Year-End Lists

Cinema Scope: Top Ten Films of 2015

[see also 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2010s • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2014 • 2013 • 2012 • 2011]

1. Cemetery of Splendor
   Apichatpong Weerasethakul
2. Arabian Nights
   Miguel Gomes
3. The Assassin
   Hou Hsiao-Hsien
4. The Forbidden Room
   Guy Maddin
5. Right Now, Wrong Then
   Hong Sang-soo
6. Visit, or Memories and Confessions
   Manoel de Oliveira
7. Lost and Beautiful
   Pietro Marcello
8. No Home Movie
   Chantal Akerman
9. The Treasure
   Corneliu Porumboiu
10. Kaili Blues
    Bi Gan

Special mentions

• 88:88
  Isiah Medina
• Bring Me the Head of Tim Horton
  Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson
• Carol
  Todd Haynes
• Chevalier
  Athina Rachel Tsangari
• In the Shadow of Women
  Philippe Garrel

Pazz & Jop: Top 100 Albums of 2015 (an annual poll of critics, published by The Village Voice)

[see also 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2014 • 2013 • 2012 • 2011]

1. To Pimp A Butterfly
   Kendrick Lamar
2. Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit
   Courtney Barnett
3. E•MO•TION
   Carly Rae Jepsen
4. Art Angels
   Grimes
5. No Cities To Love
   Sleater-Kinney
6. Carrie & Lowell
   Sufjan Stevens
7. Summertime ’06
   Vince Staples
8. The Epic
   Kamasi Washington
9. In Colour
   Jamie xx
10. I Love You, Honeybear
    Father John Misty
11. Something More Than Free
    Jason Isbell
12. Currents
    Tame Impala
13. Sound & Color
    Alabama Shakes
14. Wildheart
    Miguel
15. Surf
    Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment
16. Divers
    Joanna Newsom
17. DS2
    Future
18. If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late
    Drake
19. Beauty Behind the Madness
    The Weeknd
20. Pageant Material
    Kacey Musgraves
21. Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording)
    Lin-Manuel Miranda and the Original Broadway Cast
22. Painted Shut
    Hop Along
23. Vulnicura
    Björk
24. Traveller
    Chris Stapleton
25. Coming Home
    Leon Bridges
26. I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside: An Album
    Earl Sweatshirt
27. B’lieve I’m Goin Down…
    Kurt Vile
28. Sprinter
    TORRES
29. Blackheart
    Dawn Richard
30. Garden of Delete
    Oneohtrix Point Never
31. Ratchet
    Shamir
32. Barter 6
    Young Thug
33. Have You In My Wilderness
    Julia Holter
34. From Kinshasa
    Mbongwana Star
35. 25
    Adele
36. The Blade
    Ashley Monroe
37. Ivy Tripp
    Waxahatchee
38. Depression Cherry
    Beach House
39. Reality Show
    Jazmine Sullivan
40. SremmLife
    Rae Sremmurd
41. Every Open Eye
    Chvrches
42. Black Messiah
    D’Angelo and The Vanguard
43. Star Wars
    Wilco
44. High
    Royal Headache
45. Fading Frontier
    Deerhunter
46. Ones and Sixes
    Low
47. The Agent Intellect
    Protomartyr
48. The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us
    Beach Slang
49. Shadows In The Night
    Bob Dylan
50. The Most Lamentable Tragedy
    Titus Andronicus
51. Complicated Game
    James McMurtry
52. Tomorrow Is My Turn
    Rhiannon Giddens
53. The Magic Whip
    Blur
54. New Bermuda
    Deafheaven
55. 56 Nights
    DJ Esco & Future
56. Compton
    Dr. Dre
57. Poison Season
    Destroyer
57. Ego Death
    The Internet
59. Viet Cong
    Viet Cong
60. I Want to Grow Up
    Colleen Green
61. Honeymoon
    Lana Del Rey
62. Feels Like
    Bully
63. On Your Own Love Again
    Jessica Pratt
64. How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful
    Florence + The Machine
65. AT.LONG.LAST.A$AP
    A$AP Rocky
66. Mutant
    Arca
67. Natalie Prass
    Natalie Prass
68. Algiers
    Algiers
69. Stuff Like That There
    Yo La Tengo
70. Sprained Ankle
    Julien Baker
71. Full Communism
    Downtown Boys
72. Ten Love Songs
    Susanne Sundfør
73. This Is the Sonics
    The Sonics
74. Eat Pray Thug
    Heems
74. Music Complete
    New Order
76. Elaenia
    Floating Points
77. Foil Deer
    Speedy Ortiz
78. Platform
    Holly Herndon
79. FFS
    FFS
80. Over and Even
    Joan Shelley
81. Simple Songs
    Jim O’Rourke
82. Death Magic
    HEALTH
83. Mr. Misunderstood
    Eric Church
83. Heart of a Dog
    Laurie Anderson
85. The Waterfall
    My Morning Jacket
86. The Bootleg Series, Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965-1966
    Bob Dylan
87. Late Nights: The Album
    Jeremih
88. Grey Tickles, Black Pressure
    John Grant
89. Teens of Style
    Car Seat Headrest
90. Manhattan
    Jeffrey Lewis
91. 1989
    Ryan Adams
92. Unbreakable
    Janet Jackson
92. Beat the Champ
    The Mountain Goats
94. Let the Good Times Roll
    J.D. McPherson
95. But You Caint Use My Phone
    Erykah Badu
96. Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats
    Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats
97. Describes Things As They Are
    Beauty Pill
98. Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper
    Panda Bear
99. Rose Mountain
    Screaming Females
100. Predatory Headlights
     Tenement

