The 50 Best Films of the New Mil­len­ni­um (Not Based on Exist­ing Intel­lec­tu­al Property)

At the begin­ning of 2022, indus­try oper­a­tor and LWLies con­trib­u­tor Josh Slater-Williams made a pithy com­ment on social media in response to a list of the top 30 box office earn­ers of 2021. He not­ed that only four films on the list were not based on exist­ing intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty – and one of those films was the low-balling Ryan Reynolds vehi­cle Free Guy, which ref­er­ences a lot of exist­ing IP as part of its sto­ry and pro­duc­tion design.

So that’s 26 of the top 30 films of 2021 – top in the sense that peo­ple were going to the cin­e­ma in droves to see them – all either sequels, remakes, refits, lit­er­ary adap­ta­tions, musi­cal adap­ta­tions, spin­offs, fran­chise exten­sions or, in the case of Jun­gle Cruise, based on the pop­u­lar theme park ride of the same name.

Pig­gy­back­ing on exist­ing IP – or, as it’s thought of in the indus­try, serv­ing con­tent to a pre-exist­ing fan­base – is as old as the hills when it comes to the Hol­ly­wood indus­tri­al com­plex. That’s not to say that this mode of film­mak­ing inher­ent­ly yields neg­a­tive results, as among that top 30 there are a hand­ful of indis­putable bangers.

Yet it’s hard to feel there’s not some­thing wrong when an art­form is at a place in its evo­lu­tion where orig­i­nal­i­ty offers scant finan­cial rec­om­pense, and those with the com­mis­sion­ing pow­er are risk-averse to the point where we’re careen­ing into a glossy mono­cul­ture in which new­found pro­gres­sive ideals are being buried in end­less reams of give-the-peo­ple-what-they-want can­dy floss.

In response to that list, we offer up the results of a poll sur­vey­ing the best films of the 21^st cen­tu­ry – the catch being that every sin­gle one is a true orig­i­nal and was put out in the world in the hope that an audi­ence would crave some­thing dif­fer­ent, and not more of the same.

Per­son­al top 10 lists were sup­plied by the fol­low­ing con­trib­u­tors: Ege Apay­din, Mark Asch, Mari­na Ash­i­oti, Anton Bitel, Anna Bogut­skaya, Charles Bramesco, Cheyenne Bun­sie, Anna Cale, Jake Cole, Philip Con­can­non, Lil­lian Craw­ford, Nicole Davis, Isaac Feld­berg, Emma Fras­er, Patrick Gam­ble, Katie Goh, Rōgan Gra­ham, Steph Green, Glenn Heath Jr, Tom Hud­dle­ston, Pamela Hutchin­son, David Jenk­ins, Trevor John­ston, Ariel Kling, Aimee Knight, Michael Leader, Saf­fron Maeve, Emi­ly Maskell, Kather­ine McLaugh­lin, Ben R Nichol­son, Caitlin Quin­lan, Rafa Sales Ross, Fati­ma Sher­iff, Josh Slater-Williams, Han­nah Strong, Matt Thrift, Lou Thomas, Matt Turn­er, Syd­ney Urbanek, Lau­ra Ven­ning, Greg Wether­all, Sam Wigley, Bri­an­na Zigler

Explore the per­son­al top 10s

Direct­ed by Peter Strickland

If 2012’s Berber­ian Sound Stu­dio announced film­mak­er Peter Strick­land as a mak­er of meta­phys­i­cal hor­ror doo­dles that skirt on the extreme bound­aries of genre, then 2014’s The Duke of Bur­gundy dou­bles down on that intent. Here he draws on ​’70s soft­core – those porn epics that actu­al­ly had a plot! – to tell of a sado­masochis­tic rela­tion­ship between two women, set in a world pop­u­lat­ed entire­ly by women. A daz­zling one-off, and a dark jew­el in the cor­pus of one of the UK’s most con­sis­tent­ly idio­syn­crat­ic dreamweavers. David Jenk­ins

Direct­ed by Michael Haneke

An afflu­ent cou­ple besieged by a video­tape stalk­er are siphons for Michael Haneke’s inci­sive inter­ro­ga­tion of colo­nial­ism and the his­tor­i­cal, some might say wil­ful, amne­sia of Euro­pean soci­ety. Part­ly inspired by the 1961 Paris mas­sacre which saw as many as 200 Alger­ian pro­test­ers slaugh­tered by the Sûreté Nationale (an event ref­er­enced by Daniel Auteuil’s char­ac­ter), Hid­den has been described by its direc­tor as an exam­ple of how col­lec­tive guilt can be con­nect­ed to a per­son­al sto­ry. Adam Wood­ward

