The Wrestler

It seems a long time ago now since this amazing film reached our screens, but it came just too late for last year's list, and demands to be included, showing as it does how a tired old formula and a tired old star can still work miracles. Mickey Rourke came back out of the dark to transcend in this tale of no-hoper Randy ‘The Ram' Robinson. A portrait of failure from the inside, with some of those moments of sublimity which are what makes going to the cinema one of the great experiences of modern life.

Revolutionary Road

Whereas Randy the Ram accepts his mediocrity with grace, this film showed a different response to failure. This heartrending portrait of the death of hope and of the empty lives behind the American dream has superb performances from Kate Winslet (far better and more subtle here than in the much praised The Reader) and Leonardo di Caprio, and Michael Shannon, a nominee for best supporting Oscar as their oddball, truth-telling neighbour.

Das weisse Bande (The White Ribbon)

Michael Haneke in devastating form again with a tale of unstoppable evil, repression and the rot at the heart of family and community life in a Lutheran village in early twentieth century Germany. Calvinistically pure and bleak itself in uncompromising black and white, as well as its very specific historical setting, it's also a timeless look at innocence warped, and is one of the most beautiful films I've seen in recent years.

Public Enemies

Although, or perhaps because, I'm not a great Michael Mann fan, I thought a great deal more of this film than most critics. A doomful account of the latter days of the career of John Dillinger, pin-up boy of the gangster era, it's film noir at its best, gorgeous to look at with a wonderful sheen of glamour knowingly laid over a very dark sense of mortality. If only they'd had the courage to stop with the bleak bravura of the final sidewalk scene and ditched the awkward ‘romantic resolution' coda.

Up

A  happy one at last! I deserve to be put into the cone of shame for all the bad things I've said about Pixar animation in the past. This 3-D delight has subtlety, beauty, great humour, thrills, and bags of unsentimental emotion, both wrily sad and boisterously joyful. It is that rare thing, a pleasure for all ages.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT

A Serious Man

I seem to be just about the only critic in the world not to love this latest Coen Bros effort, but, great fan of theirs though I am, this much-praised black comedy just didn't do it for me. Not very funny, not very dark, not very quirky, not very engaging, not very original, and not even (though shot by the great Roger Deakins) very good to look at, I was so disappointed by it that I came out of the cinema angry! But considering what everyone else thinks about it, I guess maybe I was having a bad day!

BEST DOCUMENTARY

Encounters at the End of the World

Herzog in cracking form in maybe his finest looking film to date, in the Antarctic where the oddness of ordinary people and the bizarreness of natural life provide perfect fodder for his quizzical probing and sublime camera. A close second was Anvil!, a kind of gentle companion-piece to The Wrestler in its portrayal of big strong soft-hearted men trying to regain their dreams. But funny.

GREATEST PLEASURE

Pranzo di Ferragosto (Mid-August Lunch)

This modest film about a middle aged man giving reluctant hospitality to a bevy of strong-minded old ladies one hot weekend in muggy central Rome is a delight from beginning to end. Written, directed and starring Gianni di Gregorio featuring acquaintances who have never acted before, and with an improvised feel it's a funny, inspiring hymn to sparky old age.

Followed closely by Julie and Julia, where Meryl Streep's comic and touching performance and lots of gorgeous food had me drooling.

MOST PROMISING NEW DIRECTOR

Duncan Jones, Moon

A very pleasing, highly competent, intelligent science fiction film in the old- fashioned thoughtful style, with a great performance from Sam Rockwell as the ordinary-Joe worker on the moon, which has become as dull a place as the industrial zones on earth, and where drama comes not from aliens or battles but from a slowly realised menace closer to home. Totally engrossing.

MOST PROMISING NEW ACTOR

Katie Jarvis in Fish Tank

Jarvis, an unknown teenager spotted arguing with her boyfriend at the station by director Andrea Arnold, is sublime as the awkward troubled teenager in this Loachian slice of bleak high-rise council estate life. We believe her every emotion and action.

SPECIAL AWARD FOR DEDICATION BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY

Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg for Antichrist. What this pair didn't go through acting out Lars von Trier's darkest fears and fantasies... You name the body part, they simulated injury to it. Most of it inflicted with blunt objects straight out of the rusty toolbox. Not to mention having to share the screen with the rummest collection of woodland creatures since Snow White got them to help her clean the house.