9) Ida

European cinema is often hit-or-miss for me. Some titles, even when dripping with the sweat of rapturous critics, just lie there on the screen for me, never engaging, never demanding my attention. But then there are others, like the masterful Polish film Ida, which come out of nowhere to damn near steal the air from my lungs.

It’s particularly surprising that Ida falls into the later category, given its uncommon stillness. But rarely have complete silence and stark black-and-white been used to such remarkable effect as in this modern masterpiece, about an orphaned nun (Agata Trzebuchowska) who, before taking her orders, is asked to seek out her estranged aunt (Agata Kulesza), which in turn leads her on a hunt to uncover the long-buried secrets of her past.

Director Pawel Pawlikowski understands the power of the naked image, and in place of traditional frames, he crafts heartbreaking masterpieces of celluloid, imbued with the unsettling spirit of post-WWII Poland, a ravaged land brought to its knees by shame.

How does he do it? Pawlikowski is blessed with the attentive eye of an artist and the scintillating intellect of a historian. His film works on many levels – as a tale of two broken women too isolated by their pasts to even reach out for one another; as a solemn meditation on how the past always catches up with us, and what happens when it does; as a forceful blow against those who wish to erase all memory of the Polish people’s collusion with the Nazis; and as an absorbing work of art, so evocative and deeply personal that perhaps no viewer can claim to have seen exactly the same film as the person sitting beside them.