The best movies of 2011

2011: A YEAR AT THE MOVIES
The 20 best films of the year
Hi, and welcome to the final part of my look back on the movies of the past year.
2011 turned out to be a corker of a year for cinema releases in Belgium.
Of the 151 movies I saw in 2011, 25 were viewed at the Brussels cinemathèque, so I'll disregard those.
The remaining 126 movies I reviewed on a sliding scale of zero to five stars.
No movie received that magical fifth star, but 32 films were good enough to earn 3 or 4 stars.
From that list I chose my selection of the 20 best movies of 2011.
An at times very sentimental look at the Civil Rights Movement in the sixties. The great humour makes you forget the syrop however.
THE KING OF DEVIL'S ISLAND
This old-fashioned but engaging Norwegian film about a correction facility for young delinquents is a fascinating cross between Cool Hand Luke and Lord of the Flies.
Jodie Foster and Kate Winslet are hopelessly miscast, but Christophe Waltz delivers scintillatingly wicked lines. Not a great movie but a thoroughly enjoyable one.
The bucketload of Oscars might be overdoing it a bit, but this surely is a classy and surprisingly funny royal drama.
BULLHEAD
Michael Roskam's debut, about the local hormone mafia, deserves to win Belgium its first Foreign Languague Film Oscar.
You'll enjoy every second of this pulsating and original science fiction comedy that pits youngsters from a a downtown London estate against invading aliens.
Finally Spielberg rediscovers his fun bone! Though the director renders Tintin in 3D, he closely coheres to the character's comic book origins.
I almost cracked a rib laughing at the scene of a woman taking a dump in the street.
George Clooney lifts the lid of a Democratic presidential campaign. It's the kind of movie you have to respect, despite a lack of passion.
Ballet was rarely as disturbing as in Darren Aronnofsky's wildly entertaining art movie, on the thin line between reality and nightmare.
Just when you thought super hero movies were getting stale, along comes this fascinating origin story that recalls the best Bond movies of the sixties.
Brad Pitt gives the best performance of his career in a movie that, thanks to a sizzling screenplay by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, manages to make baseball riviting.
A movie that is dark, raw and without redemption, but oozes atmosphere and boasts brilliant performances by Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes.
Alex de la Iglesia's ultimate masterpiece: filled with baroque images and grotesque characters. Not for the faint of heart, but surprisingly poetic.
The story of a bunch of prisoners escaping on foot from an inhospitable gulag to India has all the hallmarks of David Lean in his prime. 0:04:13.000,0:04.22.000 Susanne Bier won an Oscar in 2011 for this manipulative but timely look at the way violence shapes human culture.
The kind of western you just don't see anymore, wherein the one-eyed loner doesn't just confront the baddies but also his inner demons.
Each year there tends to be a movie that comes out of leftfield but turns out to be charming, funny and original beyond belief. This year that movie was Troll Hunter.
Stylish direction, the best soundtrack of the year and a stunning central performance by Ryan Gosling elevate Drive miles above your average genre flick.
Sure, it's a silent movie. But it's also a film that makes you wanna shout from the rooftops about how miraculously beautiful this art form can be.
The race for the number one spot was an incredibly close one, with The Artist eking out victory by a noselenght from Drive.
That also means that for the fourth consecutive year a European movie sits atop the list.
You'll recall I chose Let the Right One In as best movie of 2008, A Prophet in 2009 and Exit Through The Gift Shop in 2010.
Is Hollywood capable of striking back and reclaiming the number one spot in 2012? That remains to be seen.
In January I'll be assessing potential great movies in 2012 as I count down my most anticipated films of the next 12 months. See you then!