A provincial man who’s trying to find a job stays with his city cousin in Ceylan’s masterful third feature that probes issues of personal stasis and social alienation in contemporary Turkish society, marked by restrained performances that accrue a quiet emotional depth.

Ceylan’s meta-filmic sophomore feature feels like a Kiarostami-esque attempt at self-reflexivity, while occasionally drifting into dreamy, subliminal scenes, as a filmmaker broaches the idea of getting his parents to act in his next project.

While not as resonating as his recent output such are his towering standards, Ceylan’s new film is still an exquisitely mounted, conversation-heavy exploration of the desire to escape from existential gloom as a village schoolteacher mulls over the prospect of a city transfer.

A strong, poetic feature debut from a master-in-the-making, centering on two young children’s perspective of living in their home village, as the adults around them converse about the cruelty and misery of life.

An aspiring writer discovers that his father’s debt issues could be insurmountable in another brilliant elemental epic by Ceylan that earns its length, exploring themes of identity, self-image, and personal dreams.

Ceylan continues to explore the beauty and peril of human communication with aplomb in this long but ultimately fruitful cinematic sermon, as a hotel owner in a remote Turkish village deals with conflicts within his spheres of influence.

Ceylan and his wife star as a couple facing the complexities of spousal communication and the fragility of marriage in this slow-burning, Antonioni-esque drama that is marked by few words.

A hit-and-run accident sets in motion what may be Ceylan’s bleakest film, a departure into a slightly more experimental style marked by grimy cinematography and even more measured pacing, as it explores a family on the precipice of disintegration.

This deliberately paced anti-investigative procedural, directed by Ceylan in astonishing form, is my favourite film of the 2010s decade, as a methodical ‘character’ study about personas, geographical psychology, stasis and incommunicability plays out with profound philosophical effect.