Year-end lists are an annual highlight, and 2020 is no exception. Each year, our staff publishes a selection of their top films and memorable cinematic experiences. As a vital part of the FLC community, we encourage you to share some of your favorite films of 2020 as well! Submit your picks on Twitter or Instagram.
Dennis Lim, Director of Programming for Film at Lincoln Center and the New York Film Festival
2020 premieres:
1. Days (Tsai Ming-liang)
2. The Year of the Discovery (Luis Lopez Carrasco)
3. Lovers Rock (Steve McQueen)
4. The Last City (Heinz Emigholz)
5. Los Conductos (Camilo Restrepo)
6. The Calming (Song Fang)
7. The Woman Who Ran (Hong Sangsoo)
8. The Works and Days (C.W. Winter & Anders Erdstrom)
9. Undine (Christian Petzold)
10. The Metamorphosis of Birds (Catarina Vasconcelos)
Ten more, alphabetical: Cenote (Kaori Oda), Expedition Content (Ernst Karel and Veronika Kusumaryati), Fauna (Nicolas Pereda), The Inheritance (Ephraim Asili), Isabella (Matias Pineiro), Malmkrog (Cristi Puiu), Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman), Notturno (Gianfranco Rosi), The Salt of Tears (Philippe Garrel), The Two Sights (Joshua Bonnetta)
Ten short/medium-length films, alphabetical: Apiyemiyeki? (Ana Vaz), Apparition (Ismail Bahri), Figure Minus Fact (Mary Helena Clark), In the Air Tonight (Andrew Norman Wilson), In My Room (Mati Diop), Look Then Below (Ben Rivers), The Plastic House (Allison Chhorn), Point and Line to Plane (Sofia Bohdanowicz), A Thousand Year Stage (Daphne Xu), While Cursed by Specters (Burak Cevik)
Florence Almozini, Senior Programmer at Large
Martin Eden
Bacurau
Lovers Rock
Vitalina Varela
Sybil
I Was Home But
Zombi Child
The Whistlers
The Traitor
An Easy Girl
What’s the best older movie you saw for the first time this year?
The Chess Game of the Wind
What’s the best older movie you saw again this year?
Too many to single out one only! Satantango, Beau Travail, In The Mood For Love, Flowers Of Shanghai, Muhammed Ali The Greatest, Simone Barbes Ou La Vertue…. Though these days my favorite is Francisca.
What was your favorite programming at FLC this year?
The NYFF !
What was the best Q&A/talk you watched that FLC conducted this year?
Among others, I was very interested and very entertained by the Christian Petzold and Heinz Emigholz Talk and the Marie-Claude Treilhou with Serge Bozon.
What’s your most anticipated movie of 2021?
What ever was supposed to come out this year and keeps being postponed… Maybe the new Carax.
Chris Stevenson, Senior Director, Marketing, Communications, and Strategy
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
Boys State
Epicentro
I Carry You With Me
Lovers Rock
Mucho Mucho Amor
Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Nomadland
Sound of Metal
The Painter and The Thief
Time
Jordan Raup, Digital Marketing Manager
10. Collective (Alexander Nanau)
9. Hill of Freedom and Yourself and Yours (Hong Sangsoo)
8. City Hall (Frederick Wiseman)
7. Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman)
6. Mayor (David Osit)
5. Tesla (Michael Almereyda)
4. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)
3. Lovers Rock (Steve McQueen)
2. First Cow (Kelly Reichardt)
1. Time (Garrett Bradley)
What’s the best older movie you saw for the first time this year?
Stop Making Sense
What was the best Q&A/talk you watched that FLC conducted this year?
Garrett Bradley and RaMell Ross
What’s your most anticipated movie of 2021?
Tie: The Way of the Wind (Terrence Malick) and Annette (Leos Carax)
Maddie Whittle, Programming Assistant
1. Lovers Rock
2. Time
3. Beanpole
4. Bloody Nose Empty Pockets
5. Da 5 Bloods
6. The Assistant
7. The King of Staten Island
8. The Twentieth Century
9. Gunda
10. Bacurau
Favorite older movies that I watched for the first time in 2020 (not ranked):<
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Celine and Julie Go Boating
Schizopolis
Step Brothers
Last Days
Crash (1996)
Her Smell
Final Destination (entire franchise)
Simone Barbes or Virtue
Apocalypse Now
The Unbelievable Truth
Lenny
The Swimmer
Puberty Blues
Experiment in Terror
Matt Dinda, Corporate Partnerships Manager
And Then We Danced
The Assistant
Bacurau
Matthias & Maxime
Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Nomadland
Promising Young Woman
Small Axe
Sound of Metal
Time
What’s the best older movie you saw for the first time this year?
