It was a strange year for cinema. The Cannes Film Festival had several really strong contenders for best movie, and bizarrely gave its Palme d'Or to Terrence Malick's ponderous "The Tree of Life". Normally I can watch Malick until the cows come home, but this time there was a sound of lowing in my garden. Overall there were less really strong films than in the previous couple of years, but the top ten for 2011 still contains true gems.

At Ten I liked "The Artist". Currently this one is receiving a lot of attention in the run-up to the Oscars. If it wins Best Picture this will be truly amazing: it's a French movie, mostly silent and black and white. It's a short film that nevertheless seems a bit long, and that's where the problem lies - it's a beautiful homage to the silent era, and a wonderful pastiche, but it just does not have enough content to get higher up my list.

At Number Nine, I'm opting for "The Skin I Live In", Pedro Almodovar's venture into science fiction. There's some reference to previous masterpieces of world cinema, especially Franju's "Eyes without a face", in this tale of beauty enslaved by an obsessive and horrific dream. The film touches on some great themes - identity, gender, family attachment. It's also got that Almodovar trademark of an incredibly complicated scenario that all unravels at the end. The only thing that bugged me about this one was the completely unsubtle product placement for BMW. They nearly ruined Polanski's "Ghost Writer", and here they are again. They must be paying loads of cash to persuade serious directors to let them invade the screens like this!

At Number Eight is Lynne Ramsay's "We Need to Talk about Kevin". This one shows the childhood and adolescence of a boy who turns into a criminal. The question being asked is who is responsible? Is it the mother's fault because she cannot bond with him? The directing here is very ambitious - Ramsay shows us one character's perception: a mother who is racked by guilt. At times the imagery and camera effects are just too much, but it is still a very fine movie, with a fine performance from Tilda Swinton.

At Seven, The King's Speech wowed everyone back in January when it was released here in France. This is a stirring period piece about how King George VI was thrust into the throne by his brother's abdication, and the stammer he had to overcome. We are treated to great perfomances, fine wide-angle lens work, and a rousing human story.

Six is Take Shelter, an American movie about an apparently deranged man who builds a deep storm shelter in his garden. Michael Shannon is excellent in these flakey roles, and here he has a superb foil in Jessica Chastain, playing his long-suffering wife. Is it an allegory of the 2008 crash? Or human isolation? In any case this is one of the most moving films of 2011.

In at Number Five is Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen's time-travel piece about nostalgia for the golden age in Paris. And being Woody, that leads to questions like, "What age was really golden"? There are humourous literary in-jokes and characterisations of figures like F. Scott Fitzgerald. And of course the movie works in the standard Allen plot of a quiet intellectual with a shy nature who finally gets the girl. This movie has made more money than any other in Woody Allen's career, and while it probably doesn't have the inspired genius of "Manhattan", it certainly is one of his best.

Number Four: The Kid with a Bike, by the Dardenne brothers, was competing in Cannes, and was a better movie than the winner. But then again, these two Belgians have already won the Palme twice, so presumably it gets harder for them to have it once more. The Dardennes stick to a very simple story about one child, his father's rejection, and a friendly lady who adopts him. Unusually for the Dardennes this is an optimistic tale.

Made In Dagenham is in the top three for 2011 because it is so authentic, evocative and inspirational. Ken Loach himself could not have done better in showing people becoming conscious of their rights and fighting for them, at first awkwardly and hesitantly, and eventually with pride and confidence. Look out for a great performance by Miranda Richardson playing Barbara Castle.

At number two, Once upon a time in Anatolia, a Turkish movie by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, was another one shown at Cannes. It's quite a long film, and some will find it slow, but the perfect control of camera, dialogues, and plot, make this a truly great look at how people interact.

And so to the best film of 2011: Lars von Trier's Melancholia. His previous film was dreadful and he also managed to get himself thrown out of Cannes for a careless and awkward joke about Nazis. And yet this movie is a thing of near perfect beauty. Von Trier unpeels the nature of depression in a forensic manner. He stuffs the screen with scenes from renaissance representations of melancholy, and he uses a giant planet headed towards earth as a metaphor that could seem unsubtle but somehow works. 

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