The best films of 2021 – all the votes

We asked 111 contributors – British and international – to pick the ten best new films they’d seen in 2021. Here you can browse all 362 films they nominated.

3 December 2021

Sight and Sound

The 50 best films of 2021

After over 1000 votes by more than 100 critics and contributors, we announce the results of our annual poll – the best films in cinemas, at festivals and online in 2021 How many have you seen?

See the results

View all films

111 voters

Kaleem Aftab

Critic, UK

  1. Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn
  2. Radiograph of a Family
  3. Brighton 4th 
  4. Apples 
  5. The Innocents 
  6. The Hand of God 
  7. Titane
  8. Întregalde 
  9. Encounter
  10. King Richard
  • Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Radu Jude) – Hate the title, love the movie. Radu Jude’s inventiveness is on full display as his slice of life that manages to show pandemic life and a world full of people living in social bubbles, and limited relationships.
  • Radiograph of a Family (Firouzeh Khosrovani) – Firouzeh Khosrovani won Best Documentary at IDFA for this astonishing visually perfect documentary about revolution, emigration and marriage that sees the director tell the story of how her mother falls in-and-out of love, with men, ideas and Europe.
  • Brighton 4th (Levan Koguashvili) – The Renaissance of Georgian cinema continues with Levan Koguashvili’s magnificent film that sees an ex-wrestler go to New York to visit his son, only to discover that the new world isn’t that different from the Europe he has left behind. Winner at Tribeca.
  • Apples (Christos Nikou) – The Greek Weird Wave continues to impress and befuddle as Christos Nikou plays with memories and pays homage to great moments in cinema in this tale of romance and lies, and man’s failure to connect.
  • The Innocents (Eskil Vogt) – Debuting in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, Eskil Vogt looks at kids with special powers in a mediation on humanity’s willingness to turn a blind eye to what is really going on around us until disaster strikes.
  • The Hand of God (Paolo Sorrentino) – Football, Fellini and Fucking. Paolo Sorrentino gives his own bend on the coming-of-age movie, going back to Naples excited by the news that the great Maradona will don their shirts.
  • Titane (Julia Ducournau) – Julia Ducournau deservedly won the Palme d’Or with this visceral gut-punch of a movie that made up for what it lacked in plot, by putting it’s balls on full display.
  • Întregalde (Radu Muntean) – Radu Muntean’s beguiling film about aid workers lost in the mountain went rather unnoticed in Cannes, despite it having one of the great performances by a non-actor and a cutting commentary about what is aid.
  • Encounter (Michael Pearce) – British director Michael Pearce and Riz Ahmed combine to create an alien-invasion movie, or is it a look at the way men lose their mind once patriarchal power is taken from them? A film about belonging, family and self-destruction.
  • King Richard  (Reinaldo Marcus Green) – Reinaldo Marcus Green doesn’t look revolutionary on the surface. And yet, his take on Richard Williams (Will Smith, we forgot you could act), the father of tennis sensations Serena and Venus Williams, who has been maligned and demonised in the [white] media, reinvents him as  anti-hero, while pointing out institutional racism in the media.
  • Special Mention: Compartment Number 6 (Juho Kuosmanen). This was the film that I may not have loved the most, but had the most healthy debate around. And in 2021 director Juho Kuossomen is the person whose films I’m most excited to see in future years.

Jason Anderson

Programmer (Toronto International Film Festival)

  1. Drive My Car
  2. Compartment No. 6 
  3. The Card Counter
  4. Minari 
  5. Bad Trip
  6. The Velvet Underground
  7. Nobody 
  8. Ste. Anne 
  9. Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar 
  10. Annette 

Michael Atkinson

Critic, USA

  1. Quo Vadis, Aida?
  2. Beginning 
  3. This is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection 
  4. Slow Machine 
  5. Malmkrog 
  6. Brighton 4th 
  7. Stillwater
  8. The Father 
  9. Undine 
  10. New Order

Anne Billson

Novelist and film critic, UK

  1. Come True
  2. Demon Slayer: Mugen Train 
  3. First Cow 
  4. The Green Knight 
  5. Mandibles 
  6. News of the World 
  7. Nomadland 
  8. Riders of Justice
  9. The Truffle Hunters 
  10. Undine 

Robin Baker

Head curator, BFI National Archive

  1. Dune
  2. The Disciple
  3. Flee
  4. The Green Knight 
  5. Hit the Road 
  6. Limbo 
  7. The Lost Daughter 
  8. Nomadland 
  9. Playground
  10. The Power of the Dog

Erika Balsom

Critic and scholar, UK

  1. Drive My Car 
  2. The Girl and the Spider 
  3. Delphine’s Prayers
  4. A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces 
  5. A Night of Knowing Nothing 
  6. The Card Counter 
  7. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?
  8. Fabian or Going to the Dogs
  9. Juste un mouvement 
  10. We

Matthew Barrington

Curator, UK

  1. From Where They Stood 
  2. Lost Course 
  3. Juste un mouvement
  4. Titane
  5. Historya Ni Ha
  6. ear for eye
  7. The I and S of Lives 
  8. All Light, Everywhere 
  9. Neptune Frost 
  10. Belle

James Bell

Senior curator of fiction, BFI National Archive, UK

  1. Drive My Car
  2. Playground
  3. After Love
  4. The Disciple
  5. Sound of Metal
  6. Limbo
  7. The Velvet Underground
  8. ear for eye
  9. The Souvenir Part II  
  10. Azor 

Anton Bitel

Critic and programmer, UK

  1. Broadcast Signal Intrusion
  2. Censor
  3. Flashback (aka The Education of Frederick Fitzell)
  4. The Green Knight
  5. Lamb
  6. Limbo 
  7. Mad God 
  8. Malignant
  9. Mosquito State 
  10. Surge 

Ela Bittencourt

Critic and curator, Brazil/USA

  1. Faya Dayi 
  2. Saint Maud
  3. Taste
  4. Haruhara-san’s Recorder
  5. El Gran Movimiento
  6. Întregalde 
  7. The First 54 Years 
  8. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? 
  9. Censor
  10. Les Heroiques

John Bleasdale

Critic, UK

  1. Titane
  2. Il buco
  3. The Lost Daughter 
  4. Annette
  5. Mad God
  6. Hit the Road
  7. Vortex 
  8. Dune 
  9. The Green Knight
  10. The Last Duel
  • Titane (Julia Ducournau)  – Nuts
  • Il buco (Michelangelo Frammartino)
  • The Lost Daughter (Maggie Gyllenhaal) – Massively impressive debut.
  • Annette (Leos Carax) – A real twist on the musical in the year of Sparks!
  • Mad God (Phil Tippett) – Triumphant after decades of gestation.
  • Hit the Road (Panah Panahi)
  • Vortex (Gaspar Noé) – Really unexpected. Finally a touching movie.
  • Dune (Denis Villeneuve)
  • The Green Knight (David Lowery)
  • The Last Duel (Ridley Scott) – Triumphant return to the Middle Ages for RS.
  • Also-rans would include No Time to Die (Cary Joji Fukunaga) – not a great film but a great final chapter – and The Souvenir Part II (Joanna Hogg).

Michael Blyth

Senior programmer, BFI Festivals

  1. Spencer
  2. Pleasure
  3. Dashcam
  4. The Power of the Dog
  5. Coda
  6. Great Freedom
  7. Old
  8. The Lost Daughter
  9. The Sparks Brothers 
  10. Censor 

Anna Bogutskaya

Writer, critic and broadcaster, UK

  1. Titane
  2. Censor
  3. The Worst
  4. Shiva Baby
  5. Zola
  6. Promising Young Woman 
  7. The Human Voice
  8. The Velvet Underground 
  9. C’mon C’mon 
  10. Sound of Metal

Clara Bradbury-Rance

Writer, UK

  1. No Ordinary Man
  2. Bergman Island 
  3. The Power of the Dog 
  4. Rebel Dykes 
  5. The Souvenir Part II
  6. Petite Maman 
  7. The Velvet Underground
  8. Black Widow 
  9. Sweetheart 
  10. My First Summer

Sophie Brown

Writer, programmer, UK

  1. Users
  2. Memoria
  3. Flee
  4. Candyman 
  5. Titane 
  6. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair
  7. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
  8. All Light, Everywhere
  9. El Planeta 
  10. A Man and a Camera

Rick Burin

Freelance film critic/writer

  1. Playground
  2. Petite Maman
  3. Nascondino
  4. A Hero
  5. The French Dispatch
  • Playground (Laura Wandel) – A staggering debut that begins like Être et avoir and ends like a prison movie.
  • Petite Maman (Céline Sciamma) – Sciamma’s quietly magical fairy tale casts a spell that doesn’t leave you. A gentle departure.
  • Nascondino (Victoria Fiore) – A gutting doc, with shades of Pixote, that’s often dream-like on the surface, yet brutal beneath.
  • A Hero (Asghar Farhadi) – You can’t just write “a riveting moral thriller” each time Farhadi makes a film, and yet…
  • The French Dispatch (Wes Anderson) – Anderson to the nth degree, which will send some screaming for the hills, but equipped with three or four emotional pay-offs as good as anything he’s ever done.

Kambole Campbell

Critic, UK

  1. The Summit of the Gods
  2. Flee
  3. Mad God
  4. Belle 
  5. Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice upon a Time 
  6. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
  7. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
  8. Petite Maman 
  9. Pig
  10. Old

Tom Charity

Year-round programmer, Vancouver International Film Festival, Canada

  1. Petite Maman
  2. Annette
  3. Titane 
  4. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
  5. The Power of the Dog
  6. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?
  7. The Worst Person in the World 
  8. Drive My Car
  9. A Cop Movie
  10. Hanagatami

Like everyone else, I endured an enforced exile from the big screen during the pandemic, a separation which made me reflect on what is most precious about cinema, as opposed to ‘movie’ or ‘film’. This list constitutes an answer to that question, I suppose. My top three are all fantasy films from France, where the spirit of Jean Cocteau still casts a spell. Cinema as enchantment, a medium which conjures itself before our eyes. Céline Sciamma’s delicate and original Petite Maman expresses volumes of feeling with simplicity and grace. Annette is a sacred monster, a movie at war with itself. And Titane… even watching it in a theatre with only six or seven people, the visceral and voluble reactions it provoked made this the most memorable cinematic experience of a lopsided year. La séance recommence…

Nick Chen

Film critic, UK

  1. Memoria
  2. ergman Island
  3. Quo Vadis, Aida? 
  4. Drive My Car 
  5. Annette 
  6. The Worst Person in the World
  7. Flee 
  8. The Disciple
  9. Ninjababy 
  10. Compartment No. 6

Nearly two years into the pandemic, COVID is still affecting (or infecting?) how I digest movies. No matter when the film was shot or is set, I’m uneasy when characters entangle in enclosed spaces. Can’t they open that window? Did they forget their masks? And why is Meryl Streep suddenly singing ‘The Winner Takes It All’? (OK, that last one only applied to my rewatch of Mamma Mia). 

I don’t necessarily want new releases to acknowledge the virus. In fact, I would prefer the opposite. Yet my emotional engagement heightened when two films in my top 10 concluded with the protagonist masking up for a COVID-referencing epilogue. Even with films shot before 2020, I will forever associate them with 2021 if I experienced them wearing a mask. For instance, my two highlights of the year were during the London Film Festival: the group hypnosis of Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) in a sold-out screening at the Royal Festival Hall, and the collective nods at Curzon Mayfair when Mia Wasikowska burst into – you guessed it – ‘The Winner Takes It All’ in Bergman Island (Mia Hansen-Løve).

That said, a third highlight was the nail-biting tension of Quo Vadis, Aida? (Jasmila Žbanić) in February, during lockdown, on my laptop. Not ideal viewing conditions, of course, but powerful art can transcend on a screen of any size. (You should see Memoria in a cinema, though).

Ashley Clark

Curator, USA

  1. All Light, Everywhere
  2. Bad Trip 
  3. Drive My Car
  4. ear for eye 
  5. Eyimofe – This Is My Desire
  6. Faya Dayi
  7. Petite Maman 
  8. Portrait of Kaye 
  9. The Souvenir Part II 
  10. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

Roger Clarke

Writer, UK

  1. First Cow
  2. Flee
  3. Zola 
  4. Spencer
  5. Martin Eden 
  6. Compartment No. 6 
  7. Deerskin
  8. Sabaya
  9. Sweat
  10. The Souvenir Part II 

Philip Concannon

Film critic, UK

  1. Drive My Car 
  2. Petite Maman
  3. The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin) 
  4. Babi Yar. Context 
  5. Benedetta
  6. Il buco
  7. Red Rocket
  8. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?
  9. The Souvenir Part II
  10. A Hero

Kieron Corless

Associate editor, Sight and Sound, UK

  1. Feathers
  2. Il buco
  3. The Tsugua Diaries
  4. Archipelago
  5. Memoria 
  6. Ahed’s Knee 
  7. A Night of Knowing Nothing 
  8. The Witches of the Orient
  9. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? 
  10. A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces

Lillian Crawford

Critic and researcher

  1. The Souvenir Part II
  2. Bergman Island
  3. Annette
  4. The Worst Person in the World
  5. Petite Maman
  6. Titane
  7. The French Dispatch
  8. I’m Your Man
  9. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
  10. The Tsugua Diaries

Based on the films I have managed to see – there are plenty more festival releases and mainstream films to look forward to before the year is out. Expect to see Benediction and The Matrix Resurrections added to this list soon.

