Dear Frankie (2004) — PICK Two Days, One Night (2014) — PICK

At last! My No. 1 film of 2014 — Two Days, One Night, from the Belgian filmmaking brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne — has arrived on Blu-ray and DVD from the Criterion Collection.

Over the last 20 years, in films like La Promesse (1996) and The Son (2002), the Dardennes have explored moral, social and spiritual themes with a consistency and depth unmatched by any other working filmmaker. (Their last film, The Kid With a Bike, was my No. 1 film of 2012.) In 2011, they received the Robert Bresson Prize, established by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications to honor filmmakers whose work is notable for its spiritual significance.

Two Days is a somber but deeply humane portrait of a woman suffering from depression as she struggles to keep her job. As always, the Dardennes extend empathy to virtually all characters in their various difficult situations, with a supportive husband (Fabrizio Rongione) and a minor character motivated by his faith joining the ranks of their most admirable characters. The brothers offer hopeful new beginnings rather than happy endings, and Two Days is particularly notable in how it avoids both the happy resolution we want and the crushing defeat we fear, giving us instead something at once more sobering and more liberating. It’s a film that makes you resolve to be a better neighbor.

The naturalistic feel of the Dardennes’ films reflects their early work as documentary filmmakers — and bonus features for Two Days include one of their earliest projects, a 45-minute 1979 documentary looking back at the 1960 Belgian labor strikes.

Meanwhile, one of my top films of a decade ago, Shona Auerbach’s Dear Frankie, is now streaming via Netflix and Amazon. Set in Glasgow, it’s a charming, bittersweet tale starring Emily Mortimer and Gerard Butler, focusing on a deaf lad (Jack McElhone) who corresponds with his absent father, whom he believes is a sailor on a ship.