1. “I Saw the TV Glow” (Jane Schoenbrun)
2. “Chime” (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
3. “Red Rooms” (Pascal Plante)
4. “The Human Surge 3” (Eduardo Williams)
5. “Coma” (Bertrand Bonello)
In the isolated hothouse of the pandemic, a teenage girl occupies her time watching influencer Patricia Coma and chatting with her friends through Zoom. Dedicated to Bertrand Bonello’s daughter Anna, “Coma” is preoccupied with understanding the experiences of contemporary youth. While this can feel faintly patronizing, he finds images corresponding to her alienation, floating in a nightmarish liminal space.
6. “No Other Land” (Yuval Abraham, Basel Abra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor)
The year’s most acclaimed documentary, “No Other Land” brought together a team of Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers to shoot the IDF’s aggressive destruction of the West Bank village of Masafer Yatta. Its running theme questions how friendship and a healthy work relationship can exist between co-directors Abraham and Abra, since they have a completely different set of civil rights. No US distributor has been brave enough to acquire the film yet, but after playing Lincoln Center last month, it returns for a run at Film Forum at the end of January.
7. “Nickel Boys” (RaMell Ross)
Ra Mell Ross’ documentary “Hale County This Morning, This Evening” was one of the most adventurous films ever to receive an Oscar nomination, so one wondered how his style and attitude might change when he moved up to an MGM Amazon Studios production. Adapted from Colson Whitehead’s novel about a reform school that abuses Black teenagers imprisoned there, “Nickel Boys” endeavors to find new ways of representing its characters’ perception of the world, as the camera literally adopts the two protagonists’ point of view. Ross leaps around in time, building up to a stunningly edited conclusion.
8. “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In” (Soi Cheang)
Set during the ‘80s in Hong Kong’s now-demolished Kowloon City, “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In” recognizes that physically frayed, even dangerous urban spaces often have a place for marginalized people that gentrification destroys. (Here, a squat in Kowloon City becomes a new home for a refugee from mainland China.) Soi Cheang pulls off a miracle, integrating stunts and practical effects with tasteful CGI. The film nods to Hong Kong action cinema of the past, but its literary ambition and narrative density feel brand new.
9. “The Feeling That The Time For Doing Something Has Passed” (Joanna Arnow)
Arnow’s previous film, “I hate myself :.),” documented a toxic relationship in excruciating detail. With her first narrative feature, the actor/director continues to create autofiction, blissfully free from a voice in her head cautioning her about what she should make public. “The Feeling That The Time For Doing Something Has Passed” centers on a BDSM-oriented relationship between Arnow’s character and a much older man, which seems to be a way of turning the boredom and alienation of her job into her sex life.
10. “Hit Man” (Richard Linklater)
“Hit Man” is deceptively light. Linklater has never taken much interest in passing judgment upon his characters, and he continues to refuse to do so here, but that doesn’t lessen his moral perspective. “Hit Man” chronicles a bookish professor’s slow descent into a marriage and family built upon deception and violence. Glen Powell’s master of disguise perfects macho drag, using makeup and wigs to make himself look more conventionally masculine and changing his personality until he becomes a new man.
Honorable mentions: “Aggro Dr1ft” (Harmony Korine), “Anhell69” (Theo Montoya), “Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World” (Radu Jude), “The First Omen” (Arkasha Stevenson), “Flipside” (Christopher Wilcha), “Good One” (India Donaldson), “Hard Truths” (Mike Leigh), “Last Summer” (Catherine Breillat), “Pictures of Ghosts” (Kleber Mendonça Filho), “Queendom” (Agniia Goldanova)
Please pick these up, U.S. distributors: “Chime,” “Critical Zone” (Ali Ahmadzadeh), “My Name Is Gladys Glover” (Gina Telaroli), “No Other Land,” “Of Living Without Illusion” (Katharina Lüdin), “The Serpent’s Path” (Kiyoshi Kurosawa), “Shadow of Fire” (Shinya Tsukamoto), “The Temple Woods Gang” (Rabah Ameur-Zaimeche)
Shorts: “Africans with Mainframes” (Kima Hibbert), “Un Ane” (Eitan Efrat & Sirah Fogel Brutmann), “Being John Smith” (John Smith), “Black Glass” (Adam Piron), “The Diary of a Sky” (Lawrence Abu Hamdan), “The Miu Miu Affair” (Laura Citarella), “Refuse Room” (Simon Liu), “Storytime” (Dylan Clark)
