The best films of 2024 – all the votes

1. Kiss Wagon (Midhun Murali, India)
2. Girls Will Be Girls (Shuchi Talati, US)
3. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
4. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
5. A Traveler’s Needs (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea)
6. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, UK, France, US)
7. Village Rockstars 2 (Rima Das, Singapore, India)
8. About Dry Grasses (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey, France, Germany, Sweden, Qatar)
9. Aattam (Anand Ekarshi, India)
10. Devastated (Vidhvashta) (Ashish Avikunthak, Germany)

Critic and programmer, UK

1. Little Jaffna (Lawrence Valin, France)
2. U Are the Universe (Pavlo Ostrikov, Ukraine)
3. Better Man (Michael Gracey, Australia, China, France, United Kingdom, US)
4. To a Land Unknown (Mahdi Fleifel, UK, Greece, Denmark, Netherlands, Palestine, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Qatar)
5. Black Dog (Guan Hu, China)
6. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
7. Inside Out 2 (Kelsey Mann, US)
8. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, UK, France, US)
9. Zero (Jean Luc Herbulot, US, Eephus (Carson Lund, US)

In a pretty poor year for European arthouse film, the stand out films were those which played with genres, and turned to action or genre filmmaking to make high concept films. Even those who just missed my list, such as Almodovar’s Venice winner and Alex Garland’s amazing Civil War, fit into putting the action fast and centre.

1. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun, US, UK)
2. Close Your Eyes (Victor Erice, Spain, Argentina)
3. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
4. The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mahommad Rasoulof, Iran, Germany, France)
5. Sujo (Astrid Rondero, Fernanda Valadez, US, Mexico, France)
6. Chicken for Linda! (Linda veut du poulet!) (Chiara Malta, Sébastien Laudenbach, France, Italy)
7. Memoir of a Snail (Adam Elliot, Australia)
8. Flow (Gints Zilbalodis, Latvia, Belgium, France)
9. Challengers (Luca Guadagnino, US, Italy)
10. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)

As in most years, animation stands out as a boundless medium via which some of the most moving and insightful narratives are told.

Writer, film scholar and international film curator of South Asian cinema, UK

1. No Other Land (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, Palestine, Norway)
   From a Palestinian-Israeli collective, an exigent political work on Israel’s genocidal occupation of Gaza and the ongoing extermination of the Palestinian people. 
2. The Fable (Raam Reddy, India, US)
   A resplendent pictorial allegory on the hauntings of colonialism.
3. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
   Totally beatnik to its core.
4. The Taste of Things (Tran Anh Hung, France, Belgium)
   An intricate audio-visual thesis on rituals. 
5. The Adamant Girl (Kottukkaali) (P.S. Vinothraj, India)
   A discordant critique of gender traditions, superstition and caste all explored through the prism of the road movie.
6. Here (Bas Devos, Belgium)
   An intimate exploration of migratory dislocation.
7. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, UK, Poland, US)
   Terrifyingly revealing about what is happening in Palestine today but will we ever learn from history’s lessons?
8. Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve, US, Canada, UAE, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, Jordan, Gambia)
   A brilliantly realised visual feast.
9. Laapataa Ladies (Lost Ladies) (Kiran Rao, India)
   Dear Kiran Rao, please direct more films.
10. The Bikeriders (Jeff Nichols, US)
    Gets under the skin of a subculture with real verve.

Honorable mentions: CTRL (Vikramaditya Motwane), Rebel Ridge (Jeremy Saulnier), The Dead Don’t Hurt (Viggo Mortensen), Longlegs (Oz Perkins), Civil War (Alex Garland), Amar Singh Chamkila (Imtiaz Ali)

1. Ancestral Clouds Ancestral Claims (Denise Ferreira da Silva and Arjuna Neuman, Austria, Germany)
2. And How Miserable Is the Home of Evil (Saleh Kashefi, Switzerland)
3. Background (Khaled Abdulwahed, Germany)
4. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
5. History Is Written at Night (Alejandro Alonso, Cuba)
6. L’Homme-Vertige: Tales of a City (Malaury Eloi Paisley, France)
7. Listen to the Voices (Kouté vwa) (Maxime Jean-Baptiste, Belgium, French Guiana, France)
8. A Night We Held Between (Noor Abed, Palestine)
9. No Other Land (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, Palestine, Norway)
10. Still Free (Vadim Kostrov, Russia)

As in 2023 my list is dominated by documentary, hybrid and experimental films. These forms continue to reflect cinema’s aesthetic and political potential in the most imaginative and resourceful ways. Saleh Kashefi’s And How Miserable Is the Home of Evil (a 2023 premiere seen in 2024, and one of four films on my list made by filmmakers in exile) is emblematic: repurposing video footage taken from social media the film radically imagines the toppling of Iran’s supreme leader by popular uprising, all in seven minutes.

Critic and programmer, Canada

1. When the Light Breaks (Rúnar Rúnarsson, Iceland, Netherlands, Croatia, France)
2. Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes, Portugal, Italy, France)
3. Harvest (Athina Rachel Tsangari, UK, Germany, US, France, Greece)
4. Universal Language (Matthew Rankin, Canada)
5. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
6. The Girl with the Needle (Magnus von Horn, Denmark, Poland, Sweden)
7. A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg, US)
8. Rebel Ridge (Jeremy Saulnier, US)
9. Flow (Gints Zilbalodis, Latvia, Belgium, France)
10. To a Land Unknown (Mahdi Fleifel, UK, Greece, Denmark, Netherlands, Palestine, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Qatar)

Critic, lecturer and programmer, UK

1. At Averroès & Rosa Parks (Nicolas Philibert, France)
2. About Dry Grasses (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey, France, Germany, Sweden, Qatar)
3. I’m Still Here (Walter Salles, Brazil, France)
4. Henry Fonda for President (Alexander Horwath, Austria, Germany)
5. Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Quay Brothers, UK, Poland, Germany)
6. Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood, US)
7. Ernest Cole: Lost and Found (Raoul Peck, US)
8. Faruk (Asli Özge, France, Germany, Turkey)
9. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK, Spain)
10. Anora (Sean Baker, US)

In truth, my number one spot should probably also have included The Typewriter and Other Headaches (La Machine à écrire et autres sources de tracas), the third part of Nicolas Philibert’s marvellous triptych that began last year with On the Adamant; constricted by the poll’s regulations, I opted to nominate just the second part, and leave it at that so as to include nine other filmmakers. I might have found room for The Holdovers or Zone of Interest (both seen in early January) but for most people they featured in last year’s poll, so I left them both out. My first five choices (and The Typewriter…) I consider remarkably good; all the next five, while flawed in various ways, have much to commend them.

1. Fairytale (Skazka) (Alexander Sokurov, Russia, Belgium)
2. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Radu Jude, Romania, Luxembourg, France, Croatia, Switzerland, UK)
3. Kinds of Kindness (Yorgos Lanthimos, Ireland, United Kingdom, US, Greece)
4. Family Portrait (Lucy Kerr, US)
5. Good One (India Donaldson, US)
6. Close Your Eyes (Victor Erice, Spain, Argentina)
7. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun, US, UK)
8. The Devil’s Bath (Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala, Austria, Germany)
9. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Johan Grimonprez, Belgium, France, Netherlands)
10. Sasquatch Sunset (David & Nathan Zellner, US)

Reader in Film and Media Studies, King’s College London, UK

1. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
2. No Other Land (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, Palestine, Norway)
3. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke, China)
4. Direct Action (Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell, US, Canada)
5. Exergue — On Documenta 14 (Dimitris Athiridis, Greece)
6. The Shrouds (David Cronenberg, Canada, France)
7. Collective Monologue (Jessica Sarah Rinland, UK, Argentina)
8. By the Stream (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea)
9. Misericordia (Miséricorde) (Alain Guiraudie, France, Spain, Portugal)
10. Bogancloch (Ben Rivers, UK, Germany, Iceland)

1. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Radu Jude, Romania, Luxembourg, France, Croatia, Switzerland, UK)
2. The Taste of Things (Tran Anh Hung, France, Belgium)
3. Abiding Nowhere (Tsai Ming-liang, US, Taiwan)
4. Citizen Saint (Mokalake Tsmindani) (Tinatin Kajrishvili, Georgia)
5. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, UK, Poland, US)
6. Kidnapped (Marco Bellocchio, Italy, France, Germany)
7. American Fiction (Cord Jefferson, US)
8. Hit Man (Richard Linklater, US)
9. His Three Daughters (Azazel Jacobs, US)
10. Eight Postcards from Utopia (Radu Jude and Christian Ferencz-Flatz, Romania)

1. Collective Monologue (Jessica Sarah Rinland, UK, Argentina)

Lecturer and film critic, UK

1. Agent of Happiness (Arun Bhattarai, Dorottya Zurbó, Bhutan, Hungary)
2. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
3. Eureka (Lisandro Alonso, Argentina, France, Portugal)
4. Evil Does Not Exist (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Japan)
5. Exhuma (Jang Jae-hyun, South Korea)
6. Late Night with the Devil (Cameron Cairnes, Colin Cairnes, Australia, United Arab Emirates, US)
7. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, UK, US)
8. Only the River Flows (Wei Shujun, China)
9. Perfect Days (Wim Wenders, Japan, Germany)
10. Sky Peals (Moin Hussain, UK)

Writer and festival programmer, Belgium

1. The Beast (Bertrand Bonello, France, Canada)
2. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
3. Joker: Folie à Deux (Tod Phillips, US, Canada)
4. Longlegs (Oz Perkins, Canada, US)
5. Perfect Days (Wim Wenders, Japan, Germany)
6. Society of the Snow (La sociedad de la nieve) (J.A. Bayona, Spain)
7. Strange Darling (JT Mollner, US)
8. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, UK, France, US)
9. The Sweet East (Sean Price Williams, US)
10. Timestalker (Alice Lowe, UK)

My list is in alphabetical order. The horror genre continues to thrive, and I enjoyed all the horror films I saw this year, even the silly ones. Other films that might have made the cut if I hadn’t seen them too late for last year’s poll, or too early for this year’s: Ferrari, Godzilla Minus One, Hundreds of Beavers (comedy of the year, best seen with an audience!) and Roter Himmel.

1. A Desert (Joshua Erkman, US)
2. Else (Thibault Emin, Belgium, France)
3. Dead Mail (Joe DeBoer & Kyle McConaghy, US)
4. Delicate Arch (Matthew Warren, US)
5. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun, US, UK)
6. Things Will Be Different (Michael Felker, US)
7. Joker: Folie à Deux (Tod Phillips, US, Canada)
8. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller, Australia, US)
9. Only the River Flows (Wei Shujun, China)
10. Sister Midnight (Karan Kandhari, UK)

My tastes bias unapologetically towards genre-inflected titles, but this year the films that have most grabbed my attention have been scrappy independents that cross genres or defy ready categorisation, and trump their own received tropes with unruly ideas.

The two big-budget studio films that have made my list both, in different ways, seem to mark the end of the big-budget studio film, while foregrounding and undermining their own audience’s wish fulfilment fantasies: George Miller’s Mad Max mid-quel corners itself narratively (closing with nowhere to go but where we have already been), shifts focus entirely from franchise hero/dinosaur Max to the more forward-thinking Furiosa, and ambiguates itself with several endings which seem to deliver more viewer satisfaction the further they drift from ugly truth to unhinged myth; while Todd Phillips’ Joker sequel forensically cross-examines the events of the original film, deconstructs both itself and its more clownish fanbase, and keeps confronting viewers with their own (repeatedly thwarted) desire that the protagonist be a colourfully entertaining comic-book villain rather than the shabby, intellectually and mentally challenged murderer that he obviously is. Here cinematic fantasies are being checked by grubbier realities, and filmmakers are not afraid to frustrate, and perhaps reorient, their audience’s expectations.

Critic and host of Writers on Film podcast, UK

1. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross, US)
2. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
3. Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve, US, Canada, UAE, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, Jordan, Gambia)
4. Universal Language (Matthew Rankin, Canada)
5. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, UK, US)
6. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, UK, France, US)
7. The Brutalist (Brady Corbet, US, UK, Hungary)
8. Babygirl (Halina Reijn, Netherlands, US)
9. Xoftex (Noaz Deshe, France, Germany)
10. Joker: Folie à Deux (Tod Phillips, US, Canada)

It’s unlikely that 2024 will go down as a vintage year of film. From art house to blockbusters, we’ve had a lot of stuff that felt like it was treading water, and precious little that is addressing the world with any urgency. That could all change with a rush of films in the usually rich November/December release patch with the run up to the awards season. But there have been some gems to dig, some big swings. The one film I couldn’t quite squeeze into my list was Kevin Costner’s Horizon, despite my admiration for his ambition to bring back the big screen western. Mark my words, though, Horizon will ride again.

1. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, UK, France, US)
2. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, UK, Poland, US)
3. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, UK, US)
4. The Room Next Door (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain, US)
5. Perfect Days (Wim Wenders, Japan, Germany)
6. Priscilla (Sofia Coppola, US)
7. The Outrun (The Outrun (Nora Fingscheidt, UK, Germany)
8. Layla (Amrou Al-Kadhi, UK)
9. The Holdovers (Alexander Payne, US)
10. Civil War (Alex Garland, US, UK, Finland)

1. Architecton (Viktor Kossakovsky, Germany, France, US, French Polynesia)
2. No Other Land (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, Palestine, Norway)
3. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Johan Grimonprez, Belgium, France, Netherlands)
4. Milisuthando (Milisuthando Bongela, South Africa, Colombia)
5. The End (Joshua Oppenheimer, Denmark, Ireland, Germany, Italy, UK, US, Sweden)
6. The Wild Robot (Chris Sanders, US, Japan)
7. Being John Smith (John Smith, UK)
8. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross, US)
9. Grand Theft Hamlet (Pinny Grylls, Sam Crane, UK)
10. Apple Cider Vinegar (Sofie Benoot, Belgium, Netherlands)

Writer & Film Programmer, UK , UK

1. No Other Land (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, Palestine, Norway)
2. Four Daughters (Les filles d’Olfa) (Kaouther Ben Hania, France, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Tunisia, Cyprus)
3. Three Promises (Yousef Srouji, Palestine)
4. Union (Stephen Maing, Brett Story, US)
5. Kneecap (Rich Peppiat, Ireland, UK)
6. Blitz (Steve McQueen, UK, France, US)
7. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
8. May December (Todd Haynes, US)
9. Look into My Eyes (Lana Wilson, US)
10. The Outrun (The Outrun (Nora Fingscheidt, UK, Germany)

It is hard to measure the past year in film without thinking about the past year of genocide in Gaza. These are the films that have spoken to me, put two fingers up to colonialist power, probed the collective unconscious, or at the very least aired its dirty laundry. Some of them have moved me to cry in the dark, and perhaps that is where I have found the deepest connection.

1. The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mahommad Rasoulof, Iran, Germany, France)
2. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
3. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
4. Girls Will Be Girls (Shuchi Talati, US)
5. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, UK, France, US)
6. I’m Still Here (Walter Salles, Brazil, France)
7. Kill (Nikhil Nagesh Bhat, India)
8. Only the River Flows (Wei Shujun, China)
9. Emilia Pérez (Jacques Audiard, France, Belgium)
10. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)

This year has been special in so many ways. It is heartening to see mainstream and arthouse Indian films made by Indian filmmakers getting global recognition. If the momentum continues, India may well join the likes of South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan as a country that produces world-class cinema. But it is solely up to Indian filmmakers, producers and actors to keep up that momentum by valuing creativity over commerce. 

After Barbie last year, women’s stories from all over the world are finding loving acceptance – a great sign of cinema of a sincere quality transcending all borders, hyperbolically speaking. 

May the forthcoming years see leaps of progress on both the aforementioned fronts!

Programmer and critic, Canada

1. Close Your Eyes (Victor Erice, Spain, Argentina)
2. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
3. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
4. Janet Planet (Annie Baker, US, UK)
5. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
6. Who by Fire (Philippe Lesage, Canada, France)
7. The Brutalist (Brady Corbet, US, UK, Hungary)
8. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun, US, UK)
9. Challengers (Luca Guadagnino, US, Italy)
10. Good One (India Donaldson, US)

I saw Erice’s sublime Close Your Eyes the first week in January and nothing has come close to it, but in their very different ways all of the above stoked the embers of my cinephilia… As did Coppola’s crazy Megalopolis, the film which spurred the most interesting conversations of the year – and interviewing Coppola for this magazine was certainly my personal highlight.

Host of the 90 Minutes or Less Film Fest Podcast and Picturehouse Cinemas’ The Love of Cinema Podcast , UK

1. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
2. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK, Spain)
3. Pavements (Alex Ross Perry, US)
4. Conclave (Edward Berger, UK, US)
5. Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve, US, Canada, UAE, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, Jordan, Gambia)
6. My Old Ass (Megan Park, UK, Canada, US)
7. Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes, Portugal, Italy, France)
8. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller, Australia, US)
9. His Three Daughters (Azazel Jacobs, US)
10. The Wild Robot (Chris Sanders, US, Japan)

Honorable mention for The Beekeeper (David Ayer) which was probably the most fun I’ve had at the cinema this year, with a very game Saturday night audience at the local multiplex!

