First of all, I stole this format wholesale from Charles François, who I still hope will one day rediscover his cinephilia and start hanging out with myself and the Skandies crew again. It's been ten years since he last used it and I hereby declare it in the public domain.Listed here are new (made within the past 10 years) movies that I saw or that were released in 2011. Combine the first two columns for the list of films released in 2011, and the last two columns for films seen in 2011 (or slightly beyond). Ordering is preferential within grade groups, as indicated by ratings on the retarded 100-point scale (and also preferential when said ratings are identical).
| 2011 in Films | ||
|---|---|---|
| The first column contains movies I saw in 2010 or before that were released here in 2011. I've added the {year} in those cases where the screening actually took place prior to 2010. Films not yet released but currently scheduled for this year are indicated by a (°). | The middle column lists movies I saw shortly before, during or after their 2011 commercial run. Asterisks (*) indicate those seen prior to their actual release. TV-only "runs" arbitrarily deemed eligible get a (†). | The right column consists of movies I saw in 2011 which are still awaiting a possible local release. Those known to have lined up U.S. distribution are indicated by a (°). Production {year} is listed if film is more than 2 years old. |
| A: For All Time | ||
|---|---|---|
| *A Separation (Farhadi) 95 | ||
| A-: Event | ||
|---|---|---|
| Margaret [extended cut] (Lonergan) 86 | ||
| Meek's Cutoff (Reichardt) 85 | ||
| °The Loneliest Planet (Loktev) 84 | ||
| Certified Copy (Kiarostami) 83 | ||
| *Martha Marcy May Marlene (Durkin) 82 | ||
| B+/A-: Near Great | ||
|---|---|---|
| *The Arbor (Barnard) 81 | ||
| Margaret (Lonergan) 80 | ||
| °Miss Bala (Naranjo) 79 | ||
| B+: Must See | ||
|---|---|---|
| Shit Year (Archer) 77 | ||
| *House of Pleasures (Bonello) 76 | ||
| Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Weerasethakul) 76 | ||
| *Drive (Winding Refn) 76 | ||
| How I Ended This Summer (Popogrebsky) 75 | ||
| Beginners (Mills) 75 | ||
| °The Deep Blue Sea (Davies) 74 | ||
| Leap Year [Año bisiesto] (Rowe) 73 | ||
| Kaboom (Araki) 73 | ||
| Rapt (Belvaux) 73 | ||
| B/B+: Warmly Recommended | ||
|---|---|---|
| Two Gates of Sleep (Griffin) 72 | ||
| †Mildred Pierce (Haynes) 72 | ||
| °This Must Be the Place (Sorrentino) 72 | ||
| Attack the Block (Cornish) 71 | ||
| °Haywire (Soderbergh) 71 | ||
| Tabloid (Morris) 71 | ||
| The Myth of the American Sleepover (Mitchell) 70 | ||
| *The Tree of Life (Malick) 70 | ||
| *Rampart (Moverman) 70 | ||
| The Time That Remains (Suleiman) 70 | ||
| B: Recommended | ||
|---|---|---|
| The City Below (Hochhäusler) 69 | ||
| *Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol (Bird) 69 | ||
| The Other Side of Sleep (Daly) 69 | ||
| Elite Squad: The Enemy Within (Padilha) 69 | ||
| Heartbeats (Dolan) 68 | ||
| Bellflower (Glodell) 68 | ||
| 13 Assassins (Miike) 68 | ||
| Silent Souls (Fedorchenko) 67 | ||
| °Damsels in Distress (Stillman) 67 | ||
| *Terri (Jacobs) 67 | ||
| The Double Hour (Capotondi) 66 | ||
| Senna (Kapadia) 66 | ||
| Weekend (Haigh) 66 | ||
| Moneyball (Miller) 65 | ||
| Tuesday, After Christmas (Muntean) 65 | ||
| A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (Strauss-Schulson) 65 | ||
| *Pina (Wenders) 65 | ||
| The Silver Cliff (Aïnouz) 64 | ||
| Coriolanus (Fiennes) 64 | ||
| °The Kid With a Bike (Dardennes) 64 | ||
| Potiche [Trophy Wife] (Ozon) 64 | ||
