1. Four by Ingmar Bergman
I watched Winter Light and The Silence, then moved forward to Autumn Sonata and back to The Seventh Seal, also checking out a documentary about Bergman. Spacing these out every few months ensured that his cinema was always on my mind this year.

2. Roman Polanski’s apartment trilogy: Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby and The Tenant
Took the opposite approach of the Bergmans, watching all these in one month. Whether this was intended as a trilogy or not, they’re all really interesting together, and each is terrific on its own.

3. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Jaromil Jires)

4. Yoyo (Pierre Etaix)

5. Possession (Andrzej Zulawski)
This had similarities to The Tenant, and both Zulawski and Polanski worked with Wajda. It was a good year for movies by Polish directors with hidden connections.

6. House of Tolerance (Bertrand Bonello)

7. Kanal (Andrzej Wajda)

8. Deseret (James Benning)

9. Red Desert (Michelangelo Antonioni)

10. A Foreign Affair (Billy Wilder)

11. D’est (Chantal Akerman)
It is a weird thing to watch this on a laptop in 2014.

12. Spectre (Jacques Rivette)
I think watching this at home with interruptions, versus seeing Out 1 in theaters, was detrimental to the experience. Watching it felt more like an academic exercise than an immersive feature film. That might be the reason why I didn’t know what to do with L’Amour Fou a few years ago.