This was actually one of the initial projects I had in mind when starting this Patreon, or at least some means of covering/beginning to reckon with the latest edition of the Sight & Sound poll. Despite running an entire account dedicated to the individual lists, I feel I’ve been a bit negligent with this task, and this preliminary run-through feels like as good a place to start as any. Originally, when this Patreon was going to be more audio-focused (and thus easier to formulate without editing), I was just going to ramble on about all these films for as long or short as I wanted; hopefully writing will encourage some brevity.

I’ll be tackling the entire top 250 (technically 264 thanks to ties) in somewhat irregular fashion, gathering up films according to the other ones in similar tiers, starting from the end of the list. No particular research — apart from tracking the film’s previous placement, in the 2012 poll, which I’ll note in brackets — should be expected; these are gut reactions, and I think I’ve only seen about half of these films anyways.

243. Born in Flames (1983, Lizzie Borden) [894]

One of many odd films that, given the ascension of Jeanne Dielman in particular, feels preordained to be in this list, despite just one critic (B. Ruby Rich) voting for it last time around. It is a film I love (though not as much as some) and I know has a wide following, not just among queer critics, for its concatenation of so many influences including genre filmmaking; happy to see it here.

243. Pandora’s Box (1929, G. W. Pabst) [235]

A film I’m both surprised and not to see in this list; it’s always held a canonical place in my mind (I haven’t seen it) despite no real movement from a restoration and zero day-to-day discussion, the Criterion DVD remains un-upgraded too.

243. Sullivan’s Travels (1941, Preston Sturges) [235]

Definitely going to run into the problem throughout this short-ish project of films I haven’t seen and have held steady; haven’t been able to identify any trend with screwball comedies in particular, though I wouldn’t necessarily have thought of this as *the* consensus Sturges.

243. Annie Hall (1977, Woody Allen) [127]

Was inevitable this was going to drop hard, though I’m glad it’s still clinging on in the top 250; don’t recall whether there were any other Allens like Manhattan or Crimes and Misdemeanors before.

243. Earth (1930, Alexander Dovzhenko) [171]

Definitely dismaying to see this drop, though it’s true that there still hasn’t been a great copy available in North America or elsewhere; it’s not true that silent films dropped throughout the list, but it’s certainly a trend.

243. My Darling Clementine (1946, John Ford) [235]

The first of three semi-inconsistent results for Ford, no truly significant change here; obviously it’d be a surprise to see something like Stagecoach in here at this point but this being his only pre-1955 film is a little odd.

243. Mouchette (1967, Robert Bresson) [117]

Somehow not the biggest or most disappointing drop for a Bresson film; not my favorite of his but still extremely significant and beautiful, and I wonder if the subject matter helps or hurts it.

243. A Clockwork Orange (1971, Stanley Kubrick) [235]

Surprised that this has held on fairly well despite renewed challenges from the likes of Eyes Wide Shut; only seen this once and pretty sure I’d detest it if I got around to rewatching it.

243. A Canterbury Tale (1944, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger) [117]

Don’t know whether to be more surprised that it was so high in the first place or that it’s fallen so far; in general the variance in Powell and Pressburger results is one of the most interesting throughlines in this list.

243. Videodrome (1983, David Cronenberg) [202]

Would have guessed that this wasn’t in the top 250 last time but I was wrong; very fascinating to see this drop while another Cronenberg pops up towards the end of this entry.

243. Possession (1981, Andrzej Żuławski) [447]

One of those no-brainer rises, thanks partly to a restoration (though one more than six years old at this point) and much more to this film’s continual meme status; very much doubt On the Silver Globe for example did better though.

243. Soleil Ô (1970, Med Hondo) [N/A]

The first totally new entry to the Sight & Sound poll, definitely one of the prime examples on the renewed focus on Black and African cinema throughout this top 250; for some reason I had it in my head that this, not West Indies, was the canonical Hondo.

243. Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988, Terence Davies) [154]

One of the sadder drops, don’t really know how British film fared generally but would have thought, with Davies’ queer cachet and continually renewed interest due to subsequent films great films, he would have done better.

243. Nostalgia for the Light (2010, Patricio Guzmán) [447]

Pleasantly surprised to see this, obviously it isn’t a film that’s been forgotten and Guzmán has done more well-received work before and in the interim, but it’s one I never hear discussed.

243. Syndromes and a Century (2006, Apichatpong Weerasethakul) [447]

My favorite Apichatpong and one beloved as an alternative pick, so it’s not the biggest surprise to see this hanging on in the top 250, but still not a selection I expected to see.

243. L’Intrus (2004, Claire Denis) [377]

This actually did better in 2012 than I had realized, and I suppose it fulfills a similar Syndromes niche, but it’s very strange that this might be the second most popular Claire Denis film (thought it certainly is one of the *most* Denis films).

243. Morvern Callar (2002, Lynne Ramsay) [894]

Don’t know exactly how Ramsay’s other films did; I’ve only seen You Were Never Really Here and hated it but definitely look forward to catching up with this one, which received a (very recent) Blu-ray and I know has always had admirers, and seems like a signal one to rally around for this sort of list.

243. In Vanda’s Room (2000, Pedro Costa) [323]

This is a surprise at least to me; for some reason I’ve always thought of Colossal Youth as the canonical Costa (maybe it’s the title), despite how well this has done in decade polls and its significance as his first digital film, but it did well in 2012 too. Couldn’t be happier to see him here.

243. Werckmeister Harmonies (2000, Tarr Béla and Hranitzky Ágnes) [171]

Wonder how this would have done had the restoration come out a few years earlier, though Tarr is always one of those filmmakers that perennially seems both in and out of fashion.

243. Taste of Cherry (1997, Abbas Kiarostami) [283]

Very nice to see this get a slight but crucial bump, I honestly don’t think the restoration had much to do with it though; Kiarostami in general did quite well in this edition.

243. The Quince Tree Sun (1992, Víctor Erice) [283]

Another unexpected inclusion, though it was already just outside the top 250; I don’t know how well El Sur, the only Erice not to make it, did.

243. The Last Laugh (1924, F. W. Murnau) [127]

Murnau in general took an even greater beating than most other silent cinema directors, and this drop was especially egregious; his most significant film I haven’t yet seen I should point out.

225. Harlan County U.S.A. (1976, Barbara Kopple) [894]

Haven’t yet gotten a sense of exactly how well documentaries improved (my friends on the Wiseman Podcast seem to suggest not much as all), but this is practically an expected jump up, especially considering the timeliness of the subject matter and the filmmaker.

225. Cries and Whispers (1972, Ingmar Bergman) [154]

Fortunately (for me) Bergman didn’t do as well as in past editions, this is the biggest drop, though don’t think it’s the most significant or important.

225. Star Wars (1977, George Lucas) [171]

A little surprised both by seeing this on these sorts of lists and that it dropped so much; I’d wager that the sequel trilogy and myriad TV shows didn’t actually have too big an effect though.

225. Intolerance (1916, D. W. Griffith) [93]

Here it is, the lowest placing previous top 100 film and only one not in the top 200. Obviously basically everything is working against it: the ongoing rejection of Griffith, the slight bias against silent films; it’d be terrible if it didn’t have some place in this list, though I still haven’t gotten around to it.

225. The Hour of the Furnaces (Fernando Solanas & Octavio Getino) [447]

An inclusion that’s surprising but obvious in hindsight; now makes me realize that The Battle of Chile seems like a more expected inclusion than Nostalgia but the three-part construction undoubtedly worked against it.

225. Europa ’51 (1952, Roberto Rossellini) [377]

Absolutely zero idea why this of all Rossellinis jumped up so high even though it is pretty great; definitely worth noting the worse placing of the other Rossellini-Bergman on this list.

225. Napoléon (1927, Abel Gance) [144]

A very unfortunate drop despite the relative recency of the apex of Kevin Brownlow’s restoration; other than the silents and maybe the ardent royalism I don’t know why this happened.

225. The Crowd (1928, King Vidor) [283]

Another sort of baffling entrant into the top 250; Vidor always feels in the process of rediscovery but relative recognizability of this one aside, it’s a bit strange to see here.

225. A Touch of Zen (1971, King Hu) [183]

The first of these that I voted for myself, and of course this was when it dropped; still the highest wuxia *or* martial arts representative but really disheartening to see, almost felt like an obvious pick to me.

225. Je, tu, il, elle (1974, Chantal Akerman) [N/A]

Honestly stunned that, as far as I can tell, this received absolutely zero votes in 2012, for sheer recognizability and its significance as her narrative debut alone, though this is a trend for Akerman.

225. Petite Maman (2021, Céline Sciamma) [N/A]

I like this one a lot more than its even more grotesquely overhyped predecessor, and I remembered it as being higher than it actually is, but still a baffling inclusion on here, especially because of how forthrightly minor it is (perhaps a benefit after all).

225. As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2000, Jonas Mekas) [588]

I had no clue that this was so low (relatively speaking) on the past list, and I don’t know how well Mekas did otherwise. Experimental film did better in sum total, but this was a nice surprise.

225. Flowers of Shanghai (1998, Hou Hsiao-hsien) [235]

A nice modest gain, probably helped just the tiniest of bits by the restoration, though it doesn’t seem to have done a ton for Hou otherwise.

225. Happy Together (1997, Wong Kar-wai) [323]

A little surprised this appears to be the consensus third favorite Wong (justice as ever for Days of Being Wild) but a definite sign of the constant uptick in his reputation and beloved status.

225. Crash (1996, David Cronenberg) [894]

I don’t know whether I’m more surprised at the fact that this got a vote at all in 2012 or that it actually surpassed Videodrome to become the favorite Cronenberg; it really feels like it only became widely loved in the past few years (pre-Blu-rays mind you) so for it to achieve this status so quickly is really something, definitely has to do with its inherent foregrounding of queerness.

225. Blue (1993, Derek Jarman) [894]

This was a real shock, a film seemingly destined to be canonized instantly that nevertheless received just one vote in 2012; could certainly chalk this up to the better appreciation of experimental film generally; very much doubt that Jarman otherwise got much love.

