50

Promising Young Woman

Deathly dark satire of gender politics from writer-director Emerald Fennell, with Carey
Mulligan at her ice-cold best as a scheming sociopath in a fearless unpicking of entitlement
and victimhood. Read the full review.

49
Boiling Point
Dizzying single-take drama featuring a potent lead performance from Stephen Graham as a
chef enduring a nightmarish evening. Read the full review.

48
Natural Light

Dark horse ... non-professional actor Ferenc Szabó in Dénes Nagy’s debut feature Natural
Light. Photograph: Tamás Dobos

Documentary director Dénes Nagy explores how conflict erodes loyalty, morality and human
consciousness in his award-winning first feature about Hungarian troops occupying Ukraine
during the second world war. Read the full review.

47
Last Night in Soho
Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy and Matt Smith star in Edgar Wright’s horror-thriller
that takes a trip to the sleazy heart of London’s past and toxic 60s glitz. Read the full review.

46
Titane

Eyes on the prize ... Garance Marillier in Julia Ducournau’s Palme d’Or winner Titane.
Photograph: Kazak Productions / Frakas Productions/Alamy

Julia Ducournau’s follow-up to her smart 2016 debut, Raw, is a freaky Cronenbergian body-
horror that facetiously explores identity with yucky flair. Read the full review.

45
State Funeral
The eerie last rites of Stalin’s Soviet Union are enacted as massed mourners hail the
dictator’s flower-clad body in a film that gives long-lost footage, assembled by In the Fog
director Sergei Loznitsa, a new and unnerving lease of life. Read the full review.

44
Shiva Baby
A bit awks ... Rachel Sennott in black comedy Shiva Baby. Photograph: Organic Publicity

Writer-director Emma Seligman’s debut about a young woman running into her sugar daddy
at a family event is an amusing, transparently personal piece, a black comedy festival of
excruciating embarrassment. Read the full review.

43
C’mon C’mon
Written and directed by Thumbsucker’s Mike Mills, this coming-of-age heartwarmer, shot in
classy monochrome and starring Joaquin Phoenix, oozes prestige as it tackles weighty
themes. Read the full review.

42
Martin Eden
Italian job ... Luca Marinelli in a reboot of the Jack London novel. Photograph: New Wave
Films

Excellent Italian adaptation of Jack London’s 1909 thrilling tale, which follows the ascent of
a proletarian novelist to popular success that proves a bitter disappointment. Read the full
review.

41
Black Bear
Aubrey Plaza hits a career high in an ingenious meta-movie in which social tensions spiral
towards disaster before a cryptic rug-pull in this strange comedy gem. Read the full review.

40
Souad
The lives of three young Egyptians become tragically entangled in Ayten Amin’s sharp,
subtle coming-of-age drama that offers a shrewd and poignant study of social media
identities. Read the full review.

39
The Reason I Jump
Brings us into a neurodivergent world … The Reason I Jump. Photograph: Picturehouse

This documentary inspired by the bestselling book of the same title is an empathic study of
nonverbal autism that takes us into the world of young neurodivergent people across the
world. Read the full review.

38
New Order
Director Michel Franco leaves no room for sympathy or redemption in this violent, cynical
thriller, a brutally unforgiving attack on Mexico’s super-rich that delivers a vivid warning
against the consequences of inequality. Read the full review.

37
Annette
Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard brim with nervous energy in this bizarre musical
collaboration between Leos Carax and the Sparks brothers, which kicked off this year’s
Cannes film festival. Read the full review.

36
Censor
Haunted … Niamh Algar in Censor

A woman working as a film censor in the 80s is shocked to discover a horror movie that
recreates a traumatic incident from her childhood in Prano Bailey-Bond’s disturbing descent
into video nastiness. Read the full review.

35
Never Gonna Snow Again
A mysterious masseur visits a dysfunctional gated community in this absorbing fairytale from
Polish film-maker Małgorzata Szumowska, resulting in a rich brew of strangeness in an
unsettling vision of suburbia. Read the full review.

