AFI Fest 2015 Preview: ScreenAnarchy Picks 10 Top Films

Southbound

The most cohesive and perhaps best put together of the recent spate of horror anthologies, this TIFF-premierer includes blood-soaked and scream-filled pieces directed by Roxanne Benjamin, David Bruckner, Patrick Horvath, and Radio Silence.

The Lobster

Yorgos Lanthimos's (Dogtooth, Alps) Cannes-debuting story of oddness has received plenty of attention across its festival run. The film stars Colin Farrell, Jessica Barden, Rachel Weisz, Olivia Colman, Ashley Jensen, Ariane Labed, Angeliki Papoulia, John C. Reilly, Léa Seydoux, Michael Smiley, and Ben Whishaw.

Mountains May Depart

Jia Zhangke's time-shifting modern Chinese triptych is a fascinating exploration of Chinese culture and filmmaking and a worthy follow-up to his equally impactful A Touch of Sin.

Carol

One of the films likely to be gaining a good amount of buzz as the awards season kicks into life is Todd Haynes's lesbian love story Carol. On the backs of incredible performances by Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchette, it should be a bit of a slugfest for the best actress nominations.

Our Little Sister

Kore-eda Hirokazu's latest is the story of a group of sisters who discover a new young sister they weren't aware of. In his glowing review, Twitch's Ard Vijn called it breezy in just the right ways.

Dheepan

What starts as a fascinating story of immigrant politics becomes one of the year's most visceral action dramas (in a year filled with visceral action dramas). Another fantastic film from Jacques Audiard, director The Beat That My Heart Skipped, A Prophet, and Rust & Bone.

Baskin

Can Evrenol goes to great lengths to prove he knows how to tell an interesting character story and show he knows how to direct some batshit crazy horror in this assured debut feature from Turkey.

The Big Short

Is anyone not psyched for this financial crisis narrative directed by Adam McKay and starring a cavalcade of big stars from Steve Carrell to Christian Bale to Ryan Gosling to Brad Pitt? Yikes hope the red carpet is doubled up for this gala world premiere!

Evolution

Lucile Hadžihalilović's slow burning seaside fable was a huge hit at Fantastic Fest. My personal recommendation, don't see it at 8:30am after a big night of drinking.

Anomalisa

Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson's puppet mastery just demands to be seen. Nuff said.