225. Grave of the Fireflies (1988, Takahata Isao) [588]

I wonder how Takahata’s other films did; a little surprising that this jumped up so much, the placement of two Miyazakis in the top 100 notwithstanding. It’s the one of his I don’t like but very much need to revisit.

225. The Green Ray (1986, Éric Rohmer) [283]

Seems to have become not just a consensus Rohmer but perhaps his most beloved film period, eclipsing My Night at Maud‘s; obviously I feel he should have at least five films in the top 250 instead of just one, but this is a great representative nonetheless.

It’s nothing new to say that the Cannes Film Festival is one of the most influential forces in cinema, for better and for worse. Like its eviler twin, the Oscars, it is almost choked by its glamor and prestige: its putative brethren Berlin and even, to a certain degree, Venice, are able to escape an over-abundance of notice, with off years or low-key line-ups largely going unnoticed (at least among the trades and the Hollywood industry). No such recourse is available to Cannes, who always stands as a bellwether for the health of the festival landscape, despite its well-established reliance on pet auteurs and a reluctance to stray too far out of its comfort zone.

I actually don’t mind this tendency too much, and to unpack that more would take something much longer/more formal, but I wanted to focus in on something much less consequential but equally fascinating: the Screen International Cannes Jury Grid. One of the best pieces of film festival ephemera, it is run by the British film magazine and prompts typically 10 or 11 critics from different publications around the world to rate each film in the Official Competition from zero to four stars. What appeals to me about this concept — aside from giving me access to the thoughts of some of my favorite critics, Dennis Lim and Justin Chang chief among them — is the snapshot nature of it, the way it embodies the in-the-moment feeling about a film in the same way that any ratings scale or list does. Obviously, the makeup of names from year to year varies a great deal, and I may not put an enormous amount of truck in a good number of people involved, but it is as good a portrait of the thoughts of a certain semi-mainstream stripe of critic as there is in any place. People can hedge or try to make themselves look better in retrospective reviews, top-ten lists, and the like, but with such iron-clad parameters (five points with no decimals) and limited options — the aggregate ranking of only about 20 films is entirely dependent on the votes of a few people, which leads to both consensus and chaos, as one dissenter in either direction can tip the scales wildly — leads to some lovely, often infuriating, always surprising results. It’d be great, for instance, if films in other sections, even in the functionally separate Directors’ Fortnight, where many of the best films have premiered, were included, or if something similar was consistently established for even just Berlin and Venice, but there’s a perverse purity to the grid, as there is to the competition, that truly compels me.

Cannes 2023 is currently underway, and this lovely Screen Daily piece by Nikki Baughan that my friend/presumed grid contributor this year (one of the few enormous gripes I have is the refusal to name the Screen International respondent for the year) Tim Grierson tweeted out made me want to go back and look at how the ad hoc rankings formed by each of the grids have shaken out; it’s easy and fun to rag on the often dunderheaded choices by the Cannes juries, for Palme d’Or winners and other jury awards alike, but what about the on-the-ground opinions of (hopefully) well-meaning critics?

From a very quick look online, I’ve been able to find the full grids from 2009-2022 — the article’s inclusion of the highest and lowest rated titles from almost every edition is fascinating in its own right but doesn’t offer enough information; I might do a second edition if I can find some others and/or if I decide to delve into some of these grids a bit deeper — and sorted each film by their rating, with alphabetical order controlling for ties. I’ve then sought to rank the films by a very loose but still considered series of criteria, including my own personal liking of the film and/or director (when applicable), the thoughts on both of my own circles, and, for a lack of a better descriptor, the enduring appeal, renown, and importance of the film. These should not be taken as strict rankings, and the former will often outweigh the latter (which is subjective in and of itself), but it’s a start to considering just how these odd (in multiple senses of the word) opinions have evolved over the years.

* will indicate a film I have seen.

2009

1. A Prophet (Jacques Audiard) – 3.4
2. Bright Star (Jane Campion) – 3.3
The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke) – 3.3
4. Broken Embraces (Pedro Almodóvar) – 3.2
5. Looking for Eric (Ken Loach) – 2.9
Vincere (Marco Bellocchio) – 2.9
7. The Time That Remains (Elia Suleiman) – 2.6
8. Wild Grass (Alain Resnais) – 2.5
9. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino) – 2.4
Thirst (Park Chan-wook) – 2.4
11. Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold) – 2.3
12. Vengeance (Johnnie To) – 2.1
13. Taking Woodstock (Ang Lee) – 2
14. In the Beginning (Xavier Giannoli) – 1.9
15. Antichrist (Lars von Trier) – 1.6
Enter the Void (Gaspar Noé) – 1.6
Spring Fever (Lou Ye) – 1.6
18. Face (Tsai Ming-liang) – 1.3
Map of the Sounds of Tokyo (Isabel Coixet) – 1.3
20. Kinatay (Brillante Mendoza) – 1.2

1. *Inglourious Basterds
2. Wild Grass
3. Bright Star
4. Broken Embraces
5. *Face
6. The White Ribbon
7. Vengeance
8. Vincere
9. Thirst
10. Antichrist
11. A Prophet
12. *Fish Tank
13. The Time That Remains
14. Enter the Void
15. Taking Woodstock
16. Looking for Eric
17. Spring Fever
18. Kinatay
19. In the Beginning
20. Map of the Sounds of Tokyo

2010

1. Another Year (Mike Leigh) – 3.4
2. Of Gods and Men (Xavier Beauvois) – 3.1
3. Poetry (Lee Chang-dong) – 2.7
4. Outside the Law (Rachid Bouchareb) – 2.6
5. The Princess of Montpensier (Bertrand Tavernier) – 2.4
Route Irish (Ken Loach) – 2.4
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) – 2.4
8. Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami) – 2.3
A Screaming Man (Mahamat-Saleh Haroun) – 2.3
10. Chongqing Blues (Wang Xiaoshuai) – 2.2
Fair Game (Doug Liman) – 2.2
The Housemaid (Im Sang-soo) – 2.2
My Joy (Sergei Loznitsa) – 2.2
14. Tender Son: The Frankenstein Project (Mundruczó Kornél) – 2.1
15. Biutiful (Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu) – 2
On Tour (Mathieu Amalric) – 2
17. Our Life (Daniele Luchetti) – 1.6
18. Burnt by the Sun 2: Exodus (Nikita Mikhalkov) – 1.3
19. Outrage (Kitano Takeshi) – 0.9

1. *Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
2. Poetry
3. *Certified Copy
4. Another Year
5. Of Gods and Men
6. My Joy
7. Outrage
8. The Housemaid
9. A Screaming Man
10. Chongqing Blues
11. Biutiful
12. On Tour
13. The Princess of Montpensier
14. Route Irish
15. Outside the Law
16. Our Life
17. Burnt by the Sun 2: Exodus
18. Fair Game
19. Tender Son: The Frankenstein Project

2011

1. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan) – 3.3
2. Le Havre (Aki Kaurismäki) – 3.2
3. The Kid With a Bike (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne) – 3.1
4. The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius) – 2.8
The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodóvar) – 2.8
This Must Be the Place (Paolo Sorrentino) – 2.8
The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick) – 2.8
8. We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay) – 2.5
9. Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn) – 2.4
Melancholia (Lars von Trier) – 2.4
11. We Have a Pope (Nanni Moretti) – 2.3
12. Footnote (Joseph Cedar) – 2
Michael (Markus Schleinzer) – 2
14. Father (Alain Cavalier) – 1.9
15. Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (Miike Takashi) – 1.7
Polisse (Maïwenn) – 1.7
The Source (Radu Mihǎileanu) – 1.7
18. Hanezu (Kawase Naomi) – 1.6
19. Sleeping Beauty (Julia Leigh) – 1.5
20. House of Tolerance (Bertrand Bonello) – 1.1

1. *The Tree of Life
2. *The Kid With a Bike
3. *Melancholia
4. *House of Tolerance
5. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
6. Le Havre
7. The Skin I Live In
8. Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai
9. Sleeping Beauty
10. We Have a Pope
11. Footnote
12. Michael
13. Polisse
14. Father
15. *Drive
16. We Need to Talk About Kevin
17. *The Artist
18. Hanezu
19. This Must Be the Place
20. The Source

2012

1. Amour (Michael Haneke) – 3.3
Beyond the Hills (Cristian Mungiu) – 3.3
3. The Hunt (Thomas Vinterberg) – 2.9
In the Fog (Sergei Loznitsa) – 2.9
Killing Them Softly (Andrew Dominik) – 2.9
Rust & Bone (Jacques Audiard) – 2.9
7. The Angels’ Share (Ken Loach) – 2.8
Mud (Jeff Nichols) – 2.8
9. On the Road (Walter Salles) – 2.7
10. Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson) – 2.6
You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet (Alain Resnais) – 2.6
12. Like Someone in Love (Abbas Kiarostami) – 2.4
13. Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg) – 2.2
14. In Another Country (Hong Sang-soo) – 2.1
15. Holy Motors (Leos Carax) – 2
Post Tenebras Lux (Carlos Reygadas) – 2
17. Reality (Matteo Garrone) – 1.9
18. Lawless (John Hillcoat) – 1.7
19. The Paperboy (Lee Daniels) – 1.6
20. After the Battle (Yousry Nasrallah) – 1.5
Paradise: Love (Ulrich Seidl) – 1.5
22. The Taste of Money (Im Sang-soo) – 1.4

1. *Holy Motors
2. *Like Someone in Love
3. *Moonrise Kingdom
4. *You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet
5. *In Another Country
6. *Cosmopolis
7. Amour
8. Post Tenebras Lux
9. Beyond the Hills
10. In the Fog
11. The Hunt
12. Killing Them Softly
13. Paradise: Love
14. Rust & Bone
15. Reality
16. The Angels’ Share
17. Mud
18. On the Road
19. Lawless
20. The Paperboy
21. The Taste of Money
22. After the Battle

