2020s films

[AdamH]

I haven't watched films very often in the past few years but I've recently got back into watching them again. Motivated by a group of friends who were doing the same, I've finally finished all the Bond films (a bit of a slog at times) but I've been primarily focusing in the last few weeks on 2020s films. I thought I'd make a thread where I talk about what I've watched/other people do the same or post their favourites of the decade.

I made myself a watchlist (https://www.imdb.com/list/ls521062646/) which I'll add to gradually. I used various criteria: Top 50 on iCM 2020 favourites list (I'll expand this to top 100 over time), TSPDT 21st Century, Cahiers top 10s, award winners (Oscars Best Picture winners & nominees, Cannes, Venice, Berlin etc.).

I've also made a top 1000 for the 2020s based on the official top 100's ratio: https://www.icheckmovies.com/lists/iche ... 000/adamh/ just in case I'm struggling to find anything I'm interested in.

I've seen 48 features from the 2020s so far. This might not be very much compared to the average iCMer but it's a lot for me considering I've not watched many films in the past few years. Films seen so far:

Spoiler

Aftersun
An Cailín Ciúin
Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Adventure
Avatar: The Way of Water
Barbie
Belfast
Boiling Point
Close
CODA
Cry Macho
Don't Look Up
Doraibu mai kâ
Druk
Dune: Part One
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Ghahreman
Gûzen to sôzô
Heojil kyolshim
Hytti nro 6
Jurassic World Dominion
Khorshid
King Richard
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Minari
Never Rarely Sometimes Always
No Time to Die
Nobody
Nomadland
Palm Springs
Past Lives
Petite maman
Promising Young Woman
Quo vadis, Aida?
Red Rocket
Soul
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Spider-Man: No Way Home
The Banshees of Inisherin
The Fabelmans
The Father
The Lost Daughter
The Man from Toronto
The Menu
The Trial of the Chicago 7
The Whale
Top Gun: Maverick
Verdens verste menneske
WolfWalkers

I tend to go through periods of watching many films then weeks without watching any but I'm going to try to do updates here occasionally and it would be great to hear what other people's favourite films of the 2020s are so far.

My favourites currently:
Aftersun (2022)
An Cailín Ciúin/The Quiet Girl (2022)
Past Lives (2023)
Gûzen to sôzô/Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021)
Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)
Boiling Point (2021)
Close (2022)

[mightysparks]

From your watchlist:

- Didn't expect much from Tár but was pretty great. Not sure if your sort of thing but worth a watch.
- The Power of the Dog was nice.
- Elvis was good.
- After Yang was a bit slow and didn't seem to go anywhere but the set design/world is cool.
- Hated Mank.
- Other stuff I've seen not worth a comment.

Current personal top 10 something like this:

1. Barbie (2023)
2. Men (2022)
3. Speak No Evil (2022)
4. Deadstream (2022)
5. Psycho Goreman (2020)
6. Quo vadis, Aida? (2020)
7. Mad God (2021)
8. Bullet Train (2022)
9. Dune: Part One (2021)
10. Knock at the Cabin (2023)

[Cinepolis]

Some of my favorites of the past decade (some might already be on your watchlist):

- Identifying Features (2020)
- Beasts Clawing at Straws (2020)
- Days (2020)
- New Order (2020)
- The Sadness (2021)
- Flee (2021)
- Mass (2021)
- Coming Home in the Dark (2021)
- Willy's Wonderland (2021)
- Limbo (2021)
- Saloum (2021)
- Howard's Mill (2021)
- My Blood and Bones in a Flowing Galaxy (2021)
- Annette (2021)
- Aloners (2021)
- Playground (2021)
- Lingui: The Sacred Bonds (2021)
- Parallel Mothers (2021)
- Yuni (2021)
- Spencer (2021)
- Last Night in Soho (2021)
- The Midnight Maiden War (2022)
- The Girl From the Other Side (2022)
- The Outfit (2022)
- Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio (2022)
- Incantation (2022)
- A Far Shore (2022)
- Goodbye Cruel World (2022)
- Unicorn Wars (2022)

[AdamH]

Thanks Cinepolis. I must confess I know very little about the majority of the films you've posted although Limbo is on my radar due to the Scottish connections. I'll take a read up on the films when I get a chance.

