Ranking the 21st Century Winners of the Golden Lion

Buongiorno, lettori! Today is the first day of the 83^rd Venice International Film Festival, and what fortuitous luck that I am, in fact, residing in Italy right now! Sadly, I am unable to attend the festival itself due to work obligations, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be paying close attention to one of the most high-profile film festivals of year. In fact, some box office hits and Oscar-winning films got their first big boost from their premieres at this very event.

For the final installment of my makeshift trilogy on the three (arguably) most prestigious competitive international film festivals at the quarter-century mark, I am taking a look back at the recent slate of past Golden Lion alumni and assessing their quality relative to each other. The bad news is that the absolute worst one, in my opinion, was honored just last year.

The good news is, just like my Cannes and Berlin ranking articles, I have snuck in the same bonus opinion in the below countdown:

26) Father Mother Sister Brother — Nearly a dictionary definition of “nothingburger.” Its familial observations would’ve felt musty in a late aughts indie dramedy. Jim Jarmusch arrives at these tired conclusions via stilted dialogue and lazy filmmaking.

25) Somewhere — The only Sofia Coppola movie I’ve seen that made me wonder if her haters might be onto something. Possesses the narrative momentum of an unstructured Instagram livestream. Aftersun blows this out of the water.

24) Poor Things — Visually cacophonous and dramatically inert Frankenstein riff that is so damned proud of itself for loudly espousing the most rote, easy Feminism 101 messages. Emma Stone just isn’t persuasive to me in this role. Mark Ruffalo is embarrassing.

23) Pietà — Look, I’m all for movies that swing for the fences, but even I have a limit that Kim Ki-duk’s gruesome histrionics just smashes through. The more it insisted on heavy-handed Christian symbolism, the less persuasive I found it as a Christian allegory.

22) Joker — Could have been so much worse, but still no great shakes. Tries to be a contemporary political allegory against the backdrop of the 1980s, with muddled results. Todd Phillips can’t even hide his contempt for our intelligence in the final monologue.

21) All the Beauty and the Bloodshed — What starts out as a potentially interesting Nan Goldin biography gets awkwardly tacked onto a rushed, crude polemic against the atrocities of the Sackler family, resulting in something that doesn’t fully succeed as either.

20) From Afar — That this was even produced at all in Venezuela at the time it was is arguably the most interesting thing about it. The actual movie is compelling enough in the moment, but I never believed these two would ever be genuinely drawn to each other.

19) Lebanon — Raw, claustrophobic anti-war thriller suffers from some common directorial debut problems: performances are not very well-calibrated, dialogue is occasionally didactic, and shots that aim to impress instead of engage the audience.

18) Monsoon Wedding — India’s answer to My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and I don’t entirely mean that as a backhanded compliment. A nice enough date movie that’s sweet, breezy, vibrant and colorful. Still, the Golden Lion feels awfully generous.

17) The Shape of Water — Arguably one of the weaker entries among the Academy’s Best Pictures from the 2010s is still an enjoyable fairy tale. This is among the most visually elaborate of Guillermo del Toro’s worlds… but it doesn’t feel “lived-in.”

16) Sacro GRA — Gianfranco Rosi’s two-year project to capture various “slice-of-life” vignettes on the margins of a picturesque tourist destination would seem alienating at first glance. Sometimes it is, but most times it’s visually striking and insightful.

15) The Room Next Door — One of the most uncharacteristically subdued movies Pedro Almodóvar has ever helmed, which is both a gift and a curse to what we end up with. The two leading ladies are great, but my pick for overall MVP is Edu Grau.

14) The Magdalene Sisters — Harrowing drama, driven by admirably righteous outrage. My regard for this is dulled somewhat by the fact that actual survivors of the Magdalene Laundries criticized it for being too soft in its portrayal of their brutalities.

13) A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence — Dismissing this as a “Poor Man’s You, the Living” does a real disservice to Roy Andersson’s unique brand of mordant, dry humor that he still maintains here, especially in the first half.

12) The Return — Mostly forgotten these days, which is a shame, because this is an uncanny, quietly unsettling psychological thriller. In hindsight, I can spot Andrei Zvyagintsev working out his aesthetic signatures that he’d fully flex in subsequent films.

11) The Woman Who Left — I have no idea how Lav Diaz keeps making these over-three-and-a-half-hour-long movies that don’t feel like distended slogs. Horacia is a riveting protagonist, but every single character is compelling in their own way.

10) Still Life — I don’t know if I would call him China’s “best” filmmaker at the moment, but I do think there is a really strong case for Jia Zhangke’s body of work doing the best job of collectively being “about” contemporary China, if that makes sense?

9) Faust — I remember this was reported as a shocking upset, but honestly, I think the film holds up quite well! Really creative take on the iconic play, it looks amazing, and while the pacing can take some getting used to, I think the result ultimately works.

8) Nomadland — I concede the validity of arguments from detractors that the reveal of Fern’s financial safety net that she deliberately refuses is a cop-out that implies some pretty gross assumptions from Chloé Zhao. But I still defend this on every other front.

7) Lust, Caution — Ang Lee’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning cultural phenomenon is a harsher, thornier object than I think anyone was expecting back then. But I’d argue time vindicated its legacy, mostly because of Tang Wei’s for-the-ages performance.

6) Happening — 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days for Gen Z. I was especially amazed by its honest depiction of diverse reactions from the women around Anne’s plight. The climax is terrifying. One odd sexual demonstration scene is my only quibble.

5) Brokeback Mountain — Dated a bit by the even better LGBT dramas that have emerged since, but then, those superior movies probably would not have been made at all had this not hit as hard as it did. Heath Ledger… a legend gone too soon.

4) Roma — More a triumph of production than direction? Maybe. But what a triumph it is! To see something so intimate and personal staged on a grand scale by a filmmaker putting his whole heart into every scene is a galvanizing experience.

3) Vera Drake — Top three Mike Leigh movie, and also the one I would recommend to anyone who says they don’t like his films. It’s his most propulsive feature, while still showcasing his penchant for bringing out extraordinary acting from a rich ensemble.

2) The Wrestler — Still my favorite Darren Aronofsky film by a wide margin. He pays tribute to European neorealist styles while still asserting his own singular identity on a deeply-felt, emotionally wrenching human story.

1) The Circle — I think it’s great that It Was Just An Accident brought Jafar Panahi newfound attention here in the United States. But to me, The Circle remains his crowning achievement. An extraordinarily comprehensive accounting of the myriad forms of patriarchal oppression in post-revolution Iran, without ever reducing itself to a dry lecture. All of the women at the center are fully-realized, complex individuals with motivations that build on and intersect with each other to devastating effect. Come to think of it, in hindsight, I would argue that this movie set the standard for all future Middle Eastern dramas doubling as indictments of their own oppressive societies (and I can only think of one since that arguably surpassed it). If that’s not worthy of being named the century’s best Golden Lion recipient so far, what is?

How would you rank the last quarter-century’s worth of winners of this very prestigious international film festival prize from Venice? What did you think of this little project of mine in general? Let us know in the comments.