Top Ten Films 2010 (So Far)

Nathan here.

To celebrate new beginnings and the creation of this blog, let's jump straight into proceedings. Seeing as the end of the year is rapidly approaching it seems appropriate to offer a list of my personal favourite films of the year so far.

Admittedly, I have just completed a year of studying an Honours Degree, so my movie going experience has been fairly limited, especially in these last few months. There are a number of films I have yet to catch up on, but will endeavour to do so before the end of the year in order to provide a 'Best Of' list which truly reflects the cinema experience up for offer in 2010.

So here goes, my tentative list of the best films from the first year of a new decade. Detailed opinions regarding each film will hopefully follow in subsequent posts.

1. Mother (Joon-ho Bong, 2009)

2. Un Prophéte (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

3. Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson, 2009)

4. I Am Love (Luca Guadagnino, 2009)

5. Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010)

6. White Material (Claire Denis, 2009)

7. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans (Werner Herzog, 2009)

8. Father of My Children (Mia Hansen-Løve, 2009)

9. The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke, 2009)

10.Wild Grass (Alain Resnais, 2009)

Now this list is gleaned not only from cinema releases, but also straight-to-video new releases and various festival screenings throughout the year in Western Australia. Which explains why there are so many French titles so far, because hot damn! The Alliance French Film Festival really brought their A-game this year.

With the spate of films releasing before year ends it will be interesting to see how this list chops and changes. I will say I did have a hard time compiling a list of ten outstanding films for a truly personal list, so I'm hoping this situation changes in the next few weeks. It hasn't necessarily been a lackluster year, it's just that I haven't quite seen enough films it seems.

Before signing off, I would like to give a special honorable mention to Kanye West's directorial effort Runaway, an inspired piece of surrealist pop which straddles the line between being an accomplished entry into the history of long-form music videos and an extravagant short film in its own right. I would certainly rank the effort in my personal top ten if I were to include content I viewed online, but for the sake of limits I decided to exclude internet content from my proceedings. More on this peculiar entity at a later date.

To the start of a long and healthy blog!