2013

1. Blue Is the Warmest Color – Abdellatif Kechiche) – 3.4
2. Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel & Ethan Coen) – 3.3
3. Nebraska (Alexander Payne) – 3.1
4. A Touch of Sin (Jia Zhangke) – 3
5. The Past (Asghar Farhadi) – 2.8
Venus in Fur (Roman Polański) – 2.8
7. The Great Beauty (Paolo Sorrentino) – 2.7
8. Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch) – 2.6
9. Behind the Candelabra (Steven Soderbergh) – 2.5
Like Father, Like Son (Koreeda Hirokazu) – 2.5
11. The Immigrant (James Gray) – 2.4
Young & Beautiful (François Ozon) – 2.4
13. Borgman (Alex Van Warmerdam) – 2.1
Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian (Arnaud Desplechin) – 2.1
15. Grigris (Mahamat-Saleh Haroun) – 1.8
16. Heli (Amat Escalante) – 1.6
Michael Kohlhaas (Arnaud des Pallières) – 1.6
18. A Castle in Italy (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) – 1.5
Only God Forgives (Nicolas Winding Refn) – 1.5
20. Shield of Straw (Miike Takashi) – 1.3

1. *Inside Llewyn Davis
2. *The Immigrant
3. *A Touch of Sin
4. Only Lovers Left Alive
5. Blue Is the Warmest Color
6. Behind the Candelabra
7. Nebraska
8. Like Father, Like Son
9. Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian
10. The Past
11. The Great Beauty
12. Heli
13. Grigris
14. Shield of Straw
15. Young & Beautiful
16. Venus in Fur
17. Borgman
18. Michael Kohlhaas
19. A Castle in Italy
20. *Only God Forgives

2014

1. Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh) – 3.6
2. Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev) – 3.5
3. Winter Sleep (Nuri Bilge Ceylan) – 3.4
4. Two Days, One Night (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne) – 3.1
5. Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas) – 2.9
6. Foxcatcher (Bennett Miller) – 2.8
7. Maps to the Stars (David Cronenberg) – 2.7
8. The Homesman (Tommy Lee Jones) – 2.6
Mommy (Xavier Dolan) – 2.6
Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako) – 2.6
The Wonders (Alice Rohrwacher) – 2.6
12. Goodbye to Language (Jean-Luc Godard) – 2.5
Jimmy’s Hall (Ken Loach) – 2.5
14. Still the Water (Kawase Naomi) – 2.2
Wild Tales (Damian Szifron) – 2.2
16. Saint Laurent (Bertrand Bonello) – 1.7
17. The Captive (Atom Egoyan) – 1.6
18. The Search (Michel Hazanavicius) – 1.2

1. *Goodbye to Language
2. *Two Days, One Night
3. *Clouds of Sils Maria
4. Timbuktu
5. Mr. Turner
6. The Wonders
7. *Saint Laurent
8. Winter Sleep
9. Maps to the Stars
10. The Homesman
11. *Foxcatcher
12. Leviathan
13. Wild Tales
14. Jimmy’s Hall
15. Mommy
16. Still the Water
17. The Captive
18. The Search

2015

1. The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien) – 3.5
Carol (Todd Haynes) – 3.5
3. Mountains May Depart (Jia Zhangke) – 2.8
Son of Saul (Nemes László) – 2.8
5. Mia madre (Nanni Moretti) – 2.7
6. Dheepan (Jacques Audiard) – 2.5
Our Little Sister (Koreeda Hirokazu) – 2.5
8. The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos) – 2.4
Youth (Paolo Sorrentino) – 2.4
10. The Measure of a Man (Stéphane Brizé) – 2.3
Sicario (Denis Villeneuve) – 2.3
12. Louder Than Bombs (Joachim Trier) – 2.2
13. Chronic (Michel Franco) – 2
Tale of Tales (Matteo Garrone) – 2
15. Macbeth (Justin Kurzel) – 1.8
16. Valley of Love (Guillaume Nicloux) – 1.7
17. Mon roi (Maïwenn) – 1.5
18. Marguerite and Julien (Valérie Donzelli) – 0.9
19. The Sea of Trees (Gus Van Sant) – 0.6

1. *The Assassin
2. *Carol
3. *Mountains May Depart
4. *Sicario
5. *Our Little Sister
6. *The Lobster
7. *Son of Saul
8. Mia madre
9. The Measure of a Man
10. *Valley of Love
11. Dheepan
12. Macbeth
13. Louder Than Bombs
14. Tale of Tales
15. Marguerite and Julien
16. Chronic
17. Youth
18. Mon roi
19. The Sea of Trees

2016

1. Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade) – 3.7
2. Paterson (Jim Jarmusch) – 3.5
3. Elle (Paul Verhoeven) – 3.1
4. Graduation (Cristian Mungiu) – 3
Sieranevada (Cristi Puiu) – 3
6. Aquarius (Kleber Mendonça Filho) – 2.9
7. Loving (Jeff Nichols) – 2.5
The Unknown Girl (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne) – 2.5
9. American Honey (Andrea Arnold) – 2.4
I, Daniel Blake (Ken Loach) – 2.4
Julieta (Pedro Almodóvar) – 2.4
The Salesman (Asghar Farhadi) – 2.4
13. Personal Shopper (Olivier Assayas) – 2.3
Slack Bay (Bruno Dumont) – 2.3
15. Ma’ Rosa (Brillante Mendoza) – 2.2
Staying Vertical (Alain Guiraudie) – 2.2
17. The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook) – 2.1
18. From the Land of the Moon (Nicole Garcia) – 2
19. The Neon Demon (Nicolas Winding Refn) – 1.5
20. It’s Only the End of the World (Xavier Dolan) – 1.4
21. The Last Face (Sean Penn) – 0.2

1. *Toni Erdmann
2. *Elle
3. *Sieranevada
4. *Personal Shopper
5. *Aquarius
6. *The Handmaiden
7. *Paterson
8. *Julieta
9. *The Unknown Girl
10. *Staying Vertical
11. The Salesman
12. *Graduation
13. Slack Bay
14. *I, Daniel Blake
15. Loving
16. *American Honey
17. *Ma’ Rosa
18. From the Land of the Moon
19. *The Neon Demon
20. It’s Only the End of the World
21. The Last Face

2017

1. Loveless (Andrey Zvyagintsaev) – 3.2
You Were Never Really Here (Lynne Ramsay) – 3.2
3. The Square (Ruben Östlund) – 2.7
Wonderstruck (Todd Haynes) – 2.7
5. The Day After (Hong Sang-soo) – 2.5
Good Time (Josh & Benny Safdie) – 2.5
120 BPM (Beats per Minute) (Robin Campillo) – 2.5
8. The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (Noah Baumbach) – 2.4
9. The Beguiled (Sofia Coppola) – 2.3
Double Lover (François Ozon) – 2.3
Okja (Bong Joon-ho) – 2.3
12. A Gentle Creature (Sergei Loznitsa) – 2.2
Happy End (Michael Haneke) – 2.2
14. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos) – 1.9
15. Jupiter’s Moon (Mundruczó Kornél) – 1.6
Radiance (Kawase Naomi) – 1.6
17. In the Fade (Fatih Akın) – 1.5
Le Redoutable (Michel Hazanavicius) – 1.5
19. Rodin (Jacques Doillon) – 1

1. *The Day After
2. *Good Time
3. *120 BPM (Beats per Minute)
4. *Wonderstruck
5. *The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)
6. A Gentle Creature
7. *The Square
8. *The Beguiled
9. *Okja
10. Happy End
11. Rodin
12. *You Were Never Really Here
13. Loveless
14. *The Killing of a Sacred Deer
15. Double Lover
16. In the Fade
17. Radiance
18. *Le Redoutable
19. Jupiter’s Moon

2018

1. Burning (Lee Chang-dong) – 3.8
2. Shoplifters (Koreeda Hirokazu) – 3.2
3. The Image Book (Jean-Luc Godard) – 3
4. Ash Is Purest White (Jia Zhangke) – 2.9
Cold War (Paweł Pawlikowski) – 2.9
Happy as Lazzaro (Alice Rohrwacher) – 2.9
The Wild Pear Tree (Nuri Bilge Ceylan) – 2.9
8. 3 Faces (Jafar Panahi) – 2.6
9. BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee) – 2.5
10. Asako I & II (Hamaguchi Ryusuke) – 2.4
Leto (Kirill Serebrennikov) – 2.4
12. Dogman (Matteo Garrone) – 2.3
Sorry Angel (Christophe Honoré) – 2.3
14. At War (Stéphane Brizé) – 2.1
Ayka (Sergei Dvortsevoy) – 2.1
16. Under the Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell) – 2
17. Capernaum (Nadine Labaki) – 1.9
18. Everybody Knows (Asghar Farhadi) – 1.8
Yomeddine (Abu Bakr Shawky) – 1.8
20. Knife + Heart (Yann Gonzalez) – 1.6
21. Girls of the Sun (Eva Husson) – 1

1. *Burning
2. *The Image Book
3. *Ash Is Purest White
4. *Happy as Lazzaro
5. *Asako I & II
6. *3 Faces
7. *Shoplifters
8. *BlacKkKlansman
9. *Cold War
10. The Wild Pear Tree
11. *Knife + Heart
12. Sorry Angel
13. *Under the Silver Lake
14. Leto
15. Dogman
16. At War
17. Ayka
18. Girls of the Sun
19. Capernaum
20. Everybody Knows
21. Yomeddine

2019

1. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho) – 3.5
2. Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar) – 3.3
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma) – 3.3
4. Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino) – 3
5. Atlantics (Mati Diop) – 2.8
6. The Wild Goose Lake (Diao Yinan) – 2.7
7. Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho & Juliano Dornelles) – 2.6
It Must Be Heaven (Elia Suleiman) – 2.6
The Traitor (Marco Bellocchio) – 2.6
10. A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick) – 2.5
Sorry We Missed You (Ken Loach) – 2.5
The Whistlers (Corneliu Porumboiu) – 2.5
13. Les Misérables (Ladj Ly) – 2.4
Oh Mercy! (Arnaud Desplechin) – 2.4
Young Ahmed (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne) – 2.4
16. Little Joe (Jessica Hausner) – 2.3
17. The Dead Don’t Die (Jim Jarmusch) – 2.2
18. Sibyl (Justine Triet) – 1.8
19. Matthias & Maxime (Xavier Dolan) – 1.7
20. Frankie (Ira Sachs) – 1.6
21. Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo (Abdellatif Kechiche) – 1.5

