Every year the Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film selects a category and asks its membership to submit their favorite top films. The group’s previous year-end topics have included Best Musicals, Best Sequels and Remakes, and Best Foreign Language. For 2020, members selected their top 100 films released in the U.S. during the last decade.
Members were given a general definition to frame the parameters of their list: there was no further direction concerning when or how the films were made, which led to spirited arguments about whether or not films made when full color was not an option ought to be compared against newer films.
With the #METOO movement breaking in the latter half of the decade, there has been a decided uptick in the number of films being directed by women, but Chlotrudis has always paid attention to the smaller percentage of films with women at the helm. Seventeen women directors were represented on our Top 100, with three (Céline Sciamma, Sarah Polley, and Kelly Reichardt) represented with two films each. Hopefully the next decade will see an even larger showing.
Sixteen filmmakers scored more than one film on the list, with the top three filmmakers represented with three films each. OF Yorgos Lanthimos’s three film to appear, two were in the Top 20, but Hirkazu Koreeda’s three films were all in the Top 50. Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi was the third director to score three films on the list.
The final 100 films selected come from 37 different countries, with the US involved in 54% of them. Surprisingly, France had the next highest representation, with involvement in 23% of the films chosen. Not surprisingly, the next three most involved countries were the United Kingdom with 20%, Germany with 12% and Canada with 10%.
What did we miss? What would be at the top of your list? Comment below and let us know what you think.
We hope you enjoy our list of the 100 best films from 2011 – 2020.
| 01 | Parasite | Bong Joon-ho | 2019 |
| 02 | Shoplifters | Hirokazu Koreeda | 2018 |
| 03 | The Lobster | Yorgos Lanthimos | 2015 |
| 04 | Moonlight | Barry Jenkins | 2013 |
| 05 | Roma | Alfonso Cuarón | 2018 |
| 06 | Paterson | Jim Jarmusch | 2016 |
| 07 | Frances Ha | Noah Baumbach | 2012 |
| 08 | Under the Skin | Jonathan Glazer | 2013 |
| 09 | Portrait of a Lady on Fire | Céline Sciamma | 2019 |
| 10 | Holy Motors | Leos Carax | 2012 |
| 11 | And Then We Danced | Levan Akin | 2020 |
| 12 | The Vast of Night | Andrew Patterson | 2020 |
| 13 | A Separation | Asghar Farhadi | 2011 |
| 14 | Carol | Todd Haynes | 2015 |
| 15 | The Last Black Man in San Francisco | Joe Talbot | 2019 |
| 16 | Sound of Metal | Darius Marder | 2020 |
| 17 | The Favourite | Yorgos Lanthimos | 2018 |
| 18 | Only Lovers Left Alive | Jim Jarmusch | 2013 |
| 19 | Melancholia | Lars Von Trier | 2011 |
| 20 | Stories We Tell | Sarah Polley | 2012 |
| 21 | Moonrise Kingdom | Wes Anderson | 2012 |
| 22 | After the Storm | Hirokazu Koreeda | 2016 |
| 23 | The Saver | Wiebke von Carolsfeld | 2015 |
| 24 | The Florida Project | Sean Baker | 2017 |
| 25 | Suspiria | Luca Guadagnino | 2018 |
| 26 | Short Term 12 | Destin Daniel Cretton | 2013 |
| 27 | Ham On Rye | Tyler Taormina | 2020 |
| 28 | The Grand Budapest Hotel | Wes Anderson | 2014 |
| 29 | Weekend | Andrew Haigh | 2011 |
| 30 | Boyhood | Richard Linklater | 2014 |
| 31 | A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night | Ana Lily Amirpour | 2014 |
