The Best Films of 2011

Top 10 of the Year

1. The Tree of Life	Terrence Malick
2. The Turin Horse	Béla Tarr
3. Melancholia	Lars von Trier
4. Shame	Steve McQueen
5. We Need to Talk About Kevin	Lynne Ramsay
6. Drive	Nicolas Winding Refn
7. A Separation	Asghar Farhadi
8. The Deep Blue Sea	Terence Davies
9. A Dangerous Method	David Cronenberg
10. Margaret	Kenneth Lonergan

Best Film

The Tree of Life. The best film of the year, the best film of the decade, and the best film of Terrence Malick’s career. It is a deeply personal work for him, lingering in the memories of his childhood growing up in 1950s Texas, though a large portion of its greatness lies in the formal comparison he draws between this and the larger cosmos – its formation, the birth of life, and its eventual end. It is the epitome of Malick’s magic hour photography, montage cutting, pensive voiceovers, and philosophical writing, and the results are jaw-dropping.

Most Underrated

Shame. TSPDT’s ranking of #20 for 2011 is far too low for this masterpiece. It is Steve McQueen’s strongest film to date, and carries the best examples of all his recognisable trademarks – the washed-out blue and green colour palette, the gruelling long takes, the formal rigour of his characterisations. All of it comes together here in a brilliant study of a self-loathing sex addict trapped in the same old cycles, weaving pleasure and pain into a single paradox through brilliant displays of editing and a virtuosic performance from Michael Fassbender.

Most Overrated

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s film is currently the #5 film of 2011 on the TSPDT consensus list, and I would drop it about 10 spots or so. His richly spiritual screenplay imbues this film with a sense of mysticism that accompanies a convoy of men on their quest to uncover the location of a dead body buried somewhere in Central Anatolia. In its first half, it deliberately meanders from one site to the next as one of the murder suspects, Kenan, leads the men on a trail of guesses as to where it might be. The painstaking precision of the investigation can be trying, dwelling on details that carry little to no significance, and yet every now and then Ceylan breaks through the monotony of these conversations with a delicate flourish of style and symbolism.

Best Directorial Debut

The Cabin in the Woods. Drew Goddard’s only film since this is 2018’s Bad Times at the El Royale which I am still yet to see. While The Cabin in the Woods doesn’t come very close to cracking the year’s top 10, it is still an admirable meta-satire of horror films, pulling back the curtain on familiar genre contrivances and hilariously placing them next to scenes of ordinary office work where they are cooked up. The metaphor of the Ancient Ones who serve as representations of the audience makes for a superbly depressing ending as well.

Gem to Spotlight

Oslo, August 31st. This is Joachim Trier’s follow-up to 2006’s Reprise, and the second part of his unofficial Oslo trilogy (later capped with The Worst Person in the World). The core conflict here is between choosing the future or choosing oblivion, and the mind of recovering drug addict Anders is the battleground upon which it is fought. The titular date might as well be a deadline for him to find some sort of salvation, or at least direction, though with much of the film being set on August 30th, there are precious few hours left for that miracle to take place. The 8-minute take which ends the film is one of the year’s single best shots, and is utterly heartbreaking to watch.

Best Male Performances

Michael Fassbender has a great year with one of the decade’s best male performances in Shame, and then on top of that playing Carl Jung in David Cronenberg’s historical psychological drama A Dangerous Method. Both are uptight, reserved men battling with their sexual impulses, but it is the character study in Shame where he excels, fluctuating between stiff, reticent mannerisms and hunched-over, bestial deviancy. He is served particularly well by Steve McQueen’s close-ups – even as he climaxes, his face is twisted in a pained grimace, weaving pain and pleasure into the paradox which underlies his agonising sex addiction.

Like many of the roles in The Tree of Life, Brad Pitt’s role as Mr O’Brien is largely silent, but he conveys a severity in his manner which is absolutely integral to the film’s dichotomy of grace and nature. Unlike Tyler Durden or Cliff Booth, this is not a role that relies on Pitt’s effortless charisma, but rather lets him explore his range by forcefully repressing that which comes most naturally to him.

Ryan Gosling is also given a similarly stoic role in Drive, though this in the context of an action film, proving that he can hold a self-assured screen presence with little dialogue. On the opposite end of the spectrum Payman Maadi is put under extreme pressure in A Separation, giving a performance of raw naturalism and complexity as he navigates thorny moral issues.

Finally, it is worth giving a spot to Viggo Mortensen who plays opposite Fassbender in A Dangerous Method as Sigmund Freud, the older and wiser psychologist, as well as Anders Danielsen Lie in Oslo, August 31^st. He is a talented actor who always does great work with Joachim Trier, and this is his most melancholy part yet, searching for hope in a future that holds little for him.

Best Female Performances

Kirsten Dunst is at the top here with Tilda Swinton, both playing women in separate films who are suffering under the weight of numb, suffocating depression. Dunst finds a strange calm in the despair of Melancholia, fitting perfectly into Lars von Trier’s nihilistic worldview, while Swinton is an equally perfect vehicle for Lynne Ramsay’s gut-wrenching tragedy and paranoia in We Need to Talk About Kevin.

Meanwhile, Rachel Weisz’ work in The Deep Blue Sea plays out a more classical tragedy than either Dunst or Swinton, pursuing love and only finding disappointment. Asghar Farhadi’s neorealist dramas ask a lot of their actors to play high-intensity situations, but Leila Hatami makes it look effortless in A Separation, fully realising each layer of her character caught up in an awkward situation between a divorce and a lawsuit.

Carey Mulligan plays supporting roles in both Shame and Drive, but this is the year that officially marks her big arrival in the world of cinema, and she does brilliant work in both. Jessica Chastain also comes onto the scene in a big way with The Tree of Life playing Mrs O’Brien – the gentle, compassionate “way of grace” to Brad Pitt’s severe “way of nature.”

