The Partition of India from the British POV by the author of "Bend it like Beckham". Set mostly in the lavish palace of the British Raj, Lord Mountbatten must oversee the disastrous division of India into two halves, Moslem Pakistan and Hindu Bharat, as Gandhi, Nehru, and Jinna struggle to balance what will become an extremely bloody budget costing millions of lives.  The British are trying to salvage some dignity while forced to stand by and relinquish the gigantic crown jewel of their empire.  The film has been criticized for factual distortions but the director is herself Anglo-Indian and capable of seeing the tragedy from both sides. In any case beautifully filmed, skillfully enacted, and presented in the traditional grand manner.

9. 1945, Tôrök Ferenc.

This all takes place in a single day in 1945, just after the end of World  War II when two traditionally dressed Jewish men who survived the Holocaust arrive at a small town from which all Jews were deported and their properties taken over by local people. Their arrival throws the town into a panic many people fearing that these men are merely the predecessors of others who will return to  reclaim their unjustly confiscated property, but this is not the purpose of their visit.  What it is turns out to be a social and moral thriller. Beautifully shot in retro black and white and most cannily directed by Ferenc Törôk from a tight script based on a short novel with totally realistic performances by a choice ensemle cast, 1945 is destined to become a landmark of Hungarian cinema history.

10. The Butcher, the Whore, and the One Eyed Man. 

(A hentes, a kurva, és a félzemúy), János Szász.

Oddly enough I saw this at the tail end of the year in India at the Kerala Film Festival, where it totally blew me away. János Szász does not make many films but each one turns out to be a landmark. Szász in his films generally investigates the darker side of human psychology and psychopathy and this is, at the same time, his darkest and most brilliant work.  A runaway one-eyed soldier and a runaway prostitute wind up under the roof of a slovenly salacious butcher in a grimy slaughterhouse. To prevent being exposed by him they clumsily kill him, cut up the corpse with the tools of the trade, and dump the pieces into the Danube. There is much more to this intricate tale based on an actual murder case in 1926. Skillful black and white photography and absolutely tight direction make this into much more than meets the eye. Szász is the past master of this type of amoral psychobdrama, here at the peak of his prowess in this bizarre masterpiece. 

Other noteworthy films of Honorable Mention.

Le Cercle Rouge, Melville retro at Yerevan.

Classic French high class heist crime drama with terrific trio of top Euro stars, Alan Delon, Yves Montand, and Italian Gian Maria Volonte. Gripping no matter how many times you see it. Jean-Pierre Melville was one of the best French directors and because of his maverick style of filmmaking was considered a kind of Godfather by the young upstarts of the Nouvelle Vague, Godard, Truffaut, Chabrol, et les autres.

The Red Shoes, Powell and Pressburger, 1948. Restored classics, Budapest A colorful British musical film noir based on ballet, Starring startling red haired  ballerina Moira Shearer and the magnificently icy Anton Walbrook in an amazing adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name. With a marvelous 17 minute surrealistic ballet sequence this is simply one of the greatest movies ever made. Period. Catch it whenever you can.