50-31
***
50
How to Have Sex
Molly Manning Walker’s impressive debut stars an excellent Mia McKenna-Bruce as a teenage girl experiencing a difficult lesson in consent while on holiday in Crete. Read the full review
49
Heretic
A suave and dapper Hugh Grant draws two Mormon missionaries into a psychological game of terror and manipulation. Read the full review
48
Love Lies Bleeding
Kristen Stewart stars in Rose Glass’s bodybuilding noir, a violent story of extreme sport, forbidden love and a lot of murder. Read the full review
47
The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed
Joanna Arnow’s bleakly funny and poignant comedy about a woman drifting between a BDSM relationship and an unfulfilling corporate job.
46
Emilia Pérez
Jacques Audiard’s gangster trans musical about a Mexican cartel leader who hires a lawyer to arrange his transition is carried along by its cheesy Broadway energy. Read the full review
45
Exhibiting Forgiveness
A towering performance from André Holland is at the centre of artist turned film-maker Titus Kaphar’s powerful semi-autobiographical drama about a wayward father returning home. Read the full review
44
Evil Does Not Exist
Ryu Hamaguchi’s enigmatic eco-parable about a Tokyo company buying up land near a pristine lake turns into a complex and mysterious drama. Read the full review
43
Wicked
Musical prequel has been brought to the big screen with Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande-Butera providing a blast in sugar-rush Wizard of Oz fantasy. Read the full review
42
Hollywoodgate
Fascinating insight into the Taliban’s insular world by documentary-maker Ibrahim Nash’at, revealing the fighters’ lack of purpose after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Read the full review
41
Hundreds of Beavers
Gold Rush-style silent comedy combining Chaplin, Keaton and Looney Tunes into an utterly silly movie pastiche, with an army of full-sized beavers. Read the full review
40
No Other Land
Account of an Israeli and a Palestinian’s remarkable relationship across the divide, after they met when Palestinian villages were bulldozed to make way for the Israeli military. Read the full review
39
Maria
Angelina Jolie gives a commanding turn as Maria Callas in Pablo Larraín’s third unconventional biopic about an incredible woman from history. Read the full review
38
The Dead Don’t Hurt
Viggo Mortensen directs, writes, composes and acts in this beautifully shot and sombre film about an old-school hero in a 19th-century frontier community fraught with tragedy. Read the full review
37
Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry
Elene Naveriani’s film, about a single woman in a remote Georgian village whose life is changed for ever after a near-death experience, is a gentle gem about mid-life love and loneliness. Read the full review
36
Omen (Augure)
Musician and film-maker Baloji’s film about a Belgian-Congolese man who takes his white wife to DRC to meet the family is complex, risky and bold. Read the full review
35
Close Your Eyes
Spirit of the Beehive director Víctor Erice returns after 30 years with an enigmatic tale of a disappeared actor that allows ruminations on memory, ageing and cinema itself. Read the full review
34
The Settlers
Europe’s early 20th-century exploitation of Tierra del Fuego is told in an unsparingly bloody drama-thriller by first-time director Felipe Gálvez Haberle. Read the full review
33
Hoard
Luna Carmoon’s deeply strange and compelling study of loneliness and thwarted sexuality shows the ways in which childhood trauma can bloom in adult life. Read the full review
32
Good One
A weekend backpacking trip with a teenage girl, her father and his friend takes a turn in this sensitive and quietly devastating independent drama.
31
Queer
Daniel Craig plays an American expat living indolently in Mexico City in a sometimes uproarious adaptation of William Burroughs’ autobiographical novel. Read the full review
***
30-11
30
Flow
A wondrous and immersive animated adventure from Latvia that follows a cat forced to work with other animals when his home is ravaged by a flood.
