Thanks for the post Chris. I like reading White's criticism and I'm glad he elevates TREE OF LIFE as well as Jonze's HER which doesn't quite make my list but I admire. It elicits interesting thoughts and discussion about modern existential issues. I'm going to add Pedro Costa's HORSE MONEY to the list instead. This Portuguese director is more than the sum of his signature techniques (chiaroscuro, fixed camera, declamatory passages, partial camera perspectives,"wooden" performative style,) Amongst other things, Costa's filmography is also a chronicle of a richly detailed immigrant community of Cape Verdeans in Lisbon. Costa's films are brilliant in a very original way and HORSE MONEY is his most accessible.

I also have to edit my initial post to add a couple of movies that I have watched many times over the years and ponder their relative merits. These are two movies that have finally won me over completely. I think now most definitely that MARNIE is second only to VERTIGO amongst Hitchcock films and I am so happy that there is a film of his that unlike PSYCHO, VERTIGO and others has an ending that is optimistic about the possibility of mending a dark, broken heart and having love win out. It's the opposite of the so tragic Vertigo.

One more film to add will be a surprise, I'm sure. I think Albert Brooks' MODERN ROMANCE is absolutely great and a better examination of romantic neurosis than any film by Woody Allen.