Jordan Cronk

Film critic, curator, USA

  1. Annette
  2. Benedetta
  3. Il buco
  4. The Card Counter
  5. Cry Macho
  6. Drive My Car
  7. France 
  8. In Front of Your Face
  9. Memoria 
  10. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? 

Alex Davidson

Cinema curator, Barbican, UK

  1. Flee
  2. Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn 
  3. Benediction 
  4. Rebel Dykes 
  5. Titane 
  6. Azor 
  7. Luzzu 
  8. Love Yourself Today 
  9. Celts
  10. ear for eye

It’s been a pleasure to see so many great films by LGBTQ+ filmmakers at the top of their game, from established directors such as Terence Davies to new queer voices exploding through our cinema screens.

Maria Delgado

Critic, curator and academic, UK

  1. A Cop Movie 
  2. Azor 
  3. The Odd-Job Men
  4. Costa Brava Lebanon
  5. Hit the Road 
  6. Parallel Mothers 
  7. Spencer 
  8. Prayers for the Stolen
  9. Sundown 
  10. Petite Maman 
  • A Cop Movie (Alonso Ruizpalacios), Sis Dies Corrents / The Odd Job Men (Neus Ballús) – Two hybrid documentaries offered unusual and perceptive insights into workplace politics. Corruption and exploitation exposed in Alonso Ruizpalacios’ inventive drama which exposes the tensions involved in performing a role to uphold law and order when nepotism and bribery are a way of life. The Odd Job Men provided pure comedy in observing three plumbers navigate changing circumstances at work over the space of six anything-but-ordinary days. Deserved winner of the Best Actor Award at Locarno for plumbers Mohamed Mellali and Valero Escolar. Please someone in the UK, buy this film for distribution.
  • Azor (Andreas Fontana) Costa Brava, Lebanon (Mounia Aki), Hit the Road / Jadde Khaki (Panah Khaki) – What a year for debuts. Azor proved a taut conspiracy thriller exposing the monied international players that upheld the Argentine dictatorship. Co-written by La flor’s Mariano Llinás, it presented a lean, mean and dangerous world of ominous wheeler-dealing. Clara Roquet (whose Libertad played in Cannes), co-scripted Mounia Aki’s impressive Costa Brava, Lebanon, a film about a utopian idyll that turns sour. It is realised with wit, compassion and a real eye for the absurdities of a family trying to shut themselves off from the world. Hit the Road was funny, perceptive and insightful. A film able to shift tone and mood with a brilliance that left me speechless.
  • Parallel Mothers (Pedro Almodóvar) – A brave and beautiful look at Spain’s history refracted through the tale of two single mothers who bond in the maternity unit of a hospital while giving birth. Arguably his most political film to date and a terrific contemplation of the need to face up to a difficult past.
  • Spencer (Pablo Larraín) – Part horror, part-psychological ticking clock drama, Spencer felt like a bold jazz riff on a familiar tune. Surprising, strange and unnerving, embodying what it means to stage defiance in the face of tradition. An outsider’s peep into the strangeness of an institution trapped by tradition.
  • Prayers for the stolen / Noche de fuego (Tatiana Huezo) – So many powerful films denouncing the abuses enacted on women’s bodies in Mexico in 2021 – La Civil, Nudo Mixteco and Prayers for the Stolen. The latter, a debut feature by documentary filmmaker Tatiana Huezo maps the consequences on a trio of girlfriends over two stages of their childhood, defiantly refusing to give the abusers screen time.
  • Sundown (Michel Franco) – To move from the epic New Order to the intimate chamber piece Sundown in the space of a year sums up the brilliance that is Michel Franco. Lean filmmaking that rewards close observation and never makes things easy for the viewer.
  • Petite Maman (Céline Sciamma) – I loved the economy of the storytelling in this magical fairytale-cum-ghost story told from the perspective of its child protagonist. A stylish and playful reflection on memory.

Mar Diestro-Dópido

Film critic and researcher, Sight and Sound, UK

  1. The Human Voice
  2. Annette
  3. Titane 
  4. Dune 
  5. Drive My Car 
  6. Cruella 
  7. Last Night in Soho 
  8. Spencer 
  9. Bergman Island 
  10. Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon 

Alex Dudok de Wit

Deputy editor, Cartoon Brew, UK

  1. Affairs of the Art
  2. Cryptozoo 
  3. Easter Eggs 
  4. Flee
  5. Dune
  6. Judas and the Black Messiah
  7. Steakhouse 
  8. Peel 
  9. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
  10. The Summit of the Gods 

My film of the year is, once again, a short: Affairs of the Art by Joanna Quinn. Few can tell jokes and an engrossing story, and also animate like a classically trained master. Quinn can. (Credit too to her longtime writing partner Les Mills.) That the film hasn’t been seen more widely says much about how animated shorts are distributed, promoted, and considered by gatekeepers.

Jamie Dunn

Film & TV editor, The Skinny, UK

  1. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? 
  2. Friends and Strangers 
  3. The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet 
  4. Petite Maman
  5. Ham on Rye
  6. Limbo
  7. Memoria 
  8. Rose Plays Julie
  9. The Twentieth Century
  10. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

The most thrilling film of the year was Alexandre Koberidze’s What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?, a modern fairytale set in Kutaisi, Georgia, a city so romantically sun-dappled it makes Paris look like Cumbernauld. The two-and-a-half-hour epic knocked my socks off despite a less than ideal single viewing on my laptop.

Elsewhere in 2021, it was small scale gems that stayed with me most: James Vaughan’s toe-curling comedy of post-millennial malaise, Friends and Strangers; Ana Katz’s miniature epic, The Dog Who Wouldn’t be Quiet; Céline Sciamma’s uncanny mother-daughter story, Petite Maman; and Tyler Taormina’s wistful teen movie, Ham on Rye. All were characterised by dreamy atmospheres and plaintive vibes. And most winningly, brevity: all told their gem-like narratives in under 90 minutes.

The Ferroni Brigade

Critics and programmer, Austria, Germany

  1. Alone 
  2. Benedetta 
  3. Caak3 daan2 zyun1 gaa1 2 
  4. Cārpaṭṭā Paramparai 
  5. Fabian or Going to the Dogs 
  6. Historya Ni Ha 
  7. Inuō
  8. Sentinelle 
  9. Wesele 
  10. Xuányá zhīshàng

Thomas Flew

Editorial assistant, Sight and Sound, UK

  1. Henry Glassie: Field Work
  2. Hit the Road
  3. In Front of Your Face
  4. Memoria 
  5. Minari
  6. Petite Maman
  7. Rūrangi 
  8. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
  9. The Tsugua Diaries
  10. Twin Peaks

Hanna Flint

Critic, writer, co-host of the Fade to Black podcast, UK

  1. The Green Knight 
  2. Nomadland
  3. Minari 
  4. Shiva Baby
  5. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
  6. Riders of Justice
  7. Pig
  8. Passing 
  9. The Man Who Sold His Skin
  10. Another Round 

Charles Gant

Awards editor, Screen International, UK

  1. The Power of the Dog
  2. The Souvenir Part II
  3. C’mon C’mon 
  4. Great Freedom 
  5. 7 Prisoners 
  6. Zola
  7. Belfast 
  8. Dune 
  9. New Order
  10. Flee 

Ryan Gilbey

  1. Quo Vadis, Aida? 
  2. First Cow 
  3. Dear Comrades! 
  4. The Filmmaker’s House
  5. Ham on Rye 
  6. The Father
  7. Spencer 
  8. Tick, Tick… Boom! 
  9. The Green Knight
  10. Rose Plays Julie 

Jane Giles

Writer and filmmaker, UK

  1. Another Round
  2. Candyman
  3. Censor
  4. Earwig
  5. The Father 
  6. In the Earth
  7. The Most Beautiful Boy in the World 
  8. No Time to Die 
  9. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
  10. The Velvet Underground 

With cinemas locked down, I saw a fraction of the films I would usually, but these were all of interest for different reasons, particularly the strength of music documentaries and female directors working in the horror/surrealist genres. Long live the big screen.

Devika Girish

Film critic, USA

  1. Memoria 
  2. The Girl and the Spider
  3. Annette
  4. Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn 
  5. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?
  6. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy 
  7. Bergman Island 
  8. Benediction
  9. Petite Maman 
  10. Labyrinth of Cinema 

Carmen Gray

Freelance film critic and programmer for the Berlinale, Germany

  1. Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn
  2. Ahed’s Knee 
  3. The Scary of Sixty-First 
  4. Annette 
  5. The Velvet Underground
  6. All Light, Everywhere
  7. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?
  8. Compartment No. 6
  9. Azor (Andreas Fontana)
  10. Friends and Strangers

In a year in which the world felt upended by the pandemic and radical, divisive tendencies in global power structures, the three most striking films of all were wild, transgressive, loud, abrasive, inventive, appalled at the status quo and politically subversive. There was much else of great beauty and strangeness to escape into, besides.

Steph Green

Film critic, UK

  1. The Worst Person in the World 
  2. Promising Young Woman
  3. The Power of the Dog 
  4. The Green Knight 
  5. The Card Counter 
  6. The Hand of God 
  7. Petite Maman 
  8. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy 
  9. Titane
  10. The World to Come

Lindsay Hallam

Academic, UK

  1. Candyman
  2. Censor
  3. First Cow
  4. The Green Knight 
  5. In the Earth 
  6. Judas and the Black Messiah 
  7. Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon 
  8. Passing
  9. Titane 
  10. Violation 

I must also note two excellent documentaries made with such love for cinema that watching them was a very moving experience: Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror (Kier-La Janisse) and The Story of Film: A New Generation (Mark Cousins).

Simran Hans

Film critic, the Observer, UK

  1. The Lost Daughter
  2. Zola
  3. The Souvenir Part II 
  4. The Power of the Dog
  5. Listening to Kenny G
  6. Beginning
  7. The Worst Person in the World
  8. Drive My Car
  9. Delphine’s Prayers
  10. Spencer 

Rebecca Harrison

Film critic and academic, UK

  1. Spencer
  2. The Green Knight
  3. Nomadland
  4. Limbo
  5. Our Ladies 
  6. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
  7. Supernova
  8. The Dig 
  9. Petite Maman
  10. Annette

Molly Haskell

Film critic, USA

  1. Petite Maman
  2. Vortex
  3. Benedetta
  4. The Souvenir Part II
  5. Ahed’s Knee
  6. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?
  7. The Worst Person in the World

Michael Hayden

Film programmer and lecturer, UK

  1. The Velvet Underground 
  2. The Power of the Dog 
  3. Ballad of a White Cow 
  4. The Souvenir Part II
  5. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? 
  6. The Lost Daughter 
  7. Memoria 
  8. Petite Maman
  9. Brother’s Keeper 
  10. La Mif 

Tim Hayes

Freelance writer, UK

  1. Quo Vadis, Aida? 
  2. Army of the Dead 
  3. I Care A Lot 
  4. The Banishing
  5. Undine 
  6. State Funeral 
  7. A Glitch in the Matrix 
  8. Mad God 
  9. Cryptozoo
  10. The Show 

Surely a missed opportunity that, with every other part of the film ecosystem forced to reconsider how it connects with a public, film criticism did not likewise take the chance to consider how to become better paid and better organised and less accepting of the things getting in the way of those goals.

J. Hoberman

Film critic, author, US

  1. Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn 
  2. Memoria
  3. Ahed’s Knee 
  4. Lower East Side Trilogy
  5. Paths of Fire II 
  6. The Velvet Underground 
  7. Fire Music: The Story of Free Jazz 
  8. Karen Dalton: In My Own Time 
  9. Red Rocket 
  10. The Meaning of Hitler

Philip Horne

Film critic, UK

  1. The Truffle Hunters
  2. My Donkey, My Lover and I 
  3. The French Dispatch 
  4. Minari 
  5. The Souvenir Part II 
  6. Il buco 
  7. A Hero 
  8. Petite Maman
  9. Paris, 13th District 
  10. The Father

Melanie Hoyes

Industry inclusion executive, BFI, and co-editor, Black Film Bulletin, UK

  1. Petite Maman 
  2. Hit the Road
  3. Bantu Mama
  4. Belfast
  5. Raya and the Last Dragon 
  6. ear for eye
  7. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
  8. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy 
  9. Language Lessons
  10. 7 Days 

I have really enjoyed the prevalence of independent productions and releases over the last couple of years and am loving the innovative ways in which creatives have been able to keep bringing us great stories in spite of ongoing restrictions. I’m so pleased that my selection is so representative of a multitude of identities in front of, and behind the camera.

