Top 5 U.S. Films “The Hurt Locker,” Kathryn Bigelow “The Limits of Control,” Jim Jarmusch “A Serious Man,” Joel and Ethan Coen “Two Lovers,” James Gray “The Fantastic Mr. Fox,” Wes Anderson —Ray Pride
Top 5 Foreign Films “Summer Hours,” Olivier Assayas “The Headless Woman,” Lucrecia Martel “35 Shots of Rum,” Claire Denis “You, the Living,” Roy Andersson “Night and Day,” Hong Sang-soo —Ray Pride
Top 5 Films “Where the Wild Things Are,” Spike Jonze “A Serious Man,” Joel and Ethan Coen “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” Werner Herzog “The Hurt Locker,” Kathryn Bigelow “Up in the Air,” Jason Reitman —Tom Lynch
Top 5 Lead Performances Charlotte Gainsbourg, “Antichrist” Tilda Swinton, “Julia” Jeremy Renner, “The Hurt Locker” Maria Onetto, “The Headless Woman” Nicolas Cage, “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” —Ray Pride
Top 5 Supporting Performances Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds” Mo’Nique, “Precious” Paul Schneider, “Bright Star” Peter Capaldi, “In the Loop” Melanie Laurent, “Inglourious Basterds” —Ray Pride
Top 5 Performances Nicolas Cage, “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds” Mo’Nique, “Precious” Michael Stuhlbarg, “A Serious Man” Sam Rockwell, “Moon” —Tom Lynch
Top 5 Directors Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker” Lucrecia Martel, “The Headless Woman” Olivier Assayas, “Summer Hours” Claire Denis, “35 Shots of Rum” James Gray, “Two Lovers” —Ray Pride
Top 5 Documentaries “The Beaches Of Agnes,” Agnes Varda “Of Time And The City,” Terence Davies “Oblivion,” Heddy Honigmann “24 City,” Jia Zhang Ke “Forbidden Lie$,” Anna Broinowski —Ray Pride
Top 5 First Features Steve McQueen, “Hunger” Barry Jenkins, “Medicine for Melancholy” Armando Iannucci, “In the Loop” Antonio Campos, “Afterschool” Oren Moverman, “The Messenger”
Top 5 Films of Previous Years That I Finally Saw in 2009 (with one exception) “The Bands Visit,” Eran Kolirin (2007) “Hidden,” Hanna Heilborn (2002) “The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello,” Anthony Lucas (2005) “Paradise Now,” Hany Abu-Assad (2005) “The Unmaking of I Am A Sex Addict,” Caveh Zahedi (2009!) —Damien James
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Film Top 5: May 2018 Cinema from Euro elders, including Philippe Garrel, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Paul Schrader, Wim Wenders and a look at the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Film Top 5: August 2019 Chicago in the 1930s; Houston in the 1970s; a world of water; and the streets of Sheffield as if destroyed by distant nuclear war.
Film Top 5: April 2019 Into space with Claire Denis and South Florida miasma with Harmony Korine, as well as morsels of life from Hong Sang-soo, sprawling modern life from Patrick Wang and Alison Klayman deciphering the trail Steve Bannon cannot but leave behind.
Film Top 5: September 2020 Charlie Kaufman thinks, once more, as always, of ending it all; whimsitician Miranda July returns; Chicago Latino Film Festival goes virtual; Gerard Butler may or may not save the planet from a comet; and "Tenet" promises to time-invert over Labor Day in non-pandemic hotspot localities.
