Favorite Film by Year

Favorite feature film per year.
Favorite film per release year.
Favorite film per release year without films released more than two years after their premiere year.

1895: Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory in Lyon (Louis & Auguste Lumière)
1896: The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station (Louis & Auguste Lumière)
1897:
1898: The Four Troublesome Heads (Georges Méliès)
1899:

1900: How It Feels to Be Run Over (Cecil M. Hepworth)
1901:
1902: A Trip to the Moon (Georges Méliès)
1903:
1904: The Mermaid (Georges Méliès)
1905: The Black Imp (Georges Méliès)
1906:
1907: Tunneling the English Channel (Georges Méliès)
1908:
1909:

1910: The Unchanging Sea (D. W. Griffith)
1911:
1912: The Musketeers of Pig Alley (D. W. Griffith)
1913: Fantômas (Louis Feuillade)
1914: Kid Auto Races at Venice (Henry Lehrman)
1915: Les Vampires (Louis Feuillade)
1916:
1917:
1918: Tih-Minh (Louis Feuillade)
1919:

1920:
1921:
1922: Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (Fritz Lang)
1923: Safety Last! (Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor)
1924: Greed (Erich von Stroheim)
1925: Seven Chances (Buster Keaton)
1926: The General (Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman)
1927: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (F. W. Murnau)
1928: Spies (Fritz Lang)
1929: Man With a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov)

1930: Morocco (Josef von Sternberg)
1931: M (Fritz Lang)
1932: Shanghai Express (Josef von Sternberg)
1933: The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Fritz Lang)
1934: The Black Cat (Edgar G. Ulmer)
1935: Ruggles of Red Gap (Leo McCarey)
1936: Rose Hobart (Joseph Cornell)
1937: The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey)
1938: Holiday (George Cukor)
1939: Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks)

1940: His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks)
1941: Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)
1942: The Magnificent Ambersons (Orson Welles)
1943: Day of Wrath (Carl Th. Dreyer)
1944: Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minnelli)
1945: The Clock (Vincente Minnelli)
1946: Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock)
1947: Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur)
1948: Letter From an Unknown Woman (Max Ophuls)
1949: Late Spring (Ozu Yasujiro)

1950: La Ronde (Max Ophuls)
1951: Diary of a Country Priest (Robert Bresson)
1952: The Golden Coach (Jean Renoir)
1953: Duck Amuck (Chuck Jones)
1954: Seven Samurai (Kurosawa Akira)
1955: Ordet (Carl Th. Dreyer)
1956: A Man Escaped (Robert Bresson)
1957: Pyaasa (Guru Dutt)
1958: Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock)
1959: Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks)

1960: Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard)
1961: Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais)
1962: La Jetée (Chris Marker)
1963: Muriel, or the Time of Return (Alain Resnais)
1964: Gertrud (Carl Th. Dreyer)
1965: Pierrot le Fou (Jean-Luc Godard)
1966: All My Life (Bruce Baillie)
1967: The Young Girls of Rochefort (Jacques Demy)
1968: Death by Hanging (Oshima Nagisa)
1969: L’Amour fou (Jacques Rivette)

1970: Zorns Lemma (Hollis Frampton)
1971: A Touch of Zen (King Hu)
1972: The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
1973: The Mother and the Whore (Jean Eustache)
1974: Céline and Julie Go Boating (Jacques Rivette)
1975: India Song (Marguerite Duras)
1976: News From Home (Chantal Akerman)
1977: Eraserhead (David Lynch)
1978: Perceval le Gallois (Éric Rohmer)
1979: Dirty Ho (Lau Kar-leung)

1980: Simone Barbès or Virtue (Marie-Claude Treilhou)
1981: Spacy (Ito Takashi)
1982: Blade Runner (Ridley Scott)
1983: Sunless (Chris Marker)
1984: Shanghai Blues (Tsui Hark)
1985: Taipei Story (Edward Yang)
1986: Peking Opera Blues (Tsui Hark)
1987: Rouge (Stanley Kwan)
1988: My Neighbor Totoro (Miyazaki Hayao)
1989: A City of Sadness (Hou Hsiao-hsien)

1990: Trust (Hal Hartley)
1991: A Brighter Summer Day (Edward Yang)
1992: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (David Lynch)
1993: Naked (Mike Leigh)
1994: Chungking Express (Wong Kar-wai)
1995: Heat (Michael Mann)
1996: Comrades: Almost a Love Story (Peter Chan)
1997: Cure (Kurosawa Kiyoshi)
1998: The Hole (Tsai Ming-liang)
1999: Beau Travail (Claire Denis)

2000: A One and a Two… (Edward Yang)
2001: Mulholland Drive (David Lynch)
2002: My Left Eye Sees Ghosts (Johnnie To & Wai Ka-fai)
2003: Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-liang)
2004: Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
2005: The Child (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
2006: Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
2007: The Trap (Adam Curtis)
2008: Sparrow (Johnnie To)
2009: Oxhide II (Liu Jiayin)

2010: Mysteries of Lisbon (Raúl Ruiz)
2011: The Day He Arrives (Hong Sang-soo)
2012: Like Someone in Love (Abbas Kiarostami)
2013: Stray Dogs (Tsai Ming-liang)
2014: Phoenix (Christian Petzold)
2015: Mountains May Depart (Jia Zhangke)
2016: Yourself and Yours (Hong Sang-soo)
2017: Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch)
2018: La Flor (Mariano Llinás)
2019: Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello)

2020: Days (Tsai Ming-liang)
2021: Drive My Car (Hamaguchi Ryusuke)
2022: Pacifiction (Albert Serra)
2023: The Beast (Bertrand Bonello)
2024: Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhangke)
2025: Sirāt (Óliver Laxe)