Direct­ed by Char­lie Kaufman

In Char­lie Kaufman’s ever-expand­ing autum­nal epic, a playwright’s mid­dle-aged cri­sis spi­rals into a neu­rot­ic quest for self through reflex­ive art. Yet in stag­ing his own life as an impos­si­bly all-inclu­sive dra­ma, melan­cholic Caden Cotard (Philip Sey­mour Hoff­man) is con­front­ed with his own lone­li­ness, mor­tal­i­ty and insignif­i­cance in a vast, indif­fer­ent uni­verse. The results are a sprawl­ing anx­i­ety dream of the human con­di­tion – pro­found, sophis­ti­cat­ed and dizzy­ing­ly bleak. Anton Bitel

Direct­ed by Greg Mottola

There is no bet­ter work of mod­ern cin­e­ma that cap­tures mid-to-late 2000s ado­les­cence than Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s grandiose retelling of their high school expe­ri­ences, led by Jon­ah Hill and Michael Cera. The beau­ty of Super­bad is that it pulls no punch­es – it is as caus­tic, offen­sive and uncom­fort­able as teen life tends to be. But what makes the film is that it is deeply empa­thet­ic, reveal­ing a gooey cen­tre of juve­nile male friend­ship. Bri­an­na Zigler

Direct­ed by Damien Chazelle

Damien Chazelle’s elec­tri­fy­ing exam­i­na­tion of artis­tic ambi­tion is an intense psy­cho­log­i­cal dra­ma that push­es a young jazz stu­dent and the nerves of its audi­ence to the absolute lim­it. Resist­ing the lazi­ness of bina­ry ​‘good’ and ​‘evil’, Whiplash is instead a skill­ful­ly craft­ed char­ac­ter study that decon­structs the notion of excel­lence. As the utter­ly ter­ri­fy­ing Ter­ence Fletch­er, JK Sim­mons’ deliv­ers a malev­o­lent men­tor for the ages. Cheyenne Bun­sie

Direct­ed by Miguel Gomes

Great things were expect­ed from Por­tuguese film­mak­er Miguel Gomes fol­low­ing his extra­or­di­nary docu-fic­tion hybrid, Our Beloved Month of August, from 2008. What we have with Tabu is a work which both expands on an excit­ing cin­e­mat­ic project and exceeds expec­ta­tion. This dip­tych sees the estranged lover of an elder­ly Lis­bon dowa­ger tell of their youth­ful Cape Verdean love affair while she lays dying. Eccen­tric­i­ty and earnest­ness have rarely been seen as such close bed­fel­lows in this clas­si­cal­ly-tinged roman­tic epic. DJ

Direct­ed by Pete Docter

The Pixar MO of cre­ative bril­liance paired with sweep­ing emo­tion­al heft is on full dis­play as the per­son­i­fied emo­tions of an 11-year-old girl come togeth­er to help her cope with life in a new city. An intri­cate imag­in­ing of what shapes a per­son­al­i­ty teamed with a sim­ple, relat­able nar­ra­tive, Inside Out is a tear-jerk­ing and visu­al­ly absorb­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal com­e­dy. It won an Oscar and more than stands up to such Pixar giants as Toy Sto­ry and Up. CB

Direct­ed by Kim Ki-duk

Set in and around a monastery on a remote lake, Kim Ki-duk’s sub­lime fea­ture traces the sea­sons of a man’s life in a float­ing world – from wan­ton boy to crim­i­nal young man to devout adult. Dis­arm­ing­ly sim­ple and deeply spir­i­tu­al, this is all at once Bud­dhist para­ble, human­ist fable and uni­ver­sal alle­go­ry, nev­er shy­ing away from life’s cru­el­ties while care­ful­ly ini­ti­at­ing the view­er into some­thing akin to reli­gious expe­ri­ence. ABit

