Viktoriya Miroshnichenko

After his shockingly powerful Closeness, this searing war drama from Russian wunderkind Kantemir Balagov grabbed us by the throat. An entrancing immersion into post-war turmoil, this towering ode to women’s resilience stuns with its tour-de-force performances and jaw-dropping use of color.

Rebel, iconoclast, outlaw, and counterculture provocateur: controversial Russian writer and political dissident Eduard Limonov was all of these things and more. In Kirill Serebrennikov’s electrifying odyssey, Ben Whishaw delivers a bravura performance as the exiled Limonov as he goes from the 1970s New York punk underground to literary fame in Paris and, ultimately, back to Russia, where he undergoes yet another startling reinvention as the leader of his own extremist political party.