Items24The creator’s order
  1. 1Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) 8.1/10 on IMDbReleased 13 May 2015George Miller makes the chase's changing geography clear enough for each physical decision to matter. Charlize Theron gives the spectacle a concentrated emotional centre. Its extraordinary momentum earns the top place because movement, character and the struggle over who controls a body all pull in…0
  2. 2Carol (2015)Carol (2015) 7.3/10 on IMDbReleased 20 Nov 2015Todd Haynes makes a glance across a room or through glass carry the pressure of a forbidden relationship. Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara give the lovers different rhythms of caution. The film's visual elegance is most rewarding where it makes desire and social constraint visible together.0
  3. 3The Assassin (2015)The Assassin (2015) 6.3/10 on IMDbReleased 27 Aug 2015Hou Hsiao-hsien lets a doorway, curtain or distant movement carry as much dramatic information as a fight. Shu Qi's stillness gives the assassin's divided obligations a private weight. Its deliberate pace rewards viewers who want martial-arts cinema transformed by attention to landscape, ritual and…0
  4. 4Son of Saul (2015)Son of Saul (2015) 7.4/10 on IMDbReleased 11 Jun 2015László Nemes keeps the frame and focus tightly bound to one man's movements inside Auschwitz. Sound makes the surrounding atrocity impossible to ignore without converting it into comprehensive spectacle. This is exceptionally difficult viewing, with the formal restriction central to its ethical and…0
  5. 545 Years (2015)45 Years (2015) 7.1/10 on IMDbReleased 29 May 2015Charlotte Rampling lets the smallest change in attention alter a marriage's apparently settled history. Andrew Haigh makes the days before an anniversary feel increasingly unstable without requiring a succession of confrontations. The film's restraint gives the question of what a shared life means…0
  6. 6The Lobster (2015)The Lobster (2015) 7.1/10 on IMDbReleased 15 Oct 2015Yorgos Lanthimos makes arbitrary romantic rules feel institutional through controlled performances and absurdly practical detail. Colin Farrell's uncertainty gives the deadpan comedy a vulnerable centre. Its disturbing invention works because the social pressure remains recognisable even when the…0
  7. 7The Witch (2016)The Witch (2016) 7.0/10 on IMDbReleased 19 Feb 2016Robert Eggers makes the family's language, work and religious assumptions as important to the dread as the surrounding woods. The period detail gives suspicion a material texture. First shown at Sundance in 2015 before its 2016 release, this is an unusually coherent horror debut rather than a…0
  8. 8Inside Out (2015)Inside Out (2015) 8.1/10 on IMDbReleased 17 Jun 2015The animation turns an abstract emotional system into a world whose practical problems remain clear. The strongest idea is allowed to complicate the apparent job each feeling should perform. Its achievement is making a child's changing inner life funny, adventurous and emotionally intelligible…0
  9. 9Spotlight (2015)Spotlight (2015) 8.1/10 on IMDbReleased 6 Nov 2015The ensemble gives interviewing, comparing records and persuading sources a convincing working rhythm. Tom McCarthy makes institutional complicity visible through the practical resistance to asking another question. Its procedural restraint is the attraction, with the investigation gathering force…0
  10. 10Room (2015)Room (2015) 8.1/10 on IMDbReleased 16 Oct 2015Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay make a severely restricted environment feel like an entire shared world. Lenny Abrahamson then keeps the emotional consequences larger than a single dramatic event. The performances earn the place here through the changing practical meanings of protection, dependence…0