Honorable mention:
Super 8 – You have no idea how tempting it is to rate this film #8 on the year.
Source Code – Weird, silly and completely unbelievable. My kind of thriller.
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol – Weird, silly and completely unbelievable. My kind of thriller – oh and some awesome stunts.
Inisidious – I’ve been saying for years, “When you see a ghost, just get out of the house.” In Insidious, they actually do move and problems follow them. Kudos for good sense; this is the only horror film that scared me last year. (Well, except for Breaking Dawn, but that’s a different matter.)
Hanna – This 14-year-old kicks ass. Totally. Good for her.
Horrible Bosses – From a film watcher POV, this was a pretty good year to be unemployed. And you don’t need a horrible boss to understand what it is to have a horrible boss.
A Better Life – Deserves recognition on the single count of being a film about the hardships of the immigrant experience without scapegoating or pointing fingers.
Zindagi Ma Milegi Dobara – I still can’t decide whether I like Indian film or not. Should every movie just take a break for a musical number every once in a while? Is Indian real life like this? “Before we fill out this tax form, it is time to sing about the harvest and line dance!”
The Debt — Owes me two hours. (Kind of a shame the tag doesn’t apply; you hate to waste a comeback like that.)
10. Everything Must Go — including all incentive to see a depressed, unemployed, newly estranged, newly homeless man sit on his lawn for days. Sounds like fun, don’t it?
9. Like Crazy — Young people in love, yaaaaay! Young people so in love they screw not just each other, but themselves, too, in the process. Booooo!
8. Crazy, Stupid, Love – It’s possible I just like movies with “Crazy” in the title. One Crazy Summer? Crazy People? The Crazies? Um, no.
7. Inside Job – If you don’t actually know how or why the recession happened – or if you have a completely mistaken idea of why it happened (I’m looking at you, Republican voters), this is an excellent tutorial.
6. Hugo – I know this is blasphemy, but I like Martin Scorsese, storyteller, much better than Martin Scorsese, violence guru.
5. Midnight in Paris– Did anybody else see modern Woody Allen morphing into Owen Wilson? I didn’t see that coming at all. And this being a successful gambit? I’d say it’s easier to predict the next Derby winner.
4. Incendies — Yes, it is a 2010 film. Normal people didn’t get to see it until 2011; that’s why it’s here. 
Exceptionally depressing, horrifying and fascinating film. Watch it once and never think about it again.
3. 50/50 — Kind of a depressing top-10 this year, eh? Don’t like the story of the orphan? the economic collapse? the jobless? war crimes? Well, here’s a tale of a twentysomething with terminal cancer. Woohoo! That’s just what I wanted!
2. Moneyball – If I rate this above #2, I probably lose all credibility as a reviewer. Even were I not an A’s fan and lifetime Art Howe detractor, however, I think I could love this Aaron Sorkin screenplay.
1. The Artist – Every year it seems there is a single film that sticks out. It looks different; it feels different; it is a deliberate artistic venture in terms of scope, cinematography, dialogue or a combination thereof. Sometimes history is kind to films like these – Dances with Wolves and Titanic come to mind. Sometimes it isn’t –Sin City was as groundbreaking as anything you’ll see, but wasn’t richly rewarded. Neither was Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. In 2011, this film was The Artist, a silent film in a talking era. A b&w film flanked intheaters by awful full color films involving Adam Sandler in drag. A film that remembered gimmicks exist to accentuate storytelling, not vice-versa. Even if you didn’t love The Artist, I think the effort to introduce a new reality should always be lauded.
Saw 2 out of 19. I have to get to the movies more often!