LATEST NEWS

Roger Ebert Reveals His List for the Top 20 Best Feature Films of 2011

by Ethan Anderton
December 20, 2011
Source: Chicago Sun-Times

It's getting closer to the end of 2011, so in addition to the several videos looking back at this year in film, there will also be several year-end lists coming our way looking at the best and the worst of 2011. My lists will be coming closer to the end of the year, but critic Roger Ebert has already decided to chime in with a list of what he calls The Best Films of 2011. His top choice isn't a clear frontrunner and kind of comes from left field, but Ebert still includes buzzworthy awards contenders like Shame, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, The Artist and even love for Drive and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II.

Roger Ebert's Top 20 of 2011:

1. A Separation "This film combines a plot worthy of a great novel with the emotional impact of a great melodrama. It involves a struggle for child custody, the challenge of a parent with Alzheimer's, the intricacies of the law, and the enigma of discovering the truth. In its reconstruction of several versions of a significant event, it is as baffling as Rashomon."
2. Shame
3. The Tree of Life
4. Hugo "In the guise of a delightful 3D family film, Martin Scorsese makes a love letter to the cinema."
5. Take Shelter
6. Kinyarwanda
7. Drive "Drive looks like one kind of thriller in the ads, and it is that kind of thriller, but also another and a rebuke to most of the movies it looks like.
8. Midnight in Paris
9. Le Havre
10. The Artist "It's an audience pleaser, and many in the audience won't be expecting that. It also seems to be leading the year-end lists of award nominees, and could even become the first silent film to win an Oscar as Best Picture since Wings (1927)."
11. Melancholia
12. Terri
13. The Descendants
14. Margaret
15. Martha Marcy May Marlene
16. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II "The second installment in the last chapter of the legendary saga comes to a solid and satisfying conclusion, conjuring up enough awe and solemnity to serve as an appropriate finale and a dramatic contrast to the lighthearted (relative) innocence of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" all those magical years ago."
17. Trust
18. Life, Above All
19. The Mill and the Cross
20. Another Earth

"Those are my top 20, leaving out documentaries, which I will list later. To include them on the same list would be ranking oranges and apples. There were many other excellent films in 2011, some fully the equal of some of these." Ebert has listed, in no particular order, even more films that almost made the cut in addition to much more extensive words on each of his top 20 films listed above. To read all about Ebert's favorite films of the year, head on over to his Chicago Sun-Times blog right here. What do you think?

Tweet

Related categories: Movie News, Opinions