1. *Parasite
2. *Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood
3. *Portrait of a Lady on Fire
4. *Bacurau
5. *Pain and Glory
6. *The Traitor
7. *Atlantics
8. *A Hidden Life
9. *Young Ahmed
10. *Sibyl
11. *The Wild Goose Lake
12. *The Whistlers
13. Oh Mercy!
14. Little Joe
15. *The Dead Don’t Die
16. Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo
17. Les Misérables
18. Frankie
19. Sorry We Missed You
20. Matthias & Maxime
21. It Must Be Heaven

2021

1. Drive My Car (Hamaguchi Ryusuke) – 3.5
2. Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) – 3.4
3. Annette (Leos Carax) – 3
4. Benedetta (Paul Verhoeven) – 2.7
5. Compartment No. 6 (Juho Kuosmanen) – 2.6
A Hero (Asghar Farhadi) – 2.6
Paris, 13th District (Jacques Audiard) – 2.6
8. The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier) – 2.4
9. The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun (Wes Anderson) – 2.3
Petrov’s Flu (Kirill Serebrennikov) – 2.3
11. Bergman Island (Mia Hansen-Løve) – 2.2
Everything Went Fine (François Ozon) – 2.2
Red Rocket (Sean Baker) – 2.2
14. Ahed’s Knee (Nadav Lapid) – 2.1
15. France (Bruno Dumont) – 2
16. The Restless (Joachim Lafosse) – 1.9
17. Lingui, the Sacred Bonds (Mahamat-Saleh Haroun) – 1.8
Nitram (Justin Kurzel) – 1.8
The Story of My Wife (Enyedi Ildikó) – 1.8
20. Casablanca Beats (Nabil Ayouch) – 1.6
Titane (Julia Ducournau) – 1.6
22. Three Floors (Nanni Moretti) – 1.5
23. The Divide (Catherine Corsini) – 1.4
24. Flag Day (Sean Penn) – 1.1

1. *Drive My Car
2. *Memoria
3. *Annette
4. *The Worst Person in the World
5. *France
6. *Benedetta
7. *The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun
8. *Bergman Island
9. *Red Rocket
10. *Ahed’s Knee
11. *Titane
12. A Hero
13. Compartment No. 6
14. Lingui, the Sacred Bonds
15. Petrov’s Flu
16. Nitram
17. Paris, 13th District
18. Three Floors
19. The Restless
20. Everything Went Fine
21. The Divide
22. Casablanca Beats
23. Flag Day
24. The Story of My Wife

2022

1. Decision to Leave (Park Chan-wook) – 3.2
2. Armageddon Time (James Gray) – 2.8
3. EO (Jerzy Skolimowski) – 2.7
Showing Up (Kelly Reichardt) – 2.7
Tori and Lokita (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne) – 2.7
6. Crimes of the Future (David Cronenberg) – 2.6
Pacifiction (Albert Serra) – 2.6
8. Nostalgia (Mario Martone) – 2.5
R.M.N. (Cristian Mungiu) – 2.5
Triangle of Sadness (Ruben Östlund) – 2.5
11. Close (Lukas Dhont) – 2.4
Mother and Son (Léonor Serraille) – 2.4
13. Boy From Heaven (Tarik Saleh) – 2.3
Leila’s Brothers (Saeed Roustaee) – 2.3
Tchaikovsky’s Wife (Kirill Serebrennikov) – 2.3
16. Brother and Sister (Arnaud Desplechin) – 2
The Eight Mountains (Felix van Groeningen & Charlotte Vandermeersch) – 2
Holy Spider (Ali Abbasi) – 2
19. Broker (Koreeda Hirokazu) – 1.9
Stars at Noon (Claire Denis) – 1.9
21. Forever Young (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) – 1.8

1. *Pacifiction
2. *Showing Up
3. *EO
4. *Crimes of the Future
5. *Stars at Noon
6. *Decision to Leave
7. *Armageddon Time
8. *Triangle of Sadness
9. R.M.N.
10. Tori and Lokita
11. Brother and Sister
12. The Eight Mountains
13. Broker
14. *Close
15. Holy Spider
16. Forever Young
17. Boy From Heaven
18. Nostalgia
19. Mother and Son
20. Leila’s Brothers
21. Tchaikovsky’s Wife

2009-2013

Obviously, during this early stretch of festivals I wasn’t aware of films as all, so there are plenty more films collected at the bottom that I’m ranking more haphazardly, so a few notes from this period should suffice:

– The stars of Loach, Lou, Mundruczó, Ozon, Suleiman, Nichols, and Sorrentino (among numerous others, including perhaps Farhadi) have all fallen at least for now, especially for these films of the former’s that I’ve never heard of before (consistent top 5/10 finishes seems ridiculous from my current vantage) and these are intended to reflect that.

– Controversy at the time of the release matters a lot less than whether the films are controversial now, as the illustrative, well-distributed rankings of Tarantino, Trier, and Noé in 2009 illustrate.

– It is insane that Tsai was third-to-last in 2009.

– So many high films in 2010 that I’ve never heard of before (including a Tavernier?), meanwhile Uncle Boonmee and Certified Copy struggle to remain in the top 10.

– Fair Game might be the most ludicrous selection in this whole era, which includes two Sean Penn films.

– Some of the more revisionist rankings I’m taking on faith, but also there’s no way that Outrage is not more notable than <emBiutiful.

– Fascinating to see The Artist and This Must Be the Place so high in 2011; House of Tolerance in last remains a Colossal Youth-in-last level embarrassment.

– I’ll probably be mildly appreciative of some of these films when I see them but that 2012 run of Killing Them Softly through On the Road when stacked up immediately against the run from Moonrise Kingdom to Holy Motors(???) is… unbelievable.

– Definitely plenty of films that are still plenty talked about that I chose to rank lower because I personally can’t stand them; Refn’s films are prime contenders.

2014

Not the first Cannes I was really conscious of (that’s next year) but somehow I’m at least vaguely familiar with every film here. This is the first year that presents the Zvyagintsev conundrum, wherein his films have done extraordinarily well despite seemingly no one I’m especially aligned with caring for his work, or at least this late output. Plenty of films that I still haven’t seen but have ranked decently high based on their reputations and my appreciation for their directors’ later work, like The Wonders. I remember reading Dennis Lim dissenting with the on-the-ground feeling that this was a weak year for Cannes, and this new top 5 feels like a great argument for his view.

2015

The Screen jury got it *exactly* right, though it can’t have been difficult with just three true standouts. I’m frankly shocked that Mountains May Depart, my second-favorite film of the decade but which has proved enduringly divisive (and a turning point in Jia’s reputation I feel), managed to tie for third. Populating the list below the top three was somewhat difficult, and having Sicario, a film I used to love but have mixed feelings about now, in fourth doesn’t feel great. But displacing Nemes, a once firebrand director that now 90% of new cinephiles probably haven’t even heard of, does.

2016

Maybe the single best edition of Cannes on this list, which makes the fact that the bottom three films in both rankings screened back-to-back-to-back all the funnier. I feel that Paterson‘s gotten lost in the cracks in recent years which accounts for its much lower placing, while slightly more divisive films at the time like Personal Shopper and The Handmaiden have soared. I am surprised that the previously twice-shellacked Mendoza managed to get away with an above-average rating for a truly crummy film.

2017

Speaking of crummy, what a truly awful year for Cannes; it’s a nice coincidence that the three best films all somehow tied for fifth. Kind of a surprise to see 120 BPM so low and Wonderstruck, which I love but has been derided, tied for third. Ramsay gets the Refn treatment, while I know enough people that didn’t mind Rodin to put it up above a bunch of what looks like dreck.

2018

Not totally sure about how to rank the top three here, each has its own very different, summative late-period merits, but they help buttress a Cannes where the gap between great/noteworthy films and ones that everybody does *not* know is vast. Under the Silver Lake has stuck around but I’m not keen on it, so in the bottom half it goes.

2019

Another year so stuffed with both films I love and extremely noteworthy films that the former can be a bit shortchanged (e.g. the mystifyingly disregarded Sibyl and the pleasingly well-received The Wild Goose Lake); my antipathy for Portrait is well known but it’s endured at least for now, though I didn’t choose to follow those insane Sight & Sound rankings; The Traitor might be too high but it’s that great.

2021

Forgot how massive this year was, and yet the top three was very clear; once again a huge divide between the great films and the fine-at-best films. Chose to spare Sean Penn and give last place to the Enyedi for seemingly being such a disappointment (I’ll probably watch both someday); forgot Titane did so poorly, while I don’t love the film it’s still worthwhile. I’ve gone back and forth on Worst Person but feels like a decent spot for it; plenty of films that have sunk slightly because of their general lack of profile *despite* getting US distribution, the Kuosmanen is a clear example.

2022

Probably not a coincidence that the two worst years for Cannes since I started more-or-less actively following along had the best film top out at 3.2; thankfully the one here is much better. Shocking number of films I forgot despite being just one year old (Mother and Son, Leila’s Brothers); Serebrennikov gets the Enyedi treatment after a string of solid films. And it felt like a right and good thing to massively bump up Stars at Noon, a now beloved film at least among my circles, the exact kind of reclamation impossible at Cannes that hindsight can make all the richer.

I can’t think of a series of physical media releases that I currently adore more, both conceptually and in execution, than the ongoing Bootleg Series issued by Bob Dylan and Columbia Records. Despite the ultimately large differences in my personal love for each, all of them are wonderful and probably essential listens for any Dylan lover. Somehow, they take his inextricable relationship with the genesis and continuing influence of the “illegal” bootleg and Great White Wonder and take them far further, all while feeling like not shameless cash grabs/commercial co-option but rather true labors of love.

