Nightcrawler

Nightcrawler is an example of how you don't need to spend a lot of money on special effects and giant set pieces to make a great movie. With a budget of just $8.5 million, Nightcrawler is one of the better movies of 2014. Jake Gyllenhaal gives an outstanding performance in the lead role. He plays the intelligent, yet psychotic, and downright creepy role tremendously well and is the best part of an already great movie. While the rest of the cast isn't able to match Gyllenhaal's performance, they are good in their respective roles. The writing is extremely well-done, and paired with the already restless premise, provides more than a few tense, thrilling moments. The story moves along at a brisk, yet steady pace; there were a few times where I thought I knew where the story was going, but then the movie took a sharp turn that I was not expecting. Throughout the entire two hours, Nightcrawler kept me thoroughly entertained, while providing thrills, and thought-provoking themes. The movie explores ideas about the state of current media without being preachy or "hitting you over the head" with its ideas. While there are already a lot of good movies playing in theatres at the moment, I highly recommend that you see Nightcrawler.