I am drawn to filmmaking that takes chances, eschews formula and isn’t made for the sole purpose of putting people in theater seats. Sure, selling tickets is important. Movies are business, and a big business at that. Studios and theaters don’t stick around for long unless they are turning a profit. Formulaic films serve a purpose – they pay the bills and allow for more exploratory filmmaking that isn’t likely to make money or even break even. Blockbusters might be predictable, but that’s largely what the public wants. And the public spends money on movies – or at least it used to.

With that said, here is a list of 10 films from 2020 that I found intriguing and inventive in some way. They are not necessarily the best 10 films or even my favorite movies from the past year (with a notable exception). Several films I rated at 90 or better on a scale of 100 are not on the list. But these are:

10. “The Place of No Words” (directed by Mark Webber; 37 out of 100) is not a great movie or even a good movie (it’s slow and all sorts of pretentious), but it challenges the viewer to think outside the box. It stars director/writer/producer Webber and his family (including his wife Teresa Palmer, also an actor; and their preschool son Bodhi) riffing on ideas as the camera records, bouncing back and forth between reality (where Webber is playing himself, but with a terminal illness) and fantasy as imagined by father and son as it explores the question, “Where do we go when we die?”

9. “Come to Daddy” (directed by Ant Timpson; 89 out of 100) would be too violent for most audiences to withstand if it all took itself seriously, but the gore is played for absurdity in a film full of dark comedy – the kind that will have you asking yourself if you should be laughing at this type of thing. It features Elijah Wood in the lead role and is buoyed by great performances from the supporting cast. The script also is clever; the movie never seems to go where you think it might be heading.

8. “Mank” (directed by David Fincher; 70 out of 100) is perhaps the most traditional movie on this list, but even that is by design because it was made to emulate Hollywood’s output in the 1930s and ’40s. It is beautifully filmed and meticulously made in glorious, panoramic black-and-white, with scene titles that appears as if they are being typed on a typewriter. And the score by Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails fame) is a wonderful throwback. Gary Oldman is superb, of course, as screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, who penned “Citizen Kane” as a middle finger to William Randolph Hearst and Hollywood’s then conservative politics. 

7. “Run” (directed by Aneesh Chaganty; 79 out of 100) checks off a lot of boxes on the list of psychological horror tropes, but it overcomes that and then some through the efforts of its two leads, Kiera Allen as a wheelchair-bound teen and Sarah Paulson as her overprotective mother. This film gets many points for its inclusive casting of Allen, who uses a wheelchair in real life. In her feature film debut, she proves up to the challenge of the role’s emotional and physical demands. Paulson is, of course, suitably creepy. And one scene, taking place at a movie theater and then a pharmacy, is surreally comical at an opportune time.

6. “The 40-Year-Old Version” (directed by Radha Blank; 79 out of 100) is a star-making vehicle for writer/director/comedic actor Blank, who is a force as a version of herself, a woman who is trying to work past the death of her mother and revive a once-promising career as a playwright as she teaches an acting class of disinterested high school students. Not everything works here, but the humor does, as the laughs are of the rapid-fire variety in the first hour of the film. It also serves as a poignant exploration of Black art and the efforts – purposeful or not – to oppress it or appropriate it. 

5. “Rent-a-Pal” (directed by Jon Stevenson; 81 out of 100) is the creepiest psychological horror film I saw in 2020, truly unsettling (but in a fun way) before sliding into standard scary movie territory during its climactic scene. The two leads – Brian Landis Folkins as David, a socially awkward 40-something who lives in his mother’s basement; and Wil Wheaton as Andy, who becomes David’s best friend even though he’s a suspiciously charming video show host who exists only on David’s TV – are wonderfully uncomfortable and horribly misogynist. The 1980s setting and the static and unstable tracking of a VHS tape enhance the off kilter feel. 

4. “The Swerve” (directed by Dean Kapsalis; 91 out of 100) is the most depressing film I have seen in a long time, and I see a lot of depressing films. This one is painfully sad because it is such an honest look at the downward spiral of mental illness. Azura Skye stars as Holly, a teacher who suffers from a variety of issues, made all the worse by insomnia. Soon, Holly loses touch with reality (or does she?), and her personal and professional lives fall to pieces. The ending is horrific (a suicide attempt that goes awry), but the toughest moment to swallow is when Holly’s husband has forced himself on her, and during the act she asks about her current mental state, “Is it always going to be like this? Is it?”

3. “Dick Johnson is Dead” (directed by Kirsten Johnson; 91 out of 100) is the only documentary on this list, a macabre look at death Johnson made about her aging father, Dick Johnson, a psychiatrist who is in the early stages of dementia. In several fantasy sequences woven inside footage of the father and daughter in real life, Kirsten Johnson stages various ways in which her father could die, then imagines what the afterlife might be like for him. The fantasy sequences are beautifully staged, bright and upbeat in a documentary that addresses the serious topic of mortality. Dick Johnson is a hoot as himself, but the film also is tender and sad as Dick Johnson’s memory loss worsens and his independence is gone.

2. “Swallow” (directed by Carlo Mirabella-Davis; 82 out of 100) is a film I struggled to write about because its subject matter is tough to even think about. It stars Hailey Bennett as Hunter, a woman who is disenchanted with her marriage and seemingly perfect upscale lifestyle. To fight back the boredom and to rebel against her husband and in-laws, she starts swallowing inedible objects. The condition is real; pica is a psychological disorder in which those stricken will eat everything from hair to dirt and even feces. I watched “Swallow” early in the year and still can vividly see Hunter putting a small screwdriver up to her mouth and swallowing it. The film treats the condition honestly but in a non-exploitive way, and a powerful performance by Bennett promotes sympathy for her character.

1. “First Cow” (directed by Kelly Reichardt; 97 out of 100) is the best movie I saw in 2020, and part of what makes it such an outstanding piece of filmmaking is that it takes a familiar genre (the American Western) and familiar characters (rough-around-the-edges dreamers trudging their way out West in the 1800s) and produces a fresh reimagining of it and tells the type of tale not covered in your typical shoot-‘em-ups. Cookie (John Magaro) is a sensitive cook tasked with finding and preparing food for a band of drunken, ill-tempered fur trappers. He meets a fugitive (Orion Lee as King Lu), and the two pursue a better life by making doughnut-like pastries they sell at forts. Problem is, they are stealing the milk to make their product from a wealthy man’s cow, the only bovine in the territory. Like Reichardt’s other works, “First Cow” is deliberate to say the least. But the pace allows time for deep thought about the film’s commentary on capitalism, masculinity, male friendship, the American dream and the blurry line between right and wrong. And it’s a film worth thinking about.