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01 Kinds of Kindness (Yorgos Lanthimos)
02 Aggro Drift (Harmony Korine)
03 The Brutalist (Brady Corbet)
04 Ripley (Steven Zaillian)
05 The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof)
06 My Favourite Cake (Behtash Sanaeeha & Maryam Moghaddam)
07 Sex/Dreams/Love (Dag Johan Haugerud)
08 Pavements (Alex Ross Perry)
09 Sterben (Matthias Glasner)
10 Friendship (Andrew DeYoung)

11 Hit Man (Richard Linklater)
12 Rap World (Danny Scharar & Conner O'Malley)
13 Trains (Maciej J. Drygas)
14 Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller)
15 C'est pas moi (Leos Carax)
16 Being John Smith (John Smith)
17 L'Histoire de Souleymane (Boris Lojkine)
18 Oh, Canada (Paul Schrader)
19 Eephus (Carson Lund)
20 Challengers (Luca Guadagnino)
21 One of Those Days When Hemme Dies (Murat Fıratoğlu)
22 Heretic (Scott Beck & Bryan Woods)
23 Anora (Sean Baker)
24 Wildcat (Ethan Hawke)
25 The Outrun (Nora Fingscheidt)

Last edited Feb 14, 2026

1. Kinds of Kindness
2. Longlegs
3. Civil War
4. Late Night With the Devil
5. I Saw the TV Glow
6. Furiosa
7. Coup!
8. Deadpool and Wolverine
9. Moogai
10. Dune 2

Other viewings in order of preference: Drive Away Dolls, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Twisters, Night Swim

01. The Brutalist (Corbet)
02. The Substance (Fargeat)
03. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Miller)
04. Aggro Dr1ft (Korine)
05. Joker: Folie à Deux (Phillips)
06. The Apprentice (Abbasi)
07. I Saw the TV Glow (Schoenbrun)
08. Red Rooms (Plante)
09. Anora (Baker)
10. Twisters (Chung)

LAST UPDATED: 02/08/2025

Past lists: 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007

The Brutalist
Anora
Aggro Dr1ft
Red Rooms
The Substance
Challengers
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
I Saw the TV Glow
The Apprentice
Love Lies Bleeding

As this monstrously shitty year comes to a close, it's also goddamn sad to see one mediocrity after another held up as some kind of masterwork - even the better ones tend to be thin and shallow work with nothing substantial to say. For a variety reasons, it makes sense that the very best films drew most of their power from non-fiction elements and made so much of everything else this year seem barren and empty.

1. No Other Land [Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor]
2. Intercepted [Oksana Karpovych]
3. Dahomey [Mati Diop]
4. Nickel Boys [RaMell Ross]
5. Hard Truths [Mike Leigh]
6. A Traveler’s Needs [Hong Sangsoo]
7. Scénarios + Exposé du Film annonce du film "Scénario" [Jean-Luc Godard]
8. It’s Not Me [Leos Carax]
9. Hit Man [Richard Linklater]
10. Evil Does Not Exist [Ryûsuke Hamaguchi]

Great:

1. 100 Yards
2. Oddity
3. Rebel Ridge
4. Memoir of a Snail

Very good:

5. Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In
6. Flow
7. Misericordia
8. Cloud
9. I Saw The TV Glow
10. Chime

Good:

11. The Order
12. Good One

Liked: Civil War, Furiosa, Hitman, Juror #2, Longlegs, Smile 2

Mixed: Immaculate, Kill, Nosferatu, Terrifier 3, The Substance

Last edited: November 1, 2025

1. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia)
2. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun)
3. Castration Movie Anthology i. The Fear of Having No One to Hold at the End of the World (Louise Weard)
4. The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof)
5. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh)
6. A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg)
7. It's Not Me (Leos Carax)
8. Being John Smith (John Smith)
9. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (Rungani Nyoni)
10. Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross)

Coma
Hundreds of Beavers / The People's Joker
Stress Positions
I Saw The TV Glow
The Zone of Interest
Red Rooms / The Beast
Evil Does Not Exist
Ripley
Challengers
La chimera
Chime
Cuckoo
Carnage For Christmas
Lypsinka: Toxic Femininity

1 Furiosa
2 Love You (Safdie)
3 Drive Away Dolls
4 Kinds of Kindness
5 Horizon
6 Just for Us (Timbers)
7 The Killer
8 Taylor Tomlinson: Have It All
9 Unfrosted
10Midnight (Miike)