These rankings, and even the categorization around the boundaries of each tier, aren’t terribly precise, but it’s worth noting that they’re graded along dual criteria: listening enjoyment and historical significance. My own tastes are different than many others, of course (Shot of Love is in my top 5 Dylan albums after all), but I do think this general order feels right; all the Curios — the name is meant as a compliment, and not a backhanded one either — are extremely fascinating and lovely works in and of themselves. These are all evaluated based on my first (give or take a couple) listens of the standard editions, typically composed of two CDs, and don’t take into account any ancillary material like the booklets.

MASTERPIECES

Vol. 13: Trouble No More, 1979-1981

Vol. 16: Springtime in New York, 1980-1985

Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Raw

Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs: Rare and Unreleased, 1989-2006

Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait (1969-1971)

Volumes 1-3: (Rare & Unreleased), 1961-1991

TREASURE TROVES

Vol. 17: Fragments: Time Out of Mind Sessions (1996-1997)

Vol. 5: Live 1975: The Rolling Thunder Revue

Vol. 4: Live 1966: The “Royal Albert Hall” Concert

Vol. 14: More Blood, More Tracks

CURIOS

Vol. 15: Travelin’ Thru, 1967-1969

Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964

Vol. 12: 1965-1966: The Best of the Cutting Edge

Vol. 6: Live 1964: Concert at Philharmonic Hall

Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack

Volumes 1-3: (Rare & Unreleased), 1961-1991

Realistically speaking, if these were considered as individual volumes, their placement in these rankings would be wildly different: Vol. 1 would be towards the bottom, Vol. 2 likely wouldn’t still leave the Curios tier, and Vol. 3 would be a healthy Treasure Trove. But taken together, this is a completely remarkable achievement, a full summary of Dylan’s entire oeuvre thus far and nearly indefatigable in its search for tracks both expected and unexpected. The inclusion of “Blind Willie McTell” and “Series of Dreams” alongside stuff like “I Shall Be Released” and the 3/4 “Like a Rolling Stone” acts as a validation of then-late Dylan; even if the amount of tracks is a little smaller, the straight run-through of Infidels outtakes lands like a sledgehammer. And there’s even room for surprises to a Dylan fan of like myself among the first two volumes, “Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie” most of all. Really just a total triumph, with an impact and breadth even greater than the sum of its parts.

Vol. 4: Live 1966: The “Royal Albert Hall” Concert

This and its successor (and that volume’s successor to a much lesser extent) are a little difficult for me to evaluate, considering that I listened to them a number of times many years ago, when my Dylan interest was strictly limited to the ’60s and 1975-76. Still, this really is a great live album, well balanced along the acoustic and electric halves, and engrossing as a clearly audible evolution of energy and tension until the enormous release of “Like a Rolling Stone.” For historical value alone this must place in at least mid-tier, the true apex of the electric period controversy, but Dylan is inspired, clearly headed for a crash under the intense spotlight that dogged him throughout the tour but giving it his all. The Hawks/Band are great as well, “Tell Me, Momma” was probably the first non-studio Dylan song I ever heard and is a perfect way to start disc 2, and I love the little blast of “God Save the Queen” after he’s already left too, a reminder of where we are and a sudden calm reckoning after the storm.

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Vol. 5: Live 1975: The Rolling Thunder Revue

The gulf between this and Hard Rain, at least quality-wise, really isn’t as different as many say, but there’s something infectious about the exuberance displayed throughout here, and for all the complaints about this not being taken from a single concert like the surrounding volumes, the hodgepodge nature works to its benefit as a reflection of the ragtag brilliance that typified the Rolling Thunder Revue. “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You” is so electrifying that I often forget it was originally on Nashville Skyline, and in many ways my enormous cooling on Desire actually helps me love the openness and unrestrained fun here. Again, the relative familiarity makes it hard to rate this, and the historical significance is a little tempered considering the existence of other documents of the RTV and its prominence in Dylan’s legend, but as a collection of music it’s never not transporting.

(I’m not counting the DVD that originally came with this; cool to see Dylan playing “Tangled Up in Blue” and to have the Biograph version of “Isis,” though it’s annoying “Romance in Durango” isn’t here, but it’s fairly inessential after everything else on this set.)

Vol. 6: Live 1964: Concert at Philharmonic Hall

I’m probably underrating this one, and it’s really a testament to the strength of the other volumes that this has to settle for second-to-last. The thing that totally escaped me before is how much this is a document of Dylan essentially on top of the folk music world. Consequently, he spends much of it in quite welcome goof-off mode, forgetting the first verse of “I Don’t Believe You,” bantering with the audience (the “Mary Had a Little Lamb” quip is especially choice). His incorporations of Bringing It All Back Home material adds several layers of historical significance; on the other end of that spectrum, the duets with Joan Baez are just lovely, to the point where he simply provides accompaniment on one song. Not as varied as the other releases, but on pure mood alone, this is a great time.

Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack

This is the release that I really don’t know what to do with. I haven’t yet seen Scorsese’s documentary, but as is this exists in a weird space, quite nearly superseded by not one but two volumes: 1-3 in its attempt to tell the story of Dylan, which is a much narrower portrait that only runs to the motorcycle crash; and 12, in its extensive reliance in disc 2 on 1965-66 studio outtakes. I listened to it a second time and think it flows a bit better, but the inclusion of “Song to Woody,” an honest-to-God studio album track, takes up space on what’s supposed to be a bootleg (even if it is the perennially underrated debut), a decision which rubs me the wrong way, as does the usage of 4’s closer to a lesser degree (surely there was some other final performance that would have worked as well). Not a misfire, and listening to Dylan’s evolution even in micro form is still fun, but this is the one that I don’t think has quite the same clear-cut raison d’être that every other volume has.

Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs: Rare and Unreleased, 1989-2006

Quite conceivably the most important release to the identity of the Bootleg Series aside from 1-3; not only does this introduce the deluxe edition concept that every release from 10 on embraced, but it also redirects the focus of the series from live records or career overviews to a laser focus on a specific period of his creativity. That period here, while still larger than the others, is just chock-full of great songs, and especially coming after the familiarity of 7, the pure blast of energy of “Mississippi” and expert flow makes this a total joy to listen to. The inclusion of multiple versions of the same song also highlights the mutability and constant experimentation that truly comes to the fore with this installment going forward, as does the canny incorporation of fantastic live cuts. The reintroduction of track-by-track notes is more than welcome (though sadly not universally adopted); “‘Cross the Green Mountain” is the exact right slightly odd way to end too. As a realignment in multiple ways and a collection dedicated to such different eras that nevertheless feels so concentrated, this is a total success.

Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964

Notwithstanding its clear historical significance, I initially had this solidly in second-to-last place, thinking that the comprehensiveness made for something of a slog, but a relisten really helped me love this more. The collection, similar to something like the Basement Tapes, benefits from simultaneously seeing the demos as embryonic forms that would be elaborated on further and as a vibe in and of themselves, the chronological flow across songs signaling a development in songwriting that’s become rather palatable for me to track anew. There’s also just a charm in hearing such a young Dylan interacting with the producers, his eagerness breaking up the songs without interrupting the mood. Much stronger as a unit than I had previously given it credit for.

Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait (1969-1971)

For me, Self Portrait isn’t an album in any need of improvement, but what’s so great about this collection is that all the removal of overdubs and so on and so forth only helps emphasize the brilliance of the original. Dylan’s voice comes to the fore, as does his clear passion for his varied material, and the little bits of contextualization — a Nashville Skyline outtake here, a Basement Tapes cut there — work beautifully to frame the sessions that produced both one of Dylan’s best albums and one of his worst. The latter’s alternate takes are near-uniformly better than their approved counterparts; this even manages to redeem “If Dogs Run Free” for God’s sake. I don’t know if this is quite as revelatory as many of its tier fellows, but ending with maybe my favorite Dylan recordings, the “When I Paint My Masterpiece” demo, is such a bold and perfect move. “Masterpiece” on a masterpiece about a masterpiece: couldn’t be more fitting.

(I still wonder why the deluxe edition only includes the invaluable Isle of Wight concert and the baffling choice to throw in a remastered Self Portrait, though I haven’t listened to it yet and it may be markedly different; wish it didn’t seem so lean but that’s not included in the evaluation.)

Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Raw

This selection carries with it an enormous asterisk; it can be convincingly argued that this is the sole bootleg whose canonical/standard edition is The Basement Tapes Complete; it’s not given a Deluxe classification, it’s the name of the article/listing on both Wikipedia and Discogs, and arguably the entire reason for this release is the completeness. I haven’t listened to the six discs yet, which could either be a bit wearying or #1 by a mile (I’m banking on the latter), but Raw is totally essential in and of itself, not just because it has the track-by-track notes that Complete understandably lacks. The decision to include outtakes, alternate tracks, restored tracks, and tracks without overdubs all in one basket is inspired, not least because it encourages the listener to constantly look back and reconsider these tracks built upon their underground status. I’ve talked about my enormous issues with the ahistoricity and futzing of the original The Basement Tapes, and even Raw makes enormous strides towards correcting them, bringing these songs and recordings back into the light where they ought to have been forty years earlier. While I wouldn’t want to just own this one (and don’t), the standard and deluxe make for a great pair that reinforce each other, and this one has immaculate vibes, a dream to listen to and savor.

Vol. 12: 1965-1966: The Best of the Cutting Edge

This also poses some of the same categorization problems as its predecessor; I don’t expect I’ll ever listen to the Collector’s Edition and it’s safe to discount that, but the Deluxe Edition doesn’t have the awkward “The Best of” specification. There are reasons to put down this collection: the weird contrivance of three separate editions, a slightly redundant return to the electric period well, my insanely petty gripe that it’s the only one where the booklet is so thick (without track-by-track notes I might add) that it and the jewel case have to swap places in the cardboard slipcase. All that being said, this is still a terrific collection of music, albeit with more inessential outtakes and a little less focus and dynamism than most others post-8. It might be that these songs are *too* iconic for the differences in alternate takes to truly register, notwithstanding the real frisson of “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream” proceeding in acoustic after the false start that’s on the real album. Even on second listen, I have a lot more fun with the more varied Blonde on Blonde recordings (that chugging “Visions of Johanna”!) well into disc 2, and that’s taking into account that it’s one of my very favorite Dylans. But this isn’t a hard listen at all, and I’m in the presence of some of the greatest songs ever recorded, so this can’t be all that low; breaking the continuity with the last giggle-fit track is a pleasingly playful touch.

