The best films of 2022 – all the votes

Programmer (Toronto International Film Festival), Canada

1. Aftersun
2. EO
3. The Fabelmans
4. Compartment No. 6
5. Flux Gourmet
6. Kimi
7. Nope
8. Viking
9. I Have Electric Dreams
10. Geographies of Solitude

Critic, USA

1. Vortex
2. Crimes of the Future
3. Hit the Road
4. Aftersun
5. Playground
6. Brighton 4th
7. No Bears
8. TÁR
9. Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood
10. Intergalde

Critic, writer and academic, UK

1. Prey
2. Everything Everywhere All at Once
3. Nope
4. Master
5. Decision to Leave
6. Framing Agnes
7. Mountain Woman
8. The Lump in my Heart
9. Broker
10. Seire

It has been a good year, especially for films by traditionally marginalised directors including female directors and trans directors. Prey proved you could make a prequel that is better than the original and showed how diversity on screen should be. Framing Agnes redefined the documentary and powerfully spoke to a subject that is at the centre of debates at the moment from the position of those concerned. Horror has been a bit hit or miss, with lots of sequels that might have been better left at the inception stage. But I did like the remake of Hellraiser.

Critic and scholar, UK

1. Mutzenbacher
2. The United States of America
3. Foragers
4. Saint Omer
5. Unrest (Unrueh)
6. Being in a Place: A Portrait of Margaret Tait
7. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
8. The Novelist’s Film
9. Pacifiction
10. What About China?

Forever Godard!

Programmer (BFI and more) and critic, UK

1. Saint Omer
2. Aftersun
3. Great Freedom
4. Decision to Leave
5. Nope
6. Blue Jean
7. Nanny
8. Cette Maison
9. Fire Island
10. Top Gun: Maverick

Programmer and critic, Belgium

1. One Fine Morning (Un beau matin)
2. Bull
3. Crimes of the Future
4. Earwig
5. Fire of Love
6. Flux Gourmet
7. Holy Spider
8. The Innocents (De uskyldige)
9. RRR (Rise Roar Revolt)
10. Vortex

Critic and programmer, UK

1. Earwig
2. The Harbinger
3. Barbarian
4. Something in the Dirt
5. RRR (Rise Roar Revolt)
6. Anchor
7. Men
8. New Religion
9. Flux Gourmet
10. Brian and Charles

Critic, UK

1. Brian and Charles
2. The Banshees of Inisherin
3. Aftersun
4. Pacifiction
5. The Worst Ones (Les Pires)
6. All Quiet on the Western Front
7. Close
8. Elvis
9. Safe Place
10. Saint Omer

It’s been a phenomenal year of film with the exception of the ‘blockbusters’, which have been unusually drab. Especially good to see productions emerging from the doldrums of filming under lockdown.

Writer, critic and broadcaster, UK

1. Aftersun
2. TÁR
3. Everything Everywhere All at Once
4. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
5. The Worst Person in the World
6. The Banshees of Inisherin
7. Moonage Daydream
8. Pleasure
9. Piggy
10. Boiling Point

Critic, UK

1. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
2. All That Breathes
3. Non-Aligned: Scenes from the Labudović Reels
4. Geographies of Solitude
5. Dry Ground Burning
6. Fire of Love
7. The Eclipse
8. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
9. Under the Sky Shelter

Journalist, producer, writer and director, UK

1. Stars at Noon
2. Jackass Forever
3. Men
4. A Room of My Own (Chemi otakhi)
5. The Banshees of Inisherin
6. Return to Seoul
7. Other People’s Children
8. TÁR
9. Bodies Bodies Bodies
10. Funny Pages

My film watching, more than ever, has been spilt in half this year — I’ve had such an amazing time at festivals, and then so many of the films which don’t play festivals have hit new lows (Jurassic World Dominion and Halloween Ends spring to mind). Some of the festival hits eventually pop up in cinemas, but a huge amount have very limited releases or are essentially streamer-only. I guess this isn’t news, and we’ve been drifting in this direction for a while, but it’s the year that I’ve felt this divide most sharply. Thank you to the distributors and exhibitors doing their level best to bring great films to cinemas.

Writer and programmer, UK

1. Aftersun
2. After Sherman
3. I Didn’t See You There
4. De Humani Corporis Fabrica
5. Nope
6. Triangle of Sadness
7. Decision to Leave
8. The Super 8 Years
9. Liquor Store Dreams
10. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

I howled through Triangle of Sadness. I swore through De Humani Corporis Fabrica, my body crawling with sensory overload. My brain ran in circles trying to keep up with Decision to Leave and Nope. I was mesmerised by the textures of I Didn’t See You There and anchored by its vision. Aftersun destroyed me. Black Panther was a dream. Liquor Store Dreams was a bold untangling, equal parts heart and tooth. I loved the layers of After Sherman. I was struck by the tinged utopia of The Super 8 Years; “The woman in the image always wonders why she’s there,” narrates Annie Ernaux, and her words knew my shape.

Critic, UK

1. Inu-Oh
2. Nope
3. Decision to Leave
4. RRR (Rise Roar Revolt)
5. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair
6. Blue Island
7. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
8. Memoria
9. Saint Omer
10. Jackass Forever

Year-round programmer, Vancouver International Film Festival, Canada

1. Vortex
2. RRR (Rise Roar Revolt)
3. The Fabelmans
4. The Banshees of Inisherin
5. Holy Spider
6. Hit the Road
7. Aftersun
8. One Fine Morning (Un beau matin)
9. Fire of Love
10. Decision to Leave

Mostly just grateful to have movies and audiences back in cinemas; audience response was crucial to my experience of favourites like Meet the Fabelmans, Banshees, RRR, Top Gun Maverick and Everything Everywhere All at Once (a film that definitely wasn’t for me, but which I celebrate for blowing up the comic book movie).

Critic and curator, USA

1. Aftersun
2. Armageddon Time
3. The Banshees of Inisherin
4. Cette Maison
5. Civic
6. Kimi
7. Leonor Will Never Die
8. Riotsville USA
9. Saint Omer
10. Showing Up

Podcaster (90 Minutes or Less Film Fest) and marketing manager, UK

1. Living
2. Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris
3. The Banshees of Inisherin
4. Broker
5. Decision to Leave
6. Three Thousand Years of Longing
7. Nope
8. Brian and Charles
9. A Love Song
10. Marry Me

It’s been a comforting year in many ways, comforting that cinema and film festivals are back, with a large array of new releases, in-person panels and Q&A events. We’re also seeing audiences start to return (although the whole sector still needs to work hard to encourage lapsed viewers to revisit and developing new audiences has never been more important), but there’s a general sense of recovery and I feel positive about what I’ve been able to enjoy.

It’s not all good: many friends and colleagues have lost jobs due to the challenges facing the exhibition sector, and we’re still reeling from the sad loss of the Edinburgh and Belmont Filmhouses and the long-running Edinburgh International Film Festival, especially.

We must come together as film fans to support this culture we adore. We cannot rest on our laurels: there’s a glimmer of hope for the industry but we must work harder than ever for the love of cinema and that unbeatable big-screen experience.

Critic, UK

1. Godland (Volaða Land)
2. One Fine Morning (Un beau matin)
3. After Yang
4. Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle
5. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
6. RRR (Rise Roar Revolt)
7. Decision to Leave
8. Aftersun
9. Ambulance
10. The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin)

Associate editor, Sight and Sound, UK

1. Caprice
2. The Kiev Trial
3. The Last Days of Humanity
4. The Master Gardener
5. Saint Omer
6. Trenque Lauquen
7. Unrest (Unrueh)
8. Wall of the Dead
9. When the Waves Are Gone
10. Zephyr, Deb

Critic and researcher, UK

1. TÁR
2. Benediction
3. Women Talking
4. Memoria
5. Happening (L’Evenement)
6. One Fine Morning (Un beau matin)
7. Casa Susanna
8. Creature
9. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
10. Aftersun

Critic and curator, USA

1. A Couple (Un Couple)
2. Crimes of the Future
3. EO
4. The Fabelmans
5. Human Flowers of Flesh
6. De Humani Corporis Fabrica
7. The Novelist’s Film
8. Pacifiction
9. Showing Up
10. Tales of the Purple House

Cinema curator (Barbican), UK

1. Triangle of Sadness
2. Three Tidy Tigers Tied a Tie Tighter
3. Palm Trees and Power Lines
4. Close
5. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
6. When I’m with You
7. Bros
8. Pretty Red Dress
9. Blue Jean
10. Rewind & Play

Although the top prizes at Cannes deservedly went to Triangle of Sadness and Close, some of the best works were smaller-scale debut features.

Jamie Dack’s Palm Trees and Power Lines is a disturbing, sensitive depiction of sexual grooming, with a jaw-dropping final scene I didn’t see coming; Dionne Edwards’ Pretty Red Dress is as playful and mischievous as British cinema gets, with a performance of great heart from Alexandra Burke; Georgia Oakley’s subtle Blue Jean lived and breathed the 1980s through its evocative visuals and sharp portrayal of Thatcherite homophobia.

Queer cinema flourished elsewhere, too, from the mainstream to the fringe. Bros, scripted by and starring Billy Eichner, was the funniest romcom of the year; while Gustavo Vinagre’s radical, provocative Brazilian comedy Three Tidy Tigers Tied a Tie Tighter, dragging Bolsonaro through the muck, deservedly scooped the Teddy award at Berlin (although Bolsonaro’s election loss later in the year would be an even greater prize).

