2014

The order and the categorization of the films are very arbitrary. I saw most of these films only once and in many of the cases it was the first time I see that specific film-maker's work so I might be making a lot of hasty judgements. There aren't any linear value systems to judge what's most beautiful so putting all these different films in one hierarchical order is very much an injustice to them all. I rarely go back and change my lists for previous years, even if I feel I was completely wrong about it at the time. I keep the films I was involved with out of this list. The films I don't like are also out of the list. So, here it is, the new films I liked in 2014:


Very Great
'Til Madness Do Us Part / Wang Bing
Welcome to New York / Abel Ferrara
Deux jours, une nuit / Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne

Great
La Jalousie / Philippe Garrel
Història de la meva mort (Story of My Death) / Albert Serra
Stray Dogs / Tsai Ming-Liang
Redemption / Miguel Gomes
Das Spektrum Europas / Cristi Puiu

Very Good
The Immigrant / James Gray
Journey to the West / Tsai Ming-Liang
Ben O Değilim (I'm Not Him) / Tayfun Pirselimoğlu
Gone Girl / David Fincher
Que ta joie demeure (Joy of Man's Desiring) / Denis Côté

Good
La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty) / Paolo Sorrentino
Album / Aida Begić
Kumun Tadı (Seaburners) / Melisa Önel

Maybe Worth Seeing
Bai ri yan huo (Black Coal, Thin Ice) / Yi'nan Diao
The Last of the Unjust / Claude Lanzmann
Salvo / Fabio Grassadonia & Antonio Piazza
Hezar-o yek Siv (1001 Apples) / Taha Karimi
Norte, the End of History (Norte, hangganan ng kasaysayan) / Lav Diaz
Sekiz Haziran (The Eighth of June) / Burak Çevik
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence / Roy Andersson

Some Redeeming Facets
Pasolini / Abel Ferrara
The Strange Little Cat (Das merkwürdige Kätzchen) / Ramon Zürcher
Kış Uykusu (Winter Sleep) / Nuri Bilge Ceylan
U ri Sunhi (Our Sunhi) / Hong Sang-soo
L'Inconnu Du Lac (Stranger By the Lake) / Alain Guiraudie
Manakamana / Stephanie Spray & Pacho Velez
The Grandmaster / Wong Kar Wai
Force Majeure / Ruben Östlund


Other Memorable Screenings of Great Films
Pickpocket (1959) / Robert Bresson (unfortunately on DCP, good restoration)
Yumurta (English title: Egg) (2007) / Semih Kaplanoğlu (35mm)
Three Exercises of Interpretation (2013) / Cristi Puiu
Cousin Jules (1973) / Dominique Benicheti (good DCP restoration)
Kaïrat (1992) / Darezhan Omirbayev (35mm)
The Good, The Bad, The Ugly (1966) / Sergio Leone (unfortunately on DCP, good restoration)
Paradis Perdu (1940) / Abel Gance (terrible DCP restoration)
Inventário de Natal (Englist title: Christmas Inventory) (2000) / Miguel Gomes