90. “Shame” (2011)
The elongated opening sequence of Steve McQueen’s striking second feature, “Shame,” establishes a rhythm of film language that operates on so many formal and function levels. It’s an expository visual montage building like an orgasm until it releases, full of disappointment, as the predatory Brandon Sullivan (Michael Fassbender, in what still might be a career-best performance) slinks back down to the subway after his intended sexual target flees his animalistic advances in the form of a pheromonal staring contest. Everything is communicated in this scene, Brandon is a raging sex addict, even calling call girls up to his room when his advances can’t make ends meet. McQueen’s filmmaking aptitude was never in question after his arresting debut film “Hunger” (that propelled he and Fassbender to their respected status among film lovers), but “Shame” definitely shattered any and all doubt of his artistic potential. Carey Mulligan also gives an excellent supporting performance as Brandon’s damaged sister, Sissy, the weirdly intimate nature of their relationship always feeling unspokenly disturbing. The score by Harry Escott is also one of the best of the decade, adding the perfect emotional layer on top of Sean Bobbitt’s eye-catching cinematography. It’s is a ruthless character study about a man whose carnal behavior is close to ruinous. – AB
89. “The Hunt” (2012)
Not to be confused with the politically poisonous Blumhouse-produced survival thriller that was pulled from its release earlier this year, Thomas Vinterberg’s “The Hunt”—about a school teacher wrongly accused of sexual abuse of a child—is a film possessed by a lithe, almost casual menace. The film builds its sense of trepidation patiently and with anxiety-inducing formal control, towards a conclusion that offers little in the way of hope. It’s also, at first, unbearably manipulative, but this eventually gives way to an emotional work of astounding compassion and empathy (even if it’s ending is bleak). “The Hunt” also features one of the most contained performances from the normally more theatrical Mads Mikkelsen. Often cast as a villain, here, he plays an all-too-recognizably human individual: a modest, everyday Danish schoolteacher who becomes an object of scorn and paranoid contempt in the village where he lives, thanks to the aforementioned accusation. In this taut, moralistic picture, Vinterberg nimbly examines the modern mob mentality, and how collective speculation can often take on a frightening life of its own. Perhaps more alarmingly, “The Hunt” also speaks presciently to our uncertain age of cultural anxiety mistrust and fear. – NL
88. “Ida” (2013)
Pawel Pawlikowski crafts undeniably academic films that disguise tremendous depths of feeling within the parameters of their scholarly cinematic formalism. Last year’s “Cold War” was one of the most memorably sorrowful movie-going experiences of that year, distilling the entirety of a tumultuous two-decade-spanning romance within the confines of a fleet 88-minute runtime. “Ida,” Pawlikowski’s previous picture, is somehow even more forbidding and uncompromising, yet still emotionally complex. The stillness and deliberate framing of “Ida” undeniably evokes other masters of European cinema, namely Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson, and Michael Haneke. And yet, “Ida” is primarily noteworthy for its indirect and yet somehow incredibly charitable depiction of this past century’s most glaring mass-scale atrocities. Agata Kulesza and Agata Trzebuchowska both lend their superb talents to the film – particularly Trzebuchowska, who plays a young Polish nun who comes to learn that her parents were Jews who were murdered during the Polish occupation of WWII. “Ida” is an austere, tragic, and lingering work from a director whose full range of considerable gifts are still flowering as we speak. – NL
87. “The Lighthouse” (2019)
Robert Eggers’ rigorously unsettling New England folk-tale “The Witch” was labeled a spellbinding horror classic upon arrival. And yet it’s “The Lighthouse” — Eggers’ hotly anticipated follow-up, a deranged black comedy about cabin fever and two lighthouse keepers who come to despise each other so much that murder, or a light peck on the lips, would seem to be the only reprieve—that’s become the true masterwork, to the degree that it makes the already-stupendous ‘Witch’ just feel like a warm-up. There’s any number of ways to read “The Lighthouse”: it’s a monochrome mood movie, a parable about the futility of attempting to appease a God figure, a chance for Willem Dafoe to say the words “Hot Promethean Plunder,” and a hellishly funny look at what it’s like to have an inconsiderate, flatulent roommate, among other things (like a first-rate Robert Pattinson performance). More than anything, though, “The Lighthouse” is just a stormy, uproarious, first-class yarn: the kind you’d typically hear whispered over a burning campfire, and one that makes us giddy with excitement for anything Robert Eggers touches. – NL
86. “Spotlight” (2015)
As a writer/director, Tom McCarthy’s filmography is both versatile and all over the place. There’s low-key twee (“The Station Agent”), wistful middle-class portraits of disappointment (“The Visitor,” “Win Win”), and even an unpardonable sin (the Adam Sandler-starring urban fantasy “The Cobbler”). But the film’s are all ultimately tethered by their sense of modest humanity which come to amazing fruition in the Oscar-winning no-nonsense procedural “Spotlight.” McCarthy’s unapologetically grown-up and intelligent drama features one of the best ensembles in recent years, with Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, and Liev Schreiber giving career-best performances as investigative journalists on the Boston Globe’s“Spotlight” team who work tirelessly to expose a child sex ring being operated by high-ranking members of the Roman Catholic Church. Building to a sonorous crescendo of hard-earned little victories, “Spotlight” plays as both loveletter to a kind of bygone, salt-of-the-earth, pull-up-your-sleeves-and-work journalism and truth-telling and chilling expose of corruption from the powers that be, that makes folks like Michael Mann and Alan J. Pakula proud. It’s not the sexiest picture to some, but particularly in our current era of fake news and wearying daily injustice, “Spotlight” is an abstemious reminder of the importance in seeking out the truth, no matter the cost. – NL
