is performed, which is what lends it its power. But, it’s not very democratic. I cannot convey to you the experience of sitting in the third row of the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in 2015 and witnessing the magic of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. You had to be there.

With a movie on the other hand, I can take you to the cinema and you will have the same experience I did. I can lend you a DVD or send you a link to stream it. It will be the same tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. And, we need not live anywhere near each other or near a single venue to share the experience. Film is for the people.

The second regret I alluded to was that I could watch the recording of Hamilton only at home, not in the theater as intended. I have a very nice TV and a comfortable living room, but it’s no cinema. And, while I understood the business thinking behind Disney’s decision, I lamented that we might never see Hamilton on the big screen. And then, all of a sudden, here it was.

In theaters this week, at long last, we have Hamilton. It opened No. 2 at the box office, earning a little more than $10 million. For a show that has slipped from the zeitgeist and a film that has been available to stream for five years, it’s an impressive haul, and Disney must be wondering how much money was left on the table all these years. The Disney coffers, however, are none of my concern. We are getting this show at the exact moment we need it, reflecting still our ever-changing hopes, fears, and insecurities. 

It would be absurd if it weren’t true that we have the opportunity to watch a cast of mostly Black and Latino performers sing about the promise of building a free nation at the very moment the Supreme Court of that nation has empowered the government to terrorize communities of color.

How darkly comic that just a couple weeks removed from the latest mass shooting to result in the deaths of children – a uniquely American pastime – we can take in a story about cycles of gun violence and the need to break our patterns in order to protect future generations from the mistakes we have made.

What cosmic joke puts us in a theater for a show about the power of democracy and the need to stand up to tyranny in the same instant that the very foundation of democracy – that one person’s vote counts the same as another’s – is under attack, not for the first time and surely not for the last?

I would love to sit here and gush about everything that makes Hamilton such an achievement as a piece of musical theater: the intricacies of the lyrics, the stunning choreography (which is only improved by seeing it on the big screen, by the way), the structure, the detail, and the performances. But, you don’t need me to tell you that what Miranda has created is singular in its vision and execution. The show speaks for itself.

And, anyway, me sitting here, breaking down how Miranda’s leitmotifs clue us in to each character’s fate long before they become clear in the plot would be a little like analyzing the brush strokes on Monet’s Water Lilies. It would be fun and perhaps informative, but it would miss the forest for the trees. I’m more interested in what we feel when we take it in and what we can do with that feeling.

In the moments before his onstage death, Alexander sings:

“Legacy, what is a legacy?

It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.

I wrote some notes at the beginning of a song someone will sing for me.

America, you great unfinished symphony, you sent for me.

You let me make a difference.

A place where even orphan immigrants

Can leave their fingerprints and rise up.”

So, the feeling I am left with watching Hamilton now is that these words do not reflect the America I see around me, but rather the nation I wish we could be. The villains want to write our country’s coda, but we cannot let them. Let this moment in history be a measure, a phrase, a single note that fades into oblivion and gives way to the song we sing tomorrow, together in triumph.

Monday Miniatures: The Toxicity of the City

Peter Dinklage in The Toxic Avenger

Welcome to Monday Miniatures, where I tell you about some of the stuff I’ve been watching in the past week that I wouldn’t otherwise get to share.

The week of Sept. 1-7, 2025:

Caught Stealing, directed by Darren Aronofsky

How I watched it: In theaters (AMC Burbank 16)

Fun but ultimately empty is how I would describe Aronofsky’s latest, a scuzzy romp through the criminal underworld of 1998 New York City. I had a great time while I was watching it, and I think Austin Butler is a movie star, but I left the theater feeling like I’d enjoyed a wonderful buffet of desserts and wishing I’d had a full meal.

For a long time, I would have called Aronofsky one of my favorite directors. Requiem for a Dream was an absolute revelation to me the first time I watched it, and his first five films (Pi, Requiem, The Fountain, The Wrestler, and Black Swan) comprise one of the most emotionally arresting and visually inventive filmographies of the past three decades. Noah is a biblical epic with ambitions that outstrip its accomplishments, and Aronofsky feels a little lost in all the CGI. And, I love mother!, but now, eight years on, its box office failure feels like it may have broken the director a bit.

