Both titles were on my list.
Interstellar was my
#15.
Interstellar is a divisive film, to say the least. Pretty much from the day it was released, I have seen equal amounts praise and vitriol for this grand sci-fi epic. Nolan famously retained a physicist while making the film, in an attempt to stay as true to science as possible. This plays out as you would expect until the film just straight up turns into a black hole of absurdity and accelerates to warp 10. I think being able to overlook this single aspect of the narrative plays a big part in determining whether or not a viewer will love this film, or label it a big ol' stupid waste of time.
I fall into the former. I tend to look at the final minutes as part thought experiment, part homage to the most fanciful era of Spielberg, during which his films were steeped in fantasy and sentiment. Interstellar is pretty much hard sci-fi up until this point, and I can totally understand why fans of the more grounded science fiction style would roll their eyes and check out. But man, as a parent of a young daughter, the daddy-daughter story just gets me. All the emotional beats and histrionics, as meme-worthy as some of them are, just work for me. I have seen this film many times, in spite of its length, and I haven't gotten tired of it yet. Am I a big ol' sap? Probably, at least when it comes to this film.
Gravity was my
#2.
Gravity is on my Top 10 of all time list, and I doubt it will ever fall off of it. In 2015, One of my siblings died unexpectedly at a young age. My family was thrust into an extremely difficult period of our lives, as we grappled with almost unbearable grief, as we had just spent the last 5 years before that dealing with the unexpected death of another sibling, who was taken from us at a young age, as well. Getting that second phone call from the same sister that had called me in 2010 with the same terrible news was like some nightmare déjŕ vu.
Gravity is pretty much entirely a metaphor for this type of grief; how it can seem like an endless abyss of darkness, a precipice upon which you are teetering at all times. I went to see this film in theaters with my wife and another couple, and almost from the start, I could tell the other couple just weren't liking the film. The cinematography was giving the woman anxiety, and her husband was annoyed we ended up in the theater with "the wrong sound system for the movie." I, on the other hand, was going through a catharsis. As soon as Dr. Stone told her story about her daughter, I was transfixed; all the shots and all the metaphor just snapped into place. The darkness, clinging to a thin tether, how you need other people to help bring you back, the rebirth, picking yourself up out of the mud...it was all right there.
When the film ended and the lights came up, was was just sitting there with moist eyes, stunned, and the other couple glanced over and were just totally perplexed by my state. They had been checking their watches, waiting for the film to end, and I was going through a grief process at light speed. The husband fired off another complaint about a speaker being out or some such nonsense, and the wife was visibly shaken by the ordeal, as it turned out she was bad with heights. I didn't say much about what I had just been through, but it was a fairly quiet car ride home.
I still watch this film frequently, sometimes with my family, and it will always remain one of my favorite pieces of art that I have gotten the most out of, and which has helped me with my existence on this planet - a planet that looks so fragile and wonderful from outer space.
Lastly: If I could change one thing about my ballot, it would be to swap this with my #1 film, but at the time, I had just watched the film I currently have at #1, and I wanted to give it every last point that I could in an effort to push it as high as possible.
Gravity is easily my favorite of the decade.