| B-/B: Recommended with Mild Reservations | ||
|---|---|---|
| °Your Sister's Sister (Shelton) 63 | ||
| *We Need to Talk About Kevin (Ramsay) 63 | ||
| The Guard (McDonagh) 63 | ||
| Dreileben: Beats Being Dead (Petzold) 62 | ||
| Paranormal Activity 3 (Joost, Schulman) 62 | ||
| *Summer of Goliath (Pereda) 62 | ||
| Rango (Verbinski) 62 | ||
| Win Win (McCarthy) 62 | ||
| Almayer's Folly (Akerman) 61 | ||
| Street Days (Koguashvili) 61 | ||
| Le quattro volte (Frammartino) 61 | ||
| °Return (Johnson) 61 | ||
| B-: Recommended with Strong Reservations | ||
|---|---|---|
| Porfirio (Landes) 60 | ||
| The Debt (Madden) 60 | ||
| Applause (Zandvliet) 60 | ||
| °We Have a Pope (Moretti) 60 | ||
| Play (Östlund) 59 | ||
| *Take Shelter (Nichols) 59 | ||
| Chocolate (Pinkaew) {2008} 59 | ||
| The Trip [theatrical cut] (Winterbottom) 59 | ||
| Margin Call (Chandor) 58 | ||
| People Mountain People Sea (Cai) 58 | ||
| Super 8 (Abrams) 58 | ||
| *The Woman (McKee) 58 | ||
| Symbol (Matsumoto) 57 | ||
| *Contagion (Soderbergh) 57 | ||
| The Interrupters (James) 57 | ||
| The Muppets (Bobin) 57 | ||
| Public Speaking (Scorsese) 57 | ||
| To Die Like a Man (Rodrigues) 56 | ||
| Mysteries of Lisbon (Ruiz) 56 | ||
| °Keyhole (Maddin) 56 | ||
| °Footnote (Cedar) 56 | ||
| Love Exposure (Sono) 56 | ||
| I Wish (Kore-eda) 56 | ||
| °The Turin Horse (Tarr) 55 | ||
| Bridesmaids (Feig) 55 | ||
| °Post Mortem (Larraín) 55 | ||
| Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Herzog) 55 | ||
| °Poliss (Maïwenn) 55 | ||
| C+/B-: On the Fence, Leaning Forward | ||
|---|---|---|
| °The Day He Arrives (Hong) 54 | ||
| °God Bless America (Goldthwait) 54 | ||
| Nostalgia for the Light (Guzmán) 54 | ||
| *Melancholia (Von Trier) 54 | ||
| I Saw the Devil (Kim) 54 | ||
| Living in the Material World (Scorsese) 54 | ||
| The Robber (Heisenberg) 53 | ||
| °Goodbye First Love (Hansen-Løve) 53 | ||
| Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (Miike) 53 | ||
| Of Gods & Men (Beauvois) 53 | ||
| War Horse (Spielberg) 53 | ||
| *Shame (McQueen) 53 | ||
| Tales From the Golden Age ([Various]) {2009} 53 | ||
| °The Dish and the Spoon (Bagnall) 52 | ||
| *Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (Berlinger, Sinofsky) 52 | ||
| *The Artist (Hazanavicius) 52 | ||
| Project Nim (Marsh) 52 | ||
| °Intruders (Fresnadillo) 52 | ||
| Jane Eyre (Fukunaga) 52 | ||
| C+: Take It or Leave It | ||
|---|---|---|
| °This Is Not a Film (Panahi, Mirtahmasb) 51 | ||
| A Better Life (Kahn) 51 | ||
| *Hugo (Scorsese) 51 | ||
| Hop-o'-My-Thumb (De Van) 51 | ||
| Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (Yates) 51 | ||
| *Le Havre (Kaurismäki) 51 | ||
| Source Code (Jones) 50 | ||
| °Wuthering Heights (Arnold) 50 | ||
| Insidious (Wan) 50 | ||
| *The Skin I Live In (Almodóvar) 50 | ||
| *Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, a Tale of Life (Herzog) 50 | ||
| LENNONYC (Epstein) 50 | ||
| *Sleeping Beauty (Leigh) 49 | ||
| The Adventures of Tintin (Spielberg) 49 | ||
| Good Bye (Rasoulof) 49 | ||
| Amigo (Sayles) 49 | ||
| Outrage (Kitano) 49 | ||
| *The Descendants (Payne) 49 | ||
| °Hospitalité (Fukada) 49 | ||
| My Joy (Loznitsa) 48 | ||
| Sleeping Sickness (Köhler) 48 | ||
| Poetry (Lee) 48 | ||
| Dreileben: Don't Follow Me Around (Graf) 47 | ||
| Cedar Rapids (Arteta) 47 | ||
| *The Yellow Sea (Na) 47 | ||
| *The Future (July) 47 | ||
| *Salvation Boulevard (Ratliff) 47 | ||
| Young Adult (Reitman) 46 | ||
| Warrior (O'Connor) 46 | ||
| Circumstance (Keshavarz) 46 | ||