Glenn Kenny: 47 Noteworthy Films of 2015 (released in the United States)

[see also 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2010s • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2013 • 2012]

1. Hard to Be a God
   Aleksey German
2. Anomalisa
   Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson
3. Girlhood
   Céline Sciamma
4. Horse Money
   Pedro Costa
5. Mad Max: Fury Road
   George Miller
6. Heart of a Dog
   Laurie Anderson
7. Heaven Knows What
   Ben Safdie and Joshua Safdie
8. Brooklyn
   John Crowley
9. The Hateful Eight
   Quentin Tarantino
10. Shaun the Sheep Movie
    Mark Burton and Richard Starzak
11. Ex Machina
    Alex Garland
12. Phoenix
    Christian Petzold
13. Son of Saul
    László Nemes
14. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
    JJ Abrams
15. The Assassin
    Hou Hsiao-Hsien
16. Inside Out
    Pete Docter
17. Carol
    Todd Haynes
18. The Mend
    John Magary
19. Timbuktu
    Abderrahmane Sissako
20. Creed
    Ryan Coogler
21. Fort Tilden
    Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers
22. Clouds of Sils Maria
    Olivier Assayas
23. The Revenant
    Alejandro González Iñárritu
24. Magic Mike XXL
    Gregory Jacobs
25. The Forbidden Room
    Guy Maddin
26. Experimenter
    Michael Almereyda
27. Queen of Earth
    Alex Ross Perry
28. Hitchcock/Truffaut
    Kent Jones
29. Democrats
    Camilla Nielsson
30. Field Niggas
    Khalik Allah
31. Bridge of Spies
    Steven Spielberg
32. Eden
    Mia Hansen-Løve
33. Mistress America
    Noah Baumbach
34. Crimson Peak
    Guillermo del Toro
35. Grandma
    Paul Weitz
36. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
    Christopher McQuarrie
37. Trainwreck
    Judd Apatow
38. Blackhat
    Michael Mann
39. The Martian
    Ridley Scott
40. Love & Mercy
    Bill Pohlad
41. Tangerine
    Sean Baker
42. Spotlight
    Tom McCarthy
43. The Duke of Burgundy
    Peter Strickland
44. The Big Short
    Adam McKay
45. Ant-Man
    Peyton Reed
46. I’ll See You in My Dreams
    Brett Haley
47. Ballet 422
    Jody Lee Lipes

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: 50 Best Books of 2015

[see also 2021]

Fiction

• Ancillary Mercy
  Ann Leckie
• Brush Back
  Sara Paretsky
• Did You Ever Have a Family
  Bill Clegg
• Eyes