Pamela Hutchinson

Film critic, UK

  1. The Souvenir Part II
  2. Nomadland
  3. Beginning
  4. Petite Maman 
  5. Parallel Mothers 
  6. First Cow
  7. After Love
  8. Another Round 
  9. Undine 
  10. The Lost Daughter 

Eric Hynes

Curator of film, Museum of the Moving Image, US

  1. The Viewing Booth 
  2. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? 
  3. This is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection 
  4. Procession 
  5. Drive My Car
  6. Annette
  7. Memoria 
  8. Downstream to Kinshasa 
  9. Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time 
  10. Benedetta

Wendy Ide

Critic, UK

  1. Hit the Road 
  2. The Lost Daughter 
  3. Small Body 
  4. Brother’s Keeper 
  5. Zola
  6. The Souvenir Part II
  7. Titane 
  8. Azor
  9. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? 
  10. The Worst Person in the World 

Nick James

Writer and critic, UK

  1. Azor 
  2. The Souvenir Part II 
  3. The Power of the Dog 
  4. The Hand of God
  5. Drive My Car
  6. The Velvet Underground 
  7. Stars Await Us
  8. A Cop Movie 
  9. Titane 
  10. The Nest

Ella Kemp

Film critic, UK

  1. The Worst Person in the World
  2. The Power of the Dog
  3. Petite Maman 
  4. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
  5. Shiva Baby 
  6. Pig
  7. Paris, 13th District 
  8. The World to Come
  9. Spencer 
  10. The Mitchells vs the Machines

Philip Kemp

Writer and film historian, UK

  1. After Love (Aleem Khan)
  2. ear for eye (debbie tucker green)
  3. The Father (Florian Zeller)
  4. First Cow (Kelly Reichardt)
  5. The French Dispatch (Wes Anderson)
  6. Judas and the Black Messiah (Shaka King)
  7. Last Night in Soho (Edgar Wright)
  8. Minari (Lee Isaac Chung)
  9. Nomadland (Chloé Zhao)
  10. Petite Maman (Céline Sciamma)

Robert Koehler

Film critic, USA

  1. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? 
  2. The Tsugua Diaries 
  3. Friends and Strangers 
  4. Babi Yar. Context 
  5. Espiritu Sagrado 
  6. Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn
  7. From the Planet of the Humans 
  8. Taming the Garden
  9. The Girl and the Spider
  10. A New Old Play

Leila Latif

Film critic, UK

  1. Titane
  2. Judas and the Black Messiah
  3. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
  4. The Father
  5. Dune 
  6. The Night of the Kings 
  7. The Card Counter
  8. The Green Knight
  9. Shiva Baby 
  10. Faya Dayi 

I don’t know that this year will go down as one of the strongest years for film, the fall out from the pandemic made a few months’ releases feel a little lean, but these top 10 films are all truly remarkable achievements. They all have singular visions and feel uncompromising and distinct from easy genre classification.

James Lattimer

Programmer/curator (Berlinale Forum, Viennale, Documenta Madrid), Germany

  1. A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces
  2. Ahed’s Knee
  3. Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn
  4. The Girl and the Spider
  5. Memoria 
  6. One Thousand and One Attempts to Be an Ocean
  7. Polycephaly in D 
  8. Ste. Anne 
  9. Surviving You, Always
  10. Train Again 

Elena Lazic

Critic, UK

  1. Happening 
  2. The Souvenir Part II
  3. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy 
  4. Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror 
  5. Skies of Lebanon 
  6. Vortex
  7. Mr. Bachmann and His Class 
  8. Benedetta 
  9. Sound of Metal 
  10. The Last Duel 

Michael Leader

Critic, UK

  1. Drive My Car
  2. Petite Maman
  3. The Father
  4. The Nest 
  5. The Velvet Underground
  6. ear for eye 
  7. Belle
  8. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
  9. Dune 
  10. Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes 

Beatrice Loayza

Editor and film critic, USA

  1. Annette
  2. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy 
  3. Bergman Island 
  4. Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time
  5. El Planeta 
  6. Wood and Water 
  7. Feast 
  8. Rock Bottom Riser 
  9. Friends and Strangers 
  10. The Souvenir Part II 

Guy Lodge

Film critic (Variety, the Observer, Film of the Week), UK

  1. Azor 
  2. Drive My Car
  3. The Green Knight 
  4. The Lost Daughter
  5. Prayers for the Stolen
  6. President 
  7. Reflection
  8. The Scary of Sixty-First
  9. The Souvenir Part II
  10. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? 

A year that felt like a renewal of sorts, as cinemas and the festival circuit largely resumed operations after last year’s pandemic shutdown, proved appropriately rich in remarkable debuts, from Nekrasova’s raw, riotous provation to Gyllenhaal’s brittle but emotionally full-blooded Ferrante adaptation to Fontana’s supremely controlled, withholding spin on Heart of Darkness for the capitalist age. And the list could as easily have included Rebecca Hall’s perfectly poised Passing and Laura Wandel’s shattering Playground: the future of the medium may be uncertain in many senses, but not for lack of talent.

Violet Lucca

Web editor at Harper’s Magazine and freelance critic, USA

  1. Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn
  2. The Souvenir Part II 
  3. Memoria 
  4. Faya Dayi
  5. El Gran Movimiento
  6. The Power of the Dog
  7. Bergman Island
  8. The Last Duel 
  9. Dune
  10. I Want to Talk About Duras 

Roger Luckhurst

Critic and academic, UK

  1. 76 Days
  2. Gagarine
  3. Apples
  4. Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time 
  5. Another Round 
  6. First Cow 
  7. Paris, 13th District
  8. Pig 
  9. The Dark and the Wicked
  10. The Father 

Another year of a very fractured viewing experience, caught between lockdowns, streaming and tentative cinema visits only once they reopened in May. This feels like a local, odd and probably unrepresentative list.

Łukasz Mańkowski

Film critic, Poland

  1. Drive My Car 
  2. Memoria
  3. Haruhara-san’s Recorder 
  4. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
  5. Ripples of Life
  6. Death of a Virgin, and the Sin of Not Living
  7. Annette 
  8. Aloners
  9. Petite Maman

Ian Mantgani

Filmmaker, writer, curator, UK

  1. Petite Maman
  2. The Souvenir Part II
  3. The Card Counter
  4. Red Rocket 
  5. Mayor 
  6. City Hall 
  7. Judas and the Black Messiah 
  8. Malignant 
  9. Belfast 
  10. Cry Macho 

Ten more standouts: La Abuela, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, Benedetta, Bolt Driver, Drive My Car, No Sudden Move, Passing, The Viewing Booth, the short VR spectacular Samsara and my friend Daniel Draper’s zero-budget documentary love-letter Almost Liverpool 8.

And a pat on the back for my own brilliant short documentary Vaccination, because as a wise old Scouse regular once said to me in my bartending days, if you don’t believe in yourself, what the hell do you believe in?

Gabrielle Marceau

Film critic, UK

  1. Annette
  2. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy 
  3. The Card Counter 
  4. Memoria 
  5. Drive My Car 
  6. Slow Machine
  7. Zeros and Ones
  8. Cry Macho 
  9. Bergman Island
  10. The Last Duel 

Ross McDonnell

Writer and programmer, UK/Ireland

  1. Bergman Island 
  2. Drive My Car 
  3. Memoria
  4. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy 
  5. The Cloud in Her Room 
  6. Her Socialist Smile 
  7. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?
  8. Correspondence 
  9. The Power of the Dog 
  10. Slow Machine 

There are lots of films I’m looking forward to catching up with: Alice Diop’s We, Amalia Ulman’s El Planeta, Axelle Ropert’s Petite Solange, Hong Sang-soo’s Introduction and In Front of Your Face, Michelangelo Frammartino’s Il buco, Matías Piñeiro’s Isabella, Ramon and Silvan Zürcher’s The Girl and the Spider, and many more.

Katie McCabe

Reviews editor, Sight and Sound

  1. Another Round 
  2. Memory Box
  3. Petite Maman
  4. Memoria
  5. Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliché 
  6. ear for eye 
  7. Pebbles 
  8. Minari 
  9. First Cow 
  10. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

Katherine McLaughlin

Critic and writer, UK

  1. Bergman Island 
  2. Benediction 
  3. The Souvenir Part II
  4. Zola 
  5. Titane
  6. Petite Maman 
  7. Red Rocket
  8. Dinner in America
  9. Pig 
  10. Censor

Book me a flight to Fårö so I can watch 35mm prints in a wooden cabin and go on ‘Bergman Safari’! Mia Hansen-Løve’s seventh feature film wonderfully captures the strife and joy of balancing life and work, and the process of creation. Terence Davies never fails to move me. His tribute to poet and soldier Siegfried Sassoon is an elegantly directed elegy for those whose lives are forever altered by conflict. It’s also beautifully queer and often hilarious. Joanna Hogg delivers a painfully raw, honest and uplifting conclusion to her autobiographical drama of a filmmaker in her twenties.

Janicza Bravo’s interpretation of a legendary twitter thread pops with colour and character as it toys with multiple aspects of cultural appropriation. Julia Ducournau’s dismantling of social constructs dazzled me with potent dance sequences and extreme body horror lit with gorgeous pinks and purples. Céline Sciamma delivers complex emotions with a seemingly simple concept. Sean Baker’s  riotous character portrait of a complete piece of work is one of the funniest films I’ve ever seen.

Adam Rehmeier’s future cult classic is an obnoxiously charming love letter to the outsider spirit featuring a major earworm performed by its two lead actors. Nic Cage turns in an incredibly moving performance in Michael Sarnoski’s tenderly crafted modern western. Prano Bailey-Bond’s unforgettable love letter to video nasties perfectly captures 1980s Britain in all its grim hand-wringing ugliness.

Wendy Mitchell

Journalist and film festival consultant, UK

  1. The Power of the Dog 
  2. The Innocents 
  3. Titane 
  4. Flee 
  5. Spencer 
  6. Zola 
  7. Ammonite 
  8. Compartment No. 6 
  9. Censor
  10. Supernova

Sophie Monks Kaufman

Contributing editor, Little White Lies, UK

  1. C’mon C’mon 
  2. The Souvenir Part II 
  3. Titane
  4. Sound of Metal 
  5. The Power of the Dog 
  6. The French Dispatch
  7. Little Palestine – Diary of a Siege
  8. Red Rocket 
  9. Bergman Island 
  10. Benediction

James Mottram

Film critic, UK

  1. Dune 
  2. The Hand of God
  3. The Green Knight 
  4. The Power of the Dog
  5. The Velvet Underground 
  6. Drive My Car
  7. Nitram
  8. Everything Went Fine
  9. A Hero 
  10. Titane 

On reflection, putting this list together, it feels like a resilient year for cinema. Festivals back in person, attendances at cinemas slowly creeping back up and some really strong films. Villeneuve’s Dune was a personal favourite for its bold vision, but the intimate storytelling of Sorrentino or Hamaguchi (who had a hell of a year with Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy too) was just as striking.

Christina Newland

Lead film critic at the i, UK

  1. The Power of the Dog
  2. The Card Counter
  3. Minari
  4. The Green Knight
  5. Annette
  6. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? 
  7. The Lost Daughter
  8. Drive My Car
  9. Apples
  10. Zola

Kim Newman

Critic, UK

Black Bear
Collective
Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes 
John and the Hole
Last Night in Soho
Malignant 
Nomadland 
Palm Springs 
Riders of Justice 
The Suicide Squad 

Ben Nicholson

Critic and curator, UK

  1. Il buco 
  2. Bodies in Dissent 
  3. Memoria
  4. The Blind Rabbit 
  5. Hotel Royal
  6. Lago Gatún 
  7. A Night of Knowing Nothing 
  8. Wood and Water
  9. Psychic Meat 
  10. Anachronic Chronicles: Voyages Inside/Out Asia 

Caitlin Quinlan

Film critic, UK

  1. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?
  2. The Worst Person in the World 
  3. Memoria 
  4. Petite Maman 
  5. El Planeta 
  6. We
  7. The Tsugua Diaries 
  8. The Souvenir Part II 
  9. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy 
  10. Il buco 

Naman Ramachandran

Critic, journalist, UK/India

  1. Dune 
  2. Rehana 
  3. Once upon a Time in Calcutta 
  4. Sundown
  5. Feathers
  6. Arthur Rambo 
  7. A Hero 
  8. Paka: River of Blood 
  9. Dostojee aka Two Friends
  10. No Land’s Man

Nicolas Rapold

Film critic, UK

  1. Annette 
  2. Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn 
  3. Friends and Strangers
  4. Petite Maman 
  5. Memoria
  6. El Planeta
  7. The Souvenir Part II
  8. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
  9. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
  10. The Woman Who Ran

Honorable Mentions: The Power of the Dog, Parallel Mothers, The French Dispatch, Mr. Bachmann and His Class, Zola, Azor, The Velvet Underground, The Lost Daughter, Procession, The Beta Test and The Viewing Booth.

Alex Ramon

Critic, UK/Poland

  1. The Power of the Dog 
  2. Annette 
  3. Leave No Traces
  4. The Souvenir Part II 
  5. The Tragedy of Macbeth
  6. Mosquito State 
  7. The Lost Daughter 
  8. Never Gonna Snow Again
  9. Everyone Has a Summer
  10. My Wonderful Life

For sure, the big screen felt freshly encompassing, expressive and overwhelming after so many months away from it. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to see the majority of the 10 films on the list, from Jane Campion’s perfectly pitched adaptation of Thomas Savage’s novel to Joanna Hogg’s exquisite exploration of grief and creativity, a rare sequel that deepened the experience of its predecessor while standing firmly on its own two feet.

Leos Carax’s sublime Sparks-scored musical extravaganza Annette and Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth offered completely different, but equally thrilling, combinations of theatrical and cinematic techniques. Filip Jan Rymsza’s Mosquito State had a trippy blend of bio/body horror and corporate comedy that created an idiosyncratic origin story for the 2007-2008 financial crisis while keeping us fully immersed in its protagonist’s freaky headspace. Tomasz Jurkiewicz’s Everyone Has a Summer was a radiant small-town summer charmer with a sly subversive streak, while, set in a wintry Warsaw, Małgorzata Szumowska’s Never Gonna Snow Again combined social satire and spiritual drama to great effect.

