Posted in Lists and Top 10’s, tagged 127 Hours, 13 Assassins, 1920 The Battle of Warsaw, 30 Minutes or Less, 50/50, A Lonely Place To Die, adèle blanc sec, Animal Kingdom, Anonymous, Another Earth, Apollo 18, Attack the Block, Battle: Los Angeles, Beginners, Biutiful, Black Swan, Blitz, Blue Valentine, Bridesmaids, Captain America: The First Avenger, Colombiana, Contagion, Cowboys and Aliens, Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark, Drive, Drive Angry, Fair Game, Fast Five, Faster, Footlose, Fright Night, Green Lantern, Hanna, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Henry’s Crime, Hereafter, Hugo, I am Number Four, Immortals, In Time, John Carpenter’s The Ward, Julia’s Eyes, Justice, Kill List, Limitless, Melancholia, Midnight In Paris, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Moneyball, My Week With Marilyn, NEDS, Never Let Me Go, One Day, Oranges and Sunshine, Paul, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Priest, Rabbit Hole, Real Steel, Red Riding Hood, Red State, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Sanctum, Scream 4, Season of the Witch, Senna, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Source Code, Stake Land, Submarine, Sucker Punch, Super 8, Take Shelter, The Adjustment Bureau, The Art of Getting By, The Awakening, The Beaver, The Conspirator, The Debt, The Eagle, The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec, The Fighter, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Guard, The Hangover: Part II, The Help, The Ides Of March, The Inbetweeners Movie, The King's Speech, The Lincoln Lawyer, The Mechanic, The Resident, The Rum Diary, The Silent House, The Skin I Live In, The Thing, The Three Musketeers, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1, The Way, Thor, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Tomorrow, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Tree Of Life, Troll Hunter, True Grit, Unkown, Warrior, Water for Elephants, We Need to Talk About Kevin, When The War Began, Win Win, Wuthering Heights, X-Men: First Class on January 1, 2012|
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Posted in Lists and Top 10’s, tagged Black Swan, Drive, Hugo, Midnight In Paris, Moneyball, Senna, Stake Land, The Artist, The Guard, The King's Speech, The Skin I Live In, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, True Grit, We Need to Talk About Kevin on December 31, 2011|
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- Hugo – To be called a family film these days usually means a silly kids films with a few in-jokes for older viewers but Hugo really is a film for all ages and will remain so for generations to come. A film for lovers of film by a director who truly loves his medium, he even made 3D work.
- Drive – This is a movie that really shouldn’t work, there isn’t much plot, its old fashioned, overly violent, the leading man doesn’t have much dialogue. For some reason it does all work and like all the best movies it will haunt your memories long after you have seen it. It missed out to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy as my movie of the month back in September but on reflection it is a better movie.
- The Guard – What could easily have been yet another fish out water tale is elevated by prospective. Instead of focusing on Don Cheadle’s FBI agent the film is centred around Brendan Gleeson’s wiser than he first appears Irish policeman. The real star however is the script and more importantly the dialogue.
- Senna – The first documentary to make my top ten of the year list. A fantastic and moving story of Ayrton Senna, a man who was possibly the greatest racing driver of all time, the true greatness of the film is the number of none F1 fans who also enjoyed it.
- Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – The BBC adaptation of John le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is possibly the best spy thriller I have ever seen, I think the movie may just be better.
- We Need to Talk About Kevin – Not the easiest movie to watch but well worth the effort. Confidently directed and superbly acted (Tilda Swinton deserves an Oscar) but the real strength lies in the screenplay. Adapted from a novel with a near un-filmable format, it’s a miracle any film was made let alone such a good one.
- Midnight In Paris – The premise is silly and clichéd but the execution is so charming and amusing that it gets away with all its potential faults. Especially rewarding for fans of Hemingway, Fitzgerald and the “Lost Generation” but entertaining and enjoyable for any film fan. Woody Allen’s best movie in a very long time.
- The Skin I live in – Beautifully shot, perfectly cast and brilliantly acted but most importantly Pedro Almodóvar back to his weird, bizarre best. Antonio Banderas is also back to his best and Elena Anaya deserves more roles like this.
- Moneyball – with a screenplay by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin you expect a compelling story and snappy dialogue, I am happy to report both are present and are helped by Brad Pitt’s second great performance of the year. Reminiscent in part to The Social Network (also written by Sorkin) and that has to be a good thing.
- Stake Land – A grim and often violent road movie from the team who gave us the direct to DVD zombie/rat/mutant classic Mulberry Street. Benefiting from its gritty realism and the constraints of a low budget it is intelligent and thoughtful whilst still being entertaining, and the vampires don’t sparkle in sunlight they burn! The best vampire movie since Let The Right One In (that topped my list two years ago).
A note on my selection: in previous years my top ten has been made up of films released in the UK during the calendar year. This time I have excluded films that were on general release in America in 2010 making my list more comparable with other best of the year lists (Stake Land is a bit of a grey area as it is listed as a 2010 movie but doesn’t appear to have been screened anywhere outside film festivals until 2011). I would like to have seen The Artist before compiling my list but despite the published December 30th release date it doesn’t appear to be on anywhere. Check back tomorrow to see how True Grit, Black Swan and The King’s Speech compare to this years movie in my full list of movies seen this year.
Finally: the list are my favourite films of the year not necessarily the best ten films of the year, so please don’t tell me the list is wrong but feel free to share your favourite films of the year.
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