Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

A singular work in film history, Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles meticulously details, with a sense of impending doom, the daily routine of a middle-aged widow, whose chores include making the beds, cooking dinner for her son, and turning the occasional trick.

In its enormous spareness, Akerman’s film seems simple, but it encompasses an entire world. Whether seen as an exacting character study or as one of cinema’s most hypnotic depictions of space and time, Jeanne Dielman is an astonishing work – one that has been analysed and argued over for decades, and recently ignited fresh debate after seizing the top spot in Sight and Sound’s Greatest Films poll.

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