Critic, curator and academic, UK

1. Trenque Lauquen
2. Pacifiction
3. 1976
4. Alcarràs
5. My Imaginary Country
6. Parallel Mothers
7. Argentina 1985
8. Decision to Leave
9. Saint Omer
10. The Middle Ages (La edad media)

A significant proportion of the films I have chosen as the best films of 2022 ask questions about the legacy of dictatorships – openly as with Argentina 1985, My Imaginary Country and Parallel Mothers and more obliquely, as Alcarràs.

The stylish and economical 1976 openly deals with the paranoia that dictatorships generate; Manuela Martelli expertly captures the fear and sense of distrust that Pinochet’s regime of terror brought to Chile. Hard to believe it’s her first feature – the eerie score, the confidence of the storytelling, the ability to convey so much so leanly. It’s a worthy companion piece to My Imaginary Country where the faultlines of present-day Chile are linked back to the dictatorship and its abuses.

Argentina 1985 has a wit and pace that challenges the conventions of the courtroom drama and the political thriller – it straddles both genres with aplomb as well as a keen eye for period detail. Rooted in an extraordinary performance from Ricardo Darín, it looks at the trial of the junta leaders conducted by Argentina’s democratic government – a landmark moment for human rights. It’s a film whose timely message that democracy cannot be taken for granted feels pertinent and timely – a characteristic it shares with Almodóvar’s glorious melodrama, Parallel Mothers.

I loved Trenque Lauquen for the ambition of its narrative – 12 chapters across 2 parts in 260 minutes. It twists and turns with a wily Borgesian dimension, as the quest narrative shifts into a brilliant reflection on absence and the ultimate unknowability of intentions.

The Middle Ages (another El Pampero Cine production) is a chamber piece about life under lockdown realised with an unpretentious charm that made me smile.

Saint Omer and Pacifiction are films unafraid of asking big questions with keen cinematic ambition – one is as taut as the other is sprawling.

And Decision to Leave is just cinema at its most exquisite and mysterious.

Film critic and researcher, Sight and Sound, UK

1. The Worst Person in the World
2. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
3. Parallel Mothers
4. Blonde
5. Official Competition
6. La Quinta del Sordo
7. Bergman Island
8. Moonage Daydream
9. Belle
10. Nightmare Alley

Deputy editor, Cartoon Brew, UK

1. Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood
2. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
3. A Chiara
4. Cow
5. Enys Men
6. Free Chol Soo Lee
7. The Garbage Man
8. Letter to a Pig
9. Playground
10. The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin)

Film and TV editor, the Skinny, UK

1. Aftersun
2. Hit the Road
3. Memoria
4. Parallel Mothers
5. Nope
6. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
7. Barbarian
8. Both Sides of the Blade
9. The Girl and the Spider
10. No Bears

It’s probably too early to say, but 2022 feels like a good year for cinema. I cried laughing at Triangle of Sadness and just plain cried at Aftersun. Top Gun and The Woman King were thrilling reminders of old-school Hollywood craft. Filmmaking invention and innovation abounded in works as varied as Nope, Memoria, Decision to Leave, No Bears, The Girl and the Spider, and ​​Barbarian – the latter horror the surprise of the year for me. Some of my favourite directors such as Claire Denis, Pedro Almodóvar and Terence Davies were back with sophisticated works, while new talent like Charlotte Wells, Owen Kline and Panah Panahi delivered hugely exciting debuts.

But there are also plenty of clouds over 2022. For one, Jafar Panahi, the director of No Bears and the father of Panah Panahi, is languishing in an Iranian prison accused of “propaganda against the regime”; his fellow Iranian filmmakers Mohammad Rasoulof and Mostafa Aleahmad were also jailed.

Closer to home, the capital of Scotland is without an arthouse cinema after the devastating closure of Edinburgh’s Filmhouse, and the spectre of funding cuts, rising operational costs and coming months where audiences will be more cash-strapped than ever hangs over other similar institutions.

Films were as great as ever in 2022, but take none of it for granted.

Critics and programmer, Austria, Germany

1. Champagne for the Eyes — Poison for the Rest
2. Incredible But True
3. Someday, Always… Forever
4. Snipers
5. Kafka for Kids
6. Last Mission
7. Revolution of the Eyes
8. Detective v Sleuths
9. Fairytale
10. Sù háizhēn

Editorial assistant, Sight and Sound, UK

1. Aftersun
2. Godland (Volaða Land)
3. Pacifiction
4. Showing Up
5. Silent Land
6. Trenque Lauquen
7. One Fine Morning (Un beau matin)
8. Walk Up
9. Winter
10. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy

Critic and writer, UK

1. Instant Life
2. The Plains
3. Pacifiction
4. As Mine Exactly
5. Constant
6. Godland (Volaða Land)
7. Corsage
8. Nazarbazi
9. Unrest (Unrueh)
10. A Little Love Package

2022 was the year I went to my first Ciné-Real event at the Castle Cinema. Seeing Peter Bogdanovich’s Paper Moon, Jean Renoir’s La Grande Illusion and Charles Laughton’s Night of the Hunter on 16mm was a huge thrill. Keep up the good work, Liam Saint-Pierre and Ümit Mesut!

Film critic, New Statesman, UK

1. The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin)
2. Aftersun
3. Funny Pages
4. Great Freedom
5. Ascension
6. Happening (L’Evenement)
7. Nitram
8. Cannon Arm and the Arcade Quest
9. Compartment No. 6
10. Flee

Writer and filmmaker, UK

1. Titane
2. She Said
3. Benedetta
4. Red Rocket
5. Everything Everywhere All at Once
6. Nope
7. The Banshees of Inisherin
8. Holy Spider
9. Nothing Compares
10. Flux Gourmet

Please God(ard) let this be the year S&S allows for the inclusion of titles across two calendar years. I know Titane triumphed in 2021, but I saw it in January 2022 and can’t bear to lose it from my list. Similarly I haven’t yet seen Aftersun or Triangle of Sadness so can’t nominate them. That aside, it’s been a fun year for film and great to be back in the cinema watching films on the big screen with a real life audience (although I wish I’d seen Moonage Daydream in a non-Imax cinema without the gent who got up to dance in front of the screen during every song: strangely it didn’t improve the experience).

Writer, editor and programmer, USA

1. Pacifiction
2. One Fine Morning (Un beau matin)
3. Saint Omer
4. Showing Up
5. Crimes of the Future
6. The Fabelmans
7. Human Flowers of Flesh
8. Trenque Lauquen
9. Nope
10. I Didn’t See You There

Critic and programmer (Berlinale), Germany

1. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
2. Corsage
3. Unrest (Unrueh)
4. A Room of My Own (Chemi otakhi)
5. Safe Place
6. Godland (Volaða Land)
7. Sonne
8. Petrov’s Flu
9. The Velvet Underground
10. The Natural History of Destruction

Critic, UK

1. Benediction
2. Vortex
3. The Eternal Daughter
4. Saint Omer
5. Piaffe
6. Tori and Lokita
7. TÁR
8. Bones & All
9. Scarlet
10. Nope

Critic, UK

1. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
2. Saint Omer
3. Aftersun
4. The Eternal Daughter
5. The African Desperate
6. Riotsville USA
7. One Fine Morning (Un beau matin)
8. Mother and Son
9. Funny Pages
10. Triangle of Sadness

Critic and academic, UK

1. True Things
2. Everything Everywhere All at Once
3. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
4. She Said
5. The Lost Daughter
6. Living
7. White Noise
8. The Woman King
9. The Wonder
10. Boiling Point

Critic, USA

1. TÁR
2. The Eternal Daughter
3. Saint Omer
4. EO
5. One Fine Morning (Un beau matin)
6. The Fabelmans
7. Decision to Leave
8. Showing Up
9. Aftersun
10. The Novelist’s Film

Women directors really came into their own. With some interesting aesthetic and strategic overlaps: oblique openings, withholding of exposition, slow buildup. And thematic: women who educate themselves out of their class or environment and are caught between two worlds.

Critic, UK

1. Ambulance
2. Benedetta
3. Crimes of the Future
4. Elvis
5. Flux Gourmet
6. Kimi
7. The Matrix Resurrections
8. Nightmare Alley
9. Paris, 13th District
10. Zero Fucks Given

Academic, UK

1. The Banshees of Inisherin
2. The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin)
3. The Good Nurse
4. Argentina 1985
5. The Worst Person in the World
6. The Souvenir Part II

Critic, UK

1. Bergman Island
2. We (Nous)
3. Aftersun
4. 32 Sounds
5. Le Pupille
6. Flee
7. Cow
8. Saint Omer
9. The Village Detective (A Song Cycle)
10. Ali and Ava

Curator of film, Museum of the Moving Image, USA

1. The Fabelmans
2. Benediction
3. Dos Estaciones
4. All That Breathes
5. The Eternal Daughter
6. Murina
7. Both Sides of the Blade
8. Aftersun
9. EO
10. Jackass Forever

Critic, UK

1. Decision to Leave
2. Corsage
3. The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin)
4. Women Talking
5. All Quiet on the Western Front
6. TÁR
7. The Fabelmans
8. Geographies of Solitude
9. Godland (Volaða Land)
10. One Fine Morning (Un beau matin)

Writer and critic, UK

1. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
2. Aftersun
3. EO
4. Holy Spider
5. The Banshees of Inisherin
6. Nope
7. Pacifiction
8. All Quiet on the Western Front
9. De Humani Corporis Fabrica
10. TÁR

A time-marking recovery year (I hope). Indie cinema is under pressure on all fronts, worse than ever. The loss of the EIFF is appalling (what use the SNP if they can’t help sort that out?). Blandness is the enemy, it’s time critics called it out for the deadening factor that it is in these tough times. Let’s have less fan worship and more ecumenical critique.

Low point: Florian Zeller’s The Son – hard to believe it was made by the same people who made The Father.

High point: the ever-glorious Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia.

