The 100 best films of the decade: 2010 – 2019

One of the things we often get asked at Lit­tle White Lies is how we decide what to put on the cov­er of our mag­a­zine. Well, there are numer­ous bor­ing logis­ti­cal fac­tors we have to con­sid­er, but I like to think that our approach is ulti­mate­ly more ide­al­is­tic than prag­mat­ic: is this a film we’ll look back on 10 years’ time and think, yep, that was a good ​’un.

The 2010s was the first full decade in the magazine’s 15-year his­to­ry. We’ve seen a lot of great movies in that time, and although we don’t always get it right, I can hon­est­ly say that look­ing back at the past 10 years of LWLies – 56 issues in total – has remind­ed me why I fell in love with cin­e­ma (and mag­a­zines) in the first place.

But this list was not made pure­ly for sen­ti­men­tal rea­sons. I want­ed to take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to bring togeth­er some of our most cher­ished con­trib­u­tors past and present, and find out which films have endured and why. What were the films that real­ly meant some­thing to the peo­ple who make LWLies what it is.

More than 300 films were nom­i­nat­ed by some 70 writ­ers, each sub­mit­ting their per­son­al top 10 of the decade ranked in order of pref­er­ence. Our cri­te­ria was fair­ly open: films had to be fea­ture-length, with a pro­duc­tion year of between 2010 – 2019 (per IMDb), and released either the­atri­cal­ly or on a dig­i­tal plat­form. To make things as demo­c­ra­t­ic as pos­si­ble, the final rank­ing was done on a points sys­tem, with an extra point award­ed for each sub­se­quent vote a film received.

We hope you enjoy this run­down of our favourite films of the decade, and that it inspires you to seek out some of the titles you’ve not yet had the chance to watch. When you’re done read­ing, be sure to share your own top 10 of the 2010s with us @LWLies – and if you sim­ply can’t wait to scroll to the bot­tom of this page to find out what came out on top, you can check out the list at a glance. Here’s to the next 10 years. Adam Wood­ward

Lynne Ramsay’s dis­turb­ing 2011 fea­ture made a star out of Ezra Miller, play­ing the tit­u­lar Kevin oppo­site Til­da Swin­ton as his moth­er, Eva. This icy dra­ma about a dis­turbed teenag­er is excru­ci­at­ing, uncom­fort­able view­ing, con­fronting the same themes of mater­ni­ty and nature ver­sus nature as the nov­el, but pro­pelled by the out­stand­ing per­for­mances, and Ram­say offers no easy answers about the nature of evil. Han­nah Woodhead

An archive doc­u­men­tary-cum-essay film split into nine chap­ters, John Akomfrah’s beguil­ing­ly exper­i­men­tal brico­lage is one of the most vital and orig­i­nal artis­tic respons­es to the sub­ject of immi­gra­tion that British cin­e­ma has ever pro­duced. Pieced togeth­er with remark­able, allu­sive flu­id­i­ty, The Nine Mus­es blends a daz­zling array of son­ic and visu­al archive footage, ren­der­ing it end­less­ly re-watch­able. Ash­ley Clark

It’s been a pret­ty decent decade for Claire Denis fans, as reflect­ed by the fact she appears twice in this list. The first entry saw the French mas­ter uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly rel­e­gat­ed to an Un Cer­tain Regard berth at the 2013 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val (usu­al­ly reserved for first-timers and less­er-knowns). More fool them: Bas­tards is an intox­i­cat­ing mod­ern noir which looks at the evil that men do through an unflinch­ing lens. Adam Woodward

A cer­tain degree of scep­ti­cism comes with any com­ing-of-age com­e­dy about teenage girls head­ed by a male film­mak­er, but Bo Burnham’s direc­to­r­i­al debut bucks the trend. Pow­ered by an incred­i­ble per­for­mance from Elsie Fish­er, this sweet sto­ry nails what it’s like to grow up in the age of the inter­net. Cap­tur­ing romance, anx­i­ety, heart­break and hilar­i­ty with­in 90 min­utes, it’s a balm for the soul, as essen­tial to Mil­len­ni­als and Zen­ni­als as John Hugh­es was to Gen X. HW

The Work is unlike any prison film you’ve seen before. Co-direc­tors Jairus McLeary and Geth­in Aldous take view­ers inside America’s noto­ri­ous Fol­som Prison – specif­i­cal­ly, a sin­gle room where inmates par­tic­i­pate in a group ther­a­py ses­sion over four emo­tion­al­ly-fraught days. It’s a refresh­ing­ly non-judge­men­tal, fre­quent­ly raw look at the process of reha­bil­i­ta­tion. AW

Mar­garet might be the crit­i­cal dar­ling of Ken­neth Lonergan’s small but sub­stan­tial fil­mog­ra­phy (as its place­ment on this list tes­ti­fies), but it’s Man­ches­ter by the Sea that estab­lished the New York­er as one of America’s best direc­tors. Casey Affleck plays a man forced to reck­on with an unspeak­ably hor­rif­ic fam­i­ly tragedy, with Michelle Williams at her dev­as­tat­ing best as his estranged wife. AW

Belgium’s Dar­d­enne broth­ers had a bit of a strange 2010s. The bub­ble or their rig­or­ous, off-hand tales of sub­ur­ban dis­cord burst with 2016’s crit­i­cal and com­mer­cial mis­fire, The Unknown Girl, while their lat­est, Young Ahmed, has yet to secure much dis­tri­b­u­tion out­side of France. Lucky, then, that this was also the decade in which they made their finest film, in which Mar­i­on Cotil­lard gifts the broth­ers with a career-best per­for­mance as a depres­sive moth­er attempt­ing to keep her head above water. David Jenk­ins

In the era of 90 Day Fiancé, Ulrich Seidl’s Par­adise: Love feels pre­scient, espe­cial­ly in its flu­id and nat­ur­al shoot­ing style, bor­der­ing on doc­u­men­tary. Tere­sa, a white woman, goes to Kenya to indulge in sex tourism, stir­ring up ques­tions for me about colo­nial­ism and pow­er. It’s an incred­i­bly can­did por­tray­al, show­cas­ing the trans­ac­tion­al aspects of her ​“rela­tion­ships” and their dynam­ics. Part of an even greater tril­o­gy, where Seidl’s pro­tag­o­nists envi­sions their own views of par­adise. Tayler Mon­tague

It feels quite rare nowa­days that we get a gen­uine­ly orig­i­nal stu­dio com­e­dy, which made Pop­star: Nev­er Stop Nev­er Stop­ping stand out even more. This mock­u­men­tary from The Lone­ly Island fol­lows a young musi­cian (and pos­si­ble Justin Bieber par­o­dy) called Connor4Real, who splits from his band The Style Boyz only to find out life as a solo artist isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. This Is Spinal Tap for the meme gen­er­a­tion. HW

