Adam Nayman Top Tens

These lists are sourced as follows: Village Voice 2005-2016, The Ringer onwards, except as noted, and all of these lists are by NYC release year.

2005

1. L'Intrus (Claire Denis)
2. Caché (Michael Haneke)
3. The World (Jia Zhangke)
4. Pulse (Kurosawa Kiyoshi)
5. The Holy Girl (Lucrecia Martel)
6. Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog)
7. Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
8. Head-On (Fatih Akın)
9. A History of Violence (David Cronenberg)
10. Stealth (Rob Cohen)

2007 [IndieWire]

1. Killer of Sheep (Charles Burnett)
2. Black Book (Paul Verhoeven)
3. Colossal Youth (Pedro Costa)
4. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson)
5. The Host (Bong Joon-ho)
6. The Last Winter (Larry Fessenden)
7. Manufactured Landscapes (Jennifer Baichwall)
8. Offside (Jafar Panahi)
9. Ten Canoes (Rolf de Heer & Peter Djigirr)
10. We Own the Night (James Gray)

2008 [IndieWire]

1. In the City of Sylvia (José Luis Guerín)
2. Still Life (Jia Zhangke)
3. Ballast (Lance Hammer)
4. La France (Serge Bozon)
5. The Duchess of Langeais (Jacques Rivette)
6. Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt)
7. The Unforeseen (Laura Dunn)
8. Rachel Getting Married (Jonathan Demme)
9. Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson)
10. Profit motive and the whispering wind (John Gianvito)

2009

1. Liverpool (Lisandro Alonso)
2. Police, Adjective (Corneliu Porumboiu)
3. 24 City (Jia Zhangke)
4. A Serious Man (Joel & Ethan Coen)
5. Tokyo Sonata (Kurosawa Kiyoshi)
6. 35 Shots of Rum (Claire Denis)
7. You, the Living (Roy Andersson)
8. Birdsong (Albert Serra)
9. A Perfect Getaway (David Twohy)
10. Lorna's Silence (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)

Decade [IndieWire]

1. The Son (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
2. L'Intrus (Claire Denis)
3. Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch)
4. Yi Yi (Edward Yang)
5. Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
6. Werckmeister Harmonies (Tarr Béla and Hranitzky Ágnes)
7. Still Life (Jia Zhangke)
8. Liverpool (Lisandro Alonso)
9. Black Book (Paul Verhoeven)
10. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (Adam McKay)

2010

1. Alamar (Pedro González-Rubio)
2. Everyone Else (Maren Ade)
3. Mother (Bong Joon-ho)
4. The Social Network (David Fincher)
5. Sweetgrass (Ilisa Barbash & Lucien Castaing-Taylor)
6. The Ghost Writer (Roman Polański)
7. Secret Sunshine (Lee Chang-dong)
8. The Anchorage (C. W. Winter & Anders Edström)
9. Unstoppable (Tony Scott)
10. Buried (Rodrigo Cortés)

2011

1. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
2. Mysteries of Lisbon (Raúl Ruiz)
3. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)
4. Attack the Block (Joe Cornish)
5. Meek's Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt)
6. The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceauşescu (Andrei Ujică)
7. Nostalgia for the Light (Patricio Guzmán)
8. House of Tolerance (Bertrand Bonello)
9. Historias Extraordinarias (Mariano Llinás)
10. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)

2012

1. This Is Not a Film (Jafar Panahi & Mojtaba Mirtahmasb)
2. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson)
3. Kill List (Ben Wheatley)
4. Tabu (Miguel Gomes)
5. Attenberg (Athina Rachel Tsangari)
6. Holy Motors (Leos Carax)
7. The Kid With a Bike (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
8. Two Years at Sea (Ben Rivers)
9. Killer Joe (William Friedkin)
10. Starlet (Sean Baker)

2013

1. The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer)
2. Bastards (Claire Denis)
3. Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel & Ethan Coen)
4. Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Véréna Paravel)
5. Museum Hours (Jem Cohen)
6. Neighboring Sounds (Kleber Mendonça Filho)
7. Room 237 (Rodney Ascher)
8. Something in the Air (Olivier Assayas)
9. A Touch of Sin (Jia Zhangke)
10. Viola (Matías Piñeiro)