Critic and programmer, UK

1. Enys Men
2. Don’t Worry Darling
3. The Plains
4. The Souvenir Part II
5. Pleasure
6. Nope
7. RRR (Rise Roar Revolt)
8. Emily the Criminal
9. After Yang
10. The Store

Curator and critic, UK

1. EO
2. Compartment No. 6
3. See You Friday, Robinson
4. The Eclipse
5. The King of Laughter
6. Marx Can Wait
7. Jacques Tati, tombé de la lune
8. Maixabel
9. I Am Trying to Remember
10. My Imaginary Country

Critic, USA

1. TÁR
2. The Plains
3. Afterwater
4. Happer’s Comet
5. The Novelist’s Film
6. The Cathedral
7. Living
8. Where Is This Street? or With No Before or After (Onde Fica Esta Rua? Ou Sem antes nem depois)
9. Riotsville USA
10. Poet

Critic, UK

1. Saint Omer
2. De Humani Corporis Fabrica
3. Bones & All
4. Lingui, the Sacred Bonds
5. Nope
6. Rothaniel
7. The Banshees of Inisherin
8. Nanny
9. Top Gun: Maverick
10. The Northman

Critic, UK, France

1. A Room of My Own (Chemi otakhi)
2. Athena
3. Both Sides of the Blade
4. De Humani Corporis Fabrica
5. Elvis
6. Emily the Criminal
7. Safe Place
8. Sharp Stick
9. The Son
10. The Worst Ones (Les Pires)

Critic, UK

1. Aftersun
2. Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood
3. The Banshees of Inisherin
4. Brian and Charles
5. Funny Pages
6. Hit the Road
7. Living
8. Mad God
9. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
10. The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin)

Editor and critic, USA

1. Crimes of the Future
2. Dry Ground Burning
3. Hold Me Tight
4. Pacifiction
5. We (Nous)
6. Kimi
7. One Fine Morning (Un beau matin)
8. Wood and Water
9. Lux Aeterna
10. Three Minutes: A Lengthening

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

1. Corsage
2. Elvis
3. Godland (Volaða Land)
4. The Plains
5. A Room of My Own (Chemi otakhi)
6. Safe Place
7. Saint Omer
8. Showing Up
9. TÁR
10. Walk Up

Editor (Harper’s) and critic, USA

1. Leonor Will Never Die
2. Triangle of Sadness
3. Corsage
4. Crimes of the Future
5. The Eternal Daughter
6. Gentle
7. Saint Omer
8. One Fine Morning (Un beau matin)
9. You Are Not My Mother
10. Stars at Noon

Critic, Poland

1. Aftersun
2. De Humani Corporis Fabrica
3. Dry Ground Burning
4. Saint Omer
5. Walk Up
6. The Plains
7. The Eternal Daughter
8. Decision to Leave
9. Arnold is a Model Student
10. Cha Cha Real Smooth

A fantastic year for the upcoming new voices (Aftersun!) and a rather disappointing 12 months for the acclaimed ones (with some exceptions, courtesy of Hong Sang-soo or Joanna Hogg). What looked like one of the most promising line-ups in Cannes for years ended up being one of the biggest letdowns – all the festival gems were hidden in the festival’s sidebars. On the other hand, Venice’s main slate was a surprise; and Berlinale’s Forum was splendid as ever.

Filmmaker, writer, curator, UK

1. RRR (Rise Roar Revolt)
2. Kimi
3. West Side Story
4. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
5. Top Gun: Maverick
6. Elvis
7. Licorice Pizza
8. Barbarian
9. Decision to Leave
10. Heart Failure

Reviews editor, Sight and Sound, UK

1. Taming the Garden
2. The Banshees of Inisherin
3. Il Buco
4. Happening (L’Evenement)
5. Parallel Mothers
6. Hit the Road
7. A Night of Knowing Nothing
8. The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin)
9. Flux Gourmet
10. The Worst Person in the World

Critic and writer, UK

1. Aftersun
2. Alcarràs
3. Decision to Leave
4. One Fine Morning (Un beau matin)
5. After Yang
6. Everything Everywhere All at Once
7. Bones & All
8. The Eternal Daughter
9. The Banshees of Inisherin
10. RRR (Rise Roar Revolt)

Critic, UK

1. The Banshees of Inisherin
2. Living
3. The Whale
4. Triangle of Sadness
5. Funny Pages
6. The Worst Person in the World
7. Moonage Daydream
8. Nope
9. Men
10. Aftersun

After the bashing cinema took during the pandemic, the fact people gradually came back to theatres (even if it was for Top Gun!) was something to be celebrated. And while 2022 was hardly the most remarkable year for cinema on record, there were still some gems (Aftersun was a real treat). Pleasing to see the likes of David Cronenberg make a return too, while Martin McDonagh’s fable was just dazzling.

Film critic (the i), UK

1. The Fabelmans
2. RRR (Rise Roar Revolt)
3. EO
4. Decision to Leave
5. Vortex
6. Nope
7. Elvis
8. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
9. Pleasure
10. Triangle of Sadness

Critic and curator, UK

1. Instant Life
2. Malintzin 17
3. Corsage
4. As Mine Exactly
5. Ungentle
6. Cette Maison
7. Agrilogistics
8. Constant
9. The Super 8 Years
10. Persona

I’ve been including short films in my S&S poll for the past few years but I actually started writing about them regularly this year, so it has been the year of the short for me. Beyond those included in my list, I wanted to give a shoutout to Abyss, Babajanja, Becoming Male in the Middle Ages, The Making of Crime Scenes, Nazarbazi, The Pass, The Spiral, and Zoon.

I also think it’s been another excellent year for home entertainment releases in 2022, so wanted to mention a few notable discs: Jonas Mekas: Diaries, Notes & Sketches Vol. 1-8 (Light Cone); Man Marked for Death: Twenty Years Later (Mawu Films); Found Footage & Collage Film – Selected Works; The Pemini Organisation (Indicator); The Ballad of Tam Lin (BFI Flipside); František Vláčil’s The Devil Trap (Second Run).

And just a few highlight screenings of the year: a 16mm projection of Jonas Mekas’s Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania at the Barbican Centre, in honour of what would have been his centenary; a live performance of Ilan Eshkeri’s ‘out of this world’ multimedia performance Space Station Earth at the Royal Albert Hall; a handful of works by the always fascinating Jacques Perconte at Birkbeck Institute of the Moving Image; the work of my favourite living filmmaker with the two-month-long John Smith: Introspective; Nina Menkes’s The Bloody Child presented by The Machine That Kills Bad People; and a Halloween screening of the aforementioned The Ballad of Tam Lin followed by possibly my favourite-ever Q&A between Ian McShane and Stewart Lee.

Critic, UK

1. Aftersun
2. Everything Everywhere All at Once
3. The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin)
4. Triangle of Sadness
5. RRR (Rise Roar Revolt)
6. It Is in Us All
7. Fire of Love
8. Crimes of the Future
9. Funny Pages
10. Hit the Road

Cinema lives! The culture has shifted post-pandemic, and maintaining a regular cinema-going practice these days requires dedication, perseverance and patience, but 12 months of exceptional fare made it worth the effort, with exceptional work from emerging filmmakers worldwide – half of the movies that made my final 10 are feature debuts – alongside maximalist masterworks like RRR and Everything Everywhere All at Once and a welcome resurgence in big-screen horror. Never has so much cinema, past and present, been available so readily, with a steady stream of revivals and any number of welcome restorations bringing old masters and unsung revelations back into the mix. From an Irish perspective (mine), the critical and box-office success of Colm Bairéad’s The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin) suggested bold new possibilities for Irish-language cinema.

Critic and writer, UK

1. The Beatles: Get Back — The Rooftop Concert
2. Corsage
3. Leonora Addio
4. Return to Dust
5. Utama
6. Piggy
7. In Front of Your Face
8. The Store
9. Fall
10. Boulevard: A Hollywood Story

Writer, producer and critic, UK

1. She Said
2. Nope
3. The Good Nurse
4. Triangle of Sadness
5. Nightmare Alley
6. Barbarian
7. The Black Phone
8. The Batman
9. Licorice Pizza
10. Living

It’s now a given that TV series draw as much critical weight and public attention as features – a diffusion that probably makes any critical consensus of ten best films harder to achieve. But while long-form streaming has opened up our movie narratives to marvellous and complex subjects we never dreamed possible, it has its downside: all too often padding sets in, often by episodes 4 or 5.

Curator, writer and producer, UK, Germany

1. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
2. Small Body
3. Northern Skies Over an Empty Space
4. Saint Omer
5. Clara Sola
6. Cinco Lobitos
7. Fire of Love
8. Flee
9. The Northman
10. Corsage

Almost all my most memorable screenings this year have featured retrospective titles. I particularly enjoyed watching reissues of Sara Gomez’s De Cierta Manera (1974) and Nina Menkes’s Queen of Diamonds (1991) at Cinema Rediscovered in Bristol, and binging on a retrospective of Japanese actor turned director Kinuyo Tanaka at Edinburgh International Film Festival. The latter event is now at risk of vanishing forever after the recent shocking closure of the Centre for the Moving Image.

Feminist journal Another Gaze also curated some great events in 2022, including two brilliant reflections on women and work — a revelatory screening of Lizzie Borden’s 1980s should-be classic Working Girls at Berlin’s Arsenal, and Mulheres: Uma Outra Historia, an online presentation of Brazilian shorts exploring female labour. In a year where indie cinema in the UK feels more under threat than ever, ambitious screenings such as these remain a testimony to the power of a human curatorial touch in a field increasingly dominated by algorithms.

