10 The Selfish Giant
Two lads prematurely enter the scrap metal trade in broken Bradford in a loose telling of the Oscar Wilde story. While not as riveting or miserable as director Clio Barnard's previous The Arbor - about the life of Bradford writer Andrea Dunbar - this is a solidly made, appropriately gray depiction of 21st century life in the working class North, where the legacy of Tory prime minister's past (Thatcher, whose death this year neatly coincided with the its release) and present (Cameron) continues to thrive savagely.
9 Only God Forgives
A small time gangster (Ryan Gosling) and a mysterious master of death play cat and mouse in underground Bangkok. Then Gosling's mother, played by Kristin Scott Thomas as a cross between Violet Kray and Tania Turner, turns up to complicate matters further. This is a weird, disjointed, and dark film, whose violence would be disturbing if the characters weren’t so alien; you never really connect with them. None the less, the style and the oddity of it all make it consistently entertaining.
8 Compliance
A fast food restaurant in backwater Ohio becomes a hotbed of exploitation and deceit over the course of a busy and chaotic day. Hard to imagine in most workplaces, but in this subservient, vaguely uneducated environment it seems like the most plausible thing in the world. Neatly told, tight and refreshingly matter-of-fact about the events it depicts.
7 Metro Manila
A gripping urban thriller about a rural family trying to scratch a living in the slums of Manila. Originally conceived as a British city-set story, this switched locations to the Philippines due to the country's favorable financing systems, and feels even better suited to the Far East than it would have done to the UK. Pulpy but human, twisty yet believable.
6 La Grande Bellezza/The Great Beauty
A once successful writer takes stock of his life between partying and philosophising in central Rome. This is a dense, slow film, massive in plot, character and incident, and likely to alienate many. Yet despite the multiple stories, ruminations on life, integrity and success, and vague allusions to Italian politics, this is really just a film about Rome itself. That beguiling, haunting, unique masterpiece of a city that makes and breaks people, dreams and lives, yet leaves an indelible mark on all those who pass through it, and won't allow those who hail from it to forget. The characters in this film come close to forgetting, but in the end they realise that this 'great beauty' they have spent their lives looking for has been there around them all along; the greatest beauty is Rome, and always has been.
5 In The House
A teacher becomes fascinated by the essays of one of his pupils, which recount a series of incidents - created or otherwise - in his life. Director Francois Ozon is a genius at peeling back the day-to-day eccentricities of contemporary France, especially in the American-style suburbs that surround the big cities. This film unfolds with the unnerving ambiguity of a very vivid dream; the viewer is never quite sure what's real and what's not. Kristin Scott Thomas turns in a nicely acerbic performance as the teacher's wife, while the young actors who play the pupil and his friend are uncommonly natural.
4 No
In late 80s Argentina, the public were asked to vote on whether Pinochet should stay in power for another eight years, or if there should be an open presidential election. This film tells the story of how TV advertising was used in the campaigns both for and against the General. A fascinating slice of political history.
3 Zero Dark Thirty
The slightly fictionalised but brilliantly made story of how the CIA caught Osama Bin Laden. This is director Kathryn Bigelow's best film since Point Break, a fast moving thriller loaded with shock moments and creeping tension. It's a little long and inevitably biased at times, but it thoroughly holds the attention.
2 Call Girl
In 70s Stockholm, a government peadophile ring acquired its victims from local orphanages, utilising the grooming powers of a grotesque madame. A very clever re-telling of a scandalous episode in Swedish history, and one which the country would presumably rather forget, hence its relative obscurity up 'til now. Mixing elements of Taxi Driver and The Baader-Meinhof Complex, this is both an emotional true story and a highly entertaining thriller about the old 70s of big cars and chain smoking. And the one time Abba do show up is subliminal and moving.
1 The Spirit of '45
The documentary equivalent of The Selfish Giant, the release of this film preceded the death of one of its chief villains by a mere few weeks. Director Ken Loach blasts through the screen with this fascinating examination of James Attlee's post war Labour government, whose ideals of social security, free health care, equality and fair play were briefly realised, only to be shattered by years of Tory rule, and have yet to be fully clawed back. Depressing, uplifting, inspiring; this had audiences cheering, jeering and - hopefully - campaigning after seeing it.