Thanks Lauren as well I know you've mentioned it before but pretty cool to see Barbie at the top of your list. I actually liked it just wouldn't say it was in my top five or so.

I watched Sheytan vojud nadarad/There Is No Evil (2020) today. Really good film and definitely one of my favourites of the decade so far. Iranian cinema continues to produce the goods, to the point that I want to binge watch a few Iranian films at some point. I've seen a few but not a huge amount and generally had a good experience with the films. Regarding the film I watched today, I thought the second story was easily the weakest and I'd rather the film had just been the other three segments but it was a very good film overall. It's in 500<400 and still has <300 checks somehow (perhaps reflective of not so many active users now or perhaps I'm overestimating how well known the film is?). Definitely recommended.

[Good_Will_Harding]

OK, after quickly glancing at your watchlist and list of films already seen, here's a few more recommendations, in rough order of preference:

Lovers Rock - or really, the entirety of the "Small Axe" quintopoly, but this one is by far my favorite of the bunch.
Passing
The Empty Man
The Last Duel
Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio
How to Blow Up a Pipeline
Resurrection
Montana Story
The Harder They Fall
John Wick: Chapter Four
Bo Burnham: Inside
The Fallout
The Nest
Bodies Bodies Bodies
Talk to Me

[Silga]

Adam, from your watchlist, I can recommend:

1. Tár - A complete and immersive masterpiece. Already in my Top 10 not just of the 2020s, but of the 21st Century.
2. Women Talking - Much better than I was led to believe after the first word of mouth. Might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I just loved it.
3. Nightmare Alley - Visually impressive and beautifully crafted by the great Guillermo del Toro. Very good story too.
4. The Power of the Dog - Critically beloved film and for all the right reasons. A confident work by a masterful director Jane Campion.
5. Happening - Features one of the best acting performances of the 2020s. Anamaria Vartolomei is amazing in this film.
6. Benediction - Beautiful film made by the great veteran director Terence Davies. Pure excellence in classic filmmaking.
7. France - If you're familiar with the style of Bruno Dumont, this amazing film might be an unexpected departure from his usual style, but it is nevertheless a wonderful film and very relevant too.
8. The Card Counter - Maestro Paul Schrader and another great film in his trademark style and composition. Plus a very fitting music score by Robert Levon Been who is the son of Michael Been (from The Call) who composed one of my favorite soundtracks for Schrader's Light Sleeper.
9. The Woman Who Ran - If you like the almost-unmistakable style of Hong Sang-soo when this is one of his great works. His all-reliable partner Kim Min-hee leads this story to a satisfying conclusion. A film that only keeps getting better whenever I think about it's ideas and what was said in-between the lines.
10. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed - Admittedly, I was kind of sceptical about this film as I don't share the same opinion on various topics with Laura Poitras. However, this artistic documentary just took me by surprise with it's intense love for life and it's struggles. I just appreciate the passion that was put in making this doc.

Other films I love and would recommend from the 2020s:

1. Spencer (Pablo Larraín) - My favorite of the 2020s so far.
2. Utama (Alejandro Loayza Grisi)
3. No Sudden Move (Steven Soderbergh)
4. The Forgiven (John Michael McDonagh)
5. Love Life (Koji Fukada)
6. The Eight Mountains (Felix Van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch)
7. Other People’s Children (Rebecca Zlotowski)
8. Some Kind of Heaven (Lance Oppenheim)
9. Evolution (Kornél Mundruczó)
10. A Cup of Coffee and New Shoes On (Gentian Koçi)

More films

Jasper Mall, Lucy and Desi, The Way I See It, Nothing Compares, Ascension, Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue, Two Gods, Attica, Flee, Hold Me Tight, Apples, Drunken Birds, Kimi, Montana Story, Empire of Light, Argentina 1985, Living, Shiva Baby, Onoda, Playground, A Mouthful of Air, Holler, Being the Ricardos, The Last Thing He Wanted, Italian Studies, Black Stone, Totem, Both Sides of the Blade, Saint Omer, Medusa, The Cathedral.