85. “No” (2012)
Versatile Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín can be difficult to pin down, but one binding motif in his filmography is the precarious nature of our collective relationship to historical catastrophe. Larraín is also a playful and irreverent storyteller: nothing he does is traditional or easy to foretell. “No,” the director’s spirited look at how clever sloganeering and advertising know-how helped to topple the fascistic dictatorship of Chilean General Augusto Pinochet, is his bravest work to date. Larraín uses ¾ inch Sony U-matic magnetic tape to capture the grainy ‘80s newsreel aesthetic of the era, while his regular collaborator Gael Garcia Bernal gives an impassioned and masterful performance as rightfully incensed ad man René Saavedra. Given the trauma Chile endured from a 17-year dictatorship, built on the ashes of bloody military coup, murder, and fear, “No” would be justifiable righteous and angry. Instead, it’s that, but also an untraditional, playful and ultimately stirring piece of political pop art from one of today’s most vital filmmakers. – NL
84. “Girlhood” (2014)
The last of Céline Sciamma’s coming-of-age trilogy, “Girlhood” marks a visionary flashpoint in the director’s illustrious career. Brimming with lush visuals and feminist heart, “Girlhood” follows an African-French teenager (a luminous Karidja Touré) as she and her close-knit group of friends navigate poverty and patriarchy. A thoughtful rumination on adolescence, and a welcome depiction of black, female, immigrant life, it’s also fitting complement to Richard Linklater’s epic bildungsroman of white, male, American life, which came out the same year to considerable acclaim (“Boyhood,” obvs). Sciamma is unafraid to let a scene linger, and “Girlhood” is consummate proof of that. For all Sciamma’s expert scripting, the film possesses vibrant visual mastery (thanks to photography by Cristel Fournier) and outstanding performances from the entire cast. The only real downside to this movie is its criminal underestimation. Add it to your to-watch list ASAP. – Lena Wilson
83. “Leviathan” (2014)
When “Leviathan” arrived in 2014, many critics hailed it as distinctly Russian in its themes and tone, almost scoffing that such a thing couldn’t happen here. Yet in retrospect, this story of a corrupt leader with real estate ambitions leading to public eruptions of rage seems remarkably prescient about the direction politics worldwide were headed. It’s a small-town story whose ideas can easily be projected onto cities or nations; the idea originated with a contemporary American true story but also invokes sources as old as the biblical Book of Job. “Leviathan” shows the ordeals of Kolya, a simple man with a house on a nice piece of land, land coveted and then taken by the town’s mayor. Kolya’s attempts to defend his home send him colliding into the town’s nexus of money and power with tragic repercussions. Drunken, depressed men take on an operatic grandeur in this film, given power and pathos in Andrey Zvyagintsev’s epic images. “Leviathan” accomplishes the dual feat of feeling like a sharp and needed take on a particular time in Russia, but also transcending that to tell a timeless, almost mythic story of persecution, anger, and loss. – Joe Blessing
82. “Stranger by the Lake”
In 2013, we didn’t have “Call Me By Your Name,” and we didn’t have “God’s Own Country.” We had “Brokeback Mountain,” but before and since “Stranger by the Lake,” few films have come close to balancing as much ripe and dangerous desire without and out murder as Alain Guiraudie’s drama. What begins with a heady summertime discovery, as Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps) becomes familiar with a nudist beach frequented mainly by gay men, turns into a life-threatening game of loyalties and self-preservation, as attraction gives way to possession, and in the heat of a hot summer’s night, no one is safe. The film is carried by three central performances, Delandonchamps seeks trust in Henri, played by Patrick d’Assumcao, and the darkest player is portrayed by Christophe Paou as Michel. The fact that all three men are sunkissed and well-groomed is, in fact, essential to the story. Guiraudie masters the eclectic tone, and even leans into explicit visual cues of body horror and noirish storytelling at times. And yet, throughout it all, you never lose sight of the shore, and what brought us there in the first place. A story of lonely men, looking for affection. – Ella Kemp
81. “Boyhood” (2014)
Richard Linklater‘s coming-of-age drama was a technically daunting and logistically complex undertaking, filming one child (and a small satellite of professional actors, including Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette) intermittently over the course of 12 years. But underneath the novelty factor of its approach, Linklater constructs a profound rumination on time and the way our personalities are shaped by the people and events around us. Linklater has always been obsessed with time; you can see it in his “Before…” trilogy and in his exercises in period filmmaking (“The Newton Boys,” “Me and Orson Welles,” “Dazed and Confused“). And while the structural implications of his experiment are bold, the film is also rife with possibilities for personal connection (via the nostalgia-inducing cultural signposts like an old Nintendo system or a pop song that is still lodged in your head, all these years later). As a filmmaker, Linklater has an innate ability to target something both specific and universal, and “Boyhood,” in the subtlety of its filmmaking and the grandness of its ideas, is a staggering achievement. – Drew Taylor