It is strange seeing Anna Paquin so young in the 2011 film Margaret, but this was shot in 2005 and subsequently delayed for six years. Like her part in The Piano, she is loud, verbal, and at times incredibly frustrating, but the ferocity of performance is undeniable.

Best Cinematography: The Tree of Life

Film	Cinematographer
1. The Tree of Life	Emmanuel Lubezki
2. The Turin Horse	Fred Kelemen
3. Shame	Sean Bobbitt
4. Melancholia	Manuel Alberto Claro
5. Drive	Newton Thomas Sigel
6. We Need to Talk About Kevin	Seamus McGarvey
7. A Dangerous Method	Peter Suschitzky
8. The Deep Blue Sea	Florian Hoffmeister
9. The Skin I Live In	José Luis Alcaine

Best Editing: The Tree of Life

Film	Editor
1. The Tree of Life	Hank Corwin, Jay Rabinowitz, Daniel Rezende, Billy Weber, Mark Yoshikawa
2. We Need to Talk About Kevin	Joe Bini
3. Shame	Joe Walker
4. Melancholia	Molly Malene Stensgaard
5. Drive	Matthew Newman
6. Oslo, August 31st	Olivier Bugge Coutté

Best Screenplay: A Separation

Film	Screenwriter
1. A Separation	Asghar Farhadi
2. Melancholia	Lars von Trier
3. We Need to Talk About Kevin	Lynne Ramsay, Rory Stewart Kinnear
4. Shame	Steve McQueen, Abi Morgan
5. The Tree of Life	Terrence Malick
6. Margaret	Kenneth Lonergan
7. The Deep Blue Sea	Terence Davies
8. A Dangerous Method	Christopher Hampton

Best Original Music Score: The Tree of Life

Film	Composer
1. The Tree of Life	Alexandre Desplat
2. Shame	Harry Escott
3. We Need to Talk About Kevin	Jonny Greenwood
4. Drive	Cliff Martinez
5. Hugo	Howard Shore
6. A Dangerous Method	Howard Shore
7. The Turin Horse	Mihály Vig

Year Breakdown

When The Tree of Life arrived at Cannes Film Festival in 2011, it was met with applause, boos, and mixed reviews. It then went on to win the Palme d’Or and nab an Oscar nomination for Best Picture (losing to The Artist – clearly the Academy was at loss this year with its usual fare given all the superb arthouse films running around). What became even more evident over the following decade was just how gigantic of a masterpiece this is, elevating Terrence Malick’s career to greater heights and asserting itself in the #1 spot of the decade. Like virtually all of his films, it is supremely beautiful in its use of natural light and gliding camerawork, but the scene of the universe’s creation lands in this spiritual meditation on nature and grace as a monumental formal interlude.

You have to feel a little for Béla Tarr when this is the competition he is up against. The Turin Horse is my #2 film of the year, and #4 of the decade, and this has become a bit of a pattern from him ever since his first masterpiece in 1994 with Sátántangó. That year, he is inched out of the top spot by the decade-defining Pulp Fiction. In 2000, Werckmeister Harmonies runs up against the slightly-better In the Mood for Love, which is also the #1 of its decade. 2011 is also sadly the year Tarr retires, so we may never see him come out with another film, let alone a masterpiece.

Trailing behind The Tree of Life and The Turin Horse in the #3 spot is Melancholia, another film which depicts the end of the world (though Malick’s film only briefly touches on this). Malick’s apocalypse is spiritual and a natural part of life. Tarr’s is bleak, dreary, and oppressive. Lars von Trier’s is one huge metaphor for depression and acceptance. Each of these speak profoundly to the philosophy of their respective filmmakers. To examine this trend a little deeper, The Cabin in the Woods takes this on with comedic sensibilities, while Steven Soderbergh’s thriller Contagion depicts a more immediate, apocalypse-adjacent event. The threat of a global pandemic was never so terrifying as it was until 2020 when this film was suddenly being reappraised for its accuracy and prescience.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is the top earner at the box office, but there is no great crossover between popularity and art this year. The explanation for this is easy – 2011’s best films are by foreign and indie directors, many of them making the best films of their careers including Tarr, Malick, Steve McQueen, Lynne Ramsay, Asghar Farhadi, and Kenneth Lonergan. Among those, it is notable just how many are recluses who you won’t find conducting interviews or asserting much of a media presence.

Finally, although Oscar Isaac doesn’t get a mention among the best male performances of the year, his part as Standard Gabriel in Drive effectively kicks off his meteoric rise as an actor throughout the 2010s, proving his compelling screen presence.

Film Archives

Title	Director	Grade
A Dangerous Method	David Cronenberg	HR
A Separation	Asghar Farhadi	HR/MS
Bernie	Richard Linklater	R
Contagion	Steven Soderbergh	R
Drive	Nicolas Winding Refn	MS
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2	David Yates	R
Hugo	Martin Scorsese	HR
Margaret	Kenneth Lonergan	HR
Melancholia	Lars von Trier	MP
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia	Nuri Bilge Ceylan	R
Oslo, August 31st	Joachim Trier	HR
Shame	Steve McQueen	MP
The Adventures of Tintin	Steven Spielberg	R
The Artist	Michel Hazanavicius	R
The Cabin in the Woods	Drew Goddard	R
The Deep Blue Sea	Terence Davies	HR
The Muppets	James Bobin	R
The Skin I Live In	Pedro Almodóvar	HR
The Tree of Life	Terrence Malick	MP
The Turin Horse	Béla Tarr	MP
We Need to Talk About Kevin	Lynne Ramsay	MS

Short Films

Junior

Julia Ducournau