Leave No Traces (Jan P. Matuszynski) offered an intricate portrait of 1980s communist corruption that also jibed with a very contemporary focus on instances of police violence. The delicious My Wonderful Life (Lukasz Grzegorzek) presented Agata Buzek as an English teacher memorably straining against her social roles. And, making her directorial debut, Maggie Gyllenhaal adapted Elena Ferrante’s deeply ambivalent ode to motherhood, The Lost Daughter, with the kind of sensitivity and piercing intelligence that has characterised her screen performances over the years.

Vadim Rizov

Director of editorial operations, Filmmaker Magazine, USA

  1. Bergman Island
  2. Days 
  3. El Planeta
  4. The Inheritance 
  5. Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream 
  6. Short Vacation
  7. Slow Machine
  8. The Souvenir Part II 
  9. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
  10. The Woman Who Ran 

Jonathan Romney

Film critic, UK

  1. A Cop Movie 
  2. Il buco 
  3. Playground
  4. The Pink Cloud
  5. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?
  6. The Velvet Underground
  7. Vortex
  8. Drive My Car
  9. The Souvenir Part II 
  10. Mr. Bachmann and His Class

Against the odds, 2021 brought a cornucopia of inventive, urgent, often revelatory cinema. In any other year, my Top 10 would certainly have included Petite Maman (Céline Sciamma), Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul), Babi Yar. Context (Sergei Loznitsa), The Card Counter (Paul Schrader) and discoveries like Carajita (Silvina Schnicer, Ulises Porra) and Captain Volkonogov Escaped (Natalya Merkulova, Alexey Chupov). That wealth of quality is a problem in its own way. There’s now a serious gap between the richness of contemporary film culture and its increasing marginalisation in the real world, between the wealth of possibility that cinema currently offers and the possibility of these films being seen, allowed to breathe and indeed, remembered. Il buco and Memoria were prime examples of films that needed the concrete space of the cinema to fully communicate in their singular, space-sculpting way. Streaming platforms have kept us all sane and visually nourished over the last two years – they’ve fed struggling film-makers too – but they also contribute to a certain amnesia, the culture of watch-and-forget. The challenge of the future will be to let films not just emerge into the daylight, but once they’re out there, resound – and resound for posterity too.

Jonathan Rosenbaum

Film critic, USA

  1. First Cow 
  2. Her Socialist Smile
  3. Tiong Bahru Social Club 
  4. Martin und Hans
  5. John Farrow Hollywood’s Man in the Shadows
  6. While We Were Here 
  7. Letters from the Ends of the World
  8. Uncut Gems
  9. Cry Macho

An incomplete list of nine titles for an incomplete pandemic year that cries out for updates and afterthoughts. That may help to explain why many items here are at least partially films/videos about films/videos (and at least one item, Letters from the Ends of the World, is about the pandemic). Having to compile a so-called ‘2021’ list in October compels me to add Uncut Gems, seen too late in 2020 to make it onto last year’s list.

Julian Ross

Curator and scholar, Netherlands

  1. A Night of Knowing Nothing 
  2. Memoria
  3. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
  4. Memoryland
  5. Inside the Red Brick Wall 
  6. El Gran Movimiento 
  7. The Story of Southern Islet 
  8. Maat Means Land
  9. Surviving You, Always 
  10. Manifesto 

Joshua Rothkopf

Senior editor of movies, Entertainment Weekly, USA

  1. Licorice Pizza 
  2. The Souvenir Part II
  3. Dune
  4. Drive My Car 
  5. Flee
  6. Listening to Kenny G
  7. Red Rocket
  8. Passing
  9. The Worst Person in the World 
  10. C’mon C’mon 

Caspar Salmon

Film critic, UK

  1. Beginning
  2. Drive My Car
  3. Mariner of the Mountains
  4. The Souvenir Part II
  5. First Cow
  6. Întregalde
  7. Notturno
  8. Shiva Baby
  9. Lo Invisible
  10. Benedetta

Sukhdev Sandhu

Film critic, USA

  1. Blackwater Mouth Tollesbury Creek Jumping Ladz 
  2. Leech
  3. Undine 
  4. State Funeral
  5. Parallel Mothers
  6. About Endlessness
  7. Liberation Radio
  8. Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue 
  9. Dune
  10. The Green Knight

Ren Scateni

Critic and curator, UK

  1. A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces
  2. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy 
  3. The Women’s Revenge 
  4. Come Here 
  5. The Backside of God
  6. North by Current 
  7. The Good Woman of Sichuan
  8. Lemongrass Girl
  9. The Story of Southern Islet
  10. Minamata Mandala 

Jourdain Searles

Film critic, USA

  1. The Power of the Dog 
  2. Drive My Car 
  3. Titane 
  4. The Souvenir Part II
  5. Shiva Baby 
  6. Pig 
  7. Test Pattern 
  8. The Inheritance
  9. French Exit
  10. Jumbo

Matt Zoller Seitz

Editor-at-large, RogerEbert.com, staff writer, New York Magazine, US

  1. The Velvet Underground
  2. The French Dispatch
  3. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
  4. Pig 
  5. Annette
  6. Riders of Justice 
  7. Titane
  8. Wrath of Man 
  9. The Harder They Fall
  10. Holler 

Andrew Simpson

Programmer and critic, UK

  1. Il buco 
  2. Memoria
  3. Drive My Car
  4. The Works and Days
  5. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? 
  6. Madalena
  7. Titane 
  8. The Inheritance
  9. The Souvenir Part II
  10. No Sudden Move

Whilst all of the year’s best films felt like excavations of a kind, two films took this approach quite literally, digging into the earth to discover something about life. Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) arrived like a signal beamed from a filmic godhead, communicating an intrinsic truth via the sound that Tilda Swinton simply can’t get out of her head. The search for a tonal pitch that may or may not be emanating from the earth was another exquisite vehicle for Apichatpong’s exploration of the oneness of things. Il buco’s descent into an ancient cave system felt like a journey to the centre of the earth, one that took cinema back not just to its beginnings, but to that of storytelling itself, with light flickering on the wall of a cave offering the year’s most transportative, transcendent cinema experience. As if that wasn’t enough of a gift, Frammartino, true to form, made sure the goats got a cameo.

Watching What Do We See When We Look at the Sky (Alexandre Koberidze) on a laptop was an ironic way to experience a film that at heart is about looking up and embracing the possibility of human connection. Bressonian frames repurposed for a playful game of misdirection, this is a film that asked us to contemplate love whilst looking at two pairs of feet, or the most intimate experiences whilst gazing at the sky above the city. These films, like The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin), seemed to seek some inherent truth about living, exploring the personal within the wider frame of existence itself.   

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi continued to explode the inner lives of his characters in Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy by asking what might happen if we dared reveal our true selves to one another. Drive My Car took this idea of bridging the spaces between people, and pushed it to its soul-cracking limit, using the simplest of elements. Does any filmmaker currently working make such high art with so little fuss?

The Souvenir Part II (Joanna Hogg) was a wry, sad, reflexive work that reflected, expanded and played with the first part of The Souvenir, utilising the kind of emotional ellipses that used to be the stock and trade of Maurice Pialat. Joanna Hogg’s diptych on creativity, loss and getting wise is something of a wonder. Madalena (Madiano Marcheti) was another beautiful film structured around an absence, its opening discovery giving way to a contemplation of legacies of trauma and discrimination. It felt fresh, humane and absolutely vital, as did The Inheritance (Ephraim Asili), which is a film that everyone should watch and learn from.

I liked rather than loved Julia Ducournau’s Raw, but Titane was something else entirely. A transgressive, fully automated, boundary pushing work, it was wonderful to see it take the top prize at a festival that has spent decades embracing the peccadillos of male auteurs. All hail the new flesh.

Finally, another crime thriller, another reflexive and expansive exploration of both genre and digital filmmaking. Working away in his own little corner of the filmmaking universe, Steven Soderbergh is quietly fashioning a body of work that’s almost Altman-like in its metatextual redefinition of movie storytelling, creating work that’s both instantly recognisable and speaking to a larger whole.   

Special mentions go to Another Gaze’s revelatory online retrospective of the work of Cecilia Mangini; the exquisitely moving, beautifully barbed Benediction (Terence Davies); the continuation of young Latin American filmmakers’ thrilling unpacking of the legacy of facism in Azor (Andreas Fontana); the apple falling very close to the tree in Hit the Road (Panah Panahi); Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time (Lili Horvát); The Velvet Underground (Todd Haynes); Friends and Strangers (James Vaughan); Summer of Soul (Questlove); Mad God (Phil Tippett).

Leigh Singer

Journalist, programmer, video essayist, UK

  1. Hit the Road 
  2. Red Rocket
  3. The Souvenir Part II 
  4. Compartment No. 6 
  5. Nitram
  6. The Worst Person in the World 
  7. The Power of the Dog 
  8. Riders of Justice
  9. Petite Maman
  10. Pebbles 

Josh Slater-Williams

Critic, UK

  1. The Worst Person in the World
  2. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
  3. Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror
  4. Our Ladies 
  5. Petite Maman 
  6. The Souvenir Part II
  7. Drive My Car
  8. Belle 
  9. Limbo (Soi Cheang)
  10. I’m Your Man

For this year’s poll, I’ve mainly stuck to features that premiered in 2021, but only films that played at least one public-facing festival in the UK during this year. I decided I also wanted to champion 2019 or 2020 festival premieres that had been in release limbo thanks to the pandemic, not being commercially available anywhere in the world until this year. Gillian Wallace Horvat’s I Blame Society and Emma Seligman’s Shiva Baby are examples of the latter that made my longlist, though only one ultimately made my final ten: Our Ladies, Michael Caton-Jones’s excellent, bittersweet adaptation of Alan Warner’s The Sopranos. It’s a gem that practically had me sobbing at the end the first time I saw it during its much-delayed theatrical run, despite already knowing what was coming from having seen it at the London Film Festival in 2019. Somewhat overlooked in British press coverage and hindered by a lacklustre marketing campaign, it’s a film I really hope becomes a bigger word-of-mouth success through home media.

Christopher Small

Programmer, UK

  1. Orpheus 
  2. The Tsugua Diaries 
  3. A Night of Knowing Nothing 
  4. Summer 
  5. Charm Circle 
  6. Nũhũ Yãg Mũ Yõg Hãm: This Land Is Our Land! 
  7. Riverock / É Rocha e Rio, Negro Leo
  8. Surviving You, Always
  9. Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash
  10. Lines

Anna Smith

Film critic, broadcaster and host of the Girls on Film podcast, UK

  1. The Power of the Dog
  2. I’m Your Man
  3. Nomadland 
  4. First Cow
  5. I Care A Lot 
  6. Zola 
  7. True Things
  8. Petite Maman
  9. Quo Vadis, Aida? 
  10. Titane

Kate Stables

Film critic, UK

  1. The Power of the Dog
  2. Memoria 
  3. The French Dispatch
  4. The Green Knight 
  5. Zola
  6. Censor
  7. Flee 
  8. Azor 
  9. No Sudden Move 
  10. Spencer 

Isabel Stevens

Managing editor, Sight and Sound, UK

  1. Il buco
  2. Flee 
  3. Memoria
  4. Drive My Car 
  5. The French Dispatch
  6. The Souvenir Part II 
  7. After Love
  8. Playground
  9. Belle
  10. Azor 

Amy Taubin

Film critic, USA

  1. The Power of the Dog
  2. The Velvet Underground
  3. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
  4. Memoria
  5. Petite Maman 
  6. Mr. Bachmann and His Class
  7. Azor
  8. In the Same Breath 
  9. Lingui: The Sacred Bonds
  10. Prayers for the Stolen 

Matthew Taylor

Critic

  1. Drive My Car 
  2. Dune
  3. First Cow 
  4. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? 
  5. Beginning
  6. Labyrinth of Cinema
  7. The Souvenir Part II 
  8. Benediction 
  9. Bergman Island
  10. Hit the Road

Lou Thomas

BFI digital production editor and film critic, UK

  1. Titane
  2. Judas and the Black Messiah
  3. Pig
  4. Palm Springs
  5. Censor 
  6. In the Earth
  7. The Souvenir Part II 
  8. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
  9. The World to Come
  10. Dune

Another challenging year for cinemas, but there was plenty of thought-provoking work out there when our beloved dream palaces did reopen in earnest. All the titles I’ve chosen offer something extraordinary: heightened emotional intensity, incredible spectacle and searing truths. That these elements can sometimes be buried in a comedy, period drama, concert doc, sci-fi blockbuster or psychedelic horror is irrelevant but pleasing. Most gratifying of all, none of the work listed pulls any punches. One hopes to see more of the same energetic filmmaking next year.

David Thompson

Critic, curator, filmmaker; UK

  1. Benedetta 
  2. Dune 
  3. Earwig
  4. The Lost Daughter 
  5. The Power of the Dog 
  6. Playground
  7. The Souvenir Part II
  8. Spencer 
  9. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
  10. The Velvet Underground 

Matthew Thrift

Critic, UK

  1. Benediction
  2. Bergman Island
  3. Parallel Mothers
  4. Lago Gatún 
  5. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy 
  6. Annette
  7. Drive My Car 
  8. The Souvenir Part II 
  9. Cry Macho 
  10. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?

