It is once again that time of year, when I make my “best of” list for this site, on top of what I have already published at Film Festival Today (where I am editor) and Hammer to Nail (where I am lead film critic). I do not differentiate animated movies from the rest, so if there is such a selection, you will find it in either documentary or narrative (fiction). I offer a Top 10 in both categories, plus an additional 10 runners-up for each, for 40 films total. Enjoy! Where I have previously reviewed a film, I link to that review in the title.
TOP 10 DOCUMENTARIES (in alphabetical order):
- Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story (Charlie Hamilton James)
- Dahomey (Mati Diop)
- Every Little Thing (Sally Aitken)
- God & Country (Dan Partland)
- Mistress Dispeller (Elizabeth Lo)
- No Other Land (Yuval Abraham/Basel Adra/Hamdan Ballal/Rachel Szor)
- Secret Mall Apartment (Jeremy Workman)
- She Looks Like Me (Torquil Jones)
- Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Johan Grimonprez)
- Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story (Ian Bonhôte/Peter Ettedgui)
TOP 10 FICTION FILMS (in alphabetical order):
- All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia)
- The Brutalist (Brady Corbet)
- Conclave (Edward Berger)
- Flow (Gints Zilbalodis)
- I’m Still Here (Walter Salles)
- Memoir of a Snail (Adam Elliot)
- Nightbitch (Marielle Heller)
- The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof)
- September 5 (Tim Fehlbaum)
- Sing Sing (Greg Kwedar)
10 DOCUMENTARY RUNNERS-UP (in alphabetical order):
- The Bibi Files (Alexis Bloom)
- The Body Politic (Gabriel Francis Paz Goodenough)
- Black Box Diaries (Shiori Ito)
- Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story (Sinéad O’Shea)
- Checkpoint Zoo (Joshua Zeman)
- Music by John Williams (Laurent Bouzereau)
- Finding the Money (Maren Poitras)
- Frida (Carla Gutiérrez)
- Separated (Errol Morris)
- Union (Stephen Maing/Brett Story)
10 FICTION FILMS RUNNERS-UP (in alphabetical order):
- àma Gloria (Marie Amachoukeli)
- The Beautiful Game (Thea Sharrock)
- Chronicles of a Wandering Saint (Tomás Gómez Bustillo)
- A Complete Unknown (James Mangold)
- Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller)
- Inside Out 2 (Kelsey Mann)
- Small Things Like These (Tim Mielants)
- Sujo (Astrid Rondero/Fernanda Valadez)
- The Universal Theory (Timm Kröger)
- We Grown Now (Minhal Baig)
Happy New Year!
chrisreedfilm 