Best Film of 2015. No (Big) Oscars?

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Agreed on all points. Particularly like your shout-out to Josh Brolin's performance. Such well-drawn character work. His physical choices painted quite a believable picture of a guy who's seen a lot and is at peace with the moral choices required to get an ugly job done.

Good cinema.

This stands as the last movie I've seen in the theater which I was absolutely captivated by. It moves at a great clip and maintains interest, suspense, and intensity all throughout. The sequel has a similar vibe but suffered from focusing almost entirely on the Del Toro character while relying on way too many contrivances to maintain realism.

I love how this movie has a real "mean streak" to it with the villains coming off as intimidatingly monstrous (doing crazy things like hiding bodies in a houses's wall, attacking a prisoner escort convoy in broad daylight, and bribing people at all levels). Then later when the main villain is shown to be some mundane family man, it's a good juxtaposition when the hero does monstrous things back. I kept expecting the movie to go "too far" with the villains really ruining everything the protagonists have built but the movie never aggressively punishes the audience, generally by giving the protagonists just enough plot armor to be protected but still seem vulnerable just the same.

Sadly I doubt this kind of film will be made anymore. I love how it paints the drug war and the border with such a grim air of gloom and doom but those issues are just so intensely politicized now that it prevents any cinematic objectivity. I'm sure there's lots of other big-issue movies which could potentially be made around similarly tense subject matter but I just haven't seen any yet.

I didn't find the writing or acting all that impressive. By no means is this one of the best films of the year. It wouldn't even make my top 100 of 2015.

It definitely should have been, probably seen as too much of a typical revenge action movie for a lot of academy voters.