An anthro­po­log­i­cal expe­di­tion to the dark heart of the Ama­zon becomes a psy­che­del­ic odyssey in Colom­bian film­mak­er Ciro Guerra’s tran­scen­den­tal decon­struc­tion of West­ern impe­ri­al­ism and myth-build­ing. The­mat­ic allu­sions to Aguirre, Wrath of God and Apoc­a­lypse Now notwith­stand­ing, this for­mal­ly ambi­tious fever dream is a true orig­i­nal. AW

A Mia Hansen-Løve film is both emo­tion­al and restrained; she cap­tures the unstop­pable flow of time itself. Her char­ac­ters go through intense pain yet are com­pelled to keep mov­ing. Lola Cré­ton is the con­duit for this ener­gy in Good­bye First Love. Her shy char­ac­ter, Camille, is shown in vignettes between the ages of 15 and 25 pars­ing her pas­sion for the old­er, unre­li­able Sul­li­van. The end­ing is per­fect. Sophie Monks Kaufman

The ulti­mate anti-first date movie, Derek Cianfrance’s dra­ma spans the course of a rela­tion­ship from its bliss­ful begin­ning to its bit­ter end. The scene in which Dean and Cindy go to a cheap motel in a last-ditch bid to save their mar­riage is utter­ly heart­break­ing, but we’ll always cher­ish the thought of Ryan Gosling strum­ming a ukulele while Michelle Williams tap-dances in a door­way. AW

French New Wave pio­neer Jean-Luc Godard con­tin­ues to rein­vent cin­e­ma in his eight­ies. This exper­i­ment in 3D – shot with cus­tom-built rigs using con­sumer-grade cam­corders stuck togeth­er – fea­tured mind-bend­ing images such as the stereo­scop­ic image pul­ing apart and com­ing back togeth­er, and proved a con­fronting and inno­v­a­tive tech­ni­cal and philo­soph­i­cal explo­ration of the con­stric­tions and lib­er­a­tions inher­ent in try­ing to com­mu­ni­cate. Ian Mant­gani

It may not boast the chest-thump­ing grandios­i­ty of The Wolf of Wall Street or the epic meta­tex­tu­al scope of The Irish­man, but this long-ges­tat­ing pas­sion project, about a pair of Por­tuguese Jesuit priests search­ing for their men­tor in 17^th cen­tu­ry Japan, is arguably Mar­tin Scorsese’s defin­ing artis­tic state­ment of the last decade. An intro­spec­tive, the­o­log­i­cal mas­ter­piece from America’s great­est liv­ing direc­tor. AW

Prac­ti­cal­ly lev­i­tat­ing out of my seat, it was the moment I saw White Cas­tle that I knew Good Time was the best film of 2017. The Safdies bril­liance is in their abil­i­ty to have me root for the imper­fect lay­men who do what they must to sur­vive. In this par­tic­u­lar case, the broth­er to broth­er rela­tion­ship pulled right at my old­er sib­ling heart strings and made me want so bad­ly for them to get to that lit­tle piece of par­adise, by hook or by crook, bank rob­bing mon­ey in tow. TM

A fresh take on an old ques­tion, Alex Gar­land made his direc­to­r­i­al debut with a haunt­ing exam­i­na­tion of the human con­di­tion in a world of advanced Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence. A break­out role for Ali­cia Vikan­der, and strong per­for­mances from Oscar Isaac and Domh­nall Glee­son, this sleek sci-fi thriller is as beguil­ing as the machine at its heart. Emma Fras­er

Booed when it was ini­tial­ly unveiled at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val in 2011, House of Tol­er­ance has not only risen up the ranks of French direc­tor Bertrand Bonello’s own per­son­al cin­e­mat­ic cor­pus, but is also now plac­ing on best of the decade lists across the globe. The film offers an ethe­re­al take on late 19^th cen­tu­ry lives of the work­ing women in a Parisian bor­del­lo, with bold styl­is­tic lib­er­ties tak­en in order to teth­er the sto­ry and its pol­i­tics to the present day. DJ

Denis Vil­leneuve has con­tributed huge­ly to the past decade in cin­e­ma, but per­haps most over­looked is his des­per­ate­ly moody take on Fyo­dor Dostoyevsky’s The Dou­ble. Star­ring Jake Gyl­len­haal cast (twice) in the kind of ham­my role that he seems to rel­ish, Ene­my is a decep­tive, dreamy jump from real­i­ty with a brain-crum­pling final act. Beth Webb

No one but Raul Ruiz could have pulled off this grand four-hour cin­e­mat­ic tapes­try lush with palace intrigue, shift­ing mem­o­ry, and car­nal lust set in 19^th cen­tu­ry Por­tu­gal. The mas­ter Chilean film­mak­er would pass away soon after the film’s expand­ed release in the Unit­ed States, which added a cer­tain super­nat­ur­al melan­choly to watch­ing a mas­ter­piece already rife with haunt­ing his­tor­i­cal spec­tres. Glenn Heath Jr

Bertrand Bonel­lo scared off Cannes’ selec­tion com­mit­tee with his vision of youth­ful unrest, a work that refus­es to con­demn the elab­o­rate ter­ror­ist plot car­ried out by a mul­tira­cial crew with unclear moti­va­tions in the first hour. But the final stand that fills the sec­ond sug­gests a trag­ic eulo­gy for rad­i­cal­ism, in what­ev­er form it may take. Charles Bramesco

The ghosts of Portugal’s colo­nial past haunt Pedro Costa’s ellip­ti­cal study of cul­tur­al era­sure and repressed col­lec­tive mem­o­ry. Fol­low­ing a Cape Verdean immi­grant named Ven­tu­ra (who first appeared in Costa’s pre­vi­ous nar­ra­tive fea­ture, Colos­sal Youth, and also stars in 2019’s Vitali­na Varela) as he nav­i­gates Lisbon’s dingy, decay­ing urban cen­tre, Horse Mon­ey is a sin­gu­lar requiem for the mar­gin­alised and sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly oppressed. AW

“I am not bro­ken, I am free.” The first time I saw Ade­pero Oduye’s unfor­get­table face was as Alike, ​“the oth­er one,” in Pari­ah. The best aspects of her per­for­mance are with­in her facial expres­sions, a sly smile or laugh­ter as a means of bely­ing an undy­ing need to want to be her­self. The self she has to sup­press or is seek­ing to find is that of a young Black queer woman. This iden­ti­ty and nav­i­ga­tion of how she best fits with­in it puts her at odds with her moth­er, who very much dis­ap­proves of her daughter’s sex­u­al­i­ty. TM