  Novellas and Stories
  William H. Gass
• Fates and Furies
  Lauren Groff
• Finale

  A Novel of the Reagan Years
  Thomas Mallon
• The First Bad Man
  Miranda July
• Fortune Smiles

  Stories
  Adam Johnson
• Girl Waits with Gun
  Amy Stewart
• God Help the Child
  Toni Morrison
• A God in Ruins
  Kate Atkinson
• Golden Age
  Jane Smiley
• A History of Loneliness
  John Boyne
• In the Unlikely Event
  Judy Blume
• Inside the O’Briens
  Lisa Genova
• A Little Life
  Hanya Yanagihara
• Marry, Kiss, Kill
  Anne Flett-Giordano
• Our Souls at Night
  Kent Haruf
• Purity
  Jonathan Franzen
• The Secret Chord
  Geraldine Brooks
• Shanghai Redemption
  Qiu Xiaolong
• A Spool of Blue Thread
  Anne Tyler
• The State We’re In

  Maine Stories
  Ann Beattie
• Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights
  Salman Rushdie
• The Whites
  Richard Price (as Harry Brandt)

Nonfiction

• Anonymous Soldiers

  The Struggle for Israel, 1917-1947
  Bruce Hoffman
• The Art of Memoir
  Mary Karr
• Black Man in a White Coat

  A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine
  Damon Tweedy
• Between the World and Me
  Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Children of the Stone

  The Power of Music in a Hard Land
  Sandy Tolan
• Custer’s Trials

  A Life on the Frontier of a New America
  T.J. Stiles
• Dead Wake

  The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
  Erik Larson
• Destiny and Power

  The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush
  Jon Meacham
• Dreamland

  The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic
  Sam Quinones
• F.B. Eyes

  How J. Edgar Hoover’s Ghostreaders Framed African American Literature
  William J. Maxwell
• The Ferguson Report

  Department of Justice Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department
  United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division
• The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot

  The True Story of the Tyrant Who Created North Korea and The Young Lieutenant Who Stole His Way to Freedom
  Blaine Harden
• H Is for Hawk
  Helen Macdonald
• Katrina

  After the Flood
  Gary Rivlin
• Lesser Beasts

  A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig
  Mark Essig
• My Life on the Road
  Gloria Steinem
• On the Move

  A Life
  Oliver Sacks
• Once in a Great City

  A Detroit Story
  David Maraniss
• The Oregon Trail

  A New American Journey
  Rinker Buck
• Our Kids

  The American Dream in Crisis
  Robert D. Putnam
• Pitch by Pitch

  My View of One Unforgettable Game
  Bob Gibson and Lonnie Wheeler
• The Unsubstantial Air

  American Fliers in the First World War
  Samuel Hynes
• Washington’s Revolution

  The Making of America’s First Leader
  Robert Middlekauff
• Winter Is Coming

  Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped
  Garry Kasparov
• Young Eliot

  From St. Louis to "The Waste Land"
  Robert Crawford

BuzzFeed: 16 Best Poetry Books of 2015

[see also 2019 • 2016]

1. Voyage of the Sable Venus

   and Other Poems
   Robin Coste Lewis
2. Oracle
   Cate Marvin
3. Reconnaissance
   Carl Phillips
4. Felicity
   Mary Oliver
5. Application for Release from the Dream
   Tony Hoagland
6. Boy With Thorn
   Rickey Laurentiis
7. Bright Dead Things
   Ada Limón
8. Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude
   Ross Gay
9. Notes on the Assemblage
   Juan Felipe Herrera
10. Mistaking Each Other for Ghosts
    Lawrence Raab
11. The Uses of the Body
    Deborah Landau
12. How to Be Drawn
    Terrance Hayes
13. Shipbreaking
    Robin Beth Schaer
14. Wild Hundreds
    Nate Marshall
15. Sentences and Rain
    Elaine Equi
16. My Feelings
    Nick Flynn

Reverse Shot: 10 Best Movies of 2015

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2010s • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2014 • 2013 • 2012 • 2011]

