Clouds of Sils Maria

Olivier Assayas's Clouds of Sils Maria (2014) competed for the Palme d'Or, and Kristen Stewart's supporting role made her the first American actress to win a César. A reflexive drama about acting, ageing and rivalry between women, it is one of the best films of Assayas's career.

Juliette Binoche plays Maria Enders, a star confronting her own mortality through the role reversal of the play that launched her, with Stewart as Valentine, the assistant whose rehearsal-room sparring with her grows ever more charged, and Chloë Grace Moretz as a scandal-prone young Hollywood actress. Assayas sets much of the film among the shifting mists of the Swiss mountains (the title refers to a real meteorological phenomenon) and lets the lines between performance and life dissolve, above all in the electric two-handers between Binoche and Stewart.

Critics praised its intelligence and the chemistry of its leads, and Stewart's performance was the moment she was reassessed as a serious actress; the César win turned her critical reputation around. Cerebral, ambiguous and beautifully played, Clouds of Sils Maria is a film about performers that turns into a film about time and the self, and it finds Assayas at his most absorbing in the talky, idea-rich European drama. Its scenes between Binoche and Stewart are among the most absorbing screen portraits of acting, ageing and the rivalries between women.