60. “Call Me By Your Name” (2017)
Luca Guadagnino is one of the more intriguing auteurs of the mid-aughts: his exquisite, formalist romantic drama “I Am Love” caused a stir within cinephiles at the beginning of the decade, and “A Bigger Splash” made its own waves in 2015 (the gorgeous “Suspiria” remake is represented on this list too). However, nothing in Guadagnino’s filmography compares to the heart-crushing, sun-dappled ardor of “Call Me By Your Name,” the director’s deeply intimate adaptation of André Aciman’s novel, chronicling of one fateful summer in North Italy. The year is 1983, although Guadagnino never leans too hard into obvious period signifiers, aside from a few perfectly-chosen soundtrack cues. The protagonists are Oliver (Armie Hammer, disarmingly vulnerable) and Elio (Timothee Chalamet, in a breakout role for the ages). Oliver and Elio’s “will-they-or-won’t-they” courtship is at the center of Guadagnino’s humanist masterpiece, but this is truly a film about the depths of where the human heart can take us. It’s about the power of feeling deeply, illustrated in the best movie monologue of 2017 (one that was written by James Ivory and performed by the great Michael Stuhlbarg). – NL
59. “Once Upon A Time In Anatolia” (2011)
“A doctor, a prosecutor, a policeman and two criminals venture off into the dark countryside to find the body of a murder victim” sounds like the beginning of a particularly grim and cruel joke, and in some ways, it is. Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s 2011 masterpiece “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” follows this very premise, taking us on a slow-burning journey into the night and into places both unexpectedly tragic and funny. Unfolding patiently and methodically, Ceylan’s film seems impenetrable at first glance. A cold, austere and almost surgical unveiling of a truth that can never fully be known, ‘Anatolia’ seamlessly gravitates from simmering dread to surprisingly funny slice of life to powerful procedural that exposes a broken system and the detached men working within it. As the complex nature of the crime unfolds, so do the men in search of its answers, reflecting on their own mortality and emotional attachments. Shot by Ceylan’s regular D.P. Gökhan Tiryaki, the film has a haunting, atmospheric quality that elucidates the bleak, despairing vision of societal and bureaucratic failures. A difficult, but rewarding trip into the darkest regions of humanity, it’s Ceylan’s most complete vision yet. — MR
58. “Phoenix” (2014)
In a landscape filled with filmmakers who are taking exciting risks with established narrative tropes and fashioning a new kind of filmic language in the process, Christian Petzold remains one of international cinema’s most accomplished and exacting classicists (his unsettling and mysterious drama “Transit” is one of 2019’s finest films). That said, Petzold isn’t some high-minded pastiche artist who places his classical influences between quotation marks. For all intents and purposes, his films feel like products of the era that inspired them. “Phoenix,” Petzold’s stunning meditation on obfuscated identity in the throes of World War II, is his most indelible and rapturous work. Petzold’s regular collaborator Nina Hoss delivers what is perhaps her most definitive performance as Nelly: a cabaret crooner and survivor of the horrors of the Holocaust, who wanders through postwar Berlin with a new face in search of her lost husband. For those who dig on the mysterious/romantic vibe of films such as David Lean’s “Brief Encounter,” Alfred Hitchcock’s “The 39 Steps” and Carol Reed’s “Night Train to Munich,” “Phoenix” is an essential slice of heaven. – NL
57. “Her” (2013)
A filmmaker who doesn’t appear on cue every two years with a new feature, seemingly simmering between each new story, a new film from writer/director Spike Jonze (“Being John Malkovich”) is cause for celebration in movie-lover circles – particularly when the result is as poignant and sublime as “Her.” Until this 2013 sci-fi romance, Jonze had mainly worked from brain-boggling scripts from his go-to muse Charlie Kaufman. Jonze’s first sole-credited screenplay, “Her” feels like his most unfiltered, Jonzeian creation: it’s a film possessed by a beguiling innocence, even as it plumbs the depths and mysteries of the human heart. Joaquin Phoenix, normally so adept at playing tormented outsiders, gives one of his most endearing performances as a lonely, withdrawn single man who makes a living writing impersonal love letters to strangers before eventually falling hard for an artificially intelligent operating system voiced by Scarlett Johansson. Jonze’s film is perhaps the definitive love story for the age of technological oversaturation and disconnection. – NL
56. “The Rider” (2017)
One of the most sympathetic, quietly mesmerizing films about America to be released this decade, Chloé Zhao’s modern western “The Rider” immerses you in an injured rodeo cowboy’s life. Playing a fictional version of himself with remarkable nuance Brady Jandreau, offers a remarkably compassionate exploration of masculinity, identity and the psychological and physical destruction of a world rarely captured on screen. Utilizing a mixture of breathtaking landscape photography filmed almost entirely at magic hour and fly on the wall intimacy, cinematographer Joshua James Richards deftly captures the world inside and outside of Brady’s damaged head. A deeply empathetic and tender look at the only world Brady knows, one that he loves with every ounce of his being, and one he knows will always be a part of who he is. Much like Darren Aronofsky did in “The Wrestler,” Zhao has a keen understanding of the physicality and psychology of a very American subculture and the men that risk their bodies for it. A powerful tale of American stubbornness, determination and heartbreak, “The Rider” finds new and exciting ways to reimagine what the American Western can be. — MR
55. “The Grand Budapest Hotel” (2014)