[cinewest]

Have seen very little from the current decade up to now (had twins in 2019, and that has pretty much killed my free time), but I have seen a few standouts:

2020: 3) The Father, 7) Night of Kings, 8) Nuevo Orden

2021: 1) Verdens verste menneske, 2) Petite Maman, 6) Annette

2022: 4) Aftersun, 5) Tar

[AdamH]

Thanks Good Will, Silga and cinewest! Very useful.

Good Will, I should have added Lovers Rock and Mangrove to my list of films seen. I only filtered IMDb by features hence I missed them. Both very good. The others worth checking out?

[beavis]

my current 2020's top ratings on Letterboxd are:

★★★★★ I'm Thinking of Ending Things
★★★★★ Everything Everywhere All at Once
★★★★★ Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn

★★★★½ A Piece of Sky
★★★★½ Afire
★★★★½ Beatrix
★★★★½ Conann
★★★★½ Crane Lantern
★★★★½ Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time
★★★★½ Fabian: Going to the Dogs
★★★★½ Flux Gourmet
★★★★½ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
★★★★½ Human Flowers of Flesh
★★★★½ Kill It and Leave This Town
★★★★½ Limbo
★★★★½ Mad God
★★★★½ Memoria
★★★★½ No. 10
★★★★½ Petrov's Flu
★★★★½ Possessor
★★★★½ Rimini
★★★★½ Shirley
★★★★½ Skinamarink
★★★★½ Stars at Noon
★★★★½ Ste. Anne
★★★★½ TÁR
★★★★½ Taste
★★★★½ Tchaikovsky’s Wife
★★★★½ The Banshees of Inisherin
★★★★½ The Cloud in Her Room
★★★★½ The Dead Remain with Their Mouths Open
★★★★½ The French Dispatch
★★★★½ The Girl and the Spider
★★★★½ The Northman
★★★★½ There Are No False Undertakings
★★★★½ Vortex

[Cinepolis]

Thanks Cinepolis. I must confess I know very little about the majority of the films you've posted although Limbo is on my radar due to the Scottish connections. I'll take a read up on the films when I get a chance.

Haha, sorry, I forgot there was another Limbo released that year, I actually meant the Hong Kong crime thriller: https://icheckmovies.com/movies/zhi+chi/
Haven't watched the British Limbo yet.

[matthewscott8]

These are the films from the 2020s that made my top 1000 films list:

Êxtase / Ecstasy (2020 - Moara Passoni)
დასაწყისი / Dasatskisi / Beginning (2020 - Dea Kulumbegashvili)
Malmkrog / Manor House (2020 - Cristi Puiu)
Tár (2022 - Todd Field)
I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020 - Charlie Kaufman)
The Green Knight (2021 - David Lowery)
Circumstantial Pleasures (2020 - Lewis Klahr)
Slucajna raskos prozirnog vodenog rebusa / Accidental Luxuriance of the Translucent Watery Rebus (2020 - Dalibor Baric)
რას ვხედავთ როდესაც ცას ვუყურებთ? / Ras vkhedavt, rodesac cas vukurebt? / What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? (2021 - Alexandre Koberidze)
Un monde / Playground (2021 - Larua Wandel)
Possessor (2020 - Brandon Cronenberg)
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023 - Christopher McQuarrie)
Women Talking (2022 - Sarah Polley)
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022 - Rian Johnson)
幾多の北 / Ikuta no kita / Dozens of Norths (2021 - Kôji Yamamura)
Mank (2020 - David Fincher)
The Banshees of Inisherin (2022 - Martin McDonagh)
Mad God (2021 - Phil Tippett)
Dal pianeta degli umani / From the Planet of the Humans (2021 - Giovanni Cioni)
The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021 - Joel Coen)
Blonde (2022 - Andrew Dominik)
Corsage (2022 - Marie Kreutzer)
Petite fille / Little Girl (2020 - Sébastien Lifshitz)
Felkészülés meghatározatlan ideig tartó együttlétre / Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time (2020 - Lili Horvát)
Le sommet des dieux / The Summit of the Gods (2021 - Patrick Imbert)
Gretel & Hansel (2020 - Oz Perkins)
Wolfwalkers (2020 - Tomm Moore & Ross Stewart)
Nitram (2021 - Justin Kurzel)
Ali & Ava (2021 - Clio Barnard)

