Ida (2013)

Shot in black-and-white Academy ratio like Pawlikowski wanted to make the most visually austere film possible and then somehow succeeded. Every frame is composed with the precision of a still photograph, characters pushed to the bottom or edges of the screen as if the world is too large and too indifferent to center them. The story — a young nun discovers her Jewish heritage in 1960s Poland — is told with almost aggressive restraint. Nothing is overexplained. Nothing lingers longer than it needs to. The kind of film you admire deeply and rewatch rarely.