For his alchem­i­cal sec­ond fea­ture fol­low­ing the DIY gem Down Ter­race, Ben Wheat­ley took the base mate­ri­als of a bar­gain-bin Brit-crime thriller – bick­er­ing assas­sins, urban grime, a scowl­ing Neil Maskell – and spun them into gold. Semi-impro­vised by a flaw­less cast, Kill List is brac­ing­ly bleak, alarm­ing­ly fun­ny and utter­ly ter­ri­fy­ing. Tom Hud­dle­ston

Kel­ly Reichardt’s trio of short sto­ries from rur­al Mon­tana stud­ied the inter­nal lives of women deal­ing with the emo­tion­al bag­gage of them­selves and oth­ers. Under­played, rich, sub­tle and qui­et­ly dev­as­tat­ing, it fea­tured mas­ter­ful­ly inter­nalised per­for­mances from Michelle Williams, Lau­ra Dern, Lily Glad­stone and Kris­ten Stew­art, and is so vivid­ly realised you can smell the cold moun­tain air while watch­ing it. IM

Céline Scammia’s shim­mer­ing account of work­ing class ado­les­cence is crys­tallised in a moment that many use to define a whole gen­er­a­tion of cin­e­ma. Four girls, draped over each oth­er in a state of bliss­ful affec­tion, mov­ing through a hotel room’s blue light to Rihanna’s bassy anthem ​‘Dia­monds’. Per­fec­tion. BW

Any of the 14 fea­ture films Hong Sang-soo made in the decade could fit here, such is the pro­lifi­ca­cy and con­sis­ten­cy of the South Kore­an film­mak­er. But this one also serves as an ide­al entry point for the unfa­mil­iar – a slip­pery, snowy, soju-soaked affair in which all his major themes are present. Matthew Lloyd Turner

It’s hard to dis­card the tragedies when you’re talk­ing about the tri­umphs, but it’s a bit­ter­sweet sit­u­a­tion indeed when you’re laud­ing a film which end­ed up being a great director’s swan song. This Tokyo-set ron­de­lay fol­lows a young call girl on a whirl­wind trip through the city, and con­stant­ly, cryp­ti­cal­ly alludes to the anx­i­eties gen­er­at­ed by her unseen per­son­al, fam­i­ly and roman­tic life. There are no easy answers or dra­mat­ic plat­i­tudes, which makes it the defin­ing state­ment from one of mod­ern cinema’s true mas­ters. DJ

Time is mon­ey in the world of supreme cinephile being Pedro Cos­ta. That is, not just the dura­tion of the shots, but the time tak­en to fash­ion films and draw the spir­i­tu­al essence from actors. Costa’s mode is pure empa­thy – he makes films as tac­tile dreams and mem­o­ries that he can gift to those who don’t tend to have such things. Vitali­na Varela is, in many ways, a tra­di­tion­al ghost sto­ry about a woman vis­it­ing the house of her estranged (and now dead) hus­band, but looks and feels like noth­ing else ever made. DJ

Hilma af Klint, a pro­to-mod­ernist painter whose paint­ings were inspired by seances, pref­aces the mys­ti­cal ghost work of Per­son­al Shop­per. Like Klint, Mau­reen (Stew­art), has a con­nec­tion to the spir­it world. Her broth­er had just died and between jobs as a per­son­al shop­per, she begins to receive mys­te­ri­ous and ghost­ly text-mes­sages from the beyond. Jus­tine Smith

Despite the cam­paign of hate waged by a very vocal minor­i­ty of online fans, Rian Johnson’s instal­ment in the Star Wars saga feels des­tined to be remem­bered for all the right rea­sons. Visu­al­ly bold, nar­ra­tive­ly dar­ing, he took a fran­chise prop­er­ty and made it his own. He took the galaxy far, far away to des­ti­na­tions unchar­tered and cre­at­ed some tru­ly beau­ti­ful set pieces, result­ing in that rarest of beasts: a block­buster with heart and soul. HW

Qiu Shu stars as the ​“match­less” killer in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s bril­liant­ly frac­tured wux­ia prism that embraces mood and tex­ture over nar­ra­tive. Despite the film’s peri­od ninth-cen­tu­ry set­ting, each of her lethal move­ments and venge­ful actions can be seen as an act of rebel­lion in favour of Tai­wanese inde­pen­dence from Chi­nese aggres­sion. GHJ

The extra­or­di­nary quar­tet that fol­lowed The Tree of Life – of which Knight of Cups proved the pin­na­cle – was a mon­u­men­tal run for the new­ly pro­lif­ic Ter­rence Mal­ick, one that saw him expand the reach of his for­mal and poet­ic prin­ci­ples in a man­ner large­ly unseen with­in main­stream cin­e­mat­ic cul­ture. No one could’ve guessed we’d get six Mal­ick pic­tures in the 2010s. The decade was all the bet­ter for it, and so was the sev­enth art. Matt Thrift

Through the tra­vails of a fad­ing B‑movie star (Leonar­do DiCaprio) and his stunt double/​gofer (Brad Pitt), Quentin Taran­ti­no pays homage to the ​’60s Tin­sel­town of his boy­hood fan­tasies. In the mar­gins, the Man­son fam­i­ly glow­er and Sharon Tate (Mar­got Rob­bie) goes about her day, while in the fore­ground, an indus­try and a coun­try evolve out of nos­tal­gia. CB

Death hangs heavy over No Home Movie, not just in its doc­u­men­ta­tion of the final months of its osten­si­ble pro­tag­o­nist, but in the knowl­edge that it would be the final work by the great Bel­gian film­mak­er Chan­tal Aker­man, who took her own life in the year of its release. A com­pan­ion piece to her 1977 film Let­ters from Home, which sim­i­lar­ly con­struct­ed a dia­logue between Aker­man and her moth­er, No Home Movie remains prick­ly and com­bat­ive to the last, as it prods at his­toric ten­sions and the moth­er-daugh­ter bond. MT

Tak­en from the true sto­ry of CIA oper­a­tives’ years-long hunt for Osama bin Laden, Bigelow’s film cap­tures the moral com­plex­i­ty of the Amer­i­can war machine and its enor­mi­ty of its involve­ment across the mid­dle east. Fol­low­ing Jes­si­ca Chas­tain as a can­ny CIA op, the film queries the role of tor­ture and bribery in bring­ing ter­ror­ists to jus­tice. Christi­na Newland

Those who want to be lead­ers do so because it makes fuck­ing up per­mis­si­ble. It’s lofty sta­tus which dou­bles as an in-built excuse. Stephen Meek is one such lead­er/­fuck-up, head­ing up a wag­on train across the treach­er­ous Ore­gon ter­ri­to­ry in Kel­ly Reichardt’s nail-bit­ing exis­ten­tial trail west­ern. The film, set in 1845, is told from the per­spec­tive of the mousey wom­en­folk whose lives are placed in the hands of reck­less male brava­do and bull­ish­ness. Good luck with that… DJ