1. About Dry Grasses (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey, France, Germany, Sweden, Qatar)
2. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
3. The Taste of Things (Tran Anh Hung, France, Belgium)
4. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke, China)
5. A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg, US)
6. Henry Fonda for President (Alexander Horwath, Austria, Germany)
7. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
8. Look into My Eyes (Lana Wilson, US)
9. Eephus (Carson Lund, US)
10. No Other Land (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, Palestine, Norway)

Associate editor, Sight and Sound, UK

1. Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes, Portugal, Italy, France)
2. Stranger Eyes (Mò shì lù) (Siew Hua Yeo, Singapore, Taiwan, France, US)
3. Maldoror (Fabrice du Weltz, Belgium, France)
4. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
5. Henry Fonda for President (Alexander Horwath, Austria, Germany)
6. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke, China)
7. Misericordia (Miséricorde) (Alain Guiraudie, France, Spain, Portugal)
8. Direct Action (Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell, US, Canada)
9. The Other Way Around (Volveréis) (Jonas Trueba, Spain, France)
10. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)

Critic, academic and curator, UK

1. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
2. Showing Up (Kelly Reichardt, US)
3. The Stimming Pool (The Neurocultures Collective – Sam Chown Ahern, Georgia Bradburn, Benjamin Brown, Robin Elliott-Knowles, Lucy Walker – and Steven Eastwood, UK)
4. Queer (Luca Guadgnino, Italy, US)
5. Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola, US)
6. Days of Happiness (Chloé Robichaud, Canada)
7. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
8. Crossing (Levan Akin, Sweden, Denmark, France, Turkey, Georgia)
9. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, UK, France, US)
10. Terrifier 3 (Damien Leone, US)

Annus horribilis does not quite cut it for 2024. It has been the worst year of my life in personal, national, and global terms. Yet it has also been an annus mirabilis in so many ways, some of which are connected to the films I have chosen. These are ten films that have given me some respite in otherwise very dark times, in how they spoke to me directly, and the experiences of watching them alone or in the best cases with the people I love. Someone once told me that criticism should strive to be objective. I vehemently disagree.

Critic and programmer, US

1. By the Stream (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea)
2. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke, China)
3. Exergue — On Documenta 14 (Dimitris Athiridis, Greece)
4. Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes, Portugal, Italy, France)
5. Henry Fonda for President (Alexander Horwath, Austria, Germany)
6. It’s Not Me (Leos Carax, France)
7. Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola, US)
8. Misericordia (Miséricorde) (Alain Guiraudie, France, Spain, Portugal)
9. Scénarios (Jean-Luc Godard, France, Japan)
10. The Shrouds (David Cronenberg, Canada, France)

Film and music writer, UK

1. Emilia Pérez (Jacques Audiard, France, Belgium)
2. The Girl with the Needle (Magnus von Horn, Denmark, Poland, Sweden)
3. Flathead (Jaydon Martin, Australia)
4. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, UK, France, US)
5. Peacock (Bernhard Wenger, Austria, Germany)
6. The Devil’s Bath (Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala, Austria, Germany)
7. A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg, US)
8. Family Therapy (Sonja Prosenc, Italy, Croatia, Norway, Serbia, Slovenia)
9. Universal Language (Matthew Rankin, Canada)
10. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK, Spain)

Getting the list down to ten is hard most years, and pretty impossible in a year which also included Dahomey, The Balconettes, Kill The Jockey, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, Sasquatch Sunset, The Brutalist, Sister Midnight, Loveable, The Room Next Door, Janet Planet etc etc. A terrible 12 months for global politics but a very rich period for cinema.

Cinema curator, Barbican, UK

1. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun, US, UK)
2. No Other Land (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, Palestine, Norway)
3. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, UK, France, US)
4. Crossing (Levan Akin, Sweden, Denmark, France, Turkey, Georgia)
5. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
6. A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg, US)
7. Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story (Michael Mabbott, Lucah Rosenberg-Lee, Canada)
8. About Dry Grasses (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey, France, Germany, Sweden, Qatar)
9. The Return of the Projectionist (Orkhan Aghazadeh, Germany, France)
10. Emilia Pérez (Jacques Audiard, France, Belgium)

Unsurprisingly, many of the best films of the year embrace resistance and disruption. In a year when trans lives in the UK and beyond have been further threatened and policed, it has been particularly rewarding to see superb works focusing on queerness and gender. I Saw the TV Glow, Crossing, Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story and Emilia Pérez couldn’t be more different in tone and vision, but each exploded onto cinema screens, offering wildly diverse and exciting depictions of queer people, flaws and all, from around the world.

1. All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh, UK, US)
2. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
3. The Room Next Door (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain, US)
4. Reas (Lola Arias, Argentina, Switzerland, Germany)
5. Marco, the Invented Truth (Marco, la verdad inventada) (Jon Garaño and Aitor Arregi, Spain)
6. Janet Planet (Annie Baker, US, UK)
7. Olivia and the Clouds (Tomás Pichardo-Espaillat, Dominican Republic)
8. Who Do I Belong To (Miriam Joobeur, Tunisia, France, Canada, Norway, Qatar, Saudi Arabia)
9. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
10. The Other Way Around (Volveréis) (Jonas Trueba, Spain, France)

I saw All of Us Strangers for the first time but a few days after handing in my list of films for 2023 – so it hovered between years, effectively dominating both. I have seen it twice since and its magic never ceases to beguile and move me: a film about the ways in which the past shapes our present rooted in emotionally rich performances and a remarkable cinematic language that feels both real and irreal. 

I loved Anora for its witty, muscular take on the Cinderella myth: a film that refuses to take the easy options and juggles its tonal shift with confidence and a central performance by Mikey Madison that is nothing short of revelatory. 

All We Imagine as Light felt both intimate and epic – a film of great delicacy and beauty. 

Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door gives space to women talking – about art, life, fears, literature; it is made with an attention to style and colour that is exquisite, and its array of cinematic and literary references – including Roger Lewis’s Erotic Vagrancy, one of my favourite books of the year – elegantly intersect with the narrative. 

Lola Arias’s creative documentary Reas is a prison musical like no other – fun fierce, tender and compassionate: a group of former prisoners reenact past experiences from their time inside as a mode of empowerment. Art can and does make a difference and Lola Arias and her cast and crew demonstrates this through every frame of this hugely enjoyable film. 

Marco, the Invented Truth provides a take on the case of Enric Marco – the subject of Javier Cercas’s novel The Imposter, who invented a past for himself as a concentration camp survivor. Basque filmmakers Jon Garaño and Aitor Arregi make this a film about fiction, artifice, manipulation, the instability of truth and cinema itself – and there’s a terrific central performance by Eduard Fernández. 

Three first features that impressed make my list: Annie Baker’s debut coming of age feature Janet Planet wowed me with its lean economy. A droll drama set in 1991, it captures a complicated mother-daughter relationship from the perspective of a child who often appears more grown up than her insecure mother. There was inventive animation in Tomás Pichardo Espaillat’s Olivia and the Clouds – a bold, strange and inventive treatment of loves past and present and the first animation feature made in the Dominican Republic. Meryam Joobeur’s Who do I belong to? captures the pain of a Tunisian family dealing with the aftermath of two sons disappearing to fight with Isis – this is a story told decisively form the women’s point of view juggling raw intensity and elements of magic realism. 

And my comedy of the year was Jonás Trueba’s The Other Way Around (Volveréis) – a knowing inventive feature about breaking up the good way that provided 114 minutes of wry cinematic joy.

Film critic and researcher, UK

1. Saturn Return (Segundo Premio) (Iñaki Lacuesta, Spain, France)
2. The Room Next Door (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain, US)
3. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, UK, France, US)
4. The Other Way Around (Volveréis) (Jonas Trueba, Spain, France)
5. The Blue Star (La estrella azul) (Javier Macipe, Argentina, Spain)
6. The Wailing (El llanto) (Pedro Martín-Calero, Spain, Argentina, France)
7. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (Tim Burton, US, France)
8. Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve, US, Canada, UAE, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, Jordan, Gambia)
9. Heretic (Scott Beck, Bryan Woods, US, Canada)
10. Baby Reindeer (Richard Gadd, UK, US)

Really enjoying the pervading 90s nostalgia! And what a brilliant year for Spanish cinema…

1. Armand (Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel, Norway, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, UK)
2. Close Your Eyes (Victor Erice, Spain, Argentina)
3. Desert of Namibia (Yoko Yamanaka, Japan)
4. Extremely Short (Koji Yamamura, Japan)
5. Flow (Gints Zilbalodis, Latvia, Belgium, France)
6. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun, US, UK)
7. Olivia and the Clouds (Tomás Pichardo-Espaillat, Dominican Republic)
8. Rumours (Guy Maddin, Canada, Germany, Hungary, US)
9. Three Birds (Zarja Menart, UK)
10. Universal Language (Matthew Rankin, Canada)

I want to highlight the two animated features in my list, Flow and Olivia and the Clouds. The directors are respectively from Latvia and the Dominican Republic, two countries with small animation scenes, and neither director took a conventional industry path to directing. They’ve ended up creating two startling films with their own language, which look like little else in animation today. Everyone should watch them.

Film editor, The Skinny magazine, UK

1. Monster (Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan)
2. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
3. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
4. Crossing (Levan Akin, Sweden, Denmark, France, Turkey, Georgia)
5. Problemista (Julio Torres, US)
6. Red Rooms (Pascal Plante, Canada)
7. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
8. Challengers (Luca Guadagnino, US, Italy)
9. Between the Temples (Nathan Silver, US)
10. Evil Does Not Exist (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Japan)

My top ten is filled with modest, humanistic works, but that doesn’t quite characterise 2024, which for me was a year of filmmakers taking enormous swings and just about pulling them off. I’m thinking of films like The Substance, Emilia Pérez, Megalopolis, Furiosa, Longlegs, Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, Hoard, The Beast, I Saw the TV Glow, Love Lies Bleeding. All are messy and inventive, and very few people seemed to agree on them. Cinema this year was all the richer for these mad visions.

Film critic/progammer , Egypt

1. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
2. Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes, Portugal, Italy, France)
3. Queer (Luca Guadgnino, Italy, US)
4. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Johan Grimonprez, Belgium, France, Netherlands)
5. No Other Land (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, Palestine, Norway)
6. A Traveler’s Needs (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea)
7. To a Land Unknown (Mahdi Fleifel, UK, Greece, Denmark, Netherlands, Palestine, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Qatar)
8. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK, Spain)
9. Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra, France, Portugal, Spain)
10. April (Déa Kulumbegashvili, France, Italy, Georgia)

It hasn’t been a vintage year for cinema with filmmakers struggling to engage with a bleak reality ushered by the Middle East conflict. The best films of the year — No Other Land, To a Land Unknown, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat — succeeded in confronting the moral apathy of the world at large with grace, valor, and remarkable perceptiveness that pinpoint to urgency and importance of political cinema. The best of the rest — All What We Imagine as Light, Grand Tour, Queer, Hard Truths — offered much-needed solace from the dehumanising news, reminding us that maybe, just maybe, we’re still capable of empathy.

Film critic and columnist, Ireland

1. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
2. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Radu Jude, Romania, Luxembourg, France, Croatia, Switzerland, UK)
3. The Iron Claw (Sean Durkin, UK, US)
4. The Beast (Bertrand Bonello, France, Canada)
5. Trap (M. Night Shyamalan, US, Canada)
6. Janet Planet (Annie Baker, US, UK)
7. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
8. Evil Does Not Exist (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Japan)
9. A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg, US)
10. Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola, US)

The energy and anarchy of Anora, The Beast and Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World redeemed a disappointing few months at the cinema for me. Annie Baker’s Janet Planet was a quiet beauty, that promises greater things in the future. I’m excited to see what she does next.

Assistant editor, Sight and Sound, UK

1. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
2. By the Stream (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea)
3. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke, China)
4. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
5. Hayao Miyazaki and the Heron (Arakawa Kaku, Japan)
6. Here (Bas Devos, Belgium)
7. No Other Land (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, Palestine, Norway)
8. On Falling (Laura Carreira, UK, Portugal)
9. Shambhala (Min Bahadur Bham, Nepal, France, Norway, Hong Kong, Turkey, Taiwan, US, Qatar)
10. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross, US)

Film critic, Brazil, Brazil

1. The Shrouds (David Cronenberg, Canada, France)
2. By the Stream (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea)
3. The Temple Woods Gang (Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche, France)
4. Misericordia (Miséricorde) (Alain Guiraudie, France, Spain, Portugal)
5. The Girls are Alright (Itsaso Arana, Spain)
6. The Other Way Around (Volveréis) (Jonas Trueba, Spain, France)
7. Henry Fonda for President (Alexander Horwath, Austria, Germany)
8. Don’t You Let Me Go (Ana Guevara, Leticia Jorge, Uruguay)
9. Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (Soi Cheang, Mexico, Germany)
10. Trap (M. Night Shyamalan, US, Canada)

Film writer and essayist, US

1. Samsara (Lois Patiño, Spain)
2. April (Déa Kulumbegashvili, France, Italy, Georgia)
3. Eureka (Lisandro Alonso, Argentina, France, Portugal)
4. Kubi (Takeshi Kitano, Japan)
5. A Stone’s Throw (Razan Al-Salah, Mexico)
6. Abiding Nowhere (Tsai Ming-liang, US, Taiwan)
7. The Old Oak (Ken Loach, UK, France, Belgium)
8. Music (Angela Schanelec, Germany)
9. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
10. In Our Day (Hong Sangsoo, South Korea)

Take with a grain of salt. Still much to see before the year closes.

1. Listening All Night to the Rain (John Akomfrah, UK)
2. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
3. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
4. The Periphery of the Base (Zhao Tao, China)
5. The Brutalist (Brady Corbet, US, UK, Hungary)
6. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke, China)
7. Man Number 4 (Miranda Pennell, UK)
8. Misericordia (Miséricorde) (Alain Guiraudie, France, Spain, Portugal)
9. Direct Action (Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell, US, Canada)
10. Like a Sick Yellow (Si e verdhë e sëmurë) (Norika Sefa, Kosovo)

I stand by these ten film works, but it would be remiss of me not to mention that the most fun I had in a cinema this year was watching Lee Isaac Chung’s Twisters, in 4DX.

1. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
2. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
3. The Brutalist (Brady Corbet, US, UK, Hungary)
4. Black Dog (Guan Hu, China)
5. Nosferatu (Robert Eggers, Czech Republic, US)
6. September 5 (Tim Fehlbaum, Germany)
7. Green Border (Agnieszka Holland, Poland, France, Czech Republic, Belgium, US, Germany, Turkey)
8. A Real Pain (Jesse Eisenberg, Poland, US)
9. Inside Out 2 (Kelsey Mann, US)
10. No Other Land (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, Palestine, Norway)

1. The People’s Joker (Vera Drew, US)
2. All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh, UK, US)
3. Showing Up (Kelly Reichardt, US)
4. A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg, US)
5. Femme (Sam H Freeman, Ng Choon Ping, UK)
6. Crossing (Levan Akin, Sweden, Denmark, France, Turkey, Georgia)
7. Nimona (Troy Quane and Nick Bruno, US, UK, France)
8. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
9. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, UK, US)
10. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun, US, UK)

1. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
2. Flow (Gints Zilbalodis, Latvia, Belgium, France)
3. High and Low: John Galliano (Kevin Macdonald, UK, US, France)
4. Hoard (Luna Carmoon, UK)
5. Kneecap (Rich Peppiat, Ireland, UK)
6. Late Night with the Devil (Cameron Cairnes, Colin Cairnes, Australia, United Arab Emirates, US)
7. Makamisa: Phantasm of Revenge (Khavn de la Cruz, Philippines, Germany)
8. Scala!!! (Jane Giles and Ali Catterall, UK)
9. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, UK, France, US)
10. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, UK, Poland, US)

What a great year! Listed A-Z, these are my big screen choices, all of them beautiful films in love with their art. Honourable mentions go to Longlegs, Maxxine, Tiger Stripes and Civil War. Having spent the last 12 months touring the UK and internationally with SCALA!!! I’ve seen an incredible range of venues and audiences, with festivals, film societies and rep programmers in particular proving the vitality of cinema and community.

1. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, UK, Poland, US)
2. The Outrun (The Outrun (Nora Fingscheidt, UK, Germany)
3. All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh, UK, US)
4. Small Things Like These (Tim Mielants, Ireland, Belgium, US)
5. That They May Face the Rising Sun (Pat Collins, Ireland, UK)
6. Perfect Days (Wim Wenders, Japan, Germany)
7. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, UK, France, US)
8. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
9. A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things (Mark Cousins, UK)
10. American Fiction (Cord Jefferson, US)

Freelance critic and film programmer, Germany

1. Crossing (Levan Akin, Sweden, Denmark, France, Turkey, Georgia)
2. A Fidai Film (Kamal Aljafari, Germany, Qatar, Brazil, France)
3. Sparrow in the Chimney (Ramon Zürcher, Switzerland)
4. Kinds of Kindness (Yorgos Lanthimos, Ireland, United Kingdom, US, Greece)
5. Holy Electricity (Tato Kotetishvili, Georgia, Netherlands)
6. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
7. Flathead (Jaydon Martin, Australia)
8. New Dawn Fades (Yeni Safak Solarken) (Gürcan Keltek, Turkey, Italy, Germany, Norway, Netherlands)
9. At the Door of the House Who Will Come Knocking (Maja Novaković, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina)
10. Animalia Paradoxa (Niles Atallah, Chile)

And in shorts: Like a Sick Yellow (Norika Sefa).

1. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK, Spain)
2. The Taste of Things (Tran Anh Hung, France, Belgium)
3. The Holdovers (Alexander Payne, US)
4. Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood, US)
5. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun, US, UK)
6. Queer (Luca Guadgnino, Italy, US)
7. Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve, US, Canada, UAE, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, Jordan, Gambia)
8. Challengers (Luca Guadagnino, US, Italy)
9. Origin (Ava DuVernay, US)
10. Memory (Michel Franco, Mexico, US)

1. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross, US)
2. Janet Planet (Annie Baker, US, UK)
3. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
4. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK, Spain)
5. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (Rungano Nyoni, Zambia, UK, Ireland)
6. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
7. Daughters (Natalie Rae, Angela Patton, US)
8. Kneecap (Rich Peppiat, Ireland, UK)
9. Union (Stephen Maing, Brett Story, US)
10. Challengers (Luca Guadagnino, US, Italy)

After a phase of preferring novels to movies, or at least finding them easier to get lost in, the titles above grabbed me by the shoulders, pushed me back into my cinema seat and declared: “No you don’t.”

1. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, UK, France, US)
2. Monster (Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan)
3. There’s Still Tomorrow (C’è ancora domani) (Paola Cortellesi, Italy)
4. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
5. Longlegs (Oz Perkins, Canada, US)
6. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, UK, US)
7. The Count of Monte-Cristo (Alexandre de La Patellière, Matthieu Delaporte, France, Belgium)
8. Emilia Pérez (Jacques Audiard, France, Belgium)
9. Challengers (Luca Guadagnino, US, Italy)
10. The Room Next Door (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain, US)

While it lacked the exceptional pivot point of a Barbenheimer summer experienced the previous year, 2024 has continued to witness an outpouring of talent that feels like it’s buoyed by energy pent up in the pandemic years — especially when you consider a lot of the brilliant films released right at the end of 2023 and more widely available this year, among which Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers would have vied for my top spot if it wasn’t in the December limbo-land, lest that gem be forgotten by an accident of timing.

Film critic and writer, US

1. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
2. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
3. The Room Next Door (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain, US)
4. Green Border (Agnieszka Holland, Poland, France, Czech Republic, Belgium, US, Germany, Turkey)
5. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK, Spain)
6. The Shrouds (David Cronenberg, Canada, France)
7. The Brutalist (Brady Corbet, US, UK, Hungary)
8. Conclave (Edward Berger, UK, US)
9. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
10. Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola, US)

Anora, Sean Baker’s finest film yet, a tour de force of wildly varying moods that shifts back and forth between the hilarious and the scary, the scary and the absurd, sometimes containing all at once. Boasting three brilliant even uncanny performances by Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn and Yura Borisov, Anora culminates in a knockout finale that serves as catharsis for all the conflicted and unexpressed emotions that have preceded.

1. American Star (Gonzalo López-Gallego, United Kingdom, Spain)
2. The Beast (Bertrand Bonello, France, Canada)
3. The Book of Clarence (Jeymes Samuel, UK)
4. Civil War (Alex Garland, US, UK, Finland)
5. Ferrari (Michael Mann, US, UK, Italy, Saudi Arabia)
6. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller, Australia, US)
7. Hollywoodgate (Ibrahim Nash’at, US, Germany)
8. Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola, US)
9. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Johan Grimonprez, Belgium, France, Netherlands)
10. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, UK, Poland, US)

These and other good films, all sluiced into an over-supplied sump of circulating product along with our efforts to talk about them, while genocides and climate collapse and political degeneracy all intensify anyway. At some point the limits of cultural activism compared to the other kinds will have to be examined.

1. The Holdovers (Alexander Payne, US)
2. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, UK, Poland, US)
3. All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh, UK, US)
4. Crossing (Levan Akin, Sweden, Denmark, France, Turkey, Georgia)
5. Small Things Like These (Tim Mielants, Ireland, Belgium, US)

1. No Other Land (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, Palestine, Norway)
2. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Johan Grimonprez, Belgium, France, Netherlands)
3. The Goldman Case (Cédric Kahn, France)
4. Intercepted (Oksana Karpovych, Canada, France, Ukraine)
5. ***** (Arthur Jafa, US)
6. Henry Fonda for President (Alexander Horwath, Austria, Germany)
7. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
8. My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow (Julia Loktev, US)
9. TWST-Things We Said Today (Andrei Ujică, France, Romania)
10. Civil War (Alex Garland, US, UK, Finland)

That’s seven documentaries (nine if you count Arthur Jafa’s Taxi Driver revision ***** and Alex Garland’s thought-experiment Civil War), plus Cédric Kahn’s docudrama The Goldman Case. As Ernie Kovacs used to sign off: “It’s been real.”

1. Close Your Eyes (Victor Erice, Spain, Argentina)
2. Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger (David Hinton, UK)
3. The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, US)
4. Civil War (Alex Garland, US, UK, Finland)
5. Twisters (Lee Isaac Chung, Japan, US)
6. The Beast (Bertrand Bonello, France, Canada)
7. Hit Man (Richard Linklater, US)
8. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
9. All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh, UK, US)
10. American Fiction (Cord Jefferson, US)

I’m not sure I see a pattern in it (yet), but it has been a year of very interesting and challenging films. Erice’s long-awaited Close your Eyes I found beguiling and cumulatively very moving, an elegiac reflection on a life spent making and watching films, but also on approaching oblivion. 

David Hinton’s Made in England, presented by (and emanating from) Scorsese and informed by Thelma Schoonmaker’s wonderfully delicate editing, drew itself together into something profound, a stirring tribute to and re-presentation of another of cinema’s great collaborations (like that of Scorsese and Schoonmaker). The taste and tact of its choices is marvellous. 

Ali Abbasi was a new discovery, disturbing, humane and gloriously unpredictable: I watched the magnificently original Border, then the harrowing Holy Spider before being much struck by The Apprentice and its terrible, suggestive understanding of the deformations of character. 

Alex Garland and Lee Isaac Chung showed there can still be intelligence and sensitivity – and genuine, thrilling tension – in big Hollywood movies; while Linklater’s genre-bending, crowd-pleasing but finally quite disturbing black comedy tested the popular love affair with murder to the limit.

 Bonello’s The Beast gives a magnificently idiosyncratic and beautiful science-fiction spin to Henry James’s intense tale of unfulfilment The Beast in the Jungle, with an extravagance that somehow works because of Léa Seydoux’s commitment. 

Rohrwacher’s delightful confection about rag-tag Etruscan grave robbers seemed to me on first blush more whimsical and slightly less seriously surprising than her wonderful Happy as Lazzaro (2018), but will doubtless develop depths on rewatching. 

Andrew Haigh struck a resonant chord of melancholy and loss in his tender, beautifully acted fantasy – which makes a pair with Céline Sciamma’s perfect 2021 Petite Maman. 

Cord Jefferson’s debut with American Fiction gave a rich, gentle, intelligent, rueful pleasure which was extremely satisfying.

1. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
2. All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh, UK, US)
3. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
4. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
5. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
6. Bird (Andrea Arnold, UK, France, US)
7. Robot Dreams (Pablo Berger, Spain, France)
8. I’m Not Everything I Want to Be (Jeste nejsem, kým chci být) (Klára Tasovská, Georgia)
9. Perfect Days (Wim Wenders, Japan, Germany)
10. Crossing (Levan Akin, Sweden, Denmark, France, Turkey, Georgia)

Chief film critic for The Observer; critic for Screen International, UK

1. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross, US)
2. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
3. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
4. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Johan Grimonprez, Belgium, France, Netherlands)
5. Vermiglio (Maura Delpero, Italy, France, Belgium)
6. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
7. Santosh (Sandhya Suri, UK, Germany, India, France)
8. Black Dog (Guan Hu, China)
9. I’m Still Here (Walter Salles, Brazil, France)
10. Here (Bas Devos, Belgium)

I couldn’t include it on my list as there isn’t a definitive version of the film but I also wanted to mention Gary Hustwit’s generative documentary Eno as one of the most innovative and exhilarating viewing experiences of the year.

1. Drama 1882 (Wael Shawky, Egypt)
2. No Exorcism Film (Komtouch Napattaloong, Thailand)
3. The Beast (Bertrand Bonello, France, Canada)
4. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, UK, Poland, US)
5. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
6. Only the River Flows (Wei Shujun, China)
7. The White Stone (Xin Liu, China)
8. Bliss Point (Gerard Ortín Castellví, Italy, UK, Spain)
9. The Owl, The Travellers and The Cement Drain (Robert Zhao Renhui, Singapore)
10. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)

1. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
2. About Dry Grasses (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey, France, Germany, Sweden, Qatar)
3. It’s Not Me (Leos Carax, France)
4. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross, US)
5. At Averroès & Rosa Parks (Nicolas Philibert, France)
6. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke, China)
7. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
8. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
9. Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes, Portugal, Italy, France)
10. Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Quay Brothers, UK, Poland, Germany)

Please regard the first eight choices as roughly equal, although, in terms of personal affection, La Chimera stands out. I feel like I’m pining all the time for some sort of Eric Rohmeresque element that’s been missing from cinema this year. I guess you can’t do the quietly glorious when the world as we’ve known it is falling apart.

1. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Radu Jude, Romania, Luxembourg, France, Croatia, Switzerland, UK)
2. Sasquatch Sunset (David & Nathan Zellner, US)
3. The Waste Land (Chris Teerink, Netherlands)
4. Terrestrial Verses (Alireza Khatami, Ali Asgari, Iran)
5. Intercepted (Oksana Karpovych, Canada, France, Ukraine)
6. The Wrong Movie (Keren Cytter, US)
7. Anselm (Wim Wenders, Germany)
8. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, UK, US)

Film historian and reviewer, UK

1. Firebrand (Karin Ainouz, UK, US)
2. How to Make Millions before Grandma Dies (Pat Boonnitipat, Thailand)
3. The Boy and the Heron (Hayao Miyazaki, Japan)
4. The Holdovers (Alexander Payne, US)
5. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, UK, Poland, US)
6. Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos, Ireland, UK, US)
7. Maestro (Bradley Cooper, US)
8. Much Ado About Dying (Simon Chambers, UK, Ireland)
9. Longlegs (Oz Perkins, Canada, US)
10. Sing Sing (Greg Kwedar, US)

Some veteran directors disappointed — Coppola with his disastrous Megalopolis, to look no further — but others excelled themselves, such as Miyazaki, who showed with The Boy and the Heron that he had lost nothing of his startling originality and creativity. With Poor Things Yorgos Lanthimos proved himself as outrageously uninhibited as ever. After the misjudgement of Downsizing, The Holdovers found Alexander Payne back on form and then some; while films from newcomers such as Karin Ainouz (with Firebrand, his first English-language movie) and Pat Boonnitipat (with How to Make Millions… his first feature film) — offered striking promise for the future.

1. Kidnapped (Marco Bellocchio, Italy, France, Germany)
2. Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos, Ireland, UK, US)
3. Critical Zone (Ali Ahmadzadeh, Iran, Germany)
4. Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes (Sam Pollard, Ben Shapiro, US)
5. City of Poets (Sara Rajaei, Netherlands)
6. Othelo, o Grande (Lucas H. Rossi, Brazil)
7. Close Your Eyes (Victor Erice, Spain, Argentina)
8. Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger (David Hinton, UK)
9. The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mahommad Rasoulof, Iran, Germany, France)
10. The Soldier’s Lagoon (La Laguna del Soldado) (Pablo Alvarez-Mesa, Canada, Colombia)

1. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross, US)
2. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK, Spain)
3. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Radu Jude, Romania, Luxembourg, France, Croatia, Switzerland, UK)
4. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun, US, UK)
5. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
6. Janet Planet (Annie Baker, US, UK)
7. Evil Does Not Exist (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Japan)
8. Last Summer (Catherine Breillat, France)
9. A Traveler’s Needs (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea)
10. Good One (India Donaldson, US)

There was a distinct feeling of helplessness and outrage in the best films I saw over the past year, whether that manifested as screams into the void (Leigh, Schoenbrun), apt cynicism (Jude, Breillat), or surreal quietude (Hamaguchi). In most of these films, the good fight is fought to the bitter end, with little more than a philosophical stalemate (Donaldson, Diop) or endless, recurring injustice (Ross) to show for our historical and personal scars.

1. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross, US)
2. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (Rungano Nyoni, Zambia, UK, Ireland)
3. Queer (Luca Guadgnino, Italy, US)
4. Green Border (Agnieszka Holland, Poland, France, Czech Republic, Belgium, US, Germany, Turkey)
5. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, UK, US)
6. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller, Australia, US)
7. Daughters (Natalie Rae, Angela Patton, US)
8. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK, Spain)
9. Girls Will Be Girls (Shuchi Talati, US)
10. Blink Twice (Zoe Kravitz, Mexico, US)

Cinema provided some respite from a near-dystopian news cycle this year, but my list largely consists of weightier topics. They are 10 films with entirely different approaches and subjects, but whether it’s the patriarchy, mental illness, the migrant crisis, or abuse, they all seemed able to take the worst of the world’s pain and turn it into something beautiful.

1. Evil Does Not Exist (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Japan)
2. Flow (Gints Zilbalodis, Latvia, Belgium, France)
3. God Save Texas: Hometown Prison (Richard Linklater, US)
4. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun, US, UK)
5. Janet Planet (Annie Baker, US, UK)
6. Look Back (Rukku Bakku) (Oshiyama Kiyotaka, Japan, US)
7. Monster (Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan)
8. Olivia and the Clouds (Tomás Pichardo-Espaillat, Dominican Republic)
9. The Colours Within (Yamada Naoko, Japan)
10. The Iron Claw (Sean Durkin, UK, US)

Filmmaker, researcher, Switzerland

1. No Other Land (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, Palestine, Norway)
2. Youth (Hard Times) (Wang Bing, France, Netherlands, Luxembourg)
3. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke, China)
4. Universal Language (Matthew Rankin, Canada)
5. By the Stream (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea)
6. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, UK, France, US)
7. Hit Man (Richard Linklater, US)
8. Invention (Courtney Stephens, US)
9. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
10. Through the Graves the Wind is Blowing (Travis Wilkerson, US)

1. The Beast (Bertrand Bonello, France, Canada)
2. Last Summer (Catherine Breillat, France)
3. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Radu Jude, Romania, Luxembourg, France, Croatia, Switzerland, UK)
4. Evil Does Not Exist (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Japan)
5. Misericordia (Miséricorde) (Alain Guiraudie, France, Spain, Portugal)
6. Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra, France, Portugal, Spain)
7. Red Rooms (Pascal Plante, Canada)
8. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK, Spain)
9. The Shrouds (David Cronenberg, Canada, France)
10. Challengers (Luca Guadagnino, US, Italy)

1. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
2. April (Déa Kulumbegashvili, France, Italy, Georgia)
3. Babygirl (Halina Reijn, Netherlands, US)
4. Black Dog (Guan Hu, China)
5. Familiar Touch (Sarah Friedland, US)
6. Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes, Portugal, Italy, France)
7. No Other Land (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, Palestine, Norway)
8. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (Rungano Nyoni, Zambia, UK, Ireland)
9. Who by Fire (Philippe Lesage, Canada, France)
10. Windless (Pavel G. Vesnakov, Bulgaria, Italy)

Ordinarily, when compiling such lists, one tries to cut through the esoteric festival fare with at least one blockbuster selection, to prove that film criticism is a broad church, or at least a sporadically fun one. This year, however, the studio mill churned out one stodgy letdown after another, as even seemingly surefire sequels like Furiosa and Dune 2 came up short – while the indies at least offered some pure pleasure by fucking with Hollywood formulae, as in Sean Baker’s thrilling screwball realism and Halina Reijn’s hot recalibration of the glossy erotic drama. 

World cinema had a far richer, more expansive year. (Even the French beat Hollywood at their own game with the rollicking Count of Monte Cristo.) I can hardly believe that Payal Kapadia’s exquisite All We Can Imagine As Light was just pushed off my list, but she’s in fine company on the sidelines: in another mood, any combination of Jia Zhangke’s Caught by the Tides, Albert Serra’s Afternoon of Solitude, Jonas Trueba’s The Other Way Around, Laura Carreira’s On Falling, Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, Carson Lund’s Eephus or Mati Diop’s Dahomey could have made the cut.

