*Click on the ‘Lists & Logs’ tab to see lists from previous years.
This list will be updated each time I see a film which had its world premiere in 2014 that is better than at least one of the films already on the list.
- Goodbye to Language (Jean-Luc Godard)
- Interstellar (Christopher Nolan)
- Boyhood (Richard Linklater)
- Journey to the West (Tsai Ming-liang)
- Horse Money (Pedro Costa)
- Phoenix (Christian Petzold)
- Approaching the Elephant (Amanda Rose Wilder)
- National Gallery (Frederick Wiseman)
- Li’l Quinquin (Bruno Dumont)
- natural history (James Benning)
Polls Top 10 (eligible titles appear/will appear here)
- Goodbye to Language (2014, Jean-Luc Godard)
- The Strange Little Cat (2013, Ramon Zürcher)
- Boyhood (2014, Richard Linklater)
- MANAKAMANA (2013, Stephanie Spray & Pacho Velez)
- Norte, the End of History (2013, Lav Diaz)
- Stranger by the Lake (2013, Alain Guiraudie)
- Stray Dogs (2013, Tsai Ming-liang)
- National Gallery (2014, Frederick Wiseman)
- Nymphomaniac: Volume II (2013, Lars von Trier)
- Gone Girl (2014, David Fincher)
My Top 10 Discoveries During 2014 (only first-time viewings of films made before 2000 are eligible)
- The Marquise of O (1976, Eric Rohmer)
- The Magnificent Ambersons (1942, Orson Welles)
- Sorcerer (1977, William Friedkin)
- Je t’aime je t’aime (1968, Alain Resnais)
- The Big Sleep (1946, Howard Hawks)
- King Lear (1987, Jean-Luc Godard)
- My Darling Clementine (1946, John Ford)
- The Clock (1945, Vincente Minnelli)
- Far from Vietnam (1967, Alain Resnais, William Klein, Joris Ivens, Agnès Varda, Claude Lelouch, Jean-Luc Godard, & Chris Marker)
- The Bride of Frankenstein (1935, James Whale)
Other 2014 films I’ve seen
- A Midsummer’s Fantasia (Jang Kun-jae) – 7.2
- Amour fou (Jessica Hausner) – 7.1
- Not My Type (Lucas Belvaux) – 7.1
- Welcome to New York (Abel Ferrara) – 7.0
- Gone Girl (David Fincher) – 7.0
- Hill of Freedom (Hong Sang-soo) – 6.9
- Lucy (Luc Besson) – 6.8
- A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (Roy Andersson) – 6.8
- Two Days, One Night (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne) – 6.8
- Maps to the Stars (David Cronenberg) – 6.7
- Bird People (Pascale Ferran) – 6.7
- Jauja (Lisandro Alonso) – 6.6
- Heaven Knows What (Joshua & Benny Safdie) – 6.6
- Beloved Sisters (Dominik Graf) – 6.6
- Eden (Mia Hansen-Løve) – 6.6
- The Mend (John Magary) – 6.5
- Rules of the Game (Claudine Bories & Patrice Chagnard) – 6.5
- The Kindergarten Teacher (Nadav Lapid) – 6.5
- Saint Laurent (Bertrand Bonello) – 6.4
- Gabriel (Lou Howe) – 6.4
- Appropriate Behavior (Desiree Akhavan) – 6.4
- Winter Sleep (Nuri Bilge Ceylan) – 6.4
- Edge of Tomorrow (Doug Liman) – 6.4
- Court (Chaitanya Tamhane) – 6.3
- Tu dors Nicole (Stéphane Lafleur) – 6.3
- The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson) – 6.3
- Hypnosis Display (Paul Clipson) – 6.3
- About 12 (Martín Shanly) – 6.3
- Obvious Child (Gillian Robespierre) – 6.3
- Noah (Darren Aronofsky) – 6.3
- Félix & Meira (Maxime Giroux) – 6.3
- Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson) – 6.2
- Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas) – 6.2
- The Wonders (Alice Rohrwacher) – 6.2
- Love is Strange (Ira Sachs) – 6.2
- Life of Riley (Alain Resnais) – 6.2
- This Afternoon (Stephen Cone) – 6.2
- In the Name of My Daughter (André Téchiné) – 6.2
- Alleluia (Fabrice Du Welz) – 6.1
- La Sapienza (Eugène Green) – 6.1
- Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portrait (Ossama Mohammed) – 6.1
- Tales of the Grim Sleeper (Nick Broomfield) – 6.1
- Eat Your Bones (Jean-Charles Hue) – 6.1
- Force Majeure (Ruben Östlund) – 6.0
- Gett, the Trial of Viviane Amsalem (Ronit Elkabetz & Shlomi Elkabetz) – 6.0
- Actress (Robert Greene) – 6.0
- What We Do in the Shadows (Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi) – 6.0
- CITIZENFOUR (Laura Poitras) – 6.0
- Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako) – 6.0
- Happy Christmas (Joe Swanberg) – 6.0
- Maïdan (Sergei Loznitsa) – 5.9
- It Follows (David Robert Mitchell) – 5.9
- Whiplash (Damien Chazelle) – 5.9
- Ellie Lumme (Ignatiy Vishnevetsky) – 5.9
- The Lies of the Victors (Christoph Hochhäusler) – 5.9
- See No Evil (Jos de Putter) – 5.9
- The Possibilities Are Endless (James Hall & Edward Lovelace) – 5.9
- Episode of the Sea (Lonnie van Brummelen, Siebren de Haan, & the inhabitants of Urk) – 5.8
- Ned Rifle (Hal Hartley) – 5.8
- Christmas, Again (Charles Poekel) – 5.8
- Listen Up Philip (Alex Ross Perry) – 5.8
- The Iron Ministry (J.P. Sniadecki) – 5.8
- When Marnie Was There (Hiromasa Yonebayashi) – 5.8
- The Homesman (Tommy Lee Jones) – 5.8
- Ming of Harlem: Twenty One Storeys in the Air (Phillip Warnell) – 5.8
- Rich Hill (Andrew Droz Palermo & Tracy Droz Tragos) – 5.8
- August Winds (Gabriel Mascaro) – 5.7
- The Overnighters (Jesse Moss) – 5.7
- Manglehorn (David Gordon Green) – 5.7
- Hit 2 Pass (Kurt Walker) – 5.6
- I Am the People (Anna Roussillon) – 5.6
- Something, Anything (Paul Harrill) – 5.6
- A Most Violent Year (J.C. Chandor) – 5.6
- Joy of Man’s Desiring (Denis Côté) – 5.6
- The Mystery of Life (Stephen Cone) – 5.6
- The Vanquishing of the Witch Baba Yaga (Jessica Oreck) – 5.6
- Happy Valley (Amir Bar-Lev) – 5.6
- Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh) – 5.5
- Detroit Transect: Spine (Marc Downie & Paul Kaiser) – 5.5
- While We’re Young (Noah Baumbach) – 5.5
- L for Leisure (Lev Kalman & Whitney Horn) – 5.5
- Mar (Dominga Sotomayor) – 5.5
- Sand Dollars (Laura Amelia Guzmán & Israel Cárdenas) – 5.5
- Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 2 (Johnnie To) – 5.5
- Angels of Revolution (Aleksei Fedorchenko) – 5.5
- (Be)Longing (João Pedro Plácido) – 5.5
- Queen and Country (John Boorman) – 5.5
- She’s Funny That Way (Peter Bogdanovich) – 5.4
- The Lego Movie (Phil Lord & Christopher Miller) – 5.4
- Spartacus & Cassandra (Ioanis Nuguet) – 5.4
- Wild (Jean- Marc Vallée) – 5.4
- Art and Craft (Jennifer Grausman & Sam Cullman) – 5.4
- Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (David Zellner) – 5.4
- The Tribe (Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy) – 5.4
- Guardians of the Galaxy (James Gunn) – 5.4
- Pasolini (Abel Ferrara) – 5.3
- The Second Game (Corneliu Porumboiu) – 5.3
- The Blue Room (Mathieu Amalric) – 5.3
- The Guests (Ken Jacobs) – 5.3
- The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq (Guillaume Nicloux) – 5.3
- Breathe (Mélanie Laurent) – 5.3
- Black Coal, Thin Ice (Diao Yinan) – 5.3
- The Interview (Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen) – 5.3
- Dear White People (Justin Simien) – 5.3
- Wild Tales (Damián Szifron) – 5.3
- Misunderstood (Asia Argento) – 5.3
- The Songs of Rice (Uruphong Raksasad) – 5.3
- Futuro Beach (Karim Aïnouz) – 5.2
- The Tale of Princess Kaguya (Isao Takahata) – 5.2
- Still Alice (Richard Glatzer & Wash Westmoreland) – 5.2
