IndieWire: 66 Best Films of 2015, as voted by Indiewire’s writers and staffers, not to be confused with the Indiewire poll of hundreds of critics
- Mad Max: Fury Road — George Miller
- Sicario — Denis Villeneuve
- The Duke of Burgundy — Peter Strickland
- Carol — Todd Haynes
- 45 Years — Andrew Haigh
- Inside Out — Pete Docter
- Room — Lenny Abrahamson
- Spotlight — Tom McCarthy
- Brooklyn — John Crowley
- Son of Saul — László Nemes
- Ex Machina — Alex Garland
- Steve Jobs — Danny Boyle
- Anomalisa — Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson
- The End of the Tour — James Ponsoldt
- The Tribe — Miroslav Slaboshpitsky
- Tangerine — Sean Baker
- Mustang — Deniz Gamze Ergüven
- The Assassin — Hou Hsiao-Hsien
- Creed — Ryan Coogler
- The Diary of a Teenage Girl — Marielle Heller
- It Follows — David Robert Mitchell
- Clouds of Sils Maria — Olivier Assayas
- Crimson Peak — Guillermo del Toro
- Mistress America — Noah Baumbach
- Beasts of No Nation — Cary Joji Fukunaga
- Wild Tales — Damián Szifrón
- Far from the Madding Crowd — Thomas Vinterberg
- A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence — Roy Andersson
Just missing out on the top 20
- Bridge of Spies — Steven Spielberg
- Heaven Knows What — Ben Safdie and Joshua Safdie
- The Good Dinosaur — Peter Sohn
- The Walk — Robert Zemeckis
- Magic Mike XXL — Gregory Jacobs
- James White — Josh Mond
- Victoria — Sebastian Schipper
- Youth — Paolo Sorrentino
- Tokyo Tribe — Sion Sono
- The Look of Silence — Joshua Oppenheimer
- Eden — Mia Hansen-Løve
- Queen of Earth — Alex Ross Perry
- Entertainment — Rick Alverson
- Tu Dors Nicole — Stéphane Lafleur
- Bone Tomahawk — S. Craig Zahler
- Arabian Nights — Miguel Gomes
- What We Do in the Shadows — Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi
- Slow West — John Maclean
- Heart of a Dog — Laurie Anderson
- Ballet 422 — Jody Lee Lipes
- Timbuktu — Abderrahmane Sissako
- Experimenter — Michael Almereyda
- The Pearl Button — Patricio Guzmán
- Cartel Land — Matthew Heineman
- Li’l Quinquin — Bruno Dumont
- Listen to Me Marlon — Stevan Riley
- Dope — Rick Famuyiwa
- The Night Before — Jonathan Levine
- Phoenix — Christian Petzold
- Jauja — Lisandro Alonso
- The Forbidden Room — Guy Maddin
- Hard to Be a God — Aleksey German
- Mississippi Grind — Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden
- Breathe — Mélanie Laurent
- While We’re Young — Noah Baumbach
- Cobain: Montage of Heck — Brett Morgen
- The Martian — Ridley Scott
- White God — Kornél Mundruczó