It all led to The Whale, which despite its two Academy Award wins, feels like the most anonymous movie Aronofsky has made. And now, we get Caught Stealing, which is less anonymous than it is a well executed imitation of other filmmakers and films, specifically Martin Scorsese, Guy Ritchie, and a whole host of post-Quentin Tarantino ’90s crime films. It’s not bad. It’s a lovely time at the movies. But, it’s not the director I fell in love with all those years ago.

The Toxic Avenger Unrated, directed by Macon Blair

How I watched it: In theaters (Alamo Drafthouse DTLA)

I am glad I watched the original Toxic Avenger the previous week, as this film is loaded with so many winking nods and knowing callbacks that it feels almost required in order to have a passing understanding of Blair’s remake. 

Blair won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance with his debut feature I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore, which is a good film that I liked but which I believe is mostly remembered for representing a watershed moment in the shift to streaming supremacy. Netflix bought it out of Sundance and put it straight onto its streaming service a month later, bypassing theaters entirely. Before that, the idea of the top prize winner at Sundance not playing in theaters would have been unthinkable. Now look where we are.

As suggested by the “Unrated” portion of the title, Blair’s followup effort has endured a similarly strange release journey. After premiering at a number of fall festivals in 2023, the film was deemed by one distributor “unreleaseable” due to its violent content. This is absurd on the face of it, as the film is no more violent than a John Wick movie, which suggests to me distributors were scared off by the film’s tone and its environmental message.

Blair nails the Troma tone, the practical gore effects are fun (even the poor CGI shots lend a Troma-esque quality), and Peter Dinklage is inspired casting as the unremarkable custodian who becomes Toxie. In fact, the whole cast is wonderful, including Jacob Tremblay and zola. star Taylour Paige as Toxie’s allies and Kevin Bacon and Elijah Wood as the nefarious enemies.

An interesting change for this updated version is that in the original, the gym rat bullies and the corrupt politicians polluting the town are separate antagonists. Here, they are one in the same, with Bacon playing Bob Garbinger, a corrupt business tycoon running a fitness empire built on supplements that not only don’t work but which in fact poison the town. Bacon is a perfect meathead, playing a type that will seem all too familiar to those of us living through the current moment.

I had a great time with this movie. It honors the original while improving upon it and finding something new to say using a classic character, which is about the best we could ask for from any remake.

Ms. 45, directed by Abel Ferrara

How I watched it: Criterion Channel

This was not my speed. I appreciate Ferrara’s whole thing and that many people jibe with it, but it’s not for me. I find it thematically shallow and exploitative for the sake of exploitation, particularly this film, which concerns a mute seamstress (Zoë Lund) who is sexually assaulted multiple times and goes on a bloody rampage of revenge through the dilapidated streets of early ’80s New York City.

The whole rape-revenge genre is fraught, of course, and Ferrara just isn’t the filmmaker to have a sensitive or nuanced take on the material. He seems more interested in contriving an ending in which he can have Lund dress up as a sexy nun – with a gun. It’s all a little boys-only boarding school fantasy. Lund is fine as the lead, but she doesn’t have anything interesting to do.

Dangerous Animals, directed by Sean Byrne

How I watched it: Shudder

This is a movie about a serial killer who uses sharks as his weapon of choice. If you didn’t know, now you know. Heckuva premise. I had wanted to catch this one in theaters when it was out earlier this summer but could never work it into the schedule. So, when it premiered on the Shudder streaming service Friday, I watched it first thing.

It starts off with a bang, then takes its foot off the pedal for a large chunk of the first half. We get some ho-hum character development and some hokey dialogue, but our heroes, played by Hassie Harrison and Josh Heuston, are certainly likeable enough by the time we get to the bloodletting. And, if we’re being honest, that’s what we’re all here for in the shark-wielding serial killer movie, yes? Well, on that front, it delivers.

Jai Courtney plays that killer in a performance that’s pitched to the back rows, and it’s perfect. He’s having so much fun that he practically insists the audience have fun, too. We get a few cutaway shots to Courtney by himself, celebrating his latest kill, and while I will leave you to discover the details yourself, trust me when I say those moments are worth the price of admission in and of themselves.

