Ida

Set in Communist Poland in 1962, this emotionally devastating period drama considers the tragic secrets of postwar Polish history through the eyes of a trainee Catholic nun (Agata Trzebuchowska) and her hard-drinking libertine aunt (Agata Kulesza). Drawing on his Polish-Jewish ancestry, writer-director Paweł Pawlikowski invokes the minimalist cool of the French New Wave with monochrome cinematography and a knowingly retro 1.33:1 aspect ratio. An elegantly concise modern classic, IDA was the first Polish feature to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.