Vol. 13: Trouble No More, 1979-1981
An astonishingly big swing in all ways: an album of nothing but live performances for the first time since the early bootlegs, a focus on the infamous Christian period, all coming off of the bootleg dedicated to his most beloved era. This is my favorite, with only 16 as a close rival, in large part because the Christian period genuinely might be my favorite at this point. But this is also among the most historically significant releases, with as radical rearrangements as 8, as complete a reconceiving of a period as 10, a band on as much fire as 5. The very fact that the songs that get two versions are the expected “Slow Train” and “Gotta Serve Somebody” and the totally unexpected (to me) “Solid Rock” just demonstrates how intelligent this is as a collection of music. Even the exclusion of a few Shot of Love songs is more than made up for by a number of amazing unreleased songs, especially the immortal “Ain’t Gonna Go to Hell for Anybody.” That this represents the fullest depiction yet of how Dylan’s songs will evolve across a tour is just icing on the cake; the existence of numerous releases of studio outtakes from this era, especially on 1-3, makes this live swerve all the more appropriate. He’s never sounded more fiery or surprising than this, and I couldn’t be more grateful for such a labor of love.

Vol. 14: More Blood, More Tracks

It’s both annoying and entirely reasonable that this is the only Bootleg thus far (hopefully the only one) that only has one disc in the standard edition. On one hand, it messes up the cardboard slipcase aesthetic continuity and it’s much more annoying to take the booklet out of the jewel case. On the other, while this runs into the same problem as 12 — the songs are too iconic, coupled with the inclusion of acoustic tracks already on 1-3 — there’s still the fact that I’m listening to some of the greatest and most penetrating music ever recorded. With just one take for each song — really wish “Call Letter Blues” was thrown on to complete the collection — this still achieves the same consistent mood that, say, 12 and 9 have without ever getting monotonous; the full New York sessions can stay on the deluxe edition, while these represent something of the cream of the crop, a setup akin to my beloved 11. Maybe I don’t have the best idea of how to rate this (it really is short after all, perhaps too much so to be a true treasure trove) but it’s just great music that doesn’t overstay its welcome at all, each take ringing with possibility.

Vol. 15: Travelin’ Thru, 1967-1969

Conversely, I have no clue why this of all bootlegs needed to be three discs, given that there’s actually less music all together than some of its two-disc brethren, though ultimately that doesn’t mess with the continuity nearly as much as 14; it is strange that there’s no deluxe edition though, especially since there’s so many takes that aren’t on here. Regardless, while this probably has a similar relative lack of dynamism as 12, the comparative strangeness of the music here helps elevate it, as does the canny segmentation. This entire period has some of the most pleasant vibes of Dylan’s entire career (alongside of course 11), and this bootleg is a great representation of that, floating along through the unexpectedly great and fascinating Dylan/Cash sessions, all the way to the surprisingly engaging Earl Scruggs cappers.

Vol. 16: Springtime in New York, 1980-1985

Among other things, this is just utterly brilliant as almost a direct rejoinder to 1-3, acting as a remake and embellishment on all those Infidels outtakes. Performing the incredibly valuable duties of establishing both Infidels and Empire Burlesque as two great albums that could have been masterpieces, it also finds one of the most cogent justifications for the entire series, each of the seven common tracks between it and 1-3 chosen to provide an alternate picture of an alternate picture, fully capable of standing on its own but also encouraging the listener to go back and forth, finding a synthesis of Dylan in this incredibly fertile but also compromised period. In that sense, it’s as full a reinvention of a reviled period as 10 and 13, doing so with both those works’ predilection for new arrangements (so much Empire) and by including substantial outtakes, “Too Late” being the crown jewel (a similar approach that 11 applied to a much more popular time). The decision to end with first “New Danville Girl” and then the other take of “Dark Eyes” is primo Dylan sequencing as well. This is as joyous and revelatory as any edition; on some days it might as well be my favorite.

Vol. 17: Fragments: Time Out of Mind Sessions (1996-1997)

First things first: the new remix of Time Out of Mind is as valuable a service as any the Bootleg Series has ever offered. I go back and forth on the original album (though it’s always been great), but drained of the Lanois swamp this version just sparkles. The inclusion of a full studio album on a bootleg, however, kind of unbalances it, or at least makes it a strange object when compared to the semi-hodgepodge concept of all the preceding entries. It almost feels too polished in a way, too obviously great when compared to the relative modesty of the series as a whole; if there’s a mammoth quality to 11 Complete or 14 Deluxe, that’s created by historical reputation rather than an artist’s canon. More pertinently, it means just one disc of outtakes/alternate takes, though it functions almost akin to 14’s single disc; once again I wish “Dreamin’ of You” and “Marchin’ to the City” were on it to complete the set (intriguingly there’s no alternate studio “Million Miles” even in the Deluxe). But the alternate versions here are vastly different and stripped down, there’s yet another version of “Mississippi,” and listening to them just after a more official version adds another valuable lens. Definitely a fascinating experience, and its revision’s brazen lack of precedence is something to be treasured; a real blast to listen to.

My favorite video game that isn’t a first-person shooter (which I’m arbitrarily grouping Portal 2 under), the only one I’ve paid money for in the past five or so years, is one that I don’t know if I’ll ever finish, or even get more than a quarter through. Mostly this is because I’m simply not very good at it, and I don’t know if I’ll ever take the time to dedicate myself to mastering its single control and mechanics. But it’s also because there’s a certain purity in my mind that I’ve built up around the game, a deliberately contrary view of it to the various videos I’ve seen of those who have tried and failed and saw it as something to be mastered, even conquered, rather than savored.

That game is Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy, the masterpiece from the eponymous creator of the even more infamous/reviled QWOP. On first glance, the incomprehensible simplicity of that game seems equally applicable here: once again, the player controls a person who can only move towards an unknown objective through absurd means; there, the individual control of leg muscles, here, by being propelled with a rock-climbing hammer while seated inside a pot. The construction of the game, ascending a tall mountain while constantly in danger of falling off and losing all of one’s progress, has been the central bugbear of any streamer or YouTuber who has attempted it, focusing on gameplay and accomplishment above all else.

But to look at this game this way seems to miss the entire point, to me. For the other half of the game (leaving aside the actual mountain/objects the player is scaling, which I’ll get to in a moment) is its audio component. Most of this comes in the form of Foddy’s narration, which is scripted to a certain degree — in the form of something akin to a developer’s commentary, though the musings are too wide-ranging *and* too intimate to be limited to that categorization — but also incorporates music cues and quotes from such varied sources as Friedrich Nietzsche, Emily Dickinson, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Ice-T, triggered when the player inevitably falls from a great height.

It’s absolutely hyperbolic to say this, but I truly believe the only possible way to adapt this game would have been directed by Godard and starring Buster Keaton. I fully acknowledge that my experience with games is intensely limited, but there’s something so singular about Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy‘s perfect unity of form and content and its ties to its status as an indie game with limited resources. The idea of repurposing digital assets into a weird amalgam hodgepodge, and having that be a tribute to one’s artistic forebears, is a brilliant way of having one’s cake and eating it too, of making a work of art that’s almost designed to be taken the wrong way and introducing varied ideas about consumption and outsider art into the Internet mainstream.

Last week, I loaded up Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy for the first time probably since I had bought the game. My grasp of the controls still isn’t great, I haven’t made it past the “first” screen. But when I fell, after initial frustration, I felt that calm satisfaction once again, at basking in the simple brilliance that this game continues to be an exemplar of.

Initial thoughts on the 2022 Sight & Sound Poll initially written for Seattle Screen Scene.

For all the prattling I’ve done on Twitter about this iteration of The List, which I do agree is pleasingly vibrant, I find it hard to really get my thoughts settled about it. Part of the idiosyncrasy of such an endeavor is of course how arbitrary it can feel, a taste purposefully unrepresentative of all but whatever might be considered the “average” critic in the year 2022. But there’s also the way in which highly diverse films — directed by Keaton, Sembène, Apichatpong, Leone, Bresson, just to name the first names on the list alongside the incongruous Peele — are lumped together, a “baseline” of tradition that’s largely neglected in favor of the discussion of all the new films that have sprung to the surface and the old ones that have drowned.

This is of course how the discourse works; change is — ironically, given the new #1 — much more interesting than what’s already known. And despite everyone talking about how films made the list or not, we really only have about half of the most important data: not only the individual ballots, but also what lies just beyond the top 100. For some reason, I always thought that as long as something was in the top 250 it was roughly as prestigious as the top 100, whereas the current attitude of many seems to be that if a film is not in the top 100 then it’s been ejected from The Canon (as opposed to the canon). Certainly I’m guilty of this, and I have my own lamented favorites, stalwarts (The Mother and the Whore, The Magnificent Ambersons, Gertrud, the aforementioned Rio Bravo) and new combatants (Twin Peaks: The Return, Goodbye, Dragon Inn) alike that might have ended up in the top 150.

Sean, I like your phrasing about “established young critics” (I guess I’m one, though I don’t try to think of myself that way) having their own Wild Strawberries and Chinatown, even as I struggle to figure out what those might be. As I’ve made clear elsewhere, I do think the inclusion of Portrait of a Lady on Fire in the top 100, let alone at #30, is (despite being an okay film) a travesty, a kowtowing to mediocre middlebrow aesthetics dressed up in gestures to representation that do little to ameliorate its great faults. I do quite like the other 2010s films, especially Parasite, but it’s not so much their newness that troubles as it is the magnitude of hype that accompanies them, while vastly more totemic films in our circles (Twin Peaks, Toni Erdmann, Zama) get left in the dust; I agree (and hope) that none of them stay in the top 100. (Perhaps unfairly, I’d also lump in Daisies as a massively overinflated inclusion, and probably The Piano and Daughters of the Dust as well.)