Again, the movie does drag a bit until the final act, and because much of the action is set on a quite small boat, some of the sequences can start to feel a tad repetitive. There are only so many ways to stage an escape on a set with three basic looks. I will say that one of those sequences features an escape from handcuffs that I have never seen before and which absolutely shocked me in the best way. Points for originality there. Overall, despite a relatively brief runtime (98 minutes), the movie could have been tighter, but the promise of the premise is fulfilled, so it’s well worth a watch.

Hamilton, directed by Thomas Kail

How I watched it: In theaters (El Capitan, Hollywood)

If you have followed the site at all over the past five years, you will be aware of my abiding love for Hamilton, both the musical and the filmed stage production, which has been available on Disney+ since 2020. This past weekend, Disney finally released it into theaters, as had always been the plan until the pandemic hit. I will have more on this in a separate piece on the site this week, so be on the lookout for that. Until then, all I will say is that if you can see this in theaters, do see it. It’s magical.

Weekend at Bernie’s, directed by Ted Kotcheff

How I watched it: AMC+

This rewatch was inspired by the season finale of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s excellent AppleTV+ show The Studio, in which Rogen and Co. must parade around the passed-out-drunk executive that owns their studio as though he is alive and awake. Bryan Cranston won an Emmy this past weekend for his work in the episode, which is a tremendous feat of physical comedy.

That feat derives directly and almost whole cloth from the work of Terry Kiser as the titular Bernie in this ’80s farce par excellence. I couldn’t guess how many times I have seen this movie, which we owned on VHS when I was growing up and which was in fairly constant rotation. As a child,I loved Andrew McCarthy’s wacky, fun-loving Larry. Of course, as adults, we gravitate toward the anxious, put-upon Richard (Jonathan Silverman). But, on this watch, I specifically paid attention to Kiser as the dead body at the heart of the film, and he is magnificent.

There are some jokes that don’t stand the test of time – In an ’80s comedy? You don’t say! – such as when the fake suicide note suggests Larry is going to get a sex-change operation, which he immediately equates to being called a drag queen. Unfortunate stuff, and frankly, a little out of sync with where we were even in 1989. But, generally speaking, it’s all in good fun, and if you can’t laugh at the sight of a lifeless corpse water skiing, you might be as dead as Bernie.

Interesting to note Kotcheff had one of the more prolific and versatile careers of his time, bouncing among period dramas, thrillers, action, and comedy with a fair amount of facility. He is responsible for filming one of the great Australian masterpieces in Wake in Fright, a terrifying descent into madness that I highly recommend if you have not seen it. But, he certainly will be best remembered for launching the Rambo franchise with 1982’s First Blood, a more interesting, introspective movie than you remember it being.

Kotcheff died in April this year, just three days after his 94th birthday. Rest in peace to a talented journeyman who left his mark on the industry.

Year in Review: Top 10 Performances of 2020

By now, we know the theme of this year-in-review project is more what is missing than what is here. Among the acclaimed performances I have yet to see are Frances McDormand in Nomadland, Carey Mulligan in Promising Young Woman, and Steven Yeun in Minari. There are others, and I look forward to catching up with all of them in the months to come. None of that, however, takes away from the tremendous work I was able to see in 2020 and which we celebrate below.

First, five more excellent performances that I saw in 2020 that did not quite make the top 10 (alphabetically): Radha Blank in The 40-Year-Old Version; Julia Garner in The Assistant; Jude Law in The Nest; Noémie Merlant in Portrait of a Lady on Fire; Shaun Parkes in Small Axe.

The Top 10:

10. Carrie Coon as Allison O’Hara in The Nest

Carrie Coon, so good in her smaller film roles over the years and as the star of HBO’s The Leftovers, finally gets a role in which she can unleash the full breadth of her talents. As a woman who slowly realizes the depths of her husband’s delusions and the faulty foundation on which her life has been built, she is tremendous. Coon lets the character’s quiet reserve fester until it explodes into fury and that fury precipitates action as Allison takes back her life.

9. Sharlene Whyte as Agnes Smith in Small Axe

The underrated final portion of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe, Education, is a searing indictment of “educationally suboptimal schools” in the UK, where mostly children of color are sent by a white school system that no longer wants anything to do with them. Sharlene Whyte is phenomenal as a mother who learns of the “education” her son is receiving at his school and resolves to do something about it. Whyte never softens the character’s harder edges, depicting a woman whose life may be difficult but who will go to any lengths for the welfare of her children. 

