Top 10 of 2026

*Click on the ‘Lists & Logs’ tab to see lists from previous years.

This list will be updated each time I see a film from 2026 (world premiere/imdb date) that is better than at least one of the films already on the list.

  1. The Rib of the Greater Bay Area (Zhou Tao)
  2. The Unknown (Arthur Harari)
  3. You Can See Everything (Nathan Fielder & Lance Oppenheim)
  4. Last Stop for the Circular Ticket (Jean-Claude Rousseau)
  5. NAZA (Yuval Abraham & Rachel Szor)
  6. My Wife Cries (Angela Schanelec)
  7. Chronovisor (Kevin Walker & Jack Auen)
  8. Bucking Fastard (Werner Herzog)
  9. Queen at Sea (Lance Hammer)
  10. Double Freedom (Lisandro Alonso)

 

Polls Top 10 (Eligible titles [will] appear here.)

  1. Dry Leaf (2025, Alexandre Koberidze)
  2. The Periphery of the Base (2024, Zhou Tao)
  3. You Can See Everything (2026, Nathan Fielder & Lance Oppenheim)
  4. NAZA (2026, Yuval Abraham & Rachel Szor)
  5. Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie (2025, Matt Johnson)
  6. Chime (2024, Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
  7. Chronovisor (2026, Kevin Walker & Jack Auen)
  8. The Invisible Zoo (2024, Romuald Karmakar)
  9. The Adamant Girl (2024, P.S. Vinothraj)
  10. Queen at Sea (2026, Lance Hammer)

 

Top 10 “Oldies” (first-time viewings of films made before 2010)

  1. Aspen (1991, Frederick Wiseman)
  2. Dekalog, Six (1989, Krzysztof Kieslowski)
  3. Our Century (1983, Artavazd Pelechian)
  4. Shakedown (1950, Joseph Pevney)
  5. Saboteur (1942, Alfred Hitchcock)
  6. The Young One (1960, Luis Buñuel)
  7. Intruder in the Dust (1949, Clarence Brown)
  8. The Seats of the Alcazar (1989, Luc Moullet)
  9. Native Son (1951, Pierre Chenal)
  10. Klute (1971, Alan J. Pakula)

 

