Wendy joined Screen International in 2015 as a London-based critic. Previously she was a critic for The Times. She also writes for Sight & Sound and is a regular contributor to Reuters television.

Wendy Ide

Click here for more Screen critics’ top films of 2015

Top Five

  1. Anomalisa
    Dirs     Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson

    As bitterly funny as it is achingly, luxuriantly sad, Kaufman and Johnson’s stop-motion animation is a flat-out masterpiece. Charting the hotel room existential crisis of a minor celeb in the world of customer interface, Anomalisa manages to combine a melancholy wisdom with hilariously savage jokes about, among other things, chilli con carne, loneliness, isolation and antique Japanese sex toys. Poignant and perceptive voicework from David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tom Noonan, and the tactile quality of the animation, lend an unvarnished authenticity to these fleeting emotional connections and fumbled clinches. The year’s most profound film about the human condition doesn’t even feature any humans.

    CONTACT Hanway Films info@hanwayfilms.com

  2. Spotlight
    Dir     Tom McCarthy
    CONTACT Entertainment One  cvanweede@entonegroup.com

  3. Mustang
    Dir     Deniz Gamze Ergüven
    CONTACT Kinology festivals@kinology.eu

  4. Carol
    Dir     Todd Haynes
    CONTACT Hanway Films jls@hanwayfilms.com

  5. Inside Out
    Dirs     Pete Docter, Ronnie Del Carmen
    CONTACT disney  www.movies.disney.com

Best Documentary

Behemoth

Behemoth
Dir Zhao Liang

The assault on China’s landscape (Inner Mongolia to be exact) by the forces of industrialisation is viewed through a poetic filter that references Dante’s Divine Comedy and photographer Sebastiao Salgado’s ‘Work’ series. Behemoth (Beixi Moshuo) makes me forever grateful I write about films for a living and don’t have to pick bits of molten pig iron out of my skin at the end of each working day.

CONTACT INA  www.ina.fr

Best UK Film

45 Years
Dir Andrew Haigh

The framework of a 45-year marriage starts to crumble under the weight of doubts and ghosts from the past in Andrew Haigh’s subtle, quietly devastating film. It plays out in understated moments, and in Charlotte Rampling’s mercurial face — performance of the year, no contest.

CONTACT The Match Factory info@matchfactory.de

Undiscovered Gem

The Other Side
Dir Roberto Minervini

Minervini’s extraordinary, haunting documentary explores the fringes of US society. We meet gun-toting militias, heavily armed family men spouting a curious blend of ultra-conservative sentimentalism and hate speak; we hang out with the outlaw meth freaks and Xanax-popping grannies, the products of generations of self-medication and privation. Unforgettable.

CONTACT Doc & Film International  d.elstner@docandfilm.com

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