2020 has certainly been a strange and troubling year with the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting the entertainment industry.

As the film studios and theaters suffered greatly from the mass closures for public safety, the television arm of the entertainment industry saw a boon since they had literal captive audiences eager for any new content.

Films

Even though many films scheduled for 2020 were postponed for the year, there were many other films that either had limited theatrical releases or managed to come out in the early months of the year before COVID-19 created the lockdowns. Hopefully as the now-availalbe vaccines are administered throughout the population, 2021 will see more of a return to normalcy as theaters will be able to safely re-open.

Please note many films that were released solely digitally or through streaming platforms were not considered for this list; a film had to have some kind of theatrical release even if it debuted in few theaters at the same time they were released digitally. Here are the ten best theatrical films of 2020.

10. Onward

Pixar’s other animated cinematic offering for 2020 was an uplifting and fun adventure that took place in a world where mythical and magical beings and creatures exist today. In the film, two elf brothers set out on a road trip across the country to temporarily resurrect their deceased father. As with most Pixar films, the characters and their emotions took center stage as the two realized their brotherly love for one another. 

9. The New Mutants

The sole Marvel film of 2020 turned out to be the coda of the Fox X-Men films, which was a surprise given it has been delayed so many times. Fortunately, The New Mutants turned out to be a decent superhero film about teenagers coming to grips with their superpowers and life as the film was tinged with chilling horror elements.

8. The Midnight Sky

George Clooney directed and starred in this introspective sci-fi film based on a book by Lily Brooks-Dalton. Clooney played a lone scientist in an arctic outpost who tries to warn the crew of a returning spacecraft not to come to Earth because it has undergone an extinction-level event. The film was a quiet and captivating character study of the scientist and the spacecraft crew as they struggled to survive in their hostile environments.

7. Underwater

Director William Eubanks is perhaps the most underrated director of sci-fi films today and his latest film continued to demonstrate this. Underwater may be filled with the usual tropes of a crew in an underwater research station being hunted by unknown, Lovecraftian creatures, but it was well crafted, claustrophobic and had the right amount of jump scares and unexpected character studies which elevated this film. 

6. Greenland

Gerard Butler starred in a surprisingly effective disaster film that smartly focused on a single family when cometary fragments crashed into the Earth. By staying with the family as they tried to make their way to safety, Greenland was able to directly show how the catastrophic event affected the family as they grappled with fear, uncertainty and confusion. 

5. Sonic the Hedgehog

Who would have thought that 2020 would have given us a winning film based on a popular video game character? It is more remarkable given the negative reaction to the first trailer which led to Sonic being radically re-designed more to fans’ liking. The effort paid off as Sonic the Hedgehog was a fun and endearing road trip/buddy film that delighted many viewers and not just fans. The road trip/buddy aspect of the film may be familiar but it worked as Sonic, the cartoonish alien, experiences life on Earth for the first time. 

4. #Alive

This South Korean film took a tired zombie/survival trope and reinvigorated it. In the film a young adult gamer is trapped in his apartment during a zombie apocalypse and as he undergoes bouts of loneliness and struggles to keep his sanity, he learns about survival and finding one’s inner strength. This character study made the film very engaging as we found ourselves rooting for the young gamer.

3. Color Out of Space

Nicolas Cage was in rare form in this macabre adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft short story. This horror/sci-fi yarn was quite unsettling in its first half which told the story of a crashed meteor’s unearthly physical effect in a nearby farm. By the second half, Color Out of Space metamorphized into a vivid and disturbing body-horror ordeal that was literally mind bending and shattering as the meteor’s alien influence transformed all life surrounding it, including the hapless farmer and his family. 

2. Love and Monsters

This exciting and more light-hearted post-apocalyptic film was a actually a coming-of-age story about a young man who learned to believe in himself as he set out across the ruined landscape of the U.S. to find his supposed true love. Sometimes it is compared to Zombieland, though that is not entirely accurate. In truth, Love and Monsters focused less on laughs and more on its endearing characters and imaginative, giant mutated animals that the film’s hero and his companion dog had to face during his difficult journey.

1. Soul

Two big films were released on streaming platforms (and had very limited theatrical releases), even though one of them (Wonder Woman 1984) had much more buzz and attention, Soul was not only the better of the two films but the best film of the year. The underlying themes may go over the heads of the younger viewers, though they and everyone else will be delighted by the film’s plot of Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx), as a struggling musician who dies and refuses to go to heaven. From there, he sets off on a spiritual and metaphysical quest to return to life filled with solid characters and relationships. 

