Miguel Gomes’s dazzling two-pronged tribute to old age, memory, and classic cinema is a bewitching, often funny journey with an atmosphere all its own. Like the ingenious Arabian Nights, Tabu is nearly impossible to categorize, but one thing’s for certain: it’s an arthouse high point of the 2010s.

Long before she scored an Oscar® nomination for Toni Erdmann, Maren Ade made her feature debut with this razor-sharp portrait of an idealistic teacher’s emotional unravelling. Ruthlessly unsentimental, The Forest for the Trees is an empathetic anatomisation of loneliness and social awkwardness.