Star Wars: Episode VII -- The Force Awakens(J.J. Abrams)
Jafar Panahi's Taxi(Jafar Panahi)
Youth(Paolo Sorrentino)
Montage of Heck(Brett Morgen)
My Golden Days(Arnaud Desplechin)
Steve Jobs(Danny Boyle)
Tangerine(Sean Baker)
In Jackson Heights(Frederick Wiseman)
Suite Armoricaine(Pascale Breton)
Son of Saul(László Nemes)
Invention(Mark Lewis)
Creed(Ryan Coogler)
Amy(Asif Kapadia)
The Nightmare(Rodney Ascher)
The Measure of a Man(Stéphane Brizé)
Mississippi Grind(Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck)
Eye in the Sky(Gavin Hood)
The Revenant(Alejandro G. Iñárritu)
Blood of My Blood(Marco Bellocchio)
Grandma(Paul Weitz)
Our Little Sister(Kore-eda Hirokazu)
Ant-Man(Peyton Reed)
Experimenter: The Stanley Milgram Story(Michael Almereyda)
Zurich(Sacha Polak)
The Walk(Robert Zemeckis)
Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead(Douglas Tirola)
Irrational Man(Woody Allen)
Cemetery of Splendour(Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
Where to Invade Next.(Michael Moore)
The Daughter(Simon Stone)
Louder Than Bombs(Joachim Trier)
Sisters(Jason Moore)
Finders Keepers(Bryan Carberry & Clay Tweel)
Krisha(Trey Edward Shults)
Advantageous(Jennifer Phang)
Joy(David O. Russell)
Office(Johnnie To)
The D Train(Jarrad Paul & Andrew Mogel)
Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made(Tim Skousen & Jeremy Coon)
In Transit(Albert Maysles & Lynn True & David Usui & Nelson Walker & Ben Wu)
Furious Seven(James Wan)
Black Mass(Scott Cooper)
Cartel Land(Matthew Heineman)
Cop Car(Jon Watts)
King Jack(Felix Thompson)
A War(Tobias Lindholm)
One Floor Below(Radu Muntean)
Neither Heaven nor Earth(Clément Cogitore)
Ixcanul(Jayro Bustamante)
Hitchcock/Truffaut(Kent Jones)
Ex Machina(Alex Garland)
Neon Bull(Gabriel Mascaro)
Call Me Lucky(Bobcat Goldthwait)
Summertime(Catherine Corsini)
Ma(Celia Rowlson-Hall)
The Assassin(Hou Hsiao-Hsien)
A Perfect Day(Fernando León de Aranoa)
The Fits(Anna Rose Holmer)
Partisan(Ariel Kleiman)
Being Charlie(Rob Reiner)
Room(Lenny Abrahamson)
Listen to Me Marlon(Stevan Riley)
Crimson Peak(Guillermo Del Toro)
Straight Outta Compton(F. Gary Gray)
Man Up(Ben Palmer)
Valley of Love(Guillaume Nicloux)
Slow West(John Maclean)
Viva(Paddy Breathnach)
Arabian Nights: Volume Three, The Enchanted One(Miguel Gomes)
The Little Prince(Mark Osborne)
The Second Mother(Anna Muylaert)
Songs My Brothers Taught Me(Chloé Zhao)
Les Cowboys(Thomas Bidegain)
Tumbledown(Sean Mewshaw)
Trap(Brillante Ma Mendoza)
My King(Maïwenn)
Meru(Jimmy Chin & Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi)
Brooklyn(John Crowley)
The Summer of Sangaile(Alanté Kavaïté)
The Big Short(Adam McKay)
3 Generations(Gaby Dellal)
Aferim!(Radu Jude)
Sleeping With Other People(Leslye Headland)
Spectre(Sam Mendes)
Avengers: Age of Ultron(Joss Whedon)
The Missing Girl(A.D. Calvo)
Dheepan(Jacques Audiard)
The End of the Tour(James Ponsoldt)
Happy Hour(Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
Tale of Tales(Matteo Garrone)
Accidental Love(Stephen Greene)
Emelie(Michael Thelin)
Afternoon(Tsai Ming-Liang)
Our Brand Is Crisis(David Gordon Green)
Ricki And The Flash(Jonathan Demme)
Ted 2(Seth MacFarlane)
Macbeth(Justin Kurzel)
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge out of Water(Paul Tibbitt)
Miles Ahead(Don Cheadle)
Digging for Fire(Joe Swanberg)
The Treasure(Corneliu Porumboiu)
Chevalier(Athina Rachel Tsangari)