Direct­ed by Hayao Miyazaki

Best described as a dream, Spir­it­ed Away presents a unique world that feels open and takes you on the bizarre tan­gents of adven­ture. Hayao Miyaza­ki raised the bar for acces­si­ble ani­mat­ed sto­ry­telling that doesn’t patro­n­ise its audi­ence, as every char­ac­ter is visu­al­ly icon­ic and/​or imbued with metaphor, from the pol­lu­tion of the Riv­er Spir­it, to the mate­ri­al­ism and over-con­sump­tion of No-Face. The beats of the sto­ry fol­low the beat of their own drum, which can’t be said for so many cook­ie-cut­ter children’s tales nowa­days. Fati­ma Sheriff

Direct­ed by Apichat­pong Weerasethakul

Apichat­pong Weerasethakul’s lan­guorous sec­ond fea­ture was brought to inter­na­tion­al atten­tion when it won the Un Cer­tain Regard prize in Cannes. Fes­ti­vals are a force for good when it comes to the advo­ca­cy of films that are not ripped from exist­ing IP sources, and the Thai mae­stro set the tem­plate for his search­ing, whim­si­cal, human­ist mode with this bucol­ic tale of a love affair between a young woman and her ail­ing, ille­gal immi­grant boyfriend. DJ

Direct­ed by Sofia Coppola

While many of Sofia Coppola’s films are based on pre-exist­ing mate­r­i­al, the orig­i­nal­i­ty of Lost in Trans­la­tion result­ed in her only Oscar to date for its screen­play. Like In the Mood for Love, the film fol­lows a ​‘brief encounter’ roman­tic struc­ture that threat­ens its char­ac­ters and audi­ence alike with the pangs of dispriz’d love. With a sound­track fea­tur­ing The Jesus and Mary Chain and Peach­es, it’s impos­si­ble not to fall for. Lil­lian Crawford

Direct­ed by Joel and Ethan Coen

The Coen broth­ers’ bal­lad of a belea­guered musi­cian tips its hat to var­i­ous real-life fig­ures from Green­wich Village’s now leg­endary folk scene, most notably Dave Van Ronk; it even ends with a cameo-of-sorts from a cer­tain har­mon­i­ca play­ing trou­ba­dour. Yet while the film wears its influ­ences on its cig­a­rette-burned sleeve, there’s always the sense that the Coens are adding some­thing new to the Great Amer­i­can Song­book rather than mere­ly strum­ming a famil­iar tune. AW

Direct­ed by Claire Denis

Claire Denis has gone on record as say­ing that this gor­geous, lilt­ing 2008 film was inspired by Yasu­jirō Ozu’s Late Spring from 1949 – but don’t call it a remake. Denis and her reg­u­lar co-screen­writer Jean-Pol Fargeau co-opt a loose, near imper­cep­ti­ble frame­work of the Japan­ese clas­sic and make this sto­ry, of a father feel­ing the pangs of melan­choly about his daugh­ter grow­ing up and mov­ing away from him, entire­ly their own. DJ

Direct­ed by Lucre­cia Martel

In the spir­it of the great Spaniard Luis Buñuel, Argen­tine film­mak­er Lucre­cia Mar­tel car­ries on a grand tra­di­tion of stick­ing it to the banal com­pla­cen­cy of the bour­geoisie but does so with trag­ic empa­thy rather than with­er­ing satire. A mid­dle-class matri­arch acci­den­tal­ly dri­ves over some­thing while scram­bling for her phone and, think­ing it was a stray dog, just car­ries on with her life. But this moment caus­es a strange, tem­po­rary rup­ture in her being, and Mar­tel uses her film to chan­nel a warped per­cep­tion of the every­day. DJ

Direct­ed by Ter­rence Malick

Tread­ing the well-worn ter­rain of Hollywood’s moral and cre­ative bank­rupt­cy, Ter­rence Malick’s Knight of Cups employs an almost Cubist approach to edit­ing that sug­gests the for­mer might be alle­vi­at­ed by cur­ing the lat­ter. Arguably the most rad­i­cal of Malick’s late-career films, Knight ful­ly sur­ren­ders to the mod­ernist lan­guage of the director’s sen­so­ry over­load, offer­ing new ways of see­ing that bypass nar­ra­tive for the pure emo­tion­al log­ic of the char­ac­ters’ souls. Jake Cole

Direct­ed by John Fawcett

A teenage girl’s body is weird, but it shouldn’t grow a tail, spurt fur and cre­ate an insa­tiable blood­lust. Usu­al­ly. On top of being bul­lied, the Fitzger­ald sis­ters have to deal with Gin­ger turn­ing into a were­wolf after being unex­pect­ed­ly attacked by one. A per­fect­ly gross meld of the teen and hor­ror movie gen­res, Gin­ger Snaps is a sib­ling love sto­ry and an ode to teenage girls who don’t fit in. Anna Bogut­skaya

