Year-End Lists

My favorite films by year, going by premiere date.

2023

1. May December (Todd Haynes)

2. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Radu Jude)

3. The Beast (Bertrand Bonello)

4. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)

5. Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese)

6. Our Body (Claire Simon)

7. Fallen Leaves (Aki Kaurismäki)

8. The Delinquents (Rodrigo Moreno)

9. Asteroid City (Wes Anderson)

10. The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed (Joanna Arnow)

11. All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh)

12. Occupied City (Steve McQueen)

13. Afire (Christian Petzold)

14. Janet Planet (Annie Baker)

15. The Curse (Nathan Fielder, David & Nathan Zellner)

16. Last Summer (Catherine Breillat)

17. The Sweet East (Sean Price Williams)

18. Red Rooms (Pascal Plante)

19. Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros (Frederick Wiseman)

20. NYC RGB (Viktoria Schmid)

Honorable Mentions: Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (Kelly Fremon Craig), You Hurt My Feelings (Nicole Holofcener), Tótem (Lila Avilés), A Thousand and One (A.V. Rockwell), Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet), Priscilla (Sofia Coppola), All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Raven Jackson), Earth Mama (Savanah Leaf), Here (Bas Devos), Last Things (Deborah Stratman), Evil Does Not Exist (Ryusuke Hamaguchi), This Closeness (Kit Zauhar), Pictures of Ghosts (Kleber Mendonça Filho), Close Your Eyes (Victor Erice), Family Portrait (Lucy Kerr),

2022

1. Showing Up (Kelly Reichardt)

2. Return to Seoul (Davy Chou)

3. One Fine Morning (Mia Hansen-Løve)

4. The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg)

5. The Plains (David Easteal)

6. Decision to Leave (Park Chan-wook)

7. Retrograde (Adrian Murray)

8. R.M.N. (Cristian Mungiu)

9. Aftersun (Charlotte Wells)

10. Crimes of the Future (David Cronenberg)

11. Pacifiction (Albert Serra)

12. TÁR (Todd Field)

13. Saint Omer (Alice Diop)

14. Trenque Lauquen (Laura Citarella)

15. Rewind & Play (Alain Gomis)

16. Hannah Ha Ha (Jordan Tetewsky & Joshua Pikovsky)

17. The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg)

18. The Novelist’s Film (Hong Sang-soo)

19. No Bears (Jafar Panahi)

20. Falcon Lake (Charlotte Le Bon)

Honorable Mentions: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras), Nobody’s Hero (Alain Guiraudie), EO (Jerzy Skolimowski), Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (Richard Linklater), Enys Men (Mark Jenkins), Funny Pages (Owen Kline), Skinamarink (Kyle Edward Ball), Godland (Hlynur Pálmason)

2021

1. The Souvenir: Part II (Joanna Hogg)

2. Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)

3. Drive My Car (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)

4. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? (Alexandre Koberidze)

5. Wheel of Fortune & Fantasy (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)

6. Mr. Bachmann and His Class (Maria Speth)

7. The Girl & the Spider (Ramon & Silvan Zürcher)

8. El Planet (Amalia Ullman)

9. France (Bruno Dumont)

10. Red Rocket (Sean Baker)

11. Friends & Strangers (James Vaughan)

12. Il Buco (Michelangelo Frammartino)

13. Bergman Island (Mia Hansen-Løve)

14. Licorice Pizza (Paul Thomas Anderson)

15. Wood & Water (Jonas Bak)

16. The Tsugua Diaries (Miguel Gomes & Maureen Fazendeiro)

17. All About My Sisters (Wang Qiong)

18. Benedetta (Paul Verhoeven)

19. Petite Maman (Céline Sciamma)

20. The Cathedral (Ricky D’Ambrose)

21. Întregalde (Radu Muntean)

22. A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces (Zhu Shengze)

23. A Night of Knowing Nothing (Payal Kapadia)

24. Topology of Sirens (Jonathan Davies)

25. Zeroes & Ones (Abel Ferrara)

Honorable Mentions: The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier), Benediction (Terence Davies), Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Radu Jude), Pleasure (Ninja Thyberg), Full Time (Eric Gravel), Lake Forest Park (Kersti Jan Werdal), Great Freedom (Sebastian Meise), Rock Bottom Riser (Fern Silva), Outside Noise (Ted Fendt)