1. The Brutalist (Brady Corbet, US, UK, Hungary)
2. No Other Land (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, Palestine, Norway)
3. The Shrouds (David Cronenberg, Canada, France)
4. The People’s Joker (Vera Drew, US)
5. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK, Spain)
6. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, UK, France, US)
7. Oh, Canada (Paul Schrader, US, Israel)
8. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, UK, US)
9. Kinds of Kindness (Yorgos Lanthimos, Ireland, United Kingdom, US, Greece)
10. Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood, US)

Honorable mention to Dune 2. Gonna be doing the sand walk for the next four years.

1. Emilia Pérez (Jacques Audiard, France, Belgium)
2. Perfect Days (Wim Wenders, Japan, Germany)
3. Evil Does Not Exist (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Japan)
4. The Outrun (The Outrun (Nora Fingscheidt, UK, Germany)
5. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
6. The Beast (Bertrand Bonello, France, Canada)
7. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun, US, UK)
8. Longlegs (Oz Perkins, Canada, US)
9. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, UK, US)
10. The Wailing (El llanto) (Pedro Martín-Calero, Spain, Argentina, France)

I realise what connects many of these is an insidious sense of creeping dread or dissociated states; at least Perfect Days offers perhaps the perfect antidote to these sombre portents of darkness visible.

1. Close Your Eyes (Victor Erice, Spain, Argentina)
2. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
3. By the Stream (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea)
4. Stress Positions (Theda Hammel, US)
5. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK, Spain)
6. Universal Language (Matthew Rankin, Canada)
7. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun, US, UK)
8. Viêt and Nam (Truong Minh Quy, Vietnam, Philippines, Singapore, France, Netherlands, Italy, Germany, US)
9. Measures for a Funeral (Sofia Bohdanowicz, Canada)
10. Trap (M. Night Shyamalan, US, Canada)

1. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
2. Challengers (Luca Guadagnino, US, Italy)
3. Evil Does Not Exist (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Japan)
4. Israel-Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989 (Göran Hugo Olsson, Sweden, Denmark, Finland)
5. Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood, US)
6. Last Things (Deborah Stratman, US, Portugal, France)
7. No Other Land (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, Palestine, Norway)
8. The People’s Joker (Vera Drew, US)
9. Trap (M. Night Shyamalan, US, Canada)
10. A Traveler’s Needs (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea)

Some films that placed in last year’s poll that I saw too late to vote for, that were invaluable to my year in film this year: Hit Man, The Taste of Things, The Holdovers, The Killer, Poor Things, May December. A few other impressive and enjoyable films of 2024: Cold Wallet, The Substance, Dune Part Two, The Mother of All Lies, Lyd, Shelby Oaks, Conclave.

Italy-based critic, Italy

1. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
2. April (Déa Kulumbegashvili, France, Italy, Georgia)
3. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
4. Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes, Portugal, Italy, France)
5. The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mahommad Rasoulof, Iran, Germany, France)
6. Sasquatch Sunset (David & Nathan Zellner, US)
7. Kinds of Kindness (Yorgos Lanthimos, Ireland, United Kingdom, US, Greece)
8. Pepe (Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias, Dominican Republic, France, Namibia, Germany)
9. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, UK, US)
10. Rumours (Guy Maddin, Canada, Germany, Hungary, US)

Perhaps I was just unlucky in what I saw, but 2024 doesn’t feel like it has generated such a rich crop of great films as 2023. (Also: festival screenings and distribution are often way out of step. For me, the wonderful La Chimera is a 2023 film). However, my top four this year are, for me, up there with the best of the decade so far. All four are films I want to return to – even the Georgian film April, which is a tough watch by any standards.

Reviews editor, Sight and Sound, UK

1. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
2. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
3. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Radu Jude, Romania, Luxembourg, France, Croatia, Switzerland, UK)
4. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
5. The Delinquents (Rodrigo Moreno, Argentina)
6. Orlando, My Political Biography (Paul Preciado, France)
7. Hoard (Luna Carmoon, UK)
8. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (Rungano Nyoni, Zambia, UK, Ireland)
9. Janet Planet (Annie Baker, US, UK)
10. Rumours (Guy Maddin, Canada, Germany, Hungary, US)

I’d say ‘in no particularly order’ but in truth La Chimera is at the top, a film of many miracles that I’ve carried with me all year like a holy medal. I kept the list to films with a 2024 UK release date, so it’s ‘see you in 2025’ to The Seed of the Sacred Fig and The Shrouds.

Film critic, writer and features editor for SciFiNow, UK

1. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
2. Bird (Andrea Arnold, UK, France, US)
3. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, UK, US)
4. Crossing (Levan Akin, Sweden, Denmark, France, Turkey, Georgia)
5. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
6. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun, US, UK)
7. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross, US)
8. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK, Spain)
9. Abigail (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, US, Ireland, Canada)
10. Kneecap (Rich Peppiat, Ireland, UK)

1. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
2. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
3. Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point (Tyler Taormina, US)
4. Civil War (Alex Garland, US, UK, Finland)
5. Eephus (Carson Lund, US)
6. The Goldman Case (Cédric Kahn, France)
7. The Holdovers (Alexander Payne, US)
8. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, UK, US)
9. Priscilla (Sofia Coppola, US)
10. The Sweet East (Sean Price Williams, US)

The proof of Civil War’s thesis came on 13 July with the remarkable images of Donald Trump narrowly avoiding being assassinated – we are hooked on these images, the shooter presumably included. Half of these picks had their international festival debuts in 2023 and charted last year, but note that Tár was in the top 20 two years running. Shout out to Cambridge Film Festival for showing some of my 2024 choices, in particular Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point (its British debut).

1. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, UK, Poland, US)
2. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
3. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
4. No Other Land (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, Palestine, Norway)
5. The Taste of Things (Tran Anh Hung, France, Belgium)
6. A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg, US)
7. Kneecap (Rich Peppiat, Ireland, UK)
8. In Camera (Naqqash Khalid, UK)
9. My Old Ass (Megan Park, UK, Canada, US)
10. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun, US, UK)

Writer and programmer, US

1. Challengers (Luca Guadagnino, US, Italy)
2. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
3. Civil War (Alex Garland, US, UK, Finland)
4. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
5. Drive-Away Dolls (Ethan Coen, UK, US)
6. The Holdovers (Alexander Payne, US)
7. Perfect Days (Wim Wenders, Japan, Germany)
8. Queer (Luca Guadgnino, Italy, US)
9. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, UK, France, US)
10. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, UK, Poland, US)

If this had been my top 10⅓ films of the year, I’d also have included The Death of R.M.F., the first of three short films in Yorgos Lanthimos’s anthology picture Kinds of Kindness, and for me maybe the best work yet from the best version of that director (the brutal, bone-dry comic absurdist of Dogtooth and The Killing of a Sacred Deer).

1. The Brutalist (Brady Corbet, US, UK, Hungary)
2. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK, Spain)
3. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, UK, US)
4. The Girl with the Needle (Magnus von Horn, Denmark, Poland, Sweden)
5. Emilia Pérez (Jacques Audiard, France, Belgium)
6. Kneecap (Rich Peppiat, Ireland, UK)
7. A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg, US)
8. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, UK, France, US)
9. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross, US)
10. Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Quay Brothers, UK, Poland, Germany)

1. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, UK, Poland, US)
2. Hundreds of Beavers (Mike Cheslik, US)
3. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, UK, US)
4. There’s Still Tomorrow (C’è ancora domani) (Paola Cortellesi, Italy)
5. Civil War (Alex Garland, US, UK, Finland)
6. Abigail (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, US, Ireland, Canada)
7. In a Violent Nature (Chris Nash, Canada)
8. Strange Darling (JT Mollner, US)
9. Joker: Folie à Deux (Tod Phillips, US, Canada)
10. Heretic (Scott Beck, Bryan Woods, US, Canada)

1. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
2. Listen to the Voices (Kouté vwa) (Maxime Jean-Baptiste, Belgium, French Guiana, France)
3. Being John Smith (John Smith, UK)
4. Practice, Practice, Practice (Kevin Jerome Everson, US)
5. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (Rungano Nyoni, Zambia, UK, Ireland)
6. Daphne Was a Torso Ending in Leaves (Catriona Gallagher, Italy, Greece)
7. Second Chance (Subhadra Mahajan, India)
8. On the Battlefield (Theresa Delsoin, Lisa Marie Malloy, JP Sniadecki, Ray Whitaker, US)
9. Grand Theft Hamlet (Pinny Grylls, Sam Crane, UK)
10. The Lonely Musketeer (Nicolai Schumann, Germany, UK)

Filmmaker, writer, programmer of INCLINATIONS Film Club, UK, UK

1. Atrocity Inc. (Sut Jhally, US)
2. Atomic People (Benedict Sanderson and Megumi Inman, UK, US, Japan)

Writer and filmmaker, Ireland

1. Longlegs (Oz Perkins, Canada, US)
2. Perfect Days (Wim Wenders, Japan, Germany)
3. Rebel Ridge (Jeremy Saulnier, US)
4. That They May Face the Rising Sun (Pat Collins, Ireland, UK)
5. Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola, US)
6. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
7. Challengers (Luca Guadagnino, US, Italy)
8. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller, Australia, US)
9. The Room Next Door (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain, US)
10. Emilia Pérez (Jacques Audiard, France, Belgium)

Movies did a decent enough job of reflecting a world beset by chaos and turmoil in 2024, providing (by turns) commentary, escape and occasional transcendence. Francis Coppola’s gloriously bonkers Megalopolis divided audiences, and then some — I had a blast — while the finest action movie of the post-Wick era, Jeremy Saulnier’s Rebel Ridge, never saw a cinema screen. 

Maintaining a regular moviegoing habit these days requires more dedication than ever, but the global sleeper success of Perfect Days and Le chimera suggest that word of mouth can still put bums on seats. 

On a personal level, the ongoing Nicolas Cage renaissance continues to delight. Where can he go from Longlegs?

Film critic and historian, UK

1. About Dry Grasses (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey, France, Germany, Sweden, Qatar)
2. Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry (Elene Naveriani, Switzerland, Georgia)
3. The Dead Don’t Hurt (Viggo Mortensen, US, Mexico, UK)
4. Here (Bas Devos, Belgium)
5. In Camera (Naqqash Khalid, UK)
6. Occupied City (Steve McQueen, UK, Netherlands, US)
7. Robot Dreams (Pablo Berger, Spain, France)
8. My Favourite Cake (Maryam Moghaddam, Iran, France, Sweden, Germany)
9. Trenque Lauquen (Laura Citarella, Germany, Argentina)
10. That They May Face the Rising Sun (Pat Collins, Ireland, UK)

The above are solely in alphabetical order. As are this year’s near misses: Close Your Eyes (Victor Erice); Crossing (Levan Akin); Monster (Hirokazu Kore-eda); Sleep (Jason Yu); and The Taste of Things (Trần Anh Hùng). Thanks for all the screening links that keep a housebound critic in business.

Critic, programmer, filmmaker, UK

1. A Night We Held Between (Noor Abed, Palestine)
2. Fade (Asako Ujita, Japan, UK)
3. Everything Comes Full Circle (Lilan Yang, US, China)
4. Country Folk (Greta Alfaro, Spain)
5. These Streets Will Never Look the Same (Mitchell Stafiej, Switzerland)
6. The Off-Season (Jen Martin, UK)
7. Slow Shift (Shambhavi Kaul, India, US)
8. Atmospheric Arrivals (Ayo Tsalithaba, Canada)
9. House of Victories (Shirine Shah, Matt Feldman, UK)
10. Four Seasons (Louise Barrington, UK)

Critic and programmer, UK

1. Measures for a Funeral (Sofia Bohdanowicz, Canada)
2. Babygirl (Halina Reijn, Netherlands, US)
3. Bird (Andrea Arnold, UK, France, US)
4. Matt and Mara (Kazik Radwanski, Canada)
5. Eephus (Carson Lund, US)
6. No Other Land (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, Palestine, Norway)
7. Trans Memoria (Victoria Verseau, Sweden, France)
8. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross, US)
9. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, UK, US)
10. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)

As is evident from my picks, I saw a lot of metamorphoses in 2024.

1. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun, US, UK)
2. Speak No Evil (James Watkins, US, Croatia, Canada)
3. Smile 2 (Parker Finn, US, Canada)
4. Lola (Andrew Legge, Ireland, UK)
5. Out of Darkness (Andrew Cumming, UK)
6. A Storm Foretold (Christoffer Guldbrandsen, Denmark)
7. Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger (David Hinton, UK)
8. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, UK, US)
9. America’s New Female Right (Layla Wright, UK)
10. Heretic (Scott Beck, Bryan Woods, US, Canada)

Quite staggering how the horror genre has swamped the multiplexes. And hard to remember now (yet It is not so far back) there used to be years like 1999 with almost no new horror movies at all, barring the odd franchise. Some predict a cull, but then genres always ebb and flow. For me though the gore quotient has now reached a level of boredom akin to bad slapstick comedy. The ‘Terrifier’ films, for example, have good points but would be far more effective with less of it.

Writer and curator, UK, Germany

1. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
2. Bye Bye Tiberias (Lina Soualem, Palestine, Belgium, Qatar, France)
3. The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire (Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich, US)
4. Teaches of Peaches (Philipp Fussenegger and Judy Landkamme, Germany)
5. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, UK, US)
6. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun, US, UK)
7. A Move (Elahe Esmaili, Iran, United Kingdom)
8. The Mother of All Lies (Asmae El Moudir, Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar)
9. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (Rungano Nyoni, Zambia, UK, Ireland)
10. Omen (Augure) (Baloji, Belgium, Netherlands, D. R. Congo, France, South Africa)

1. Janet Planet (Annie Baker, US, UK)
2. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK, Spain)
3. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross, US)
4. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke, China)
5. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
6. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
7. Matt and Mara (Kazik Radwanski, Canada)
8. April (Déa Kulumbegashvili, France, Italy, Georgia)
9. Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes, Portugal, Italy, France)
10. The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire (Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich, US)

1. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
2. Village Rockstars 2 (Rima Das, Singapore, India)
3. Pooja, Sir (Deepak Rauniyar, Nepal, US, Norway)
4. Saba (Maksud Hossain, Bangladesh)
5. The First Omen (Arkasha Stevenson, US, Italy, Serbia, Canada)
6. Crocodile Tears (Air Mata Buaya) (Tumpal Tampubolon, Indonesia, France, Singapore, Germany)
7. Challengers (Luca Guadagnino, US, Italy)
8. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, UK, US)
9. Civil War (Alex Garland, US, UK, Finland)
10. Conclave (Edward Berger, UK, US)

1. Challengers (Luca Guadagnino, US, Italy)
2. Emilia Pérez (Jacques Audiard, France, Belgium)
3. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
4. When Fall is Coming (François Ozon, France)
5. Perfect Days (Wim Wenders, Japan, Germany)
6. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
7. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (Rungano Nyoni, Zambia, UK, Ireland)
8. Pepe (Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias, Dominican Republic, France, Namibia, Germany)
9. A Real Pain (Jesse Eisenberg, Poland, US)
10. Blitz (Steve McQueen, UK, France, US)

“Come on!!!” 2024’s best films boasted their share of transcendent moments. Among the greatest, for me, was the tennis match woven throughout Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers which concludes when the complicated feelings of 15 years are finally played out in a delirious rally between Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist’s long-time friends/rivals – a cathartic encounter capped by Zendaya’s exultant shout. At first, Guadagnino’s smashing film looked simply like great flashy fun, but Challengers revealed its richness on subsequent viewings. Performances of megawatt charisma and emotional complexity, seductive visual flourishes, and a wonderfully eccentric soundtrack (Purcell and Britten meet Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s propulsive electronics) did justice to Justin Kuritzkes’ brilliant screenplay, with its supple, years-looping structure, all adding up to a profound exploration of how time and experience change and challenge intimate relationships and professional ambitions. 

A comparable kind of soulful showmanship characterised Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez, a new musical that fused elements of telenovela melodrama and crime saga into a dazzling package. 

Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias’s Pepe and Mati Diop’s Dahomey created two immersive journeys with unexpected narrators: a hippo in the former and, in the latter, a statue of King Ghezo, among the pillaged artefacts being returned from Paris to Benin. 

Rungano Nyoni’s On Becoming a Guinea Fowl offered a challenge to an abusive patriarch and the culture that enabled him which was constantly surprising, and – in its final moments – totally thrilling. 

Compared to these daring experiments, Steve McQueen’s Blitz was undoubtedly conventional – excessively so, for some – but the power and poignancy of this heartfelt crowd-pleaser lay precisely in its embracing of traditions of WWII British cinema, while also gently taking the tradition forward. 

