The Top 10 Films of 2011 and 2012, So Far

The films of 2011 have all come out on DVD and Fair Lawn’s rank-order specialist Cornell Christianson has now seen them all. So it’s time for his annual list of best films that he’s been doing for over twenty years.

“2011 was a great year for films” Christianson said, “making this year’s list harder than usual”.

Here it is in order:

1. The Descendants

2. War Horse

3. The Help

4. Captain America: First Avenger

5. Harry Potter & Deathly Hallows 2

6. Transformers: Dark of the Moon

7. My Week with Marilyn

8. Adventures of Tintin

9. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

10. Midnight in Paris

Honorable Mention -- Haywire, Hanna, The Artist, The Iron Lady, Hugo, Green Lantern, Sucker Punch and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

Best Low-Budget Independent Film of the Year -- Another Earth, which was made for $200,000 and bought by Fox for $2 million.

Seven of Christianson's Top 10 or Honorable Mentions were nominated for Best Picture by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

So far this summer, Christianson has seen four truly great films, in order: The Amazing Spider-Man, The Dark Knight Rises, Snow White and the Huntsman and Prometheus.

Christianson felt "The Avengers" was fun and worth seeing, but not in the same league as the others. In fact, he thought "Battleship," a terrific alien invasion film, was better than "The Avengers."

Do you  with his list? What films would be on your list?

Cornell Christianson has spent most of his career working in the movie business. He has been a producer-writer at Paramount Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox, with credits including the award-winning television series "The Paper Chase," starring John Houseman. He currently works for an entertainment law firm where he critiques screenplays and different cuts of films in production, writes film distribution plans, and writes a blog on trends in the entertainment industry.