L'atessa(Piero Messina)
Mountains May Depart(Jia Zhang-ke)
The Russian Woodpecker(Chad Gracia)
The Ardennes(Robin Pront)
Maggie's Plan(Rebecca Miller)
Chronic(Michel Franco)
The Program(Stephen Frears)
Ingrid Bergman - In Her Own Words(Stig Björkman)
Forsaken(Jon Cassar)
The Hunting Ground(Kirby Dick)
Danny Collins(Dan Fogelman)
Trainwreck(Judd Apatow)
Live From New York!(Bao Nguyen)
Love(Gaspar Noé)
Echoes of War(Kane Senes)
Lazer Team(Matt Hullum)
Stinking Heaven(Nathan Silver)
Into the Forest(Patricia Rozema)
Suffragette(Sarah Gavron)
Terminator Genisys(Alan Taylor)
Z for Zachariah(Craig Zobel)
A Tale of Love and Darkness(Natalie Portman)
In the Shadow of Women(Philippe Garrel)
Bleak Street(Arturo Ripstein)
People Places Things(Jim Strouse)
Victor Frankenstein(Paul McGuigan)
Chi-Raq(Spike Lee)
Marguerite & Julien(Valérie Donzelli)
The Master(Xu Haofeng)
Sunset Song(Terence Davies)
Amnesia(Barbet Schroeder)
The 33(Patricia Riggen)
Sweet Bean(Naomi Kawase)
Intruders(Adam Schindler)
Results(Andrew Bujalski)
A Walk in the Woods(Ken Kwapis)
Hardcore Henry(Ilya Naishuller)
Arabian Nights: Volume Two, The Desolate One(Miguel Gomes)
Mia Madre(Nanni Moretti)
The Gunman(Pierre Morel)
Unexpected(Kris Swanberg)
The Ones Below(David Farr)
The Idol(Hany Abu-Assad)
The Lost Arcade(Kurt Vincent)
Snowtime!(Jean-François Pouliot)
Concussion(Peter Landesman)
Standing Tall(Emmanuelle Bercot)
Dirty Weekend(Neil LaBute)
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2(Francis Lawrence)
From Afar(Lorenzo Vigas)
Men & Chicken(Anders Thomas Jensen)
Strangerland(Kim Farrant)
The Visit(M. Night Shyamalan)
Ip Man 3(Yip Wai Shun)
A Bigger Splash(Luca Guadagnino)
Don't Blink: Robert Frank(Laura Israel)
Nasty Baby(Sebastián Silva)
Victoria(Sebastian Schipper)
The Sea of Trees(Gus Van Sant)
Rabin: The Last Day(Amos Gitai)
Don Verdean(Jared Hess)
Blackhat(Michael Mann)
He Named Me Malala(Davis Guggenheim)
Knight of Cups(Terrence Malick)
Arabian Nights: Volume One, The Restless One(Miguel Gomes)
I Saw the Light(Marc Abraham)
Anesthesia(Tim Blake Nelson)
Queen of Earth(Alex Ross Perry)
In Stereo(Mel Rodriguez III)
Broken Horses(Vidhu Vinod Chopra)
Cosmos(Andrzej Zulawski)
Journey to the Shore(Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
No Home Movie(Chantal Akerman)
Regression(Alejandro Amenábar)
The Academy of Muses(José Luis Guerin)
Home Sweet Hell(Anthony Burns)
11 Minutes(Jerzy Skolimowski)
Rather than dramatically “unveiling” a top ten list sometime in January (as if anybody who reads this site didn’t already know what it was gonna look like), I revise the sucker as I go along. Here is what my list would look like if (god forbid) I were forced to make it today.
For archival purposes, I file everything by the year it had its world premiere. Many of these films will have been commercially released in the U.S. a year or two later, so my lists won’t always match up with other folks’ lists.
Films I haven’t yet rated on that scale are marked with if I currently think they belong in my top ten. These films are subject to being shifted around or yanked altogether at any moment, after I revisit them and they get a numeral. If a film isn’t currently in my top ten, and I haven’t yet rated it, it ain’t here. There are a whole lot of those — if you’re wondering whether or not I’ve seen the masterpiece you can’t believe I omitted, check my master list.