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:
1899:

1900:
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: Napoléon (Abel Gance)
1928: Spione (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 Goddess (Wu Yonggang)
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: Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren & Alexander Hammid)
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: The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton)
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: Out 1: Spectre (Jacques Rivette)
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: Eastern Condors (Sammo Hung)
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 Dr. (David Lynch)
2002: Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma)
2003: Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-liang)
2004: Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
2005: L’Enfant (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
2006: Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
2007: The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom (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: Walk Up (Hong Sang-soo)
2023: The Beast (Bertrand Bonello)
2024: Between the Temples (Nathan Silver)