8) Me and Earl and The Dying Girl
I cried a decent amount in 2015. I can admit that. A movie farther down this list made me bawl like a pre-teen who brushed up against Robert Pattinson, but no film hit me harder than Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s adaptation of Jesse Andrews’s novel. Some people wrote this one off as a wannabe indie darling, but to me, it’s got all the makings of a true-blue cinematic wonder. So many emotions are packed into a story about loss, acceptance, and living with passion, but nothing will trump its gut-punch ending. This is no fake, hollow imitator.
Thomas Mann stars as lead character Greg, a filmmaker with no hopes or ambitions. RJ Cyler is Earl, his pot-smoking best friend, and Olivia Cooke is the alluded-to dying girl. Their chemistry is an uncontrollable tornado of sympathy, angst, acceptance, and high school hormones that certainly don’t help. It’s raw, real, and so heartbreaking, yet the film’s constant honesty never tries to be anything else than a exercise in learning how to deal – however frivolous it may be.
Me and Earl and The Dying Girl made me feel deeply suppressed, unaddressed, uncomfortable things, and I loved every minute of it.