Critic and curator, UK

1. Saint Omer
2. Aftersun
3. Showing Up
4. Alcarràs
5. Human Flowers of Flesh
6. Pacifiction
7. Cette Maison
8. The Eternal Daughter
9. Robe of Gems
10. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

Critic and journalist, UK, India

1. TÁR
2. Aftersun
3. Decision to Leave
4. Ponniyin Selvan: 1
5. Ariyippu
6. Prey
7. Both Sides of the Blade
8. Bullet Train
9. What’s Love Got to Do with It?
10. Godland (Volaða Land)

Unable to break down the year in depth due to paucity of time, all I can provide is a question – why did the movies get so long, and self indulgent? Is it the streamer knock-on effect where every idea is stretched out to hour-long episodes of a series?

Critic, UK, Poland

1. Peter von Kant
2. Aftersun
3. The Eternal Daughter
4. EO
5. One Fine Morning (Un beau matin)
6. Mother and Son
7. Aisha
8. Woman on the Roof
9. Roving Woman
10. Men

From Charlotte Wells’ beautifully acted, formally fresh and delicately devastating Aftersun to Joanna Hogg’s elegant, haunting and equally personal The Eternal Daughter, many of the finest films this year offered complex explorations of parent/child bonds. The theme recurred in Leonor Serraille’s Mother and Son and Mia Hansen-Løve’s One Fine Morning, both of which again demonstrated contemporary French filmmakers’ special gifts for compassionate, carefully observed dramas of relationships, rich in texture and insight.

More memorably stylised offerings, sometimes inspired by earlier works, weren’t in short supply, either. Combining cinephile glee with a poignant depiction of amour fou, Peter von Kant found François Ozon regaining his wit with a brisk but bruising gender reversed Fassbinder variant, superbly designed and featuring a powerhouse performance from Denis Ménochet. Taking off from Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar, Jerzy Skolimowski’s stunningly shot EO offers (despite some shaky human cameos) a by turns trippy, tough and tender donkey’s eye view of the world that again found the veteran filmmaker taking more risks than the majority of his younger counterparts.

Alex Garland’s Men compensated for a patchy script with a superbly seductive/disturbing pastoral ambience and great visual ideas to create an original, thoroughly English folk horror. Anna Jadowska’s Woman on the Roof and Michał Chmielewski’s Roving Woman both offered memorable portraits of under-pressure female protagonists finding a semblance of liberation, one as she negotiates the fallout from an out-of-character act, the other in a post-break-up journey across the US south-west. And in a year of memorable Letitia Wright performances (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, The Silent Twins), she was particularly strong as the Nigerian refugee caught up in Ireland’s immigration system in Frank Berry’s Aisha, which combined the writer-director’s commitment to social realism with a deeply touching, believable love story.

Critic, USA

1. The African Desperate
2. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
3. The Banshees of Inisherin
4. Decision to Leave
5. EO
6. The Fabelmans
7. No Bears
8. The Novelist’s Film
9. Return to Seoul
10. Saint Omer

List is unranked. Too many honourable mentions to list more than a sampling: Ahed’s Knee, Crimes of the Future, The Eternal Daughter, The Girl and the Spider, Incredible But True, Mr. Landsbergis, RMN, Hit the Road, The Super 8 Years, Riotsville, USA, RRR.

Director of editorial operations, Filmmaker Magazine, USA

1. Showing Up
2. The Empty Sphere
3. Glass Life
4. Constant
5. Dry Ground Burning
6. The Sower of Stars
7. Kimi
8. Unrest (Unrueh)
9. Cherries
10. Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood

Critic, UK

1. Pacifiction
2. Trenque Lauquen
3. R.M.N.
4. EO
5. Alcarràs
6. Klondike
7. TÁR
8. Showing Up
9. Saint Omer
10. Le Lycéen (Winter Boy)

Critic, USA

1. The Runner
2. See You Friday, Robinson
3. Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power
4. Burial
5. Hit the Road
6. Jacques Tati, tombé de la lune
7. Men
8. Potemkinistii
9. TÁR
10. Three Thousand Years of Longing

The order of my film titles is mostly alphabetical.

Acting Reviews Editor, Sight and Sound, UK

1. The Banshees of Inisherin
2. Saint Omer
3. Godland (Volaða Land)
4. Joyland
5. Fire of Love
6. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
7. Corsage
8. No Bears
9. De Humani Corporis Fabrica
10. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

I decided to count 2022 films only, rather than 2021 films I only got to see in 2022 – so no A Hero, Licorice Pizza or Hit the Road, all of which would’ve surely made the list. (This self-imposed rule counts me out of voting for TÁR, The Fabelmans or The Eternal Daughter in 2023, gah!) Honourable mention for Pacifiction – I’m convinced there’s a masterpiece lurking somewhere in the footage, perhaps even the film of the year, but can’t help feeling Serra botched the final stretch in the edit.

Programmer and writer, UK

1. Aftersun
2. Crimes of the Future
3. Saint Omer
4. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
5. EO
6. The Eight Mountains
7. Master Gardener
8. Last Flight Home
9. Fogaréu
10. Athena

Critic, UK

1. Memoria
2. Godland (Volaða Land)
3. Saint Omer
4. Licorice Pizza
5. Showing Up
6. Corsage
7. Triangle of Sadness
8. Decision to Leave
9. Clara Sola
10. Close

I didn’t want to rank my top 10 but I had to! This year, two films I didn’t get to see last year, released in January, have sneaked into my top 10. Memoria, at number one, which I didn’t get round to in 2021 to my great shame, is a masterpiece, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul is the greatest director currently working.

This year brought a plethora of stunning performances. Adèle Exarchopoulos in Zero Fucks Given, Elliott Crosset Hove in Godland, Guslagie Malanda in Saint Omer, Franz Rogowski in Great Freedom, Michelle Williams in Showing Up, Annabelle Lengronne in Mother and Son, Wendy Chinchilla Araya in Clara Sola, Eden Dambrine and Gustav De Waele in Close, Taraneh Alidoosti in Leila’s Brothers, Harris Dickinson in Triangle of Sadness and Vicky Krieps in Corsage were just a few of this year’s barn-burners, and deeply cinematic performances all.

Crtitic, USA

1. The Railway Children Return
2. Being in a Place: A Portrait of Margaret Tait
3. All That Breathes
4. A Bunch of Amateurs
5. My Imaginary Country
6. Last Things
7. The African Desperate
8. Fire of Love
9. The Silent Twins
10. Photographing Justice: The Corky Lee Story

Should I be worried that I don’t know a single person under the age of 25 who goes to the cinema regularly?

Critic, UK

1. Instant Life
2. RRR (Rise Roar Revolt)
3. Saint Omer
4. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
5. Corsage
6. 1976
7. EO
8. De Humani Corporis Fabrica
9. The United States of America
10. Nope

Journalist, programmer, video essayist, UK

1. The Banshees of Inisherin
2. Aftersun
3. R.M.N.
4. No Bears
5. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
6. All That Breathes
7. Saint Omer
8. Decision to Leave
9. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
10. Everything Everywhere All at Once

Critic, UK

1. Decision to Leave
2. Brother
3. Return to Seoul
4. Piaffe
5. Aftersun
6. Blue Jean
7. Funny Pages
8. The Worst Ones (Les Pires)
9. The Banshees of Inisherin
10. One Fine Morning (Un beau matin)

Since the poll invite suggested we could vote for films we’d seen since last December, I’d like to give a special mention to the excellent trio of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza, Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story and Lana Wachowski’s The Matrix Resurrections. The former two would have been fighting it out for my #1 if I’d opted to vote for films released since the deadline for last year’s poll. Instead, in order to highlight some festival favourites with currently uncertain international distribution plans, I’ve stuck with films that premiered in 2022.

Until a last-minute revisit of Decision to Leave, Canadian feature Brother was my #1. It’s a stunning decades-spanning story of unconditional familial love, mental illness and grief, with four beautiful performances at its centre (Aaron Pierre, Lamar Johnson, Kiana Madeira and Marsha Stephanie Blake). Return to Seoul is a spiky, raw meditation on searching for a belonging that’s often in vain, which throws as many chaotic curveballs in its structure as its headstrong, destructive protagonist does in her interactions.

The Worst Ones is one of the sharpest films about film production in some time. I haven’t cared for any Martin McDonagh film since In Bruges, but The Banshees of Inisherin is far and away his best work for the screen. One Fine Morning is my favourite film from Mia Hansen-Løve since Eden.

Aftersun and Blue Jean are two gorgeous debut features from British directors. Funny Pages is a gross one from an American director. Also a debut, Piaffe is probably the year’s most sensual film in which a woman grows a horse tail. A crowded field.

Programmer, UK

1. A Date in Minsk
2. The Novelist’s Film
3. 918 Nights
4. Human Flowers of Flesh
5. Top Gun: Maverick
6. Sermon to the Fish
7. To Pick a Flower
8. Saint Omer
9. Venus in Nykes
10. Baleh-Baleh

The year when I probably kept the least abreast of new movies – or really movies of any kind – and I think the list reflects that. Let’s hope for a more cinephile 2023.

Critic, broadcaster and host, Girls on Film podcast, UK

1. The Wonder
2. Aftersun
3. The Woman King
4. She Said
5. Triangle of Sadness
6. The Swimmers
7. Girls Girls Girls
8. Flux Gourmet
9. The Banshees of Inisherin
10. The Innocents (De uskyldige)

I’ve been deeply moved by films including The Woman King and She Said, not just because of their stirring stories but also the representation we see on screen in big-budget mainstream movies directed by women. It’s something we’ve been campaigning for on Girls on Film podcast for the past four years, and I am so happy to see a continued shift in this direction.