Matt Turner

Film writer and programmer, UK

  1. Memoria
  2. All of Your Stars Are But Dust on My Shoes
  3. Shared Resources
  4. Maat Means Land 
  5. All About My Sisters
  6. Come Here
  7. Do Not Circulate
  8. Delphine’s Prayers
  9. Drive My Car
  10. Summer 

“I want to do something that helps people.” — Apichatpong Weerasethakul

J. M. Tyree

Critic, US

  1. Sound of Metal 
  2. Nomadland 
  3. The Green Knight 
  4. Annette 
  5. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
  6. The French Dispatch
  7. Bergman Island 
  8. Lamb 
  9. Titane
  10. The Village Detective

Weird films, long-delayed films, films distributed on (or abandoned to) alternative platforms, all in a year when release dates often remained wobbly. A joyful film of great concert footage, unseen for decades, from 1969 Harlem. An experimental documentary about films rediscovered at the bottom of the ocean. Strange films – surely some of the most odd movies in recent years, if not since the 1970s? – to accompany another surreal year. Films that attempt to acknowledge the generalised state of horror and paralysis, yet steadfastly refuse to relinquish a shared sense of the future and the necessity of love. An artform and a ‘business model’ in utter chaos – but still productive of movies that are as interesting as ever.

Ginette Vincendeau

Professor in film studies, King’s College London, UK

  1. Nomadland
  2. Everything Went Fine
  3. Hold Me Tight 
  4. After Love
  5. Petite Maman
  6. Stillwater
  7. Promising Young Woman 
  8. The Father 
  9. The French Dispatch 
  10. Drive My Car

Ian Wang

Film critic, UK

  1. Belle 
  2. Cousins 
  3. The Cloud in Her Room
  4. Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice upon a Time
  5. the lights are on, no one’s home
  6. Shangri-La 
  7. No Ordinary Man
  8. Samraa 
  9. Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal: The Movie Part Two 
  10. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

Moving back to Manchester and not attending any festivals this year means I have yet to see several films that certainly would’ve made this list: All About My Sisters (Qiong Wang), We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (Jane Schoenbrun) and A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces (Shengze Zhu) in particular. 

The best feature-length work I saw all year was Hazel’s video essay Why Did We Like Elfen Lied?, an intimate and historically-grounded analysis of Western anime culture in the 2000s and the teenage girls who helped build it. 

Catherine Wheatley

Academic and critic, UK

  1. The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot)
  2. Compartment No. 6 (Juho Kuosmanen)
  3. Bergman Island (Mia Hansen-Løve)
  4. Black Bear (Lawrence Michael Levine)
  5. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? (Alexandre Koberidze)
  6. Undine (Christian Petzold)
  7. Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time (Lili Horvat)
  8. I Care A Lot (J Blakeson)
  9. Nomadland (Chloé Zhao)
  10. First Cow (Kelly Reichardt)

My top ten of the year, in no particular order. While I thought each of these films were excellent in different ways, it’s a list that’s indicative of what I’ve seen rather than what’s out there, and astute readers will notice that it skews very white and western, so I’m submitting it with along with a promise to myself to broaden my geographical viewing horizons in 2022!

I’d have liked to have included both Bergman Island / Black Bear and Undine / Preparations as pairs ideally, as they speak to such similar themes (female creativity and female desire, respectively).

Charlotte Whitehouse

Film critic, UK

  1. The Hand of God 
  2. Cry Macho
  3. After Love
  4. Quo Vadis, Aida? 
  5. Titane 
  6. The Power of the Dog
  7. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy 
  8. Censor 
  9. Spencer 
  10. Sound of Metal 

Sam Wigley

BFI digital features editor, UK

  1. Benediction
  2. Memoria 
  3. Labyrinth of Cinema
  4. Lago Gatún 
  5. Il buco 
  6. Drive My Car
  7. All Hands on Deck
  8. Annette 
  9. Bergman Island
  10. The Souvenir Part II 

Spelunking in the Calabrian mountains courtesy of Il buco was the perfect first cinema trip after 18 months away. Venturing back into the darkness, I knew how the cavers felt. Some of the most transfixing moments of the year were almost pure darkness: those bits in Kevin Jerome Everson’s extraordinary Panama Canal film Lago Gatún in which the closing lock shuts out the light and we’re left to watch tiny glints shimmering on a black screen. Memoria in a hushed audience of 2,000. The wrench of Terence Davies’ Benediction – as shaking an account of a man and his times as The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. It’s been good to be back.

Mike Williams

Editor-in-chief, Sight and Sound, UK

  1. Petite Maman
  2. Spencer 
  3. Ham on Rye
  4. Beginning 
  5. The Souvenir Part II 
  6. The Hand of God 
  7. Censor
  8. Sound of Metal
  9. Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
  10. Judas and the Black Messiah 

Craig Williams

Programmer, The Badlands Collective, UK

  1. Benedetta 
  2. Benediction 
  3. Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror
  4. Zack Synder’s Justice League
  5. Pig
  6. Monster Hunter 
  7. Here Today 
  8. Malignant
  9. The Empty Man 
  10. The Killing of Two Lovers 

Neil Young

Film critic, curator, maker, UK/Austria

  1. 13 
  2. (third study for) Swedge of Heaven 
  3. In Shallow Water 
  4. Train Again 
  5. Nenad
  6. Looking for Venera 
  7. The Dust of Modern Life
  8. The Blood is White 
  9. Friends and Strangers
  10. Nemesis 

“I went to Hong Kong to set up production on a picture called In a Dream of Passion, but it never got made, because the producer bailed on us at the last minute. Then I went back to Hong Kong a year later to do a film called Shatter (1974)… and then I got fired by the producer, Michael Carreras, halfway through the shoot. I think that Michael really wanted to direct it from the beginning. We just fought a lot on the set. I didn’t like the way he was treating a Black actor in the film. I thought it was demeaning, the things that he wanted me to make him do, so we had a lot of fights. And I just finally said, “There is some shit I will not eat.”” – Monte Hellman, 1929-2021

    362 films

    (third study for) Swedge of Heaven

    Richard Forbes-Hamilton

    Voted for by: Neil Young

    13

    Shinya Isobe

    Voted for by: Neil Young

    7 Days

    Roshan Sethi

    Voted for by: Melanie Hoyes

    7 Prisoners

    Alexandre Moratto

    Voted for by: Charles Gant

    76 Days

    Hao Wu, Weixi Chen

    Voted for by: Roger Luckhurst

    About Endlessness

    Roy Andersson

    Voted for by: Sukhdev Sandhu

    Affairs of the Art

    Joanna Quinn

    Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit

    After Love

    Aleem Khan

    Voted for by: Charlotte Whitehouse, Ginette Vincendeau, Isabel Stevens, James Bell, Pamela Hutchinson, Philip Kemp

    Ahed’s Knee

    Nadav Lapid

    Voted for by: Carmen Gray, J. Hoberman, James Lattimer, Kieron Corless, Molly Haskell

    All About My Sisters

    Wang Qiong

    Voted for by: Matt Turner

    All Hands on Deck

    Guillaume Brac

    Voted for by: Sam Wigley

    All Light, Everywhere

    Theo Anthony

    Voted for by: Ashley Clark, Carmen Gray, Matthew Barrington, Sophie Brown

    All of Your Stars Are But Dust on My Shoes

    Haig Aivazian

    Voted for by: Matt Turner

    Alone

    John Hyams

    Voted for by: The Ferroni Brigade

    Aloners

    Hong Sung-eun

    Voted for by: Łukasz Mańkowski

    Ammonite

    Francis Lee

    Voted for by: Wendy Mitchell

    Anachronic Chronicles: Voyages Inside/Out Asia

    Yu Araki, Lu Pan

    Voted for by: Ben Nicholson

    Annette

    Leos Carax

    Voted for by: Alex Ramon, Beatrice Loayza, Carmen Gray, Christina Newland, Devika Girish, Eric Hynes, Gabrielle Marceau, J. M. Tyree, Jason Anderson, John Bleasdale, Jordan Cronk, Lillian Crawford, Łukasz Mańkowski, Mar Diestro-Dópido, Matt Zoller Seitz, Matthew Thrift, Nick Chen, Nicolas Rapold, Rebecca Harrison, Sam Wigley, Tom Charity

    Another Round

    Thomas Vinterberg

    Voted for by: Hanna Flint, Jane Giles, Katie McCabe, Pamela Hutchinson, Roger Luckhurst

    Apples

    Christos Nikou

    Voted for by: 

    Christina Newland, Kaleem Aftab, Roger Luckhurst

    Archipelago

    Felix Dufour-Laperriere

    Voted for by: Kieron Corless

    Army of the Dead

    Zack Synder

    Voted for by: Tim Hayes

    Arthur Rambo

    Laurent Cantet

    Voted for by: Naman Ramachandran

    Azor

    Andreas Fontana

    Voted for by: Alex Davidson, Amy Taubin, Carmen Gray, Guy Lodge, Isabel Stevens, James Bell, Kate Stables, Maria Delgado, Nick James, Wendy Ide

    Babi Yar. Context

    Sergei Loznitsa

    Voted for by: Philip Concannon, Robert Koehler

    The Backside of God

    Hogan Seidel

    Voted for by: Ren Scateni

    Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn

    Radu Jude

    Voted for by: Alex Davidson, Carmen Gray, Devika Girish, J. Hoberman, James Lattimer, Kaleem Aftab, Nicolas Rapold, Robert Koehler, Violet Lucca

    Bad Trip

    Kitao Sakurai

    Voted for by: Ashley Clark, Jason Anderson

    A Balance

    Harumoto Yujiro

    Voted for by: Łukasz Mańkowski

    Ballad of a White Cow

    Behtash Sanaeeha, Maryam Moghadam

    Voted for by: Michael Hayden

    The Banishing

    Christopher Smith

    Voted for by: Tim Hayes

    Bantu Mama

    Ivan Herrera

    Voted for by: Melanie Hoyes

    Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar

    Josh Greenbaum

    Voted for by: Jason Anderson

    Beginning

    Dea Kulumbegashvili

    Voted for by: Caspar Salmon, Matthew Taylor, Michael Atkinson, Mike Williams, Pamela Hutchinson, Simran Hans

    Belfast

    Kenneth Branagh

    Voted for by: Charles Gant, Ian Mantgani, Melanie Hoyes

    Belle

    Hosoda Mamoru

    Voted for by: Ian Wang, Isabel Stevens, Josh Slater-Williams, Kambole Campbell, Matthew Barrington, Michael Leader

    Benedetta

    Paul Verhoeven

    Voted for by: Caspar Salmon, Craig Williams, David Thompson, Elena Lazic, Eric Hynes, Jordan Cronk, Molly Haskell, Philip Concannon, The Ferroni Brigade

    Benediction

    Terence Davies

    Voted for by: Alex Davidson, Craig Williams, Devika Girish, Katherine McLaughlin, Matthew Taylor, Matthew Thrift, Sam Wigley, Sophie Monks Kaufman

    Bergman Island

    Mia Hansen-Løve

    Voted for by: Beatrice Loayza, Catherine Wheatley, Clara Bradbury-Rance, Devika Girish, Gabrielle Marceau, J. M. Tyree, Katherine McLaughlin, Lillian Crawford, Mar Diestro-Dópido, Matthew Taylor, Matthew Thrift, Nick Chen, Ross McDonnell, Sam Wigley, Sophie Monks Kaufman, Vadim Rizov, Violet Lucca

    Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes

    Yamaguchi Junta

    Voted for by: Kim Newman, Michael Leader

    Black Bear

    Lawrence Michael Levine

    Voted for by: Catherine Wheatley, Kim Newman

    Black Widow

    Cate Shortland

    Voted for by: Clara Bradbury-Rance

    Blackwater Mouth Tollesbury Creek Jumping Ladz

    Tilly Shiner

    Voted for by: Sukhdev Sandhu

    The Blind Rabbit

    Pallavi Paul

    Voted for by: Ben Nicholson

    The Blood is White

    Óscar Vincentelli

    Voted for by: Neil Young

    Bodies in Dissent

    Ufuoma Essi

    Voted for by: Ben Nicholson

    Brighton 4th

    Levan Koguashvili

    Voted for by: Kaleem Aftab, Michael Atkinson

    Broadcast Signal Intrusion

    Jacob Gentry

    Voted for by: Anton Bitel

    Brother’s Keeper

    Ferit Karahan

    Voted for by: Michael Hayden, Wendy Ide

    C’mon C’mon

    Mike Mills

    Voted for by: Anna Bogutskaya, Charles Gant, Joshua Rothkopf, Sophie Monks Kaufman

    Caak3 daan2 zyun1 gaa1 2

    Jau1 Lai5 Tou4, Hermann Yau

    Voted for by: The Ferroni Brigade

    Candyman

    Nia DaCosta

    Voted for by: Jane Giles, Lindsay Hallam, Sophie Brown

    The Card Counter

    Paul Schrader

    Voted for by: Christina Newland, Erika Balsom, Gabrielle Marceau, Ian Mantgani, Jason Anderson, Jordan Cronk, Leila Latif, Steph Green