Not only is Soul perfectly animated and chock full of visual delights, but like the best of Pixar, it examines the larger questions in life and its script is unexpected. At its heart, Soul is about…life and what one makes of it. However, it also forces the viewer to contemplate and appreciate the simpler and most relevant aspects of life, and in this tumultous year, this may be the most important message of all. 

Honorable Mentions:

Bill & Ted Face the Music, Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), The Invisible Man, Peninsula, Possessor, Vivarium

Televison

As noted above, the year gave television productions their moment to shine and viewers were not disappointed with the rich variety of TV shows and even more to come in 2021. The plethora of quality genre TV shows strengthens the argument that we are in the golden age of genre TV shows and 2020 was when TV shows took the center stage when it came to entertainment.  Here are the best TV shows of 2020.

10. Raised by Wolves

Ridley Scott directed a couple of episodes and is one of the showrunners in this cerebral and thought-provoking sci-fi show about androids trying to raise human children in a barren world. Like many great sci-fi stories, Raised by Wolves raised many questions about the human condition, namely science vs. religion. 

9. Upload

This witty and inventive dramedyabout a man unexpectedly trapped in a digital afterlife was very amiable thanks to its scripts and two leads (Robbie Amell and Andy Allo), who have great chemistry and charm. 

8. Westworld

While the third season’s explorations of the real world beyond Westworld may not have been as interesting as the thrilling theme parks full of artificial beings, the show was still a topnotch production with exceptional acting and production design that depicted a grim future ripe for a revolution led by artificial beings. 

7. Star Wars: The Clone Wars

The final episodes of the beloved animated series were a stunning tour de force which parallel the disastrous events of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The episodes were told from the point of view of Ahsoka Tano, arguably the heart of the TV show, as she experienced the rise of the Galactic Empire and the downfall of the Jedi. 

6. Star Trek: Discovery

The third season of Star Trek: Discovery took the show in a bold, new direction and functioned as a soft reboot. Now stranded nearly a thousand years in the future, the crew of the starship Discovery struggle to survive in a galaxy without the presence of the Federation and to learn about the catastrophe that befell it. 

5. The Umbrella Academy

The second season of the Netflix show based on the Dark Horse comic, was even better than its freshman season which had the dysfunctional superhero family trapped in Dallas, Texas in 1963 and involved in (what else?) a plot to prevent the Kennedy assassination and World War III. The Umbrella Academy shone with its familial interactions and with its depiction of challenges related to time travel. 

4. The Boys

Hands down, this was the best superhero TV show of 2020, thanks to its macabre dark humor and outrageous superhuman antics. The second season again follows the efforts of the vigilante group (the Boys) trying to expose the popular mainstream superhero group (the Seven) for the sadistic and dysfunctional people they truly are. Once again, Homelander (played by Antony Starr), a Supermanesque “hero” was very terrifying with his vicious and callous behavior, as was the newest member of the Seven, the racist Stormfront (Aya Cash).

3 Star Trek: Picard

Patrick Stewart and several Star Trek alumnae made a triumphant and heartfelt return to the Star Trek franchise with Star Trek: Picard. Clearly set in the Star Trek Prime Universe, Star Trek: Picard took the story of Jean-Luc Picard (Stewart) and jumped forward in his life where as a now bitter and retired Starfleet admiral, Picard finds himself involved in a vast conspiracy that threatens the galaxy. It certainly was great to see Stewart and the others back in the saddle and seeing them reflect on their lives. At the same time, the show introduced fascinating new characters and situations that took the worlds of Star Trek into new and ominous directions. 

2. The Expanse

One of the best sci-fi shows ever upped its ante in the fifth season which had the TV show return its focus to socio-political events on Earth and the solar system. With disturbing echoes of 9/11, The Expanse brilliantly captured the feel of the book series as terrorists from the outer reaches of the solar system caused mass destruction and suffering. The core characters took off on their own separate adventures which were engaging and introspective while their plotlines contributed significantly to the overall story arc of the fifth season of The Expanse. 

1. The Mandalorian

The phenomenon that salvaged the modern Star Wars franchise had a superior second season that expanded its worlds. The Mandalorian brazenly introduced elements and characters not just from the past films but the revered animated Star Wars TV shows and did so in a successful attempt to enrich its worlds and offered new directions and spinoff opportunities. However, the show more than stands on its own mythos with exciting stories and mysterious characters.

More importantly, The Mandalorian‘s core focus was on the loving father-and-son relationship between the bounty hunter Din Djarin (the Mandalorian) and his infant ward Grogu (formerly known as Baby Yoda), the most adorable alien infant this side of the galaxy. 

Honorable Mentions:

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Away, Cursed, Devs, Doom Patrol, Harley Quinn, Into the Night, Lovecraft Country, The Plot to Kill America, Snowpiercer, Stargirl, Supernatural, The Twilight Zone