None of these qualms really apply to some of the other enormous jumps: Wanda, Killer of Sheep, Do the Right Thing, all deserving and cemented in film history long before their breakthroughs here. They certainly don’t apply to Beau Travail and “Meshes of the Afternoon,” two films which I had no inkling would make it as high as they deservingly did, alongside my beloved Mulholland Dr. and In the Mood for Love. And most of all they don’t apply to Jeanne Dielman, as deserving a #1 as any film out there. On the one hand, I don’t think it’s absolutely sunk in for me how incredible a result this is, given its almost inevitable rise amid a general renewed love for Akerman’s work. Despite The Discourse that has resulted, it truly is a challenging film in all the best senses, one which demands an engagement rare for films that generally make it to the uppermost echelons of this kind of evaluation.

But it also has me weirdly reflecting back on Vertigo, and how weirdly out of place its 10-year reign was. The other three #1s — Jeanne Dielman, the perennial winner Citizen Kane, the one-time Bicycle Thieves — were all effectively nuclear bombs in the film landscape of their time, radical films which had an immense effect on the many films that followed in their footsteps. This has been obscured in large part by, as Jonathan Rosenbaum put it, his polemical (and to my mind true) reading of Citizen Kane as “the first feature of an independent, avant-garde filmmaker” being downplayed by the traditional reading as a flash-in-the-pan triumph of the Hollywood system by a director who never bettered it.

Vertigo, on the other hand, though it had a slow rise and seemed likely to best Kane in 2012, is in many ways the opposite of these other #1s, entirely befitting its status as a dark mirror. It is still likely cinema’s greatest nightmare, a reflection of all the forbidden pleasures we cinephiles indulge in. Of course none of the other three are exactly heartwarmers, but there is nothing of the plain humanism of Bicycle Thieves, the astonishing jubilation of Citizen Kane, the uncompromising feminism of Jeanne Dielman, only a swooning pain. Vertigo has many imitators to be sure, but it took much longer to reach that level of recognition. Maybe we can only appreciate how strange it is that it was ever at the very top in hindsight.

Athena (Romain Gavras)

I feel on the other side for once of the style vs. substance debate, though just as much is probably attributable to just how off-putting its grandstanding seemed to me. Even the lauded opening shot that lasts something like ten minutes and moves from a police station to the sprawling housing complex where the rest of the film takes place acts more as a demonstration of literal fireworks than anything else. I’ve thought before about why two distinct styles of long takes — let’s call them the Cuarón and Bi Gan schools as shorthand — work on me while this one — or, to invoke a much more common and much less technically skilled variant, the kind seen in the likes of Hustlers — don’t, and it has a lot to do with they way they do or don’t support their stories. Both of the really long takes in Children of Men encourage chaos while Bi’s go for maximum dreaminess, but each feel closely tied to the mindset of the character (or characters) they are following. Without such a compelling anchor, there’s nothing to justify (for me) the swooping drones.

It definitely doesn’t help that I found the substance so reprehensible and unbelievable: the zealot’s vehemence overriding any sort of common sense whatsoever, the sneering portrayal of the criminals, the total about-face of the cop on the death of his brother. No one here is given any sort of depth, least of all Athena itself; I have no clue whether it’s a massive set or an actual place where people live, but it’s little more than a playground for Gavras to move his camera and hordes of people; the only thing worse than the nigh-nihilistic ending is the coda which more or less lets the police off the hook entirely.

TÁR (Todd Field)

Note: All other capsules were written today except for this one, which was originally intended as the beginning to a standalone standard-length review.

For all the fascinating and deserved discourse that has sprung up around TÁR, I still think it holds one of the year’s loveliest gestures: the reverse end credits. All except the actors and music credits are featured, playing out over a black screen for about five minutes, accompanied by the sounds of what, according to information only divulged later, is presumably an ethnographic audio recording gathered by Tár in South America. The music being sung, a series of identical lyrics in the round, is as seemingly repetitive as the list of crew members; one wonders whether the first image was included as a reassurance to the viewer that there wasn’t a technical issue that skipped to the end of the film. But the function that these credits serve speaks as loudly as anything in the film; it can be read as almost a rebuke to the now standardized practice of post-credits screens, where people are actually expected to look at the names on screen, instead of scrolling through their phones or chatting while waiting to get to what’s “actually” important. It also serves as a truly noble intent: by the nature of extended repetition, the viewer’s ear is trained to listen to the music, as spare and shaky as it might be, to become attuned to the minute differences and the emotion poured into each note. In essence, before she even speaks one of her many words, the viewer comes to inhabit the mind of the brilliant, mercurial conductor at its core.

I also love, if not the full intent of the final act, then specifically the almost speculative, contemplative mood that it adopts; the boat ride and swim under the waterfall that Tár takes opens up the film to new possibilities, shedding Field’s cloistered halls of culture for something less burdened.

Bones and All (Luca Guadagnino)

I generally like Guadagnino, so it’s difficult for me to express exactly why I found this so anemic and so immediately; something about the recurring use of voiceover to explain the history of cannibalism over the bus travels felt prefab, lazy work that extended to the many feeble attempts to impose an atmosphere of spooky tension. The Stuhlbarg scene was a bust for me, but strangely I do actually like the already legendarily decried work of Rylance in it, if only because it does come across as so inexplicable and in poor Southern dandy mimicry that it lent an air of perversity of proceedings that it desperately needed.

The central relationship lies limp like much of the film, even though Russell and Timothée Chalamet are decent in it; it always feels tentative, on the edge of committing but never becoming either erotic or passionate. I also found the scene with the gay young man egregious, lengthened and winking at matters of sexuality in thoroughly unproductive ways, and the “twist” of the ending is as much of a put-on of bleakness as the rest of the film.

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras)

This really is an example of great structuring more than anything else, of trusting the decision to interweave artistry and activism into a portrait of a life well-lived many times over, but it did a number on me. I hadn’t really experienced any of Goldin’s work (also true of Poitras) and so I really appreciated their skillful layering here: combining The Ballad of Sexual Dependency slideshow with her contemplative interviews with Poitras (presented without the questions to heighten the mood) in voiceover creates an air of intimacy that only increases the investments, the personal connections that make the stakes of the film’s strident nature all the more vital. It’s difficult for me to point to specifics much more than that, but the decision to title the film after something Goldin’s sister said says volumes about the sensitivity to the most important details that pervades this.

EO (Jerzy Skolimowski)

I still don’t know if I have much more to say about my favorite film in this round-up (and second of the year as a whole) than just listing the non-stop roundelay of dazzling images and moments: a massive crane presiding over a junk heap like the First Reformed floating sequence, the Night of the Hunter forest venture, the red hellscape of wind farms, the dance of hunters’ lasers at night, and so on and so forth. Despite the Balthazar inspiration, this played to me in many ways like the inverse of that film, whose constant return to recurring human figures struck me on rewatch as much deeper and more considered than I had remembered, less a monolithic story about a suffering donkey than I remembered. Skolimowski takes a different tack, focusing more on the amusing grotesquerie that humanity offers; in that reading the Huppert divergence makes much more sense to me, and it’s more instructive to see Eo as a vessel rather than a specific point of view; it’s notable also that the Wiazemsky analogue doesn’t reappear after all after she abandons him for her biker boyfriend. Skolimowski’s message is carried out to the hilt in that robot donkey, a method of showing a hurt Eo that eschews actually trying to simulate (or actually maim) in favor of a cost-effective method that registers as something human, furthering the beautifully alien nature of this film. Few things better sum up this film’s dizzying brilliance; like others have noted this is late style par excellence yet carried out with the energy of a young man. And the ending reminded me more than a little of A Hidden Life.

Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (Alejandro González Iñárritu)

It didn’t escape my attention that, in this film intended at least a little as González Iñárritu’s grand return to Mexico, his first film predominately in Spanish since his debut Amores perros, he once again adopted the credit Alejandro G. Iñárritu, in the process erasing part of his last name in some kind of attempt to Americanize himself and become even more palatable to the Academy’s tastes. Of course, Bardo is at least partly about this divide, with bookend scenes in its hero’s part-time city of residence of Los Angeles; it really did crack me up to see Giménez Cacho taking the Expo Line, literally riding past my church St. John’s Cathedral.

Calling this self-indulgent and all of the other traditional epithets thrown at González Iñárritu is maybe beside the point, and make no mistake Bardo is that, but the main things that really rankled me are, ironically, those less present than in the other two of his films I’ve seen, both of which I dislike more: political satire. There’s a terribly labored nature to many of his overt breaks with reality and their : a sudden conflict breaking out, Giménez Cacho climbing a pile of corpses to speak with Cortés in a sequence revealed to be some kind of commercial filming (this, like much of the film, is foreshadowed in a long and tedious single-take sequence in a Mexican television studio that’s probably a dream), and most egregious of all a confrontation with a non-White TSA agent at LAX that turned me against the film once and for all.

But Giménez Cacho (and to some degree the always confident lensing of Khondji) comes much closer to salvaging this than any person should, lending many of González Iñarritu’s more irritating tricks — a Woody Allen-esque muting of an irritating conversation partner, a conversation of his father literally rendered in Big Head Mode — a genuine pathos. And I actually do quite like the showy centerpiece where everyone gets down to a slow-motion “Let’s Dance”; as obvious as it is the simple sight of Zama leaping in the middle of a large crowd is pretty fun. Not a truly terrible time, but González Iñárritu never found an interaction he couldn’t turn into bad-faith rancor, and there’s way too much of that strewn through this.