1. The Brutalist (B. Corbet)
2. Nosferatu (R. Eggers)
3. Monkey Man (D. Patel)
4. Civil War (A. Garland)
5. Dune: Part Two (D. Villeneuve)
6. Saturday Night (J. Reitman)
7. Anora (S. Baker)
8. Furiosa: a Mad Max Saga (G. Miller)
9. Challengers (L. Guadagnino)
10. Flow (G. Zilbalodis)

ALSO GOOD: Alien Romulus; All We Imagine As Light; The Apprentice; Babygirl; Between The Temples; The Bikeriders; Blitz; A Complete Unknown; Conclave; Cuckoo; A Different Man; Drive-Away Dolls; Elton John: Never Too Late; Emilia Perez; Evil Does Not Exist; The Fall Guy; Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire; Hard Truths; Heretic; Hit Man; Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1; Humane; I'm Still Here; Inside Out 2; Kinds of Kindness; Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes; Late Night With the Devil; Lee; Long Legs; Love Lies Bleeding; MaXXXine; Nickel Boys; Oh, Canada; The Order; The Outrun; The Piano Lesson; Queer; Rumours; September 5; Sing Sing; Vermiglio; Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl; We Live in Time; Wild Robot; Will and Harper

MEH: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice; La Bete; Deadpool & Wolverine; The End; Gladiator II; Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire; Joker Folie a Deux; Maria; Megalopolis; Mufasa: the Lion King; A Quiet Place - Day One; A Real Pain; The Return; The Room Next Door; The Seed of the Sacred Fig; The Six Triple Eight; Sonic the Hedgehog 3; Substance; Twisters; Venom The Last Dance; Wicked

TERRIBLE: Argylle; Despicable Me 4; Drugstore June; Here; Kraven the Hunter; The Trap

I GOT TOO HIGH BEFORE GOING TO SEE IT SO I DON'T KNOW HOW TO RATE IT: Aggro Dr1ft

RETRO THEATRE SCREENINGS: 1984 (the version from 1984); Alien Private Eye; Amadeus; Archangel; Army of Shadows; Barry Lyndon; The Big Bird Cage; Caligula; Le Cercle Rouge; Christine (John Carpenter); The Crazies; Cry-Baby; The Day of the Dead; Death Race 2000; The Deer Hunter; The Desperate Hours (Wyler original); Escape From New York; Fitzcarraldo; Frankenhooker; The Getaway (Peckinpah original); The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone; if....; In the Heat of the Night; Invasion USA; It Happened One Night; Justice Ninja Style; Killer's Kiss; Killing of a Chinese Bookie; Knightriders; Koyaanisqatsi; Lolita; Love Streams; Mad Dog Morgan; Moonstruck; Multiple Maniacs; The Neverending Story; Night of the Demon (1980); Nightmare on Elm Street; One From The Heart: Reprise; One Week (w/ live score); Opening Night; Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid; Polyester; Purple Noon; Rollerball (Jewison original); Roman Holiday; Sabrina (Wilder original); Le Samourai; Santa Claus Conquers the Martians; Sherlock Jr. (w/ live score); Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland; The Straight Story; Targets; The Terminator; The Thomas Crown Affair (Jewison original); To Have and Have Not; Treasure of the Ninja; Undefeatable; Wes Craven's New Nightmare; The Wild Bunch; Wings of Desire; A Woman Under the Influence; Zombie

** The films in bold I saw with my six and three year-old sons **

1. Evil Does Not Exist
2. The Brutalist
3. The Seed of the Sacred Fig
4. Love Lies Bleeding
5. Furiosa
6. Anora
7. Hit Man
8. The Order
9. The Substance
10. A Real Pain

1. Perfect Days (Wenders)
2. Anora (Baker)
3. I Saw the TV Glow (Schoenbrun)
4. The Substance (Fargeat)
5. Challengers (Guadagnino)
6. Kinds of Kindness (Lanthimos)
7. Evil Does Not Exist (Hamaguchi)
8. Alien: Romulus (Alvarez)
9. Nosferatu (Eggers)
10. Smile 2 (Finn)

Honourable Mentions:
Dune: Part Two (Villeneuve)
Longlegs (Perkins)
A Complete Unknown (Mangold)
MadS (Moreau)

Good:
The Room Next Door (Almodóvar)
Heretic (Beck, Woods)
Speak No Evil (Watkins)
Civil War (Garland)
Abigail (Gillett, Bettinelli-Olpin)
Late Night with the Devil (Cairnes, Cairnes)
Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End (Torrens)

Decent:
A Quiet Place: Day One (Sarnoski)
Oddity (McCarthy)
Cuckoo (Singer)
The Beekeeper (Ayer)