    Cārpaṭṭā Paramparai

    Pā. Rañcit

    Voted for by: The Ferroni Brigade

    Celts

    Milica Tomović

    Voted for by: Alex Davidson

    Censor

    Prano Bailey-Bond

    Voted for by: Anna Bogutskaya, Anton Bitel, Charlotte Whitehouse, Ela Bittencourt, Jane Giles, Kate Stables, Katherine McLaughlin, Lindsay Hallam, Lou Thomas, Michael Blyth, Mike Williams, Wendy Mitchell

    Charm Circle

    Nira Burstein

    Voted for by: Christopher Small

    City Hall

    Frederick Wiseman

    Voted for by: Ian Mantgani

    The Cloud in Her Room

    Zheng Lu Xinyuan

    Voted for by: Ian Wang, Ross McDonnell

    Coda

    Sian Heder

    Voted for by: Michael Blyth

    Collective

    Alexander Nanau

    Voted for by: Kim Newman

    Come Here

    Anocha Suwichakornpong

    Voted for by: Matt Turner, Ren Scateni

    Come True

    Anthony Scott Burns

    Voted for by: Anne Billson

    Compartment No. 6

    Juho Kuosmanen

    Voted for by: Carmen Gray, Catherine Wheatley, Jason Anderson, Leigh Singer, Nick Chen, Roger Clarke, Wendy Mitchell

    A Cop Movie

    Alonso Ruizpalacios

    Voted for by: Jonathan Romney, Maria Delgado, Nick James, Tom Charity

    Correspondence

    Carla Simón, Dominga Sotomayor

    Voted for by: Ross McDonnell

    Costa Brava Lebanon

    Mounia Aki

    Voted for by: Maria Delgado

    Cousins

    Mandy Marcus

    Voted for by: Ian Wang

    Cruella

    Craig Gillespie

    Voted for by: Mar Diestro-Dópido

    Cry Macho

    Clint Eastwood

    Voted for by: Charlotte Whitehouse, Gabrielle Marceau, Ian Mantgani, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Jordan Cronk, Matthew Thrift

    Cryptozoo

    Jane Samborski, Dash Shaw

    Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit, Tim Hayes

    The Dark and the Wicked

    Bryan Bertino

    Voted for by: Roger Luckhurst

    Dashcam

    Rob Savage

    Voted for by: Michael Blyth

    Days

    Tsai Ming-Liang

    Voted for by: Vadim Rizov

    Dear Comrades!

    Andrei Konchalovsky

    Voted for by: Ryan Gilbey

    Death of a Virgin, and the Sin of Not Living

    George Peter Barbari

    Voted for by: Łukasz Mańkowski

    Deerskin

    Quentin Dupieux

    Voted for by: Roger Clarke

    Delphine’s Prayers

    Rosine Mbakam

    Voted for by: Erika Balsom, Matt Turner, Simran Hans

    Demon Slayer: Mugen Train

    Sotozaki Haruo

    Voted for by: Anne Billson

    The Dig

    Simon Stone

    Voted for by: Rebecca Harrison

    Dinner in America

    Adam Rehmeier

    Voted for by: Katherine McLaughlin

    The Disciple

    Chaitanya Tamhane

    Voted for by: James Bell, Nick Chen, Robin Baker

    Do Not Circulate

    Tiffany Sia

    Voted for by: Matt Turner

    The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet

    Ana Katz

    Voted for by: Jamie Dunn

    Dostojee aka Two Friends

    Prasun Chatterjee

    Voted for by: Naman Ramachandran

    Downstream to Kinshasa

    Dieudo Hamadi

    Voted for by: Eric Hynes

    Drive My Car

    Hamaguchi Ryusuke

    Voted for by: Andrew Simpson, Ashley Clark, Caspar Salmon, Christina Newland, Eric Hynes, Erika Balsom, Gabrielle Marceau, Ginette Vincendeau, Guy Lodge, Isabel Stevens, James Bell, James Mottram, Jason Anderson, Jonathan Romney, Jordan Cronk, Josh Slater-Williams, Joshua Rothkopf, Jourdain Searles, Łukasz Mańkowski, Mar Diestro-Dópido, Matt Turner, Matthew Taylor, Matthew Thrift, Michael Leader, Nick Chen, Nick James, Philip Concannon, Ross McDonnell, Sam Wigley, Simran Hans, Tom Charity

    Dune

    Denis Villeneuve

    Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit, Charles Gant, David Thompson, James Mottram, John Bleasdale, Joshua Rothkopf, Leila Latif, Lou Thomas, Mar Diestro-Dópido, Matthew Taylor, Michael Leader, Naman Ramachandran, Robin Baker, Sukhdev Sandhu, Violet Lucca

    The Dust of Modern Life

    Franziska von Stenglin

    Voted for by: Neil Young

    ear for eye

    debbie tucker green

    Voted for by:

    Alex Davidson, Ashley Clark, James Bell, Katie McCabe, Matthew Barrington, Melanie Hoyes, Michael Leader, Philip Kemp

    Earwig

    Lucile Hadžihalilović

    Voted for by: David Thompson, Jane Giles

    Easter Eggs

    Nicolas Keppens

    Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit

    El Gran Movimiento

    Kiro Russo

    Voted for by: Ela Bittencourt, Julian Ross, Violet Lucca

    El Planeta

    Amalia Ulman

    Voted for by: Beatrice Loayza, Caitlin Quinlan, Nicolas Rapold, Sophie Brown, Vadim Rizov

    The Empty Man

    David Prior

    Voted for by: Craig Williams

    Encounter

    Michael Pearce

    Voted for by: Kaleem Aftab

    Espiritu Sagrado

    Chema Garcia Ibarra

    Voted for by: Robert Koehler

    Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice upon a Time

    Hideaki Anno

    Voted for by: Ian Wang, Kambole Campbell

    Everyone Has a Summer

    Tomasz Jurkiewicz

    Voted for by: Alex Ramon

    Everything Went Fine

    François Ozon

    Voted for by: Ginette Vincendeau, James Mottram

    Eyimofe – This Is My Desire

    Arie Esiri, Chuko Esiri

    Voted for by: Ashley Clark

    Fabian or Going to the Dogs

    Dominik Graf

    Voted for by: Erika Balsom, The Ferroni Brigade

    The Father

    Florian Zeller

    Voted for by:

    Ginette Vincendeau, Jane Giles, Leila Latif, Michael Atkinson, Michael Leader, Philip Horne, Philip Kemp, Roger Luckhurst, Ryan Gilbey

    Faya Dayi

    Jessica Beshir

    Voted for by: Ashley Clark, Ela Bittencourt, Leila Latif, Violet Lucca

    Feast

    Tim Leyendekker

    Voted for by: Beatrice Loayza

    Feathers

    Omar El Zohairy

    Voted for by: Kieron Corless, Naman Ramachandran

    The Filmmaker’s House

    Marc Isaacs

    Voted for by: Ryan Gilbey

    Fire Music: Story of Free Jazz

    Tom Segal

    Voted for by: J. Hoberman

    The First 54 Years

    Avi Mograbi

    Voted for by: Ela Bittencourt

    First Cow

    Kelly Reichardt

    Voted for by: Anna Smith, Anne Billson, Caspar Salmon, Catherine Wheatley, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Katie McCabe, Lindsay Hallam, Matthew Taylor, Pamela Hutchinson, Philip Kemp, Roger Clarke, Roger Luckhurst, Ryan Gilbey

    Flashback aka Education of Frederick Fitzell

    Christopher MacBride

    Voted for by: Anton Bitel

    Flee

    Jonas Poher Rasmussen

    Voted for by: Alex Davidson, Alex Dudok de Wit, Charles Gant, Isabel Stevens, Joshua Rothkopf, Kambole Campbell, Kate Stables, Nick Chen, Robin Baker, Roger Clarke, Sophie Brown, Wendy Mitchell

    France

    Bruno Dumont

    Voted for by: Jordan Cronk

    The French Dispatch

    Wes Anderson

    Voted for by: Ginette Vincendeau, Isabel Stevens, J. M. Tyree, Kate Stables, Lillian Crawford, Matt Zoller Seitz, Philip Horne, Philip Kemp, Rick Burin, Sophie Monks Kaufman

    French Exit

    Azazel Jacobs

    Voted for by: Jourdain Searles

    Friends and Strangers

    James Vaughan

    Voted for by: Beatrice Loayza, Carmen Gray, Jamie Dunn, Neil Young, Nicolas Rapold, Robert Koehler

    From the Planet of the Humans

    Giovanni Cioni

    Voted for by: Robert Koehler

    From Where They Stood

    Christophe Cognet

    Voted for by: Matthew Barrington

    Gagarine

    Fanny Liatard, Jeremy Trouilh

    Voted for by: Roger Luckhurst

    The Girl and the Spider

    Ramon Zurcher, Silvan Zurcher

    Voted for by: Devika Girish, Erika Balsom, James Lattimer, Robert Koehler

    A Glitch in the Matrix

    Rodney Ascher

    Voted for by: Tim Hayes

    The Good Woman of Sichuan

    Sabrina Zhao

    Voted for by: Ren Scateni

    Great Freedom

    Sebastian Miese

    Voted for by: Charles Gant, Michael Blyth

    The Green Knight

    David Lowery

    Voted for by: Anne Billson, Anton Bitel, Christina Newland, Guy Lodge, Hanna Flint, J. M. Tyree, James Mottram, John Bleasdale, Kate Stables, Leila Latif, Lindsay Hallam, Rebecca Harrison, Robin Baker, Ryan Gilbey, Steph Green, Sukhdev Sandhu

    Ham on Rye

    Tyler Taormina

    Voted for by: Jamie Dunn, Mike Williams, Ryan Gilbey

    Hanagatami

    Obayashi Nobuhiro

    Voted for by: Tom Charity

    The Hand of God

    Paolo Sorrentino

    Voted for by: Charlotte Whitehouse, James Mottram, Kaleem Aftab, Mike Williams, Nick James, Steph Green

    Happening

    Audrey Diwan

    Voted for by: Elena Lazic

    The Harder They Fall

    Jeymes Samuel

    Voted for by: Matt Zoller Seitz

    Haruhara-san’s Recorder

    Sugita Kyoshi

    Voted for by: Ela Bittencourt, Łukasz Mańkowski

    Henry Glassie: Field Work

    Pat Collins

    Voted for by: Thomas Flew

    Her Socialist Smile

    John Gianvito

    Voted for by:

    Jonathan Rosenbaum, Ross McDonnell

    Here Today

    Billy Crystal

    Voted for by: Craig Williams

    A Hero

    Asghar Farhadi

    Voted for by: James Mottram, Naman Ramachandran, Philip Concannon, Philip Horne, Rick Burin

    Historya Ni Ha

    Lav Diaz

    Voted for by: Matthew Barrington, The Ferroni Brigade

    Hit the Road

    Panah Panahi

    Voted for by: John Bleasdale, Leigh Singer, Maria Delgado, Matthew Taylor, Melanie Hoyes, Robin Baker, Thomas Flew, Wendy Ide

    Hold Me Tight

    Mathieu Amalric

    Voted for by: Ginette Vincendeau

    Holler

    Nicole Reigel

    Voted for by: Matt Zoller Seitz

    Hotel Royal

    Salomé Lamas

    Voted for by: Ben Nicholson

    The Human Voice

    Pedro Almodóvar

    Voted for by: Anna Bogutskaya, Mar Diestro-Dópido

    The I and S of Lives

    Kevin Jerome Everson

    Voted for by: Matthew Barrington

    I Care A Lot

    J Blakeson

    Voted for by: Anna Smith, Catherine Wheatley Tim Hayes

    I Want to Talk About Duras

    Claire Simon

    Voted for by: Violet Lucca

    I’m Your Man

    Maria Schrader

    Voted for by: Anna Smith, Josh Slater-Williams, Lillian Crawford

    Il buco

    Michelangelo Frammartino

    Voted for by:

    Andrew Simpson, Ben Nicholson, Caitlin Quinlan, Isabel Stevens, John Bleasdale, Jonathan Romney, Jordan Cronk, Kieron Corless, Philip Concannon, Philip Horne, Sam Wigley

    In Front of Your Face

    Hong Sangsoo

    Voted for by: Jordan Cronk, Thomas Flew

    In Shallow Water

    Mark Moučka

    Voted for by: Neil Young

    In the Earth

    Ben Wheatley

    Voted for by: Jane Giles, Lindsay Hallam, Lou Thomas

    In the Same Breath

    Nanfu Wang

    Voted for by: Amy Taubin

    The Inheritance

    Ephraim Asili

    Voted for by: Andrew Simpson, Jourdain Searles, Vadim Rizov

    The Innocents

    Eskil Vogt

    Voted for by: Kaleem Aftab, Wendy Mitchell

    Inside the Red Brick Wall

    Hong Kong Documentary Filmmakers

    Voted for by: Julian Ross

    Întregalde

    Radu Muntean

    Voted for by: Caspar Salmon, Ela Bittencourt, Kaleem Aftab

    Inuō

    Yuasa Masa’aki

    Voted for by: The Ferroni Brigade

    John and the Hole

    Pascual Sisto

    Voted for by: Kim Newman

    John Farrow Hollywood’s Man in the Shadows

    Claude Gonzalez, Frans Vanderburg

    Voted for by: Jonathan Rosenbaum

    Judas and the Black Messiah

    Shaka King

    Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit, Ian Mantgani, Leila Latif, Lindsay Hallam, Lou Thomas, Mike Williams, Philip Kemp

