I’ve expanded my “pure as the driven snow” Best of 2014 list (originally posted on 11.20) to 27, having added Rob Marshall‘s Into The Woods, Hany Abu-Assad‘s Omar and Charlie McDowell‘s The One I Love to the second-tier 13-to-26 list. Adding Pawel Pawlikowski‘s Ida (which I’ve always regarded as a 2013 film although I understand that most see it as a 2014 release) and you’ve got 27. I’ll update once again after seeing Unbroken on Sunday night, 11.30, followed by Big Eyes and Exodus two or three days later. (I’m currently halfway through an online screener of Nuri Bilge Ceylan‘s Winter Sleep.)

Top Twelve: 1. Birdman (d: Alejandro G. Inarritu); 2. Citizen Four (d: Laura Poitras); 3. Leviathan (d: Andrey Zvyagintsev); 4. Gone Girl (d: David Fincher, who took a film with an airport-lounge plot and made it into something much more resonant); 5. Boyhood (d: Richard Linklater); 6. A Most Violent Year (d: J.C. Chandor); 7. Wild Tales (d: Damian Szifron); 8. A Most Wanted Man (d: Anton Corbijn); 9. The Babadook (d: Jennifer Kent); 10. Locke (d: Steven Knight); 11. Nightcrawler (d: Dan Gilroy); 12. The Drop (d: Michael R. Roskam).

Second-Tier Top Fourteen: 13. Whiplash (d: Damian Chazelle), 14. The Theory of Everything (d: James Marsh); 15. The Imitation Game (d: Morten Tyldum); 16. The Grand Budapest Hotel (d: Wes Anderson); 17. Selma (d: Ava DuVernay); 18. Omar (d: Hany Abu-Assad); 19. Last Days in Vietnam (d: Rory Kennedy); 20. Life Itself (d: Steve James); 21. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (d: Matt Reeves); 22. Into The Woods (d: Rob Marshall); 23. Red Army, (d: Gabe Polsky); 24. Foxcatcher (d: Bennett Miller); 25. Edge of Tomorrow (d: Doug Liman); 26. The One I Love (d: Charlie McDowell).

Great 2013 Film That Some Are Calling a 2014 Film (which, yes, it technically is): Ida (d: Pawel Pawlikowski).