On the smaller-scaled side, Jesse Eisenberg’s acutely observed A Real Pain centred a New World to Old World journey undertaken by two contrasting cousins, while Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light brought a soft, captivating glow to its portrait of three female characters in Mumbai, finally travelling from the city to the sea. François Ozon’s When Fall is Coming started out as a genteel rural drama before revealing its subversive streak with consummate elegance and assurance – and an exquisite performance by Hélène Vincent. And Wim Wenders’ marvellously calming Perfect Days turned the daily routines of a Tokyo toilet cleaner (splendid Kōji Yakusho) into a meditation on the beauties of commonplace experience when properly attended to. 

“Great movies change the way you see,” Wenders reminded us. In their very different ways, these 10 wonderful films each achieved precisely that. 

Honourable mentions: Monster, The Taste of Things, Coup!, The Visitor, Rumours, Argylle, My Eternal Summer.

1. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
2. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
3. The Beast (Bertrand Bonello, France, Canada)
4. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
5. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Radu Jude, Romania, Luxembourg, France, Croatia, Switzerland, UK)
6. Green Border (Agnieszka Holland, Poland, France, Czech Republic, Belgium, US, Germany, Turkey)
7. Last Summer (Catherine Breillat, France)
8. My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow (Julia Loktev, US)
9. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross, US)
10. No Other Land (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, Palestine, Norway)

My list is alphabetical, not ranked. 

Twenty more: Evil Does Not Exist, Babygirl, The Room Next Door, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, A Real Pain, Hard Truths, Janet Planet, Pictures of Ghosts, Hit Man, God Save Texas: Hometown Prison, Youth (Hard Times), On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, How to Have Sex, Close Your Eyes, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Between the Temples, In Our Day, The Tuba Thieves, The Brutalist, Conclave.

1. Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes, Portugal, Italy, France)
2. Riders (El repartidor está en camino) (Martín Rejtman, Argentina, Portugal, Venezuela)
3. Pepe (Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias, Dominican Republic, France, Namibia, Germany)
4. Towards the Sun, Far from the Centre (Al sol, lejos del centro) (Pascal Viveros, Luciana Morino, Chile)
5. Direct Action (Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell, US, Canada)
6. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke, China)
7. Misericordia (Miséricorde) (Alain Guiraudie, France, Spain, Portugal)
8. 100,000,000,000,000 (Virgil Vernier, France)
9. Between the Temples (Nathan Silver, US)
10. SPERMWORLD (Lance Oppenheim, US)

1. Sasquatch Sunset (David & Nathan Zellner, US)
2. Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes, Portugal, Italy, France)
3. Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Quay Brothers, UK, Poland, Germany)
4. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
5. It’s Not Me (Leos Carax, France)
6. Black Dog (Guan Hu, China)
7. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
8. I’m Still Here (Walter Salles, Brazil, France)
9. Apocalypse in the Tropics (Petra Costa, Brazil, US, Denmark)
10. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (Rungano Nyoni, Zambia, UK, Ireland)

1. Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (Pham Thien An, Vietnam)
2. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke, China)
3. Henry Fonda for President (Alexander Horwath, Austria, Germany)
4. Fire of Wind (Marta Mateus, Portugal, France, Switzerland)
5. The Room Next Door (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain, US)
6. The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, US)
7. The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mahommad Rasoulof, Iran, Germany, France)
8. Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars (Jean-Luc Godard, France, Switzerland)
9. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Johan Grimonprez, Belgium, France, Netherlands)
10. Winner (Susanna Fogel, Canada, US)

Note: My admiration for The Room Next Door only lasts through the penultimate sequence, before the film autodestructs, thus parodying the suicide of its heroine. The four preceding features, by contrast, end with both mystery and discovery, and the five that follow help us to navigate an increasingly intractable world.

Film critic and programmer, Brazil, UK

1. I’m Still Here (Walter Salles, Brazil, France)
2. Oh, Canada (Paul Schrader, US, Israel)
3. Challengers (Luca Guadagnino, US, Italy)
4. La Cocina (Alonso Ruizpalacios, Mexico, US)
5. Pepe (Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias, Dominican Republic, France, Namibia, Germany)
6. The Brutalist (Brady Corbet, US, UK, Hungary)
7. Daughters (Natalie Rae, Angela Patton, US)
8. April (Déa Kulumbegashvili, France, Italy, Georgia)
9. Windless (Pavel G. Vesnakov, Bulgaria, Italy)
10. Malu (Pedro Freire, Brazil)

It’s odd to recall how many times I remember myself remarking upon how weak a year for film 2024 felt like, a sentiment echoed by many dear friends and colleagues at festivals throughout the season. Now sitting down to choose some of the best of the year – or my favourites, as I prefer to frame them – I look back at 2024 with much more fondness. On the more practical side, this is an unranked selection, submitted before I had the chance to see new films by Guiraudie, Eastwood, RaMell Ross, Steve McQueen, Soderbergh and many others. I imagine that by the time December comes, I’ll look at 2024 even more fondly.

1. Burning Bridges: The Story of Paul Burwell (Matt Stephenson & Alan Jones, UK)
2. Being John Smith (John Smith, UK)
3. Wind, Tide & Oar (Huw Wahl, UK)
4. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
5. Green Border (Agnieszka Holland, Poland, France, Czech Republic, Belgium, US, Germany, Turkey)
6. By the Stream (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea)
7. The Enigma of Harold Sonny Ladoo (Richard Fung, Trinidad and Tobago, Canada)
8. The Room Next Door (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain, US)
9. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke, China)
10. Preemptive Listening (Aura Satz, UK, Finland)

1. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross, US)
2. The Human Surge 3 (Eduardo Williams, Argentina)
3. Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra, France, Portugal, Spain)
4. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer, UK, Poland, US)
5. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
6. Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola, US)
7. Janet Planet (Annie Baker, US, UK)
8. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
9. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK, Spain)
10. You Burn Me (Matías Piñeiro, Spain, Argentina)

One of the last films I watched before filing this list was Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis. It had taken me weeks to find a screening that wasn’t at 10am in Stratford, and even so, I had to traipse up two broken sets of escalators to the fifth floor of the popcorn-strewn Death Temple that is the Leicester Square Vue to watch it. How the mighty have fallen. I still don’t really know what I make of the film, but I know it had more Ideas than much of the mid arthouse film fare and gallery work I saw this year. It felt like a fitting end to the year’s film watching: a year in which I felt myself gravitating towards films with a distinctive point of view, a way of addressing histories of violence, colonialism, capitalism and trauma that doesn’t hide behind the lacuna of the archive or trade in empty gestures. Where formal decisions – the POV in Nickel Boys, the Hanged Man tableaux in La Chimera, the freedom-flight and tech-blurring of Human Surge 3 – were in service to the story or perspective being explored rather than any established notions of what certain films are ‘meant’ to look like. Maybe my tastes are changing. 

(Incidentally, after the Megalopolis screening, I talked to three complete strangers – about, among other things, Trumpian edgelordism, the hero’s journey, Metropolis cityscapes & incest. Probably one of the better conversations I’ve had at midnight near Piccadilly Circus.)

Freelance film writer; editor, Windows on Worlds, UK

1. Great Absence (Kei Chikaura, Japan)
2. 12.12: The Day (Kim Sung-soo, South Korea)
3. A Long Shot (Gao Peng, China)
4. Yoko (658km, Yoko no Tabi) (Kazuyoshi Kumakiri, Japan)
5. Worlds Apart (Ikoku Nikki) (Natsuki Seta, Japan)
6. Old Fox (Lao hu li) (Hsiao Ya-chuan, Taiwan)
7. Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (Soi Cheang, Mexico, Germany)
8. Bushido (Kazuya Shiraishi, Japan)
9. Johnny Keep Walking! (Dong Runnian, China)
10. Black Dog (Guan Hu, China)

Film critic and filmmaker, US

1. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
2. Rumours (Guy Maddin, Canada, Germany, Hungary, US)
3. Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (Pham Thien An, Vietnam)
4. Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola, US)
5. The Shrouds (David Cronenberg, Canada, France)
6. The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mahommad Rasoulof, Iran, Germany, France)
7. Terrifier 3 (Damien Leone, US)
8. In Our Day (Hong Sangsoo, South Korea)
9. Samsara (Lois Patiño, Spain)
10. The Echo (El Eco (Tatiana Huezo, Mexico, Germany)

The hybrid of fiction, documentary, and experimental approaches yielded incredible new works in 2024. Films seemed to both get closer to reality and to approach it with a sense of formal and artistic possibility. New films by major directors also brought a feeling of renewed ambition for fiction films. And of course, Terrifier 3, while puerile and disgusting in the most explicit sense, does achieve something uniquely surreal and excessive for popular cinema. Variety was the spice of this year’s cinematic life.

Critic, programmer and video essayist, UK

1. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
2. I’m Still Here (Walter Salles, Brazil, France)
3. Babygirl (Halina Reijn, Netherlands, US)
4. Pavements (Alex Ross Perry, US)
5. Challengers (Luca Guadagnino, US, Italy)
6. U Are the Universe (Pavlo Ostrikov, Ukraine)
7. Bird (Andrea Arnold, UK, France, US)
8. Santosh (Sandhya Suri, UK, Germany, India, France)
9. It’s Not Me (Leos Carax, France)
10. Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola, US)

After 2023’s banner year, the comedown.

1. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller, Australia, US)
2. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke, China)
3. A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg, US)
4. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK, Spain)
5. All Shall Be Well (Ray Yeung, Hong Kong, China)
6. Exhuma (Jang Jae-hyun, South Korea)
7. Viêt and Nam (Truong Minh Quy, Vietnam, Philippines, Singapore, France, Netherlands, Italy, Germany, US)
8. Youth (Hard Times) (Wang Bing, France, Netherlands, Luxembourg)
9. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun, US, UK)
10. The Colours Within (Yamada Naoko, Japan)

Since another publication asks me for a list based on UK release dates, my Sight and Sound ballot sticks to films that premiered in 2024. 

My vote for Youth (Hard Times) can also be considered an honourable-mention vote for his documentary-trilogy closer Youth (Homecoming), though I do think that Hard Times, the longest of the three films (following 2023’s Youth (Spring)), is the ‘best’ one. 

Other films that very nearly made the cut include The Box Man (Gakuryu Ishii), By the Stream (Hong Sangsoo), Invention (Courtney Stephens), Familiar Touch (Sarah Friedland), Look Back (Kiyotaka Oshiyama), and The First Omen (Arkasha Stevenson), the year’s most surprisingly great American studio movie, at least until its last few minutes spoil things a bit. 

I’ve realised that quite a few of my top ten and honourable mentions, most notably my top two, concern veteran filmmakers remixing or offering B-side approaches to their past classics, while straying far from simply replaying their greatest hits without something meaningful to say. It’s an interesting counterpoint to some of 2024’s most useless cover versions, such as Alien: Romulus, with all its disgusting digital necromancy, and MaXXXine. 

Sights and sounds from my ten that play on loop in my mind: Zhao Tao dancing to Smile.dk; Kim Go-eun performing shamanic rituals; a Vietnamese man cleaning out his lover’s ear as sparks from nearby machinery look as though they’re erupting from his head; Chris Hemsworth screaming that “There is no hope”; chalk on a road telling us “There is still time”.

1. The Shrouds (David Cronenberg, Canada, France)
2. Last Summer (Catherine Breillat, France)
3. Evil Does Not Exist (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Japan)
4. Local Legends: Bloodbath (Matt Farley, US)
5. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Radu Jude, Romania, Luxembourg, France, Croatia, Switzerland, UK)
6. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke, China)
7. Being John Smith (John Smith, UK)
8. Rap World (Conner O’Malley, Danny Scharar, US)
9. The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man (Braden Sitter Sr., Canada)
10. Oh, Canada (Paul Schrader, US, Israel)

My top ten this year is comprised entirely of movies I saw at film festivals, with nothing that has cracked the box office top ten (although who knows, maybe The Shrouds will enjoy a well-deserved $100m opening weekend when it’s finally released). Whenever one bemoans the state of the multiplex or the front page of Netflix, someone clever always shows up to say, “Movies are still good — you’re just not looking in the right places.” Well, I’m looking.

Film critic and host of Girls On Film podcast, UK

1. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
2. The Girl with the Needle (Magnus von Horn, Denmark, Poland, Sweden)
3. Conclave (Edward Berger, UK, US)
4. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, UK, France, US)
5. Emilia Pérez (Jacques Audiard, France, Belgium)
6. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, UK, US)
7. Kneecap (Rich Peppiat, Ireland, UK)
8. Lee (Ellen Kuras, UK, US, Australia, Singapore, Hungary)
9. In Restless Dreams: the Music of Paul Simon (Alex Gibney, US)
10. Blink Twice (Zoe Kravitz, Mexico, US)

1. Close Your Eyes (Victor Erice, Spain, Argentina)
2. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
3. Perfect Days (Wim Wenders, Japan, Germany)
4. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
5. Crossing (Levan Akin, Sweden, Denmark, France, Turkey, Georgia)
6. Janet Planet (Annie Baker, US, UK)
7. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
8. Evil Does Not Exist (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Japan)
9. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke, China)
10. Here (Bas Devos, Belgium)

1. Journey of the Shadows (Reise der Schatten) (Yves Netzhammer, Netherlands)
2. Kajolrekha (Giasuddin Selim, Bangladesh)
3. Kiss Wagon (Midhun Murali, India)
4. The Adamant Girl (Kottukkaali) (P.S. Vinothraj, India)
5. The Damned (Roberto Minervini, Italy, Belgium, US, France, Canada)
6. The Year of Cat (Mostafa Taghizadeh, Iran)
7. Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (Soi Cheang, Mexico, Germany)
8. We Are Inside (Nahnou Fil Dakhil) (Farah Kassem, Lebanon, Qatar, Denmark)
9. Who Cares? (Alexe Poukine, Brazil, US, Tanzania, Switzerland, Peru, Germany, Canada)
10. Wikiriders (Miiel Ferráez, Megan Marsh, Clara Winter, Mexico, Germany)

Like every year since 1895, 2024 was a good year for films, if only one knew where to look for them.

1. Exergue — On Documenta 14 (Dimitris Athiridis, Greece)
2. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
3. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
4. Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra, France, Portugal, Spain)
5. Reality or Not (Cécile B. Evans, France, Belgium, US)
6. Evil Does Not Exist (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Japan)
7. Janet Planet (Annie Baker, US, UK)
8. Matt and Mara (Kazik Radwanski, Canada)
9. You Burn Me (Matías Piñeiro, Spain, Argentina)
10. Darkness Darkness Burning Bright (Gaëlle Rouard, France)

This list is a little wonky. The Rohrwacher and Hamaguchi films fell into the in-between of polls, and Gaëlle Rouard’s double work travelled to London in January, despite being completed in 2022. But I thought about both features for much longer than the winter, and the screening of Darkness Darkness was too spellbinding to omit. 

There was never any bumping films #1, #2, or #7 from the mix, and Alexandra Stewart lending her storied voice to a speculative world in #5, decades after Sans Soleil, was a cinephilic surprise. I was up on a soapbox about exergue in particular this year. Little else contended with how contemporary art can respond to worlds in crisis with such sprawl, insight, and daring. It is a must-see!

1. Emilia Pérez (Jacques Audiard, France, Belgium)
2. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
3. The Wild Robot (Chris Sanders, US, Japan)
4. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, UK, France, US)
5. Daughters (Natalie Rae, Angela Patton, US)
6. Sing Sing (Greg Kwedar, US)
7. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
8. A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg, US)
9. Between the Temples (Nathan Silver, US)
10. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, UK, US)

Managing editor, Sight and Sound, UK

1. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
2. The Brutalist (Brady Corbet, US, UK, Hungary)
3. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke, China)
4. Evil Does Not Exist (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Japan)
5. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK, Spain)
6. Janet Planet (Annie Baker, US, UK)
7. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross, US)
8. No Other Land (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, Palestine, Norway)
9. When the Light Breaks (Rúnar Rúnarsson, Iceland, Netherlands, Croatia, France)
10. Oh, Canada (Paul Schrader, US, Israel)

1. Close Your Eyes (Victor Erice, Spain, Argentina)
2. Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese, US)
3. Coup de Chance (Woody Allen, US, France, UK)
4. Fallen Leaves (Aki Kaurismäki, Finland)
5. The Taste of Things (Tran Anh Hung, France, Belgium)
6. Showing Up (Kelly Reichardt, US)
7. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
8. Perfect Days (Wim Wenders, Japan, Germany)
9. Kidnapped (Marco Bellocchio, Italy, France, Germany)
10. Caligula: The Ultimate Cut (Tinto Brass, US, Italy)

1. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke, China)
2. Youth (Homecoming) (Wang Bing, France, Netherlands, Luxembourg)
3. Youth (Hard Times) (Wang Bing, France, Netherlands, Luxembourg)
4. A Traveler’s Needs (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea)
5. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
6. Who by Fire (Philippe Lesage, Canada, France)
7. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross, US)
8. The Shrouds (David Cronenberg, Canada, France)
9. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK, Spain)
10. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)

If there is any linking trend between these remarkable films, it is their idiosyncratic, varied approaches to achieving a grand vision of the world, a statement which could easily apply to some of the films that just missed this list: The Brutalist, Dahomey, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In, Chime, and Eephus. Decided to solely list 2024 premieres, with apologies to some of the remarkable 2023 films I only was able to see this year: The Beast, Evil Does Not Exist, The Human Surge 3, Gift, Last Summer, The Shadowless Tower, and Eureka.