[OldAle1]

Huh, and I thought I was behind on new films! Sometimes it seems as if the average person here sees 3-500 new movies every year, but I guess there are just as many who either don't have that focus (me) or just aren't seeing that many movies period (you). I never seem to want to watch new stuff for challenges either which certainly contributes to my low numbers for recent years.

Anyway I've done a bit better, with 175 seen - that includes a few shorts but very few for this period actually. I have just 6 which I'd put in my all-time favorites list right now, meaning essentially that I rate them 10, and at a guess the order would be -

1. Benediction
2. Petite maman
3. Khers nist

These top three are from three of the most consistently great working directors today from my perspective; none are their very best (though I think Petit maman has a shot at it, I'd need to see it again to be sure) but all show the filmmakers working at their top level.

4. I'm Thinking of Ending Things
5. À vendredi, Robinson
6. Everything Everywhere All At Once

While these are all great films IMO it's kind of sad to me that the top 4 are all from filmmakers I already loved who started out in the previous decade or earlier (much earlier in the case of Terence Davies); I haven't done much discovering of new talent yet, but I guess that comes down partly to how I see films and what my choices are in the cinema, which is still where I'd prefer to see stuff if possible.

A provisional next few:

7. Historiya ni Ha - I actually think this would be a fairly good intro to the world of Lav Diaz, being of below-average length (about 4 1/2 hours) amongst his 21st century work. It feels like it deserves to be in the top group but, eh, something's holding it back just a bit.

8. Babylon
9. Jaddeh Khaki - the son of the director of (3) proves he's a chip off the old block. Iranian cinema continues to beat all comers on a film-by-film basis
10. Never Rarely Sometimes Always

And my top 3 for the current year, all of which I'd like to see again, and have a real hard time ordering at the moment

Barbie
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Past Lives

[Pretentious Hipster]

In tiers but unranked otherwise

5/5:

Crimes of the Future (2022)
Possessor (2020)

4.5/5:

Aftersun (2022)
Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)
De humani corporis fabrica [The Fabric of the Human Body] (2022)
Zeros and Ones (2021)
Vortex (2021)
Red Rocket (2021)
Benedetta (2021)
Alone (2020)
Zola (2020)

4/5:

The Pope's Exorcist (2023)
The Devil Conspiracy (2022)
The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
Skinamarink (2022)
Elvis (2022)
Benediction (2021)
Marcel the Shell With Shoes On (2021)
Annette (2021)
The Empty Man (2020)
The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020)
City Hall (2020)

[Ebbywebby]

So far, I think my favorite release of the 2020s was Peter Jackson's "Get Back" miniseries. Which isn't exactly "new." I'm not enthusiastic about contemporary cinema. I've checked a modest 160 features from the 2020s (plus six miniseries) and there isn't anything already released that I avidly yearn to see. I do really want to see "Poor Things" when it arrives.

I've seen 33 films on Adam's watchlist, not counting bailing out of "Summer of Soul" early. The ones that I firmly enjoyed were "Vortex," "American Utopia," "EO," "The Hand of God," "The Power of the Dog," "RRR," "Tar" and "The Batman."

[kongs_speech]

Too soon for 2023, since it's still happening, but here are my 5/5s of 2020-22. As you can see, 2021 was a monster year. I have 12 from that year alone.

