At Sea
This poll was conducted in response to the recent New York Times Best Movies of the 21st Century poll and as a follow up to the Film Comment Best of the Decade list (conducted in 2020). I reached out to international artists, critics, curators, filmmakers scholars, writers, etc. committed to “experimental cinema,” loosely defined. Participants were asked to submit unranked lists of 15 titles. The poll received 109 ballots, featuring 940 films from 550 artists. Given the number of individual submissions, the published results suggest consensus where there is none. My hope is these lists will be a resource for curious viewers and others to see the ongoing strength of experimental work. Regrettably, there is no practical way to share individual lists. Contributors are encouraged to share their own lists alongside these results.
Many contributors mentioned the difficulty of choosing individual films from artists/filmmakers where the body of work seems more critical than any one title; that perhaps experimental film shouldn’t be evaluated by the same metrics and lists as narrative features a la Sight & Sound or the NYT list. Many artists received votes for a number of titles without receiving enough votes for any one title to appear on the films list. Perhaps the artists/filmmakers list helps make up for that deficiency.
With that in mind, here are the lists. The parenthetical refers to number of votes received.
Top Films
1. At Sea (Peter Hutton, 2007) (19)
2. The Grand Bizarre (Jodie Mack, 2018) (17)
3. Love is the Message, the Message is Death (Arthur Jafa, 2016) (14)
4. As I Was Moving Ahead, I Occasionally Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (Jonas Mekas, 2000) (13)
Ten Skies (James Benning, 2004) (13)
6. *Corpus Callosum (Michael Snow, 2002) (12)
7. Dusty Stacks of Mom (Jodie Mack, 2013) (11)
sound of a million insects, light of a thousand stars (Tomonari Nishikawa, 2014) (11)
9. Ears, Nose, and Throat (Kevin Jerome Everson, 2016) (10)
In Order to Not Be Here (Deborah Stratman, 2002) (10)
11. Bouquets series (Rose Lowder, 1994 – present) (9)
Let Your Light Shine (Jodie Mack, 2013) (9)
Polycephaly in D (Michael Robinson, 2021)
The Woolworths Choir of 1979 (Elizabeth Price, 2012) (9)
15. Goodbye to Language (Jean-Luc Godard, 2014) (8)
Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Verena Paravel, 2014) (8)
Market Street (Tomonari Nishikawa, 2005) (8)
O’er the Land (Deborah Stratman, 2009) (8)
Observando el Cielo (Jeanne Liotta, 2007) (8)
The Periphery of the Base (Zhou Tao, 2024) (8)
21. 88:88 (Isiah Medina, 2015) (7)
Brouillard: Passage #14 (Alexandre Larose, 2013) (7)
Carroll Gardens (Ernie Gehr, 2023) (7)
In Memoriam (For Mark LaPore) series (Phil Solomon, 2005-08) (7)
Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine (Peter Tscherkassky, 2005) (7)
Listening to the Space in My Room (Robert Beavers, 2013) (7)
The Extravagant Shadows (David Gatten, 2012) (7)
28. Biscotts series (Luther Price, 2005-08) (6)
Dislocation Blues (Sky Hopinka, 2017) (6)
Jaaji. Approx (Sky Hopinka, 2015) (6)
Threnody (Nathaniel Dorsky, 2004) (6)
Trees of Syntax, Leaves of Axis (Daïchi Saïto, 2009) (6)
What Places of Heaven, What Planets Directed, How Long the Effects? or, The General Accidents of the World (David Gatten, 2013) (6)
What the Water Said, Nos. 4-6 (David Gatten, 2007) (6)
When It Was Blue (Jennifer Reeves, 2008) (6)
36. ( ) (Morgan Fisher, 2003) (5)
2012 (Takashi Makino, 2013) (5)
3 peonies (Stephanie Barber, 2017) (5)
Aberration of Starlight (Andrew Noren, 2008) (5)
America (Garrett Bradley, 2019) (5)
Altiplano (Malena Szlam, 2018) (5)
At the Horizon (Takashi Makino & Manuel Knapp, 2018) (5)
Between Relating and Use (Nazli Dincel, 2018) (5)
The Decay of Fiction (Pat O’Neill, 2002) (5)
Home When You Return (Carl Elsaesser, 2021) (5)