2014

1. A Field in England (Ben Wheatley)
2. Goodbye to Language (Jean-Luc Godard)
3. The Immigrant (James Gray)
4. Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson)
5. Locke (Steven Knight)
6. Manakamana (Stephanie Spray & Pacho Velez)
7. Night Moves (Kelly Reichardt)
8. Stranger by the Lake (Alain Guiraudie)
9. Stray Dogs (Tsai Ming-liang)
10. Vic + Flo Saw a Bear (Denis Côté)

2015

1. Phoenix (Christian Petzold)
2. The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
3. The Princess of France (Matías Piñeiro)
4. Jauja (Lisandro Alonso)
5. P'tit Quinquin (Bruno Dumont)
6. The Forbidden Room (Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson)
7. Horse Money (Pedro Costa)
8. Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako)
9. Amour Fou (Jessica Hausner)
10. Magic Mike XXL (Gregory Jacobs)

2016

1. Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade)
2. Right Now, Wrong Then (Hong Sang-soo)
3. Elle (Paul Verhoeven)
4. Certain Women (Kelly Reichardt)
5. Chevalier (Athina Rachel Tsangari)
6. Cameraperson (Kirsten Johnson)
7. Things to Come (Mia Hansen-Løve)
8. Cemetery of Splendor (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
9. The Other Side (Roberto Minervini)
10. Silence (Martin Scorsese)

2021

1. Drive My Car/Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Hamaguchi Ryusuke)
2. Licorice Pizza (Paul Thomas Anderson)
3. Azor (Andreas Fontana)
4. Benedetta (Paul Verhoeven)
5. The Inheritance (Ephraim Asili)
6. Annette (Leos Carax)
7. Old (M. Night Shyamalan)
8. Wife of a Spy (Kurosawa Kiyoshi)
9. The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion)
10. Saint Maud (Rose Glass)

2022

1. Aftersun (Charlotte Wells)
2. Saint Omer (Alice Diop)
3. Nope (Jordan Peele)
4. Decision to Leave (Park Chan-wook)
5. Crimes of the Future (David Cronenberg)
6. Earwig (Lucile Hadžihalilović)
7. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras)
8. The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg)
9. EO (Jerzy Skolimowski)
10. Top Gun: Maverick (Joseph Kosinski)
    Jackass Forever (Jeff Tremaine)

2023

1. Showing Up (Kelly Reichardt)
2. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)
3. Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese)
4. May December (Todd Haynes)
5. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (Kelly Fremon Craig)
6. All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh)
7. The Killer (David Fincher)
8. Fallen Leaves (Aki Kaurismäki)
9. The Boy and the Heron (Miyazaki Hayao)
10. Afire (Christian Petzold)
    Knock at the Cabin (M. Night Shyamalan)

Justin Chang Top Tens

These lists are sourced as follows: Village Voice 2009-2010, Variety 2013-2015, the Los Angeles Times onwards, except as noted, and all of these lists are by NYC release year.

2009

1. Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas)
2. 35 Shots of Rum (Claire Denis)
3. The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow)
4. Where the Wild Things Are (Spike Jonze)
5. Sugar (Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck)
6. Revanche (Götz Spielmann)
7. Two Lovers (James Gray)
8. A Single Man (Tom Ford)
9. Tokyo Sonata (Kurosawa Kiyoshi)
10. Everlasting Moments (Jan Troell)

2010

1. Secret Sunshine (Lee Chang-dong)
2. I Am Love (Luca Guadadgnino)
3. Carlos (Olivier Assayas)
4. Last Train Home (Fan Lixin)
5. Vincere (Marco Bellocchio)
6. Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky)
7. Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos)
8. The Social Network (David Fincher)
9. Mother (Bong Joon-ho)
10. Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich)

2013

1. Before Midnight (Richard Linklater)
2. Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón)
3. Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley)
4. Blue Is the Warmest Color (Abdellatif Kechiche)
5. The World's End (Edgar Wright)
6. Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel & Ethan Coen)
7. The Grandmaster (Wong Kar-wai)
8. American Hustle (David O. Russell)
9. Her (Spike Jonze)
10. The Conjuring (James Wan)