Actors (Betsey Brown)
Aftersun (Charlotte Wells)
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (Alejandro G. Inarritu)
Benedetta (Paul Verhoeven)

Blonde (Andrew Dominik)
Bye Bye Morons (Albert Dupontel)
The Card Counter (Paul Schrader)
Da 5 Bloods (Spike Lee)
The Devil All the Time (Antonio Campos)

EO (Jerzy Skolimowski)
Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time (Hideaki Anno)
Moonage Daydream (Brett Morgen)
Parallel Mothers (Pedro Almodovar)
Petite Maman (Celine Sciamma)

Promising Young Woman (Emerald Fennell)
Titane (Julia Ducournau)
Triangle of Sadness (Ruben Ostlund)
The Velvet Underground (Todd Haynes)
Vortex (Gaspar Noe)

The Whale (Darren Aronofsky)
The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier)
Zack Snyder's Justice League (Zack Snyder)
Zeros and Ones (Abel Ferrara)

[cinewest]

Based on the extreme high regard here, I've just bumped I'm Thinking of Ending Things to the top pf my list to see (it's readily accessible on Netflix), though it will have to wait until I am finished with library rentals Pacification, Nostalgia for the Light, and India Song.

Kind of surprised that nobody listed The Worst Person in the World (or The Father), which continues to be my favorite film so far, but I'm pleased to see the regard for After Sun and Petite Maman, There have been a bunch of very good films made about girlhood and girls coming of age in the past 10 years (most of them from women filmmakers), though I thought Quiet Girl was somewhat overrated, compared to the others I have seen.

One I have seen from the lists above that I liked but didn't love was Everything Everywhere All At Once (The Green Knight, as well), and the biggest disappointment for me was Triangle of Sadness, especially because I liked the last two by Ostlund so much.

[AdamH]

Huh, and I thought I was behind on new films! Sometimes it seems as if the average person here sees 3-500 new movies every year, but I guess there are just as many who either don't have that focus (me) or just aren't seeing that many movies period (you). I never seem to want to watch new stuff for challenges either which certainly contributes to my low numbers for recent years.

Anyway I've done a bit better, with 175 seen - that includes a few shorts but very few for this period actually. I have just 6 which I'd put in my all-time favorites list right now, meaning essentially that I rate them 10, and at a guess the order would be -

1. Benediction
2. Petite maman
3. Khers nist

These top three are from three of the most consistently great working directors today from my perspective; none are their very best (though I think Petit maman has a shot at it, I'd need to see it again to be sure) but all show the filmmakers working at their top level.

4. I'm Thinking of Ending Things
5. À vendredi, Robinson
6. Everything Everywhere All At Once

While these are all great films IMO it's kind of sad to me that the top 4 are all from filmmakers I already loved who started out in the previous decade or earlier (much earlier in the case of Terence Davies); I haven't done much discovering of new talent yet, but I guess that comes down partly to how I see films and what my choices are in the cinema, which is still where I'd prefer to see stuff if possible.

A provisional next few:

7. Historiya ni Ha - I actually think this would be a fairly good intro to the world of Lav Diaz, being of below-average length (about 4 1/2 hours) amongst his 21st century work. It feels like it deserves to be in the top group but, eh, something's holding it back just a bit.

8. Babylon
9. Jaddeh Khaki - the son of the director of (3) proves he's a chip off the old block. Iranian cinema continues to beat all comers on a film-by-film basis
10. Never Rarely Sometimes Always

And my top 3 for the current year, all of which I'd like to see again, and have a real hard time ordering at the moment

Barbie
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Past Lives

Haha, well the iCM crowd tend to have watched a massive number of films. It's been many years since I've watched a lot of films on a regular basis. I prefer now to just watch occasionally when I'm in the mood although sometimes I go through bursts of watching a few but normally still only one or two maximum in a day.

Definitely interested in your rankings and have seen three of your top ten plus two of your top three from this year. I might watch Jaddeh Khaki and Khers nist next...Iranian cinema seems great from what I've seen so far.

