Honorable mentions: John Wick, Calvary, A Most Violent Year, Locke, Selma, A Most Wanted Man, 22 Jump Street, Foxcatcher, Wild, Big Eyes, Still Alice, Mr. Turner
Haven’t seen: Ida, Citizenfour, The Raid 2, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Chef, The One I Love, Coherence, Top Five, Dear White People, Life Itself
20. Edge of Tomorrow
19. The Lego Movie
Did not have the chance to see, but I heard about some scenes: The Raid 2 (Chase scene, Baseball Boy/Hammer Girl, prison yard fight), Guardians of the Galaxy (Dancing Groot, others), X-Men: Days of Future Past (Quicksilver), Nymphomaniac, Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Elevator scene), The Tale of Princess Kaguya, Frank (I Love You All), Godzilla, Noah, Ida, Obvious Child
Honorable mentions: Edmund Pettus Bridge (Selma), The reveal of the man upstairs (The Lego Movie), The football player (Two Days, One Night), The beach scene (Calvary), The ending (A Most Wanted Man), Amelia vs. The Babadook (The Babadook), The attack (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes), Tom Cruise dies a lot (Edge of Tomorrow), The chase scene (A Most Violent Year), The avalanche (Force Majeure), Listening to Dwight’s voice message (Blue Ruin), “Trapped By a Thing Called Love” dance scene (Only Lovers Left Alive)
HONORABLE MENTIONS/OTHERS CONSIDERED: Oscar Isaac (A Most Violent Year), Philip Seymour Hoffman (A Most Wanted Man), Carrie Coon & Tyler Perry (Gone Girl), Ethan Hawke (Boyhood), Tom Hardy (Locke), Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game), Bradley Cooper (American Sniper), Mark Ruffalo & Steve Carell & Channing Tatum (Foxcatcher), Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything), Emily Blunt (Edge of Tomorrow), Matthew McConaughey (Interstellar), Miles Teller (Whiplash), Amy Adams (Big Eyes), Reese Witherspoon & Laura Dern (Wild), Tom Hiddleston (Only Lovers Left Alive), Timothy Spall (Mr. Turner), Julianne Moore (Still Alice), Emma Stone (Birdman), Rene Russo (Nightcrawler), Andy Serkis & Toby Kebbell (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes), Josh Brolin & Katherine Waterston (Inherent Vice), Johannes Kuhnke & Lisa Loven Kongsli (Force Majeure)
Man, that’s a pretty damn good “Honorable Mentions” list. What a year for performances.
HONORABLE MENTIONS: Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Justified, Archer, Wilfred, Community, 24: Live Another Day, Penny Dreadful, Arrow, New Girl, Homeland, Girls, Parks and Recreation, The Bridge, The Walking Dead
Other notable shows I haven’t seen: The Flash, Broad City, Over the Garden Wall, The Legend of Korra, Rick and Morty, Looking, Black Mirror, Bob’s Burgers, The Honourable Woman, Jane the Virgin, Manhattan, Enlisted, Peaky Blinders, The Missing
Special mention: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Honorable Mentions: “Fight” from Masters of Sex, “The Symbolic Exemplar” from Transparent, “Possession” from Penny Dreadful, “Streets of Fire” from Arrow, “7” from The Affair, “5 p.m.-6 p.m.” from 24: Live Another Day, “The Truth About Unicorns” from Banshee, “Get the Rope” from The Knick, “Optimal Tip-to-Tip Efficiency” from Silicon Valley, “Alicia” from Veep, “A Whole Other Hole” from Orange Is the New Black, “The Mountain and the Viper” from Game of Thrones
Welcome to the first installment of my 2014 Year End series. Over the next week, you’ll see the following: The Top Television Performances of 2014 (down below), The Top Television Episodes of 2014, and The Top Television Shows of 2014. My year end movie lists will be out in a month or so, as I still have quite a few movies to see. For now, enjoy this list! I only have one performance from each show in the top 15, but I added some shout-outs in certain places.
Honorable mentions: Amy Acker and Sarah Shahi for “Person of Interest”, Manu Bennett for “Arrow”, Julia Louis-Dreyfus for “Veep”, Andre Braugher for “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”, Julianna Margulies for “The Good Wife”, Samira Wiley for “Orange Is the New Black”, Louis CK for “Louie”, Pedro Pascal for “Game of Thrones”, All four “The Affair” folks (for the record, either Maura Tierney or Ruth Wilson would be #16 on this list)
Polar Bears Watch TV 