10 Outstandingly Beautiful Cinematic Single Frames

Nicolas Winding Refn is a curious breed of director, often building his films around the shots, rather than the plot. And while this can often lead to some narrative confusion, uncertainty and contrarian structures, it always leads to beautiful pieces of cinema.

Though Refn's entire filmography deserves its own article, Only God Forgives provides what might be his absolute best visual work, in collaboration with one of Stanley Kubrick's own cinematographers - the unassumingly named Larry Smith.

Nowhere is the visual potency of Only God Forgives more apparent than in the dinner scene featuring Kristen Scott Thomas's Crystal, Ryan Gosling's on-screen mother and matriarch, out for vengeance. At the core of this is the image of her alone at the table, appearing as if sat upon a throne, smoking a cigarette and framed against the on-location Bangkok restaurant's over-lit wall.

The symmetrical framing, the perfect set design, the red and gold colour palette, broken by the high-contrast tablecloth and surrounding shadows - what more is there to say?