3) Only Lovers Left Alive
The first hour of Only Lovers Left Alive is my favorite movie of the year. The second is still very, very good, but the film’s intoxicating strain of supernatural cool and languid dread wavers once something resembling a plot spoils the purity of the mix. Writer-director Jim Jarmusch’s need to force the existential issue plaguing his pair of centuries-old vampires is largely unnecessary, as the bleaching effect of time is ever-present for cynical aesthete Adam (Tom Hiddleston), and Eve (Tilda Swinton), his vivacious yang.
Did Adam and Eve lose their humanity when they became vampires, or have their souls been chipped away at and rebuilt over the ages, with each new phase of civilization reflected in them like the Ship of Theseus? Only Lovers Left Alive is a film overflowing with apocalyptic beauty, where life, art, and love are all the more precious for springing up in a world enveloped by a sense of encroaching doom. The only safeguard against the pained immediacy of Jarmusch’s fears for the future is the comfort of knowing he’s created a timeless romance with Only Lovers Left Alive.