2020

1. Beginning (Dea Kulumbegashvili)

2. Undine (Christian Petzold)

3. Days (Tsai Ming-liang)

4. The Disciple (Chaitanya Tamhane)

5. The Woman Who Ran (Hong Sang-soo)

6. Short Vacation (Kwon Min-pyo & Seo Han-sol)

7. The Calming (Song Fang)

8. Siberia (Abel Ferrara)

9. On the Rocks (Sofia Coppola)

10. City Hall (Frederick Wiseman)

Honorable Mentions: Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman), The Cloud in Her Room (Zheng Lu Xinyuan), Swimming Out Till the Sea Tuns Blue (Jia Zhangke), The American Sector (Pacho Velez & Courtney Stephens), The Two Sights (Joshua Bonnetta), The Works and Days (C.W. Winter & Anders Edström), The Nest (Sean Durkin)

2019

1. The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg)

2. Fourteen (Dan Sallitt)

3. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

4. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)

5. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)

6. Uncut Gems (Josh & Benny Safdie)

7. About Endlessness (Roy Andersson)

8. To the Ends of the Earth (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

9. Dark Waters (Todd Haynes)

10. A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick)

11. Anne at 13,000 Ft. (Kazik Radwanski)

12. Heimat Is a Space in Time (Thomas Heise)

13. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

14. Atlantics (Mati Diop)

15. Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar)

Honorable Mentions: Atlantis (Valentyn Vasyanovych), First Cow (Kelly Reichardt), Tommaso (Abel Ferrara), Ghost Tropic (Bas Devos), Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood), A White, White Day (Hlynur Pálmason), The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (Kathleen Hepburn &Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers), Midnight Family (Luke Lorentzen)

2018

1. Burning (Lee Chang-dong)

2. Asako I & II (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)

3. Altiplano (Malena Szlam)

4. Ash is Purest White (Jia Zhangke)

5. If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins)

6. Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Bi Gan)

7. An Elephant Sitting Still (Hu Bo)

8. Transit (Christian Petzold)

9. Support the Girls (Andrew Bujalski)

10. The Grand Bizarre (Jodie Mack)

Honorable Mentions: Grass (Hong Sang-soo), Hotel by the River (Hong Sang-soo), Private Life (Tamara Jenkins), Dragged Across Concrete (S. Craig Zahler), Hereditary (Ari Aster), First Man (Damien Chazelle), Holiday (Isabella Eklöf), Genèse (Philippe Lesage), BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee), Los Reyes (Bettina Perut & Iván Osnovikoff), Monrovia, Indiana (Frederick Wiseman), What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire? (Roberto Minervini), Suspiria (Luca Guadagnino), Peterloo (Mike Leigh)

2017

1. Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson)

2. First Reformed (Paul Schrader)

3. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

4. Good Time (Josh & Benny Safdie)

5. Milla (Valérie Massadian)

6. Ex Libris: The New York Public Library (Frederick Wiseman)

7. The Day After (Hong Sang-soo)

8. Song to Song (Terrence Malick)

9. Columbus (Kogonada)

10. Brawl in Cell Block 99 (S. Craig Zahler)

Honorable Mentions: Lean on Pete (S. Craig Zahler), Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig), Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan), Those Who Are Fine (Cyril Schäublin), Claire’s Camera (Hong Sang-soo), The Meyerwitz Stories (Noah Baumbach), The Rider (Chloé Zhao), mother! (Darren Aronofsky), 24 Frames (Abbas Kiarostami), Drift (Helena Wittmann), Call Me by Your Name (Luca Guadagnino), Get Out (Jordan Peele), Golden Exits (Alex Ross Perry), Thoroughbreds (Cory Finley), The Death of Stalin (Armando Iannucci), The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos), BPM (Robin Campillo), The First Lap (Kim Dae-hwan)

2016

1. Cameraperson (Kirsten Johnson)

2. Nocturama (Bertrand Bonello)

3. Certain Women (Kelly Reichardt)

4. Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan)

5. Paterson (Jim Jarmusch)

6. Personal Shopper (Olivier Assayas)

7. The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook)

8. The Human Surge (Eduardo Williams)

9. Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade)

10. O.J.: Made in America (Ezra Edelman)

Honorable Mentions: In Bed with Victoria (Justine Triet), Moonlight (Barry Jenkins), Silence (Martin Scorsese), Allied (Robert Zemeckis), Yourself & Yours (Hong Sang-soo), The Edge of Seventeen (Kelly Fremon Craig), Rat Film (Theo Anthony), Elle (Paul Verhoeven), The Love Witch (Anna Biller), White Girl (Elizabeth Wood), By the Time It Gets Dark (Anocha Suwichakornpong)