Critic and historian, USA

1. Aftersun
2. Decision to Leave
3. EO
4. The Eternal Daughter
5. Fire of Love
6. Lingui, the Sacred Bonds
7. Parallel Mothers
8. Petite Maman
9. Noise
10. Saint Omer

My list is in alphabetical order, unranked. The first thing that strikes me on looking at it is how many of the films deal with parent-child relationships. This is probably not unrelated to the high proportion of films by women. It also occurs to me that many of these films are really about the complexities of memory, whether personal or historical, and revolve around various absences (lost children, lost parents). 

I saw several great revival series this year, including retrospectives of directors Hugo Fregonese at Il Cinema Ritrovato and Alejandro Galindo at the Morelia International Film Festival, but nothing that moved me more than the restored films of Kinuyo Tanaka, a small but diverse and astoundingly good body of work, missing for much too long. 

My list is in alphabetical order, unranked. The first thing that strikes me on looking at it is how many of the films deal with parent-child relationships. This is probably not unrelated to the high proportion of films by women. It also occurs to me that many of these films are really about the complexities of memory, whether personal or historical, and revolve around various absences (lost children, lost parents).

I saw several great revival series this year, including retrospectives of directors Hugo Fregonese at Il Cinema Ritrovato and Alejandro Galindo at the Morelia International Film Festival, but nothing that moved me more than the restored films of Kinuyo Tanaka, a small but diverse and astoundingly good body of work, missing for much too long.

In 2014, I wrote about Roman Vinoly Barreto’s El vampiro negro, a brilliant, feminist re-working of Fritz Lang’s M, for Sight & Sound’s Lost and Found column of films unavailable to rent or stream, so its long-awaited appearance on disc, thanks to Flicker Alley and the Film Noir Foundation, is cause for rejoicing.

Critic, UK

1. The Banshees of Inisherin
2. Decision to Leave
3. Everything Everywhere All at Once
4. Men
5. Prey
6. Aftersun
7. Official Competition
8. Pleasure
9. Bones & All
10. Fire of Love

Critic, UK

1. Padre Pio
2. In Front of Your Face
3. Memoria
4. Cry Macho
5. Bergman Island
6. Parallel Mothers
7. Crimes of the Future
8. Deep Water
9. Nightmare Alley
10. The Last Duel

Managing editor, Sight and Sound, UK

1. Aftersun
2. The Banshees of Inisherin
3. Corsage
4. The Innocents (De uskyldige)
5. Medusa Deluxe
6. All That Breathes
7. One Fine Morning (Un beau matin)
8. Pamfir
9. Saint Omer
10. Enys Men

Critic, USA

1. EO
2. All That Breathes
3. Crimes of the Future
4. Saint Omer
5. Lingui, the Sacred Bonds
6. See You Friday, Robinson
7. Kimi
8. Nanny
9. Funny Pages
10. The Cathedral

Skolimowski’s EO stood out above all other films of the year, and of the past ten years. If this poll allowed for feature length film installations, Arthur Jafa’s AGHDRA is the equal of EO.

BFI digital production editor and critic, UK

1. Decision to Leave
2. The Banshees of Inisherin
3. Living
4. Top Gun: Maverick
5. RRR (Rise Roar Revolt)
6. The Northman
7. Corsage
8. Aftersun
9. Armageddon Time
10. Emily the Criminal

Film writer and programmer, UK

1. Afterwater
2. Jet Lag
3. The Plains
4. Dry Ground Burning
5. The United States of America
6. F1ghting Looks Different 2 Me Now
7. I Didn’t See You There
8. A Date in Minsk
9. Cette maison
10. Robe of Gems

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

1. Boy from Heaven/Cairo Conspiracy
2. Les Amandiers/Forever Young
3. El buen patrón/The Good Boss
4. Happening (L’Evenement)
5. Elvis
6. Armageddon Time
7. Poulet Frites
8. Revoir Paris/Paris Memories
9. A plein temps/Full Time
10. L’Innocent/The Innocent

Not a remarkable year overall for new releases, but there was the melancholy pleasure in watching so many Godard films since his death in September.

Critic, UK

1. Cette Maison
2. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
3. Saint Omer
4. Coma
5. Happening (L’Evenement)
6. One Second
7. Return to Seoul
8. Neptune Frost
9. One Fine Morning (Un beau matin)
10. Stonewalling

Many of my favourite films this year were about trying to preserve something that is, or is soon to be, lost. Sometimes this was more fragmentary (e.g. Cette Maison), sometimes more sentimental (One Second). But I appreciated these calls to memory in a time when so much is being erased, sometimes violently, from public life.

Critic, UK

1. Saint Omer
2. Aftersun
3. Dos Estaciones
4. The Eternal Daughter
5. I Didn’t See You There
6. Nope
7. Decision to Leave
8. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
9. Neptune Frost
10. Everything Everywhere All at Once

Academic and critic, UK

1. Happening (L’Evenement)
2. Memoria
3. Saint Omer
4. One Fine Morning (Un beau matin)
5. Decision to Leave
6. Nope
7. The Passengers of the Night
8. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
9. Aftersun
10. Playground

Critic, UK

1. A Room of My Own (Chemi otakhi)
2. Both Sides of the Blade
3. The Innocents (De uskyldige)
4. Trenque Lauquen
5. Moonage Daydream
6. Enys Men
7. Decision to Leave
8. EO
9. Pacifiction
10. Showing Up

BFI digital features editor, UK

1. The Plains
2. Pacifiction
3. Unrest (Unrueh)
4. Geographies of Solitude
5. Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood
6. White Noise
7. Saint Omer
8. RRR (Rise Roar Revolt)
9. Decision to Leave
10. The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin)

Editor-in-chief, Sight and Sound, UK

1. Aftersun
2. Decision to Leave
3. Saint Omer
4. The Banshees of Inisherin
5. TÁR
6. Moonage Daydream
7. Parallel Mothers
8. Enys Men
9. The Innocents (De uskyldige)
10. Showing Up

Programmer (Badlands Collective), UK

1. Top Gun: Maverick
2. RRR (Rise Roar Revolt)
3. The Banshees of Inisherin
4. Ambulance
5. Vortex
6. Nope
7. Speak No Evil
8. Saloum
9. Soft & Quiet
10. Elvis

Critic, curator, maker, UK, Austria

1. Riders (Jezdeca)
2. Upwards Tide
3. The Human Torch
4. Young Guns
5. The Plains
6. Elvis
7. The Suicide Squad
8. The King’s Man
9. A Dog You Are
10. Compartment No. 6

“If I see a movie, I know who’s talented and who’s lucky.” — Bob Rafelson, 1933-2022.”

Manuela Martelli

Voted for by: Maria Delgado, Sophia Satchell-Baeza

Sam Green

Voted for by: Pamela Hutchinson

Arantza Santesteban

Voted for by: Christopher Small

Martine Syms

Voted for by: Nicolas Rapold, Sukhdev Sandhu, Simran Hans

Jon Sesrie Goff

Voted for by: Sophie Brown

kogonada

Voted for by: Philip Concannon, Katherine McLaughlin, Tara Judah

Charlotte Wells

Voted for by: Ashley Clark, Philip Concannon, Nick James, Anna Smith, Caitlin Quinlan, James Mottram, Łukasz Mańkowski, Kelli Weston, Jamie Dunn, Lillian Crawford, Naman Ramachandran, Lou Thomas, Alex Ramon, Josh Slater-Williams, Catherine Wheatley, Tom Charity, John Bleasdale, Grace Barber-Plentie, Derek O’Connor, Michael Atkinson, Michael Leader, Katherine McLaughlin, Kate Stables, Imogen Sara Smith, Anna Bogutskaya, Rafa Sales Ross, Sophie Brown, Leigh Singer, Molly Haskell, Mike Williams, Jason Anderson, Thomas Flew, Pamela Hutchinson, Simran Hans, Eric Hynes, Isabel Stevens, Ryan Gilbey

Dane Komljen

Voted for by: Matt Turner, Robert Koehler

Gerard Ortín Castellví

Voted for by: Ben Nicholson

Frank Berry

Voted for by: Alex Ramon

Carla Simón

Voted for by: Caitlin Quinlan, Maria Delgado, Jonathan Romney, Katherine McLaughlin

Clio Barnard

Voted for by: Pamela Hutchinson

Edward Berger

Voted for by: Nick James, Wendy Ide, John Bleasdale

Shaunak Sen

Voted for by: Nick Bradshaw, Sukhdev Sandhu, Leigh Singer, Amy Taubin, Eric Hynes, Isabel Stevens

Laura Poitras

Voted for by: Nick Bradshaw, Philip Concannon, Nick James, Caitlin Quinlan, Ian Wang, Kelli Weston, Alex Davidson, Lillian Crawford, Erika Balsom, Nicolas Rapold, Carmen Gray, Rachel Pronger, Anna Bogutskaya, Ian Mantgani, Arjun Sajip, Simran Hans, Christina Newland, Sophia Satchell-Baeza

Michael Bay

Voted for by: Philip Concannon, Tim Hayes, Craig Williams

Jeong Ji-yeon

Voted for by: Anton Bitel

Richard Linklater

Voted for by: Michael Atkinson, Alex Dudok de Wit, Michael Leader, Samuel Wigley, Vadim Rizov

