Top 5 – Most Anticipated Movies of the 51st Chicago International Film Festival

I have a slew of films I plan on seeing at this year’s Chicago International Film Festival.  I can’t see all the movies I wish I could, but I have a pretty great slate ahead of me with some of my most anticipated movies of the 2015.  Here are my five most anticipated movies of the 51st Chicago International Film Festival.

5 – Dheepan (Jacques Audiard)

Jacques Audiard is a truly gifted director. His 2009 gangster epic A Prophet is gripping prison gangster flick and can be compared to The Godfather (1972) in scale.  Rust & Bone (2012) was a touching, captivating film and features Marion Cotillard in her rawest form. He now gives us Dheepan, about a Sri Lankan Tamil warrior (Jesuthasan Antonythasan) who flees to Paris and ends up working as a caretaker.  Winner of the top prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, here’s hoping Audiard makes it three for three.

4- Macbeth (Justin Kurzel)

Shakespeare has never looked so intense.  Kurzel, who’s debut film, Snowtown (2011), was a chilling and impressive film, takes to the helm to adapt the Shakespeare classic.  Starring two of the best actors working today in Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, they both look to be at the top of their games in this one.  It looks violent, beautifully shot, and full of intensity and emotion.  This is likely to be the ballsiest Shakespeare adaptation to date.

3- Hitchcock/Truffaut (Kent Jones)

1966, director and critic Francois Truffaut published a book about the time he interviewed the legendary Alfred Hitchcock.  Hitchcock talks about every single one of his movies, frame by frame and the reasons for why he made the decisions that he made.  This movie interviews a number of the best directors today talking about the influence of this interview on their careers.  This is a cinephile’s dream film.  Two legends discussing classic films with one another.  I may pop a cinerection or two.

2-  The Assassin (Hsiao-Hsien Hou) 

This could be the best shot movie of 2015.  The Assassin looks truly stunning, very similar to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000).  This movie follows an assassin (Qi Shu) as she accepts a dangerous mission to kill a political leader in 7th century China.  The sword fights and action look exciting and the cinematography is breathtaking.  This looks like a true work of art.

1 – Son of Saul (Laszlo Nemes)

This film has been playing like gangbusters since it’s premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.  Set in the Holocaust, Son of Saul follows a prisoner in charge of burning the corpses of his own people until he thinks one of the bodies is his son.  This is sure to be a heart wrenching, brutal movie.  It is being compared to Schindler’s List (1993), which is just incredible and it is getting a lot of Oscar hype.  Though I won’t have a good time watching this movie, I cannot wait to experience it.  It is easily my most anticipated movie of the festival and one of my most anticipated movies of 2015.

Make sure to follow Kevflix on Twitter @kevflix and on Facebook at Kevflix.