25. Frantz (2016, Francois Ozon, France)

Francois Ozon is a prolific French film director who has delivered film after film since his feature film debut in 1997. Among them I regard Frantz as the best one so far.  Shot largely in black-and-white, Ozon recreates the heavy atmosphere of misery and loss after WWI. Frantz is the name of a young German soldier who died in the war. His fiancé Anna, marvelously played by the German actress Paula Beer, has stayed behind and lives with the parents of Frantz in the small town of Oldenburg. She takes care of the grave, mourning about the loss of her loved one to war. One day she sees a French young soldier, Adrien, placing a flower on the grave of her fiancée. He claims to have been a close friend of Frantz, while they met in Paris before the war. Slowly he is welcomed as a friend of the family, although the town is still simmering with nationalistic feelings.

Ozon switches to colour for some short key moments later in the film. This always relates to the emotions of his protagonists, letting music, memories and love to call forth colour. The sad after-war everyday life with its repressive village-atmosphere is completely shown in grey nuances. In the second part Anna takes the initiative to go and find Adrien in Paris. Is there a way forward through grief, guilt and sorrow towards love, forgiveness and new beginnings?

24. Le Havre (2011, Aki Kaurismäki, Finland)

This entirely lovable film from Finland’s best-known film director is like all Kaurismäki’s films: sober, unconventional and warm-hearted. It tells us there is a place for goodness in a cruel and heartless world. One of the recurring themes in Kaurismäki’s work is how the hopes and dreams of small people are crushed by an uncaring society. In Le Havre Marcel is a retired man who earns some money as a shoeshine man. He lives with his loving wife Arletty in a modest house in a neighborhood of similarly unassuming people. One day he runs into a young boy Idrissa, an illegal immigrant, whom he protects and he gives him room in his home. The whole neighborhood helps to take care of him and starts to raise money for Idrissa so that he can move on to London to meet his mother. While they have their own problems, Arletty being brought to the hospital in grave condition, this is a story of a man who is choosing to do the right thing in a world that has little place and heart for the little one. We desperately need stories about the warmth of the human heart.

23. Sunset Song (2015, Terence Davies, UK)

Once again I needed to make a choice between three great films the UK director Terence Davies made during the past decade. I love his elegant, contemplative, melancholic story-telling. I was equally fascinated by the self-destructive love affair from the 1950’s in The Deep Blue Sea (2011) as by the story of the poet Emily Dickenson in A Quiet Passion (2016).

But my choice for this list went to Sunset Song (2015), the story of Chris Guthrie, the daughter of a Scottish farmer in the early 1900’s. It is a film about growing up in rural Scotland with a family in fear of a harsh, abusive husband and father. The family falls apart but it is the land that is the constant, that which endures, while humans strive and struggle, hurt each other, come and go, trying to make the best of what they have. Chris is sucked into this maelstrom of strivings, of inflicted pains, of future hopes, but chooses to stay faithful to the land after the suicide of her mother and the death of her father. The story asks important questions about roots, about how we handle a difficult, abusive past and work through a painful present, about forgiveness, about a helpful insight that our lives are just a breath, that we write our story on a land that endures longer than us.

22. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019, Céline Sciamma, France)

Céline Sciammas’s third feature Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a visually breathtaking film containing  lots of big ideas. It is one of those films that rewards rewatching and rethinking, not only for its beauty, but also for its thoughtful, sensitive treatment of issues like art, seeing, memory, loss, freedom and love. The story is set in the second half of the eighteenth century on an isolated French island. The film starts with the arrival on the island of the artist Marianne who has been assigned to paint a portrait of Heloïse, the daughter of a widowed countess. The countess needs the portrait as part of a pre-marital arrangement, in which Heloïse is an unwilling part. So she is told that Marianne is brought to the island as a companion for her. While they are walking and talking, Marianne has to pick up glances and moods and then from memory bring them in private to the canvas. Over the course of their walks and talks, their relationship starts to change. If you never have thought about the power of a look and about where our looks originate from, see this film!

21. Clouds of Sils Maria (2014, Oliver Assayas, France)

Clouds of Sils Maria is a fascinating, intelligent film from Oliver Assayas with Juliette Binoche and Kirsten Stewart in outstanding leading roles. Binoche plays Maria Enders, an accomplished actress who is asked to take a role in the re-staging of a play from the start of her career twenty years ago. She played at that time a young, opportunistic woman, Sigrid, who enters into a complex relationship with her boss Helena, a relationship that ultimately drives Helena to suicide. Now twenty years later she is asked to play the Helena role and the role of Sigrid will be played by a young, superficial Hollywood actress. Stewart plays Maria’s personal assistant, Val, with whom she rehearses the lines and who has a different, more youthful take on the play. Maria dislikes the role of Sigrid, as it comes too close to her own reality and age. Maria’s reluctant preparation for this role makes her face many important issues like aging, success, art, celebrity and love. A character study that held me in its grip!