Beyond his unmistakable visual style and signature wry whimsy, “The Grand Budapest Hotel” is arguably Wes Anderson’s most substantive and meaningful film – and most prescient, arriving as it did on the eve of the decade’s tilt towards neo-fascism. Inspired by the fiction of German writer Stefan Zweig (particularly his works of the 1930s), Anderson constructs an often funny, often discomforting story of darkness and resistance. Yet these darker themes can’t suffocate the lightness of the picture, manifested in its poker-faced performances (particularly the suave, roguish Ralph Fiennes), deliberately artificial set design, and alchemy of dry comedy and melancholic tragedy. But this immaculate period romp is most strikingly a soulful ode to an age of forgotten splendor, and a moving lament for civility in the face of barbarism. – JB
54. “Selma” (2014)
Biopics are one of the easiest genres to bungle, often lapsing into lazy hero worship or Wikipedia bullet-point-style greatest hits. So give the great Ava DuVernay major credit for “Selma,” her bold, impassioned biopic of civil rights icon and American hero Dr. Martin Luther King. Zeroing in on a particular moment in King’s life, the historically-seminal Selma to Montgomery civil rights marches,“Selma” captures what made Dr. King such a monumental figure in American history while still managing to portray him as a realistically flawed human being, capturing some lesser qualities in his character (his pride, his penchant for infidelity) that a more timid biopic might politely skirt over. DuVernay is a fearless filmmaker who often tackles the big issues of our time with unapologetic fury (prison reform in her incredible documentary “13th,” criminal justice in this year’s fiery Netflix miniseries “When They See Us”), and “Selma” is her most polished and well-crafted theatrical release to date. David Oyelowo gives a magnificent, finely observed performance as MLK, leading a sterling cast that includes Carmen Ejogo (playing Coretta Scott King), Andre Holland, Lakeith Stanfield, and Tim Roth, while Bradford Young’s crisp and textured cinematography captures America’s fractured past in a clear-eyed and unvarnished new light. – NL
53. “Roma” (2018)
Director Alfonso Cuaron is so technically gifted, so adept with ambitious staging and fluid camerawork, that he can sometimes be seen as a show-off. And while the undeniable cinematic virtuosity on display in masterful works like “Children of Men” and space-survival thriller “Gravity” is jaw-dropping, Cuaron’s storytelling chutzpah can occasionally overwhelm his narrative emotional aims. “Roma,” then, is arguably the perfect balance of substance and style. Cuaron’s deeply moving and semi-autobiographical slice of heightened realism, beautifully depicting the life of a live-in maid (a soulful Yalitza Aparicio) caring for a wealthy family in Mexico City during the early 1970’s, is the director’s most raw and exposed work. Recalling the unvarnished and arresting style he cultivated in his sexually charged road movie “Y Tu Mama Tambien,” this is a similarly enchanting fusion of his preferred method of cinematic maximalism and his more introspective tendencies. – NL
52. “Columbus” (2017)
The innate understanding of cinema and the ability to articulate why it works is a beautiful thing. But to put that analysis and observation into practice and excel is rare. Thus, has anyone leveled up from academic cinema appreciation to filmmaker like video-essayist-turned-filmmaker Kogonada? Because “Columbus” is an astonishingly accomplished and assured debut film. Led by two exceptional performances from John Cho and Haley Lu Richardson (in her breakthrough role), the emotionally intelligent “Columbus” is not only sophisticated and startingly fully formed, but also playfully human (“Your mom; did she do meth?”) in its poignant examination of pain born out of family estrangement. As pleasantly affable as it is intellectually stimulating, “Columbus” falls into the same category as many of the best films made by indie favorites Jim Jarmusch and Richard Linklater; there are moments of heavy drama and academic discourse, of course, but it goes down easy on any revist. It’s a wonderful relationship study that dives into issues of race and romance in wise and original ways. The Midwestern architecture shot with such beautiful rapture and restraint, mirrors how the foundations of where we come from can move one’s core so much that it holds us back from unleashing our potential. Kogonada’s love poem to the medium he is a passionate scholar of is poignant, powerful, and surely just the start of an amazing career to come. – AB
51. “Elle” (2016)
Starring the incomparable Isabelle Huppert in a masterclass acting turn that is dizzying in its complexity, director Paul Verhoeven’s first film since “Black Book,” (2006) on paper, has all the trappings of a film gone horribly awry. A rape revenge….errr… pitch-black comedy? A twisted sexual thriller about a silent rape survivor (Huppert) who’s the head of a video game development company and the daughter of a mass murderer (would you expect something less from the director of “Showgirls?”), “Elle” is uncomfortably funny at times, striking and ridiculously dark. Because of her family’s history with the police, Elle doesn’t report the crime, but after receiving repeated text messages from her alleged assailant, and a video creation of her being sexually assaulted by an animated creature is emailed to the entire office, her paranoia only increases until things take an even more disturbing turn. Yet, somehow the more provocatively ludicrous “Elle” gets, and the more fiercely rebellious it becomes— a kind of sick, transgressive comedy that is creepily profound when it slowly starts to reveal its real intentions. An arresting look at violence, and the uneasy relationship it holds to desire and control, Verhoeven’s movie shocks and subverts in a number of outlandish and original ways, but the work never feels cheap and reliant on his pulpy ‘90s tendencies; the presence and commitment of Huppert’s Oscar-nominated performance helping to dispel all doubt of stylistic confidence when the film veers off to crazy unexpected places. – AB