Direct­ed by Ryū­suke Hamaguchi

Run­ning at 317 min­utes, Hap­py Hour is by some way the longest film on this list – and yet not a moment is wast­ed. Its scale in screen­time is scarce­ly matched in scope, focus­ing on four mid­dle-class women in Kobe, Japan with sev­er­al lan­guorous scenes in restau­rants and the­atre groups rem­i­nis­cent of Jacques Rivette’s mod­ernist epic, Out 1. As direc­tor Ryū­suke Ham­aguchi grows in rep­u­ta­tion, this will for­ev­er be his mag­num opus. LC

Direct­ed by Don Herzfeldt

Don Hertzfeldt is the most hard­work­ing film­mak­er on the plan­et. Not only does he write, direct, pro­duce, ani­mate and dis­trib­ute his films pret­ty much sin­gle-hand­ed­ly, they are with­out excep­tion works of rare, tran­scen­dent beau­ty. Hertzfeldt’s lone fea­ture to date film remains his crown­ing achieve­ment: fol­low­ing the lone­ly adven­tures of a stick man named Bill, it’s a bru­tal­ly human por­trait of depres­sion and social iso­la­tion that steadi­ly ris­es to a crescen­do of heart­break­ing, ecsta­t­ic glo­ry. Tom Hud­dle­ston

Direct­ed by Richard Kelly

The mind of a teenage boy can be a per­vert­ed explo­sion of hor­mones and rage, but also a place that spurts kind­ness and curios­i­ty. Richard Kelly’s cult clas­sic grasps that dual­i­ty with a char­ac­ter whose fiendish urges and frus­tra­tions at soci­ety guide him on a super­hero ori­gin sto­ry of sorts. The dar­ing nar­ra­tive com­bines apoc­a­lyp­tic anx­i­eties, pop cul­ture obses­sion and state of the nation satire while also pow­er­ful­ly express­ing the pain of puber­ty. Kather­ine McLaughlin

Direct­ed by Julia Ducournau

Only Julia Ducour­nau could give us a fea­ture debut that blends can­ni­bal body hor­ror, pro­nounced cor­po­re­al­i­ty and ado­les­cent sex­u­al awak­en­ing, all while ask­ing, ​“are you your body, or is your body you? And what does that mean in terms of iden­ti­ty?” Raw dis­avows both glam­ourised and demonised depic­tions of mon­strous fem­i­nin­i­ty, instead hon­ing in on the protagonist’s com­ing of age and her vora­cious, insa­tiable hunger for flesh. Mari­na Ashioti

Direct­ed by Michelan­ge­lo Frammartino

You’ll notice there aren’t a great many doc­u­men­taries in this list, as the notion of film­ing and shap­ing real­i­ty almost falls between two stools in the IP debate. What we do have is Michelan­ge­lo Frammartino’s won­drous Le Quat­tro Volte, a play­ful qua­si-doc­u­men­tary about goat herd­ing in Cal­abria that con­stant­ly calls into ques­tion the very meth­ods of its man­u­fac­ture, ask­ing whether objec­tive truth in film­mak­ing is any kind of achiev­able goal. DJ

Direct­ed by Tsai Ming-liang

Every film made by Tai­wanese direc­tor Tsai Ming-liang would be in con­tention for his best, but one like­ly to be hov­er­ing in the top tier for most fans of the director’s cor­pus of glacial­ly-paced won­ders is Stray Dogs. It’s a sim­ple por­trait of a pover­ty-strick­en fam­i­ly search­ing des­per­ate­ly for mon­ey and food, and in the end all they’re able to sus­tain them­selves with is art. This film is one of the great exam­ples of how long takes can slow­ly sub­vert per­cep­tion of an image or an action into some­thing tran­scen­dent. DJ

Direct­ed by Céline Sciamma

Long live the matri­archy of Céline Sci­amma! Petite Maman is the cul­mi­na­tion of her cin­e­mat­ic skill with yet anoth­er unique per­spec­tive on female love that clocks in at just 82 min­utes. Exist­ing in a lim­i­nal, ambigu­ous space between home and for­est, Sciamma’s film turns a del­i­cate explo­ration of grief and depres­sion into child’s play. It is a paragon of sim­plic­i­ty and authen­tic­i­ty that will make you tear up and want to hug your mum, and more cin­e­ma should aim for that. FS