| 32 | Madeline’s Madeline | Josephine Decker | 2018 |
| 33 | Take Shelter | Jeff Nichols | 2011 |
| 34 | Burning | Chang-dong Lee | 2018 |
| 35 | Foxtrot | Samuel Maoz | 2017 |
| 36 | Shadow | Yimou Zhang | 2019 |
| 37 | Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives | Apichatpong Weerasethakul | 2011 |
| 38 | Birdman | Alejandro G. Iñárritu | 2014 |
| 39 | Call Me By Your Name | Luca Guadagnino | 2017 |
| 40 | Fruitvale Station | Ryan Coogler | 2013 |
| 41 | Hereditary | Ari Aster | 2018 |
| 42 | The Lighthouse | Robert Eggers | 2019 |
| 43 | And Breathe Normally | Isold Uggadottir | 2019 |
| 44 | Archipelago | Joanna Hogg | 2011 |
| 45 | Never Rarely Sometimes Always | Eliza Hittman | 2020 |
| 46 | A Most Violent Year | J.C. Chandor | 2014 |
| 47 | Like Father Like Son | Hirokazu Koreeda | 2014 |
| 48 | Once Upon a Time in Anatolia | Nuri Bilge Ceylan | 2011 |
| 49 | Another Earth | Mike Cahill | 2011 |
| 50 | Corpus Christi | Jan Komasa | 2020 |
| 51 | Ida | Pawel Pawlikowski | 2013 |
| 52 | Marriage Story | Noah Baumbach | 2019 |
| 53 | First Cow | Kelly Reichardt | 2020 |
| 54 | Three Billboards Outside Ebbings Missouri | Martin McDonagh | 2017 |
| 55 | I’m No Longer Here | Fernando Frias | 2020 |
| 56 | A Coffee in Berlin | Jan-Ole Gerste | 2012 |
| 57 | The Killing of a Sacred Deer | Yorgos Lanthimos | 2012 |
| 58 | Son of Saul | László Nemes | 2015 |
| 59 | Tangerine | Sean Baker | 2015 |
| 60 | The Witch | Robert Eggers | 2015 |
| 61 | First Reformed | Paul Schrader | 2017 |
| 62 | Eighth Grade | Bo Burnham | 2018 |
| 63 | Room | Lenny Abrahamson | 2015 |
| 64 | Keyhole | Guy Maddin | 2011 |
| 65 | Bill Cunningham: New York | Richard Press | 2011 |
| 66 | Songs She Wrote About People She Knows | Kris Elgstrand | 2014 |
| 67 | Snowpiercer | Bong Joon-ho | 2013 |
| 68 | Pain and Glory | Pedro Almodóvar | 2019 |
| 69 | Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem | Ronit Elkabetz, Shlomi Elkabetz | 2014 |
| 70 | Oslo, August 31 | Joachim Trier | 2011 |
| 71 | Berberian Sound Studio | Peter Strickland | 2012 |
| 72 | Lucky | John Carroll Lynch | 2017 |
| 73 | Pariah | Dee Rees | 2011 |
| 74 | The Duke of Burgundy | Peter Strickland | 2014 |
| 75 | Lady Bird | Greta Gerwig | 2017 |
| 76 | Little Woods | Nia DaCosta | 2018 |
| 77 | The Past | Asghar Farhadi | 2013 |
| 78 | Red, White and Blue | Steve McQueen | 2020 |
| 79 | Take This Waltz | Sarah Polley | 2011 |
| 80 | Trigger | Bruce McDonald | 2011 |
| 81 | Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter | David Zellner | 2014 |
| 82 | Frank | Lenny Abrahamson | 2014 |
| 83 | Honeyland | Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov | 2019 |
| 84 | Girlhood | Céline Sciamma | 2015 |
| 85 | Borgman | Alex van Warmerdam | 2013 |
| 86 | The Hunt | Thomas Vinterberg | 2012 |
| 87 | Cemetery of Splendor | Apichatpong Weerasethakul | 2016 |
| 88 | A Ghost Story | David Lowery | 2017 |
| 89 | How to Survive a Plague | David Frane | 2012 |
| 90 | Winter Sleep | Nuri Bilge Ceylan | 2015 |
| 91 | The Farewell | Lulu Wang | 2019 |
| 92 | The Salesman | Asghar Farhadi | 2016 |
| 93 | Kajillionaire | Miranda July | 2020 |
| 94 | Woman At War | Benedikt Erlingsson | 2019 |
| 94 | Clouds of Sils Maria | Olivier Assayas | 2014 |
| 96 | Wrong | Quentin Dupieux | 2012 |
| 97 | Leave No Trace | Debra Granik | 2018 |
| 98 | Mountains May Depart | Zhangke Jia | 2016 |
| 99 | Certain Women | Kelly Reichardt | 2016 |
| 100 | Leviathan | Andrey Zvyagintsev | 2014 |