DW Top 20 films 2011

[Dan Warburton]

Well, what the hell, I thought I'd compile a list anyway. Of the 282 (not counting today, heh heh) films I've seen this year, these are the ones that stick out..

Top 20 films seen for the first time this year (in alphabetical order by director, not order of preference), most of which got commented on in the Recently Watched Films 2011 thread:

Dario Argento, Profondo rosso, 1975
Alberto Cavalcanti, Went the Day Well?, 1942
Claude Chabrol, Les Bonnes Femmes, 1960
Joe Dante, Small Soldiers, 1998
Claire Denis, Beau travail, 1999
Julien Duvivier, Voici le temps des assassins, 1956
Marco Ferreri, Dillinger è morto, 1969
William Friedkin, Bug, 2006
Jean-Luc Godard, Film Socialisme, 2010
Pierre Granier-Deferre, Le chat, 1971
Michael Haneke, Das weiße Band Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte, 2009
Todd Haynes, [safe], 1995
Elia Kazan, The Visitors, 1972
Stanley Kubrick, Killer's Kiss, 1955
Christopher Nolan, Memento, 2000
Alan J. Pakula, The Parallax View, 1974
Alain Resnais, Les herbes folles, 2009
Jacques Rivette, Va savoir, 2001
Kevin Smith, Dogma, 1999
Agnès Varda, Sans toit ni loi, 1985

and some films I rediscovered and thrilled at this year --

Luis Bunuel, Le fantôme de la liberté, 1974
Leos Carax, Boy Meets Girl, 1984
Claude Chabrol, La cérémonie, 1995
Uli Edel, Last Exit to Brooklyn, 1989
Jean Eustache, La maman et la putain, 1973
Terry Gilliam, Twelve Monkeys, 1995
Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Marc Caro, Delicatessen, 1991
Louis Malle, Zazie dans le métro, 1960
Jacques Rivette, La bande des quatre, 1989
King Vidor, The Crowd, 1928

Here's to 2012, Happy New Year to all a few hours early

[jon abbey]

nice to see Dogma sneaking in there, I think that's easily his best and pretty underrated in general.

[sevenarts]

Great list, Dan. A few of my all-time favorites in there, like Beau travail, Safe, and Film Socialisme. Also nice to see some appreciation for Bug, which is just bonkers and brilliant. It got some attention when it came out, but it seems to have been forgotten now. A shame, because it's just a perfect blend of the deadly serious and the campy.

[savantgarde]

Sans toit ni loi is a good one. The Parallax View I couldn't bring myself to watch, not my style at all.

[_duif]

That list will be a great inspiration in 2012, thanks Dan.
Anyone want to take a crack at a top-whatever of films released in 2011? (realizing of course that this is much more difficult at this date, and that by the time one gets to see a new film it is often already 1 year or more old, technically...).

[dialectics of shit]

My top 25 of 2011 films would run as follows. I'm going by a combination of US theatrical and worldwide festival (if there was no US theatrical) release.

1. Mysteries of Lisbon (Raúl Ruiz)
2. The Turin Horse (Béla Tarr)
3. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
4. House of Tolerance aka House of Pleasures (Bertrand Bonello)
5. Faust (Alexander Sokurov)

6. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)
7. Film Socialisme (Jean-Luc Godard)
8. 13 Assassins (Takashi Miike)
9. The Yellow Sea (Korean version) (Na Hong-jin)
10. Alps (Yorgos Lanthimos)

11. Snowtown (Justin Kurzel)
12. Almayer's Folly (Chantal Akerman)
13. The Mill and the Cross (Lech Majewski)
14. Le Quattro Volte (Michelangelo Frammartino)
15. The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodóvar)

16. I Saw the Devil (Kim Ji-woon)
17. Michael (Markus Schleinzer)
18. Putty Hill (Matt Poterfield)
19. Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog)
20. Curling (Denis Côté) (counting this for 2011 is kind of cheating, but...)

21. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
22. City of Life and Death (Lu Chuan)
23. The Strange Case of Angelica (Manoel de Oliveira)
24. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson) / Shame (Steve McQueen)
25. Drive (Nicholas Winding Refn)

[Dan Warburton]

That Akerman looks mighty tempting.. hey, how come you got two number 24s? Or has somebody made a kind of double feature remix of Shame and Tinker Tailor? Reminds me of that old game on I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (the following from Wiki)
"This round takes as its premise the poverty of the international film industry, for economic reasons new films are being remade as combinations of two or more old films. For example, remaking High Noon with E.T. and calling it High Tea. This kind of economy was taken to an extreme with The Magnificent Seven Dwarves for Seven Samurai. The game frequently strayed into television, a notable example being Tim saying the makers of Three of a Kind, The Odd Couple and One Man and His Dog provide the audience for Channel 4."

[Abrahamkite]

Christopher Nolan, Memento, 2000
Alan J. Pakula, The Parallax View, 1974
Alain Resnais, Les herbes folles, 2009--------I like these three films and I watch about 180 films one year.It's less than your number but I really love films,the true nice films.