    Jumbo

    Zoe Wittock

    Voted for by: Jourdain Searles

    Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream

    Frank Beauvais

    Voted for by: Vadim Rizov

    Juste un mouvement

    Vincent Meessen

    Voted for by: Erika Balsom, Matthew Barrington

    Karen Dalton: In My Own Time

    Richard Peete, Robert Yapkowitz

    Voted for by: J. Hoberman

    The Killing of Two Lovers

    Robert Machoian

    Voted for by: Craig Williams

    King Richard

    Reinaldo Marcus Green

    Voted for by: Kaleem Aftab

    La Mif

    Fred Baillif

    Voted for by: Michael Hayden

    Labyrinth of Cinema

    Obayashi Nobuhiko

    Voted for by: Devika Girish, Matthew Taylor, Sam Wigley

    Lago Gatún

    Kevin Jerome Everson

    Voted for by: Ben Nicholson, Matthew Thrift, Sam Wigley

    Lamb

    Valdimar Jóhannson

    Voted for by: Anton Bitel, J. M. Tyree

    Language Lessons

    Natalie Morales

    Voted for by: Melanie Hoyes

    The Last Black Man in San Francisco

    Joe Talbot

    Voted for by: Catherine Wheatley

    The Last Duel

    Ridley Scott

    Voted for by: Elena Lazic, Gabrielle Marceau, John Bleasdale, Violet Lucca

    Last Night in Soho

    Edgar Wright

    Voted for by: Kim Newman, Mar Diestro-Dópido, Philip Kemp

    Leave No Traces

    Jan P. Matuszyński

    Voted for by: Alex Ramon

    Leech

    Bahman Kiarostami

    Voted for by: Sukhdev Sandhu

    Lemongrass Girl

    Pom Bunsermvicha

    Voted for by: Ren Scateni

    Les Heroiques

    Maxime Roy

    Voted for by: Ela Bittencourt

    Letters from the Ends of the World

    a dozen of the first graduates of Béla Tarr’s FilmFactory

    Voted for by: Jonathan Rosenbaum

    Liberation Radio

    Esther Johnson

    Voted for by: Sukhdev Sandhu

    Licorice Pizza

    Paul Thomas Anderson

    Voted for by: Joshua Rothkopf

    lights are on, no one’s home

    Faye Ruiz

    Voted for by: Ian Wang

    Limbo

    Ben Sharrock

    Voted for by: Anton Bitel, James Bell, Jamie Dunn, Rebecca Harrison, Robin Baker

    Limbo

    Soi Cheang

    Voted for by: Josh Slater-Williams

    Lines

    Barbora Sliepková

    Voted for by: Christopher Small

    Lingui: Sacred Bonds

    Mahamat-Saleh Haroun

    Voted for by: Amy Taubin

    Listening to Kenny G

    Penny Lane

    Voted for by: Joshua Rothkopf, Simran Hans

    Little Palestine – Diary of a Siege

    Abdallah al-Khatib

    Voted for by: Sophie Monks Kaufman

    Lo Invisible

    Javier Andrade

    Voted for by: Caspar Salmon

    Looking for Venera

    Norika Sefa

    Voted for by: Neil Young

    Lost Course

    Jill Li

    Voted for by: Matthew Barrington

    The Lost Daughter

    Maggie Gyllenhaal

    Voted for by: Alex Ramon, Christina Newland, David Thompson, Guy Lodge, John Bleasdale, Michael Blyth, Michael Hayden, Pamela Hutchinson, Robin Baker, Simran Hans, Wendy Ide

    Love Yourself Today

    Ross Killeen

    Voted for by: Alex Davidson

    Lower East Side Trilogy

    Ernie Gehr

    Voted for by: J. Hoberman

    Luzzu

    Alex Camilleri

    Voted for by: Alex Davidson

    Maat Means Land

    Fox Maxy

    Voted for by: Julian Ross, Matt Turner

    Mad God

    Phil Tippett

    Voted for by: Anton Bitel, John Bleasdale, Kambole Campbell, Tim Hayes

    Madalena

    Madiano Marcheti

    Voted for by: Andrew Simpson

    Malignant

    James Wan

    Voted for by: Anton Bitel, Craig Williams, Ian Mantgani, Kim Newman

    Malmkrog

    Cristi Puiu

    Voted for by: Michael Atkinson

    A Man and a Camera

    Guido Hendrickx

    Voted for by: Sophie Brown

    The Man Who Sold His Skin

    Kaouter Ben Hania

    Voted for by: Hanna Flint

    Mandibles

    Quentin Dupieux

    Voted for by: Anne Billson

    Manifesto

    Ane Hjort Guttu

    Voted for by: Julian Ross

    Mariner of the Mountains

    Karim Aïnouz

    Voted for by: Caspar Salmon

    Martin Eden

    Pietro Marcello

    Voted for by: Roger Clarke

    Martin und Hans

    Mark Rappaport

    Voted for by: Jonathan Rosenbaum

    Mayor

    David Osit

    Voted for by: Ian Mantgani

    The Meaning of Hitler

    Petra Epperlein, Michael Tucker

    Voted for by: J. Hoberman

    Memoria

    Apichatpong Weerasethakul

    Voted for by: Amy Taubin, Andrew Simpson, Ben Nicholson, Caitlin Quinlan, Devika Girish, Eric Hynes, Gabrielle Marceau, Isabel Stevens, J. Hoberman, James Lattimer, Jamie Dunn, Jordan Cronk, Julian Ross, Kate Stables, Katie McCabe, Kieron Corless, Łukasz Mańkowski, Matt Turner, Michael Hayden, Nick Chen, Nicolas Rapold, Ross McDonnell, Sam Wigley, Sophie Brown, Thomas Flew, Violet Lucca

    Memory Box

    Joana Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige

    Voted for by: Katie McCabe

    Memoryland

    Kim Quy Bui

    Voted for by: Julian Ross

    Minamata Mandala

    Hara Kazuo

    Voted for by: Ren Scateni

    Minari

    Lee Isaac Chung

    Voted for by: Christina Newland, Hanna Flint, Jason Anderson, Katie McCabe, Philip Horne, Philip Kemp, Thomas Flew

    The Mitchells vs the Machines

    Michael Rianda, Jeff Rowe

    Voted for by: Ella Kemp

    Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon

    Ana Lily Amarpour

    Voted for by: Lindsay Hallam, Mar Diestro-Dópido

    Monster Hunter

    Paul W. S. Anderson

    Voted for by: Craig Williams

    Mosquito State

    Filip Jan Rymsza

    Voted for by: Alex Ramon, Anton Bitel

    The Most Beautiful Boy in the World

    Kristina Lindström, Kristian Petri

    Voted for by: Jane Giles

    Mr. Bachmann and His Class

    Maria Speth

    Voted for by: Amy Taubin, Elena Lazic, Jonathan Romney

    My Donkey, My Lover and I

    Caroline Vignal

    Voted for by: Philip Horne

    My First Summer

    Katie Found

    Voted for by: Clara Bradbury-Rance

    My Wonderful Life

    Łucasz Grzegorzek

    Voted for by: Alex Ramon

    Nascondino

    Victoria Fiore

    Voted for by: Rick Burin

    Nemesis

    Thomas Imbach

    Voted for by: Neil Young

    Nenad

    Mladen Bundalo

    Voted for by: Neil Young

    Neptune Frost

    Anisia Uzeyman, Saul Williams

    Voted for by: Matthew Barrington

    The Nest

    Sean Durkin

    Voted for by: Michael Leader, Nick James

    Never Gonna Snow Again

    Małgorzata Szumowska

    Voted for by: Alex Ramon

    A New Old Play

    Qiu Jiongjoing

    Voted for by: Robert Koehler

    New Order

    Michel Franco

    Voted for by: Charles Gant, Michael Atkinson

    News of the World

    Paul Greengrass

    Voted for by: Anne Billson

    A Night of Knowing Nothing

    Payal Kapadia

    Voted for by: Ben Nicholson, Christopher Small, Erika Balsom, Julian Ross, Kieron Corless

    Night of the Kings

    Philippe Lacôte

    Voted for by: Leila Latif

    Ninjababy

    Yngvild Sve Flikke

    Voted for by: Nick Chen

    Nitram

    Justin Kurzel

    Voted for by: James Mottram, Leigh Singer

    No Land’s Man

    Mostofa Sarwar Farooki

    Voted for by: Naman Ramachandran

    No Ordinary Man

    Chase Joyntisling Chin-Yee

    Voted for by: Clara Bradbury-Rance, Ian Wang

    No Sudden Move

    Steven Soderbergh

    Voted for by: Andrew Simpson, Kate Stables

    No Time to Die

    Cary Joji Fukunaga

    Voted for by: Jane Giles

    Nobody

    Ilya Naishuller

    Voted for by: Jason Anderson

    Nomadland

    Chloé Zhao

    Voted for by: Anna Smith, Anne Billson, Catherine Wheatley, Ginette Vincendeau, Hanna Flint, J. M. Tyree, Kim Newman, Pamela Hutchinson, Philip Kemp, Rebecca Harrison, Robin Baker

    North by Current

    Angelo Madsen Minax

    Voted for by: Ren Scateni

    Notturno

    Gianfranco Rosi

    Voted for by: Caspar Salmon

    Nũhũ Yãg Mũ Yõg Hãm: This Land Is Our Land!

    Isael Maxakali, Sueli Maxakali, Carolina Canguçu, Roberto Romero

    Voted for by: Christopher Small

    The Odd-Job Men

    Neus Ballús

    Voted for by: Maria Delgado

    Old

    M. Night Shyamalan

    Voted for by: Kambole Campbell, Michael Blyth

    Once upon a Time in Calcutta

    Aditya Vikram Sengupta

    Voted for by: Naman Ramachandran

    One Thousand and One Attempts to Be an Ocean

    Wang Yuyan

    Voted for by: James Lattimer

    Orpheus

    Vadim Kostrov

    Voted for by: Christopher Small

    Our Ladies

    Michael Caton-Jones

    Voted for by: Josh Slater-Williams, Rebecca Harrison

    Paka: River of Blood

    Nithin Lukose

    Voted for by: Naman Ramachandran

    Palm Springs

    Max Barbakow

    Voted for by: Kim Newman, Lou Thomas

    Parallel Mothers

    Pedro Almodóvar

    Voted for by: Maria Delgado, Matthew Thrift, Pamela Hutchinson, Sukhdev Sandhu

    Paris, 13th District

    Jacques Audiard

    Voted for by: Ella Kemp, Philip Horne, Roger Luckhurst

    Passing

    Rebecca Hall

    Voted for by: Hanna Flint, Joshua Rothkopf, Lindsay Hallam

    Paths of Fire II

    Neelon Crawford, Michael Mideke

    Voted for by: J. Hoberman

    Pebbles

    P. S. Vinothraj

    Voted for by: Katie McCabe, Leigh Singer

    Peel

    Silvain Monney, Samuel Patthey

    Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit

    Petite Maman

    Céline Sciamma

    Voted for by: Amy Taubin, Anna Smith, Ashley Clark, Caitlin Quinlan, Clara Bradbury-Rance, Devika Girish, Ella Kemp, Ginette Vincendeau, Ian Mantgani, Jamie Dunn, Josh Slater-Williams, Kambole Campbell, Katherine McLaughlin, Katie McCabe, Leigh Singer, Lillian Crawford, Łukasz Mańkowski, Maria Delgado, Melanie Hoyes, Michael Hayden, Michael Leader, Mike Williams, Molly Haskell, Nicolas Rapold, Pamela Hutchinson, Philip Concannon, Philip Horne, Philip Kemp, Rebecca Harrison, Rick Burin, Steph Green, Thomas Flew, Tom Charity

    Pig

    Michael Sarnoski

    Voted for by: Craig Williams, Ella Kemp, Hanna Flint, Jourdain Searles, Kambole Campbell, Katherine McLaughlin, Lou Thomas, Matt Zoller Seitz, Roger Luckhurst

    The Pink Cloud

    Iuli Gerbase

    Voted for by: Jonathan Romney

    Playground

    Laura Wandel

    Voted for by: David Thompson,  Isabel Stevens, James Bell, Jonathan Romney, Rick Burin, Robin Baker

    Pleasure

    Ninja Thyberg

    Voted for by: Michael Blyth

    Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliché

    Celeste Bell, Paul Sng

    Voted for by: Katie McCabe

    Polycephaly in D

    Michael Robinson

    Voted for by: James Lattimer

    Portrait of Kaye

    Ben Reed

    Voted for by: Ashley Clark

    The Power of the Dog

    Jane Campion

    Voted for by: Alex Ramon, Amy Taubin, Anna Smith, Charles Gant, Charlotte Whitehouse, Christina Newland, Clara Bradbury-Rance, David Thompson, Ella Kemp, James Mottram, Jourdain Searles, Kate Stables, Leigh Singer, Michael Blyth, Michael Hayden, Nick James, Robin Baker, Ross McDonnell, Simran Hans, Sophie Monks Kaufman, Steph Green, Tom Charity, Violet Lucca, Wendy Mitchell

    Prayers for the Stolen

    Tatiana Huezo

    Voted for by: Amy Taubin, Guy Lodge, Maria Delgado

    Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time

    Lili Horvat

    Voted for by: Beatrice Loayza, Catherine Wheatley, Eric Hynes, Roger Luckhurst

    President

    Camilla Nielsson

    Voted for by: Guy Lodge

    Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal: Movie Part Two

    Chiaki Kon

    Voted for by: Ian Wang

    Procession

    Robert Greene

    Voted for by: Eric Hynes

    Promising Young Woman

    Emerald Fennell

    Voted for by: Anna Bogutskaya, Ginette Vincendeau, Steph Green

    Psychic Meat

    Stephen Wardell

    Voted for by: Ben Nicholson

    Quo Vadisida?

