Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

Influential Belgian director Chantal Akerman (1950-2015) questioned the "hierarchy of images": why should the image of, say, a car accident be more interesting than that of doing the dishes? In cinematic language, why does the spectacle prevail over the everyday? Perhaps because the mundane is associated with womanhood? In this film, she makes a feminist statement by depicting three days of a woman's everyday life precisely in long, static shots. In 2022, Britain's Sight & Sound judged it the best film ever made.

Young widow Jeanne Dielman (Delphine Seyrig) lives with her son Sylvain on the Brussels Handelskaai. Her days are monotonous: she cleans, she cooks and she looks after her son, all through a rigid, unchanging regime. To earn a living, in the afternoons, when Sylvain is at school, she receives men with whom she has paid sex. Yet cracks slowly appear in the regime.