Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The Best Movies of 2010 (English-language Feature Films)

Having separately ranked my choices for 2010's Best Documentaries and Best Foreign Language Films, today I offer my picks for the best English-language feature films of 2010.

Like all my lists, this should be taken simply as a judging of the movies I enjoyed most, without any pretense that "best" references technical merit, depth of meaning or other specific criteria.

To date, my pool for purposes of this list is 36 movies released in 2010 (27 seen in theaters; 9 at home). There are a number more I hope to see soon that I've heard or read good things about, and will cite some of these below my list. But in looking at my 2009 list, there are relatively few changes I would now make  with the additional films seen after my blog post.

I was originally going to post my Top 10 plus honorable mentions, but then decided to rank the Top 25 like I did last year. But in considering all the movies that I gave at least @@@@ out of 5 (or 8 of 10 on IMDB; you can see my Vote History here, though it's not quite comprehensive), I got stuck at just 22 films. So I'll leave 3 slots unaccounted for and hope that some of the movies not yet seen will deserve berths.

The Best English-language Feature Films of 2010

1. The Social Network

2. Inception


3. The Fighter


4. The Town


5. It’s Kind of a Funny Story


6. Fair Game


7. Unstoppable


8. Mao’s Last Dancer


9. The King’s Speech


10. Salt 


11. Easy A


12. 127 Hours

13. Nowhere Boy

14. Four Lions

15. True Grit 

16. Toy Story 3 

17. Greenberg

18. Winter’s Bone


19. The Kids Are All Right


20. Green Zone

21. Made in Dagenham


22. The Book of Eli


Notable Among Those Not Yet Seen
The Ghost Writer
Somewhere
Rabbit Hole
Animal Kingdom
Blue Valentine
Another Year
Please Give
Barney's Version
The Company Men
Biutiful
All Good Things

Others Loved These But I Didn't
Black Swan
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Shutter Island

Outstanding Performances
Jesse Eisenberg & Justin Timberlake, The Social Network; Christian Bale & Amy Adams, The Fighter; Naomi Watts, Fair Game; Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe & Cillian Murphy, Inception; Natalie Portman, Black Swan; James Franco, 127 Hours; Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone; Emma Stone, Easy A; Colin Firth & Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech; Kerr Gilchrist, It's Kind of a Funny Story

Although this might seem to do it for "Best Of" movie rankings for 2010, I will soon post a list of the Best Films I Watched in 2010 (of any Vintage, Language, Country of Origin, etc.). I also hope to share the differing opinions of a friend or two on the list above.

2 comments:

Suzi said...

Good list. I am glad you included UNSTOPPABLE. I am so behind in my end-of-2010 viewing because I was out of town. I must see TRUE GRIT.

Greg Boyd said...

"The Social Network": easily the best film of 2010. And "Inception" at #2, got to agree. After that... well, I can't really agree or disagree since I haven't seen "127 Hours" yet (or "The King's Speech"). Still, "Toy Story 3" is way too low in my estimation. As is "True Grit".