A lit­mus test for an audience’s will­ing­ness or abil­i­ty to read a text, it seems view­ers are still strug­gling to decide whether Mar­tin Scorsese’s epic stands as a damn­ing indict­ment of the worst impuls­es of late-stage cap­i­tal­ism or sim­ply an epic vaude­ville, a Rake’s Progress for the ladz. It’s easy to see why some were turned off by the bait and switch of Scorsese’s hon­ey­trap, just as oth­ers appeared con­tent to be seduced by Leo’s car­ni­va­lesque rogue. Either way, few films digest­ed the worst impuls­es of the pre­vi­ous decade with such wicked­ly satir­i­cal zeal. MT

Wes Ander­son has had a fair­ly busy decade, and his 2014 caper ranks among his very best work. Ralph Fiennes plays the irre­press­ible Gus­tav H, the metic­u­lous concierge who takes Tony Revolori’s lob­by boy under his wing. Ander­son is on usu­al whim­si­cal form, but against a back­drop of civ­il war, his baby pinks and plum­my pur­ples stand out even more. It’s a melan­choly film about found and lost fam­i­lies, as sad and thought­ful as it is fas­tid­i­ous and detailed. HW

Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly fleet-foot­ed and mono­lith­ic, Ezra Edelman’s doc­u­men­tary inves­ti­gates the OJ Simp­son saga, peel­ing the lay­ers from this giant, rot­ten cul­tur­al onion with foren­sic pre­ci­sion and intel­lec­tu­al rigour. In this absorb­ing study of race, class, sport, pol­i­tics and the media through the prism of one deeply trou­bled man, Edel­man crafts the ulti­mate rar­i­ty: a 467-minute film that could stand to be even longer. AC

Placed under house arrest and banned from mak­ing films by the Iran­ian gov­ern­ment in 2010, Jafar Panahi’s cre­ative future was very much in doubt at the begin­ning of the decade. But this joy­ful­ly exper­i­men­tal, end­less­ly nim­ble doc/​fiction hybrid co-direct­ed by Mojta­ba Mir­tah­masb and set in Panahi’s owns apartment/​prison eased those fears sub­stan­tial­ly. It also ush­ered in a new era of per­son­al and polit­i­cal expres­sion for one of the great liv­ing film artists. GHJ

If the title sequence and metic­u­lous design ele­ments sug­gest a pati­na of ​’70s Euro hor­ror, The Duke of Bur­gundy is far too sin­gu­lar a con­coc­tion to write off as an exer­cise in pas­tiche. Pin­teresque, sap­ph­ic role play fig­ures ear­ly, before ento­mo­log­i­cal motifs emerge to enrich Strickland’s provoca­tive­ly sen­su­al bitch­es brew. As ever with our fore­most pro­po­nent of sen­so­r­i­al goth­ic, the first act is but a tease for the audio­vi­su­al phan­tas­mago­ria unleashed come the third. MT

In Andrew Haigh’s ten­der, exposed debut fea­ture, a one-night stand between two men quick­ly becomes not only a more inti­mate expe­ri­ence, but an oppor­tu­ni­ty for the two to con­front what it means to be a (white) gay man in the mod­ern, west­ern world. Week­end is as intox­i­cat­ing­ly splen­did as it is right­eous­ly polit­i­cal. Kyle Turn­er

You’ll strug­gle to find any­one who opposed Hayao Miyazaki’s deci­sion to come out of retire­ment in 2017. And yet… were it not for the pres­ence of a new project from Stu­dio Ghibli’s sil­ver-beard­ed mae­stro on the hori­zon, The Wind Ris­es would sure­ly go down as one of the all-time great cin­e­mat­ic swan­songs. Miyazaki’s forth­com­ing How Do You Live? may well prove to be an instant clas­sic, but he’ll be hard pushed to top this soar­ing semi-auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal adven­ture. AW

Through its non-lin­ear alien inva­sion plot line and lush visu­als, Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival is a sci-fi film that acknowl­edges the con­nec­tion between life’s great joy and unfath­omable pain through lin­guist Louise Banks (Amy Adams), the death of her teenage daugh­ter, and the mys­te­ri­ous extrater­res­tri­al vis­i­tors Banks and her col­leagues have been charged to study. At a time when the future seemed – and still seems – fright­en­ing, Arrival came as a hope­ful vision of life and death that sees intense emo­tion as vital to the human expe­ri­ence. Madeleine Sei­del

Away from home and deep into the humil­i­a­tions and dis­cov­er­ies of vet­eri­nary school, Jus­tine becomes fam­ished. For the first time, she begins to eat raw meat and a new world of pos­si­bil­i­ties opens up. A tru­ly cor­po­re­al com­ing of age with a per­verse take on what it means to inhab­it a human body, Raw is a film of rare plea­sures and unex­pect­ed sur­pris­es. JS

Paul Thomas Ander­son is one of those infu­ri­at­ing­ly great film­mak­ers who is yet to make a bad film (and long may his reign con­tin­ue). His sun-drenched Cal­i­forn­ian crime caper, star­ring Joaquin Phoenix, is one of his knot­ti­est works – no sur­prise, since it’s adapt­ed from a Thomas Pyn­chon nov­el – but that only makes it more reward­ing. Con­found­ing, chal­leng­ing and often very fun­ny, and it’s great to see Phoenix loosen up and have some real fun. HW

Andrea Arnold’s pen­chant for street cast­ing brings a joy­ous nat­u­ral­ism to her first non-British film. Spot­ted by Arnold while sun­bathing on a Flori­da beach, Sasha Lane gives an immense per­for­mance as Star, the Okla­homa teen who flees her fam­i­ly for a life on the road sell­ing mag­a­zine sub­scrip­tions with Shia LaBeouf. Well, someone’s got to. TH

With back­ing from Harvard’s Sen­so­ry Ethnog­ra­phy Lab, co-direc­tors Lucien Cas­taing-Tay­lor and Véré­na Par­avel plunged audi­ences into the murky, eeri­ly sen­su­ous world of deep-sea fish­ing. Their hard-won footage offers a nov­el take on the exper­i­men­tal doc­u­men­tary, priv­i­leg­ing tex­ture and sen­sa­tion over arc-based nar­ra­tives or, in its most rav­ish­ing moments, basic coher­ence. CB

Adam Dri­ver deliv­ers his finest per­for­mance as a bus dri­ver with the soul of a poet, mov­ing through his quo­tid­i­an rou­tine with grace and an appre­ci­a­tion for the lit­tle things. Jim Jarmusch’s gen­tlest film uses visu­al rhyme and high-mind­ed allu­sion to show how this man – a work­ing artist – rec­on­ciles the demands of every­day life with his need to cre­ate. CB

In this hazi­ly kalei­do­scope com­ing-of-age film, Mike Mills was inspired by his own child­hood to tell a sto­ry of women rais­ing a boy at the end of the 1970s. Annette Ben­ing cre­at­ed one of the decade’s best screen char­ac­ters in wise­crack­ing Dorothea, a woman born dur­ing the Depres­sion but embrac­ing the era of punk. Pamela Hutchin­son