29
Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point
Tyler Taormina’s very warm and rich movie about one huge family’s festivities is a charming home-town study. Read the full review
28
We Live in Time
Fine performances from Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh add weight to this powerful, and often very funny, time-jumping romance. Read the full review
27
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
Garrulous essay-movie-slash-black-comedy collage from Romanian film-maker Radu Jude takes swipes from all angles at modern life. Read the full review
26
Disco Boy
Giacomo Abbruzzese’s drama is a freaky trip into the heart of imperial darkness as it follows Belarusian Aleksei on his journey to join the French Foreign Legion. Read the full review
25
Black Box Diaries
Japanese journalist Shiori Itō’s rape case against a prominent TV executive that triggered Japan’s #MeToo movement. Read the full review
24
The Girl With the Needle
A frank, fact-based drama about a woman who gets involved in a shadowy adoption business in Denmark turns into a frightening, and depressingly relevant, horror. Read the full review
23
The Outrun
Saoirse Ronan is mesmerising in this sobering addiction drama adapted from Amy Liptrot’s memoir. Read the full review
22
The Goldman Case
Gripping French courtroom drama that tackles antisemitism and history by reconstructing the 1976 trial of voluble and charismatic leftist Pierre Goldman. Read the full review
21
Small Things Like These
Cillian Murphy stars in a piercingly painful drama about Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries, an absorbing Dickensian story based on recent history. Read the full review
20
Dahomey
Mati Diop’s interrogative reverie about looted African sculptures is a realist jeu d’esprit about the legacy of plunder. Read the full review
19
Rose’s War
Vivid, intense biopic of heiress turned terrorist Rose Dugdale, the wealthy debutante who joined the IRA, abetted an art heist and bombed a police station. (Released as Baltimore in the UK.) Read the full review
18
Green Border
Agnieszka Holland’s brutal and timely drama shines a dark spotlight on the horrors faced by refugees in the exclusion zone between Poland and Belarus. Read the full review
17
Kidnapped
Based on the true story of a young Jewish boy kidnapped by papal authorities, Marco Bellocchio’s antisemitism drama lays bare tyranny, bigotry and the abuse of power in the Catholic church. Read the full review
16
September 5
The harrowing events of the 1972 Munich Olympics are shown through the eyes of the ABC sports crew in a propulsive thriller filled with top-tier character acting.
15
Conclave
Ralph Fiennes is broodingly compelling as a cardinal caught up in murky Vatican intrigue around choosing the next pontiff. Read the full review
14
Crossing
Intelligent film from Levan Akin in which a Georgian woman and her young sidekick head to Istanbul in search of her estranged trans niece. Read the full review
13
Sleep
Gleeful Korean somnambulist psycho-chiller with Lee Sun-kyun as an actor struggling to control his night-time excursions. Read the full review
12
The Commandant’s Shadow
The son and grandson of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss bring healing to a death-camp survivor in Daniela Volker’s engrossing documentary. Read the full review
11
A Complete Unknown
Timothée Chalamet delivers the performance of a lifetime, playing a young Bob Dylan arriving in 60s New York City in James Mangold’s substantial music biopic.
***
10-1
10
Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell
Realist yet dreamlike exploration of midlife crisis and regret set in Vietnam is a wondrous meditation on faith and death. Read the full review
9
A Real Pain
Jesse Eisenberg is writer, director and co-star of this funny and emotionally affecting drama of two American cousins traveling through Poland, featuring a scene-stealing turn from Kieran Culkin. Read the full review
8
I Saw the TV Glow
Weirdly wonderful story of two misfits finding solace in a creepy TV show is set to be future classic. Read the full review
7
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
Johan Grimonprez’s fascinating documentary suggests that the US used jazz legend Louis Armstrong in a ‘cool war’ offensive to assassinate Congo’s leader Patrice Lumumba. Read the full review
6
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Exiled Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof’s arresting drama focused on the many troubles of his homeland is one of the most courageous pieces of cinema this year. Read the full review
5
Hard Truths
Marianne Jean-Baptiste gives one of the year’s most impactful performances as a hard-edged woman struggling with depression in Mike Leigh’s challenging, London-set drama. Read the full review
4
Anora
Sean Baker’s tragicomedy features Mikey Madison as an escort betrayed by a bratty oligarch’s son in a non-love story that offers a more realistic take on sex work than Pretty Woman. Read the full review
3
All We Imagine As Light
Payal Kapadia’s dreamlike and gentle modern Mumbai tale is an absorbing story of three nurses that is full of humanity. Read the full review
2
Nickel Boys
In his formally unconventional and undeniably affecting adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s 2019 reform school-set novel, director RaMell Ross makes a major transition from documentary to narrative. Read the full review
1
The Brutalist
Brady Corbet’s ambitious, thrilling epic, complete with intermission, stars an astonishing Adrien Brody as a Holocaust survivor seeking a new life in the US. Read the full review