[3eyes]

Haven't seen many but favorited these:

Kiss the ground
Marketing the Messiah
My octopus teacher
Pardon my Icelandic
The trial of the Chicago 7

[Good_Will_Harding]

Good Will, I should have added Lovers Rock and Mangrove to my list of films seen. I only filtered IMDb by features hence I missed them. Both very good. The others worth checking out?

The rest are definitely worth watching, particularly the third entry Red, White, and Blue, but the forth and fifth ones are a bit of a step down, albeit still pretty good.

[AdamH]

I've watched another two. Adding both to 500<400.

Jaddeh Khaki thanks to OldAle's post. Liked this one and put it on 500<400. I preferred Sheytan vojud nadarad but it was still a good film.

Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes today. I have to say that I asked for recs on Discord and several people recommended it. I kept delaying it because the IMDb plot summary made me think I wouldn't like it. It was a nice surprise. Very good little film and it was pretty charming. I'm pretty sure this is going to enter 500<400 this year in a very, very good position.

[Onderhond]

Out of 1112 films seen:

5.0 - Hotel Poseidon (2021)
5.0 - Jibaro (2022)
4.5 - Belle (Ryû to Sobakasu no Hime - 2021)
4.5 - Bipolar (Zhishi Yici Ouran de Lüxing - 2021)
4.5 - Carter (2022)
4.5 - Deep Sea (Shen Hai - 2023)
4.5 - Follow the Light (Hikari wo Oikakete - 2021)
4.5 - H4Z4RD (2022)
4.5 - Limbo (Ji Chi - 2021)
4.5 - Mad God (2021)
4.5 - New Religion (2022)
4.5 - Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
4.5 - The Day of Destruction (Hakai no Hi - 2020)
4.5 - The Girl from the Other Side (Totsukuni no Shôjo - 2022)
4.5 - The Midnight Maiden War (Mayonaka Otome Sensô - 2022)
4.5 - Till We Meet Again (Yue Lao - 2021)
4.5 - xxxHolic (2022)
4.0 - #Manhole (#Manhōru - 2023)
4.0 - A Taste of Hunger (Smagen af Sult - 2021)
4.0 - A Writer's Odyssey (Ci Sha Xiao Shuo Jia - 2021)
4.0 - All My Friends Hate Me (2021)
4.0 - Arc (Aaku - 2021)
4.0 - Asteroid City (2023)
4.0 - Baby (2020)
4.0 - Cadaver (Kadaver - 2020)
4.0 - Convenience Story (Konbiniensu Sutori - 2022)
4.0 - Crazy Samurai Musashi (2020)
4.0 - Daughters (2020)
4.0 - Earwig (2021)
4.0 - Flux Gourmet (2022)
4.0 - Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko (Gyokou no Nikuko-chan - 2021)
4.0 - Furies (Thanh Sói - 2022)
4.0 - Gretel & Hansel (2020)
4.0 - Hell Dogs (2022)
4.0 - Hotel Iris (2021)
4.0 - Incredible But True (Incroyable Mais Vrai - 2022)
4.0 - Inexorable (2021)
4.0 - Infinity Pool (2023)
4.0 - Lamb Game (Gao Yang You Xi - 2023)
4.0 - Last Night in Soho (2021)
4.0 - Love, Life and Goldfish (Sukutte Goran - 2020)
4.0 - Mad Fate (Ming'on - 2023)
4.0 - Mandibles (Mandibules - 2020)
4.0 - Office Royale (Jigoku no Hanazono - 2021)
4.0 - Parasite in Love (Koi Suru Kiseichu - 2021)
4.0 - Poser (2021)
4.0 - Possessor (2020)
4.0 - Poupelle of Chimney Town (Eiga Entotsumachi no Puperu - 2020)
4.0 - Ribbon (2021)
4.0 - Ride or Die (Kanojo - 2021)
4.0 - Rundfunk: Jachterwachter (2020)
4.0 - Sakura (2020)
4.0 - Shiver (Senritsu Seshimeyo - 2021)
4.0 - Silence and Sunset (2020)
4.0 - Sleepless Beauty (Ya ne Splyu - 2020)
4.0 - Smoking Causes Coughing (Fumer Fait Tousser - 2022)
4.0 - Song of the Assassins (Qing Mian Xiuluo - 2022)
4.0 - Suzume (Suzume no Tojimari - 2022)
4.0 - The Advent Calendar (Le Calendrier - 2021)
4.0 - The Falls (Pu Bu - 2021)
4.0 - The French Dispatch (2021)
4.0 - The Mole Song: Final (Mogura no Uta Final - 2021)
4.0 - The Sadness (Ku Bei - 2021)
4.0 - The Superdeep (Kolskaya Sverhglubokaya - 2020)
4.0 - The Trip (I Onde Dager - 2021)
4.0 - The Wandering Moon (Ruro no Tsuki - 2022)
4.0 - Titane (2021)
4.0 - We Couldn't Become Adults (Bokutachi wa Minna Otona ni Narenakatta - 2021)
4.0 - What to Do with the Dead Kaiju? (Dai Kaijû no Ato Shimatsu - 2022)
4.0 - Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Guzen to Sozo - 2021)
4.0 - White Snake 2: Green Snake (Bai She 2: Qing She Jie Qi - 2021)
4.0 - Willy's Wonderland (2021)

