Tim Grierson is Screen International’s senior US critic, and is based in LA.
Best film
1. Sound Of Falling
Dir. Mascha Schilinski
One hundred years of German history told from the perspective of four young women living on the same property during different time periods, Schilinski’s labyrinthine second feature is an intimate roadmap of feminism’s progress (or lack thereof) across the 20th and 21st centuries. Sound Of Falling unspools like a collection of faded memories, touching on sexuality, shattered innocence and the struggle to establish yourself in a patriarchal society. The story weaves deftly between eras, pinpointing subtle connections and jarring juxtapositions. This ethereal wonder rewards multiple viewings, its hidden meanings and motifs emerging slowly to form a stunning whole.
2. The Mastermind
Dir. Kelly Reichardt
Josh O’Connor starred in four films this year, but his work with Reichardt was the richest. Playing a failed American artist plotting a heist in 1970, the British actor creates a melancholy, quietly comic portrayal of a man whose unremarkable life falls apart slowly, echoing a nation’s wayward path during the Vietnam War.
3. Two Prosecutors
Dir. Sergei Loznitsa
Loznitsa’s first narrative feature in seven years is among his most chilling. The provocative Ukrainian filmmaker travels back to 1937, where a diligent attorney (Aleksandr Kuznetsov) tries to free a prisoner wrongfully convicted by the corrupt Soviet regime. His quest for justice becomes a darkly amusing, ultimately disturbing exploration of soulless bureaucracy. The result is a procedural that could not be more gripping or enraging.
4. Sorry, Baby
Dir. Eva Victor
Victor’s exceptional feature debut, which they wrote, directed and starred in, concerns Agnes, a struggling professor reeling from a sexual assault experienced years earlier. Sorry, Baby carefully chronicles a survivor’s complicated path to healing, but what is most revelatory is how Victor also manages to locate the brittle humour amid the pain.
5. Sirât
Dir. Oliver Laxe
A search for a missing teenage daughter becomes an apocalyptic journey in Laxe’s Cannes sensation. Sergi Lopez is superb as the concerned father who befriends ravers in the Moroccan desert, their mission to find his child devolving into tragedy. It is best to know nothing going into Sirât, whose surprises are as shocking to the viewer as they are to the characters, who go through hell in a story that argues at the end of the world, we all need community.
6. Resurrection
Dir. Bi Gan
7. One Battle After Another
Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson
8. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Dir. Mary Bronstein
9. Peter Hujar’s Day
Dir. Ira Sachs
10. Marty Supreme
Dir. Josh Safdie
Best documentary
1. Below The Clouds
Dir. Gianfranco Rosi
A study of Naples shot in gorgeous black and white, Below The Clouds observes the lives of scientists, historians, teachers and call-centre operators, all of them existing in their own fascinating niches that feed the vitality of the vibrant Italian city. Rosi demonstrates how Naples’ past intertwines with its present, ghosts from centuries ago still whispering in the ears of its modern residents.
2. The Perfect Neighbor
Dir: Geeta Gandbhir
Drawing largely from police bodycam footage, Gandbhir recounts the events that led to the 2023 fatal shooting of Florida resident Ajike Owens at the hands of her paranoid neighbour. This sobering film casts a harsh light on the gun violence and racial animus that have long plagued the US, illustrating how dispiritingly familiar such killings have become.
3. Predators
Dir. David Osit
Osit examines the lingering societal impact of the shamelessly exploitative true-crime series To Catch A Predator, calculating the cost of the show’s judge-jury-executioner approach to entrapping potential child predators. In the process, Predators is just as critical in its questioning of how all documentarians, including Osit himself, capitalise on sensation to make compelling drama.
Performance of the year
Rose Byrne in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Dir. Mary Bronstein
A gifted comedic and dramatic actress, Byrne has never enjoyed a role as dynamic as the one written by filmmaker Bronstein, who introduces Linda, an overwhelmed therapist raising her ill daughter essentially on her own. Byrne calls on both sides of her filmmaking resumé to play a woman barely holding on to her sanity as problems multiply around her. In a year in which several films charted motherhood’s crushing demands, none drew blood like If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, which Byrne turned into a biting, moving tour de force.