8. Delroy Lindo as Paul in Da 5 Bloods

Delroy Lindo has been in movies and on television for more than 45 years, but too rarely has he been the lead, and never has he been given a character of this much nuance and depth. Lindo brings great pathos to the character of a Trump-supporting Vietnam vet suffering from PTSD who loses his mind in the jungle. The lengthy monologue he delivers directly to the camera toward the end of the film is among the finest pieces of acting of this or any other year, and Lindo makes it look effortless.

7. Adèle Haenel as Heloïse in Portrait of a Lady on Fire

It would be difficult to argue against Adèle Haenel as the finest actress working in French cinema today. The 32-year-old Parisian is a seven-time Caesar Award nominee (the French Oscars equivalent) and two-time winner. She has been great in everything from minor roles to leads, and as the repressed muse of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, she makes the case for global superstardom. Whether she wants it or not is up to her, but the strength and passion of this performance are proof enough that there is nothing to hold her back.

6. Viola Davis as Ma Rainey in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Viola Davis can do anything. I do not mean that only in the acting sense. I feel like you could ask her to perform surgery and she would do a fine job of it. Such is the intelligence and confidence she imbues all of her characters with, and Ma Rainey is just further evidence. Ma Rainey is a woman who knows her worth and refuses to settle for less than her due, and like the great jazz performers depicted in the film, Davis uses all the notes in the scale to bring the character to life.

5. Elisabeth Moss as Cecilia Kass in The Invisible Man

From Florence Pugh in Midsommar to Lupita Nyong’o in Us to Toni Collette in Hereditary, horror films have given us some of the most extraordinary performances by actresses in recent years. I am not sure what it says about the industry for that to be true -- or rather, I could not speculate in this small space -- but whatever the reason, the genre continues to offer up complex, powerful female leads that are missing from so much of the rest of cinema.

Of course, it requires great performers to take advantage of these characters, and Elisabeth Moss has shown time and again that she is one of the finest performers we have. The role of Cecilia could be that of a typical scream queen in a lesser movie, but Moss and the filmmakers are committed to showing the character’s slow descent into madness and finally her rise to empowerment. Moss is expert at depicting every frayed nerve in her character as Cecelia is hunted and terrorized but never loses sight of the inner strength she possesses.

4. Renée Elise Goldsberry as Angelica Schuyler in Hamilton

Any single member of the featured cast of Hamilton could appear on this list. They are all uniformly superb. Renée Elise Goldsberry, however, makes such an impression when she is on stage that the character of Angelica casts a large shadow over the entire show, despite appearing in relatively little of the lengthy production. “Satisfied” is a show-stopping number in every sense of the word, commanding the audience’s full attention as Angelica rewinds the clock and tells part of the story from her perspective.

It is one of the more experimental flourishes in the Broadway smash, but with Goldsberry at its center, we are with it every step of the way. The performance is a vocal masterclass, with Goldsberry using every syllable like a painter uses brush strokes. What the film version makes clear, though, is the depth of the portrayal. The pain, the regret, the betrayal, the forgiveness, Goldsberry has internalized the character to the point where it exists in the smallest movements, as well as the grandest flourishes. 

3. Riz Ahmed as Ruben in Sound of Metal

From his work in the blackly comic satire Four Lions to the deranged phantasmagoria that was Nightcrawler, two things have always been abundantly clear about RIz Ahmed: He is a wonderfully physical performer and an intensely smart performer. Ruben, a heavy metal drummer losing his hearing, requires both of those traits, and Ahmed absolutely shines.

Ruben’s life is dedicated to movement, whether physically behind the drum kit or geographically while on tour. There is no stillness, so when he becomes figuratively imprisoned by the loss of his hearing, he reacts like an animal caged. He knows he needs help, but he cannot quiet his mind long enough to ask for the kind of help he truly needs. Ahmed executes all of this with Newtonian precision: He is a body at motion that wants to remain in motion, but he cannot stop the outside forces of life.

2. Sidney Flanigan as Autumn in Never Rarely Sometimes Always

We talked about that scene last time in our Quotes and Moments column, but go back and watch it again. It cannot be overstated how much Sidney Flanigan is doing in that moment to bring us into Autumn’s world, as she relives all the traumas and disappointments of a short but brutal life. Eliza Hittman’s camera never looks away, which means the audience never looks away, as Autumn breaks down before our very eyes. Through it all, Flanigan, the 22-year-old first-time film actress, never steps wrong.

