Hopefully this list of personal favorites will erase the stink of sitting through that psychedelic turd Tree Of Life or the fatally miscast Carnage, not to mention the dreadfully dull Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. And even though these might not rate my top picks, I still have a warm spot for such wonderful junk like Conan: The Barbarian, Drive Angry and Shark Attack 3D, which made me unreasonably happy. And great affection for envelope-pushing films like The Last Circus, A Serbian Film and The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence). Also Michael Fassbender's penis in Shame deserves it's own year end award.
 
1. Kaboom

 Gregg Araki's playfully perverse apocalyptic saga with criminally cute, sexually confused, college students and a loony cult was one his personal best.



2. The Skin I Live In

This truly twisted tale of revenge by Pedro Almodovar starred Antonio Banderas as a nefarious surgeon, and featured our lovely cover-girl Elena Anaya as his the object of his obession. It looked beautiful and stung like a scorpion.
   


3. 3 Backyards

A triumphant return for Judy Berlin director Eric Mendelsohn, capturing a moody series of incidents in the lives of several suburbanites one sunny day in a coastal town. Just exquisite.
   


4. Attack The Block

Director Joe Cornish's fabulously entertaining film about a group of South London hooligans battling aliens was a throwback to the great early work of John Carpenter. And the kids were spectacular.


5. Melancholia

Lars Von Trier's beautiful meditation of the end of the world with haunting imagery and an astonishing performance by Kirsten Dunst. I feel slightly guilty enjoying the spoils of Von Trier's ongoing depression.


6. Martha Marcy May Marlene

This supremely spooky tale by Sean Durkin of a girl who flees from a Manson-like cult and finds it difficult to reenter the real world while staying with her sister really creeped the shit out of me. Elizabeth Olsen's performance was quite affecting, and yes, maybe the ending did suck, but the movie really invaded my dreams.


7. Hugo

Martin Scorsese's 3D valentine to the beginnings of movies was a joy to sit through, and scenes of Georges Melies in his glass ceiling studio shooting his movies brought tears to my eyes.
 


8. We Need To Talk About Kevin

The poisonous relationship between a mother (the extraordinary Tlda Swinton) and her son (an electrifying Ezra Miller), based on Lionel Shriver's devastating book was moodily directed by Lynne Ramsay.



9. Weekend

Director Andrew Haigh's remarkably poignant portrait of two gay English guys (Tom Cullen and Chris New) who hook up and spend the weekend together. This movie really surprised and moved me.


10. Midnight In Paris

Woody Allen's biggest hit in years, and deservedly so. Owen Wilson plays a screenwriter in Paris with his fiancé (Rachel McAdams) who nightly is magically transported back in time to Paris of the 1920s hooking up with F. Scott Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston), Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), Salvador Dali (Adrian Brody) and a standout performance by Corey Stoll as Ernest Hemingway. Romantic and sublime.