Sarah Polley’s deeply per­son­al debut doc­u­men­tary is a self-aware, sen­sa­tion­al use of sto­ry­telling that nav­i­gates through her family’s elu­sive past with a skill that belies her ear­ly sta­tus in non-fic­tion. The less said of Polley’s her­itage the bet­ter; this is the kind of cin­e­mat­ic expe­ri­ence that ben­e­fits from going in blind. BW

Inge­nious­ly, in Cam­er­ap­er­son direc­tor Kirsten John­son used frag­ments from the films she shot over the course of 25 years work­ing as a cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er to craft a nar­ra­tive about her own life. It’s a riv­et­ing, and whol­ly orig­i­nal film that locates the soul of its sub­jects through the camera’s dis­cern­ing, sym­pa­thet­ic gaze. PH

Peo­ple love to read about the movies that nev­er came to be – the bro­ken dreams of deceased auteurs that didn’t, for what­ev­er rea­son, see the light of day. In the case of Orson Welles’ The Oth­er Side of the Wind, stream­ing giants Net­flix decid­ed to par­lay their con­sid­er­able finan­cial resources into dredg­ing this dream up from the dol­drums and giv­ing it the life it nev­er got back in ear­ly 1970s. Hav­ing the chance to bask in the sen­so­ry over­load of a work the direc­tor him­self described as ​“a new kind of cin­e­ma” allows us to see just how much Welles remained one of the great inno­va­tors of the medi­um until his dying day. DJ

The film that launched a thou­sand stan accounts, Luca Guadagnino’s ten­der com­ing-of-age romance set in the dreamy idyll of North­ern Italy made an instant star of Tim­o­th­ée Cha­la­met. Ele­vat­ed by lush, hazy cin­e­matog­ra­phy, Suf­jan Stevens’ beau­ti­ful score and Michael Stuhlbarg’s show­stop­ping sup­port­ing per­for­mance, Call Me by Your Name marked a water­shed moment for queer cin­e­ma; ten­der and cheeky and heart­break­ing in equal mea­sure. HW

The F for Fake of grad school movies, Whit­ney Horn and Lev Kalman’s super lo-fi ear­ly ​’90s-set curio fol­lows a group of stu­dents as they embark on var­i­ous trips over the course of a sin­gle aca­d­e­m­ic year. Con­struct­ed as a series of mean­der­ing, osten­si­bly uncon­nect­ed vignettes in which each ​“char­ac­ter” is giv­en ample oppor­tu­ni­ty to shoot the shit, L for Leisure might just be the most elab­o­rate cin­e­mat­ic in-joke ever pulled. AW

In this 2018 hor­ror hit, anx­i­eties about fam­i­ly and grief turn demon­ic in the hands of direc­tor Ari Aster and lead actress Toni Col­lette. Annie Gra­ham (Col­lette) is grap­pling with her com­pli­cat­ed feel­ings sur­round­ing the death of her moth­er, set­ting off a trau­mat­ic series of events that lead the Gra­hams to uncov­er ter­ri­fy­ing secrets about their late matri­arch. Bridg­ing the gap between tra­di­tion­al and exper­i­men­tal, slow-burn­ing hor­ror, Hered­i­tary is bru­tal and beau­ti­ful­ly craft­ed in equal mea­sure. MS

The French philoso­pher Blaise Pas­cal famous­ly remarked that if Cleopatra’s nose had been short­er, the whole face of the world would have been changed. Some­thing sim­i­lar can be said of Isabelle Huppert’s eye­brows in Elle: with every know­ing ele­va­tion and quizzi­cal flick­er, she telegraphs worlds of bit­ing com­men­tary and exquis­ite­ly restrained emo­tion. Cather­ine Bray

David Fincher’s poi­so­nous and pulpy adap­ta­tion of Gillian Flynn’s best­selling thriller cap­tures the obses­sive and tox­ic turns of one seem­ing­ly strait-laced pro­to­typ­i­cal het­ero­sex­u­al cou­ple. Full of twists and turns, false leads, fourth-wall breaks, Gone Girl a deeply fun­ny and astute por­trait of the expec­ta­tions and pres­sures of life under cap­i­tal­ism. JS

Apichat­pong Weerasathekul’s audi­ence expand­ed after this film saw him col­lect the Palme d’Or in 2010. An oth­er­world­ly film about Thai tra­di­tions of trans­for­ma­tion and rein­car­na­tion, Uncle Boon­mee fol­lows a man who, fac­ing his final days, starts to find him­self sur­round­ed by strange sights and spec­tral pres­ences. MLT

Claire Denis’ out-of-this-world debut Eng­lish-lan­guage dra­ma saw Robert Pat­tin­son marooned amongst the stars, con­tem­plat­ing father­hood, for­give­ness and the frail­ness of man. It also brought new mean­ing to the phrase ​“in space, no one can hear you scream,” via a solo sex scene in a blacked-out cos­mic con­tain­er called ​“the fuck­box” that’s among the decade’s most unnerv­ing. Al Horner

It was a long wait for Argen­tinean direc­tor Lucre­cia Martel’s fourth fea­ture, but boy was it worth it. This rev­er­ent adap­ta­tion of Anto­nio di Benedetto’s 1956 nov­el fol­lows a bureau­crat sta­tioned in a remote Paraguayan encamp­ment who just can’t seem to do any­thing that makes him or those around him hap­py. It’s a qua­si-psy­che­del­ic char­ac­ter por­trait which begins like a cor­po­rate com­e­dy caper (with scene-steal­ing lla­mas) and cli­max­es as a wist­ful and vio­lent west­ern. DJ

In fraught queer land­scape of the ear­ly ​’90s amid the AIDS cri­sis, flu­id­i­ty is not only impor­tant, it’s what gives queers a sense of sol­i­dar­i­ty. Thrust­ing the audi­ence in the mid­dle of ACT UP Paris meet­ings, actions, and dance par­ties, Direc­tor Robin Campil­lo humane­ly observes the way that com­mu­ni­ty, pol­i­tics, pain and plea­sure are inex­tri­ca­ble from one anoth­er. KT

“Shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him?” The Bible basi­cal­ly nails it: Leviathan is a hefty beast and a crush­ing­ly depress­ing watch, but in a good way – Andrey Zvyag­int­sev con­structs a rich and inex­orable study of low-lev­el cor­rup­tion in mod­ern Rus­sia, as clear-eyed as it is cun­ning. Cather­ine Bray