2014

1. Boyhood (Richard Linklater)
2. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer)
3. The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson)
4. Winter Sleep (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
5. Foxcatcher (Bennett Miller)
6. Bird People (Pascale Ferran)
7. Gone Girl (David Fincher)
8. Selma (Ava DuVernay)
9. Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh)
10. Interstellar (Christopher Nolan)

2015

1. The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
2. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller)
3. Phoenix (Christian Petzold)
4. The Look of Silence (Joshua Oppenheimer)
5. Carol (Todd Haynes)
6. The Tribe (Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy)
7. Spotlight (Tom McCarthy)
8. Inside Out (Pete Docter)
9. Girlhood (Céline Sciamma)
10. Brooklyn (John Crowley)

2016

1. Silence (Martin Scorsese)
2. Moonlight (Barry Jenkins)
3. Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade)
4. O.J.: Made in America (Ezra Edelman)
5. Everybody Wants Some!! (Richard Linklater)
6. My Golden Days (Arnaud Desplechin)
7. Paterson (Jim Jarmusch)
8. I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck)
9. Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan)
10. Certain Women (Kelly Reichardt)

2017

1. Call Me by Your Name (Luca Guadagnino)
2. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)
3. Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson)
4. mother! (Darren Aronofsky)
5. Ex Libris—The New York Public Library (Frederick Wiseman)
6. Columbus (Kogonada)
7. A Quiet Passion (Terence Davies)
8. Brawl in Cell Block 99 (S. Craig Zahler)
9. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)
10. Graduation (Cristian Mungiu)
11. War for the Planet of the Apes (Matt Reeves)
12. Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)

2018

1. Burning (Lee Chang-dong)
2. First Reformed (Paul Schrader)
3. Zama (Lucrecia Martel)
4. Black Panther (Ryan Coogler)
5. Private Life (Tamara Jenkins)
6. If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins)
7. The Rider (Chloé Zhao)
8. Western (Valeska Grisebach)
9. Shoplifters (Koreeda Hirokazu)
10. Happy as Lazzaro (Alice Rohrwacher)

2019

1. Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)
2. Knives Out (Rian Johnson)
3. Ash Is Purest White (Jia Zhangke)
4. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)
5. The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg)
6. Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)
7. "I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians" (Radu Jude)
8. Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)
9. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma)
10. Little Women (Greta Gerwig)

Decade [LAFCA]

1. The Tree of Life (2011, Terrence Malick)
2. Secret Sunshine (2007, Lee Chang-dong)
3. Boyhood (2014, Richard Linklater)
4. The Assassin (2015, Hou Hsiao-hsien)
5. Moonlight (2016, Barry Jenkins)
6. Toni Erdmann (2016, Maren Ade)
7. The Master (2012, Paul Thomas Anderson)
8. Amour (2012, Michael Haneke)
9. Silence (2016, Martin Scorsese)
10. Under the Skin (2013, Jonathan Glazer)

2020

1. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)
2. Time (Garrett Bradley)
3. Nomadland (Chloé Zhao)
4. First Cow (Kelly Reichardt)
5. Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello)
6. I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman)
7. City Hall (Frederick Wiseman)
8. Collective (Alexander Nanau)
9. Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittmann)
10. Beanpole (Kantemir Balagov)

2021

1. Drive My Car (Hamaguchi Ryusuke)
2. The Souvenir Part II (Joanna Hogg)
3. Procession (Robert Greene)
4. Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
5. Days (Tsai Ming-liang)
6. Parallel Mothers (Pedro Almodóvar)
7. Petite Maman (Céline Sciamma)
8. The Disciple (Chaitanya Tamhane)
9. The Green Knight (David Lowery)
10. The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion)
11. Passing (Rebecca Hall)

2022

1. No Bears (Jafar Panahi)
2. Aftersun (Charlotte Wells)
3. The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg)
4. TÁR (Todd Field)
5. Benediction (Terence Davies)
6. Decision to Leave (Park Chan-wook)
7. Kimi (Steven Soderbergh)
8. Crimes of the Future (David Cronenberg)
9. One Fine Morning (Mia Hansen-Løve)
10. EO (Jerzy Skolimowski)
11. Nope (Jordan Peele)

