11. Incendies
Sony Pictures ClassicsDenis Villeneuve impressed mainstream audiences with Prisoners, his dark allegorical tale of abduction and hypocrisy, and his follow-up film Enemy in which Jake Gyllenhaal plays a listless lecturer and his mysterious doppleganger. But it is with Incendies that his full potential as a great director really shines through. Adapted from Wajdi Mouawad's play it tells the story of twins who are given the task of tracking down their father following on from the death of their mother. The trail of evidence leads them to discover that they have a brother they never knew about, as well as other revelations with far more disturbing implications. Tragic yet at times tender, Incendies unfolds like a mysterious puzzle (Villeneuve's puzzlebox approach to structure is evident in his later movies) which culminates in a haunting conclusion. Why it didn't walk away with the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film only the Academy will know.