After a long hia­tus, Lee Chang-dong fol­lowed up Poetry’s qui­et­ly angry cri­tique of patri­ar­chal priv­i­lege with the mag­nif­i­cent and beguil­ing Burn­ing. A trea­tise on con­sumerism, mas­cu­line rage and class-based dis­con­tent, the film immers­es us in the pro­tag­o­nists sub­jec­tive POV, his unrav­el­ling por­trayed with a fas­ci­nat­ing, entic­ing ambi­gu­i­ty. Kam­bole Campbell

Despite a 2017 short and a site-spe­cif­ic instal­la­tion piece this year, the Hun­gar­i­an slow cin­e­ma mae­stro appears to be stick­ing to his guns in describ­ing The Turin Horse as his final cin­e­mat­ic state­ment. Eschew­ing the iron­ic absur­dism of pre­vi­ous fea­tures for a po-faced exam­i­na­tion of futil­i­ty and sta­sis, it’s a study in sur­vival­ism and human nature that serves as a clear-eyed sum­ma­tion of a nine fea­ture for­mal project. A rap­tur­ous final state­ment from one of cinema’s titans. MT

There are some cin­e­mat­ic images that stay with you. Joe Man­ganiel­lo gyrat­ing as he pours a bot­tle of water down him­self to the beat of Back­street Boys’ ​‘I Want It That Way’ is one of them. In this sequel to Steven Soderbergh’s melan­choly medi­a­tion on tox­ic mas­culin­i­ty and the body as com­mod­i­ty, his long-time col­league Gre­go­ry Jacobs stepped up to direct. Mag­ic Mike XXL does exact­ly what it says on the tin. Impos­si­bly attrac­tive and charm­ing scant­i­ly-clad men bust out song and dance rou­tines while a host of beau­ti­ful, pow­er­ful, low-key ter­ri­fy­ing women run the show. HW

Even for a direc­tor who trades in min­i­mal­ism, there is a sur­pris­ing slow­ness to Céline Sciamma’s fourth fea­ture. Upon first watch, the film is a slow­ly burn­ing seduc­tion, qui­et­ly hyp­not­ic until a cli­max at the end of the sec­ond act. But both the silence and noise linger long after, even on first blush, frames and dia­logue unique­ly burnt into mem­o­ry. ​“Not every­thing is fleet­ing. Some feel­ings are deep,” Adèle Haenel’s Heloise says. Ella Don­ald

Bong Joon-ho has always been a mas­ter of tonal whiplash, mov­ing from dark dra­ma to absur­dist com­e­dy with rel­ish. He out­did him­self with the Palme d’Or-winning Par­a­site, which some­how mutates from a hilar­i­ous fam­i­ly farce into the decade’s most sear­ing social satire: a con­dem­na­tion of late cap­i­tal­ism that stays with you for weeks after. AH

The grav­i­ty of these images makes you feel like you’re sink­ing through the floor as for­mer-death-squad leader Anwar, now an ami­able grand­fa­ther, instructs Joshua Oppen­heimer as the doc­u­men­tar­i­an re-stages grue­some mur­ders from the Indone­sian geno­cide of 1965 – 66. The blood of inno­cents runs through this huge­ly empa­thet­ic film, along with an urge to under­stand how killers account for their evil, state-sanc­tioned deeds. SMK

As Denis Lavant rides around in a lim­ou­sine, insert­ing him­self in a series of odd sce­nar­ios, film­mak­er and cer­ti­fi­able mad­man Leos Carax explodes the notion of ​“the actor” with these inscrutable per­for­mances. Suf­fused with the sheer pos­si­bil­i­ty of the cin­e­mat­ic form, prone to flights of fan­cy involv­ing accor­dion march­ing bands and lech­er­ous trolls, there’s tru­ly noth­ing else like it. CB

Chris­t­ian Pet­zold makes films which seem to exist out of time. Phoenix, the Ger­man writer/director’s inti­mate, atmos­pher­ic por­trait of a dis­fig­ured Holo­caust sur­vivor who sets out to dis­cov­er the truth about the man she loves, man­ages to be at once unam­bigu­ous in its set­ting – post­war Berlin – and refresh­ing­ly uncon­strained by the spe­cif­ic style and mood of the peri­od. The last scene is an absolute dream. AW

Lee Chang-Dong’s mas­ter­ful Poet­ry pro­ceeds with a premise from heav­en: a Kore­an grand­moth­er Mija (the bril­liant Yoon Jeong-hee) con­fronts the ear­ly onset of Alzheimer’s dis­ease while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly deal­ing with the fall­out from a ter­ri­ble crime in which her teenage grand­son (Lee David, play­ing one of cinema’s all-time great lit­tle shits) may have been a key play­er. It’s impos­si­ble to know where this crush­ing­ly sad yet breath­tak­ing­ly beau­ti­ful film is head­ed from one moment to the next. AC

The world is going to end in a future with­in sight, and nobody’s doing any­thing about it. This ter­ror ani­mates Paul Schrader’s por­trait of a coun­try priest (Ethan Hawke) turn­ing to a Chris­t­ian jihad in a last-ditch effort to sal­vage what’s left of God’s cre­ation. His one-man holy war mounts a per­sua­sive argu­ment for right­eous extrem­ism in the end times. CB

Leonar­do DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Ellen Page and oth­ers found them­selves dis­ap­pear­ing down rab­bit holes of their own mak­ing in this daz­zling ​‘mind-heist’ sci-fi in which data thieves could enter the dreams, and dreams-with­in-dreams, of their marks. Full of the brazen­ly over­com­pli­cat­ed bom­bast that Christo­pher Nolan accom­plish­es with such gus­to, this was not only a high water­mark of orig­i­nal, intel­li­gent block­buster film­mak­ing, but after a decade in which fran­chise films dom­i­nat­ed the box office to an unprece­dent­ed degree, it in ret­ro­spect looks like a swan­song to a bygone stu­dio mode. IM

Reunit­ing Scorsese’s old col­lab­o­ra­tors De Niro, Pesci and Kei­t­el – plus throw­ing Al Paci­no into the mix – this chilly, grad­u­al­ly-paced epic spans the life and career of mob hit­man Frank Sheer­an across the Amer­i­can mid-cen­tu­ry. Ele­giac, dis­com­fit­ing, and sur­pris­ing­ly fun­ny, The Irish­man is a late-career mas­ter­piece from one of Amer­i­can cinema’s remain­ing heroes. CN

Boy­hood was one of those films where an artist wheels comes from out of nowhere and presents ​‘just a thing I’ve been tin­ker­ing with,’ and it turns out to be their defin­ing achieve­ment of their fet­ed career. Mar­tin Scors­ese had de-age­ing tech­nol­o­gy by the shed­load for The Irish­man, but Richard Lin­klater went one fur­ther and cap­tured the annu­al tri­als and tribu­la­tions of Mason (Ellar Coltrane) across 12 painstak­ing years. How this logis­ti­cal night­mare man­ages to all come togeth­er into one of the most poet­ic and pro­found state­ments on how we nat­u­ral­ly adapt to the peo­ple and places around us, we’ll nev­er know. DJ