34
The Velvet Underground
Todd Haynes’ documentary about the celebrated art-rockers, with insights from former
members and friends, takes its job seriously and gets under the band’s skin. Read the full
review.

33
House of Gucci
True-crime fashion-house drama directed by Ridley Scott as a pantomimey soap following a
stylish Lady Gaga, as Patrizia Reggiano, as she plots to kill her ex, Maurizio Gucci. Read the
full review.

32
I Care a Lot

Black hearted … Rosamund Pike in I Care a Lot. Photograph: Seacia Pavao/Netflix

Rosamund Pike is exquisitely nasty in J Blakeson’s toxic thriller, playing a black-hearted con
artist who drains the bank accounts of well-off elderly patients after gaining legal
guardianship of them. Read the full review.

31
Rose Plays Julie
Uncanny and transgressive film from writer-directors Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor about
a young woman who tracks down her birth parents is the film-makers’ best work yet. Read
the full review.

30
Ammonite
Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan find love among the fossils in Francis Lee’s sensational
biopic of palaeontology pioneer Mary Anning, which reimagines her encounter with a
woman trapped in a stifling marriage. Read the full review.

29
The Nest

Riveting … The Nest

Jude Law moves his family to a dark Surrey manor house in Sean Durkin’s 80s-set ghost
story cum emotional parable that becomes a riveting neoliberal fever dream. Read the full
review.

28
Procession
Robert Greene’s extraordinary documentary follows the stories of six men abused as children
by Catholic priests in Kansas City with remarkable care and creativity. Read the full review.

27
tick, tick … BOOM!
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s heartfelt tribute to Broadway features Andrew Garfield as Rent
composer Jonathan Larson, in his early years, in a sugar rush of showbiz highs and lows.
Read the full review.

26
The World to Come
Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby play two wives who fall in love amid the grinding
exhaustion and violence of pioneer life in a tale of secret passions in frontier-era America.
Read the full review.

25
The Killing of Two Lovers
A humiliating marital breakdown triggers a riveting portrait of male rage in Robert
Machoian’s thought-provoking thriller, starring Clayne Crawford and Sepideh Moafi. Read
the full review.

24
Palm Springs

No escape … Palm Springs. Photograph: BFA/Alamy

Ingenious Groundhog-Day style romance starring Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti as two
wedding guests who get stuck in a time loop that they can’t seem to escape from. Read the
full review.

23
Identifying Features
First-time director Fernanda Valadez conjures up a vision of real evil in her story of the
horror and heartbreak faced by migrants into the US in Mexico’s borderlands. Read the full
review.

22
Passing
Rebecca Hall’s directing debut is a stylish and subtle study of racial identity, starring Tessa
Thompson and Ruth Negga as friends who are both “passing” for what they are not, in an
adaptation of Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel. Read the full review.

21
The Story of Looking

Fascinating … Mark Cousins in The Story of Looking

An eye operation sets veteran cinephile Mark Cousins out on a delicate and fascinating
exploration of what it means to look at movies and the world. Read the full review.

20
After Love
Joanna Scanlan gives a tremendous performance as a Muslim convert, who agonisingly
uncovers the secret life led by her late husband Ahmed, in a lacerating portrait of a life built
on marital lies. Read the full review.

19
Limbo

Phone home … Amir El-Masry in Limbo.

Heart-rending portrait of refugees stranded in Scotland that announces Ben Sharrock as a

master of atmospheric film-making, in a stirring drama about a Syrian migrant. Read the full
review.

18
Summer of Soul
Questlove’s magnificent documentary of the forgotten 1969 Harlem cultural festival gives
moving context to rediscovered footage of Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson, Nina Simone et
al. Read the full review.

17 =
Getting Away with Murder(s)
David Nicholas Wilkinson’s epic investigation into the Nazis who escaped a postwar
reckoning is a powerful call for Holocaust justice, but lays out the difficulty of prosecuting a
technocratic atrocity. Read the full review.

17 =
The Humans
Stephen Karam’s Tony-winning play makes the leap to film with ease. A masterly drama that
is an extraordinarily well acted, uncomfortably intimate look at a family at Thanksgiving.
Read the full review.

