My best of 2011

I saw 53 movies in 2011, which isn’t all that good for me, although one more and it could have been disastrous. To be fair to me, though (and that’s what really matters), I did watch probably 60 or 70 more movies while screening for the film festival, so that bumps things up a bit (I don’t get to talk about those here).

Of those that I saw this year, here are my top ten. And another one. I should point out, I only selected these from the movies I saw for the first time this year– otherwise, Casablanca would take the top spot every year, and that would get kind of boring for everyone except me. Also, these are not necessarily movies that came out this year, but movies that I saw for the first time this year. As you’ll see.

And for what it’s worth, I’ve seen four movies so far in 2012, and at least one of them (maybe more) would have ended up very high on this list.  So there’s something to look forward to.

I won’t talk a lot about any of these, but you can click through and see what I had to say in my original post for each. I can see a lot of these trading places on the list if I did this on another day, but here’s where they are right now:

10) Midnight in Paris

Just purely delightful. Woody Allen can be great, and it’s easy to forget that when he puts out as many movies as he does.

9) The Illusionist

Kind of heartbreaking. I wonder what this would have looked like if Tati had actually made it?

8) Hugo

Another movie for people who love movies (much like the first two on this list, in a lot of ways). I was a fool to have any doubts about Scorsese.

7) Marwencol

What a strange and unexpected movie. Seek this out and watch it.

6) The Interrupters

OK, so, I haven’t actually posted on this yet. It’s because I originally saw it while screening movies for the festival, so I wasn’t allowed to talk about it. And then I wanted to wait until it looked like a wider audience could see it. Well, PBS Frontline will be showing it on February 14th, so I guess I can write a post about it now. Will do. Make sure you watch it. Helluva movie.

5) The Descendants

Yep, made me cry a little bit. Such humanity here.

4) Black Swan

Pretty sure I had this as my top movie of 2010. Such intensity. What a visceral experience. I’ve rarely seen anything like the performance of the ballet that closes the movie.

3) 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

Like I said, this is the movie that beat No Country for Old Men at Cannes, and I can kinda see why (even if I would’ve chosen No Country).

2) Red Riding Trilogy

Yes, it’s three movies, but today it will be one. They all have to be seen for it to work anyway. I still think about these movies often.

1) The Spirit of the Beehive

I meant it when I said that this really is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.

Also: The Tree of Life

This exists somewhere outside of lists for me, so I’ll just put it here.