In late April, when quarantine was at its darkest and most confusing, I finally caught up with Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels. I was a bit worried about my first viewing of it being at home, but the extratextual element of being stuck indoors proved a powerful setting. I was bowled over by it–riveted completely–and I’m not sure a week has passed where it hasn’t popped up in my head or conversation.
What’s your most anticipated movie of 2021?
Jane Campion’s first film since 2009, The Power of the Dog! Really excited to see what her and Kirsten Dunst do together.
Sara Bleger, Marketing Associate
1. Nomadland – ChloĂ© Zhao
2. Proxima – Alice Winocour
3. Swallow – Carlo Mirabella-Davis
4. Cuties – MaĂŻmouna DoucourĂ©
5. The Assistant – Kitty Green
6. Martin Eden – Pietro Marcello
7. Collective – Alexander Nanau
8. Beanpole – Kantemir Balagov
9. Bacurau – Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles
10. City Hall – Frederick Wiseman / Sorry we missed you – Ken Loach
What’s the best older movie you saw for the first time this year?
Tokyo Twilight – Ozu
What’s the best older movie you saw again this year?
Elevator to the Gallows – Louis Malle
What was your favorite programming at FLC this year?
New Directors/New Films
What was your favorite programming elsewhere?
Yorgos Lanthimos at MoMI (not quite in 2020, but close!)
What was the best Q&A/talk you watched that FLC conducted this year?
Tilda Swinton and Pedro AlmodĂłvar
What’s your most anticipated movie of 2021?
Annette – Leos Carax
Emily Vito, Assistant Director of Development
Top 10 Films of 2020 (alphabetical order)
Dick Johnson is Dead
Minari
The Mole Agent
My Octopus Teacher
Night of the Kings
Promising Young Woman
Proxima
Time
Totally Under Control
Zola
Best older movie seen for the first time: Ben-Hur (1959)
Best older movie seen again: M (1931)
Best Q&A: Laura Dern, Joyce Chopra and Joyce Carol-Oates for Smooth Talk
Most anticipated movie of 2021: Dune
Dan Sullivan, Assistant Programmer
1. Days
2. Los Conductos
3. The Inheritance
4. The Woman Who Ran
5. Undine
Alexandra Siladi, Membership Manager
1. Sound of Metal
2. Another Round
3. Lovers Rock
4. Martin Eden
5. First Cow
6. The Prom
7. There are not thirty-six ways of showing a man getting on a horse
8. Tesla
9. Da 5 Bloods
10. The Beach House
What’s the best older movie you saw for the first time this year?
The Long Goodbye
What’s the best older movie you saw again this year?
Barton Fink
What was your favorite programming at FLC this year?
Wong Kar Wai!
What was the best Q&A/talk you watched that FLC conducted this year?
What’s your most anticipated movie of 2021?
Dune
Amanda Bogacz, Development Systems Associate
Top 10 (in no particular order):
Lovers Rock
The Assistant
Nomadland
La Llorona
Minari
Mangrove
Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Da 5 Bloods
Time
Bacurau
Honorable Mention: Black is King
What’s the best older movie you saw for the first time this year?
The Exorcist
What’s the best older movie you saw again this year?
The God’s Must Be Crazy
What was your favorite programming at FLC this year?
NYFF!!!
What’s your most anticipated movie of 2021?
In The Heights
Latrice Joefield, Human Resources Generalist/Office Manager
What’s the best older movie you saw for the first time this year?
What Dreams May Come
What’s the best older movie you saw again this year?
I Am Not Your Negro
What was your favorite programming at FLC this year?
NYFF is my favorite annual festival, Lovers Rock was my favorite film.
What was your favorite programming elsewhere?
Netflix has won me over in 2020.
What was the best Q&A/talk you watched that FLC conducted this year?
What’s your most anticipated movie of 2021?
Matrix 4 and Candyman
Manuel Santini, Exhibition Manager
Time
Martin Eden
The Whistlers
The Monopoly of Violence
The Inheritance
Collective
The Traitor
Beanpole
What’s the best older movie you saw for the first time this year?
TOP 10 (of many)
1. The Spook Who Sat by the Door
(The rest are listed alphabetically)
Apocalypse Now
Crossing the Line
Dawson City: Frozen Time
The Garden (Frederick Wiseman)
Happy as Lazzaro
The Long Goodbye
Memories of Murder
Nocturama
Tomboy
What’s the best older movie you saw again this year?
