The 26 Best Films of 2011

From The New Yorker:

The numbering is somewhat arbitrary; I think of two through six as equals, the next ten as equals, the ten after those as equals.

1. The Future
Miranda July is the Marguerite Duras of 2011: she infuses her movie with literature in order to make it more truly cinematic, reveals a choreographic precision that evokes physical intimacy and remoteness better than any other film this year, bares her metaphysical strivings in order to explore her most practical and venal fears and desires, fulfills the promise of her film’s exquisite title.

2. The Tree of Life
The very nature of inchoate thought, discovered and actualized by way of cinema. Terrence Malick overcomes the nearly insurmountable risks of the long-dreamed-of project to fuse autobiography and philosophy of mind, scientific fascination and religious reminiscences, desires and realities, a receding past and an uncertain future—and to do it with a fusion of dramatic intensity with visionary exaltation. The film’s very existence is a marvel.

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