Bad:
Time Cut (MacPherson)
The Platform 2 (Gaztelu-Urrutia)

Garbage:
Night Swim (McGuire)

2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012

1. I Saw the TV Glow (Schoenbrun)
2. Drive-Away Dykes (Coen & Cooke)
3. My First Film (Anger)
4. The People's Joker (Drew)
5. Nickel Boys (Ross)
6. Here (Zemeckis)
7. The Brutalist (Corbet)
8. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Miller)
9. Christmas Eve in Miller's Point (Taormina)
10. Rap World (O'Malley & Scharar)

Honorable Mentions (ranked)
Being John Smith (Smith)
Between the Temples (Silver)
Challengers (Guadagnino)
The Beast (Bonello)
Coma (Bonello)
A Different Man (Schimberg)
Janet Planet (Baker)
Hard Truths (Leigh)
Trap (Shyamalan)
The Substance (Fargeat)
Chime (Kurosawa)
Love Lies Bleeding (Glass)
Hit Man (Linklater)
Satranic Panic (Maio Mackay)
Evil Does Not Exist (Hamaguchi)
The Room Next Door (Almodovar)
Civil War (Garland)
Queer (Guadagnino)
How to Have Sex (Manning Walker)
T Blockers (Maio Mackay)
Adam Sandler: Love You (Safdie)
My Old Ass (Park)

1. The Beast
2. Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World
3. La Chimera
4. Evil Does Not Exist
5. A Traveler's Needs
6. Janet Planet
7. No Other Land
8. Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus
9. Music
10. Hard Truths

1. Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola)
2. DIRECT ACTION (Ben Russell & Guillaume Cailleau)
3. The Brutalist (Brady Corbet)
4. Caught By The Tides (Jia Zhangke)
5. The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof)
6. Hard Truths (Mike Leigh)
7. Anora (Sean Baker)
8. Rumours (Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, & Galen Johnson)
9. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun)
10. 7 Promenades avec Mark Brown (Pierre Creton & Vincent Barré)

Also seen: All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia), Apocalypse in the Tropics (Petra Costa), The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi), April (Dea Kulumbegashvili), Between the Temples (Nathan Silver), Blitz (Steve McQueen), Borderlands (Eli Roth), Challengers (Luca Guadagnino), Civil War (Alex Garland), Close to You (Dominic Savage), Comme le feu (Philippe Lesage), A Complete Unknown (James Mangold), Conclave (Edward Berger), The Damned (Roberto Minervini), Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve), Drive-Away Dolls (Ethan Coen), Eephus (Carson Lund), Emilia Pérez (Jacques Audiard), Emmanuelle (Audrey Diwan), Exposé du film annonce du film “Scénario” (Fabrice Aragno?), Film annonce du film qui n’existera jamais: « Drôles de guerres » (Jean-Luc Godard), Flow (Gints Zilbalodis), The Girl with the Needle (Magnus von Horn), Gladiator II (Ridley Scott), Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes), Happyend (Neo Sora), Harvest (Athina Rachel Tsangari), The Idea of You (Michael Showalter), I'm Still Here (Walter Salles), It Ends With Us (Justin Baldoni), Kinds of Kindness (Yorgos Lanthimos), Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass), Madame Web (S.J. Clarkson), Maria (Pablo Larraín), Miséricorde (Alain Guiraudie), Mothers’ Instinct (Benoît Delhomme), Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross), Queer (Luca Guadagnino), Oh, Canada (Paul Schrader), On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (Rungano Nyoni), Pavements (Alex Ross Perry), A Real Pain (Jesse Eisenberg), Red Rooms (Pascal Plante), The Room Next Door (Pedro Almodóvar), Samsara (Lois Patiño), Sasquatch Sunset (David & Nathan Zellner), Saturday Night (Jason Reitman), Scénarios (Jean-Luc Godard), September 5 (Tim Fehlbaum), The Shrouds (David Cronenberg), Sing Sing (Greg Kwedar), Stranger Eyes (Yeo Siew Hua), Stress Positions (Theda Hammel), Studio One Forever (Marc Saltarelli), The Substance (Coralie Fargeat), Summer Solstice (Noah Schamus), This is Me... Now: A Love Story (Dave Meyers), Transamazonia (Pia Marais), Universal Language (Matthew Rankin), Việt and Nam (Trương Minh Quý), We Live in Time (John Crowley), Wicked: Part One (Jon M. Chu)

