Paste Magazine: 50 Best Movies of 2015
- Chi-Raq — Spike Lee
- Cartel Land — Matthew Heineman
- The Tribe — Miroslav Slaboshpitsky
- White God — Kornél Mundruczó
- Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem — Ronit Elkabetz and Shlomi Elkabetz
- The End of the Tour — James Ponsoldt
- Anomalisa — Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson
- Time Out of Mind — Oren Moverman
- Mad Max: Fury Road — George Miller
- Mistress America — Noah Baumbach
- Experimenter — Michael Almereyda
- Eden — Mia Hansen-Løve
- Phoenix — Christian Petzold
- Heart of a Dog — Laurie Anderson
- Iris — Albert Maysles
- The Hateful Eight — Quentin Tarantino
- Love & Mercy — Bill Pohlad
- Janis: Little Girl Blue — Amy Berg
- The Assassin — Hou Hsiao-Hsien
- Mississippi Grind — Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden
- Seymour: An Introduction — Ethan Hawke
- Son of Saul — László Nemes
- Inside Out — Pete Docter
- Western — Bill Ross
- Hard to Be a God — Aleksey German
- James White — Josh Mond
- Spotlight — Tom McCarthy
- Ex Machina — Alex Garland
- Amy — Asif Kapadia
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens — JJ Abrams
- I’ll See You in My Dreams — Brett Haley
- Beasts of No Nation — Cary Joji Fukunaga
- Room — Lenny Abrahamson
- The Mend — John Magary
- Brand: A Second Coming — Ondi Timoner
- It Follows — David Robert Mitchell
- While We’re Young — Noah Baumbach
- (T)ERROR — Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe
- Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation — Christopher McQuarrie
- The Big Short — Adam McKay
- Listen to Me Marlon — Stevan Riley
- Timbuktu — Abderrahmane Sissako
- ’71 — Yann Demange
- Trainwreck — Judd Apatow
- Sicario — Denis Villeneuve
- The Revenant — Alejandro González Iñárritu
- The New Girlfriend — François Ozon
- Results — Andrew Bujalski
- Dope — Rick Famuyiwa
- Tangerine — Sean Baker