Sunday, February 27, 2011

2010 in Review: The Ten Best Films of the Year

While I'm well aware that 2011 has been going for eight solid weeks now, it takes this long to gain relatively comprehensive viewing of everything 2010 had to offer. As it happens, that turned out be a lot, even if it was heavily reliant upon European arthouse gems, animated features, and savvy documentaries. As usual, my criteria for a "2010 film" means one that was released theatrically, in any country, in 2010. To demonstrate how this differs from other assessments: "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," were it worthy of any championing, would be a 2009 film by my rules, as it first played over in Scandinavia two years ago today.

In the next week I intend to write up a review of the Oscars, an assessment of the year in general, and cite what I see as its major acting and technical achievements. For now, here's what I feel represented the best films of 2010, along with also-worthy offerings that didn't quite make the cut:


1. "The Illusionist"
2. "October Country"
3. "Blue Valentine"
4. "Poetry"
5. "Life During Wartime"
6. "The Fighter"
7. "Toy Story 3"
9. "How to Train Your Dragon"
10. "The Social Network"


Runners-Up: "Animal Kingdom," "Black Swan," "Catfish," "Easier With Practice," "Exit through the Gift Shop," "Last Train Home," "On Tour," "Potiche"

1 comment:

Chris said...

I haven't seen several on your list, Poetry I haven't got to yet, and I really want to see Certified copy, from what I've heard it's an adult high brow version of before sunrise.

I don't agree with some of your choices, although I loved The Illusionist visually, the animation was memorable, I just felt there was not enough plot going on to put it on my top 10.

Looks like we agree on Social network being around 9 or 10.