    Jasmila Žbanić

    Voted for by: Anna Smith, Charlotte Whitehouse, Michael Atkinson, Nick Chen, Ryan Gilbey, Tim Hayes

    Radiograph of a Family

    Firouzeh Khosrovani

    Voted for by: Kaleem Aftab

    Raya and the Last Dragon

    Carlos López Estrada, Don Hall

    Voted for by: Melanie Hoyes

    Rebel Dykes

    Harri Shanahan, Sian Williams

    Voted for by: Alex Davidson, Clara Bradbury-Rance

    Red Rocket

    Sean Baker

    Voted for by: Ian Mantgani, J. Hoberman, Joshua Rothkopf, Katherine McLaughlin, Leigh Singer, Philip Concannon, Sophie Monks Kaufman

    Reflection

    Valentyn Vasyanovych

    Voted for by: Guy Lodge

    Rehana

    Abdullah Mohammad Saad

    Voted for by: Naman Ramachandran

    Riders of Justice

    Anders Thomas Jensen

    Voted for by: Anne Billson, Hanna Flint, Kim Newman, Leigh Singer, Matt Zoller Seitz

    Ripples of Life

    Wei Shujun

    Voted for by: Łukasz Mańkowski

    A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces

    Zhu Shengze

    Voted for by: Erika Balsom, James Lattimer, Kieron Corless, Ren Scateni

    Riverock / É Rocha e Rio, Negro Leo

    Paula Gaitán

    Voted for by: Christopher Small

    Rock Bottom Riser

    Fern Silva

    Voted for by: Beatrice Loayza

    Rose Plays Julie

    Christine Molloy, Joe Lawlor

    Voted for by: Jamie Dunn, Ryan Gilbey

    Rūrangi

    Max Currie

    Voted for by: Thomas Flew

    Sabaya

    Hogir Hirori

    Voted for by: Roger Clarke

    Saint Maud

    Rose Glass

    Voted for by: Ela Bittencourt

    Samraa

    Dita Hashi

    Voted for by: Ian Wang

    The Scary of Sixty-First

    Dasha Nekrasova

    Voted for by: Carmen Gray, Guy Lodge

    Sentinelle

    Julien Leclerq

    Voted for by: The Ferroni Brigade

    Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

    Destin Daniel Cretton

    Voted for by: Hanna Flint

    Shangri-La

    Isabel Sandoval

    Voted for by: Ian Wang

    Shared Resources

    Jordan Lord

    Voted for by: Matt Turner

    Shiva Baby

    Emma Seligman

    Voted for by: Anna Bogutskaya, Caspar Salmon, Ella Kemp, Hanna Flint, Jourdain Searles, Leila Latif

    Short Vacation

    Kwon Min-pyo, Seo Han-sol

    Voted for by: Vadim Rizov

    The Show

    Mitch Jenkins

    Voted for by: Tim Hayes

    Skies of Lebanon

    Chloé Mazlo

    Voted for by: Elena Lazic

    Slow Machine

    Paul Felten, Joe DeNardo

    Voted for by: Gabrielle Marceau, Michael Atkinson, Ross McDonnell, Vadim Rizov

    Small Body

    Laura Samani

    Voted for by: Wendy Ide

    Sound of Metal

    Darius Marder

    Voted for by: Anna Bogutskaya, Charlotte Whitehouse, Elena Lazic, J. M. Tyree, James Bell, Mike Williams, Sophie Monks Kaufman

    The Souvenir Part II

    Joanna Hogg

    Voted for by: Alex Ramon, Andrew Simpson, Ashley Clark, Beatrice Loayza, Caitlin Quinlan, Caspar Salmon, Charles Gant, Clara Bradbury-Rance, David Thompson, Elena Lazic, Guy Lodge,Ian Mantgani, Isabel Stevens, James Bell, Jonathan Romney, Josh Slater-Williams, Joshua Rothkopf, Jourdain Searles, Katherine McLaughlin, Leigh Singer, Lillian Crawford, Lou Thomas, Matthew Taylor, Matthew Thrift, Michael Hayden, Mike Williams, Molly Haskell, Nick James, Nicolas Rapold, Pamela Hutchinson, Philip Concannon, Philip Horne, Roger Clarke, Sam Wigley, Simran Hans, Sophie Monks Kaufman, Vadim Rizov, Violet Lucca, Wendy Ide

    The Sparks Brothers

    Edgar Wright

    Voted for by: Michael Blyth

    Spencer

    Pablo Larraín

    Voted for by: Charlotte Whitehouse, David Thompson, Ella Kemp, Kate Stables, Mar Diestro-Dópido, Maria Delgado, Michael Blyth, Mike Williams, Rebecca Harrison, Roger Clarke, Ryan Gilbey, Simran Hans, Wendy Mitchell

    Stars Await Us

    Dalei Zhang

    Voted for by: Nick James

    State Funeral

    Sergei Loznitsa

    Voted for by: Sukhdev Sandhu, Tim Hayes

    Ste. Anne

    Rhayne Vermette

    Voted for by: James Lattimer, Jason Anderson

    Steakhouse

    Špela Čadež

    Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit

    Stillwater

    Tom McCarthy

    Voted for by: Ginette Vincendeau, Michael Atkinson

    The Story of Southern Islet

    Chong Keat Aun

    Voted for by: Julian Ross, Ren Scateni

    The Suicide Squad

    James Gunn

    Voted for by: Kim Newman

    Summer

    Vadim Kostrov

    Voted for by: Christopher Small, Matt Turner

    Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

    Ahmir Khalib Thompson

    Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit, Amy Taubin, Ashley Clark, David Thompson, Ella Kemp, Ian Wang, J. M. Tyree, Jamie Dunn, Jane Giles, Kambole Campbell, Katie McCabe, Leila Latif, Lillian Crawford, Lou Thomas, Matt Zoller Seitz, Melanie Hoyes, Michael Leader, Mike Williams, Nicolas Rapold, Rebecca Harrison, Sophie Brown, Thomas Flew

    The Summit of the Gods

    Patrick Imbert

    Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit, Kambole Campbell

    Sundown

    Michel Franco

    Voted for by: Maria Delgado, Naman Ramachandran

    Supernova

    Harry Macqueen

    Voted for by: Rebecca Harrison, Wendy Mitchell

    Surge

    Aneil Karia

    Voted for by: Anton Bitel

    Surviving You, Always

    Morgan Quaintance

    Voted for by: Christopher Small, James Lattimer, Julian Ross

    Sweat

    Magnus Von Horn

    Voted for by: Roger Clarke

    Sweetheart

    Marley Morrison

    Voted for by: Clara Bradbury-Rance

    Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue

    Jia Zhangke

    Voted for by: Sukhdev Sandhu

    Taming the Garden

    Salome Jashi

    Voted for by: Robert Koehler

    Taste

    Lê Báo

    Voted for by: Ela Bittencourt

    Test Pattern

    Shatara Michelle Ford

    Voted for by: Jourdain Searles

    This is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection

    Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese

    Voted for by: Eric Hynes, Michael Atkinson

    Tick, Tick… Boom!

    Lin-Manuel Miranda

    Voted for by: Ryan Gilbey

    Tiong Bahru Social Club

    Tan Bee Thiam

    Voted for by: Jonathan Rosenbaum

    Titane

    Julia Ducournau

    Voted for by: Alex Davidson, Andrew Simpson, Anna Bogutskaya, Anna Smith, Charlotte Whitehouse, J. M. Tyree, James Mottram, John Bleasdale, Jourdain Searles, Kaleem Aftab, Katherine McLaughlin, Leila Latif, Lillian Crawford, Lindsay Hallam, Lou Thomas, Mar Diestro-Dópido, Matt Zoller Seitz, Matthew Barrington, Nick James, Sophie Brown, Sophie Monks Kaufman, Steph Green, Tom Charity, Wendy Ide, Wendy Mitchell

    The Tragedy of Macbeth

    Joel Coen

    Voted for by: Alex Ramon

    Train Again

    Peter Tscherkassky

    Voted for by: James Lattimer, Neil Young

    True Things

    Harry Wootliff

    Voted for by: Anna Smith

    The Truffle Hunters

    Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw

    Voted for by: Anne Billson, Philip Horne

    The Tsugua Diaries

    Miguel Gomes, Maureen Fazendeiro

    Voted for by: Caitlin Quinlan, Christopher Small, Kieron Corless, Lillian Crawford, Robert Koehler, Thomas Flew

    The Twentieth Century

    Matthew Rankin

    Voted for by: Jamie Dunn

    Twin Peaks

    Al Wong

    Voted for by: Thomas Flew

    Uncut Gems

    Josh Safdie, Benny Saftie

    Voted for by: Jonathan Rosenbaum

    Undine

    Christian Petzold

    Voted for by: Anne Billson, Catherine Wheatley, Michael Atkinson, Pamela Hutchinson, Sukhdev Sandhu, Tim Hayes

    Users

    Natalia Almada

    Voted for by: Sophie Brown

    The Velvet Underground

    Todd Haynes

    Voted for by: Amy Taubin, Anna Bogutskaya, Carmen Gray, Clara Bradbury-Rance, David Thompson, J. Hoberman, James Bell, James Mottram, Jane Giles, Jason Anderson, Jonathan Romney, Matt Zoller Seitz, Michael Hayden, Michael Leader, Nick James

    Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash

    Edwin

    Voted for by: Christopher Small

    The Viewing Booth

    Ra’anan Alexandrowicz

    Voted for by: Eric Hynes

    The Village Detective

    Bill Morrison

    Voted for by: J. M. Tyree

    Violation

    Dusty Mancinelli, Madeleine Sims-Fewer

    Voted for by: Lindsay Hallam

    Vortex

    Gaspar Noé

    Voted for by: Elena Lazic, John Bleasdale, Jonathan Romney, Molly Haskell

    We

    Alice Diop

    Voted for by: Caitlin Quinlan, Erika Balsom

    We’re All Going to the World’s Fair

    Jane Schoenbrun

    Voted for by: Sophie Brown

    Wesele

    Wojciech Smarzowski

    Voted for by: The Ferroni Brigade

    What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?

    Alexandre Koberidze

    Voted for by: Andrew Simpson, Caitlin Quinlan, Carmen Gray, Catherine Wheatley, Christina Newland, Devika Girish, Ela Bittencourt, Eric Hynes, Erika Balsom, Guy Lodge, Jamie Dunn, Jonathan Romney, Jordan Cronk, Kieron Corless, Matthew Taylor, Matthew Thrift, Michael Hayden, Molly Haskell, Philip Concannon, Robert Koehler, Ross McDonnell, Tom Charity, Wendy Ide

    Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy

    Hamaguchi Ryusuke

    Voted for by: 

    Beatrice Loayza, Caitlin Quinlan, Charlotte Whitehouse, Devika Girish, Elena Lazic, Gabrielle Marceau, Josh Slater-Williams, Julian Ross, Kambole Campbell, Łukasz Mańkowski, Matthew Thrift, Melanie Hoyes, Nicolas Rapold, Ren Scateni, Ross McDonnell, Steph Green, Tom Charity, Vadim Rizov

    While We Were Here

    Sunčica Fradelić

    Voted for by: Jonathan Rosenbaum

    The Witches of the Orient

    Julien Faraut

    Voted for by: Kieron Corless

    The Woman Who Ran

    Hong Sang-soo

    Voted for by: Nicolas Rapold, Vadim Rizov

    The Women’s Revenge

    Su Hui-yu

    Voted for by: Ren Scateni

    Wood and Water

    Jonas Bak

    Voted for by: Beatrice Loayza, Ben Nicholson

    Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror

    Kier-La Janisse

    Voted for by: Craig Williams, Elena Lazic, Josh Slater-Williams

    The Works and Days of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin

    C.W. Winternders Edström

    Voted for by: Andrew Simpson, Philip Concannon

    The World to Come

    Mona Fastvold

    Voted for by: Ella Kemp, Lou Thomas, Steph Green

    The Worst Person in the World

    Joachim Trier

    Voted for by: Anna Bogutskaya, Caitlin Quinlan, Ella Kemp, Josh Slater-Williams, Joshua Rothkopf, Leigh Singer, Lillian Crawford, Molly Haskell, Nick Chen, Simran Hans, Steph Green, Tom Charity, Wendy Ide

    Wrath of Man

    Guy Ritchie

    Voted for by: Matt Zoller Seitz

    Xuányá zhīshàng

    Zhāng Yìmóu

    Voted for by: The Ferroni Brigade

    Zack Synder’s Justice League

    Zack Snyder

    Voted for by: Craig Williams

    Zeros and Ones

    Abel Ferrara

    Voted for by: Gabrielle Marceau

    Zola

    Janicza Bravo

    Voted for by: Anna Bogutskaya, Anna Smith, Charles Gant, Christina Newland, Kate Stables, Katherine McLaughlin, Roger Clarke, Simran Hans, Wendy Ide, Wendy Mitchell