Sight & Sound critics poll: "The Assassin" best of 2015
The martial arts historical epic, "The Assassin," by Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien, was chosen as the best film of 2015 by a poll of international critics, compiled by the British Film Institute's magazine, Sight & Sound.
The magazine queried 168 critics from around the world on their choices for the five best films of the year.
The leading vote-getter, with 38, was "The Assassin." Set during China's Tang Dynasty Chin, it concerns a female assassin (played by Qi Shu) who is sent on a mission to kill her cousin, to whom she had been betrothed.
Hsiao-hsien received the Best Director prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
Second in the poll (with 35 votes) was Todd Haynes' "Carol," a lesbian romance set in the 1950s, adapted from a Patricia Highsmith novel. It stars Rooney Mara as a young shopgirl who falls for an older married woman (Cate Blanchett). Mara earned the Best Actress award at Cannes.
The third highest vote-getter (33) was George Miller's spectacular post-apocalyptic chase film, "Mad Max: Fury Road," starring Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy.
Notable among the top vote-getters is that most feature strong female protagonists, many in roles rarely filled by women.
The top 20 films of 2015 were:
1. "The Assassin" (Taiwan, directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien)
2. "Carol" (U.S., directed by Toddy Haynes).
3. "Mad Max: Fury Road" (Australia, directed by George Miller).
4. "Arabian Nights" (Portugal, directed by Miguel Gomes): A three-part meditation on post-recession Europe, filtered through Scheherazade's legendary Arabian Nights tales.
5. "Cemetery of Splendour" (Thailand, directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul): A tale of dream states and haunting spirits at a hospital for soldiers overcome by sleeping sickness, and a woman with powers to communicate with the supernatural realm.
6. "No Home Movie" (Belgium/France, directed by Chantal Akerman): A documentary by the acclaimed filmmaker about her mother, who fled the Nazis on the eve of World War II. Akerman died earlier this year.
7. "45 Years" (U.K., directed by Andrew Haigh): Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtney star as a couple facing their 45th wedding anniversary.
8. "Son of Saul" (Hungary, directed by Laszlo Nemes): A viscerally powerful examination of an inmate who is a cog in the machinery of the death camp at Auschwitz, and of his struggle to regain a semblance of his humanity.
9. "Amy" (U.K., directed by Asif Kapadia): A potent and sorrowful documentary about the tragic life and death of singer Amy Winehouse.
10. "Inherent Vice" (U.S., directed by Paul Thomas Anderson): A woolly adaptation of the Thomas Pynchon novel, starring Joaquin Phoenix as a private eye in L.A. in the early '70s encountering Indonesian drug smugglers, an Aryan Brotherhood motorcycle gang, and a dangerous old flame.
11. "It Follows" (U.S., directed by David Robert Mitchell): A girl is tracked by a demonic presence, which she can only shake by having sex with an "uninfected" person.
12. "Anomalisa" (U.S., directed by Charles Kaufman and Duke Johnson): A tale of a lonely, middle-aged motivational speaker and his two-ships-in-the-night romance, rendered in stop-motion animation, from the screenwriter of "Being John Malkovich."
13. "Phoenix" (Germany, directed by Christian Petzold): Nina Hoss is splendid in this Hitchcockian thriller, as a concentration camp survivor who -- following plastic surgery -- is unrecognizable to her husband. To win him back, she agrees to take part in a scheme that would mean, basically, impersonating herself.
14. (tie) "Hard to Be a God" (Russia, directed by Aleksei German): A scientist visiting a distant planet is mistaken by its inhabitants for a god.
14. (tie) "Girlhood" (France, directed by Celine Sciamma): A young girl, disaffected by school and bullied by siblings, joins a girl gang, which brings her confidence but also conflict with her new friends.
14. (tie) "Inside Out" (U.S., directed by Pete Docter): Pixar's extraordinary animated tale of a young girl's emotions, each personified and in conflict as the girl's family adjusts to a new life in a new city.
14. (tie) "Tangerine" (U.S., directed by Sean Baker): This gritty street comedy about a hooker and her friend diving through L.A.'s subcultures in search of her pimp was shot on an iPhone.
14. (tie) "Taxi Tehran" (Iran, directed by Jafar Panahi): A documentary featuring the filmmaker disguised as a cab driver who engages in revealing conversations with his passengers.
19. (tie) "Horse Money" (Portugal, directed by Pedro Costa): A dreamlike tale of emigrant laborers from Cape Verde struggling to get by in Lisbon.
19. (tie) "The Look of Silence" (Norway/U.S., directed by Joshua Oppenheimer): This sequel to Oppenheimer's award-winning documentary, "The Act of Killing," looks at the anti-Communist genocide waged by Indonesia's military regime, and its victims' search for reconciliation and peace.
Other films on the list include Olivier Assayas' "Clouds of Sils Maria," starring Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart; Abderrahmane Sissako's Oscar-nominated "Timbuktu"; Guy Maddin's delirious "The Forbidden Room"; The Scandinavian family drama "Force Majeure"; Michael Mann's hacker thriller "Blackhat"; Marielle Heller's "The Diary of a Teenage Girl"; Alex Garland's "Ex Machina"; Laurie Anderson's visual essay about her pet, "Heart of a Dog"; "Room," starring Brie Larson as a woman trapped with her child in a kidnapper's backyard prison; Mia Hansen-Løve's "Eden," about France's rave music scene in the 1990s; and "Selma," Ava DuVernay's Oscar-nominee for Best Picture in the U.S. last year, for its retelling of Martin Luther King Jr.'s historic march for voting rights in Alabama in 1965.
To see the complete results of Sight & Sound's poll click here.