I also note that this list is skewed to, though not limited to, films that American audiences might have missed at the multiplex or at their local indie cinema (when those still existed). For reasons having to do only with practicality, most are English-language films. That’s only because, in compiling this list, it quickly became clear that there was no way to survey the whole of world cinema and assess what might have slipped past English-speaking audiences. That said, there are a few non-English-language films here that I believe warrant some special love, especially in cases of unsung geniuses (like Marco Bellocchio) or filmmakers who went on to make bigger, acclaimed pictures but whose earlier work deserves a spotlight (like Jacques Audiard). Still, there are so many astonishing filmmakers whose works are missing—please forgive me, Hou Hsiou-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang—and your favorites might be missing, too.