Normally I have a hard time picking a top ten that only has ten films in it. This year I had a clear favorite seven, so I thought I'd stop there. As ever, these are my favorites, rather than the films I think are objectively the best (although the two are not mutually exclusive, of course). In addition, these are the films I saw in 2010, and doesn't include any that might currently be out that I haven't yet seen.
In alphabetical order:
- Attack the Block: In a year without an Edgar Wright film, it was up to Joe Cornish to step up and (with Wright as executive producer) he really, really did.
- Buck: Among some really very good documentaries (Bill Cunningham New York, Project Nim, Unfinished Spaces, The Swell Season, Exporting Raymond), Buck was an easy pick as highlight.
- Higher Ground: Vera Farmiga was just sensational in telling a story that was heartbreaking and funny and real all at once. For such a small film, it had such a big impact.
- Jane Eyre: In this, the Year of Michael Fassbender, he was never better than as Mr Rochester in Cary Fukushima's moody, gothic, extraordinary movie.
- Martha Marcy May Marlene: My only five star film for the year (although other came durned close). Both John Hawkes and Elizabeth Olsen's performaces really linger, even now. And so many of Sean Durkin's frames and scenes have stayed right in my mind.
- Meek's Cutoff: So very different to everything else this year, and so much mroe satisfying than most. The vast tracts of eloquent silence and landscape. Extraordinary, brave filmmaking. And Michelle Williams was stupendously good.
- True Grit: It's almost a year since it was released (and ten months since I saw it), but it gets a big hell yes from me. Seveteen times of awesome.
And then there are a few others that didn't make it on to my top seven for many and varied reasons, but made me pause to remember them (also in alphabetical order):
- Drive: So brutal, so stylish, so tense and so mundane.
- Rabbit Hole: I was so surprised by Nicole Kidman in this - it made me realise that she's actually a very good actress, she just can't pick em. It was also a great example of a great adaptation - the writer (of both the play and the film) has such a good understanding of each medium that it's two separate stories hanging off the same narrative, rather than two versions of the same thing.
- Rise of the Planet of the Apes: Winner of stupidest title of the year, but also winner of most surprising film for me. I'm surprised that in a year of startlingly bad high concept action films - I'm looking most pointedly at Thor and Cowboys and Aliens - that this one had a bucketload of brains to go with the gorillas launching themselves off bridges and onto helicopters.
- Shame: So difficult to watch, but so so beautiful. And it seems right that since Fassbender was in about half the movies released this year that he should feature twice in a review of the year.
- Take Shelter: As disappointed as I was by the end, I found the running time up to that point wholly remarkable. Michael Shannon was just sensational, and the writing and direction extraordinary. Such a let down in the end then (also, statistically speaking, I had to mention a Jessica Chastain film, didn't I? Since she was in all the films that Fassbender wasn't in).
- The Future: I like Miranda July, and I don't think I'll ever change my mind. The Future was certainly flawed, but it was also surprising and, for an indie film, ambitious. I appreciate its gumption.
Okay, so I guess that technically makes it a top 13 doesn't it. I'll get it down to ten next year, I promise.
