Two amazing films that won major international awards need to be seen by cinephiles at all costs: Mia Hansen-Løve’s haunting The Father of My Children, winner of the Un Certain Regard at this year’s Cannes Festival, left me re-evaluating my own work ethic and future family plans, while Samuel Maoz’s Lebanon, winner of the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice Festival, traps you inside an Israeli tank during the 1982 Lebanese invasion and doesn’t let you leave until tears are falling from your soul.

A scene from Lebanon.

That said, the following films at the festival affected me the most. (I have listed them in a countdown order.)

12. Bad Lieutenant: Port of New Orleans – Werner Herzog
This hyper-surreal reinvention of Abel Ferrara’s 90s-defining classic takes itself 50 percent seriously, while at the same time allows Nicolas Cage and director Werner Herzog to eat up the scenery like you’ve never seen before. Add to that POV sequences of iguanas, alligators, and break-dancing souls as well as another priceless (if not brief) performance by Val Kilmer and you’ve got a tongue-in-cheek romp that was made for repeat viewings.

11. Enter the Void – Gaspar Noe
Following his previous features I Stand Alone (1998) and Irreversible (2002), the "L'enfant terrible" Gaspar Noe has now taken the digital revolution to a psychedelic hell. The warning signs to epileptics upon entering the theater that a strobe effect was used throughout the film kicked things into overdrive right off the bat. Utilizing first person digicam, Noe takes the audience into strobing sexual scenes, deafening drug benders and all-around supernatural swirly stuff … for two hours and 40 minutes! Many walked out around halfway mark, which is fairly understandable due to the obsessive and excessive nature of the “void” sequences. But pondering if this epic journey was made to watch while you are on drugs, or maybe instead of doing drugs, is almost as mind-blowing as the final moment of the voyage (it would be unfair to ruin the climax).

10. The Loved Ones – Sean Byrne
This Australian sleeper, which won the audience award in a Midnight Madness program curated by the energetic Colin Geddis, was so damn funny and disturbing that even the very last shot of the gore-fest had the audience screaming at the top of their lungs. Don’t let the bland title deter you; this is easily the best high school gore-hore film of the year. It's being described as Pretty in Pink (1987) meets Misery (1990)!

Scene from The Loved Ones.

9. Police, Adjective - Corneliu Porumboiu
Structured into the minimalistic routines of a detective’s case, the follow up to Corneliu Porumboiu’s 12:08 East of Bucharest (2006) masterfully arcs each sequence (often, continuous 10-minute takes) with a beginning, middle, and end. The insights into the detective's daily moments are so on target you’d want Porumboiu to make a case study for your own life. This is profound minimalist cinema at its best.

8. Dogtooth - Giorgos Lanthimos
It’s rare to get so involved with a film that you don’t want it to end, especially when it’s about the extreme side effects of child abuse. The characters are so well developed and so oddly explored that I would still be watching this Greek gem if the credits hadn’t shown up. The quiet but deadly tone allows the camera to float freely through a slice of the world that most wouldn’t ever want to know about. Did I mention how brutal the violence is towards these wide-eyed children? And I’m not talking about the scenes that actually draw blood.

7. The Hole – Joe Dante
PG-13 is the new NC-17! With both Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell and The Hole, the pre-teen horror genre proves it can be fun, creepy, and confront substantial issues all at the same time. This freaky family film is like a combination of Michael Nankin’s The Gate (1987) and Bernard Rose’s Paperhouse (1988) wrapped up in an episode of Jose Rivera’s Eerie, Indiana . If none of those titles mean anything to you just let the master of creepy kiddie flicks, Joe Dante, take you down a profound path that confronts everything from the youthful pains of the death of your best friend to the repressed memories of being abused to the universal evils of toy clowns … all presented in Digital 3-D!

6. Fish Tank – Andrea Arnold
Andrea Arnold, who won the Jury Prize at Cannes with first feature Red Road (2004), won Cannes again (a shared Jury Prize) with this little ditty that explores a gritty UK all-female household. Mom still raves all night long and is bringing home hotties from the club, while her oldest daughter Mia (gutsily performed by Katie Jarvis) is trying to define herself (with her fly dance moves) from the scummy neighborhood’s bitchy girls and aggro-boys as well as take care of her adorably annoying li'l sis. The film is a multi-character study that really nails the harsh realities of dead-end small towns. Kinda like a River’s Edge (1987) for the Y2Ks. No matter how you felt about her Red Road, don’t miss this.

