A Year in the Dark: The Films of 2011

1. Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)
Few films this year can match The Tree of Life's sense of soaring ambition, and fewer still can match the breathtaking artistry with which Terrence Malick has delivered his fifth feature. This deeply personal examination of life, the universe and everything mostly takes place in an evocative recreation of 50s Texas, but Malick's vision extends far beyond the streets in which carefree children play. Planets are born and die; dinosaurs walk the Earth; people ask questions of a God who doesn't respond; Sean Penn stumbles across a beach filled with memories. The Tree of Life marks Malick's most audacious break with narrative convention, and it may just shift your perception of what cinema, at its best, can be. [Philip Concannon]

2. Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn)
Relatively few directors are the star of their own show these days, but Nicolas Winding Refn is certainly one of them. Imposing his sleek, ethereal style on this grimy, near-defunct American subgenre, Refn has produced something both utterly reverential and completely fresh – the physical and emotional squalor within the text at odds with the sheer beauty of what he puts on screen. The astonishing set-pieces, a magnetic performance from Ryan Gosling and a genuine tenderness in his relationship with girl-next-door Irene (Carey Mulligan) combine with the stunning aesthetic to produce a seductive and visceral whole. Throw in Albert Brooks as a baddie and one of the greatest scenes ever filmed in a lift, and you’ve got yourself a bona fide crime classic. [Chris Fyvie]

3. Meek's Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt)
As with most of Kelly Reichardt’s filmography, the triumphs of Meek’s Cutoff are as much in what it doesn’t do as what it does. A female-focussed western that doesn’t involve saloon girls, anachronistic behaviour or a rootin’ tootin’ Doris Day is a rarity in itself, while the director’s typically measured pace has a hypnotic allure, drawing the audience deeper and deeper into screenwriter Jonathan Raymond’s tale of a diminished wagon-train’s fateful progress through the Oregon plains. But perhaps fateful isn’t the correct word; as desperation mounts, a careful ambiguity anti’s the climax just as tensions reach a head, ensuring it lingers long in the mind. [Chris Buckle]

4. Senna (Asif Kapadia)
Formula One, often perceived as a distinctly dull Sunday afternoon interest, seems an unlikely subject for a film which would have the most successful opening weekend in Britain of any documentary in history. But Asif Kapadia’s Senna draws even the most car-phobic viewer into the story of the charismatic Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna, who died in a crash during a race in 1994, and boldly shifts the boundaries for documentary filmmaking – there are no talking heads here, no omniscient narration. The film is pieced together entirely from archive footage of Senna’s childhood and dramatic career and, when the inevitable crash scene comes, we experience it entirely in a devastating present moment. [Jenny Munro]

5. We Need To Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsey)
After a nine-year filmmaking hiatus Ramsey exploded back on screen with Kevin, a baroque fever dream filled with bravado images, a splintered structure and the kind of colour design that makes Suspiria look like a watercolour. Subtle family drama this is not. It’s the nightmare that even Polanski, cinema's great cynic, couldn’t fully embrace: some mothers don’t want to 'ave 'em. Tilda Swinton plays a globetrotting hedonist who become shackled to the suburbs by 8lbs of baby-shaped evil that grows up – in the year's niftiest bit of casting – to be Ezra Miller, Swinton’s smirking doppelganger. The horror is balanced by a wicked sense of humour, making this the finest black comedy about the mother/son filial bond since Psycho. [Jamie Dunn]

6. Blue Valentine (Derek Cianfrance)
Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams finally shook off any lingering connections with their teen-market pasts in Derek Cianfrance’s memorable portrait of a marriage disintegrating. The quiet, unshowy performances from the two leads are crucial to the film’s delicate balancing act between a desperately suffocating atmosphere and a romantic, intimate depiction of how passionate the couple’s relationship once was. Unusually for a tale of disappointment and bitterness, the film left audiences enchanted by its rare beauty and sensual cinematography. Not at all a grimly realist exercise, but a swooning tribute to the fleeting brilliance of life’s rare and profound moments of connection. [JM]

7. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson)
Though Gary Oldman’s watchful and menacing Smiley dominates Tomas Alfredson’s magical spy thriller, there are also joys to be found in the retro espionage shenanigans and meticulous set and costume design. Perfectly capturing the scuzzy browns and greys of 70s Britain to mirror the murky ethics of the characters, the mise-en-scene is wonderfully evocative of the paranoia, betrayal and subterfuge that are these chaps’ stock-in-trade. Taut and fascinating, with myriad plot strands expertly interwoven, Alfredson’s film delivers enough intrigue and drama to fully engross and deliver as labyrinthine whodunit and heartbreaking human drama. A magnificent achievement from all concerned. [CF]

8. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)
When A Separation begins it appears to be a straightforward story of a marriage breaking down in contemporary Tehran. By the time it has ended, we've seen a film that deals with family conflict, the Iranian legal system, class, religion and death, weaving these themes seamlessly into an emotionally charged narrative that unfolds with the urgency of a thriller. Asghar Farhadi's masterfully constructed film presents us with complex, real characters who each have valid reasons for their behaviour, making it increasingly difficult for us to decide where our sympathies should lie. A Separation is a film of rare intelligence, insight and skill, which features the finest ensemble acting you'll see for a very long time. [PC]

