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.