Overstreet’s Favorite Films: 2011

Here is the current (but occasionally updated) list of my favorite films from 2011.

In order to understand the color-coding, the purpose, and meaning of this list, please read my introduction to the Looking Closer Favorite Films lists here.

Red = Treasures
Purple = Favorites
Blue = Achievements
Gray = Decent/Noteworthy
Green = Unseen or Undecided
*** = This film opened elsewhere in the world before its U.S. commercial release in New York and L.A. this year.**

Certified Copy*
The Tree of Life (reviews)
Pina* (review)
A Separation*
Of Gods and Men* (review)
The Mill and the Cross
The Kid With a Bike*
Margaret
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives* (review)
Nostalgia for the Light*
Tuesday, After Christmas*
Buck
Martha Marcy May Marlene (review)
War Horse (review)
The Muppets (review)
Meek’s Cutoff* (review)
Mysteries of Lisbon*
The Arbor*
Drive (review)
Hugo
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Le Quattro Volte*
Le Havre
L’Apollonide (House of Pleasures)*
Film Socialisme*
Take Shelter
Winnie the Pooh
Win Win (review) (interview with Tom McCarthy)
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (review)
Attack the Block
Poetry*
Moneyball
Beginners* (review)
Road to Nowhere*
Submarine*
Tyrannosaur*
The Trip

A Dangerous Method
Rango
Midnight in Paris
Jane Eyre (review)
Super 8
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Contagion (review)
The Descendants
Higher Ground*
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
X-Men: First Class
Your Sister’s Sister*
First Position (review)
Source Code
Bridesmaids*
The Adventures of Tintin

As-yet Unseen or Unratable Films of 2011:

4:44 Last Day on Earth (Abel Ferrara) 50/50 (Jonathan Levine) A Better Life A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (Todd Strauss-Schulson) Albert Nobbs All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (Adam Curtis) Almayer’s Folly (Chantal Akerman) Alpis Anonymous Art History (Joe Swanberg) Autoerotic (Joe Swanberg) Avalon Battle: Los Angeles Born to Be Wild Caitlin Plays Herself (Joe Swanberg) Carnage (Roman Polanski) Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop Corpo Celeste (Alice Rohrwacher) Dark Horse Dolphin Tale Duo Mingjin Edwin Parker (Tacita Dean) Elena (Andrei Zvyagintsev) Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Fast Five Faust (Alexander Sokurov) Footnote (Joseph Cedar) Good for Nothing Goodbye First Love (Mia Hansen-Love) Green Lantern Hahithalfut Hall Pass (Bobby and Peter Farrelly) Happy Feet Two Hell and Back Again Himizu Horrible Bosses (Seth Gordon) Hors Satan (Bruno Dumont) House of Tolerance (Bertrand Bonello) How to Die in Oregon I Will Follow In Darkness In the Land of Blood and Honey Innocent Saturday (Alexander Mindadze) Into the Abyss J. Edgar (Clint Eastwood) Killer Joe Kinyarwanda Like Crazy Love and Bruises (Lou Ye) Low Life (Nicolas Klotz) L’ultimo terrestre Margin Call Mars Needs Moms Melancholia (Lars von Trier) Mildred Pierce Monsieur Lazhar On the Shoulders of Giants Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan) Page Eight Page One: Inside The New York Times Paul (Greg Mottola) Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Policeman (Nadav Lapid) Polisse Poulet aux prunes Project Nim Prom Puss in Boots Quando la notte Real Steel Ren Shan Ren Hai Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles Ricky (Janie Geiser) Rio River Rites (Ben Russell) Saideke Balai Septien (Michael Tully) Shame (Steve McQueen) Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Silver Bullets (Joe Swanberg) Sleeping Sickness (Ulrich Kohler) Slow Action (Ben Rivers) Source Code (Duncan Jones) Starbuck Tao jie Target (Alexander Zeldovich) Terraferma Terri (Azazel Jacobs) Texas Killing Fields The Beaver The Big Year The Color Wheel (Alex Ross Perry) The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies) The First Man The Flowers of War The Future The Future (Miranda July) The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (David Fincher) The Greatest Movie Ever Sold The Green Hornet (Michel Gondry) The Guard The Hangover Part II The Ides of March (George Clooney) The Interrupters The Kid With a Bike (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardennes) The Last Mountain The Last Rites of Joe May The Lincoln Lawyer (Brad Furman) The Loneliest Planet (Julia Loktev) The Mechanic (Simon West) The Return (Nathaniel Dorsky) The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodovar) The Smurfs The Three Musketeers (Paul W.S. Anderson) The Turin Horse (Bela Tarr) The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 This is Not a Film (Mojtaba Mirtahmasb and Jafar Panahi) This Must Be the Place (Paolo Sorrentino) Thor Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Michael Bay) Tyrannosaur Un été brûlant Uncle Kent (Joe Swanberg) Unknown (Jaume Collet-Serra) Warrior We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay) Weekend (Andrew Haigh) What’s Your Number? Where Do We Go Now? Wild and Weird Wuthering Heights Young Adult (Jason Reitman) Zookeeper

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