Scott Tobias: Best 15 Films of 2011 [also a participant in A.V. Club's round-up]

1. Meek’s Cutoff – Kelly Reichardt
2. Certified Copy – Abbas Kiarostami
3. A Separation – Asghar Farhadi
4. The Tree of Life – Terrence Malick
5. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives – Apichatpong Weerasethakul
6. Martha Marcy May Marlene – Sean Durkin
7. Drive – Nicolas Winding Refn
8. Weekend – Andrew Haigh
9. Margaret – Kenneth Lonergan
10. The Arbor – Clio Barnard
11. House of Pleasures – Bertrand Bonello
12. Tabloid – Errol Morris
13. Hugo – Martin Scorsese
14. Tuesday, After Christmas – Radu Muntean
15. The Interrupters – Steve James

The Next Five

• Terri – Azazel Jacobs
• Take Shelter – Jeff Nichols
• Source Code – Duncan Jones
• Bridesmaids – Paul Feig
• Attack the Block – Joe Cornish

NOTE: Tobias has posted an extended overview of 2011 (“the best year for movies since I started reviewing movies professionally back in 1998″) that includes a number of honorable mentions. We’d update the list above — since we normally favor the personal write-ups over ballot submissions — but it’s not clear where a few of “The Next Five” fit into the new overall list, which (probably unintentionally) omits the Nichols, Jones, and Feig films. But go read the post, anyway, and don’t worry about anything except the unfortunate limit that Netflix places on the size of your queue.