200. British director Ken Loach’s film “I, Daniel Blake” (2016) (UK): Portrait of an aging, honest, well meaning, elderly citizen forced to retire by a health condition, “nothing more, nothing less”

Several directors in Europe have in recent years made outstanding award-winning films on the subject of working class bread-winners losing their jobs and trying their best to claw back to a life of normalcy by finding another.  The processes are...

195. Colombian director Ciro Guerra’s “El abrazo de la serpiente” (Embrace of the Serpent) (2015) (Colombia/Argentina/Venezuela): An amazing film with deep insights on nature and civilization dedicated to “peoples whose song we will never know.”

Both posters above are predominantly in black and white, while colour is utilized sparingly and effectively, as in the film“The display I witnessed in those enchanted hours was such that I find it impossible to describe in a language that allows...

193. Icelandic director Grímur Hákonarson’s film “Hrútar” (Rams) (2015), based on his own original screenplay: Unusual tale of sibling hatred and bonding

Rams is an unusual tale, remarkably told. Rams are male sheep and the entire film is appropriately about two dour male, hairy, unshaven Icelandic brothers. The two male characters, Gummi and Kiddi, are quite old and not married. They are not gay; they...

190. French director Stéphane Brizé’s “La loi du marché” (The Measure of a Man) (2015): Internalized reactions to jungle law of the market forces under economic gloom

Economic stress can do strange things to an upright individual. Stéphane Brizé’s French film The Measure of a Man does not merely look at individuals who scramble for jobs to make a living, the film is equally a critical look at the human resource development...

189. Colombian director César Augusto Acevedo’s debut film “La tierra y la sombra" (Land and Shade) (2015): A grim, yet amazingly, beautiful tale of the poor when sugar cane is symbolically no longer sweet and can kill

For a debut film, César Augusto Acevedo’s Land and Shade is amazing in its simplicity and quiet power.  Land and Shade is powerful because it deals with two things that mean a lot to most people--home and family.  When you are poor, home could...

184. US director Bennett Miller’s “Foxcatcher” (2014): Transcending the sport and the true events

Foxcatcher is an amazing work of cinema from USA that recalls the quality of evolved filmmaking that one associate with Coppola’s The Conversation (1974), Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941) or Ridley Scott’s British directorial debut film The Duellists (1977)....

178. British director and screenplay writer Mike Leigh’s “Mr Turner” (2014) based on his own original screenplay: A cinematic canvas providing perspective and colour to the mind and soul of one of England’s finest painters

JMW Turner and John Constable were two of the finest painters in Nineteenth century England renowned for their emotional response to nature and are classified as exponents of romanticism and eventually emerging as major contributors to modernism in...