Portrait of a Lady on Fire

A painter is sent to a Breton island in the 1770s to paint a portrait of a woman who refuses to sit for one, so she has to study her in secret and work from memory. Céline Sciamma turns that into the whole thesis: being looked at closely by someone who wants you, and what it means to be the one doing the looking.

There are almost no men in it and no score except two pieces of music, both of which wreck you. The bonfire scene, the mythology conversation about Orpheus, and the final shot at the concert are three of the best sequences of the last decade. If you watch one film from this section, watch this.