Year Lists

2020s

  • 2024 in Cinema

    Robert Eggers exhumes the rotting corpse of a legendary vampire, Hollywood’s beauty standards are grotesquely warped in a thrillingly repulsive body horror, and Steven Zaillian’s calculated take on literature’s most famous con artist elevates television to cinema.

  • 2023 in Cinema

    Yorgos Lanthimos’ absurdist odyssey ventures into the surreal heart of womanhood, Chad Stahelski lifts the John Wick franchise to transcendent new heights, and Barbenheimer draws crowds to the cinema for a double feature of conflicting blockbusters.

  • 2022 in Cinema

    The Daniels ponder the maximalist absurdity of all existence, Alejandro Iñárritu composes a surreal interrogation of artistic ego, and Cate Blanchett leads an exacting character study of elitism and exploitation.

  • 2021 in Cinema

    Wes Anderson dedicates an enchanting piece of nostalgia to old-fashioned print journalists, Denis Villeneuve films an unfilmable science-fiction classic, and Jane Campion conducts a sensitive study of masculinity through the western genre.

  • 2020 in Cinema

    Charlie Kaufman confounds viewers with his eerie study of depression, Steve McQueen unites several stories of Black empowerment in twentieth century London, and Emerald Fennell delivers a thrilling, feminist tale of vengeance.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman)

2010s

  • 2019 in Cinema

    Pedro Costa’s meditative camera lingers in the decaying home of a recent widow, Bong Joon-ho takes a scalpel to South Korea’s class system, and Martin Scorsese’s epic gangster film wrestles with his long-time fascinations of sin and guilt.

  • 2018 in Cinema

    Alfonso Cuarón cements his status as an all-time great director with a black-and-white memory piece, Ari Aster takes the horror genre to a new level with fresh artistic sensibilities, and a hyper-kinetic animation deconstructs decades of superhero stories.

  • 2017 in Cinema

    Christopher Nolan shakes up the war genre with his tremendous editing, Denis Villeneuve astoundingly builds on a decades-old classic with a phenomenal sequel, and Paul Schrader’s theological character study features Ethan Hawke in a self-destructive spiral.

  • 2016 in Cinema

    Damien Chazelle’s ode to Hollywood musicals becomes one of the genre’s best, Jim Jarmusch’s impressively formal work celebrates the beauty of routine, and Denis Villeneuve finds a new linguistic spin on the alien science-fiction film.

  • 2015 in Cinema

    Leonardo DiCaprio transforms into a spirit animal in Alejandro Iñárritu’s awe-inspiring revisionist western, George Miller makes a high-octane career comeback, and Adam McKay turns the Global Financial Crisis into an audacious piece of cinema.

  • 2014 in Cinema

    Alejandro Iñárritu’s studies celebrity and ego in his one-take wonder, Wes Anderson throws back to mid-century Budapest with his immaculate pastel artistry, and Richard Linklater’s coming-of-age epic breaks new ground in realist cinema.

  • 2013 in Cinema

    Paweł Pawlikowski delivers a haunting meditation on the long-lasting trauma of the Holocaust, Richard Linklater ties off his decades-spanning Before trilogy, and Nicolas Winding Refn’s neon-tinted violence heavily polarises audiences.

  • 2012 in Cinema

    Paul Thomas Anderson creates an ambitiously enigmatic work studying symbiotic opposites, Christopher Nolan ends his Dark Knight trilogy with kinetic style, and Sam Mendes delivers the most inspired James Bond film to date.

  • 2011 in Cinema

    Terrence Malick delivers a landmark of transcendental cinema, while Béla Tarr and Lars von Trier both impress with heavy, philosophical films contemplating two different apocalypses.

  • 2010 in Cinema

    Aaron Sorkin pens the greatest screenplay of his career with David Fincher, Christopher Nolan blows minds with his most visually inventive film to date, and Darren Aronofsky crafts a horrifying character study of ambition and obsession.