[Tngy]

All of my favorites have been mentioned yet, except for Falcon Lake. Really good debut from Charlotte le Bon.

[AdamH]

I've watched a few more since my last post. I think this is the most I've watched films for years so it's nice to be back into film-watching again. I'm really only watching one a day at most (sometimes 0) and not binge-watching generally.

Watched:
-Dick Johnson is Dead (2020)
-Elvis (2022)
-Tár (2022)
-The Power of the Dog (2021)
-Licorice Pizza (2021)
-Mass (2021)

Of that group of films, my favourites were easily Mass and Tár. Mass is very interesting single-location film (I often like these a lot) with strong acting performances. It's about two sets of parents meeting (one set are the parents of the victim of a school shooting and another are the parents of the perpetrator). I've added Mass to my 500<400 although it will definitely be gone by next year (yet again, I'm surprised at a newer film having <400 checks although that seems common now).

In terms of Tár, Cate Blanchett was excellent and carried the film.

I've now seen all but seven of the Best Picture nominees from the 2020s and I'm slowly working through them although I'm definitely not exclusively focusing on them as I'm just going for whatever film interests me on a given day.

I also watched Boiling Point (2023). The four-episode TV series that followed the 2021 feature film and 2019 short film of the same name. Worth noting that the short was 2019 because I've read some negative comparisons to The Bear almost suggesting it is a rip-off but that seems unfair (I haven't seen The Bear yet but the Boiling Point idea came before it was even released). Definitely recommend the TV series it if you liked the feature film although it doesn't use the one-shot technique from the film.

[Torgo]

Too soon for 2023, since it's still happening, but here are my 5/5s of 2020-22. As you can see, 2021 was a monster year. I have 12 from that year alone.

Actors (Betsey Brown)
Aftersun (Charlotte Wells)
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (Alejandro G. Inarritu)
Benedetta (Paul Verhoeven)

Blonde (Andrew Dominik)
Bye Bye Morons (Albert Dupontel)
The Card Counter (Paul Schrader)
Da 5 Bloods (Spike Lee)
The Devil All the Time (Antonio Campos)

EO (Jerzy Skolimowski)
Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time (Hideaki Anno)
Moonage Daydream (Brett Morgen)
Parallel Mothers (Pedro Almodovar)
Petite Maman (Celine Sciamma)

Promising Young Woman (Emerald Fennell)
Titane (Julia Ducournau)
Triangle of Sadness (Ruben Ostlund)
The Velvet Underground (Todd Haynes)
Vortex (Gaspar Noe)

The Whale (Darren Aronofsky)
The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier)
Zack Snyder's Justice League (Zack Snyder)
Zeros and Ones (Abel Ferrara)

You didn't support these in the poll. Zack Snyder will be very sad