Allan Hunter has worked for Screen since 1990. He is based in Edinburgh and is co-director of Glasgow Film Festival.
Read our other critics’ top tens here.
Top 10
1. Aftersun
Dir. Charlotte Wells
In a year of outstanding debut features, Wells’s poignant Aftersun really impressed. There is such harmony between her aesthetic choices and the emotional charge of the material. A young father and daughter’s holiday in the sun unfolds as a break from the routines and cares of the everyday. A lazy afternoon requires nothing more than lying by the pool. An evening is enlivened by an exhibition of dad-dancing designed to cause maximum embarrassment. The father is doing everything he can to make the moments count, but he is clearly troubled. Wells has the confidence not to spell everything out; we know that hindsight has rendered precious the time these two spent together. The tantalising air of mystery and the tender playing of Paul Mescal and newcomer Frankie Corio make for a haunting film. Can’t wait to see what Wells does next.
2. The Quiet Girl
Dir. Colm Bairéad
There is a remarkable assurance in Bairéad’s exquisite adaptation of Claire Keegan’s short story Foster. Sent to live with relatives for the summer, a neglected young girl blossoms in the gentle embrace of a caring family unlike any she has previously experienced. A delicate, beautifully restrained coming-of-age gem that quietly beckons you into its world, and a debut feature of immense promise.
3. Close
Dir. Lukas Dhont
Dhont ties your stomach in knots with the emotional intensity he brings out in this tragic tale of childhood friendship. He captures the affectionate, unselfconscious bond between two schoolboys and how that is distorted in the reflection of other children’s assumptions. The slightest disappointment is magnified into an unbearable heartache. A quietly devastating film with an outstanding performance from newcomer Eden Dambrine.
4. The Beasts
Dir. Rodrigo Sorogoyen
Gripping, psychological thriller as a French couple in rural Galicia face escalating tensions with their closest neighbours — two vicious brothers who resent incomers. Sorogoyen expertly sustains the feeling that something awful is about to happen and is beautifully served by a terrific ensemble cast in which Marina Fois is a standout.
5. The Ordinaries
Dir. Sophie Linnenbaum
A wonderfully inventive comic debut that plays like a cross between Brazil and The Truman Show. Life is just one big movie production in which everyone knows their place until teenager Fine Sendel goes in search of her long-lost father.
6. TÁR
Dir. Todd Field
7. RRR
Dir. S.S. Rajamouli
8. The Banshees Of Inisherin
Dir. Martin McDonagh
9. Gangubai Kathiawadi
Dir. Sanjay Leela Bhansali
10. All Quiet On The Western Front
Dir. Edward Berger
Best documentary
1. All The Beauty And The Bloodshed
Dir. Laura Poitras
Poitras’s portrait of photographer Nan Goldin gives us a sense of an entire life. Art and activism are interconnected, the personal becomes political and the impact of events lodged in the past is invariably felt in the present. Goldin’s work speaks volumes and vividly reflects the times; the artist herself is forthright and unyielding, and this elegant film does her justice.
2. All That Breathes
Dir. Shaunak Sen
A vivid account of the way individual actions can make a difference. Sen’s beguiling documentary follows two brothers in New Delhi who rescue and care for black kite birds. A melancholy city symphony reflects the fragile connections between all creatures great and small.
3. My Old School
Dir. Jono McLeod
McLeod’s exuberant, stranger-than-fiction jaw-dropper is an absolute hoot as he reunites with former classmates to tell the story of Brandon Lee, the new kid in their class who was none of the things that he claimed to be.
Performance of the year
Cate Blanchett in TÁR
Dir. Todd Field
Blanchett plays Lydia Tár, a world-renowned orchestra conductor with the imperious air of someone accustomed to being obeyed; her haughty grandeur brooks no opposition from lesser musicians. And yet, this implacable, carefully manufactured persona conceals a delicate web of cracks. Blanchett shows the signs of vulnerability — the twitches and tics, the paranoia, the possibility that everything could come crashing down. Her complex, magnetic tour de force succeeds in creating sympathy for a fascinating, enigmatic monster. As befits the character, it is a virtuoso performance.
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