28. THE CIRCLE
 
Iran
dir. Jafar Panahi
world premiere 2000
U.S. release 2001
 

 
Because after a breakout decade of global hype, largely subsisting on male-authored and (often literally!) male-driven meditations, Panahi surged to the highest rank of an august pack of filmmakers with a movie that wastes neither a shot nor a second, and which marks its women clearly as individuals while encapsulating and decrying a crisis common to all of them.