9. Le Quattro Volte (Michelangelo Frammartino)
Taking inspiration from the Pythagorean concept that we each cycle through four lives – human, animal, vegetable and mineral – Michelangelo Frammartino’s second film studies the unhurried pastoralism of a remote Italian town to haunting effect. As goat-herd cedes to goat, goat to tree, La Quattro Volte pares away causal relations until we’re left absorbed in simple scenes of branches in the breeze. Though the temporality of existence may seem a potentially uneventful theme, its treatment is never less than fascinating; Frammartino leavens his metaphysical meditation with beauty, grace and – in a single-take scene of collie-caused destruction – humour, and the result is unforgettable. [CB]

10. The Fighter (David O. Russell)
By all accounts David O. Russell (I ♥ Huckabees, Three Kings) is a maniacal cunt, but you’d never know from watching his films. He adores his characters. His camera pirouettes around them as they get up to all manner of mischief – onanism, incest, infidelity, grand larceny, new-age psychobabble – and he never judges. Take this knockout, where a chain-smoking matriarch (Melissa Leo, a blur of bleached hair and denim) and her crack-addled son (Christian Bale) treat the family’s simple-minded boxing prodigy (Mark Wahlberg) like a human piñata, pushing him into fights even Stacy Keach’s ne'er-do-well pugilist in Fat City would sniff at. Others would see tragedy; Russell finds humour and humanity. [JD]

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Film writers' individual top tens

Jamie Dunn
1. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)
2. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)
3. Attack the Block (Joe Cornish)
4. Meek’s Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt)
5. The Fighter (David O. Russell)
6. The Portuguese Nun (Eugène Green)
7. Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn)
8. Weekend (Andrew Haigh)
9. Le Quattro Volte (Michelangelo Frammartino)
10. Cold Weather (Aaron Katz)

Notable mentions: We Need to Talk About Kevin, Poetry, Kill List, Tomboy, Hanna

Favourite re-release: Deep End (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1970)

Chris Buckle
1. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson)
2. Project Nim (James Marsh)
3. Meek’s Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt)
4. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)
5. We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsey)
6. Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn)
7. Son of Babylon (Mohamed Al Daradji)
8. Le Quattro Volte (Michelangelo Frammartino)
9. Incendies (Denis Villeneuve)
10. Warrior (Gavin O’Connor)

Notable mentions: True Grit, The Skin I Live In, Kaboom, Midnight in Paris, 127 Hours

Becky Bartlett
1. Drive (Nicholas Winding Refn)
2. Trollhunter (André Øvredal)
3. Hobo with a Shotgun (Jason Eisner)
4. Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog)
5. Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky)
6. Rubber (Quentin Dupieux)
7. The King's Speech (Tom Hooper)
8. Crazy, Stupid, Love (Glenn Ficarra, John Requa)
9. Fast and Furious 5 (Justin Lin)
10. Get Low (Aaron Schneider)

Notable mentions: Bridesmaids, Source Code, Bad Teacher, Cell 211, Tangled

Philip Concannon
1. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)
2. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)
3. Mysteries of Lisbon (Raúl Ruiz)
4. Meek's Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt)
5. Tomboy (Céline Sciamma)
6. Senna (Asif Kapadia)
7. Miss Bala (Gerardo Naranjo)
8. Weekend (Andrew Haigh)
9. The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius)
10. Essential Killing (Jerzy Skolimowski)

Notable Mentions: 13 Assassins, Rabbit Hole, True Grit, Las Acacias, Melancholia

Favourite Re-release: Deep End (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1970)

Chris Fyvie
1. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)
2. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson)
3. Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn)
4. Submarine (Richard Ayoade)
5. We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay)
6. Fire in Babylon (Stevan Riley)
7. Blue Valentine (Derek Cianfrance)
8. Snowtown (Justin Kurzel)
9. Bobby Fischer Against the World (Liz Garbus)
10. Our Day Will Come (Romain Gavras)

Notable mentions: Little White Lies, Black Swan, Cold Weather, Cedar Rapids, Kill List

Favourite re-release: Cutter’s Way (Ivan Passer, 1981)

Jenny Munro
1. The Skin I Live in (Pedro Almodóvar)
2. Love Like Poison (Katel Quillévéré)
3. Senna (Asif Kapadia)
4. Melancholia (Lars von Trier)
5. Tabloid (Errol Morris)
6. The Salt of Life (Gianni di Gregorio)
7. Blue Valentine (Derek Cianfrance)
8. Jane Eyre (Cary Fukunaga)
9. We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay)
10. Troll Hunter (André Ovredal)

Notable mentions: Meek’s Cutoff, Black Swan

Favourite re-release: Deep End (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1970)

Alan Bett
1. 13 Assassins (Takashi Miike)
2. Yellow Sea (Na Hong-jin)
3. Animal Kingdom (David Michod)
4. NEDS (Peter Mullan)
5. Incendies (Denis Villeneuve)
6. The Interrupters (Steve James)
7. Project Nim (James Marsh)
8. Perfect Sense (David Mackenzie)
9. The Fighter (David O. Russell)
10. Viva Riva (Djo Tunda Wa Munga)

Notable mentions: Senna, Our Day Will Come

Favourite re-release: Peeping Tom (Michael Powell, 1960)

Danny Scott
1. Animal Kingdom (David Michod)
2. Blue Valentine (Derek Cianfrance)
3. Senna (Asif Kapadia)
4. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson)
5. Incendies (Denis Villeneuve)
6. Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)
7. Archipelago (Joanna Hogg)
8. The Interrupters (Steve James)
9. 127 Hours (Danny Boyle)
10. Cedar Rapids (Miguel Arteta)

Notable mentions: Tomboy, Farewell, Miss Bala, Rango, Bobby Fisher Against the World

Favourite re-release: Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1979)