1. ***** (Arthur Jafa, US)
2. Green Border (Agnieszka Holland, Poland, France, Czech Republic, Belgium, US, Germany, Turkey)
3. No Other Land (Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, Palestine, Norway)
4. Scénarios (Jean-Luc Godard, France, Japan)
5. Exposé du film annonce du film “Scenario” (Jean-Luc Godard, France, Japan)
6. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
7. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke, China)
8. My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow (Julia Loktev, US)
9. A Real Pain (Jesse Eisenberg, Poland, US)
10. His Three Daughters (Azazel Jacobs, US)
11. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK, Spain)

***** is a movie installation. It has no beginning or end. Many people find it unbearable to watch the entire 75-minute cycle even once. But that does not make is any less a feature film than the movie from which it is derived and which it blows-up again and again. On the other hand, I might have dispensed with ***** and the rest of the list and named Richard Linklater’s Hit Man as the movie of the year for its finesse in depicting how easy it is for an ordinary American guy to do the wrong thing when he believes that his person or pocketbook is threatened. And so, the second coming of…

BFI digital production editor and film critic, UK

1. The Brutalist (Brady Corbet, US, UK, Hungary)
2. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
3. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK, Spain)
4. Conclave (Edward Berger, UK, US)
5. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun, US, UK)
6. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, UK, France, US)
7. Julie Keeps Quiet (Leonardo Van Dijl, Belgium, Sweden)
8. The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mahommad Rasoulof, Iran, Germany, France)
9. Evil Does Not Exist (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Japan)
10. Holy Cow (Vingt Dieux) (Louise Courvoisier, France)

I’ve long been of the opinion that there are always great films being made, it’s just sometimes one has to search more diligently to track them down. This is why film festivals are so useful – it’s such a joy to be exposed to perspectives and ideas that might otherwise not make the screen. That said, 2024 was a pretty mediocre year: plenty of good but not much great. Many of my choices have already been justifiably feted by others if not myself but a quick word on Holy Cow (Vingt Dieux), which few seem to have said much about despite it winning the Youth award in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section. Louise Courvoisier’s tale of a young hoodlum turned renegade cheesemaker was a delight. I’m always interested when a filmmaker sets up an esoteric world and lets their characters run riot in it, so seeing Holy Cow’s protagonist pilfering gallons of milk in pursuit of creating the perfect Comté really mooved me.

Documentary filmmaker, writer on film, UK

1. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
2. Woman of the Hour (Anna Kendrick, US)
3. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Radu Jude, Romania, Luxembourg, France, Croatia, Switzerland, UK)
4. That They May Face the Rising Sun (Pat Collins, Ireland, UK)
5. Hit Man (Richard Linklater, US)
6. The Brutalist (Brady Corbet, US, UK, Hungary)
7. Janet Planet (Annie Baker, US, UK)
8. About Dry Grasses (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey, France, Germany, Sweden, Qatar)
9. Close Your Eyes (Victor Erice, Spain, Argentina)
10. Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Quay Brothers, UK, Poland, Germany)

While continuing to be frequently disappointed in new films (can Megalopolis really be defended?) and finding several vastly over-rated (I’ll name The Substance and I Saw The TV Glow, for two), nevertheless I feel the ten I’ve listed demonstrate just how challenging, exciting and pleasurable the medium still can be. Before attending three extravagant London theatrical make-overs of ‘classic’ movies – Dr Strangelove, A Face In The Crowd, Opening Night – I checked out the originals and was happily struck by how much more powerful and timeless they remain. But my special treat was the restricted unveiling at the BFI Southbank of Lindsay Anderson’s original cut of his film about Wham touring in China – sly, curious, acerbic, and a vindication of both this country’s great documentary tradition and a fine director.

1. Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra, France, Portugal, Spain)
2. Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Quay Brothers, UK, Poland, Germany)
3. Chime (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan)
4. Henry Fonda for President (Alexander Horwath, Austria, Germany)
5. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke, China)
6. Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood, US)
7. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller, Australia, US)
8. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
9. Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola, US)
10. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK, Spain)

1. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke, China)
2. The Diary of a Sky (Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Lebanon)
3. Digital Devil Saga (Cameron Worden, US)
4. Direct Action (Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell, US, Canada)
5. Rap World (Conner O’Malley, Danny Scharar, US)
6. Remains of the Hot Day (Re tian wu hou) (Wenqian Zhang, China)
7. Being John Smith (John Smith, UK)
8. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
9. Chime (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan)
10. Desert of Namibia (Yoko Yamanaka, Japan)

“All periods in life are filled with different dramas and confusion” 
— Jia Zhangke

1. Thelma (Josh Margolin, Switzerland, US)
2. Evil Does Not Exist (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Japan)
3. Woman of the Hour (Anna Kendrick, US)
4. Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger (David Hinton, UK)
5. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, UK, France, US)
6. Familiar Touch (Sarah Friedland, US)
7. Universal Language (Matthew Rankin, Canada)
8. His Three Daughters (Azazel Jacobs, US)
9. Rebel Ridge (Jeremy Saulnier, US)
10. The Outrun (The Outrun (Nora Fingscheidt, UK, Germany)

1. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, UK, Spain)
2. The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire (Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich, US)
3. Abattoir, U.S.A.! (Aria Dean, US)
4. Abiding Nowhere (Tsai Ming-liang, US, Taiwan)
5. Razeh-del (Synopsis for an Impossible Film) (Maryam Tafakory, Iran, Italy, UK)
6. Hanami (Denise Fernandes, Portugal, Switzerland, Cape Verde)
7. Bye Bye Tiberias (Lina Soualem, Palestine, Belgium, Qatar, France)
8. This Woman (Alan Zhang, China)
9. Our Place Is Here (Tracy Kiryango, UK)
10. A Song Sung Blue (Geng Zihan, China)

The quality of cinema in 2024, such as it is, was vastly outweighed by the feckless inability of almost all major film institutions to offer even the most meagre solidarity with the Palestinian people. If the survival of the ‘film community’ depends on turning a blind eye to atrocity, then let it die.

1. The Taste of Things (Tran Anh Hung, France, Belgium)
2. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass, UK, US)
3. Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve, US, Canada, UAE, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, Jordan, Gambia)
4. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
5. Universal Language (Matthew Rankin, Canada)

In The Taste of Things, Tran Anh Hung shows that cooking and filmmaking are parallel arts, where deft attention to detail in the small things can make a vital, nourishing experience. That holds across all my picks, from Rose Glass’s wild sophomore-on-steroids to Villeneuve’s desert power juggernaut to Rankin’s diorama-like absurdist comedy. And for what it’s worth, my favourite dog-in-film this year was Quiz Lady’s Mr. Linguini, a plot-relevant pug who rivalled star Awkwafina in physical comedy chops (no mean feat).

1. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross, US)
2. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Johan Grimonprez, Belgium, France, Netherlands)
3. Kneecap (Rich Peppiat, Ireland, UK)
4. Universal Language (Matthew Rankin, Canada)
5. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke, China)
6. Perfect Days (Wim Wenders, Japan, Germany)
7. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (Rungano Nyoni, Zambia, UK, Ireland)
8. Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola, US)
9. Emilia Pérez (Jacques Audiard, France, Belgium)
10. Rumours (Guy Maddin, Canada, Germany, Hungary, US)

BFI digital features editor, UK

1. Dahomey (Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK)
2. Henry Fonda for President (Alexander Horwath, Austria, Germany)
3. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller, Australia, US)
4. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhang-ke, China)
5. The Other Way Around (Volveréis) (Jonas Trueba, Spain, France)
6. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland)
7. Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Quay Brothers, UK, Poland, Germany)
8. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross, US)
9. Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra, France, Portugal, Spain)
10. Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood, US)

There’s lots of talk of 2024 being a poor year compared to 2023, but I think I prefer each of these 10 to about 60% of the top 10 in last year’s poll. I’ve put them in premiere order.

Editor in chief, Sight and Sound, UK

1. Eternal You (Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck, Germany, US)
2. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Johan Grimonprez, Belgium, France, Netherlands)
3. Kneecap (Rich Peppiat, Ireland, UK)
4. Broken Bird (Joanne Mitchell, UK)
5. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross, US)
6. Hit Man (Richard Linklater, US)
7. La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey)
8. Anora (Sean Baker, US)
9. Evil Does Not Exist (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Japan)
10. American Fiction (Cord Jefferson, US)

Film critic/curator/maker/presenter/actor, Austria

1. Joost Klein: “Luchtballon” (1999) (Lyon Pol aka ‘Lowpolyon’, Netherlands)
2. Look if you reverse that iPad advert and put the fugue from the end of Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra over it, it becomes less of a horrific corporate nightmare (John Chambers, UK)
3. Henry Fonda for President (Alexander Horwath, Austria, Germany)
4. I Am Propaganda (Katharina Liatskaia, Austria)
5. East (David Osthoff, Austria)
6. The Temptation of the Coconut Clock (Oliver Schmid, Germany)
7. Joyride (Dina Yanni, Austria)
8. Speak No Evil (James Watkins, US, Croatia, Canada)
9. A Year in the Life of a Country (Tomasz Wolski, Poland)
10. Conclave (Edward Berger, UK, US)

“The president [in Death Race 2050] does have a hairstyle which could be approaching Trump’s hairstyle, but I don’t want to get too heavy into that, because Trump will come and go and the film will remain.” 

— Roger Corman (1926-2024)

Voted for by: Amy Taubin, J. Hoberman

Kim Sung-soo, South Korea

Voted for by: Hayley Scanlon

Voted for by: Vadim Rizov

Voted for by: Anton Bitel

Voted for by: Alex Davidson, James Mottram, Jason Anderson, Josh Slater-Williams, Kate Stables, Nicole Flattery, Philip Concannon, Ryan Gilbey, Sophie Monks Kaufman, Stephen Dalton

Kamal Aljafari, Germany, Qatar, Brazil, France

Voted for by: Carmen Gray

Voted for by: Hayley Scanlon

Elahe Esmaili, Iran, United Kingdom

Voted for by: Rachel Pronger

Voted for by: Jonathan Ali, Michael Pattison

Jesse Eisenberg, Poland, US

Voted for by: Alex Ramon, Amy Taubin, Charles Gant

Voted for by: Soham Gadre

Christoffer Guldbrandsen, Denmark

Voted for by: David Pirie

Voted for by: Sinéad Gleeson

Hong Sang-soo, South Korea

Voted for by: Arun A.K., Ian Mantgani, Joseph Fahim, Michael Koresky, Ryan Swen

Voted for by: Neil Young

Tsai Ming-liang, US, Taiwan

Voted for by: Alex Barrett, Ian Wang, Soham Gadre

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, US, Ireland, Canada

Voted for by: Katherine McLaughlin, Kim Newman

Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey, France, Germany, Sweden, Qatar

Voted for by: Alex Davidson, Arun A.K., David Parkinson, David Thompson, Geoff Andrew, Nick James, Philip Concannon

Albert Serra, France, Portugal, Spain

Voted for by: Beatrice Loayza, Joseph Fahim, Laura Staab, Matthew Thrift, Sam Wigley, Sophia Satchell-Baeza

Arun Bhattarai, Dorottya Zurbó, Bhutan, Hungary

Voted for by: John Berra

Voted for by: Maria Delgado, Noel Hess, Pamela Hutchinson, Philip Horne, Ryan Gilbey, Sinéad Gleeson

Ray Yeung, Hong Kong, China

Voted for by: Josh Slater-Williams

Payal Kapadia, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, US, Italy, Switzerland

Voted for by: Alex Ramon, Amy Taubin, Arun A.K., Avanish Chandrasekaran, Ben Nicholson, Caitlin Quinlan, Carlos Aguilar, Charles Gant, Imogen Sara Smith, Isabel Stevens, Jason Anderson, Jonathan Romney, Joseph Fahim, Katherine McLaughlin, Katie McCabe, Kieron Corless, Lee Marshall, Maria Delgado, Molly Haskell, Naman Ramachandran, Nick James, Nicolas Rapold, Pamela Hutchinson, Patrick Gamble, Philip Concannon, Ryan Swen, Saffron Maeve, Sam Wigley, Savina Petkova, Simran Hans, Soham Gadre, Sophie Monks Kaufman, Sukhdev Sandhu, Thomas Flew, Tom Charity, Wendy Ide

Voted for by: David Pirie

Voted for by: Alex Barrett, Mike Williams, Philip Horne, Sinéad Gleeson

Gonzalo López-Gallego, United Kingdom, Spain

Denise Ferreira da Silva and Arjuna Neuman, Austria, Germany

Voted for by: Jonathan Ali

Saleh Kashefi, Switzerland

Voted for by: Jonathan Ali

Voted for by: Carmen Gray

Voted for by: Anna Smith, Avanish Chandrasekaran, Carmen Gray, Charles Gant, David Thompson, Derek O’Connor, Geoff Andrew, Guy Lodge, Henry K. Miller, Ian Mantgani, Jamie Dunn, Jane Giles, John Bleasdale, Jonathan Romney, Kaleem Aftab, Kate Stables, Katherine McLaughlin, Lee Marshall, Leigh Singer, Lillian Crawford, Lou Thomas, Maria Delgado, Mike Williams, Molly Haskell, Nicolas Rapold, Nicole Flattery, Pamela Hutchinson, Philip Concannon, Ryan Gilbey, Ryan Swen, Sam Clements, Sinéad Gleeson, Tom Charity, Wendy Ide

Voted for by: Travis Jeppesen

Michael Mabbott, Lucah Rosenberg-Lee, Canada

Voted for by: Alex Davidson

Petra Costa, Brazil, US, Denmark

Voted for by: Jonathan Romney

Sofie Benoot, Belgium, Netherlands

Voted for by: Nick Bradshaw

Déa Kulumbegashvili, France, Italy, Georgia

Voted for by: Caitlin Quinlan, Guy Lodge, Joseph Fahim, Lee Marshall, Rafa Sales Ross, Soham Gadre

Viktor Kossakovsky, Germany, France, US, French Polynesia

Voted for by: Nick Bradshaw

Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel, Norway, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, UK

Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit

Nicolas Philibert, France

Voted for by: Geoff Andrew, Nick James

Maja Novaković, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Voted for by: Carmen Gray

Voted for by: Michael Pattison

Benedict Sanderson and Megumi Inman, UK, US, Japan

Voted for by: Rastko Novaković

Voted for by: Rastko Novaković

Voted for by: Mar Diestro-Dópido

Halina Reijn, Netherlands, US

Voted for by: Guy Lodge, John Bleasdale, Leigh Singer, Savina Petkova

Khaled Abdulwahed, Germany

Voted for by: Jonathan Ali

Voted for by: Mar Diestro-Dópido

Voted for by: Ben Nicholson, Matt Turner, Nick Bradshaw, Sukhdev Sandhu, Will Sloan

Michael Gracey, Australia, China, France, United Kingdom, US

Voted for by: Kaleem Aftab

Voted for by: Jamie Dunn, Kate Stables, Vadim Rizov

Andrea Arnold, UK, France, US

Voted for by: Katherine McLaughlin, Leigh Singer, Pamela Hutchinson, Savina Petkova

Voted for by: Charles Gant, Guy Lodge, Hayley Scanlon, Jonathan Romney, Kaleem Aftab, Wendy Ide

Elene Naveriani, Switzerland, Georgia

Voted for by: David Parkinson

Voted for by: Anna Smith, Leila Latif

Gerard Ortín Castellví, Italy, UK, Spain

Voted for by: Annabel Bai Jackson

Steve McQueen, UK, France, US

Voted for by: Alex Ramon, Sophie Brown

Ben Rivers, UK, Germany, Iceland

Voted for by: Erika Balsom

Voted for by: Mike Williams

Matt Stephenson & Alan Jones, UK

Voted for by: Sukhdev Sandhu

Voted for by: Hayley Scanlon

Hong Sang-soo, South Korea

Voted for by: Erika Balsom, Filipe Furtado, Jordan Cronk, Kevin B Lee, Saffron Maeve, Sukhdev Sandhu, Thomas Flew

Lina Soualem, Palestine, Belgium, Qatar, France

Voted for by: Ian Wang, Rachel Pronger

Voted for by: Brad Stevens

Voted for by: Amy Taubin, Caitlin Quinlan, Charles Whitehouse, Erika Balsom, Imogen Sara Smith, Isabel Stevens, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Jordan Cronk, Josh Slater-Williams, Kevin B Lee, Kieron Corless, Matt Turner, Matthew Thrift, Nick James, Patrick Gamble, Philip Concannon, Ryan Swen, Sam Wigley, Sukhdev Sandhu, Thomas Flew, Vadim Rizov, Will Sloan