The rare sequel that sur­pass­es its pre­de­ces­sor, the script by Paul King and Simon Farn­a­by is sharp­er, the sto­ry is sweet­er (with­out turn­ing sac­cha­rine), and Hugh Grant’s vil­lain­ous Phoenix Buchanan should have earned an Oscar nom­i­na­tion. A much-need­ed slice of joy, the mar­malade-sand­wich lov­ing bear is a strong advo­cate for the pow­er com­mu­ni­ty spir­it. EF

A man and a woman dri­ve through the coun­try­side, exchang­ing thoughts on art and authen­tic­i­ty. We may recog­nise them as Juli­ette Binoche and William Shimell (the lat­ter in his screen debut), but their true nature – as pos­si­ble amants, as ide­o­log­i­cal oppo­sites – remains an enig­ma through Abbas Kiarostami’s cease­less­ly bril­liant late-career thought exer­cise. CB

Ter­rence Mal­ick released more films this decade than he dur­ing the pre­vi­ous three decades com­bined. While all six could be described as major, this swoon­ing, spin­ning, swing­ing tale about two strug­gling musi­cians (Ryan Gosling and Rooney Mara) who fall in and out and in love is arguably the most emo­tion­al­ly stun­ning. Set against the rau­cous music scene in Austin, the film’s height­ened, ulti­mate­ly hope­ful melo­dra­ma punc­tures the con­for­mi­ty of mod­ern social inter­ac­tion that often sucks up all the air in a bur­geon­ing romance. GHJ

Dar­ing to dream big doesn’t always lead to the life you want, rather this com­ing-of-age sto­ry deals with the real­i­ties of a stalled career, shift­ing friend­ship pri­or­i­ties, and main­tain­ing a sense of hope when every­thing goes wrong. Fea­tur­ing an incan­des­cent lead per­for­mance by co-writer Gre­ta Ger­wig, danc­ing through New York City to David Bowie has nev­er looked bet­ter. EF

“You’re lost and you’ll always be lost,” Julie’s first love Antho­ny tells her. With this unflinch­ing mem­oir, Joan­na Hogg is found. She traces the con­tours of a doomed rela­tion­ship, res­ur­rect­ing its volatile inti­ma­cy in such refined and painful detail that it feels like a liv­ing mon­u­ment to impos­si­ble love and a source of wis­dom to those still in its grasp. SMK

When you’re a kid, your par­ents con­stant­ly hec­tor you with the ques­tion: what are you going to do with your life? Mia Hansen-Løve’s fourth fea­ture is about a man (inspired by her own broth­er Sven) who believes he knows what he wants to do, and ded­i­cates his life to achiev­ing his dream of being a world renowned dance music DJ. Yet what if it becomes clear that you are liv­ing an impos­si­ble dream, and that to achieve any kind of hap­pi­ness you need to hit the hard reset. It’s stands as the director’s great­est, most rich­ly philo­soph­i­cal and inspir­ing film to date. DJ

Gre­ta Gerwig’s direc­to­r­i­al debut is a gen­er­a­tion-defin­ing film. Anchored by an incred­i­ble per­for­mance from Saoirse Ronan in the tit­u­lar role, the film fol­lows Chris­tine ​“Lady Bird” McPher­son and her moth­er (Lau­rie Met­calf) as they nav­i­gate Lady Bird’s senior year of high school and the dra­ma, heart­break, and rapid change that accom­pa­nies it. Lady Bird is a bit­ter­sweet trib­ute to ado­les­cence in the ear­ly 2000s, and even though the film is spe­cif­ic to a cer­tain (and yes, rather priv­i­leged) expe­ri­ence, Ger­wig crafts a nar­ra­tive so attuned with the ups and downs of grow­ing up that it’s near­ly impos­si­ble to not see a bit of your­self on screen. MS

With Stray Dogs, mas­ter Tai­wanese film­mak­er Tsai Ming-liang push­es his craft to its log­i­cal extreme, work­ing with his long-time (and long-suf­fer­ing) actor col­lab­o­ra­tor Lee Kang-sheng to make this slow, severe and utter­ly sub­lime film – the fit­ting con­clu­sion to their increas­ing­ly des­o­late series of fea­tures explor­ing alien­ation, pover­ty and desire. MLT

Released on Net­flix but best appre­ci­at­ed on the sparkling sil­ver screen, Alfon­so Cuaron’s gor­geous side­ways auto­bi­og­ra­phy cen­tres not on his own child­hood mem­o­ries but on the expe­ri­ence of his indige­nous nan­ny, a holy inno­cent buf­fet­ed by mis­for­tune. The result is a grand cel­e­bra­tion of life, fam­i­ly, empa­thy, integri­ty, rebel­lion, food, cin­e­ma – all the good stuff. TH

In a more just world, Lynne Ram­say would have been gar­land­ed the world over for her bruis­ing, tight­ly-coiled 2018 thriller, in which Joaquin Phoenix plays an aveng­ing hit­man who becomes embroiled in the dark world of child sex traf­fick­ing in New York state. Like her pre­vi­ous films, We Need to Talk About Kevin and Morvern Callar, she adapts from a nov­el but cre­ates her own dis­tinct vision – a world where soft­ness exists along­side unbear­able bru­tal­i­ty. HW

Ter­rence Mal­ick hint­ed at a new form of film syn­tax with his ​“come­back” two­some of 1998’s The Thin Red Line and 2005’s The New World, but it wasn’t until 2011’s The Tree of Life where he was able to form flu­id, florid sen­tences. The film jux­ta­pos­es the acci­den­tal death of a young man against the his­to­ry of cre­ation and, while trac­ing the evo­lu­tion of grief as an emo­tion that is couched in a feel­ing of near-sub­lime exal­ta­tion. This real­ly is as grandil­o­quent, philo­soph­i­cal and rhap­sod­ic as cin­e­ma gets. DJ

The Social Net­work is a mas­ter­class in bio­graph­i­cal film­mak­ing, thanks in no small part to Aaron Sorkin’s script – sharp enough to draw blood – and Trent Reznor and Atti­cus Ross’ score, which mix­es melan­choly piano motifs with glitchy synths. Jesse Eisen­berg was robbed of an Oscar for his per­for­mance as enfant ter­ri­ble Mark Zucker­berg, and the film’s last­ing pre­science as Facebook’s stran­gle­hold on the com­mu­ni­ca­tions land­scape begins to dwin­dle can­not be for­got­ten. David Fincher’s film has aged like a fine wine. HW

Paul Thomas Ander­son bur­rows deep into the id of post­war Amer­i­ca with this immac­u­late peri­od piece, a years-span­ning bat­tle of wills between a cult leader (Phillip Sey­mour Hoff­man) and his most devout fol­low­er (Joaquin Phoenix). A mas­sive and essen­tial addi­tion to the States’ nation­al cin­e­ma canon, it plays out like a dense mid­cen­tu­ry nov­el. CB