Santiago Mitre

Voted for by: Noel Hess, Maria Delgado

Mahesh Narayanan

Voted for by: Naman Ramachandran

James Gray

Voted for by: Ashley Clark, Lou Thomas, Ginette Vincendeau

Sorayos Prapapan

Voted for by: Łukasz Mańkowski

Charlie Shackleton

Voted for by: Patrick Gamble , Ben Nicholson

Jessica Kingdon

Voted for by: Ryan Gilbey

Romain Gavras

Voted for by: Rafa Sales Ross, Elena Lazic

Pascale Bodet

Voted for by: Christopher Small

Martin McDonagh

Voted for by: Sam Clements , Leila Latif, Ashley Clark, Nick James, Anna Smith, James Mottram, Jane Giles, Noel Hess, Lou Thomas, Josh Slater-Williams, Nicolas Rapold, Tom Charity, John Bleasdale, Michael Leader, Katherine McLaughlin, Kate Stables, Anna Bogutskaya, Catherine Bray, Leigh Singer, Katie McCabe , Mike Williams, Arjun Sajip, Craig Williams, Isabel Stevens

Zach Cregger

Voted for by: Anton Bitel, Jamie Dunn, David Pirie, Ian Mantgani

Matt Reeves

Voted for by: David Pirie

Peter Jackson

Voted for by: David Parkinson

Luke Fowler

Voted for by: Erika Balsom, Sukhdev Sandhu

Hosoda Mamoru

Voted for by: Mar Diestro-Dópido

Paul Verhoeven

Voted for by: Tim Hayes, Jane Giles

Terence Davies

Voted for by: Steph Green, Lillian Crawford, Eric Hynes

Mia Hansen-Løve

Voted for by: Brad Stevens, Pamela Hutchinson, Mar Diestro-Dópido

Ryan Coogler

Voted for by: Sophie Brown

Scott Derrickson

Voted for by: David Pirie

Pierre Földes

Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit

Andrew Dominik

Voted for by: Mar Diestro-Dópido

Chan Tze-woon

Voted for by: Kambole Campbell

Georgia Oakley

Voted for by: Alex Davidson, Josh Slater-Williams, Grace Barber-Plentie

Halina Reijn

Voted for by: Catherine Bray

Philip Barantini

Voted for by: Rebecca Harrison, Anna Bogutskaya

Luca Guadagnino

Voted for by: Leila Latif, Steph Green, Katherine McLaughlin, Kate Stables

Claire Denis

Voted for by: Jamie Dunn, Naman Ramachandran, Elena Lazic, Eric Hynes, Charles Whitehouse

Jeffrey Schwartz

Voted for by: David Parkinson

Tarik Saleh

Voted for by: Ginette Vincendeau

Nina Menkes

Voted for by: Jonathan Rosenbaum

Jim Archer

Voted for by: Sam Clements , Anton Bitel, John Bleasdale, Michael Leader

Levan Koguashvili

Voted for by: Michael Atkinson

Hirokazu Koreeda

Voted for by: Sam Clements , Colette Balmain

Nicholas Stoller

Voted for by: Alex Davidson

Clement Virgo

Voted for by: Josh Slater-Williams

Paul Andrew Williams)

Voted for by: Anne Billson

David Leitch

Voted for by: Naman Ramachandran

Kim Hopkins

Voted for by: Sukhdev Sandhu

Emilija Skarnulyte

Voted for by: Jonathan Rosenbaum

Mads Hedegaard

Voted for by: Ryan Gilbey

Rastko Novakovic, Beatrice Bukantyte

Voted for by: Kieron Corless

Sébastian Lifshitz

Voted for by: Lillian Crawford

Ricky D’Ambrose

Voted for by: Robert Koehler, Amy Taubin

Miryam Charles

Voted for by: Ashley Clark, Caitlin Quinlan, Ian Wang, Grace Barber-Plentie, Ben Nicholson

Cooper Raiff

Voted for by: Łukasz Mańkowski

Vytautus Katkus

Voted for by: Vadim Rizov

Jonas Carpignano

Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit

Alauda Ruiz De Azúa

Voted for by: Rachel Pronger

Dwayne LeBlanc

Voted for by: Ashley Clark

Nathalie Álvarez Mesén

Voted for by: Caspar Salmon, Rachel Pronger

Lukas Dhont

Voted for by: Caspar Salmon, Alex Davidson, John Bleasdale

Bertrand Bonello

Voted for by: Ian Wang

Juho Kuosmanen

Voted for by: Ehsan Khoshbakht, Neil Young, Jason Anderson, Ryan Gilbey

Sasha Litvintseva, Beny Wagner

Voted for by: Patrick Gamble , Ben Nicholson, Vadim Rizov

Marie Kreutzer

Voted for by: Wendy Ide, Patrick Gamble , Caspar Salmon, Lou Thomas, David Parkinson, Carmen Gray, Rachel Pronger, Ben Nicholson, Guy Lodge, Arjun Sajip, Sophia Satchell-Baeza, Isabel Stevens, Violet Lucca

Frederick Wiseman

Voted for by: Jordan Cronk

Andrea Arnold

Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit, Pamela Hutchinson

Asif Kapadia

Voted for by: Lillian Crawford

David Cronenberg

Voted for by: Brad Stevens, Anne Billson, Tim Hayes, Jordan Cronk, Derek O’Connor, Michael Atkinson, Rafa Sales Ross, Amy Taubin, Beatrice Loayza, Violet Lucca, Devika Girish

Clint Eastwood

Voted for by: Brad Stevens

Nikita Lavretski

Voted for by: Matt Turner, Christopher Small

Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Verena Paravel

Voted for by: Leila Latif, Nick James, Jordan Cronk, Łukasz Mańkowski, Sophie Brown, Elena Lazic, Arjun Sajip, Sophia Satchell-Baeza

Park Chanwook

Voted for by: Sam Clements , Philip Concannon, Wendy Ide, Łukasz Mańkowski, Kelli Weston, Caspar Salmon, Maria Delgado, Naman Ramachandran, Lou Thomas, Josh Slater-Williams, Catherine Wheatley, Nicolas Rapold, Tom Charity, Grace Barber-Plentie, Colette Balmain, Katherine McLaughlin, Kate Stables, Imogen Sara Smith, Sophie Brown, Leigh Singer, Samuel Wigley, Molly Haskell, Mike Williams, Kambole Campbell, Christina Newland, Ian Mantgani, Charles Whitehouse

Adrian Lyne

Voted for by: Brad Stevens

Benjamin Laabmayr

Voted for by: Neil Young

Olivia Wilde

Voted for by: Tara Judah

Juan Pablo Gomez

Voted for by: Kelli Weston, Eric Hynes

Adirley Queirós and Joana Pimenta

Voted for by: Nick Bradshaw, Matt Turner, Łukasz Mańkowski, Beatrice Loayza, Vadim Rizov

Lucile Hadžihalilović

Voted for by: Anne Billson, Anton Bitel

Nataša Urban

Voted for by: Ehsan Khoshbakht, Nick Bradshaw

Charlotte Vandermeersch and Felix van Groeningen

Voted for by: Rafa Sales Ross

Fernando León de Aranoa

Voted for by: Ginette Vincendeau

Baz Luhrmann

Voted for by: Tim Hayes, Neil Young, John Bleasdale, Guy Lodge, Elena Lazic, Ian Mantgani, Ginette Vincendeau, Craig Williams, Christina Newland

John Patton Ford

Voted for by: Lou Thomas, Elena Lazic, Tara Judah

Stéphanie Roland

Voted for by: Vadim Rizov

Mark Jenkin

Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit, Mike Williams, Tara Judah, Charles Whitehouse, Isabel Stevens

Jerzy Skolimowski

Voted for by: Ehsan Khoshbakht, Nick James, Jordan Cronk, Alex Ramon, Nicolas Rapold, Jonathan Romney, Imogen Sara Smith, Rafa Sales Ross, Amy Taubin, Molly Haskell, Jason Anderson, Christina Newland, Sophia Satchell-Baeza, Eric Hynes, Charles Whitehouse

Joanna Hogg

Voted for by: Caitlin Quinlan, Łukasz Mańkowski, Steph Green, Kelli Weston, Alex Ramon, Katherine McLaughlin, Imogen Sara Smith, Molly Haskell, Simran Hans, Eric Hynes, Violet Lucca

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert

Voted for by: Jane Giles, Kelli Weston, Rebecca Harrison, Derek O’Connor, Colette Balmain, Katherine McLaughlin, Kate Stables, Anna Bogutskaya, Leigh Singer

Fox Maxy

Voted for by: Matt Turner

Steven Spielberg

Voted for by: Jordan Cronk, Wendy Ide, Nicolas Rapold, Tom Charity, Molly Haskell, Jason Anderson, Christina Newland, Eric Hynes, Devika Girish

Scott Mann

Voted for by: David Parkinson

Andrew Ahn

Voted for by: Grace Barber-Plentie

Sara Dosa

Voted for by: Anne Billson, Nick Bradshaw, Sukhdev Sandhu, Tom Charity, Derek O’Connor, Rachel Pronger, Kate Stables, Imogen Sara Smith, Arjun Sajip

Jonas Poher Rasmussen

Voted for by: Rachel Pronger, Pamela Hutchinson, Ryan Gilbey

Peter Strickland

Voted for by: Anne Billson, Anton Bitel, Tim Hayes, Anna Smith, Jane Giles, Katie McCabe , Jason Anderson

Flávia Neves

Voted for by: Rafa Sales Ross

Jumana Manna

Voted for by: Erika Balsom

Chase Joynt

Voted for by: Colette Balmain

Julie Ha, Eugene Yi

Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit

Owen Klein

Voted for by: James Mottram, Josh Slater-Williams, Derek O’Connor, Michael Leader, Catherine Bray, Amy Taubin, Simran Hans, Ryan Gilbey

Laura Gonçalves

Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit

László Csuja and Anna Nemes

Voted for by: Violet Lucca

Jacquelyn Mills

Voted for by: Nick Bradshaw, Wendy Ide, Samuel Wigley, Jason Anderson

Ramon Zürcher, Silvan Zürcher

Voted for by: Jamie Dunn

Ali Haapasalo

Voted for by: Anna Smith

Sara Cwynar

Voted for by: Vadim Rizov

Rian Johnson

Voted for by: Leigh Singer

Hlynur Pálmason

Voted for by: Philip Concannon, Wendy Ide, Patrick Gamble , Caspar Salmon, Naman Ramachandran, Carmen Gray, Guy Lodge, Thomas Flew, Arjun Sajip