Direct­ed by Joel and Ethan Coen

Lar­ry Gop­nik (Michael Stuhlbarg) can’t catch a break. With his son’s Bar Mitz­vah approach­ing and tenure just out of reach, his wife announces she’s leav­ing him for Sy Able­man (Fred Melamed). The Coens’ dark­ly comedic take on their mid­west­ern ado­les­cence bridges real­i­ty and fic­tion into a pro­found­ly Jew­ish and spec­u­la­tive work of fal­ter­ing faith. When every­thing is going wrong, what does it mean? It means the uni­verse laughs at our suf­fer­ing. And so are we. BZ

Direct­ed by Hou Hsiao-hsien

Though Tai­wanese New Wave lynch­pin Hou Hsiao-hsien is con­sid­ered to have one of the great­est bod­ies of work of any direc­tor, liv­ing or dead, this cur­rent focus on orig­i­nal sto­ry­telling means that his reg­u­lar screen­writer, Chu T’ien-wen, should also get her dues. She penned this shoegaze‑y char­ac­ter study of a rela­tion­ship in qui­et freefall, and a young woman’s deci­sion to break free of a tox­ic romance in the city and return to her rur­al roots. As with all of Hou’s films, the rad­i­cal, ellip­ti­cal telling of the tale is just as impor­tant as the tale itself. DJ

Direct­ed by Ken­neth Lonergan

Six years on the shelf is rarely a good look, but in the case of Ken­neth Lonergan’s sec­ond fea­ture – shot in 2005, released in a hob­bled cut in 2011 – the rea­sons for the delay couldn’t be clear­er: the direc­tor refused to budge. Quite right, too. His defin­i­tive three-hour cut is a dis­cur­sive, aching­ly empa­thet­ic study of teen priv­i­lege and mis­guid­ed activism, with a fierce cen­tral turn from Anna Paquin. TH

Direct­ed by Noah Baumbach

A picaresque tale of a free­wheel­ing young woman under pres­sure to take life more seri­ous­ly, Noah Baumbach’s black-and-white, New York-set Frances Ha cement­ed Gre­ta Ger­wig – its lumi­nous star and co-writer – as a major voice of her gen­er­a­tion. The film is a lov­ing homage to the French New Wave while cap­tur­ing the lib­er­a­tion and the lone­li­ness of life in a big city with wit, humour and heart. Lau­ra Venning

Direct­ed by Peter Strickland

It’s quite a feat to make squashed fruit and veg­eta­bles the gory cen­tre­piece of a film, but Peter Strick­land pulls it off with ease in his dis­turb­ing decon­struc­tion of sound, vio­lence and cin­e­ma. It’s a cel­e­bra­tion of pio­neer­ing exper­i­men­tal com­posers, foley artists and sound engi­neers that address­es sex­u­al harass­ment in the film indus­try, while also toy­ing with gial­lo hor­ror tropes and cul­ture clash­es with a night­mar­ish inten­si­ty and dry­ly com­ic edge. KM

Direct­ed by Paweł Pawlikowski

Anoth­er nun film caught in con­flict between the sanc­ti­ty of faith and the grim real­i­ties of the world around her? Not quite… Paweł Pawlikowski’s 2013 Oscar-win­ner Ida is a sim­ple yet deeply pro­found sto­ry of self-dis­cov­ery. Impec­ca­bly lit, metic­u­lous­ly com­posed and bol­stered by superb sound design and an excep­tion­al use of sta­t­ic black and-white cin­e­matog­ra­phy, the dis­tinc­tive artistry of Ida makes it a mes­meris­ing slice of tran­scen­den­tal cin­e­ma. MA

Direct­ed by Kle­ber Men­donça Fil­ho, Juliano Dornelles

As it reach­es its deliri­ous cli­max, Bacu­rau gorges in the ecsta­sy of the avenged colonised. Knives held by brown hands cut through white skin and bul­lets blast through rusty weapons stained by the dried sweat of those who once fought for the same rav­ished land. It’s a thrilling, pre­cise exer­cise in his­tor­i­cal reread­ing that trans­lates Brazil­ian pol­i­tics through a puls­ing, genre-bend­ing homage to Glauber Rocha and John Car­pen­ter. Rafa Sales Ross