2015

1. Mistress America (Noah Baumbach)

2. Carol (Todd Haynes)

3. Kaili Blues (Bi Gan)

4. Happy Hour (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)

5. The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien)

6. Sunset Song (Terence Davies)

7. Knight of Cups (Terrence Malick)

8. The Fits (Anna Rose Holmer)

9. The Witch (Robert Eggers)

10. The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos)

Honorable Mentions: Tangerine (Sean Baker), Krisha (Trey Edward Schultz), Mustang (Deniz Gamze Ergüven), Journey to the Shore (Kiyoshi Kurosawa), Mountains May Depart (Jia Zhangke), Results (Andrew Bujalski), Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (Christopher McQuarrie), Right Now, Wrong Then (Hong Sang-soo), My Golden Days (Arnaud Desplechin), Blackhat (Michael Mann), Lamb (Yared Zeleke)

2014

1. Boyhood (Richard Linklater)

2. Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas)

3. Horse Money (Pedro Costa)

4. National Gallery (Frederick Wiseman)

5. A Midsummer’s Fantasia (Jang Kun-jae)

6. Jauja (Lisandro Alonso)

7. Hill of Freedom (Hong Sang-soo)

8. Heaven Knows What (Josh & Benny Safdie)

9. Christmas, Again (Charles Poekel)

10. Breathe (Mélanie Laurent)

Honorable Mentions: Maps to the Stars (David Cronenberg), Happy Chrismas (Joe Swanberg), It Follows (David Robert Mitchell), Song of the Sea (Tomm Moore), Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev), Two Days, One Night (Luc Dardenne, Jean-Pierre Dardenne), Obvious Child (Gillian Robespierre), The Babadook (Jennifer Kent), Whipash (Damien Chazelle), Gone Girl (David Fincher), Eden (Mia Hansen-Løve)

2013

1. Stray Dogs (Tsai Ming-liang)

2. The Strange Little Cat (Ramon Zürcher)

3. Before Midnight (Richard Linklater)

4. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer)

5. The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)

6. A Touch of Sin (Jia Zhangke)

7. Stranger by the Lake (Alain Guiraudie)

8. We Are the Best! (Lukas Moodysson)

9. Side Effects (Steven Soderbergh)

10. Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel &Ethan Coen)

Honorable Mentions: Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch), Exhibition (Joanna Hogg), Bastards (Claire Denis), Nebraska (Alexander Payne), The Immigrant (James Grey), Coherence (James Ward Byrkit), 12 Years A Slave (Steve McQueen), The Bling Ring (Sofia Coppola)

2012

1. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)

2. Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)

3. Traveling Light (Gina Telaroli)

4. To the Wonder (Terrence Malick)

5. Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow)

6. Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg)

7. The Unspeakable Act (Dan Sallitt)

8. Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Véréna Paravel)

9. In Another Country (Hong Sang-soo)

10. Passion (Brian de Palma)

Honorable Mentions: Three Sisters (Wang Bing), Drug War (Johnnie To), Francis Ha (Noah Baumbach), Something in the Air (Olivier Assayas), Starlet (Sean Baker), Neighboring Sounds (Kleber Mendonça Filho), Sister (Ursula Meier)

2011

1. House of Tolerance (Bertrand Bonello)

2. Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan)

3. The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies)

4. Goodbye, First Love (Mia Hansen-Løve)

5. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)

6. The Kid with a Bike (Luc & Jean-Pierre Dardenne)

7. The Day He Arrives (Hong Sang-soo)

8. Almayer’s Folly (Chantal Akerman)

9. The Color Wheel (Alex Ross Perry)

10. Oslo, August 31st (Joachim Trier)

Honorable Mentions: Martha Marcy May Marlene (Sean Durkin)

2010

1. Meek’s Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt)

2. Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami)

3. Poetry (Lee Chang-dong)

4. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)

5. Tuesday, After Christmas (Radu Muntean)

6. Archipelago (Joanna Hogg)

7. Boxing Gym (Frederick Wiseman)

8. Somewhere (Sofia Coppola)

9. The Social Network (David Fincher)

Honorable Mentions: Please Give (Nicole Holofcener), Winter’s Bone (Debra Granik, Inception (Christopher Nolan)