Scene from Fish Tank.

5. Waterfront Follies – Ernie Gehr
This 40-minute blood-altering experience of watching three sunsets with three very special similarities was the shining moment from inspired curator Andréa Picard's Wavelengths programs. Other interesting new works were by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Jean Luc-Godard, Lisandro Alonso, and Michael Snow, although I missed Ben Russell’s much talked-about Let Each One Go Where He May. Keep your eyes peeled for Gehr’s meditational film to hopefully play at the Pacific Film Archive, SFMOMA, or the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts ... I hope.

4. Antichrist – Lars Von Trier
This hypnotic and terrifying torture porn love story (by way of Ingmar Bergman) haunted me the entire week of the festival. Lead actor Willem Dafoe spoke at length following the screening about director Lars Von Trier’s “depression” when he wrote this film, and did his best to defend the film’s extreme abstract nature and darker-than-black tone. Charlotte Gainsbourg carries the weight of the world quite devastatingly, aligning her with Von Trier’s other martyred women: Emily Watson, Bjork, and Nicole Kidman. While I feel writing a review that gives away even the jaw-dropping opening sequence -- much less the events that follow -- would be a disservice to someone’s experience, it’s important to know that an audience member sitting three seats away had an epileptic seizure during one of the film's most climactic scenes and had to be carried out of the balcony as the film finished.

3. My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? – Werner Herzog
Herzog’s other film at the festival is a completely realized mini-masterpiece that is as unique as it is simple. Everything from the floating camerawork to the subtle sound design to the surreal dialogue-delivery by the all-star cast of Michael Shannon, Willem Dafoe, Udo Kier, Chloe Sevigny, and Brad Dourif, made it the best David Lynch film at the festival. Coincidentally, the film was produced by Lynch and it makes one realize just how special this project truly is, considering how old these two wacky old timers are. With Herzog at the age of 67 and David Lynch at 63, I don’t think we should be taking their creations for granted.

2. Trash Humpers – Harmony Korine
“This isn’t really even a movie,” Korine said before the world premiere of his fourth directing effort. He went on to explain that Trash Humpers was more like something you might find in an attic, and if anyone was at all unsure about wanting to watch a film entitled Trash Humpers, he or she should probably just “leave now.” (And sure enough, a nice middle-aged couple stood up and walked out of the theater right then and there!) Seventy-eight minutes later -- having followed three thirtysomethings dressed in old person’s latex masks, humping trashcans, scaring each other into cackling howls, and tap dancing the night away -- thoughts of those Six Flags TV commercials combined with the comedic instincts of the Marx Brothers filled my heart. Using filming and editing techniques from 1980s linear VHS systems, the home video project is an inept, Tourette syndrome masterpiece repeating the same jokes, the same one liners, and the same boring games you yourself may have played day after day in your own home town just to make your life seem less awful. Plain and simple, I couldn’t stop laughing throughout the entirety of this film and want to own the damn thing. But it’ll be up to each viewer to decide if it’s absurdist hilarity or just plain annoying trash.

Clip from Trash Humpers.

1. Wild Grass – Alain Resnais
Even with all the raping, humping, castrations, child abuse, and traumatic deaths at this year’s festival, nothing compared to the most creative, off-the-wall, shape-shifting feature of the fest: a film directed by 87-year-old Alain Resnais, well known for New Wave masterpieces Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) and Last Year at Marienbad (1961). Resnais has delivered inventive cinema throughout the last few decades but none have been as inspired as this clusterfuck. With Wild Grass he seems to have tapped into another level of playfulness and inspiration missing from the works of even many first-time filmmakers.

The film follows Georges (André Dussollier), a married 60-something who becomes obsessed with a plucky fortysomething air pilot (Anne Consigny). The hyper-aware awkward shifts in tone grab your attention in a way reminiscent to Lynch or Godard, at one point feeling like a TV movie, the next a stage play, the next a terrifying film noir. But again, it all feels vital and motivated and ready for a new tomorrow of storytelling. It left me feeling, as soon as it ended, like I wanted to watch it all over again immediately. In fact, that's exactly how I felt toward my entire experience at this year's Toronto Film Festival.

Scene from Wild Grass.

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks teaches multiple sections of Film History, an Underrated Cinema course and the History of Female Filmmakers at the Academy of Art University. He also curates and hosts MiDNiTES FOR MANiACS at the Castro Theatre, a film series emphasizing dismissed, overlooked and forgotten films with neo-sincerity.