Sophie Hyde

Voted for by: Rebecca Harrison

Tobias Lindholm

Voted for by: Noel Hess, David Pirie

Sebastian Meise

Voted for by: Grace Barber-Plentie, Ryan Gilbey

Guillermo del Toro

Voted for by: Nick Bradshaw, Michael Leader, Rafa Sales Ross, Leigh Singer, Kambole Campbell, Arjun Sajip, Mar Diestro-Dópido

Audrey Diwan

Voted for by: Ian Wang, Lillian Crawford, Catherine Wheatley, Katie McCabe , Ginette Vincendeau, Ryan Gilbey

Tyler Taormina

Voted for by: Robert Koehler

Andy Mitton

Voted for by: Anton Bitel

Will Wightman

Voted for by: Ian Mantgani

Panah Panahi

Voted for by: Jamie Dunn, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Tom Charity, Derek O’Connor, Michael Atkinson, Michael Leader, Katie McCabe

Mathieu Amalric

Voted for by: Beatrice Loayza

Ali Abbasi

Voted for by: Anne Billson, Nick James, Jane Giles, Tom Charity

Helena Wittmann

Voted for by: Caitlin Quinlan, Jordan Cronk, Christopher Small, Devika Girish

Risto-Pekka Blom

Voted for by: Neil Young

Pegah Ahangarani

Voted for by: Ehsan Khoshbakht

Reid Davenport

Voted for by: Matt Turner, Kelli Weston, Sophie Brown, Devika Girish

Valentina Maurel

Voted for by: Jason Anderson

Michelangelo Frammartino

Voted for by: Katie McCabe

Hong Sangsoo

Voted for by: Brad Stevens, David Parkinson

Eskil Vogt

Voted for by: Anne Billson, Anna Smith, Mike Williams, Isabel Stevens, Charles Whitehouse

Anja Dornieden, Juan David González Monroy and Andrew Kim

Voted for by: Patrick Gamble , Ben Nicholson, Sophia Satchell-Baeza

Radu Muntean

Voted for by: Michael Atkinson

Masaaki Yuasa

Voted for by: Kambole Campbell

Antonia Campbell

Voted for by: Derek O’Connor

Jeff Tremaine

Voted for by: Catherine Bray, Kambole Campbell, Eric Hynes

Jean-Baptiste Péretié

Voted for by: Ehsan Khoshbakht, Jonathan Rosenbaum

Zheng Lu Xinyuan

Voted for by: Matt Turner

Saim Sadiq

Voted for by: Arjun Sajip

Sergei Loznitsa

Voted for by: Kieron Corless

Steven Soderbergh

Voted for by: Ashley Clark, Tim Hayes, Amy Taubin, Jason Anderson, Beatrice Loayza, Ian Mantgani, Vadim Rizov

Mario Martone

Voted for by: Ehsan Khoshbakht

Matthew Vaughn

Voted for by: Neil Young

Maryna Er Gorbach

Voted for by: Jonathan Romney

Louis Garrel

Voted for by: Ginette Vincendeau

Philippe Parreno

Voted for by: Mar Diestro-Dópido

Enrico Ghezzi

Voted for by: Kieron Corless

Ridley Scott

Voted for by: Brad Stevens

Ondi Timoner

Voted for by: Rafa Sales Ross

Deborah Stratman

Voted for by: Sukhdev Sandhu

Christophe Honoré

Voted for by: Jonathan Romney

Alice Rohrwacher

Voted for by: Pamela Hutchinson

Martika Ramirez Escobar

Voted for by: Ashley Clark, Violet Lucca

Paolo Taviani

Voted for by: David Parkinson

Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi

Voted for by: Ginette Vincendeau

Tal Kantor

Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit

Paul Thomas Anderson

Voted for by: Caspar Salmon, David Pirie, Ian Mantgani

Mahamet Saleh Haroun

Voted for by: Leila Latif, Imogen Sara Smith, Amy Taubin

So Yun Um

Voted for by: Sophie Brown

Gastón Solnicki

Voted for by: Patrick Gamble

Oliver Hermanus

Voted for by: Sam Clements , James Mottram, Lou Thomas, Rebecca Harrison, Robert Koehler, Michael Leader, David Pirie

Maggie Gyllenhaal

Voted for by: Rebecca Harrison

Max Walker-Silverman

Voted for by: Sam Clements

Matsumura Shingo

Voted for by: Colette Balmain

Gaspar Noé

Voted for by: Beatrice Loayza

Phil Tippett

Voted for by: Michael Leader

Icíar Bollaín

Voted for by: Ehsan Khoshbakht

Eugenio Polgovsky, Mara Polgovsky

Voted for by: Ben Nicholson

Kat Coiro

Voted for by: Sam Clements

Marco Bellocchio

Voted for by: Ehsan Khoshbakht

Paul Schrader

Voted for by: Kieron Corless

Paul Schrader

Voted for by: Rafa Sales Ross

Mariama Diallo

Voted for by: Colette Balmain

Lana Wachowski

Voted for by: Tim Hayes

Thomas Hardiman

Voted for by: Isabel Stevens

Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Voted for by: Brad Stevens, Caspar Salmon, Jamie Dunn, Lillian Crawford, Catherine Wheatley, Kambole Campbell

Alex Garland

Voted for by: Anton Bitel, James Mottram, Alex Ramon, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Kate Stables, Catherine Bray

Alejo Moguillansky

Voted for by: Maria Delgado

Brett Morgen

Voted for by: James Mottram, Anna Bogutskaya, Mike Williams, Mar Diestro-Dópido, Charles Whitehouse

Léonor Serraille

Voted for by: Alex Ramon, Simran Hans

Takeshi Fukunaga

Voted for by: Colette Balmain

Anthony Fabian

Voted for by: Sam Clements

Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic

Voted for by: Eric Hynes

Ruth Beckermann

Voted for by: Erika Balsom

Patricio Guzmán

Voted for by: Ehsan Khoshbakht, Maria Delgado, Sukhdev Sandhu

Nikyatu Jusu

Voted for by: Leila Latif, Grace Barber-Plentie, Amy Taubin

Sergei Loznitsa

Voted for by: Carmen Gray

Maryam Tafakory

Voted for by: Patrick Gamble

Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman

Voted for by: Ian Wang, Kelli Weston

Keishi Kondo

Voted for by: Anton Bitel

Payal Kapadia

Voted for by: Katie McCabe

Guillermo del Toro

Voted for by: Brad Stevens, Tim Hayes, David Pirie, Mar Diestro-Dópido

Justin Kurzel

Voted for by: Ryan Gilbey

Jafar Panahi

Voted for by: Jamie Dunn, Nicolas Rapold, Michael Atkinson, Leigh Singer, Arjun Sajip

Natalia Beristain

Voted for by: Imogen Sara Smith

Mila Turajlić

Voted for by: Nick Bradshaw

Jordan Peele

Voted for by: Sam Clements , Leila Latif, Nick James, James Mottram, Jane Giles, Steph Green, Kelli Weston, Jamie Dunn, Catherine Wheatley, Grace Barber-Plentie, Colette Balmain, David Pirie, Sophie Brown, Jason Anderson, Kambole Campbell, Craig Williams, Tara Judah, Christina Newland, Sophia Satchell-Baeza, Devika Girish

Alejandra Marquez Abella

Voted for by: Rachel Pronger

Robert Eggers

Voted for by: Leila Latif, Lou Thomas, Rachel Pronger

Kathryn Ferguson

Voted for by: Jane Giles

Hong Sangsoo

Voted for by: Jordan Cronk, Christopher Small, Erika Balsom, Nicolas Rapold, Robert Koehler, Molly Haskell

Gaston Duprat and Mariano Cohn

Voted for by: Kate Stables, Mar Diestro-Dópido

Mia Hansen-Løve

Voted for by: Anne Billson, Philip Concannon, Wendy Ide, Ian Wang, Lillian Crawford, Alex Ramon, Josh Slater-Williams, Catherine Wheatley, Tom Charity, Katherine McLaughlin, Molly Haskell, Thomas Flew, Beatrice Loayza, Simran Hans, Isabel Stevens, Violet Lucca, Devika Girish

Zhang Yimou

Voted for by: Ian Wang

Arthur Harari

Voted for by: Philip Concannon

Rebecca Zlotowski

Voted for by: Catherine Bray

Albert Serra

Voted for by: Nick James, Caitlin Quinlan, Jordan Cronk, Patrick Gamble , Maria Delgado, Erika Balsom, John Bleasdale, Jonathan Romney, Samuel Wigley, Thomas Flew, Beatrice Loayza, Charles Whitehouse, Devika Girish

Abel Ferrara

Voted for by: Brad Stevens

Jamie Dack

Voted for by: Alex Davidson

Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk

Voted for by: Isabel Stevens

Pedro Almodóvar

Voted for by: Brad Stevens, Jamie Dunn, Maria Delgado, Imogen Sara Smith, Katie McCabe , Mike Williams, Mar Diestro-Dópido

Jacques Audiard

Voted for by: Tim Hayes

Mikhael Hers

Voted for by: Catherine Wheatley

Moon Su-jin

Voted for by: Ben Nicholson

François Ozon

Voted for by: Alex Ramon

Céline Sciamma

Voted for by: Imogen Sara Smith

Kirill Serebrennikov

Voted for by: Carmen Gray

Jennifer Takaki

Voted for by: Sukhdev Sandhu

Ann Oren

Voted for by: Steph Green, Josh Slater-Williams

Carlota Pereda

Voted for by: David Parkinson, Anna Bogutskaya

David Easteal

Voted for by: Patrick Gamble , Matt Turner, Łukasz Mańkowski, Neil Young, Robert Koehler, Guy Lodge, Samuel Wigley, Tara Judah

