Am planning to shamelessly copy your format for the cinematography picks that I really want to push.
Sounds good!
I think I need to make a list of films I want to catch up with before submitting my decade list. So please feel free to recommend some more. I already bumped up The Piano Teacher based on your (and Emiliana's) endorsement of Huppert's performance.
Have you seen
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu yet? It will get three votes from me: film, foreign film, and actor. I love
The Secret of the Grain and really like
Games of Love and Chance (aka
L'esquive). The former is on Region 1 DVD but only at Blockbuster; it's also on R2 and 4 so there should be torrents of it. Another one is
August Evening which has a mixture of story elements of
Late Spring (and kind of
35 Shots of Rum) and
Tokyo Story. A film that I'm not in love with but I totally can see a couple of Filmspotters loving is
Tony Takitani which stars Issei Ogata who gave another exceptional performance.
Late Marriage is a standout that will be getting a vote for actor and possibly for the film, foreign film, and supporting actress categories as well. And I've always loved sequence of
Linda, Linda, Linda, but I am now behind the film wholesale. It's a slight film which I don't mean pejoratively. It's a mood booster.