The film, though, is more than a single scene, and Flanigan’s performance is more than a single moment. Autumn’s breakdown would not hit as hard for us if Flanigan had not invested the time and work into all the small moments that come before it. She creates a character of strength and resolve, forced to protect herself, like so many others, by putting up seemingly insurmountable emotional walls. Flanigan builds these walls so skillfully that when they do come down, as they must, it is shattering.

1. Chadwick Boseman as Levee in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

It might be tempting in some corners to call this a stunt, to suggest Chadwick Boseman’s tragic death in some way contributed to his placement at No. 1 here. That temptation, however, would only occur to folks who have not seen this movie. As good as one might hope Boseman would be in his final onscreen appearance, he is better. This is a performer doing career-best work, working at the peak of his skills, and we are left wondering only how high the peak could have gotten.

In Da 5 Bloods, Boseman plays a soldier, but it is here as Levee where he feels like a man at war -- at war with himself, at war with those around him, at war with the world. He fights, using every ounce of strength within him, to put on a show for all to see. The swagger, the shoes, even the music, it all hides the pain he dares not show. Finally, when that pain is released, it is like a crack opening in the very crust of the earth, and he spews the red-hot magma of his rage over everyone and everything in his vicinity.

Of course, it begins with August Wilson’s beautiful words, but there is a short list of actors talented enough to bring their full depth into the open. James Earl Jones could do it. Denzel Washington could do it. And here, Chadwick Boseman has done it. The “Your god ain’t shit” monologue deserves to go down in history with the great film speeches. Boseman makes it equal parts frightening and pained. Simply, it is the kind of work great actors do, and damn was he great.

Year in Review: What is a ‘2020 Movie’ anyway?

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Another way to phrase that headline would be: What is a movie in 2020 anyway? In one sense, what I mean is which movies would be eligible for “best of the year” consideration in a year as strange as 2020? In another sense, however, I mean to ask what we even mean anymore when we talk about film. Is it the theater? Is the pedigree of the artists? Is there some magical, mysterious force that confers importance upon a project such that we deem it “cinema?”

Famous culture critics such as Matt Zoller Seitz and Alan Sepinwall have raged against the debate between cinema and television for years, particularly when a director like David Lynch suggests the third season of his show Twin Peaks should actually be considered an 18-hour movie. Such a suggestion implies a certain embarrassment at the prospect of having made television instead of film. That is, of course, silly. Breaking Bad may be one of the finest pieces of art of the 21st century. It is definitively television, and it is decidedly better and more important that 90 percent of what we might call cinema.

If it were ever important at all to distinguish the two, the difference between film and television used to be relatively clear in my mind. Movies played in theaters. Television played at home on TV. With the rise of streaming and the seeming de-emphasis of the cinema, though, the lines get blurrier and blurrier, and the noise on both sides of the debate gets louder and louder.

It is funny even to frame it as a debate. The stakes are low, there is no right answer, and no one wins a prize for convincing anyone of anything. Anyway, for most folks, the distinction is academic. If you can watch it and enjoy it, does it matter if it is film or television or some weird hybrid in between or none of the above? No, but around here, we like to make academic distinctions.

So, we will not frame this as a debate --  I feel no need to convince you, and you should feel no need to change your mind -- but rather a discussion in four parts.

Case study No. 1: Portrait of a Lady on Fire

You may recall hearing a lot about Céline Sciamma’s brilliant romance around this time last year. The film debuted at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival then opened in theaters in November 2019 for a one-week Academy Awards qualifying run. It received no nominations, but the critics and few audience members who had seen it immediately recognized its brilliance. Thus, Portrait of a Lady on Fire ended up at or near the top of many Best of 2019 lists and even a few end-of-decade lists. It was not on mine.

I did not get to see the film until the same time much of the public did -- in February 2020. Its greatness was, of course, self-evident, featuring two stunning lead performances from Adèle Haenel and Noémie Merlant and some of the most gorgeous cinematography you will ever see. My own Best of 2019 lists had long since been compiled, and it felt strange to consider putting it on my Best of 2020 list more than a year and a half after it screened at Cannes.