1. In Jackson Heights
   Frederick Wiseman
2. Carol
   Todd Haynes
3. The Assassin
   Hou Hsiao-Hsien
4. Clouds of Sils Maria
   Olivier Assayas
5. Timbuktu
   Abderrahmane Sissako
6. Hard to Be a God
   Aleksey German
7. Arabian Nights
   Miguel Gomes
8. The Look of Silence
   Joshua Oppenheimer
9. Eastern Boys
   Robin Campillo
10. Horse Money
    Pedro Costa

The San Francisco Chronicle: Top 10 Books of 2015

[see also Favorite Books of 2022 • 100 Recommended Books of 2018 • Top 10 Books of 2018 • 100 Recommended Books of 2016 • Top 10 Books of 2016]

Fiction

• Fortune Smiles

  Stories
  Adam Johnson
• A Manual for Cleaning Women

  Selected Stories
  Lucia Berlin
• The Sellout
  Paul Beatty
• The Story of the Lost Child
  Elena Ferrante
• The Tsar of Love and Techno

  Stories
  Anthony Marra

Nonfiction

• Barbarian Days

  A Surfing Life
  William Finnegan
• Between the World and Me
  Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Ghettoside

  A True Story of Murder in America
  Jill Leovy
• H Is for Hawk
  Helen Macdonald
• Spectacle

  The Astonishing Life of Ota Benga
  Pamela Newkirk

Harper’s Bazaar: 15 Best Books of 2015

[see also 2023 • 2020 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016]

1. Between the World and Me
   Ta-Nehisi Coates
2. Purity
   Jonathan Franzen
3. M Train
   Patti Smith
4. God Help the Child
   Toni Morrison
5. Go Set a Watchman
   Harper Lee
6. My Life on the Road
   Gloria Steinem
7. Fates and Furies
   Lauren Groff
8. Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights
   Salman Rushdie
9. City on Fire
   Garth Risk Hallberg
10. My Journey
    Donna Karan
11. Beauty Is a Wound
    Eka Kurniawan
12. The Book of Lost and Found
    Lucy Foley
13. A Manual for Cleaning Women

    Selected Stories
    Lucia Berlin
14. The Girl On The Train
    Paula Hawkins
15. The Folded Clock

    A Diary
    Heidi Julavits

David Morgan: The 20 Best Films of 2015, as posted by CBS News (in alphabetical order)

[see also 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016]

• Amy
  Asif Kapadia
• Carol
  Todd Haynes
• Clouds of Sils Maria
  Olivier Assayas
• Ex Machina
  Alex Garland
• The Forbidden Room
  Guy Maddin
• Inside Out
  Pete Docter
• It Follows
  David Robert Mitchell
• The Look of Silence
  Joshua Oppenheimer
• Mad Max: Fury Road
  George Miller
• The Martian
  Ridley Scott
• Phoenix
  Christian Petzold
• The Revenant
  Alejandro González Iñárritu
• Room
  Lenny Abrahamson
• Son of Saul
  László Nemes
• Spotlight
  Tom McCarthy
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens
  JJ Abrams
• Steve Jobs
  Danny Boyle
• The Wolfpack
  Crystal Moselle
• The Wonders
  Alice Rohrwacher
• What We Do in the Shadows
  Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi

David Hudson: Top 17 Films of 2015, as published by Fandor’s Keyframe Daily

[see also 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016]

1. The Assassin
   Hou Hsiao-Hsien
2. Carol
   Todd Haynes
3. Inherent Vice
   Paul Thomas Anderson
4. Jafar Panahi’s Taxi
   Jafar Panahi
5. Cemetery of Splendor
   Apichatpong Weerasethakul
6. Mad Max: Fury Road
   George Miller
7. The Look of Silence
   Joshua Oppenheimer
8. 45 Years
   Andrew Haigh
9. Victoria
   Sebastian Schipper
10. The Forbidden Room
    Guy Maddin

Honorable Mentions

• Arabian Nights
  Miguel Gomes
• Mountains May Depart
  Jia Zhang-ke
• Ex Machina
  Alex Garland
• Counting
  Jem Cohen
• Eisenstein in Guanajuato
  Peter Greenaway
• Results
  Andrew Bujalski
• Naz & Maalik
  Jay Dockendorf