Direct­ed by Kirsten Johnson

Over­turn­ing doc­u­men­tary con­ven­tion and chal­leng­ing tra­di­tion­al ideas of film author­ship, Kirsten Johnson’s alchem­i­cal Cam­er­ap­er­son cre­ates an extra­or­di­nar­i­ly inti­mate, if oblique nar­ra­tive out of wild­ly var­i­ous footage. Life, death and ethics hang in the bal­ance with each care­ful­ly placed sequence, all of which were shot by John­son dur­ing her impres­sive 25-year career as a doc­u­men­tary cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er. This sto­ry, how­ev­er, is all hers. She says: ​“I ask you to see it as my mem­oir.” Pamela Hutchin­son

Direct­ed by Lars von Trier

Films shot entire­ly on bare sound­stages often make it dif­fi­cult for view­ers to sus­pend dis­be­lief. Yet the unadorned set of Lars von Trier’s cin­e­mat­ic tri­umph Dogville potent­ly immers­es us into the under­bel­ly of small­town Amer­i­ca. It’s a dog-eat dog world, and when a run­away with a seem­ing­ly poised calm (Nicole Kid­man) seeks refuge in Dogville, she finds her­self at the mer­cy of the towns­folk. Von Tri­er strips it down to the bare essen­tials of sto­ry­telling, with the enchant­i­ng per­for­mances of his star-stud­ded cast tak­ing cen­tre stage. MA

Direct­ed by Ken­neth Lonergan

Filmed on loca­tion in and around the epony­mous Mass­a­chu­setts town, Ken­neth Lonergan’s lacon­ic dra­ma about a grief-strick­en handy­man is at once uni­ver­sal in its the­mat­ic scope and sin­gu­lar in its depic­tion of the tight-knit blue-col­lar com­mu­ni­ty that anchors the sto­ry. Inter­est­ing­ly, the ini­tial premise orig­i­nat­ed not with Lon­er­gan but not­ed New Eng­lan­ders Matt Damon and John Krasin­s­ki, with the for­mer at one stage plan­ning to direct and star in the lead role. AW

Direct­ed by Paul Thomas Anderson

Paul Thomas Anderson’s dis­qui­et­ing por­trait of post­war ennui fol­lows trou­bled vet­er­an Fred­die Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) as a sex­u­al­ly vora­cious lon­er who suc­cumbs to the charms of charis­mat­ic cult leader Lan­cast­er Dodd (Philip Sey­mour Hoff­man). Togeth­er, the two men form a per­verse odd cou­ple, qui­et­ly throb­bing with the kind of unre­al­ized crav­ing begot­ten from ear­ly-twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry repres­sion. Their sto­ry shapes a sin­gu­lar, time­less nar­ra­tive of belong­ing and desire, with Anderson’s crafts­man­ship fir­ing on every cylin­der. BZ

Direct­ed by Wes Anderson

“I’ve had a rough year, dad.” If The Roy­al Tenen­baums remains Wes Anderson’s most endur­ing film it’s because it brought his rich, imag­i­na­tive world of dys­func­tion­al fam­i­lies, vibrant tableaux and dead­pan deliv­ery to the main­stream. It also remains his most sin­cere­ly emo­tion­al film. Among a bril­liant ensem­ble, three child prodi­gies grow into three dis­af­fect­ed adults trapped by the nos­tal­gia of their ear­ly bril­liance, sound­tracked by an equal­ly nos­tal­gic mix of Nico, Paul Simon and more. LV

Direct­ed by Lars von Trier

A fam­i­ly gath­ered in a cas­tle for a lav­ish wed­ding crum­bles under the very same sky where a rogue plan­et apt­ly named Melan­cho­lia makes its way towards Earth. Lars von Trier’s spin on the dis­as­ter movie is as nihilis­tic as one would expect and as close as cin­e­ma can get to encom­pass­ing the all-con­sum­ing dread that accom­pa­nies both a tan­gi­ble threat of extinc­tion and the unyield­ing swamp of depres­sive cata­to­nia. RSR

Direct­ed by Edward Yang

The late, very great Edward Yang was tak­en from us far too soon at the age of 59, and his 2000 film Yi Yi (aka A One and a Two…) end­ed up being his untime­ly swan­song. But what a swan­song it is – an inti­mate fam­i­ly saga which splits its focus between the emo­tion­al­ly unful­filled mem­bers of a mid­dle-class Taipei fam­i­ly, whose jour­ney of self refelction is sparked by a need to talk to their comatose grand­moth­er. It’s soap opera super­charged with lev­els of pro­fun­di­ty, insight and melan­cholic poet­ry sel­dom seen in mod­ern movies. DJ

