18. INLAND EMPIRE
 
United States
dir. David Lynch
world premiere 2006
U.S. release 2006
 

 
Because key actor Karolina Gruszka plays someone called "Lost Girl," and even though everyone watching knows just how she feels, Lynch's ability not just to marshal new aesthetics out of eccentric work habits and shifting technology, but to make those aesthetics ferocious, affecting, and coherent in their own unique way, remains a blessed enigma of modern film.