The Official Box Office Theory's Favorite Movies of 2011 List!

[Gopher]

This is a placeholder thread at the moment. I have the preliminary list set and ready to post, I'm waiting for any last-minute changes. I'll start tomorrow!

[Fanboy]

Looking forward to seeing Drive at the top.

[JamesFord92]

Drive will probably be first, but after that I have no idea. There were a lot of different movies that got support on people's lists, and nothing that everyone seemed to agree on.

[American Eagle]

Unless I'm majorly off, the top three should be Drive, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and... Hugo?

[acsc1312]

You're such a tease, Gopher

[Gopher]

Okay, no Noctis update? Alrightie then, let's start.

[Gopher]

The job for users was to post their favorite 15 movies of the year, in order. Each ranking would be given "excellence points" (because these are all movies at least some users loved) based on the position of the film- a movie placed #1 would be given 15 points, a movie placed #2 would be given 14 points, all the way down until a movie placed #15 would be given 1 point. What I'll do is post every movie mentioned, do five honorable mentions (numbers 16-20) and give each movie in the top 15 a paragraph about why they were so great.

Here are all the movies that were put on top 15 lists and garnered between 1 and 20 points, in order of weakest to strongest.

African Cats: 1

Cedar Rapids: 1

Tyrannosaur: 1

Scream 4: 1

Insidious: 2

Weekend: 2

Meek's Cutoff: 2

Sucker Punch: 3

Tower Heist: 3

Puss in Boots: 3

Paranormal Activity: 3

Unknown: 3

Bad Teacher: 4

TT3D: Closer to the Edge: 4

The Troll Hunger: 5

Bobby Fischer Against the World: 5

Cars 2: 5 (easily the worst score Pixar would ever receive at a site like this)

Water For Elephants: 5

Arthur Christmas: 5

Take Shelter: 6

Like Crazy: 6

The Inbetweeners Movie: 7

Jane Eyre: 8

The Skin I Live In: 8

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: 8

Paul: 8

Our Idiot Brother: 9

Submarine: 10

In the Land of Blood and Honey: 10

Real Steel: 10

Rio: 10

The Debt: 11

Limitless: 11

13 Assassins: 12

Kung Fu Panda 2: 13

Pearl Jam: Twenty: 13

The Guard: 13

A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas: 13

Life in a Day: 14

Pirates 4: 16

We Bought a Zoo: 16

Crazy, Stupid, Love: 17

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows: 17

Margin Call: 19

[rockNrollaDIM]

Aw. I thought Margin Call would have a better showing.BTW I think top 3 will be Drive, 50/50, and Dragon Tattoo. Possibly swap DT for DH2.

[Gopher]

Here is everything else that was above 20 points but not in the Top 15 or a honorable mention. These movies received quite a bit of support- Win Win, for example, placed in nine lists, and Ides of March had four Top 5 placements.

Hanna: 21

Transformers: The Dark Side of the Moon (great album, great movie): 21

The Adjustment Bureau: 24

We Need to Talk About Kevin: 24

Senna: 25

A Separation: 26

Melancholia: 27

Thor: 29

Shame: 31

Horrible Bosses: 31

Fast Five: 33

Contagion: 36

Captain America: The First Avenger: 36

The Tree of Life: 38

The Help: 40

Win Win: 43

Bridesmaids: 47

War Horse: 50

The Ides of March: 54

Some thoughts: I honestly thought The Help and Bridesmaids- particularly the latter- would do better. They were each found on eight lists, but mostly placed in the second half of each list. It was interesting to see that Thor, Cap and Fast Five- all generally well received franchise movies- were all the way down here when some other certain franchise movies rocked the top of the charts. Transformers 3 really didn't do any better here than Pirates or Sherlock, indicating that even the second movie had more passionate followers. Strong showing for Ides of March, relatively okay for War Horse, and the rest mostly consists of arthouse films- Tree of Life, Melancholia, A Separation, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Shame, etc.- that did not have a lot of placements but were ranked highly by the people who did see them.

[rockNrollaDIM]

:blink:No Bridesmaids???? Jeez!