2023

1. All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh)
2. The Boy and the Heron (Miyazaki Hayao)
3. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)
4. Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan)
5. Showing Up (Kelly Reichardt)
6. Afire (Christian Petzold)
7. Past Lives (Celine Song)
8. The Eight Mountains (Felix van Groeningen & Charlotte Vandermeersch)
9. De Humani Corporis Fabrica (Véréna Paravel & Lucien Castaing-Taylor)
10. Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos)

Fruit Chan

1. Made in Hong Kong (1975)
2. Durian Durian (2000)
3. The Longest Summer (1998)
4. The Midnight After (2014)
5. Little Cheung (1999)

1. Made in Hong Kong (1975)
2. Durian Durian (2000)
3. The Longest Summer (1998)
4. The Midnight After (2014)
5. Little Cheung (1999)

La chimera First Draft

Complete first draft for In Review Online.

Alice Rohrwacher's cinema occupies a unique place in the festival landscape, part pleasingly familiar and part bracingly daring, especially in the context of her relatively meteoric rise. After her debut Corpo celeste played in Director's Fortnight 2011, her second film The Wonders won the Grand Prix at Cannes 2014, Happy as Lazzaro won general acclaim in 2018 at Cannes and stands as one of the most unexpected Netflix acquisitions ever, and her short film "Le pupille" from last year somehow even garnered her an Oscar nomination. This has all come as her style and concerns have remained consistent, a melding of a general Italian neorealist heritage with a disarmingly casual approach to magical realism, all caught on rough-hewn textured images as shot by Hélène Louvart. As Rohrwacher's body of work has grown, her films have increasingly taken on a mythic dimension, signaled sharply by the mid-film time jump of Happy as Lazzaro, and her newest feature, La chimera, moves several steps forward. Set sometime in the 1980s, it follows Arthur (Josh O'Connor), a moody Englishman who has just finished a prison sentence in central Italy as he returns to the rural town where two groups vie for his attention: the denizens of the decaying estate where the mother (Isabella Rossellini) of his lost love Beniamina holds court, and the members of his gang of tombaroli (tomb raiders). He is the focal point of this latter group, using a seemingly innate connection to the earth and ad hoc dowsing rods to sense the locations of Etruscan graves, whose underground passageways and chambers are as much a promise of profit and liberation to Arthur's brethren as they are an externalization of his inchoate desire to be reunited with his lover. La chimera is powered by such cycles of excavation and potential rebirth, during which Rohrwacher's approach constantly shifts, jumping between three shooting formats and corresponding aspect ratios — 1.66:1 super 16mm, the primary medium; 1.33:1 16mm, used for brief shots that may be flashbacks, may be dreams; and 1.85:1 35mm, used seemingly at random — and throwing in direct address and scenes of sped-up motion that resemble silent comedy. The effect is one of instability, where everything about Arthur's situation feels tenuous, most of all his mercurial nature and wavering feelings about his profession, exacerbated by a potential new love in the suggestively-named Italia (Carol Duarte). O'Connor anchors this all with a marvelously beleaguered demeanor, using his relatively towering stature and rumpled suits with a forcefulness entirely different from the sanguine lead in Happy as Lazzaro. The beauty of La chimera lies in its grace notes, its unexpected invocations and subterranean motifs. Though nearly all involved suffer a tangible, realistic downturn in their fortunes, with Rohrwacher's sister Alba providing a cameo as a multi-lingual antiques fence that stands in for all the wider economic and cultural forces chipping away at these hapless paisans, it is romance and myth that governs the day, in loaded images such as frescoes slowly oxidizing when the underground seal is broken, a swirling flock of birds seemingly flying at random, and a red thread that invokes the myth of Ariadne and the labyrinth. Arthur's quest, in the end, relies equally on the machinations of man and seemingly divine intervention, and Rohrwacher's film is expansive and wondrous enough to incorporate both with an overwhelming grace.