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 Drive (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)