Luca Guadagnino, US, Italy

Voted for by: Alex Ramon, Beatrice Loayza, Brogan Morris, Carlos Aguilar, Derek O’Connor, Ian Mantgani, Jamie Dunn, Leigh Singer, Mary Harrod, Naman Ramachandran, Rafa Sales Ross, Simran Hans, Steph Green, Tom Charity

Chiara Malta, Sébastien Laudenbach, France, Italy

Voted for by: Carlos Aguilar

Voted for by: Matt Turner, Matthew Thrift

Voted for by: Henry K. Miller

Tinatin Kajrishvili, Georgia

Voted for by: Alex Barrett

Sara Rajaei, Netherlands

Voted for by: Ehsan Khoshbakht

Alex Garland, US, UK, Finland

Voted for by: Brogan Morris, Clara Bradbury-Rance, Henry K. Miller, J. Hoberman, Kim Newman, Naman Ramachandran, Philip Horne, Tim Hayes

Victor Erice, Spain, Argentina

Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit, Brad Stevens, Carlos Aguilar, David Thompson, Ehsan Khoshbakht, Imogen Sara Smith, Michael Atkinson, Philip Horne, Saffron Maeve, Tom Charity

Jessica Sarah Rinland, UK, Argentina

Voted for by: Erika Balsom, Matthew Barrington

Voted for by: Anna Smith, Lou Thomas, Molly Haskell, Naman Ramachandran, Neil Young, Sam Clements

Voted for by: Michael Pattison

Woody Allen, US, France, UK

Voted for by: Brad Stevens

Ali Ahmadzadeh, Iran, Germany

Voted for by: Ehsan Khoshbakht

Tumpal Tampubolon, Indonesia, France, Singapore, Germany

Voted for by: Naman Ramachandran

Levan Akin, Sweden, Denmark, France, Turkey, Georgia

Voted for by: Alex Davidson, Carmen Gray, Imogen Sara Smith, Jamie Dunn, Katherine McLaughlin, Lillian Crawford, Noel Hess, Pamela Hutchinson, Ryan Gilbey

Mati Diop, France, Senegal, Benin, UK

Voted for by: Alex Davidson, Alex Ramon, Annabel Bai Jackson, Avanish Chandrasekaran, Brogan Morris, Caitlin Quinlan, Chris Shields, Erika Balsom, Imogen Sara Smith, J. Hoberman, Jamie Dunn, Kate Stables, Katie McCabe, Kevin B Lee, Laura Staab, Matt Turner, Matthew Thrift, Michael Koresky, Molly Haskell, Nick James, Nicolas Rapold, Pamela Hutchinson, Patrick Gamble, Sam Wigley, Sophia Satchell-Baeza, Thomas Flew, Tom Charity, Wendy Ide

Catriona Gallagher, Italy, Greece

Voted for by: Ben Nicholson

Voted for by: Laura Staab

Natalie Rae, Angela Patton, US

Voted for by: Kate Stables, Leila Latif, Rafa Sales Ross, Simran Hans

Chloé Robichaud, Canada

Voted for by: Lillian Crawford

Joe DeBoer & Kyle McConaghy, US

Voted for by: Anton Bitel

Voted for by: Anton Bitel

Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit, Matt Turner

Ashish Avikunthak, Germany

Voted for by: Matt Turner

Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell, US, Canada

Voted for by: Erika Balsom, Kieron Corless, Matt Turner, Patrick Gamble, Vadim Rizov

Radu Jude, Romania, Luxembourg, France, Croatia, Switzerland, UK

Voted for by: Alex Barrett, Beatrice Loayza, David Thompson, Katie McCabe, Michael Atkinson, Michael Koresky, Nicolas Rapold, Nicole Flattery, Travis Jeppesen, Will Sloan

Ana Guevara, Leticia Jorge, Uruguay

Voted for by: Filipe Furtado

Voted for by: Annabel Bai Jackson

Voted for by: Brogan Morris

Denis Villeneuve, US, Canada, UAE, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, Jordan, Gambia

Voted for by: John Bleasdale, Mar Diestro-Dópido, Omar Ahmed, Sam Clements, Steph Green, William Webb

Voted for by: Neil Young

Voted for by: Henry K. Miller, Kaleem Aftab, Philip Concannon, Savina Petkova

Radu Jude and Christian Ferencz-Flatz, Romania

Voted for by: Alex Barrett

Thibault Emin, Belgium, France

Voted for by: Anton Bitel

Jacques Audiard, France, Belgium

Voted for by: Alex Davidson, Alex Ramon, Anna Smith, Avanish Chandrasekaran, Charles Whitehouse, Derek O’Connor, James Mottram, Kate Stables, Mary Harrod, Roger Luckhurst, Stephen Dalton

Voted for by: Geoff Andrew

Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck, Germany, US

Voted for by: Mike Williams

Lisandro Alonso, Argentina, France, Portugal

Voted for by: John Berra, Soham Gadre

Voted for by: Michael Pattison

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Japan

Voted for by: Beatrice Loayza, Chloe Walker, Ian Mantgani, Imogen Sara Smith, Isabel Stevens, Jamie Dunn, John Berra, Laura Staab, Lou Thomas, Michael Koresky, Michael Leader, Mike Williams, Nicole Flattery, Roger Luckhurst, Will Sloan

Dimitris Athiridis, Greece

Voted for by: Erika Balsom, Jordan Cronk, Laura Staab

Jang Jae-hyun, South Korea

Voted for by: John Berra, Josh Slater-Williams

Jean-Luc Godard, France, Japan

Voted for by: Amy Taubin

Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit

Voted for by: Michael Pattison

Alexander Sokurov, Russia, Belgium

Voted for by: Michael Atkinson

Aki Kaurismäki, Finland

Voted for by: Brad Stevens

Voted for by: Chloe Walker, Guy Lodge

Voted for by: Michael Atkinson

Sonja Prosenc, Italy, Croatia, Norway, Serbia, Slovenia

Voted for by: Stephen Dalton

Asli Özge, France, Germany, Turkey

Voted for by: Geoff Andrew

Sam H Freeman, Ng Choon Ping, UK

Voted for by: Ryan Gilbey

Michael Mann, US, UK, Italy, Saudi Arabia

Marta Mateus, Portugal, France, Switzerland

Voted for by: Jonathan Rosenbaum

Voted for by: Philip Kemp

Jaydon Martin, Australia

Voted for by: Carmen Gray, Stephen Dalton

Gints Zilbalodis, Latvia, Belgium, France

Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit, Carlos Aguilar, Jane Giles, Jason Anderson, Michael Leader

Kaouther Ben Hania, France, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Tunisia, Cyprus

Voted for by: Sophie Brown

Voted for by: Michael Pattison

George Miller, Australia, US

Voted for by: Anton Bitel, Derek O’Connor, Josh Slater-Williams, Leila Latif, Matthew Thrift, Sam Clements, Sam Wigley, Tim Hayes

Voted for by: Arun A.K., Avanish Chandrasekaran, Leila Latif

Voted for by: Michael Leader

Voted for by: Michael Atkinson, Michael Koresky, Tom Charity

Pinny Grylls, Sam Crane, UK

Voted for by: Ben Nicholson, Nick Bradshaw

Miguel Gomes, Portugal, Italy, France

Voted for by: Caitlin Quinlan, Guy Lodge, Jason Anderson, Jonathan Romney, Jordan Cronk, Joseph Fahim, Kieron Corless, Lee Marshall, Nick James, Sam Clements, Vadim Rizov

Voted for by: Hayley Scanlon

Agnieszka Holland, Poland, France, Czech Republic, Belgium, US, Germany, Turkey

Voted for by: Amy Taubin, Charles Gant, Leila Latif, Molly Haskell, Nicolas Rapold, Sukhdev Sandhu

Denise Fernandes, Portugal, Switzerland, Cape Verde

Voted for by: Amy Taubin, Beatrice Loayza, Caitlin Quinlan, Geoff Andrew, Ian Wang, Isabel Stevens, James Mottram, Joseph Fahim, Josh Slater-Williams, Katherine McLaughlin, Leila Latif, Lou Thomas, Matthew Thrift, Michael Koresky, Molly Haskell, Ryan Swen, Saffron Maeve, Sam Clements, Simran Hans, Sophia Satchell-Baeza, Steph Green, Stephen Dalton, Violet Lucca

Athina Rachel Tsangari, UK, Germany, US, France, Greece

Voted for by: Jason Anderson

Voted for by: Thomas Flew

Alexander Horwath, Austria, Germany

Voted for by: Filipe Furtado, Geoff Andrew, J. Hoberman, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Jordan Cronk, Kieron Corless, Matthew Thrift, Neil Young, Philip Concannon, Sam Wigley

Voted for by: David Parkinson, Imogen Sara Smith, Omar Ahmed, Thomas Flew, Wendy Ide

Scott Beck, Bryan Woods, US, Canada

Voted for by: David Pirie, Kim Newman, Mar Diestro-Dópido

Kevin Macdonald, UK, US, France

Voted for by: Jane Giles

Voted for by: Alex Barrett, Amy Taubin, Chloe Walker, Sam Clements

Voted for by: Jonathan Ali

Voted for by: Alex Barrett, David Thompson, Kevin B Lee, Mike Williams, Philip Horne

Voted for by: Jane Giles, Katie McCabe

Ibrahim Nash’at, US, Germany

Louise Courvoisier, France

Voted for by: Lou Thomas

Tato Kotetishvili, Georgia, Netherlands

Voted for by: Carmen Gray

Shirine Shah, Matt Feldman, UK

Voted for by: Michael Pattison

Pat Boonnitipat, Thailand

Voted for by: Philip Kemp

Voted for by: Kim Newman

Katharina Liatskaia, Austria

Voted for by: Neil Young

Voted for by: Alex Davidson, Alex Dudok de Wit, Anton Bitel, Carlos Aguilar, David Pirie, Josh Slater-Williams, Katherine McLaughlin, Lou Thomas, Michael Atkinson, Michael Koresky, Michael Leader, Rachel Pronger, Roger Luckhurst, Ryan Gilbey, Saffron Maeve, Sophie Monks Kaufman, Steph Green, Tom Charity

Klára Tasovská, Georgia

Voted for by: Pamela Hutchinson

Walter Salles, Brazil, France

Voted for by: Avanish Chandrasekaran, Geoff Andrew, Jonathan Romney, Leigh Singer, Rafa Sales Ross, Wendy Ide

Voted for by: Kim Newman

Voted for by: David Parkinson, Sophie Monks Kaufman

Hong Sangsoo, South Korea

Voted for by: Chris Shields, Soham Gadre

Voted for by: Anna Smith

Voted for by: Charles Gant, Kaleem Aftab

Voted for by: Chris Shields, Jonathan Rosenbaum

Oksana Karpovych, Canada, France, Ukraine

Voted for by: J. Hoberman, Travis Jeppesen

Voted for by: Kevin B Lee

Göran Hugo Olsson, Sweden, Denmark, Finland

Voted for by: Ian Mantgani

Voted for by: Jonathan Romney, Jordan Cronk, Leigh Singer, Nick James

Voted for by: Caitlin Quinlan, David Thompson, Imogen Sara Smith, Isabel Stevens, Katie McCabe, Laura Staab, Maria Delgado, Michael Koresky, Michael Leader, Nicole Flattery, Simran Hans, Sophia Satchell-Baeza, Tom Charity

Voted for by: Hayley Scanlon

Tod Phillips, US, Canada

Voted for by: Anne Billson, Anton Bitel, John Bleasdale, Kim Newman

Lyon Pol aka ‘Lowpolyon’, Netherlands

Voted for by: Neil Young

Yves Netzhammer, Netherlands

Voted for by: Srikanth Srinivasan

Voted for by: Neil Young

Leonardo Van Dijl, Belgium, Sweden

Voted for by: Lou Thomas

Voted for by: Geoff Andrew, Ian Mantgani, Matthew Thrift, Sam Wigley, Steph Green, Violet Lucca

Giasuddin Selim, Bangladesh

Voted for by: Srikanth Srinivasan

Marco Bellocchio, Italy, France, Germany

Voted for by: Alex Barrett, Brad Stevens, Ehsan Khoshbakht

Nikhil Nagesh Bhat, India

Voted for by: Avanish Chandrasekaran

Voted for by: Brad Stevens

Yorgos Lanthimos, Ireland, United Kingdom, US, Greece

Voted for by: Carmen Gray, Lee Marshall, Michael Atkinson, Violet Lucca

Voted for by: Arun A.K., Srikanth Srinivasan

Rich Peppiat, Ireland, UK

Voted for by: Anna Smith, Charles Whitehouse, James Mottram, Jane Giles, Katherine McLaughlin, Mike Williams, Simran Hans, Sophie Brown, Sophie Monks Kaufman

Voted for by: Soham Gadre

Malaury Eloi Paisley, France

Voted for by: Jonathan Ali

Alice Rohrwacher, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey

Voted for by: Annabel Bai Jackson, Anne Billson, Arun A.K., Brad Stevens, Brogan Morris, Carlos Aguilar, Henry K. Miller, Imogen Sara Smith, Jamie Dunn, John Berra, Jonathan Ali, Katie McCabe, Kieron Corless, Laura Staab, Lillian Crawford, Mary Harrod, Mike Williams, Nick James, Nicole Flattery, Omar Ahmed, Pamela Hutchinson, Philip Horne, Rachel Pronger, Roger Luckhurst, Simran Hans, Sophia Satchell-Baeza, Sophie Brown, Sophie Monks Kaufman, William Webb

Alonso Ruizpalacios, Mexico, US

Voted for by: Rafa Sales Ross

Voted for by: Omar Ahmed

Catherine Breillat, France

Voted for by: Beatrice Loayza, Michael Koresky, Nicolas Rapold, Will Sloan

Deborah Stratman, US, Portugal, France

Voted for by: Ian Mantgani

Cameron Cairnes, Colin Cairnes, Australia, United Arab Emirates, US

Voted for by: Jane Giles, John Berra

Voted for by: Clara Bradbury-Rance

Ellen Kuras, UK, US, Australia, Singapore, Hungary

Voted for by: Anna Smith

Voted for by: Patrick Gamble

Maxime Jean-Baptiste, Belgium, French Guiana, France

Voted for by: Ben Nicholson, Jonathan Ali

Voted for by: Patrick Gamble

Voted for by: Kaleem Aftab

Voted for by: Will Sloan

Andrew Legge, Ireland, UK

Voted for by: David Pirie

Voted for by: Anne Billson, Derek O’Connor, Mary Harrod, Philip Kemp, Roger Luckhurst

Oshiyama Kiyotaka, Japan, US

Voted for by: Michael Leader

Voted for by: Neil Young

Voted for by: Philip Concannon, Sophie Brown

Voted for by: Anna Smith, Clara Bradbury-Rance, David Pirie, Henry K. Miller, James Mottram, John Berra, John Bleasdale, Kate Stables, Katherine McLaughlin, Kim Newman, Lee Marshall, Leila Latif, Mary Harrod, Naman Ramachandran, Rachel Pronger, Roger Luckhurst, Ryan Gilbey, Savina Petkova, Travis Jeppesen, Violet Lucca, William Webb

Voted for by: Chloe Walker, David Pirie, Ehsan Khoshbakht, Philip Horne

Voted for by: Philip Kemp

Khavn de la Cruz, Philippines, Germany

Voted for by: Jane Giles

Fabrice du Weltz, Belgium, France

Voted for by: Kieron Corless

Voted for by: Rafa Sales Ross

Voted for by: Patrick Gamble

Jon Garaño and Aitor Arregi, Spain

Voted for by: Maria Delgado

Voted for by: Caitlin Quinlan, Laura Staab, Savina Petkova

Sam Pollard, Ben Shapiro, US

Voted for by: Ehsan Khoshbakht

Voted for by: Sophie Brown

Sofia Bohdanowicz, Canada

Voted for by: Saffron Maeve, Savina Petkova

Voted for by: Charles Whitehouse, Chris Shields, Derek O’Connor, Jordan Cronk, Leigh Singer, Lillian Crawford, Matthew Thrift, Molly Haskell, Nicole Flattery, Sophia Satchell-Baeza, Tim Hayes

Voted for by: Carlos Aguilar

Michel Franco, Mexico, US

Voted for by: Steph Green

Milisuthando Bongela, South Africa, Colombia

Voted for by: Nick Bradshaw

Alain Guiraudie, France, Spain, Portugal

Voted for by: Beatrice Loayza, Erika Balsom, Filipe Furtado, Jordan Cronk, Kieron Corless, Patrick Gamble, Vadim Rizov

Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan

Voted for by: Jamie Dunn, Mary Harrod, Michael Leader

Simon Chambers, UK, Ireland

Voted for by: Philip Kemp

Angela Schanelec, Germany

Voted for by: Soham Gadre

Maryam Moghaddam, Iran, France, Sweden, Germany

Voted for by: David Parkinson

Megan Park, UK, Canada, US

Voted for by: Sam Clements, Sophie Monks Kaufman

Voted for by: Amy Taubin, J. Hoberman, Nicolas Rapold

Gürcan Keltek, Turkey, Italy, Germany, Norway, Netherlands

Voted for by: Carmen Gray

Voted for by: Caitlin Quinlan, Charles Whitehouse, Isabel Stevens, James Mottram, John Bleasdale, Katherine McLaughlin, Leila Latif, Michael Koresky, Mike Williams, Nick Bradshaw, Nick James, Nicolas Rapold, Ryan Swen, Sam Wigley, Savina Petkova, Simran Hans, Sophia Satchell-Baeza, Thomas Flew, Wendy Ide

Troy Quane and Nick Bruno, US, UK, France

Voted for by: Ryan Gilbey

Komtouch Napattaloong, Thailand

Voted for by: Annabel Bai Jackson

Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, Palestine, Norway

Voted for by: Alex Davidson, Amy Taubin, Charles Gant, Erika Balsom, Guy Lodge, Ian Mantgani, Isabel Stevens, J. Hoberman, Jonathan Ali, Joseph Fahim, Kevin B Lee, Nick Bradshaw, Nicolas Rapold, Omar Ahmed, Philip Concannon, Savina Petkova, Sophie Brown, Sophie Monks Kaufman, Thomas Flew, Violet Lucca

Robert Eggers, Czech Republic, US

Voted for by: Charles Gant

Steve McQueen, UK, Netherlands, US

Voted for by: David Parkinson

Paul Schrader, US, Israel

Voted for by: Isabel Stevens, Rafa Sales Ross, Violet Lucca, Will Sloan

Voted for by: Hayley Scanlon

Tomás Pichardo-Espaillat, Dominican Republic

Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit, Maria Delgado, Michael Leader

Baloji, Belgium, Netherlands, D. R. Congo, France, South Africa

Voted for by: Rachel Pronger

Rungano Nyoni, Zambia, UK, Ireland

Voted for by: Alex Ramon, Ben Nicholson, Charles Whitehouse, Guy Lodge, Jonathan Romney, Katie McCabe, Leila Latif, Rachel Pronger, Simran Hans

Laura Carreira, UK, Portugal

Voted for by: Thomas Flew

Theresa Delsoin, Lisa Marie Malloy, JP Sniadecki, Ray Whitaker, US

Voted for by: Ben Nicholson

Voted for by: Annabel Bai Jackson, Anton Bitel, Avanish Chandrasekaran, John Berra

Voted for by: Steph Green

Voted for by: Katie McCabe

Voted for by: Ehsan Khoshbakht

Voted for by: David Pirie

Voted for by: Leigh Singer, Sam Clements

Bernhard Wenger, Austria, Germany

Voted for by: Stephen Dalton

Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias, Dominican Republic, France, Namibia, Germany

Voted for by: Alex Ramon, Lee Marshall, Rafa Sales Ross, Vadim Rizov

Wim Wenders, Japan, Germany

Voted for by: Alex Ramon, Anne Billson, Brad Stevens, Brogan Morris, Charles Whitehouse, Clara Bradbury-Rance, Derek O’Connor, Imogen Sara Smith, John Berra, Pamela Hutchinson, Roger Luckhurst, Sinéad Gleeson

Deepak Rauniyar, Nepal, US, Norway

Voted for by: Naman Ramachandran

Yorgos Lanthimos, Ireland, UK, US

Voted for by: Ehsan Khoshbakht, Philip Kemp

Voted for by: Ben Nicholson

Voted for by: Sukhdev Sandhu

Voted for by: Clara Bradbury-Rance, Henry K. Miller

Voted for by: Jamie Dunn

Luca Guadgnino, Italy, US

Voted for by: Brogan Morris, Joseph Fahim, Leila Latif, Lillian Crawford, Steph Green

Conner O’Malley, Danny Scharar, US

Voted for by: Matt Turner, Will Sloan

Maryam Tafakory, Iran, Italy, UK

Cécile B. Evans, France, Belgium, US

Voted for by: Laura Staab

Lola Arias, Argentina, Switzerland, Germany

Voted for by: Maria Delgado

Voted for by: Chloe Walker, Derek O’Connor, Jason Anderson

Voted for by: Beatrice Loayza, Jamie Dunn

Voted for by: Matt Turner

Martín Rejtman, Argentina, Portugal, Venezuela

Voted for by: Vadim Rizov

Pablo Berger, Spain, France

Voted for by: David Parkinson, Pamela Hutchinson

Guy Maddin, Canada, Germany, Hungary, US

Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit, Charles Whitehouse, Chris Shields, Katie McCabe, Lee Marshall

Maksud Hossain, Bangladesh

Voted for by: Naman Ramachandran

Voted for by: Chris Shields, Soham Gadre

Quay Brothers, UK, Poland, Germany

Voted for by: David Thompson, Geoff Andrew, James Mottram, Jonathan Romney, Matthew Thrift, Nick James, Sam Wigley

Sandhya Suri, UK, Germany, India, France

Voted for by: Leigh Singer, Wendy Ide

David & Nathan Zellner, US

Voted for by: Jonathan Romney, Lee Marshall, Michael Atkinson, Travis Jeppesen

Iñaki Lacuesta, Spain, France

Voted for by: Mar Diestro-Dópido

Jane Giles and Ali Catterall, UK

Voted for by: Jane Giles

Jean-Luc Godard, France, Japan

Voted for by: Amy Taubin, Jordan Cronk

Voted for by: Ben Nicholson

Voted for by: Charles Gant

Min Bahadur Bham, Nepal, France, Norway, Hong Kong, Turkey, Taiwan, US, Qatar

Voted for by: Thomas Flew

Voted for by: Brad Stevens, Lillian Crawford, Ryan Gilbey

Voted for by: Kate Stables, Philip Kemp

Voted for by: Anton Bitel

Voted for by: John Berra

Shambhavi Kaul, India, US

Voted for by: Michael Pattison

Tim Mielants, Ireland, Belgium, US

Voted for by: Noel Hess, Sinéad Gleeson

Voted for by: David Pirie

Voted for by: Anne Billson

Johan Grimonprez, Belgium, France, Netherlands

Voted for by: Charles Whitehouse, J. Hoberman, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Joseph Fahim, Michael Atkinson, Mike Williams, Nick Bradshaw, Tim Hayes, Wendy Ide

Ramon Zürcher, Switzerland

Voted for by: Carmen Gray

James Watkins, US, Croatia, Canada

Voted for by: David Pirie, Neil Young

Voted for by: Vadim Rizov

Voted for by: Jonathan Ali

Voted for by: Anne Billson, Kim Newman

Siew Hua Yeo, Singapore, Taiwan, France, US

Voted for by: Kieron Corless

Voted for by: Saffron Maeve

Astrid Rondero, Fernanda Valadez, US, Mexico, France

Voted for by: Carlos Aguilar

Philipp Fussenegger and Judy Landkamme, Germany

Voted for by: Rachel Pronger

Alireza Khatami, Ali Asgari, Iran

Voted for by: Travis Jeppesen

Voted for by: Chris Shields, Lillian Crawford

Voted for by: David Parkinson, David Thompson, Derek O’Connor, Sinéad Gleeson

Voted for by: Omar Ahmed, Srikanth Srinivasan

Ali Abbasi, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, US

Voted for by: Jonathan Rosenbaum, Philip Horne

Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich, US

Voted for by: Caitlin Quinlan, Ian Wang, Rachel Pronger

Bertrand Bonello, France, Canada

Voted for by: Annabel Bai Jackson, Anne Billson, Beatrice Loayza, Nicolas Rapold, Nicole Flattery, Philip Horne, Roger Luckhurst, Tim Hayes

Voted for by: Omar Ahmed

Javier Macipe, Argentina, Spain

Voted for by: Mar Diestro-Dópido

Voted for by: Philip Kemp

Brady Corbet, US, UK, Hungary

Voted for by: Charles Gant, David Thompson, Isabel Stevens, James Mottram, John Bleasdale, Lou Thomas, Molly Haskell, Patrick Gamble, Rafa Sales Ross, Tom Charity, Violet Lucca

Voted for by: Josh Slater-Williams, Michael Leader

Alexandre de La Patellière, Matthieu Delaporte, France, Belgium

Voted for by: Mary Harrod

Roberto Minervini, Italy, Belgium, US, France, Canada

Voted for by: Srikanth Srinivasan

Viggo Mortensen, US, Mexico, UK

Voted for by: David Parkinson

Rodrigo Moreno, Argentina

Voted for by: Katie McCabe

Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala, Austria, Germany

Voted for by: Michael Atkinson, Stephen Dalton

Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Lebanon

Voted for by: Matt Turner

Tatiana Huezo, Mexico, Germany

Voted for by: Chris Shields

Joshua Oppenheimer, Denmark, Ireland, Germany, Italy, UK, US, Sweden

Voted for by: Nick Bradshaw

Richard Fung, Trinidad and Tobago, Canada

Voted for by: Sukhdev Sandhu

Voted for by: Omar Ahmed

Arkasha Stevenson, US, Italy, Serbia, Canada

Voted for by: Naman Ramachandran

Magnus von Horn, Denmark, Poland, Sweden

Voted for by: Anna Smith, James Mottram, Jason Anderson, Stephen Dalton

Voted for by: Filipe Furtado

Voted for by: Henry K. Miller, J. Hoberman

Voted for by: Brogan Morris, Clara Bradbury-Rance, Henry K. Miller, Noel Hess, Philip Kemp, Steph Green

Eduardo Williams, Argentina

Voted for by: Sophia Satchell-Baeza

Voted for by: Michael Leader, Nicole Flattery

Nicolai Schumann, Germany, UK

Voted for by: Ben Nicholson

Asmae El Moudir, Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar

Voted for by: Rachel Pronger

Voted for by: Michael Pattison

Ken Loach, UK, France, Belgium

Voted for by: Soham Gadre

Jonas Trueba, Spain, France

Voted for by: Filipe Furtado, Kieron Corless, Mar Diestro-Dópido, Maria Delgado, Sam Wigley

The Outrun (Nora Fingscheidt, UK, Germany

Voted for by: Chloe Walker, Clara Bradbury-Rance, Roger Luckhurst, Sinéad Gleeson, Sophie Brown

Robert Zhao Renhui, Singapore

Voted for by: Annabel Bai Jackson

Braden Sitter Sr., Canada

Voted for by: Will Sloan

Voted for by: Ian Mantgani, Ryan Gilbey, Violet Lucca

Voted for by: Patrick Gamble

Orkhan Aghazadeh, Germany, France

Voted for by: Alex Davidson

Pedro Almodóvar, Spain, US

Voted for by: Clara Bradbury-Rance, Derek O’Connor, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Mar Diestro-Dópido, Maria Delgado, Mary Harrod, Molly Haskell, Sukhdev Sandhu

Mahommad Rasoulof, Iran, Germany, France

Voted for by: Avanish Chandrasekaran, Carlos Aguilar, Chris Shields, Ehsan Khoshbakht, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Lee Marshall, Lou Thomas

David Cronenberg, Canada, France

Voted for by: Beatrice Loayza, Chris Shields, Erika Balsom, Filipe Furtado, Jordan Cronk, Molly Haskell, Ryan Swen, Violet Lucca, Will Sloan

Pablo Alvarez-Mesa, Canada, Colombia

Voted for by: Ehsan Khoshbakht

The Neurocultures Collective (Sam Chown Ahern, Georgia Bradburn, Benjamin Brown, Robin Elliott-Knowles, Lucy Walker), Steven Eastwood, UK

Voted for by: Lillian Crawford

Coralie Fargeat, UK, France, US

Voted for by: Alex Davidson, Anna Smith, Anne Billson, Arun A.K., Avanish Chandrasekaran, Brogan Morris, Chloe Walker, Clara Bradbury-Rance, James Mottram, Jane Giles, John Bleasdale, Kaleem Aftab, Kate Stables, Kevin B Lee, Lillian Crawford, Lou Thomas, Mar Diestro-Dópido, Mary Harrod, Sinéad Gleeson, Stephen Dalton, Violet Lucca

Voted for by: Anne Billson, Henry K. Miller

Tran Anh Hung, France, Belgium

Voted for by: Alex Barrett, Brad Stevens, Omar Ahmed, Philip Concannon, Sophie Monks Kaufman, Steph Green, William Webb

Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche, France

Voted for by: Filipe Furtado

Voted for by: Neil Young

Pedro Martín-Calero, Spain, Argentina, France

Voted for by: Mar Diestro-Dópido, Roger Luckhurst

Chris Teerink, Netherlands

Voted for by: Travis Jeppesen

Voted for by: Annabel Bai Jackson

Chris Sanders, US, Japan

Voted for by: Kate Stables, Nick Bradshaw, Sam Clements

Voted for by: Travis Jeppesen

Mostafa Taghizadeh, Iran

Voted for by: Srikanth Srinivasan

Jonathan Glazer, UK, Poland, US

Voted for by: Alex Barrett, Annabel Bai Jackson, Brogan Morris, Clara Bradbury-Rance, Jane Giles, Kim Newman, Noel Hess, Omar Ahmed, Philip Kemp, Sinéad Gleeson, Sophia Satchell-Baeza, Sophie Monks Kaufman, Tim Hayes

Josh Margolin, Switzerland, US

Voted for by: Chloe Walker

Voted for by: Kim Newman, Mary Harrod

Mitchell Stafiej, Switzerland

Voted for by: Michael Pattison

Voted for by: Anton Bitel

Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit

Yousef Srouji, Palestine

Voted for by: Sophie Brown

Voted for by: Kevin B Lee

Voted for by: Anne Billson

Mahdi Fleifel, UK, Greece, Denmark, Netherlands, Palestine, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Qatar

Voted for by: Jason Anderson, Joseph Fahim, Kaleem Aftab

Pascal Viveros, Luciana Morino, Chile

Voted for by: Vadim Rizov

Jean-Luc Godard, France, Switzerland

Voted for by: Jonathan Rosenbaum

Victoria Verseau, Sweden, France

Voted for by: Savina Petkova

M. Night Shyamalan, US, Canada

Voted for by: Filipe Furtado, Ian Mantgani, Nicole Flattery, Saffron Maeve

Laura Citarella, Germany, Argentina

Voted for by: David Parkinson

Soi Cheang, Mexico, Germany

Voted for by: Filipe Furtado, Hayley Scanlon, Srikanth Srinivasan

Lee Isaac Chung, Japan, US

Voted for by: Philip Horne

Andrei Ujică, France, Romania

Voted for by: J. Hoberman

Voted for by: Kaleem Aftab, Leigh Singer

Stephen Maing, Brett Story, US

Voted for by: Simran Hans, Sophie Brown

Voted for by: Alex Dudok de Wit, Charles Whitehouse, Chloe Walker, Jason Anderson, John Bleasdale, Kevin B Lee, Saffron Maeve, Stephen Dalton, William Webb

Maura Delpero, Italy, France, Belgium

Truong Minh Quy, Vietnam, Philippines, Singapore, France, Netherlands, Italy, Germany, US

Voted for by: Josh Slater-Williams, Saffron Maeve

Rima Das, Singapore, India

Voted for by: Arun A.K., Naman Ramachandran

Farah Kassem, Lebanon, Qatar, Denmark

Voted for by: Srikanth Srinivasan

Voted for by: Alex Ramon

Rúnar Rúnarsson, Iceland, Netherlands, Croatia, France

Voted for by: Isabel Stevens, Jason Anderson

Philippe Lesage, Canada, France

Voted for by: Guy Lodge, Ryan Swen, Tom Charity

Alexe Poukine, Brazil, US, Tanzania, Switzerland, Peru, Germany, Canada

Voted for by: Srikanth Srinivasan

Miriam Joobeur, Tunisia, France, Canada, Norway, Qatar, Saudi Arabia

Voted for by: Maria Delgado

Miiel Ferráez, Megan Marsh, Clara Winter, Mexico, Germany

Voted for by: Srikanth Srinivasan

Voted for by: Sukhdev Sandhu

Pavel G. Vesnakov, Bulgaria, Italy

Voted for by: Guy Lodge, Rafa Sales Ross

Susanna Fogel, Canada, US

Voted for by: Jonathan Rosenbaum

Voted for by: Chloe Walker, David Thompson

Voted for by: Hayley Scanlon

Noaz Deshe, France, Germany

Voted for by: John Bleasdale

Kazuyoshi Kumakiri, Japan

Voted for by: Hayley Scanlon

Matías Piñeiro, Spain, Argentina

Voted for by: Laura Staab, Sophia Satchell-Baeza

Wang Bing, France, Netherlands, Luxembourg

Voted for by: Josh Slater-Williams, Kevin B Lee, Ryan Swen

Wang Bing, France, Netherlands, Luxembourg

Voted for by: Kaleem Aftab