The directors’ cut: film-makers choose the best movies of the century so far
Barry Jenkins
Silent Light (2007)
The purest cinema. Thinking of it gives me the same feeling I had when the credits rolled on my first viewing of it over a decade ago. (I wonder how many other films on this list were in competition at the 2007 Cannes? What an astounding year for cinema.)
Andrew Haigh
Uzak (2002)
It is a gentle and profoundly compassionate film, one of the best about loneliness ever made. I think about it all the time.
Hirokazu Kore-eda
Secret Sunshine (2007)
Lee Chang-dong’s deep insight into human nature is reflected in the film.
Joanna Hogg
Margaret (2011)
An epic story about a New York teenager facing a complex moral dilemma in the shadow of 9/11. It’s told in a multi-faceted way that refuses to simplify or obey an overarching story, which only enhances the emotional veracity. I believe we respond to films subjectively - how, when and what mood we’re in when we watch a film - has to be taken into account when we pass judgement on a film. I saw Margaret projected in perfect conditions with an open mind and heart one night in 2011 at The Rex Berkhamsted - and was completely carried away by it. All too soon watching a film like Margaret in a beautiful cinema will be an experience of the past. We must do what we can to keep cinemas alive.
Mike Leigh
The Death of Mr Lazarescu (2005)
Exemplary low-budget masterpiece about a sick old guy being carted from hospital to hospital in the middle of the night. Honest. Direct. Real. Moving. Comic. Tragic.
Bradd Pitt in The Tree of Life. Photograph: Allstar/ICON FILM DISTRIBUTION/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar
Richard Linklater
The Tree of Life (2011)
For its vast ambition and meditative grace. It somehow manages to be both an intimate memory film while taking on the notion of all of existence. And I love the way it confounds and challenges perception itself.
Kenneth Lonergan
Talk to Her (2002)
The best of anything is impossible to identify, but the movie that keeps coming to my mind is Pedro Almodovar’s Talk To Her. How does he move so freely through this story? How does he attach these strange and loving characters to each other, to the music and the dance performances, to Sleeping Beauty, silent film, loneliness, innocence, fetishism, and the colour red?
Lucrecia Martel
Familia Sumergida (A Family Submerged) (2018)
Because it reveals eternal life in family conversations.
Steve McQueen
Café Lumière (2003)
A film that happens without you knowing.
Joshua Oppenheimer
I just can’t bring myself to name one film over all others. Can I spread the love and offer these:
Code Unknown (2000)
Dogtooth (2009)
Happy as Lazzaro (2018)
Import/Export (2007)
Nobody Knows (2004)
I’m so sorry – I have little practice at naming favourites.
László Nemes
Meek’s Cutoff (2010)
I saw Meek’s Cutoff in Paris when I was writing my first feature film, in 2011. Traditional cinema projection was already dying, but this film was screened in 35mm, and it was beautiful and hypnotic. I remember the profound impression this film made on me, with its maze-like experience, the humanistic point of view, the small scale against the huge western backdrop, the unanswered questions about humanity, savagery and civilisation. For me, this film is what cinema can achieve, even after the age of the “Masters” (but certainly influenced by it) - take the viewer on a journey that they can be a part of.
Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf Of Wall Street Photograph: Allstar
Trey Parker and Matt Stone
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
We love everything George Miller has ever done and Fury Road will be his crowning achievement until, maybe, his next film comes out.
Pawel Pawlikowski
I have a real problem. There is no one film I liked most. I loved equally:
La Cienaga (2001)
The Death of Mr Lazarescu (2005)
You, the Living (2007)
Silent Light (2007)
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011)
The Embrace of the Serpent (2016)

They all took me to places I’d never been to before, each one of them in its own, original way.
Sarah Polley
A Hidden Life (2019)
Watching A Hidden Life was a transformative experience for me. A call to arms.
Paolo Sorrentino
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
The finest comedy intermingled with the contemporary drama of humanity as it seeks a meaning and strength in its own existence, but ends up becoming a prisoner of the same, trapped in itself. And apart from that it’s as fine a lesson in style and imagination that any director could wish for.
Theo Who Lived. Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy
Michael Winterbottom
Theo Who Lived (2016)
I think choosing lists of the top 10 this or the best 10 that is a bit of a pointless task. I don’t even really have favourite films. There are loads of films that I like. If you asked me right now which film I would like to see again from the last 20 years it might be The Beat That My Heart Skipped by Jacques Audiard, or City of God by Fernando Mereilles. But if the point of a list is to encourage people to watch a film they haven’t seen then I’d pick Theo Who Lived (2016) – not for the film itself, but for the amazing story it tells.