Wendy Ide joined Screen in 2015 as a UK-based critic, and is also the chief film critic for The Observer
Best film
1. Nickel Boys
Dir. RaMell Ross
Ross’s fiction debut captures the soul of Colson Whitehead’s novel about the friendship between two Black boys in a 1960s Florida reform school. But it also brings something new to the table — a way of looking that subtly rewrites the language of cinema and shifts our means of engaging with performances. It’s a remarkable achievement: a film that manages to be formally groundbreaking without losing its emotional heft.
2. All We Imagine As Light
Dir. Payal Kapadia
There’s such confidence and elegance in Kapadia’s direction: the film — a study of three women, co-workers at a Mumbai hospital — navigates a gradual tonal shift that starts with a documentary-style verité approach to the teeming streets of the city and then drifts towards a shimmering, almost dreamlike sensuality. A film that finds magic in the mundane, this is a work of extraordinary beauty.
3. Anora
Dir. Sean Baker
Possibly Baker’s finest film to date, this foul-mouthed latter-day screwball comedy has an energy so boisterous, ballsy and in your face that you don’t at first notice the sensitivity and texture of the characters. Mikey Madison’s scrappy turn in the title role is a feisty joy, Yura Borisov is superb as hired muscle Igor, the calm, watchful eye in this hurricane of a movie.
4. Vermiglio
Dir. Maura Delpero
Delpero’s painterly period Alpine melodrama evokes its location and time so vividly that you want to fill your lungs with it and feel the bite of the mountain frost on your skin. It’s a rich and novelistic piece of storytelling that weaves a kind of potent folk magic. Performances, from a mix of professionals and non-actors, are wholly persuasive and lived in.
5. Nosferatu
Dir. Robert Eggers
Surely the year’s most perfect match of director and material: Eggers’ Nosferatu shares blood (lots of it) with FW Murnau’s silent classic but also floods the story with a profane, perverse sensuality. Lily-Rose Depp is a revelation, delivering a physically committed performance that is simultaneously grotesque and seductive. A special mention for Simon McBurney, for devouring the role of Orlok’s lackey Knock, along with numerous rodents. The score, by Eggers’ The Northman collaborator Robin Carolan, is one of the finest of the year. A shivering, goosebump-inducing voyage to a dark realm.
6. Santosh
Dir. Sandhya Suri
7. Black Dog
Dir. Guan Hu
8. April
Dir. Dea Kulumbegashvili
9. I’m Still Here
Dir. Walter Salles
10. Conclave
Dir. Edward Berger
Best documentary
1. Soundtrack To A Coup D’Etat
Dir. Johan Grimonprez
The murder of Patrice Lumumba, former prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, postcolonial backroom brinkmanship, the Cold War and the politics of American Jazz — this stunning essay film crackles with ideas and intellectual energy.
2. Dahomey
Dir. Mati Diop
The repatriation from France to Benin of 26 looted treasures from the Kingdom of Dahomey is the starting point for this inventive film. Diop’s documentary combines fantasy elements with an interrogation of the significance of an artwork once it has been ripped from its culture.
3. Eno
Dir. Gary Hustwit
A tricky film to include since there isn’t a definitive version, but Hustwit’s innovative, shape-shifting “generative” portrait of the musician, producer and artist Brian Eno is an exhilarating and novel way to capture its mercurial subject.
Performance of the year
Naomi Scott in Smile 2
Dir. Parker Finn
It has been a standout year for performances in horror — Demi Moore’s committed turn in The Substance and Hugh Grant’s innate affability is weaponised brilliantly in Heretic. But Scott in Smile 2 impressed me the most, with a performance that anchors the film, delivering scares but also tapping into the attrition of mental health by the forces of celebrity and addiction. It’s a character torn between the need to present a slick public persona and the urge to escape from a self-created monster. She is fantastic.
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