my $newest_time;
my @newest_files;

my %times;
foreach my $file (@files) {
   my $time = (stat($file))[9];
   $times{$file} = $time;
   if ($time > $newest_time) {
      $newest_time = $time;
      @newest_files = $file;
   }
   elsif ($time == $newest_time) {
      push @newest_files, $file;
   }
}

foreach my $file (@newest_files) {
   if ( ...[ this is the file we want ]... ) {
      return $file;
   }
}

@files = sort { $times{$b} <=> $times{$a} } @files;

# Remove the ones we already checked.
splice(@files, 0, scalar(@newest_files));

foreach my $file (@files) {
   if ( ...[ this is the file we want ]... ) {
      return $file;
   }
}

##</code><code>##

my %times;
$times{$_} = (stat($file))[9]
   foreach @files;
@files = sort { $times{$b} <=> $times{$a} } @files;