- Here’s to the Future! (Gina Telaroli) – 5.2
- 1001 Grams (Bent Hamer) – 5.2
- The Salvation (Kristian Levring) – 5.2
- Jimmy’s Hall (Ken Loach) – 5.1
- The Look of Silence (Joshua Oppenheimer) – 5.1
- Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy) – 5.1
- Last Days in Vietnam (Rory Kennedy) – 5.1
- Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Alejandro G. Iñárritu) – 5.1
- Party Girl (Marie Amachoukeli, Claire Burger, & Samuel Theis) – 5.1
- Unfriended (Levan Gabriadze) – 5.0
- White Nights on the Pier (Paul Vecchiali) – 5.0
- Letters to Max (Eric Baudelaire) – 5.0
- Tokyo Tribe (Sion Sono) – 5.0
- Mercuriales (Virgil Vernier) – 5.0
- Non-Stop (Jaume Collet-Serra) – 5.0
- Dumb and Dumber To (Bobby & Peter Farrelly) – 5.0
- Two Shots Fired (Martín Rejtman) – 5.0
- Guidelines (Jean-François Caissy) – 5.0
- Of Men and War (Laurent Bécue-Renard) – 5.0
- The Princess of France (Matías Piñeiro) – 4.9
- Foxcatcher (Bennett Miller) – 4.9
- From What is Before (Lav Diaz) – 4.9
- ’71 (Yann Demange) – 4.9
- A Hard Day (Kim Seong-hun) – 4.9
- Run (Philippe Lacôte) – 4.9
- Mommy (Xavier Dolan) – 4.8
- Beautiful Youth (Jaime Rosales) – 4.8
- Cathedrals of Culture (Wim Wenders, Michael Glawogger, Michael Madsen, Robert Redford, Margreth Olin, & Karim Aïnouz) – 4.8
- Iris (Albert Maysles) – 4.8
- Love & Mercy (Bill Pohlad) – 4.8
- Los Hongos (Oscar Ruiz Navia) – 4.8
- Storm Children: Book One (Lav Diaz) – 4.7
- The Captive (Atom Egoyan) – 4.7
- Flapping in the Middle of Nowhere (Diep Hoang Nguyen) – 4.7
- The Theory of Everything (James Marsh) – 4.7
- The Immortalists (David Alvarado & Jason Sussberg) – 4.7
- Androids Dream (Ion De Sosa) – 4.6
- A Girl at My Door (July Jung) – 4.6
- Far from Men (David Oelhoffen) – 4.6
- The Imitation Game (Morten Tyldum) – 4.6
- 22 Jump Street (Phil Lord & Christopher Miller) – 4.5
- Girlhood (Celine Sciamma) – 4.5
- Fort Buchanan (Benjamin Crotty) – 4.5
- Selma (Ava DuVernay) – 4.4
- In the Basement (Ulrich Seidl) – 4.4
- Elephant Song (Charles Binamé) – 4.4
- Snow in Paradise (Andrew Hulme) – 4.4
- Darker Than Midnight (Sebastiano Riso) – 4.3
- Violet (Bas Devos) – 4.3
- Get on Up (Tate Taylor) – 4.3
- The Salt of the Earth (Wim Wenders & Juliano Ribeiro Salgado) – 4.3
- Time Out of Mind (Oren Moverman) – 4.2
- The Search (Michel Hazanavicius) – 4.2
- Red Army (Polsky Gabe) – 4.2
- When Animals Dream (Jonas Alexander Arnby) – 4.1
- The Babadook (Jennifer Kent) – 4.1
- Living Stars (Mariano Cohn & Gastón Duprat) – 4.1
- A Most Wanted Man (Anton Corbijn) – 4.1
- Leviathan (Andrei Zvyagintsev) – 4.0
- The Corral and the Wind (Miguel Hilari) – 4.0
- Concerning Violence (Göran Olsson) – 3.9
- Lost River (Ryan Gosling) – 3.9
- Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (Spike Lee) – 3.8
- An Eye for Beauty (Denys Arcand) – 3.8
- Still the Water (Naomi Kawase) – 3.6
- Hippocrates (Thomas Lilti) – 3.6
- The Duke of Burgundy (Peter Strickland) – 3.5
- Coming Home (Zhang Yimou) – 3.5
- A Girl Walks Home Alone (Ana Lily Amirpour) – 3.4
- Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller) – 3.3
- Calvary (John Michael McDonagh) – 3.3
- White God (Kornél Mundruczó) – 3.2
- The New Girlfriend (François Ozon) – 3.2
- Fires on the Plain (Shinya Tsukamoto) – 3.1
- Return to Ithaca (Laurent Cantet) – 3.0
- The Girl and the River (Aurélia Georges) – 3.0
- Le beau danger (René Frölke) – 2.9
- Grace of Monaco (Olivier Dahan) – 2.9
- The Cobbler (Thomas McCarthy) – 2.7