Laura Wandel

Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit, Catherine Wheatley, Michael Atkinson

Ninja Thyberg

Voted for by: Kate Stables, Anna Bogutskaya, Tara Judah, Christina Newland

Eric Gravel

Voted for by: Ginette Vincendeau

Darezhan Omirbayev

Voted for by: Robert Koehler

Mani Ratnam

Voted for by: Naman Ramachandran

Radu Jude

Voted for by: Jonathan Rosenbaum

Yves Hinant, Jean Lebon

Voted for by: Ginette Vincendeau

Dionne Edwards

Voted for by: Alex Davidson

Dan Trachtenberg

Voted for by: Naman Ramachandran, Colette Balmain, Kate Stables

Colm Bairéad

Voted for by: Philip Concannon, Alex Dudok de Wit, Wendy Ide, Noel Hess, Derek O’Connor, Michael Leader, Samuel Wigley, Katie McCabe , Ryan Gilbey

Cristian Mungiu

Voted for by: Jonathan Romney, Leigh Singer

Morgan Matthews

Voted for by: Sukhdev Sandhu

Sean Baker

Voted for by: Jane Giles

Li Riujun

Voted for by: David Parkinson

Davy Chou

Voted for by: Ian Wang, Josh Slater-Williams, Nicolas Rapold, Catherine Bray

Alice Winocour

Voted for by: Ginette Vincendeau

Alain Gomis

Voted for by: Alex Davidson

Dominik Mencej

Voted for by: Neil Young

Sierra Pettengill

Voted for by: Ashley Clark, Robert Koehler, Simran Hans

Natalia López Gallardo

Voted for by: Caitlin Quinlan, Matt Turner

Ioseb ‘Soso’ Bliadze

Voted for by: Carmen Gray, Guy Lodge, Catherine Bray, Elena Lazic, Charles Whitehouse

Bo Bunham

Voted for by: Leila Latif

Michał Chmielewski

Voted for by: Alex Ramon

S.S. Rajamouli

Voted for by: Anne Billson, Anton Bitel, Philip Concannon, Lou Thomas, Tom Charity, Derek O’Connor, Katherine McLaughlin, Samuel Wigley, Kambole Campbell, Ian Mantgani, Craig Williams, Tara Judah, Christina Newland, Sophia Satchell-Baeza

Amir Naderi

Voted for by: Jonathan Rosenbaum

Juraj Lerotic

Voted for by: Carmen Gray, John Bleasdale, Guy Lodge, Elena Lazic

Alice Diop

Voted for by: Leila Latif, Ashley Clark, Caitlin Quinlan, Łukasz Mańkowski, Ian Wang, Steph Green, Kelli Weston, Caspar Salmon, Maria Delgado, Christopher Small, Erika Balsom, Catherine Wheatley, Nicolas Rapold, John Bleasdale, Grace Barber-Plentie, Jonathan Romney, Rachel Pronger, Guy Lodge, Imogen Sara Smith, Rafa Sales Ross, Leigh Singer, Amy Taubin, Samuel Wigley, Kieron Corless, Molly Haskell, Mike Williams, Kambole Campbell, Pamela Hutchinson, Arjun Sajip, Simran Hans, Sophia Satchell-Baeza, Isabel Stevens, Violet Lucca, Devika Girish

Jean Luc Herbulot

Voted for by: Craig Williams

Pietro Marcello

Voted for by: Steph Green

Mitra Farahani

Voted for by: Ehsan Khoshbakht, Amy Taubin

Park Kang

Voted for by: Colette Balmain

Hilal Baydarov

Voted for by: Christopher Small

Lena Dunham

Voted for by: Elena Lazic

Maria Schneider

Voted for by: Anna Smith, Jane Giles, Rebecca Harrison, David Pirie

Kelly Reichardt

Voted for by: Ashley Clark, Caitlin Quinlan, Jordan Cronk, Caspar Salmon, Jonathan Romney, Guy Lodge, Molly Haskell, Mike Williams, Thomas Flew, Vadim Rizov, Charles Whitehouse, Devika Girish

Aga Woszczynska

Voted for by: Thomas Flew

Agnieszka Smoczynska

Voted for by: Sukhdev Sandhu

Laura Samani

Voted for by: Rachel Pronger

Beth de Araújo

Voted for by: Craig Williams

Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead

Voted for by: Anton Bitel

Florian Zeller

Voted for by: Elena Lazic

Kurdwin Ayub

Voted for by: Carmen Gray

Joanna Hogg

Voted for by: Noel Hess, Tara Judah

Lois Patiño

Voted for by: Vadim Rizov

Christian

Voted for by: Craig Williams

Claire Denis

Voted for by: Catherine Bray, Violet Lucca

Huang Ji and Ryuji Otsuka

Voted for by: Ian Wang

Ami-ro Sköld

Voted for by: David Parkinson, Tara Judah

James Gunn

Voted for by: Neil Young

Annie Ernaux, David Ernaux-Briot

Voted for by: Ben Nicholson, Sophie Brown

Sally El Hosain

Voted for by: Anna Smith

Abbas Fahdel

Voted for by: Jordan Cronk

Salomé Jashi

Voted for by: Katie McCabe

Miryam Charles

Voted for by: Matt Turner

Bianca Stigter

Voted for by: Beatrice Loayza

George Miller

Voted for by: Sam Clements , Jonathan Rosenbaum

Gustavo Vinagre

Voted for by: Alex Davidson

Julia Ducournau

Voted for by: Jane Giles

Shireen Seno

Voted for by: Christopher Small

Joseph Kosinski

Voted for by: Leila Latif, Christopher Small, Lou Thomas, Grace Barber-Plentie, Ian Mantgani, Craig Williams

Luc Dardenne, Jean-Pierre Dardenne

Voted for by: Steph Green

Laura Citarella

Voted for by: Maria Delgado, Jonathan Romney, Kieron Corless, Thomas Flew, Charles Whitehouse, Devika Girish

Ruben Östlund

Voted for by: Anna Smith, James Mottram, Caspar Salmon, Alex Davidson, Derek O’Connor, David Pirie, Sophie Brown, Simran Hans, Christina Newland, Violet Lucca

Harry Wootliff

Voted for by: Rebecca Harrison

Todd Field

Voted for by: Wendy Ide, Steph Green, Lillian Crawford, Naman Ramachandran, Nick James, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Robert Koehler, Jonathan Romney, Michael Atkinson, Guy Lodge, Anna Bogutskaya, Catherine Bray, Molly Haskell, Mike Williams

Diego Acosta

Voted for by: Nick Bradshaw

Onyeka Igwe, Huw Lemmey

Voted for by: Ben Nicholson

James Benning

Voted for by: Matt Turner, Erika Balsom, Sophia Satchell-Baeza

Cyril Schäublin

Voted for by: Patrick Gamble , Erika Balsom, Carmen Gray, Samuel Wigley, Kieron Corless, Vadim Rizov

Daniela Zahlner

Voted for by: Neil Young

Alejandro Loayza Grisi

Voted for by: David Parkinson

Todd Haynes

Voted for by: Carmen Gray

Mitra Farahani

Voted for by: Jonathan Rosenbaum

André Antônio

Voted for by: Christopher Small

Stephane Lafleur

Voted for by: Jason Anderson

Bill Morrison

Voted for by: Pamela Hutchinson

Gaspar Noé

Voted for by: Anne Billson, Steph Green, Tom Charity, Michael Atkinson, Craig Williams, Christina Newland

Hong Sangsoo

Voted for by: Łukasz Mańkowski, Guy Lodge, Thomas Flew

Eugène Green

Voted for by: Kieron Corless

Alice Diop

Voted for by: Pamela Hutchinson, Beatrice Loayza

Jane Schoenbrun

Voted for by: Kambole Campbell

Steven Spielberg

Voted for by: Ian Mantgani

Darren Aronofsky

Voted for by: James Mottram

Trinh Minh-ha

Voted for by: Erika Balsom

Shekhar Kapur

Voted for by: Naman Ramachandran

Hamaguchi Ryusuke

Voted for by: Jamie Dunn, Catherine Wheatley, Thomas Flew

Katharine Fry

Voted for by: Alex Davidson

Lav Diaz

Voted for by: Kieron Corless

João Pedro Rodrigues, João Rui Guerra da Mata

Voted for by: Robert Koehler

Noah Baumbach

Voted for by: Rebecca Harrison, Samuel Wigley

Vadim Kostrov

Voted for by: Thomas Flew

Gina Prince-Bythewood

Voted for by: Anna Smith, Rebecca Harrison

Anna Jadowska

Voted for by: Alex Ramon

Sarah Polley

Voted for by: Wendy Ide, Lillian Crawford

Sebastián Lelio

Voted for by: Anna Smith, Rebecca Harrison

Jonas Bak

Voted for by: Beatrice Loayza

Lise Akoka and Romane Guéret

Voted for by: Josh Slater-Williams, John Bleasdale, Elena Lazic

Joachim Trier

Voted for by: James Mottram, Noel Hess, Anna Bogutskaya, Katie McCabe , Mar Diestro-Dópido

Kate Dolan

Voted for by: Violet Lucca

Andreas Thaulow

Voted for by: Neil Young

Rastko Novakovic

Voted for by: Kieron Corless

Julie Lecoustre and Emmanuel Marie

Voted for by: Tim Hayes