The Whale (Darren Aronofsky)

This might be an even worse film than I already thought; Aronofsky somehow outdid his bating of my Christianity with mother! I don’t think it’s too much to say that this has one of the worst scripts, characters (the daughter), and scores I’ve ever seen. The fatphobia is certainly present, and Aronofsky clearly means for us to see his self-destructiveness as grotesque first and foremost, before such things as empathy and context can enter into the picture. But really everything with both the daughter and the fake missionary are just as if not worse, leaving zero nuance in showing how hateful the former is and squirrelly the latter is. Everything is either telegraphed (the days of the week, with everyone hammering in the point that Fraser won’t see another Monday) or completely arbitrary, like the use of Academy ratio; it is very funny to see Aronofsky decide to switch to digital with this film, a literal stage play (with thudding and obvious period dressing) that could maybe have used a little grain dancing. The less said about the absolutely abhorrent approach to teaching and notions of good critical writing better; I was even able to predict almost down to the second exactly when the film was going to cut outside of the apartment for the first time. Chau emerges from this largely unscathed, and it helps she’s given a nice showcase in her tough love conversation (I didn’t anticipate the full extent of her connection to Fraser), and Fraser does exactly what the script asks of him; it’s just so saccharine at times, and so inexplicably hateful at others.

Close (Lukas Dhont)

I certainly didn’t like this film, but I’m honestly a little surprised I didn’t hate it, given how thoroughly people castigated Girl. More than anything this really just struck me as a flat Dardennes knock-off, and the ostensible hinge on which the film operates, the sudden dispatching of one of its two young boys, failed for the very simple reason that the “other” boy is given absolutely nothing to work with. Nothing is expressed at all except his perhaps platonic, likely romantic interest in his friend, and consequently much of the first half was spent waiting for the other shoe to fall, as obliviousness on the main character’s part and catastrophic inability to communicate on the friend’s part get run through in successively enervating iterations. I don’t remember much of the second half, other than that moments that people praised (especially the scene in which the news is partly broken) seemed like entirely standard ways of dealing with such subject matter.

White Noise (Noah Baumbach)

It’s entirely possible that I might be overrating this, but few films gave me as much fun last year. For a while I counted White Noise as my favorite book, in the same sort of holding pattern that Blade Runner occupied before I started reading/watching for pleasure, but I haven’t read it since and haven’t explored DeLillo’s work at all. Baumbach remains a great American favorite for me though, and this really does function in part like a novelty film par excellence, seeing e.g. the shot of hundreds of cars stuck on the highway that probably cost as much as Baumbach’s first couple of films put together. The 35mm grain and color gels remain consistently captivating, and the overt goofiness of stuff like the car chase is well-balanced with, for instance, the overlapping lectures scene, one of my favorite things he’s ever done, a perfect match of actors with Driver (genuinely one of his best performances to date) and Cheadle; the cut to Driver in his black cloak perched like a bird is just choice.

In general that command of people talking over each other, each voice remaining crystal clear even as the cumulative effect is one of incoherence, is inherently funny to me, and I remember it waxing and waning in fascinating ways. The shot of the fog passing over the Shell sign is as memorable to me as almost anything from last year, the extended dialogue between Driver and a terrific Gerwig in their bedroom is blocked with that same deliberate care Baumbach captured in Marriage Story, and the reconfiguration of the ending into a black comedy of remarriage is wonderful. And my adoration of LCD Soundsystem only makes how distended the credits sequence is all the more delightful.

The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)

This was the first film I saw in my final day and night sprint before LAFCA voting, and it’s only worsened in my mind, so much so that I wonder if I was out of my mind for being mildly mixed-positive on this. For one, I only laughed once, at Farrell’s incredulity at being labeled dull; for another, there’s just such a poor grasp of character strewn throughout all of this. For a film supposedly so defined by its acute perception of the human condition, I didn’t feel like there was any thought given to what these characters are like outside of their admittedly decisive actions. McDonagh’s remedial at best grasp of how to craft a film certainly hurts things, aside from the nice picturesque setting of Ireland, though Farrell does very solid work. I’d have more nice to say about Gleeson if he didn’t feel so obviously second fiddle (Condon is something like fourth or fifth fiddle and even less remarkable), while Keoghan’s character is so blatantly misconceived, a caricature that feels like horrible dead weight, that it cancels anything good he might be doing. The ending is as much of a nothing-burger shrug as the film itself.

One Fine Morning (Mia Hansen-Løve)

I might just be in a particular mood to appreciate Hansen-Løve’s work, but after the relatively bland Bergman Island this really just hit the spot in waves of acute bittersweetness, almost immediately with that carefully measured interaction between Seydoux — rarely better even with the astounding hot streak she’s been on — and an absolutely heartbreaking Greggory. The balance between that, her delightful relationship with her daughter (her dismissing the film that her daughter loved is priceless), and the extraordinarily erotic and touching dalliance with Poupaud is exquisite, in no small part because the film is so willing to embrace both irresolution and the genuine depth of feeling that each moment can and does engender. The juggling act is carried with such ease, such luminosity courtesy of her typically strong use of 35mm; it certainly didn’t hurt that I carried Nick Newman’s quote (paraphrase) that it’s the kind of film that understands how the same street you walk down can feel totally different in a different month; even the obligatory mess-up in Seydoux’s job as translator (a perfect metaphor for her relationship with her father) comes not as a climactic moment but instead as the natural result of accumulation.

In general I love how, as I recall, there isn’t a trace of contempt for any person; even the proliferation of nursing homes that Greggory has to move through is regarded as more a complication of life and the difficulties of a system than any specific person’s failings. This becomes doubly clear in the amazing pair of closing scenes, where the residents of a nursing home and the distant buildings of Paris provide the perfect ballast for all that has been internalized.

Return to Seoul (Chou Davy)

It’s probably a fool’s errand for me to try to write “objectively” about this film, considering I went drinking with Chou and Park Ji-min and got the opportunity to observe their interactions (so loving yet prickly), but it really has risen greatly in my already appreciative esteem. Part of it is just in seeing how much of a genuine performance the first-timer Park gives; in person she’s incredibly sweet, which set the devil-may-care brusqueness of her role into relief. I still think that all of the scenes with her father a little bit rote for my taste, but there’s such an energy coursing through this film, beginning with that drum-based score and moving onto the genuine spontaneity that comes out of Freddie’s decision to begin drinking with others, to dance. It helps that there’s almost a daring nature to much of her actions throughout, something which gets pointedly counterbalanced by the stasis of her reunions with her parents. The time jumps too, slowly letting the viewer in on the amount of time that has passed, her growing facility with Korean, her new living situations, feel brazen in the best ways, necessary resets that also have the nice effect of continually reframing what the title actually means. And the ending opens up the film in fascinating ways; one of those films where any issues I have with it fade much faster than its delights.

Aftersun (Charlotte Wells)

Like with I assume many people, Aftersun has grown for me a good deal the further I’ve gotten away from it, even while its essential character has been preserved. I think I first read this maybe a bit more literally than it should be taken: the club flashbacks/present-day moments felt obvious at first but there’s an abstract quality to them, especially in the “Under Pressure” moment where they become explicitly symbolic, that registers more forcefully for me now, and I don’t know if I was totally on the wavelength of this film except in certain moments — the flurry of images during the first VHS play and some of the more durational shots — until Sophie’s new parent status has been revealed. It’s easy to accuse this of being too studiously lowkey for its own good, holding its cards close to the chest, but there’s enough fine detail, especially in how tacky the resort is, and strength of character in the performances that it makes me constantly question my thoughts anew. Definitely becoming fond of this one more and more, though how much remains an open question.

Saint Omer (Alice Diop)

Can’t remember the last time I talked myself into loving a film with quite the same force as I did with this. Of all things, I was reminded most of Straub-Huillet once the trial sequence started, where the extended manner of speech vividly imprinted on me the central emphasis on listening: I have to assume this is a vastly more convincing rendering of the same impulse behind, say, Women Talking. In some ways I do wish that the entire film was just the trial, or that there was a little bit less dedicated to the journalist, but there’s something potent in how willing Diop is to bring her perspective in. From the introduction of the shooting style in the courtroom, it was easy to predict that the two women would lock eyes at some moment, but there’s still a certain frisson, all the moreso since it’s the only instance in the entire film.

I also want to stridently defend the final speech, which I’ve been shocked to see so many people taking as gospel just because it’s being conveyed directly to the jury/camera/viewer. Throughout the film, the defense lawyer has been well-intentioned but largely uncomprehending of her client’s perspective, and there’s nothing to indicate that her speech isn’t just another attempt to understand that which fundamentally cannot be grasped. Diop, for her own part, seems to recognize that; it’s impossible to imagine a version of this film as strong that offered a conclusive verdict, and if that’s something that a documentary would have had to include, all the better for this to be its own brilliant hybrid.

Both Sides of the Blade (Claire Denis)

I watched this and its sister film much after the rest of these, the day of the LAFCA banquet, since I knew I’d feel weird if I met Claire Denis without watching the rest of her feature films. Perhaps most surprising to me was just how much of the film passes before an affair actually happens; instead there’s a great emphasis on the business relationship between Lindon and Colin that goes a ways in clarifying the more holistic interests of the film, as do Lindon’s relationship with his son and the cavalcade of Denis repertory actors (wish there was room for Descas somewhere in here). Both this and its successor handle the pandemic so well in particular because it becomes just another source of annoyance, another item thrown into the pressure cooker. This remains just constantly dynamic; if my memory’s failing me this deep into this compendium of films and thoughts it’s only because the succession of scenes felt oddly intuitive, a tentative dance between those just on the edge of communication that falls to pieces in a great, unexpected touch.

Stars at Noon (Claire Denis)

So compulsively gripping in its mood that I felt that I would love it as much as those who totally adore it; instead I merely loved it. I still can’t tell if it helped or hurt that I thought so much of my beloved Pacifiction while watching it, purple nightclub and white suit and all; while they communicate somewhat similar themes about the spectres of colonialism, this leaves much more room for disruptions, lots of which are funny and foreboding in equal measure (especially the recurring presence of Safdie).

I do think that Alwyn is ideally cast in this, a handsome and vaguely gruff image that Qualley can put all of her vain hopes into. The film doesn’t necessarily surprise — the internal logic of how its characters interact with their surroundings and a hostile environment feels coherent — but in particular how much Denis pares down the options left to her characters, corralling them into more and more dire straits, is extremely effective. Incredibly seductive score too, even more than its predecessor.