| Putty Hill (Porterfield) 46 | ||
| °Life Without Principle (To) 46 | ||
| C/C+: On the Fence, Leaning Backward | ||
|---|---|---|
| The Student (Mitre) 45 | ||
| *Midnight in Paris (Allen) 45 | ||
| The Sleeping Beauty (Breillat) 45 | ||
| °The Forgiveness of Blood (Marston) 45 | ||
| *The Green Hornet (Gondry) 45 | ||
| °Outside Satan (Dumont) 44 | ||
| °Elena (Zvyagintsev) 44 | ||
| Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Alfredson) 44 | ||
| Captain America: The First Avenger (Johnston) 44 | ||
| Dreileben: One Minute of Darkness (Hochhäusler) 44 | ||
| Like Crazy (Doremus) 43 | ||
| Policeman (Lapid) 43 | ||
| I'm Carolyn Parker (Demme) 43 | ||
| Submarino (Vinterberg) 43 | ||
| C: Pass | ||
|---|---|---|
| °Old Cats (Silva, Peirano) 42 | ||
| *A Dangerous Method (Cronenberg) 42 | ||
| Hanezu (Kawase) 42 | ||
| °The Color Wheel (Perry) 41 | ||
| J. Edgar (Eastwood) 41 | ||
| The Housemaid (Im) 41 | ||
| Low Life (Klotz) 40 | ||
| The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Fincher) 40 | ||
| A Screaming Man (Haroun) 40 | ||
| °Alps (Lanthimos) 39 | ||
| *Carnage (Polanski) 39 | ||
| °Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Ceylan) 39 | ||
| The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceauşescu (Ujică) 38 | ||
| 3 (Tykwer) 38 | ||
| °Unforgivable (Téchiné) 38 | ||
| Film Socialisme (Godard) 37 | ||
| The Princess of Montpensier (Tavernier) 37 | ||
| C-: Ugh | ||
|---|---|---|
| We Are What We Are (Grau) 35 | ||
| *Restless (Van Sant) 34 | ||
| Go Go Tales (Ferrara) {2007} 33 | ||
| °Michael (Schleinzer) 32 | ||
| My Week With Marilyn (Curtis) 31 | ||
| The Source (Mihaileanu) 30 | ||
| D+: Double-Ugh | ||
|---|---|---|
| Pater (Cavalier) 26 | ||
| Aurora (Puiu) 24 | ||
| Cold Fish (Sono) 19 | ||
| D: Bomb | ||
|---|---|---|
| Arirang (Kim) 7 | ||
| F: Burn the negative | ||
|---|---|---|
| Walk-outs: Channel Surfing | ||
|---|---|---|
| Armadillo (Metz) | ||
| Bal [Honey] (Kaplanoglu) | ||
| °Beauty (Hermanos) | ||
| Benda Bilili! (Barret, De la Tullaye) | ||
| Black Death (Smith) | ||
| Blue Bird (Van den Berghe) | ||
| °Bonsai (Jiménez) | ||
| Brotherhood (Canon) | ||
| Century of Birthing (Diaz) | ||
| Curling (Côté) | ||
| Eden Lake (Watkins) {2008} | ||
| *El sicario, Room 164 (Rosi) | ||
| The First Beautiful Thing (Virzì) | ||
| °The Giants (Lanners) | ||
| Green (Takal) | ||
| Gromozeka (Kott) | ||
| *Happy, Happy (Sewitsky) | ||
| Higher Ground (Farmiga) | ||
| The Human Resources Manager (Riklis) | ||
| I Travel Because I Have To, I Come Back Because I Love You (Gomes, Aïnouz) | ||
| Incendies (Villenueve) | ||
| Interkosmos (Finn) {2006} | ||
| The Joy (Bragança, Meliande) | ||
| °Kill List (Wheatley) | ||
| La pivellina (Covi, Frimmel) (2009) | ||
| Life, Above All (Schmitz) | ||
| Loverboy (Mitulescu) | ||
| The Majority (Yüce) | ||
| Martyrs (Laugier) {2008} | ||
| Mr. Tree (Han) | ||
| Mushrooms (Jayasundara) | ||
| Octubre (Vega, Vega) | ||
| Oranges and Sunshine (Loach) | ||
| Outbound (Apetri) | ||
| °The Raid (Evans) | ||
| Peep World (Blaustein) | ||
| Polytechnique (Villeneuve) | ||
| Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Wyatt) | ||
| *Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure (Bate) | ||
| Slow Action (Rivers) | ||
| °Snowtown (Kurzel) | ||
| Submarine (Ayoade) | ||
| Tomboy (Sciamma) | ||
| *Tyrannosaur (Considine) | ||
| Volcano (Rúnarsson) | ||
| Winnie the Pooh (Anderson, Hall) | ||
| Winter Vacation (Li) | ||
| *You All Are Captains (Laxe) | ||
| Incomplete: Bad Timing | ||
|---|---|---|