Lamb (Iceland) (16/24)

Lamb is a bit of an outlier on this list, as it’s one of the few international films in the past few years that got a sizable theatrical rollout PRIOR to its awards buzz. That’s primarily because it was picked up by A24 out of Cannes, making it one of their few non-English language titles, although it does star Noomi Rapace, who has made a name for herself in the US. While it’s billed a “folk horror” on Wikipedia, it conducts itself as a quiet folk family drama for most of its runtime. Rapace plays Maria, a farmer who, along with her husband, raises a half-sheep/half-human baby on their misty Icelandic ranch. The little sheepman is very cute, and the grossest thing about the film is a couple of animal birthing scenes prior to the movie’s bloody climax. It’s a quiet horror film where the dread slowly grows until its tremendous climax. It was the Icelandic submission for the Oscars last year, but its genre I think precluded it a bit from that conversation even though it’s well done.