Onward Lossless Follows (Michael Robinson, 2017) (5)
Orpheus (outtakes) (Mary Helena Clark, 2012) (5)
Panel for the Walls of Heaven (Stan Brakhage, 2002) (5)
Pitcher for Colored Light (Robert Beavers, 2007) (5)
PROTOTYPE (Blake Williams, 2017) (5)
RR (James Benning, 2007) (5)
Seasons… (Stan Brakhage & Phil Solomon, 2002) (5)
Seeking the Monkey King (Ken Jacobs, 2011) (5)
She Puppet (Peggy Ahwesh, 2001) (5)
Sixty-Six (Lewis Klahr, 2015) (5)
Star Spangled to Death (Ken Jacobs, 2004) (5)
still/here (Christopher Harris, 2000) (5)
The Arboretum Cycle (Nathaniel Dorsky, 2017) (5)
The Giverny Suite (Ja’Tovia Gary, 2019) (5)
The Lanthanide Series (Erin Espelie, 2014) (5)
Toccata (Hannes Schüpbach, 2002) (5)
Time and Tide (Peter Hutton, 2000) (5)
Words of Mercury (Jerome Hiler, 2011) (5)
Top Artists/Filmmakers
1. Jodie Mack (46)
2. James Benning (33)
3. Nathaniel Dorsky (30)
4. Tomonari Nishikawa (29)
Deborah Stratman (29)
6. Peter Hutton (27)
7. Kevin Jerome Everson (25)
8. David Gatten (23)
9. Robert Beavers (22)
Michael Robinson (22)
11. Jean-Luc Godard (21)
12. Sky Hopinka (20)
13. Stan Brakhage (19)
Ken Jacobs (19)
15. Michael Snow (18)
16. Arthur Jafa (17)
17. Takashi Makino (16)
Phil Solomon (16)
19. Christopher Harris (14)
20. Mary Helena Clark (13)
Rose Lowder (13)
Jonas Mekas (13)
Ben Rivers (13)
Daïchi Saïto (13)
25. Alexandre Larose (12)
Apichatpong Weerasethakul (12)
27. Ernie Gehr (11)
Amy Halpern (11)
Jerome Hiler (11)
Jennifer Reeves (11)
Peter Tscherkassky (11)
32. Nazli Dincel (10)
Laida Lertxundi (10)
Elizabeth Price (10)
35. Ja’Tovia Gary (9)
Scott Stark (9)
Zhou Tao (9)
38. Peggy Ahwesh (8)
Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Verena Paravel (8)
Lewis Klahr (8)
Jeanne Liotta (8)
Isiah Medina (8)
Jesse McLean (8)
Pat O’Neill (8)
Luther Price (8)
Ben Russell (8)
Stom Sogo (8)
Blake Williams (8)
Ana Vaz (8)
50. Basma Alsharif (7)
Ute Aurand (7)
Stephanie Barber (7)
Colectivo los Ingravidos (7)
Barbara Hammer (7)
Sharon Lockhart (7)
Tsai Ming-liang (7)
Andrew Noren (7)
Alee Peoples (7)
Nicolas Rey (7)
Jean-Claude Rousseau (7)
Sylvia Schedelbauer (7)
Hannes Schüpbach (7)
Cauleen Smith (7)
Fred Worden (7)
Special thanks to all contributors: Lorelei d’Andriole, Damian Anache, Paul Attard, Yasaman Baghban, Ben Balcom, Roger Beebe, Dan Black, Swagato Chakravorty, Pip Chodorov, Edo Choi, Sam Circle, Javiera Cisterna, Phil Coldiron, Ryan Conrath, Jordan Cronk, Ben Creech, Jesse Cumming, Brian Darr, James Devine, John Edmond, Robert Edgecomb, Carl Elsaesser, Kevin Jerome Everson, Alex Fields, Jim Finn, Rodrigo Faustini, Chris Freeman, Pablo Gamba, Caden Mark Gardner, David Gatten, Camila Galaz, Blanca García, Sandra Gibson & Luis Recoder, Catalina Giordano, Manuel Bayo Gisbert, Larry Gottheim, Ron Green, Zsolt Gyenes, Zachary Goldkind, Leo Goldsmith, Daniel Gorman, Alex Hansen, James Hansen, Joshua Holtzman, Darren Hughes, Chris Kennedy, John Klacsmann, Liam Kenny, Park Kyujae, Peter Labuza, Ilya L, Peter Lichter, Gabriel Lizama, Almudena Escobar Lopez, Remi, Laura Major, Carleen Maur, Jesse McLean, Andrés Medina, León Melo, Grace Mitchell, TJ Mott, KJ Mohr, Connor Murphy, Michael Alexander Morris, Emma Piper-Burket, Simon Payne, Joshua Peinado, Mark Petrovitsky, Leonardo Pirondi, Elena Calvo Polo, Steve Polta, John Powers, Mahda Purmehdi, Joanna Raczynska, Andrew Reichel, Erik Reeds, Vadim Rizov, Michael Robinson, Francisco Rojas, Lynne Sachs, Red Sales, Jimmy Schaus, Linda Izcali Scobie, Erica Sheu, Michael Sicinski, Jeffrey Skoller, Joshua Gen Solondz, Forrest Sprague, Deborah Stratman, Chris Stults, Kalpana Subramanian, R. Emmet Sweeney, Ryan Swen, Sam Taffel, Sofia Theodore-Pierce, Kaya Turan, Josh Vieth, Masha Vlasova, Nikita Vorobyou, Stephen Wardell, Sasha Waters, Caleb Walsh, Conor Williams, Blake Williams, Greg Zinman.
