Director Park Chan-wook (left) and actors Tang Wei (center) and Park Hae-ill on June 2 speak at a news conference on Park's film "Decision to Leave," which received the Best Director award at this year's Cannes Film Festival, at the hotel JW Marriott Dongdaemun Square Seoul in the capital's Jongno-gu District. (Yonhap News)

By Kim Hayeon 

Director Park Chan-wook's "Decision to Leave," which earned the Best Director award at this year's Cannes Film Festival, is on the New York Times' list of this year's top 10 movies. 

The daily's co-chief film critic Manohla Dargis on Dec. 6 wrote her opinion of the film, which was ranked No. 8 on the list. 

The melo-thriller is about a detective who undergoes complicated shifts of emotion toward the widow of a murder victim, as she is considered a suspect in the case.

Dargis called the movie "labyrinthine" and said it gave "dizzying pleasures." 

She praised the movie's creativity, comparing it with director Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 masterpiece "Vertigo," which is about a detective and mystery woman involved in a crime.

"There is a man and a woman as well as love and betrayal," she said. "Yet as 'Decision to Leave' unfolds and settles into its own distinctively kinked groove, the movie's emotional focus progressively shifts from the obsessed lover to the object of his relentless, uncomprehending gaze, and Park's clever homage turns into a poignant rejoinder."

Such praise from a leading American newspaper is expected to fuel interest in the film from experts in the U.S. ahead of the Academy Awards next year. 

Director Bong Joon-ho's "Parasite," which won Korea's first Oscar for Best Picture in 2020, was also named to The Times' top 10 list for 2019. 

Topping this year's list was "EO," followed in order by "Petite Maman," "Nope," "No Bears," "Kimi," "The External Daughter," "Happening," "Expedition Content" and "All the Beauty and the Bloodshed."

hayeounk8@korea.kr