[4815162342]

:blink:No Bridesmaids???? Jeez!

YES!!!!!! aDIM you and I were the only ones to have Margin Call on our list. Edited January 27, 2012 by 4815162342

[CoolioD1]

Why is it everytime I do a best of the year list I always forget Margin Call. *shrug*

[Gopher]

Here are the HONORABLE MENTIONS!

20. Beginners (55 points from 8 lists)

I'm very happy that this indie dramedy, starring Ewan McGregor and Christopher Plummer, got some support. It's such a sweet little poem of a film, touching beautifully on themes like love and loss, featuring terrific performances all around. Mike Mills, who wrote and directed the film, has such a distinctive voice. I wish him the best of luck with future movies.

19. Source Code (58 points, 9 lists)

Sci-fi did very well all around, and Duncan Jones's creative sci-fi film starring Jake Gyllenhaal was no exception. Jones's followup to Moon was a smart, very entertaining piece of escapism.

18. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (61 points, 6 lists)

Meticulously crafted and filled with an incredible cast, this adaptation polarized some and extremely pleased others. And of course, everyone loved Gary Oldman's nuanced performance as George Smiley.

17. Midnight in Paris (72 points, 10 lists)

Not only does Midnight in Paris offer me a chance to post this picture of Adrien Brody as Dali, but Woody Allen's comedy is creative, whimsical and the best film he's made in years.

16. The Adventures of Tintin (73 points, 10 lists)

Nice surprise to see this so high up. Stephen Speilberg and Peter Jackson's adaptation of the classic Herge comics was a rip-roaring ride that captured the spirit of the original books. And of course, we got another incredible performance by Andy Serkis as Captain Haddock. I'm looking forward to the sequel!

[Gopher]

15. The Artist (75 points, 7 lists)

Michael Hazanavicius's silent movie, seemingly destined for the Best Picture award at the Oscars next month, also scored very high with some users here. Critics against the movie argue that there's not a lot of substance in the film- sure, it's fluff, but it's impeccably made fluff, and a fun, joyous tribute to the silent era.

[Gopher]

14. The Muppets (79 points, 9 lists)

Talk about a comeback story! Jason Segel saved the gang from Disney limbo and wrote with Nicholas Stoller a film that serves as both a touching tribute to The Muppets and its own hilarious adventure. I can't wait to buy the DVD.

[Gopher]

13. Super 8 (91 points, 11 lists)

We as an internet community built up Super 8 to be a movie better than it actually was, and more successful than it would be. It didn't quite live up to the hype, at least in my humble opinion. In fact, I liked it when I first saw it and I have absolutely no desire to see it again. But a whole lot of you guys liked the movie. I'll say this much, J.J Abrams certainly went for a nice Speilberg tribute.

[Gopher]

12. Moneyball (91 points, 10 lists)

Moneyball feels like a classic studio hit. Make a movie with a deserved A-lister like Brad Pitt and write a fabulous script by Steve Zallian and Aaron Sorkin that gets a great performance out of him. It's a tremendously entertaining, emotionally powerful film that I've already seen multiple times.

[Gopher]

11. Rango (93 points, 11 lists)

A quirky, animated western shouldn't work. But Gore Verbinski's Rango does, in spades. It's one of the weirdest, wildest animated movies I've ever seen. I know kids haven't seen Chinatown, so I can only assume this movie was made for us.

Edited February 3, 2012 by Gopher

[Gopher]

10. The Descendants (105 points, 10 lists)

In the same vein as Moneyball- get a great book, great writers to adapt it, a great director, a great actor, and you rarely go wrong. The Descendants has real depth: it finds tears through laughter and vice versa, dances with emotionally complex themes so well that the film feels intimate and heartfelt. It's a hard movie not to like.

[Gopher]

9. Warrior (110 points, 12 lists)

I loved parts of what Hardy, Edgerton and Nolte did here, but I didn't love the film as a whole. So I'll let someone who did explain why this deserves to be BOT's #9 favorite film of the year:

"Great cast and that final fight was the most intense shit ever. My heart was racing. Genuinely had no idea who was gonna win." - CoolioD