20. Us and Them (2018, China)
Looking back on love can be as foolish as it is reaffirming, but it should never be avoided. A chance meeting leads two young people to fall in love and share lives filled with ups, downs, and all of the noise in between, but years after their time together ended they meet once more. Director/co-writer Rene Liu allows his characters to look back into their past for guidance towards the future, and through moments both big and small many of us will find ourselves doing the same. His lovers are us, after all, and we are them, and while bittersweet the film finds truths that lead to laughter, tears, and recognition.
19. Atlantics (2019, France)
An unlikely love story set against a backdrop of immigration, the supernatural, and an ever-growing metropolis? Yes please. Director/co-writer Mati Diop crafts a fable of sorts about our collective need for each other and for a home and how it clashes with other people’s fears, ignorance, and cruelty. Beautifully shot by cinematographer Claire Mathon, the film unfurls its beats and turns with a methodical and ethereal sense of wonder and pacing. It’s the rare film that never telegraphs its intentions, and that should be respected by going into it cold — it’ll warm you up soon enough.
18. I Don’t Feel at Home in this World Anymore (2017)
Some films follow a conventional path, but no one can accuse writer/director Macon Blair of any such thing with his debut. From its atypical female lead — an amazing, hilarious, heartbreaking, and endlessly talented Melanie Lynskey — to a genre narrative that constantly zigs when you’re expecting a zag, this is fantastically original entertainment. Add in Elijah Wood and an unrecognizable Jane Levy, both equally brilliant here, and it gets even better. A violent crime tale moves the film forward, but its heart is filled with such a love for humanity and a valuing of the struggles we all face. Ruth is all of us, pissed at a world that takes advantage, unsure how to proceed, and barreling forward all the same. The trick is finding others to join us along the way.
17. Soni (2018, India)
Sexism runs rampant anywhere men and women coexist, and that includes the slowly changing police force in Delhi. Director/co-writer Ivan Ayr‘s drama explores this reality through the struggles of a female officer dealing with an increase in violence against women out on the streets and an ongoing dismissal of them among her male co-workers. Soni’s commanding officer is also female, but their approach and reaction differs as explored by a film more interested in character than in genre thrills. (An American remake would absolutely turn up the thriller aspect ten-fold.) The anger is understandable, and the fight continues.
16. Da 5 Bloods (2020)
The American entry into the Vietnam War remains one of many shameful chapters in this country’s history, and its horrors followed many soldiers home in varied ways. Spike Lee‘s latest focuses specifically on the experience of Black soldiers fighting for a country that couldn’t be bothered to fight for them. He sets his historical condemnation against a genre plot involving a return to Vietnam in search of a friend’s remains, a fortune in gold, and closure for past deeds, and all of it weaves together into a story that’s equally about these five men and the country they call home. The film is dense with references, archival footage, and not so subtle commentary as only Lee can coordinate, and as a history lesson, it would make a strong double feature with Ava DuVernay’s 13th (2016).
15. The Wolf’s Call (2019, France)
There’s a real dearth of submarine-set thrillers, and the last truly great one was Tony Scott’s brilliantly entertaining Crimson Tide (1995). Thankfully, the last great one now is far more recent. Writer/director Antonin Baudry delivers an electric gem of a ride with this suspenseful, claustrophobic action/drama that drops viewers into the tight confines of subs squaring off against enemies and nerves alike. Sound design plays a major role as we join the crew in listening for noises that might spell their doom, and the film balances the intimate intensity aboard the subs with the threat of nuclear war beyond.
14. Roma (2018, Mexico)
Alfonso Cuaron brought audiences to the future with Children of Men (2006) and to space with Gravity (2013), but he brings us home with his acclaimed Roma. It’s his childhood home, but he captures 1970s Mexico with an eye for such detail and love that the memories it evokes become our own. Partially autobiographical, the film focuses on a housekeeper for a middle-class family — ostensibly his own growing up — and in her day to day life Cuaron finds both the struggle and the value in life itself. The film’s black & white cinematography highlights detail and nuance, beauty and pain, and the truths between us that exist in the shadows. Love pours from the frame, for both its characters and the film itself, and the effect is one of true warmth.
13. Mudbound (2017)
There’s a lot to love and even more to respect in this beautiful look at our own ugliness, and the “our” is everything from humanity to Americans in particular. World War II was dubbed the war to end all wars, but mankind can’t help but keep fighting and making new battlefields wherever we go. Here race plays a pivotal role as two men, one Black and one white, return from the war to find an even greater struggle awaiting them at home. Director/co-writer Dee Rees captures it all with an unflinching eye, both the warmth of family and the disgust of strangers and while it compels as drama, it also serves as a reminder of just how far we as a nation haven’t come in seven damn decades.
12. The Irishman (2019)
Sure, Brad Pitt fixing a rooftop antenna was 2019’s best home improvement scene, but don’t count out Robert De Niro painting houses in Martin Scorsese‘s epic crime tale so quickly. De Niro plays a man looking back on a life filled with big men, dead men, and Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), and it’s not a pretty picture. The takeaway is that loyalty is a two-cent word in a greedy world, and friendship exists far down the list of priorities in organized crime. The CG de-aging isn’t great, but the power inherent in the tale, Scorsese’s direction, and the presence of De Niro, Pacino, and the great Joe Pesci can’t be understated.
11. Divines (2016, France)
The cinematic landscape is filled with movies about the collision between poverty and crime, but too few explore that world through female eyes. Director/co-writer Houda Benyamina works to amend that oversight with this powerfully affecting story that skillfully blends religion into the mix too. A young Muslim teenager leaves her world behind when new friends with a dangerous lifestyle come knocking, and the result is a film that’s as uplifting as it is devastating. From a rousing sequence in a Ferrari to an ending that simply crushes, this is a snapshot of triumphs and struggles we rarely see.
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