Wendy Ide joined Screen in 2015 as a UK-based critic, and is also the chief film critic for The Observer.

How to have sex c Mubi

Source: Mubi

‘How To Have Sex’

Read our other critics’ top tens here. 

Top 10

1. The Zone Of Interest
Dir. Jonathan Glazer
Glazer’s chilling, formally daring drama is exceptional for its rigorous composition, for the uncomfortable textures of its sound design, for Sandra Hüller’s remarkable performance as Hedwig Höss, a bustling, upwardly mobile Nazi wife, and for Mica Levi’s incredible, unnerving score. A work of uncompromising originality, The Zone Of Interest is an extraordinary achievement that reaffirms Glazer as one of the most consistently intriguing filmmakers working today.

2. How To Have Sex
Dir. Molly Manning Walker
What a debut. Having already made waves with her deft, zestful cinema­tography of Charlotte Regan’s Scrapper, a prizewinner in Sundance’s world cinema dramatic competition, Manning Walker’s first feature announces her as a considerable talent. A revelatory performance from Mia McKenna-Bruce drives this perceptive, provocative account of holiday hedonism gone sour.

3. Totem
Dir. Lila Aviles
The second feature from Mexican director Aviles is a gem. The child’s-eye view of the preparations for a party in honour of her father, who is terminally ill, Totem is a film about death and grief that is bursting with life and joy. Aviles pulls off a delicate balance with her film, which is emotionally raw without being mawkish. Diego Tenorio’s restless, exploratory camerawork is a particular asset, capturing the questioning gaze of the seven-year-old girl who is trying to make sense of a world full of uncertainty.

4. Housekeeping For Beginners
Dir. Goran Stolevski
Along with Totem, Housekeeping For Beginners is the year’s other standout film dealing with the unpredictable beast that is family. In this vibrant, uproariously funny and wrenchingly sad picture from North Macedonia, family is not so much about blood relationships and more about finding a sofa to sleep on and a home within the extended queer community that is crammed into one woman’s chaotic apartment. This is filmmaking that crackles with energy and attitude.

5. Poor Things
Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos
Lanthimos’s film of Alasdair Gray’s novel is the most riotously entertaining picture of the year. Lanthimos invites us to join the extraordinary Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) on her steampunk-­styled journey of self- discovery. It is a journey that takes in the pastry shops of Lisbon, Parisian brothels and the bed of Mark Ruffalo’s incorrigible roué, as Bella creates herself from a blank slate.

6. Reality
Dir. Tina Satter

7. La Chimera
Dir. Alice Rohrwacher

8. All Of Us Strangers
Dir. Andrew Haigh 

9. The Royal Hotel
Dir. Kitty Green

10. Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse
Dirs. Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K Thompson

Best documentary

1. Four Daughters
Dir. Kaouther Ben Hania
Ben Hania’s illuminating and uncomfortable hybrid documentary brilliantly uses dramatic reconstructions and actors interacting with the film’s subjects — a Tunisian mother and her two remaining daughters — to interrogate the radicalisation process. It is an inventive and daring approach, but central to its success is that Ben Hania allows the women to have considerable control over the telling of their stories.

2. Beyond Utopia
Dir. Madeleine Gavin
Harrowing insights into life under the authoritarian and secretive regime in North Korea are cut together with candid footage shot during a family’s escape attempt from the country. Gavin’s skill as an editor is evident throughout — this is as propulsive and taut as a political thriller.

3. Smoke Sauna Sisterhood
Dir. Anna Hints
The arcane tradition of the Estonian smoke sauna offers a rare intimacy; within the velvety darkness of this wooded shed, a group of women share stories, laughter and pain.

Performance of the year

Emma Stone in Poor Things
Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos
There is a fearless physicality in Stone’s performance as Bella Baxter. And I’m not just talking about the nudity — rather, the way her rag doll limbs seem to have a life of their own and the way her mercurial emotions play out, not just in her face but in her entire body. The arc of Bella’s journey is probably the most extreme of any in a film this year. And there is no moment in this wildly outlandish story when we do not wholly believe her as a character