Direct­ed by Tsai Ming-liang

Made well before the stream­ing era, Tsai Ming-liang’s Good­bye, Drag­on Inn pre­scient­ly eulo­gis­es the com­mu­nal aspect of the cin­e­ma. That this trib­ute shows the­atre patrons doing any­thing but pay­ing atten­tion to the movie play­ing is both the film’s dead­pan punch­line and its lov­ing affir­ma­tion. Tsai’s min­i­mal­ism dis­solves bar­ri­ers of real­i­ty, mak­ing spec­ta­tors of actors and drama­tised char­ac­ters of view­ers as all resem­ble ghosts seek­ing con­nec­tion to art and each oth­er. JC

Direct­ed by Mia Hansen-Løve

Few films are as immer­sive as Eden. Direct­ed by Mia Hansen Løve and inspired by her broth­er Sven’s career as a DJ, it’s best described as an expe­ri­ence. From acid-fuelled raves in neon cav­erns to house par­ties and Paris bars, Hansen Løve recre­at­ed the bygone era of her youth in all its messy glo­ry. Eden also boasts an epic sound­track cen­tred on Daft Punk, and a pitch-per­fect dis­sec­tion of Paul Verhoeven’s Show­girls. LC

Direct­ed by Richard Linklater

Exact­ly nine years after meet­ing on a train in Before Sun­rise, Celine and Jesse reunite, acci­den­tal­ly on pur­pose, in Paris. They are old­er, more cyn­i­cal and romance-weary, but the mem­o­ry of their day-long, pup­py-eyed love affair in Vien­na resur­faces intense­ly when they meet again. Dur­ing 80 per­fect min­utes, they walk and talk, about every­thing and noth­ing. In an ago­nis­ing cliffhang­er that wouldn’t get resolved for anoth­er nine years, they decide whether to stay togeth­er. AB

Direct­ed by Apichat­pong Weerasethakul

The fiery antag­o­nisms of the sci­ence vs reli­gion debate are cap­tured with pin-drop tran­quil­li­ty in Apichat­pong Weerasethakul’s ambi­ent por­trait of a rur­al Thai hos­pi­tal that’s not dis­sim­i­lar to one the director’s par­ents worked in. Work­place romances, ghost­ly ema­na­tions and Bud­dhist monks requir­ing urgent den­tal work make up this breezi­ly com­ic path­work of wist­ful remem­brance and mis­chie­vous for­mal exper­i­men­ta­tion. Also: Best. End­ing. Ever. DJ

Direct­ed by Céline Sciamma

“Not every­thing is fleet­ing. Some feel­ings are deep.” It’s near impos­si­ble to con­vey the tran­scen­dent poet­ic genius and haunt­ing ele­gance of Céline Sciamma’s mag­num opus. Unfold­ing on a des­o­late island in 18^th-cen­tu­ry Brit­tany, every frame is a Rem­brandt; a lyri­cal dis­sec­tion of desire. Few film­mak­ers can depict yearn­ing and the fem­i­nine gaze quite like Sci­amma, whose sen­so­ry inves­ti­ga­tion into pas­sion and the com­plex web of look­ing is as effort­less as it is intox­i­cat­ing. MA

Direct­ed by Ter­rence Malick

With sym­phon­ic grandios­i­ty and import, Ter­rence Malick’s grand philo­soph­i­cal inquiry inter­weaves the sto­ry of a 1950s Texas fam­i­ly with that of the universe’s ori­gins, herald­ing the mir­a­cle of cre­ation in both. Over­whelm­ing? Well, nat­u­ral­ly. Syn­the­sis­ing sound, imagery, and nar­ra­tive in all their evoca­tive pow­er, Mal­ick mar­ries his mas­tery of the form to his bound­less ambi­tion and a fierce sense of soul in order to induce tran­scen­dence and touch the cin­e­mat­ic sub­lime. Isaac Feld­berg

Direct­ed by Jor­dan Peele

The game-chang­er that no one saw com­ing. Jor­dan Peele’s chill­ing mas­ter­work about a Black man who goes to meet the fam­i­ly of his white girl­friend upend­ed the hor­ror genre and loaded it with impec­ca­ble sym­bol­ism and satire. It deliv­ered a much-need­ed skew­er­ing of lib­er­al racism and gift­ed pop cul­ture with the con­cept of ​‘The Sunken Place’. A gold stan­dard, it’s now near-impos­si­ble to com­bine race and hor­ror with­out inevitable com­par­i­son. CB