Get Out was a phe­nom­e­non full of now-icon­ic ideas and imagery: Daniel Kaluuya’s hor­ri­fied face, The Sunken Place, the sound of a spoon scrap­ing around the inside of a teacup. It announced direc­tor Jor­dan Peele as a bril­liant Hitch­cock­ian mis­chief-mak­er and was the first true film of the Trump era, encap­su­lat­ing how America’s present is a slave to its racial­ly-fraught past. AH

One of Miguel Gomes’ abid­ing inter­ests is in the idea of art as a chron­i­cle of a moment in time, be it a paint­ing, a polit­i­cal folk song, or an object that draws your mind back to a hap­pi­er time. In Tabu, yen for the crisp, unadorned roman­ti­cism of silent-era cin­e­ma is aug­ment­ed by a wicked sense of irony and some touch­es which hark back to a nar­ra­tor per­haps mix­ings up times and places in her own head. It’s a mag­i­cal film about the cin­e­mat­ic nature of mem­o­ry, and also boasts an extra­or­di­nary, impro­vised piano sound­track by Lis­bon local, Joana Sá. DJ

After years of delays, Ken­neth Lonergan’s oper­at­ic med­i­ta­tion on guilt and cop­ing in New York was restored to its fullest glo­ry and allowed to see the light of day in the­atres. Between Lonergan’s tone-per­fect direc­tion and Anna Paquin’s thun­der­struck per­for­mance as a teen learn­ing that she may not know every­thing after all, the wait was worth it. CB

In just 62 min­utes, director/​producer/​writer/​animator/​narrator Don Hertzfeldt man­ages to pull off a quite incred­i­ble feat: he tells a sto­ry, ren­dered large­ly with crude stick fig­ures, which runs the full gamut of human expe­ri­ence. Death, life, love, loss, the inevitable death of the cos­mos and all with­in it – all are pon­tif­i­cat­ed upon with Hertzfeldt’s pro­found, crude, bleak and hope­ful mas­ter­piece. HW

It’s great when you see a movie that took a lit­tle longer to make, and it’s even bet­ter when you can actu­al­ly see that time, patience and the arti­san work­man­ship up there on the screen. The third fea­ture by Ger­man mae­stro Maren Ade, when tak­en as a glo­ri­ous whole, feels not like a labour of love – as that would infer that there was an ele­ment of roman­tic, direc­tion­less ener­gy employed in its mak­ing. No, this is like the screw­ball com­e­dy equiv­a­lent of a gor­geous hand-carved canoe. It is the exem­plary saga of an eccen­tric father who is deter­mined to make his daugh­ter, now a high-rolling busi­ness­woman based in Bucharest, remem­ber the joys of her youth. What­ev­er Ade does next, the world will be watch­ing. DJ

It would be easy to over­hype Todd Haynes’ land­mark 2015 film, one that has thou­sands of prais­ing words and a still-ardent fan­dom that con­tin­ues to grow even years after its release. Lov­ing­ly and pas­sion­ate­ly con­struct­ed by all involved over its long pro­duc­tion peri­od, it’s a film that’s easy to adore. But more­over, Car­ol rep­re­sents a view­ing expe­ri­ence that encap­su­lates why we go to the movies: escapism, com­mu­ni­ty, the chance to feel under­stood. Undoubt­ed­ly, it will be remem­bered in decades fo come. ED

So pure­ly chaot­ic and ele­men­tal that it feels like it was forged in the fires of hell, Mad Max: Fury Road is George Miller’s mag­num opus. Punc­tu­at­ed with some of the most dynam­ic action scenes ever filmed, it’s per­fect­ly orches­trat­ed anar­chy from begin­ning to end; its post-apoc­a­lypse realised in vivd colour and tem­pered by pal­pa­ble emo­tion­al stakes. KC

Paul Thomas Anderson’s rav­ish­ing eighth fea­ture marked a sig­nif­i­cant depar­ture from his pre­vi­ous work; in style and set­ting if not theme or tone. A spry, acer­bical­ly fun­ny decon­struc­tion of mas­culin­i­ty set in 1950s Lon­don, it sees Daniel Day-Lewis on sen­sa­tion­al form as fash­ion design­er Reynolds Wood­cock, whose fas­tid­i­ous life comes unstitched when he meets the one woman he’s unable to mould to his will (Vicky Krieps). PTA’s por­trait of the artist as a hun­gry boy may fore­ground the director’s pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with unchecked male ego, but it’s real­ly all about Alma. AW

The Coen broth­ers’ week-in-the-life por­trait of a strug­gling folk singer is their most melan­choly film to date, elo­quent­ly artic­u­lat­ing the heart­break of watch­ing your life slow­ly fall apart. Oscar Isaac is utter­ly mag­net­ic as the frus­trat­ing, charm­ing, hope­less Llewyn Davis, cast adrift under the blue-grey win­ter light of an unsym­pa­thet­ic New York City that offers no respite for the weary. Fun­ny, bleak, and aching­ly beau­ti­ful with a sound­track that stands up as one of the decade’s great­est, it’s a per­fect film about dreams, missed oppor­tu­ni­ties, and the per­ils of the gig econ­o­my. HW

The poet­ic, emo­tive beau­ty of Bar­ry Jenk­ins’ Moon­light is strik­ing enough to feel like an artis­tic state­ment of intent. Jenk­ins uses a trip­tych struc­ture and a trio of actors to tell the ellip­ti­cal sto­ry of Chi­ron, a boy who strug­gles to come to terms with being gay in his work­ing-class black com­mu­ni­ty. It’s a haunt­ing, lumi­nous film that’s dif­fi­cult to for­get once seen. CN

An extrater­res­tri­al falls to Earth and snatch­es the body of Scar­lett Johans­son, cuing up an inter­ro­ga­tion of what it means to be mor­tal that con­vinc­ing­ly inhab­its a space out­side the human. Jonathan Glazer’s images of abstrac­tion and Mica Levi’s string-sec­tion-from-hell pro­vide a beau­ti­ful, haunt­ing reminder that the root of ​“alien­ation” is ​“alien.” The ide­al com­bi­na­tion of the cere­bral and the emo­tion­al, with an aes­thet­ic halfway between a chilly min­i­mal­ism and a sur­re­al­ist lush­ness, Under the Skin is an expert feat of artis­tic cal­i­bra­tion – and despite all the free-float­ing dread, it’s also one of the most improb­a­bly sexy movies of the decade. In its most affect­ing moments, Glazer’s attempt to locate the mean­ing of life (in both the bio­log­i­cal and philo­soph­i­cal sens­es) seems to con­tain with­in it all of cre­ation. CB