Thank you so much for a wonderful 2015 as the response to this project has been awesome!!

Here at Film Clas, we love Countdowns/Top 5s/Best ofs and the such. So we have compiled, based on the airtight napkin rating system, a list of the year’s Top 5 films. Enjoy and get out to the theater!!!

1. Shaun the Sheep
2. The Force Awakens
3. What We Do in the Shadows
4. Trumbo
5. (tie) Spotlight
5. (tie) Rogue Nation

A long time ago in a city not so far away, I was a wide-eyed tiny lad walking into the theater. I was freaking out in the middle of Gotham; crying because I thought we would miss the train and shaking because I was going to the cinema to see The Empire Strikes Back.

The Force Awakens took me right back to that time (the excitement not the crying).

From the moment the text scrolls and the score begins, this movie is astonishing. It is finally what happens next! The howling, ominous TIE Fighter fly-by sounds echoing through the theater and the scene transitions with pinhole fade outs were fantastic. Our exciting characters (Poe, Finn, Rey and Kylo Ren) breathe new emotions, heroism, humor, darkness, confusion and relationships into the story. Gosh, just the head shots aboard the X-wing fighters were enough for me.

I’ll admit, I was easy to please, especially after the prequels fiasco. I always just want to be entertained and in this regard, the film is gold. The Force Awakens allies with 4.85 napkins out of 5 and luminous napkins are they.

Spotlight is the investigative reporting team at The Boston Globe that knocked the Rosary beads right off the Catholic Church’s cover up of rampant priestly sexual abuse. Well, they made a movie about these journalists and it’s excellent.

The Spotlight group (Keaton, McAdams, Ruffalo and d’Arcy James) was cohesive and thorough in their investigation before everything was a click way. Each had their personal relation to the church and they were collectively motivated to expose these injustices. This makes it difficult to distinguish one performance as better than the other; a testament to the team concept and great writing. In fact, when Ruffalo individualizes his own emotions in a much previewed rant, the demeanor of the group is altered and thus we have the film’s only true glitch.

Two performances in the picture stood tall. Schreiber as new Globe editor Baron, exhibited monotone calm and leadership as the pressure to print mounted. And Tucci as Garabedian, the single attorney representing the victims, resembled an exhausted man with unwavering resolve to give his clients a voice.

This story about the story about the newspaper reporting of an extremely important story inks 4.55 napkins out of 5.

Bryan Cranston is naked again and that is good news for all of us. Whether he is writing in the tub at home or desolate in his tighty-whities on the side of a New Mexico road, the former “dentist to the stars” is certainly one of a kind and his physical commitment to his characters is unparalleled.

Cranston lures us in with his slow drawl, flowing intonations and timely humor. His portrayal of this imaginative hen-pecking writer, smoking and editing, was simply brilliant. John Goodman’s Frank King was the perfect amalgamation of the likability of Dan Conner and the humorous outbursts of Walter Shoback. These two savvy vets gave the film a lengthy head start.

I really enjoy movies about the movies like Cinema Paradiso, Hugo and Shadow of the Vampire and Trumbo can dance right alongside these excellent films. This is a well told Hollywood history lesson that I knew little about and found fascinating. Today, The Blacklist is an open platform for screenwriting creativity, not censure.

Trumbo is far from the “garbage” that King Brothers Productions prides itself in releasing as it fades in with 4.6 out of 5 napkins.