Best Films of 2015

This year Film Comment invited me to vote in their "Best Movies of 2015" poll. Here's my ballot for their two categories:

20 Best films that received a commercial/theatrical run in the U.S. in 2015

1. Hard to Be a God (Aleksey German, Russia)

2. Horse Money (Pedro Costa, Portugal)

3. The Forbidden Room (Guy Maddin & Evan Johnson, Canada)

4. Jauja (Lisandro Alonso, Argentina)

5. The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, Taiwan)

6. The Gift (Joel Edgerton, USA)

7. Phoenix (Christian Petzold, Germany)

8. Carol (Todd Haynes, USA)

9. Office (Johnnie To, Hong Kong)

10. Tokyo Tribe (Shion Sono, Japan)

11. The Princess of France (Matías Piñeiro, Argentina)

12. Two Shots Fired (Martín Rejtman, Argentina)

13.  Li’l Quinquin (Bruno Dumont, France)

14. A Poem is a Naked Person (Les Blank, USA)

15. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, Australia)

16. Breathe (Respire) (Mélanie Laurent, France)

17. Stinking Heaven (Nathan Silver, USA)

18. Tangerine (Sean Baker, USA)

19. Experimenter (Michael Almereyda, USA)

20. The World of Kanako (Tetsuya Nakashima, Japan)

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20 Best new films without U.S. distribution (i.e. films screened in festivals or elsewhere but with no U.S. theatrical release plans or distributor at the moment)

1. The Grief of Others (Patrick Wang, USA)

2. The Smell of Us (Larry Clark, France)

3. Men Go to Battle (Zachary Treitz, USA)

4. The Devil’s Candy (Sean Byrne, USA)

5. The Sky Trembles and the Earth Is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers (Ben Rivers, UK)

6. Mountains May Depart (Jia Zhangke, China)

7.  Revivre (Im Kwon-taek, South Korea)

8.  For the Plasma (Bingham Bryant & Kyle Molzan, USA)

9. Violet (Bas Devos, Belgium)

10. Violator (Dodo Dayao, Philippines)

11. Stranded in Canton (Måns Månsson & Li Hongqi, Denmark)

12. Toto and His Sisters (Alexander Nanau, Romania)

13. In Transit (Albert Maysles, Lynn True, David Ursui, Nelson Walker III, & Benjamin Wu, USA)

14. Machine Gun or Typewriter? (Travis Wilkerson, USA)

15. Crocodile Grennadiy (Steve Hoover, USA)