16
Quo Vadis, Aida?

Back to Bosnia … Jasmila Žbanić’s Quo Vadis, Aida? Photograph: PR Handout

Through the eyes of a translator moving between the different ethnic factions, director
Jasmila Žbanić musters real tragic power and clear-eyed compassion revisiting the Srebrenica
massacre 25 years on. Read the full review.

15
Minari
Infused with a wonderful sentimentality, Lee Isaac Chung’s fictionalised account of his rural
Arkansas childhood explores the growing pains of a family farm. Read the full review.

14
Dear Comrades!
Andrei Konchalovsky’s stunning re-creation of a Soviet-era massacre, in which Red Army
soldiers and KGB snipers opened fire on strikers, is a rage-filled triumph. Read the full
review.

13
No Time to Die
The long-awaited 25th outing for Ian Fleming’s superspy James Bond has Daniel Craig
saying goodbye to 007 in a weird and self-aware epic with audacious surprises up its sleeve.
Read the full review.

12
First Cow
Milky milky … Orion Lee and John Magaro in First Cow. Photograph: Allyson Riggs/AP

Meek’s Cutoff director Kelly Reichardt returns with a superbly chewy story about a pair of
drifters in the old west trying to make money by stealing milk from a newly arrived cow.
Read the full review.

11
The Father
Anthony Hopkins is superb playing a man with dementia in Florian Zeller’s unbearably
heartbreaking film full of intelligent performances, disorienting time slips and powerful
theatrical effects. Read the full review.

10
The Tragedy of Macbeth
Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand hit top form in Joel Coen’s austere reimagining
of Shakespeare’s Scottish bloodbath. Read more.

9
The Lost Daughter
Superb ... Olivia Colman in The Lost Daughter. Photograph: PictureLux/The Hollywood
Archive/Alamy

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s accomplished directing debut makes humid, sensual cinema of Elena
Ferrante’s psychodrama of a novel, and boasts a superb central performance from Olivia
Colman. Read more.

8
Azor
Unnervingly subtle drama from Andreas Fontana, about a Swiss private banker visiting
clients in Argentina during the period of the military junta and “disappearances”. Read more

7
West Side Story
Spectacular … Ilda Mason, Ariana DeBose and Ana Isabelle in West Side Story. Photograph:
Niko Tavernise/20th Century Studios.

Stunning recreations of the original film’s New York retain the songs and the dancing in a re-
telling that will leave you gasping at the verve and panache of Steven Spielberg and
screenwriter Tony Kushner. Read more.

6
Dune
Denis Villeneuve’s awe-inspiring take on the sci-fi classic starring Timothée Chalamet, Oscar
Isaac and Zendaya has been given room to breathe, creating a colossal spectacle and an epic
triumph. Read more.

5
Nomadland
Frances McDormand delivers a wonderful performance as a boomer forced out of her home
and on to the road in Chloé Zhao’s inspired Oscar-winning docufiction. Read more.

4
Drive My Car
Emotional ride … Drive My Car. Photograph: Courtesy: Cannes Film Festival

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi reaches a new grandeur with this engrossing adaptation of a Haruki
Murakami short story about a theatre director grappling with Chekhov and his wife’s
infidelity. Read more.

3
Petite Maman
A spellbinding ghost story from Portrait of a Lady on Fire’s Céline Sciamma. A girl meets
her mother as a child in the woods in a moving tale of memory, friendship and family. Read
more.

2
The Green Knight
Dev Patel rides high in the director David Lowery’s sublimely beautiful quest, which
conjures up visual wonders and metaphysical mysteries from the anonymously authored
14th-century chivalric poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Read more.

1
The Power of the Dog
Benedict Cumberbatch, left, and Jesse Plemons in The Power of the Dog. Photograph: Kirsty
Griffin/AP

Jane Campion’s superb gothic western is a mysterious and menacing psychodrama about two
warring brothers (Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons) on a ranch in 20s Montana.
Read more.