Sight and Sound's Best of 2014

1) Boyhood (Richard Linklater)
2) Goodbye to Language 3D (Jean-Luc Godard)
3) Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev)
(tie) Horse Money (Pedro Costa)
5) Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer)
6) The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson)
7) Winter Sleep (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
8) The Tribe (Myroslav Slaboshypytskiy)
9) Ida (Pawel Pawlikowski)
(tie) Jauja (Lisandro Alonso)
11) Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh)
(tie) National Gallery (Frederick Wiseman)
(tie) The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)
(tie) Whiplash (Damien Chazelle)
15) The Duke of Burgundy (Peter Strickland)
16) Birdman (Alejandro Gonzalez Inárritu)
(tie) Two Days, One Night (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)
18) CitizenFour (Laura Poitras)
(tie) The Look of Silence (Joshua Oppenheimer)
(tie) The Wind Rises (Hayao Miyazaki)

Sight & Sound Top Ten of 2013

1. The Act of Killing- directed by Joshua Oppenheimer
2. Gravity- directed by Alfonso Cuarón
3. Blue is the Warmest Color- directed by Abdellatif Kechiche
4. The Great Beauty- directed by Paolo Sorrentino
5. Frances Ha- directed by Noah Baumbach
6. A Touch of Sin- directed by Zhangke Jia
7. Upstream Color- directed by Shane Carruth
8. The Selfish Giant- directed by Clio Barnard
9. Norte, The End of History- directed by Lav Diaz
10. Stranger by the Lake- directed by Alain Guiraudie

Sight & Sound Top Ten of 2012

1.  The Master
2.  Tabu
3.  Amour
4.  Holy Motors
5.  Beasts of the Southern Wild
5.  Berberian Sound Studio
7.  Moonrise Kingdom
8.  Beyond the Hills
8.  Cosmopolis
8.  Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
8.  This Is Not a Film

The Master tops Sight and Sound's poll of the Best of 2012 in a rare instance where an American film nabs the top spot.  The Oscar universe seems awfully quiet on Paul Thomas Anderson's polarizing 1950s epic, but I suspect as the critics awards start to unfurl (the madness begins Monday, December 3rd with the New York Film Critics) that The Master will begin to pick up some steam.  This is surely a film that was never meant to a populist movie.  The Weinstein Company, surely know this from the start and that's perhaps why they opened the film in the middle of nowhere of mid-September in an effort to bang out every box office dollar to be had for such an uncompromising and hard to decipher auetural provocation.  Best Picture may perhaps be beyond their reach as this season as proven a competitive one, but Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman surely will be frontrunners in an a film that all can argue upon was superbly acted.

Sight & Sound's Top Films of 2011

The official release of the Sight & Sound poll for the top films of the year is yet to revealed, but the top ten (or in this case, eleven) are already available.  It's one of the most interesting polls of the year, because it's likely the broadest in terms of the most relevant films of any given year, given the amount of international critics that participate and an early signal of the critical trend in cinema of the year.

1- The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)
2- A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)
3- The Kid With the Bike (Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne)
4- Melancholia (Lars von Trier)
5- The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius)
6- Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Blige Ceylan)
-- The Turin Horse (Bella Tarr)
8- We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsey)
9- Le Quattro Volte (Michelangelo Frammartino)
10- Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson)
-- This is Not a Film (Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmash)

The Tree of Life, with its Palme D'Or and Gotham win already in play has a little more to celebrate.  Perhaps an obvious choice, but further proof that the critics will indeed go big (I strongly believe), however I'd love a little variety-- hopefully that will come as the NY Film Critics (who controversially moved up their voting) will come through when they announce shortly.  The rest is full of two pleasant and enriching films, two of my favorites of the year-- The Artist and Melancholia.  A Separation, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia and The Turin Horse all in contention for the Foreign Film race, and We Need to Talk About Kevin and Tinker Tailor Solider Spy will get limited release spots in the coming weeks.

Last year, Oscar bridesmaid, The Social Network topped the list and in a rare move, an American film is on top two years running.

Sight & Sound Ten Best of 2010

Seasons Greetings, and as the mad rush of the holidays are now upon us, so are the end of the year film sweepstakes, which will start with a seemingly never-ending, perhaps exhilarating, sometimes highly irritating bang next week with the announcement of the National Board of Review winners.  I love this time of year; I hate this time of year-- mostly however I obsess upon it, ever hopeful.

Sight and Sound, the highbrow British film magazine that's been around since 1932 named it top ten (or specifically twelve) of 2010.  It's a master list consisting of 85 credited film critics including Amy Taubin (Film Comment) and Kenneth Turan (The Los Angeles Times).

1) The Social Network (David Fincher)
2) Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
3) Another Year (Mike Leigh)
4) Carlos (Olivier Assayas)
5) The Arbor (Clio Barnard)
6) Winter's Bone (Debra Granik)
(tie) I Am Love (Luca Guadagnino)
8) The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu (Andrei Ujica)
(tie) Film Socialisme (Jean-Luc Godard)
(tie) Nostalgia for the Light (Patricio Guzman)
(tie) Poetry (Lee Chang-dong)
(tie) A Prophet (Jacques Audiard)

• A nice coup for The Social Network, which holds the notable distinction of being Sight & Sound's first American film to top the list in five years; the last American film to do so was Brokeback Mountain (2005.)  Asides from David Fincher's Facebook movie, the others on the list with prominent Oscar chances are Another Year and Winter's Bone.   

• Uncle Boonme (rated second on the list) is Thailand's submission for the Academy Awards this year; the film previously won the top prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival; is it wrong that I hope the film gets in just for the awkward sight of watching a famous guy or gal mangle the filmmaker's name.

Tilda Swinton

• I hope I Am Love (a film I haven't written about, but hope to elaborate on soon) gets something, if not from the Academy, then from some cooler, less establishment film governing body-- the sumptuous look of the film, as well as Tilda Swinton's blistering performance (showcasing even more versatility from that strange, radiant, alien actress by fully being performed in Italian) are too grand to go unnoticed...of course I felt the same way about Swinton's last blistering turn, in last year's Julia, which got diddily-squat.

• Also notably, the fourth tied film for eight place was A Prophet, nominated last year for the foreign-language Oscar, which interesting was the number one choice on Sight and Sound's poll last year; which raises the question that plagues numerous foreign language and independent films: exactly what year do they belong too?  A Prophet was eligible for Academy Awards last year, however it's American release was in 2010, thus it's repeat on the list.  My head hurts thinking about these matters...I wish it didn't bother me so...