Direct­ed by Paul Thomas Anderson

Anderson’s 2017 film, osten­si­bly the result of a series of com­ic text mes­sages with his old pal Daniel Day-Lewis, arrived with less fan­fare than either 2012’s The Mas­ter or 2014’s Inher­ent Vice. Yet, accord­ing to our poll, it’s the most well-loved of his eccen­tric event movies, telling of a (lit­er­al­ly) tox­ic love affair set in the stuffy halls of a mid­cen­tu­ry Lon­don fash­ion house run by dom­i­neer­ing per­fec­tion­ist, Reynolds Wood­cock. It’s one of the director’s most low-key, poised and ele­gant movies to date, and may just be his mas­ter­piece. DJ

Direct­ed by Paul Schrader

The film that launched a mil­lion social media memes is also one of the finest direc­to­r­i­al works of the man who is known for being one of Mar­tin Scorsese’s most vital cre­ative wing­men. Ethan Hawke locks into career-best mode as a faith­less pas­tor who pon­ders the option of tak­ing vio­lent action against those who are wil­ful­ly destroy­ing the plan­et. As usu­al for Schrad­er, the pastor’s plans are scup­pered by the press­ing desire to save a holy inno­cent who has recent­ly entered into his cir­cle. DJ

Direct­ed by Michel Gondry

This is a sci-fi romance of unusu­al eccen­tric­i­ty and force, and also a defi­ant­ly human­ist work about the futil­i­ty of being able to cul­ti­vate a human con­nec­tion. We all yearn for love, that most inef­fa­ble, imper­ma­nent of things; know­ing this, writer Char­lie Kauf­man and direc­tor Michel Gondry map intri­ca­cies of mem­o­ry and its loss as an end­less labyrinth, through which the char­ac­ters in this film search and stum­ble, behold­en only to the pur­suit of love as itself a real­i­ty deep­er than truth. IF

Direct­ed by Bong Joon-ho

When Par­a­site made his­to­ry as only the sec­ond film ever to win both the Palme d’Or and the Academy’s Best Pic­ture, Bong Joon-ho made a seis­mic impact on the world cin­e­ma land­scape. At the core of this hyper-real social satire steeped in spa­tial metaphor lies an intri­cate­ly woven explo­ration of cap­i­tal­ism and class war­fare told with deli­cious­ly genre bend­ing unpre­dictabil­i­ty. Bong’s films are tru­ly in a world all of their own. MA

Direct­ed by David Lynch

Mul­hol­land Dr was an ear­ly 21^st-cen­tu­ry mas­ter­piece, unlike any­thing we’d seen before, and now it’s impos­si­ble to imag­ine cin­e­ma with­out it: the shad­owy bogey­man lurk­ing behind every boil­er­plate Hol­ly­wood thriller or romance. From the dis­tinc­tive, dis­rup­tive mind of David Lynch, it is a queer blend of film noir and tin­sel­town lore, in which dreams play out like clas­si­cal ​‘real­i­ty’ and the truth is revealed, but only just, in a non-lin­ear night­mare. PH

Direct­ed by Wong Kar-wai

Told in exquis­ite vignettes awash with deep reds and dusky greens, a sedate yet height­ened sto­ry of repressed yearn­ing unfolds in Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love. After the break­out suc­cess of the kinet­ic Chungk­ing Express and grit­ti­er tragedy of Hap­py Togeth­er, the ini­tial response to In the Mood for Love was more mut­ed. Yet two decades lat­er it has right­ful­ly been enshrined as Wong’s mas­ter­piece. Set in 1962 in British Hong Kong, Tony Leung and Mag­gie Che­ung exude cap­ti­vat­ing beau­ty and grace as neigh­bours in an apart­ment block drawn togeth­er as they realise their spous­es are hav­ing affairs with each oth­er. The agony of their own unre­solved desire is pal­pa­ble; time slows down when they meet as if they’re des­per­ate to cling on to every moment before it’s lost to the past. A major influ­ence on count­less film­mak­ers and with one of the most qui­et­ly dev­as­tat­ing end­ings ever, their brief encoun­ters are impos­si­ble to for­get. LV