Other 2026 films I’ve seen

  • What Can’t Be Mentioned (Dan Sallitt) – 6.5
  • London (Sebastian Brameshuber) – 6.5
  • At Night (Beatrice Gibson) – 6.5
  • Disclosure Day (Steven Spielberg) – 6.5
  • Heil Jupiter! (Carlos Reygadas) – 6.4
  • Everything Else Is Noise (Nicolás Pereda) – 6.3
  • If I Were Alive (André Novais Oliveira) – 6.3
  • The Diary of a Chambermaid (Radu Jude) – 6.3
  • For the Moon (Eric Baudelaire) – 6.3
  • Nowhere to Lay My Eyes (Hong Sang-soo) – 6.2
  • Red Rocks (Bruno Dumont) – 6.1
  • EIGHT BRIDGES (James Benning) – 6.1
  • Doggerland (Kim Ekberg) – 6.1
  • Parallel Tales (Asghar Farhadi) – 6.1
  • The World Before (Yoon Dan-bi) – 6.0
  • Tomorrow a Long Time Ago (Luise Donschen) ~ 6.0
  • Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney (Matthew Rankin) – 5.9
  • The Beloved (Rodrigo Sorogoyen) – 5.9
  • The Loneliest Man in Town (Rainer Frimmel & Tizza Covi) – 5.8
  • The Black Box is Orange (Yuula Benivolski) – 5.8
  • Nightmare’s Advice (Renaud Després-Larose & Ana Tapia Rousiouk) – 5.8
  • Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (Jane Schoenbrun) – 5.8
  • Atlas of the Universe (Paul Negoescu) – 5.8
  • The Dreamed Adventure (Valeska Grisebach) – 5.7
  • September Afternoon (Nicolaas Schmidt) ~ 5.7
  • Magic Atlas (Sun Xun) ~ 5.7
  • Tycoon (Charlotte Zhang) – 5.7
  • I Rarely Wake Up Dreaming (Isabelle Stever) – 5.7
  • La Gradiva (Marine Atlan) – 5.6
  • Tender Loving Care (Mike Leigh) – 5.6
  • Paper Tiger (James Gray) – 5.6
  • All of a Sudden (Ryusuke Hamaguchi) – 5.6
  • The Bride! (Maggie Gyllenhaal) – 5.6
  • Dao (Alain Gomis) – 5.6
  • Small Talk (Mateo Ybarra) ~ 5.6
  • Mouse (Kelly O’Sullivan & Alex Thompson) – 5.5
  • Everest: The Other Side (Jimmy Chin & Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi) – 5.5
  • Vertiginous (Quentin Dupieux) – 5.5
  • Light Pillar (Xu Zao) – 5.5
  • DAU (Ilya Khrzhanovsky) – 5.4
  • Artificial (Luca Guadagnino) ~ 5.4
  • Everytime (Sandra Wollner) – 5.4
  • The Day She Returns (Hong Sang-soo) – 5.4
  • Nagi Notes (Kôji Fukada) – 5.4
  • Life of Jorge Luis Borges (Mariano Llinás) – 5.3
  • Hope (Na Hong-jin) – 5.2
  • The End of Oak Street (David Robert Mitchell) – 5.2
  • Skyscraper Live (Joe DeMaio) – 5.2
  • The Drama (Kristoffer Borgli) – 5.2
  • Tony (Matt Johnson) – 5.2
  • The Debut (Jesse Eisenberg) – 5.1
  • The Misconceived (James N. Kienitz Wilkins) – 5.1
  • The Samurai and the Prisoner (Kiyoshi Kurosawa) – 5.1
  • Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People? (Shinya Tsukamoto) – 5.1
  • Foreign Travel (Ted Fendt) – 5.1
  • Wild Horse Nine (Martin McDonagh) – 5.1
  • Club Kid (Jordan Firstman) – 5.1
  • The Pervert’s Guide to Utopias (Sophie Fiennes) – 5.1
  • You Don’t Belong Here (Florin Şerban) ~ 5.0
  • Minotaur (Andrey Zvyagintsev) – 5.0
  • Bitter Christmas (Pedro Almodóvar) – 5.0
  • Sixteen Moments of My Life (Albert Serra) ~ 5.0
  • Thanks for Coming (Alain Cavalier) – 5.0
  • Peacocks Come with the Clouds (Parastoo Anoushahpour) – 5.0
  • Tear Gas (Uta Beria) ~ 5.0
  • Nobody’s Violence (Denis Côté) ~ 4.9
  • Backrooms (Kane Parsons) ~ 4.9
  • Behemoth! (Tony Gilroy) ~ 4.9
  • Nox (Matti Harju) – 4.9
  • D’ici là (Sarah Leonor) ~ 4.9
  • Blind Song (Stefano Canapa & Natacha Muslera) – 4.9
  • WAX & GOLD (Ruth Beckermann) – 4.9
  • Flies (Fernando Eimbcke) – 4.9
  • Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft (James Cameron & Billie Eilish) – 4.8
  • The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer (Alessandra Sanguinetti) ~ 4.8
  • Fire Flower (Ana Vaz) ~ 4.8
  • Clarissa (Chuko Esiri & Arie Esiri) – 4.8
  • A Woman’s Life (Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet) – 4.8
  • Isabel (Gabe Klinger) – 4.8
  • Coward (Lukas Dhont) – 4.7
  • I Deserve a Lover Whose Every Rise Sets Fiery Dooms Raging Across the Skies (Mani Haghighi) – 4.7
  • Summer Meadow (Naël Khleifi & Lisa Debauche) ~ 4.7
  • The Invite (Olivia Wilde) ~ 4.6
  • 9 Temples to Heaven (Sompot Chidgasornpongse) – 4.6
  • Once Upon a Time in Harlem (David Greaves) – 4.6
  • Union Town (Barbara Kopple) ~ 4.6
  • Revolutionaries Never Die (Mohanad Yaqubi) ~ 4.6
  • Cesarean Weekend (Mohammad Schirvani) – 4.6
  • The Electric Kiss (Pierre Salvadori) – 4.5
  • The Moths & the Flame (Kevin Contento) – 4.5
  • Rose (Markus Schleinzer) – 4.4
  • Rosebush Pruning (Karim Aïnouz) ~ 4.4
  • La Bola Negra (Javier Calvo & Javier Ambrossi) – 4.4
  • Rehmat (Gurvinder Singh) ~ 4.4
  • A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra (Jacqueline Lentzou) ~ 4.3
  • Fatherland (Paweł Pawlikowski) – 4.3
  • Misty Green (Chris Rock) – 4.3
  • The Days Off (Lucila Mariani) ~ 4.3
  • Brave New Love (Maria Bäck) ~ 4.3
  • Donkey Princess (Cristóbal León & Joaquín Cociña) ~ 4.2
  • Elsinore (Simon Stone) – 4.2
  • Trial of Hein (Kai Stänicke) – 4.2
  • In All My Journeys I Am Returning (Manuel Ponce de León) ~ 4.2
  • The Riverbank (Matheus Farias & Enock Carvalho) ~ 4.2
  • Ego Reach We All (Amartei Armar) ~ 4.2
  • Nina Roza (Geneviève Dulude-de Celles) – 4.2
  • The Last Photograph (Zack Snyder) – 4.1
  • The Odyssey (Christopher Nolan) – 4.1
  • Woman Unknown (May el-Toukhy) – 4.1
  • The House on the Moon (Nelson Yeo) ~ 4.1
  • La Perra (Dominga Sotomayor) – 4.1
  • Bardi (Tala Hadid) ~ 4.1
  • Far From the Trees (Meritxell Colell Aparicio) ~ 4.1
  • A Man of His Time (Emmanuel Marre) – 4.0
  • Full Phil (Quentin Dupieux) – 4.0
  • Glaxo (Benjamín Naishtat) – 4.0
  • Home Stories (Eva Trobisch) – 4.0
  • Overt Listening (Tiffany Sia) ~ 4.0
  • The Remotes (John Torres) ~ 3.9
  • The Man I Love (Ira Sachs) – 3.9
  • Objet a (Ann Oren) ~ 3.9
  • A Long Winter (Andrew Haigh) – 3.8
  • Cameron Winter at Carnegie Hall (Paul Thomas Anderson) ~ 3.8
  • Yo (Anna Fitch & Banker White) – 3.8
  • The Only Living Pickpocket in New York (Noah Segan) – 3.8
  • In Waves (Phuong-Mai Nguyen) – 3.8
  • Moulin (László Nemes) – 3.7
  • Possible Love (Lee Chang-dong) – 3.6
  • The History of Concrete (John Wilson) – 3.6
  • Hearing (Lê Bảo) ~ 3.6
  • Manhunt (Wayne Wapeemukwa) ~ 3.6
  • I Built A Rocket Imagining Your Arrival (Janaína Marques) – 3.6
  • Everybody Digs Bill Evans (Grant Gee) – 3.5
  • O Jacaré (Basil da Cunha) ~ 3.5
  • No Good Men (Shahrbanoo Sadat) – 3.4
  • Digger (Alejandro G. Iñárritu) ~ 3.3
  • Ketticè (Giovanni Tortorici) ~ 3.2
  • The Birthday Party (Léa Mysius) – 3.0
  • Project Hail Mary (Phil Lord & Chris Miller) – 2.9
  • Josephine (Beth de Araújo) – 2.9
  • Destroy All Girls (Erin Vassilopoulos) ~ 2.9
  • Gentle Monster (Marie Kreutzer) – 2.6
  • 水托邦 (Hydrotopia) (Chiemi Shimada & Jamie Man) – 2.5
  • Fjord (Cristian Mungiu) – 2.5
  • Butterfly Jam (Kantemir Balagov) – 2.4
  • At the Sea (Kornél Mundruczó) – 2.3
  • Her Private Hell (Nicolas Winding Refn) – 1.2