The Edge of Democracy
Honorable Mention: Funny Games // Mulholland Drive // In the Mood for Love
What was your favorite programming at FLC this year?
NYFF58
What was your favorite programming elsewhere?
Thank you to Mubi & Criterion for keeping hope alive in late Spring 2020
What was the best Q&A/talk you watched that FLC conducted this year?
What’s your most anticipated movie of 2021?
Same as 2020, Judas and the Black Messiah coming out soon.
Devika Girish, Assistant Editor, Film Comment and Film at Lincoln Center
Days
Undine
The Inheritance
Time
Los Conductos
Lovers Rock / Education (Small Axe)
Dick Johnson Is Dead
The Last City
The Sky Is Red
What’s the best older movie you saw for the first time this year?
Simone Barbes or Virtue and Handsworth Songs
What’s the best older movie you saw again this year?
Goodbye Dragon Inn and Losing Ground
What was your favorite programming at FLC this year?
Sorry to be basic but… NYFF! It was an oasis in an otherwise tough year for cinephilia.Â
What was your favorite programming elsewhere?
The distributor Sentient.Art.Film hosted a fabulous virtual series called My Sight Is Lined With Visions: 1990s Asian American Film & Video, full of rare and underseen gems. Another highlight of my year was the virtual event “The Legacies of Sarah Maldoror,” organized by the feminist film journal Another Gaze a few weeks after Maldoror’s passing. They screened three of her films with live introductions by her daughters.Â
What was the best Q&A/talk you watched that FLC conducted this year?
Hard to pick favorites from among our NYFF58 lineup, but our final talk—”The Artist, the Athlete, and the Revolutionary”—was phenomenal. We got four brilliant writers/scholars talking about James Baldwin and Muhammad Ali. I learnt so much in just an hour!
What’s your most anticipated movie of 2021?
I’m quite excited for Terence Davies’s Benediction and Claire Denis’s Fire.Â
Tyler Wilson, Assistant Programmer
Features
Bacurau (Kleber Mendonça Filho, Juliano Dornelles)
Fauna (Nicolás Pereda)
Lovers Rock (Steve McQueen)
Malmkrog (Cristi Puiu)
Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello)
The Calming (Song Fang)
The Lobby (Heinz Emigholz)
The Year of the Discovery (Luis LĂłpez Carrasco)
Time (Garrett Bradley)
Undine (Christian Petzold)
Shorts
Correspondence (Carla SimĂłn & Dominga Sotomayor)
Humongous! (Aya Kawazoe)
In the Air Tonight (Andrew Norman Wilson)
Letter From Your Far-Off Country (Suneil Sanzgiri)
Object Lessons, or: What Happened Whitsunday (Ricky D’Ambrose)
Point and Line to Plane (Sofia Bohdanowicz)
Sun Dog (Dorian Jespers)
T (Keisha Rae Witherspoon)
This Day Won’t Last (Mouaad el Salem)
Wong Ping’s Fables 2 (Wong Ping)
Harrison Asen, Ticketing Services Manager
Da 5 Bloods
First Cow
Fourteen
Kajillionaire
Nomadland
Never Rarely Sometimes Always
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Red, White and Blue
Shiva Baby
Sound of Metal
What’s the best older movie you saw for the first time this year?
Old Joy
What’s the best older movie you saw again this year?
Celine and Julie Go Boating
What’s your most anticipated movie of 2021?
The French Dispatch
Clinton Krute, Film Comment Digital Editor
1. First Cow
2. Los Conductos
3. Vitalina Varela
4. Bacurau
5. Martin Eden
6. Lovers Rock
7. I Was at Home, But…
8. The Woman Who Ran
9. Time
10. Isabella
11. How To with John Wilson
What’s the best older movie you saw for the first time this year?
1. Guns (Robert Kramer, 1980)
2. Atlantic City (Louis Malle, 1980)
3. One Trick Pony (Robert M. Young, 1980)
4. Space is the Place (John Coney, 1978)
5. Diego Maradona (Asif Kapadia, 2019)
What’s the best older movie you saw again this year?
1. Dune (David Lynch, 1984)
2. Man is Not a Bird (Dušan Makavejev, 1965)
3. The Ladykillers (Alexander Mackendrick, 1955)
4. Between the Lines (Joan Micklin Silver, 1977)
5. Elvis: That’s the Way It Is (Denis Sanders, 1970)
What was your favorite programming at FLC this year?
NYFF of course!