Other lists: 2025, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018

1. The Substance (Coralie Fargeat)
2. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia)
3. The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasouof)
4. Crossing (Levan Akin)
5. Black Dog (Guan Hu)
6. When Fall Is Coming (Francois Ozon)
7. A Different Man (Aaron Schmimberg)
8. A Silence (Joachim Lafosse)
9. Misericordia (Alain Guiraudie)
10. Ghostlight (Kelly O’Sullivan & Alex Thompson)

1. La chimera (Alice Rohrwacher)
2. Kinds of Kindness (Yorgos Lanthimos)
3. The Brutalist (Brady Corbet)
4. The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof)
5. I Saw the TV Glow (Jane Schoenbrun)
6. The End (Joshua Oppenheimer)
7. Evil Does Not Exist (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
8. Anora (Sean Baker)
9. Rap World (Conner O’Malley and Danny Scharar)
10. Furiosa (George Miller)

Past lists: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005-2000

01. Caught by the Tides
02. Anora
03. The Shrouds
04. A Different Man
05. The Brutalist
06. All We Imagine as Light
07. A Traveler's Needs
08. Cloud
09. Vulcanizadora
10. I Saw the TV Glow

11. Eephus
12. Dreams (Sex Love)
13. By the Stream
14. Challengers
15. Vermiglio
16. Sex
17. Kinds of Kindness
18. Miséricorde
19. Oh, Canada
20. Megalopolis

Runners-up (Tier 1): The Room Next Door; The End; Love; Chime; Hard Truths; Drive-Away Dykes; One-Hundred Thousand Billion; April; Grand Tour

Runners-up (Tier 2): A Real Pain; The Substance; Babygirl; Beetlejuice Beetlejuice; Y2K; Friendship; Flow; Saturday Night; Pavements;

Not a fan: Love Lies Bleeding; Dune: Part 2; The Apprentice; Rumours; Dahomey; Between the Temples; Bird; The Girl with the Needle; Conclave; Joker: Folie à Deux; Nosferatu; The Order; Queer; Parthenope; Shirley

Rubbish: Emilia Pérez; It's Not Me; The Seed of the Sacred Fig; Presence; Happyend

To see: Nickel Boys; The New Year That Never Came; Suspended Time


2023—2022—2021—2020—2019—2018—2017—2016—2015—2014—2013—2012—2011

01 Miséricorde (Guiraudie)
02 Janet Planet (Baker)

03 Hit Man (Linklater)
04 Caught by the Tides (Jia)
05 Un prince (Creton)
06 Juror #2 (Eastwood)
07 Good One (Donaldson)
08 the concert section of Trap (Shyamalan)
09 Here (Zemeckis)
10 Samuel (Tronche)

1) Late Night with the Devil (Colin and Cameron Haines)
2) No Dogs or Italians Allowed (Alain Ughetto)

1. I Saw the TV Glow (Schoenbrun)
2. Anora (Baker)
3. Hit Man (Linklater)
4. Megalopolis (Coppola)
5. Challengers (Guadagnino)
6. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Miller)
7. The Substance (Fargeat)
8. Flow (Zilbalodis)
9. Smile 2 (Finn)

Also seen (chronologically): Orion and the Dark, Longlegs, Cuckoo, Woman of the Hour, Stalked by My Amish Boyfriend, Trap, Caddo Lake, Carry-On, Snack Shack, Oddity, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, Conclave, Heretic, Nosferatu.

1. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World

My main list, limited to movies that premiered in 2023 or 2024 that I first viewed this year:

1. Man in Black (Wang Bing)
2. Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: "Phony Wars" (Jean-Luc Godard)
3. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhangke)
4. The Beast (Bertrand Bonello)
5. Dragon Dilatation (Bertrand Mandico)
6. Rumours (Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson)
7. House of the Seasons (Oh Jung-min)
8. Super Happy Forever (Igarashi Kōhei)
9. The Sparrow in the Chimney (Ramon Zürcher)
10. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia)

Runners-up (in alphabetical order): Baby Invasion (Harmony Korine), Black Box Diaries (Itō Shiori), Black Dog (Guan Hu), Chime (Kurosawa Kiyoshi), Close Your Eyes (Víctor Erice), Club Zero (Jessica Hausner), Hit Man (Richard Linklater), In Our Day (Hong Sangsoo), Killing the Violet (Zhang Yu), Race with the Other Side - Behind the Scenes (Damon Packard)

Best 2024 U.S. commercial releases:

1. Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: "Phony Wars" (Jean-Luc Godard)
2. This Closeness (Kit Zauhar)
3. The Beast (Bertrand Bonello)
4. 100 Yards (Xu Haofeng and Xu Junfeng)
5. Conann (Bertrand Mandico)
6. Rumours (Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson)
7. All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia)
8. Close Your Eyes (Víctor Erice)
9. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (Radu Jude)
10. Art College 1994 (Liu Jian)

Best ineligible first watches:

1. El sur (1983, Víctor Erice)
2. Welfare (1975, Frederick Wiseman)
3. Peeping Tom (1960, Michael Powell)
4. Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938, Ernst Lubitsch)
5. Onward Lossless Follows (2017, Michael Robinson)
6. The Mountain (1966, Richard Chen)
7. The Plot Against Harry (1971, Michael Roemer)
8. That Most Important Thing: Love (1975, Andrzej Żuławski)
9. I Walked with a Zombie (1942, Jacques Tourneur)
10. Love Me True (1989, George Kuchar)

Some films I anticipate (hopefully) seeing this year: Abiding Nowhere (Tsai Ming-liang), Aggro Dr1ft (Harmony Korine), All In, All 4 You (Cai Chengjie), All Shall Be Well (Ray Yeung), Be with Me (Hwarng Wern-ying), Black Tea (Abderrahmane Sissako), By the Stream (Hong Sangsoo), The Embers (Chung Mong-hong), The Escaping Man (Wang Yichun), exergue – on documenta 14 (Dimitris Athyridis), Fish Memories (Chen Hung-i), Hard Truths (Mike Leigh), It's Not Me (Leos Carax), Limonov: The Ballad (Kirill Serebrennikov), Measures for a Funeral (Sofia Bohdanowicz), Meeting with Pol Pot (Rithy Panh), Mongrel (Chiang Wei-liang and Yin You-qiao), Montages of a Modern Motherhood (Oliver Siu Kuen-chan), My Friend An Delie (Dong Zijian), Scénarios (Jean-Luc Godard), Serpent's Path (Kurosawa Kiyoshi), The Shrouds (David Cronenberg), Snow in Midsummer (Chong Keat Aun), The Sojourn (Tiffany Sia), Spectateurs! (Arnaud Desplechin), Starfall (Zhang Dalei), Stranger (Zhengfan Yang), Stranger Eyes (Yeo Siew Hua), A Traveler's Needs (Hong Sangsoo), An Unfinished Film (Lou Ye), Viet and Nam (Trương Minh Quý), Visiting Hours (Patricia Mazuy), The Wolves (Isabelle Prim), Youth (Hard Times/Homecoming) (Wang Bing)

Previous lists: 2021, 2022, 2023

1. I Saw the TV Glow

Saltburn - Fennell
Perfect Days - Wenders (was s'alright)

1. All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh)
2. Anora (Sean Baker)
3. Love Lies Bleeding (Rose Glass)
4. Red Rooms (Pascal Plante)
5. Flow (Gints Zilbalodis)
6. Civil War (Alex Garland)
7. Rebel Ridge (Jeremy Saulnier)
8. Robot Dreams (Pablo Berger)
9. Terrifier 3 (Damien Leone)
10. Handling the Undead (Thea Hvistendahl)


Watching all 4 seasons of My Brilliant Friend would be the best thing I've seen all year.

Also seen:

Yep: In a Violent Nature, Hijack 1971, Sasquatch Sunset, LeRoy Texas, Immaculate, Dune Part 2, New Life, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, What You Wish For, Under Paris, The First Omen, Challengers, Abigail, Late Night with the Devil, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, The Dead Don't Hurt, Starve Acre, Beezel, We Will Dance Again, Animal Kingdom, Oddity, Starve Acre, A Quiet Place: Day One, Heretic, Daddy's Head, Conclave, Emilia Perez, Smile 2, Apocalypse Z, Alien Romulus, Salem's Lot, Strange Darling, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, VHS Beyond, Deadpool and Wolverine, We Will Dance Again, Beezel, Heretic, Daddy's Head

Meh: Furiosa, Sons/Vogter, Arcadian, You'll Never Find Me, Frogman, Double Blind, ISS, Hit Man, Infested, Scoop, Godzilla Minus One, Godzilla X Kong, Thelma, Apartment 7A, The Deliverance, Twisters, Maxxxine, A Different Man, Woman of the Hour, Stream, Caddo Lake, Azrael, MadS, The Wild Robot, Thelma, Chime, Carry-On, Here, Die Alone, Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person,

Nope: The Devil's Bath, I Saw the TV Glow, Cuckoo, Longlegs