My favorite films of the year.

The idea of a top ten list is a lot less appealing for me this year than years past- mostly because of the glut of movies that have been released in the past four weeks that I've missed. Next year, I'm going to skip the top ten altogether, and steal Brian Moylan's great idea of simply ranking everything I see from favorite to least.

But this year, it's a top ten list, and as always Variance titles are off the table, as are films made by close friends or films that haven't been released for the general public in some fashion.

(For an example of why this isn't a list I'm submitting anywhere, here's a list of what I haven't seen that may well have been on this: A Separation, Pina, Melancholia (I know, I know), Certified Copy, Mysteries of Lisbon, Margaret, The Artist, Take Shelter, Dangerous Method, Tinker Tailor Solider Spy, Poetry, Ceausescu, Beginners, Le Havre, Moneyball. In other words, a chunk of the top end of most critics lists.)

In no order, here's the top movies I DID see this year:

DRIVE

Refn forcibly evolves the neon-drenched noir of 80s Los Angeles crime thrillers while simultaneously draining the Frenchness and the action-film tendencies from Luc Besson's recent visions of the American anti-hero. Then, he crams them both into a synth-dripping master class of tension versus payoff. Simultaneously the most violent and the most restrained movie of the year, DRIVE is something we haven't seen before, and that's become a bit of a rarity. In a just world, Brooks would get a Supporting Actor nod.

HUGO

An incredible odd bird of a Hollywood blockbuster. The first trailer looked so atrocious that if you'd told me that Scorsese was hiding a $150 million love letter to cinema and Méliès, I'd have laughed you out of the office. Destined to lose large amounts of money, but genetically made for people like me, HUGO is best in 3-D... basically the first film since AVATAR to justify the extra $2.

THE TREE OF LIFE

My wife cringes every time I ask if she wants to see it (she hasn't yet, and she has great taste in film) because it "looks SO pretentious." And she's right- this is a movie that walks that fine line between genius and total eye-rolling. I can't say it doesn't overstep at moments (the dinosaur, most egregiously), but I also can't say that the film would work without those moments of overstep. Even if audience hopes/expectations nudge it over the line from questionable to classic in places, the feeling this film leaves you with lingers for days, not hours. Nothing this beautiful has been shown on screen in a mighty long time.

MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE

John Hawkes terrifies me. But if his character in Winter's Bone was a pit bull on a fraying leash, then his terrifyingly quiet cult leader in MMMM is a German Shepard that's loose, directly and unexpectedly in front of you on the sidewalk with his head cocked slightly to one side, and standing still enough to make you wonder whether it's safe to take another step (even though deep inside you know that it most certainly isn't). His performance alone is worth the ticket, but the tightly scripted, beautifully shot, and masterfully edited fever dream of a film that contains it (not to mention Elizabeth Olsen's breakout performance, filled with restraint) is worth a second ticket later that same week.

HOW TO DIE IN OREGON

Although it went on to an HBO debut, the theatrical experience I had with OREGON was powerful. I saw this at the Sundance press and industry screening with a group of hard-nosed industry vets, who, after the credits finished rolling, mostly needed another few minutes to get it together from spending the last thirty minutes weeping openly- and I'm talking Ugly Cry weeping. Maybe it's manipulative, maybe it's that the premise can only play out one way, but it works from start to finish, with almost no lulls whatsoever.

WEEKEND

The massive Sundance buzz for Like Crazy drove me nuts, because it's not a particularly good movie. WEEKEND made only small ripples at SXSW, but it's everything you could want from indie romance. No melodrama, no amazingly high stakes, just two people in THAT moment, the one we all find ourselves in at some point, in all its messiness and with complete honesty. When you leave the theater, it sticks in your gut- and that's what makes a great romance, not cutesy british girls weeping at the airport customs office.

THE INTERRUPTERS

How this masterpiece got stiffed by the Academy is beyond me, but this is not only the best doc of 2011, it's possibly the best doc of the last few years. Yes, there are pacing issues, and yes, the multiple edits of the film confused folks (similar to Malick's THE NEW WORLD, I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to see the version I fell in love with again), but really, given the power of what's on screen, no matter what version they're showing now you should go.

HANNA

Maybe it's low expectations, but Wright manages to completely tweak the feel of the BOURNE / MISSION IMPOSSIBLE / invincible secret agent films without changing ANY of the formula, and it feels like a shot of adrenaline. The odd editing choices and the Chemical Brothers score work perfectly, and even though both occasionally threaten to make the whole thing come off as a $150 million film from 1998 (really, you half expect a full-head-of-hair-having-John Travolta to pop up as the scenery-chomping villain), Hanna winds up an absolute delight and a film destined to be shown every third night on TNT for the next ten years.

THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE

I can't remember the last time a film had me this angry as I was walking out of the theater. Great archival filmmaking (admittedly I'm a sucker for this, as my undying devotion to SOUL POWER proves), this should be shown in classrooms for the rest of the century.

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN

The best argument for birth control I've ever seen. Perfectly edited, perfectly constructed, and perfectly cast (even John C. Reilly works, and he often doesn't), it's not hyperbole to say that this film pins you to seat and makes you clench in a way that DRAGON TATTOO could only dream about. Tilda Swinton remains far and away the most interesting actor working in film.

Honorable Mentions:
SUPER, for its amazing performance by Ellen Page and general sense of anarchy missing from a lot of films.

THE SKIN I LIVE IN, for its perverse weirdness and amazing score.

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, for being a lovely summer distraction and giving Woody a deserved hit.

TERRI, for taking a massively overdone genre and turning it on its head using almost nothing except honesty and good casting.

ATTACK THE BLOCK, because nobody I've met can explain to me why DARKEST HOUR and SKYLINE get 2500 screen releases and this gem gets punted to 16 theaters? ALLOW IT. Borderline top-ten.

THE YELLOW SEA, for somehow managing to top THE CHASER in sheer balls-to-the-wall amazingness, and reigniting my hopes that Korea will begin simply sending us one amazing revenge thriller every month until Hollywood completely gives up making them.

NEWLYWEDS, for confirming that Ed Burns is 1970s Woody Allen in disguise. Delightfully done.

HAROLD AND KUMAR 3D CHRISTMAS, because I am weary of comedies that pull their punches and teach us lessons, and this one does not. Total profane hilarity, with no prisoners taken (and no, I haven't smoked pot in years).

PARIAH, for pulling back the blanket on a community that has LONG been in the shadows, and doing it so well. One of the best shot films of the year, and in a just world there'd be a Best Actress nom for the searing performance Adepero Oduye delivers.

SENNA, for making me care, an awful lot, about someone who excelled in something I do not care about in the slightest.

Most Overrated
BELLFLOWER, because while I really do admire the ingenuity on display, these guys need to talk to more girls before the next film comes around.

LIKE CRAZY, for proving that completely uninspired filmmaking can win Sundance with the right amount of gauzy pop and "guest stars". Ugh.

BRIDESMAIDS, which wasn't bad at all, but was forty-five minutes too long and is not an awards contender any more than HANGOVER was (no matter how much you guys want to make Nikki Finke eat her words).

DETECTIVE DEE, which is an incomprehensible mess of a film in the vein of 2004 Hong Kong stuff, and I suspect soured a lot of audiences on the great crop of Asian films in the process. It's fun if your turn your brain off, but I don't get the acclaim.

The Absolute Worst
TRANSFORMERS 3 was an overlong, ear-raping, eye-crossing disaster of a film. As much as I like explosions, I don't need 500 in a row, because I will get bored of them, as I was of this movie ten minutes in.

What about you?