This actually is a common problem with Academy eligibility and release windows of foreign films. One of the best films of 2016 was Danish war drama Land of Mine, but you will not find it on any of my year-end lists. This is because it was nominated at the 2016 Oscars but released in the U.S. in early 2017. To complicate matters further, it screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2015 and was released to theaters in Denmark in December that year. So, is Land of Mine one of the best films of 2015, 2016, or 2017? 

Such matters really only matter to those of us obsessed with listmaking and chronicling the history of the cinema in an orderly fashion. By any measure, Land of Mine is a tremendous achievement and a must-see film. So it is with Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which will appear in my end-of-2020 wraps-ups. By any previously established precedent, it would not have qualified for me as a “2020 movie,” but as we now know, 2020 was the year of the unprecedented.

Case study No. 2: Hamilton and David Byrne’s American Utopia

I have never attended one of those Fathom Events screenings where they show pre-recorded performances of theater productions. They always seem interesting but have never been a viewing priority. However, when I heard Disney was going to release Hamilton in theaters, that became a priority. Of course, theaters shut down and Disney chose to release the show on its nascent streaming platform in July.

The show, of course, is excellent, but is it a movie? Most would say no. The Academy deemed it ineligible for Oscars consideration, although it will be eligible at the Golden Globes as a film. Perhaps an argument could be made for it as an avant-garde documentary depicting a single performance of the Broadway show Hamilton. 

It certainly feels as though it rises above the level of a mere pre-recorded stage production, with editing choices and camera angles that place it in the realm of great cinema. But as Zoller Seitz and Sepinwall will tell you, a filmed piece of art being great does not make it a movie. I have not seen Hamilton appear on many if any year-end lists, particularly not those strictly confined to film. And yet, we have David Byrne’s American Utopia this very year as a counterexample.

The Spike Lee concert film of David Byrne’s Broadway show is a wonderful, joyous document, and it has appeared on many end-of-the-year lists, but it is not substantially different from Hamilton as a film. It is a Broadway production, recorded and presented with amazing craft by a great filmmaker. Fans of Stop Making Sense or The Last Waltz would argue the concert film has a long, vital history in the cinema, but what is a Broadway musical if not a concert with a story?

Again, I have no answers here, only questions and beliefs. In this case, that belief is that if we want to call Lee’s film one of the best of the year -- and it should certainly be considered as such -- then we should refer to Hamilton in the same fashion.

Case study No. 3: Small Axe

I will be brief here because I intend to write about Small Axe in much greater depth in the coming days. If you are unfamiliar, Small Axe is a series of five feature films directed by Steve McQueen, all dealing with the experiences of West Indian peoples in the UK around the mid-20th century. The films played on Amazon Prime in the US and the BBC in the UK, though the first two features in the series, Mangrove and Lover’s Rock, premiered at the New York Film Festival.

If you look around, you will find Small Axe represented across lists of the best television of the year and the best films of the year, sometimes by the same publications. Everyone can agree on the series’ brilliance, but no one can seem to agree what it is. Some critics have broken it apart and called Lover’s Rock one of the standalone best films of the year, while still others have made the NYFF double feature of Mangrove and Lover’s Rock a single entry.

I do not begrudge anyone their opinion and am simply thrilled Small Axe is receiving the recognition it deserves. Hopefully, wherever people read about it, they are intrigued, and they watch it. That is the point of all this year-end handwringing anyway. For me, much like Krzysztof Kieślowski’s much-lauded Decalogue, Small Axe is meant to be taken as a whole. It is one grand, magnificent film, and that is how this site will treat it.

Case study No. 4: Nomadland, et. al.

Finally, what of the “2020” films that were not released to theaters or streaming services in the previous calendar year? Nomadland, Minari, Promising Young Woman, and more, the movies some folks have seen, which will be eligible for this year’s Academy Awards, but which most of the filmgoing public will not have had the chance to view. These are some of the best reviewed, most anticipated films of the year, and they just will not be able to factor into any kind of year-end wrap-up, at least not on this site.

If all of them end up being stunning masterpieces, then we will likely have a more wide-ranging version of the Portrait of a Lady on Fire scenario outlined above, and that is okay. If January 2020 rolls around and I am the only one left talking about Nomadland amid next year’s crop of potential modern classics, then so be it. I am here to talk about great films, whenever and however, and at the end of it all, that is why we are here. To talk about great films, whether or not they fit our preconceived notion of cinema.