Works by Joshua Oppenheimer, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Gianfranco Rosi and Hayao Miyazaki made 2014 that rarest of things — a very good year for documentary and independent film-makers.

In Oppenheimer’s The Look of Silence, a bold follow-up to the Act of Killing, the director tracks down the ageing members of the Indonesian civilian militia (pictured) who, with the tacit approval of the army and government, carried out the wholesale slaughter of a million suspected communists after the 1965 Suharto coup. An extraordinary, shocking and poetic film.

The uplifting The Wind Rises by Japanese animation genius Miyazaki offered plenty of mesmeric moments that we’ve come to expect from the 72-year-old maestro.