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Annual round-ups
Sight & Sound’s surveys of the best films, DVDs and online videos for each year since 2005.
2011
The films of 2011
In a strong year for arthouse cinema, Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life emerged as the clear winner of the S&S poll of international critics’ best films of 2011, says Nick James
PLUS: see the full poll
The DVDs of 2011
23 critics and curators pick out their releases – and rediscoveries – of the year, including Jerzy Skolimowski’s Deep End, Zoltán Huszárik’s Szindbád, the several versions of Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil and ‘The Theo Angelopoulos Collection’
The web video of 2011
13 critics and curators on their favourite videos new online in 2011
2010
The films of 2010
The Social Network and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Remember His Past Lives head our round-up of the films and highlights of the year, as voted by 85 critics and curators
PLUS: see the full poll
The DVDs of 2010
24 critics and curators pick out a range of often enterprisingly unheralded revivals, from early Ozu and von Sternberg to R.W. Fassbinder’s World on a Wire and Imamaura Shohei’s Profound Desires of the Gods
The web video of 2010
14 critics and curators on their favourite videos new online in 2010
2009
The films of 2009
A Prophet, The Hurt Locker and 35 Shots of Rum lead our favourite releases of the year. Jonathan Romney discerns a French resurgence and an unprecedentedly strong showing by women directors
PLUS: see our full critics’ lists
The DVDs of 2009
Rediscoveries of unjustly obscure old films – Daisies, Comrades, Blood and Masters of Cinema’s ongoing Maurice Pialat collection – lead our critics’ favourites
The best online videos of 2009
With the web hosting more, and more diverse, moving images than ever, we invited critics and curators to recommend the year’s best online viewing. Nick Bradshaw surveys the tally, led by Phantoms of Nabua, It Felt Like a Kiss and Please Say Something
PLUS: see our full critics’ lists
2008
The films of 2008
Hunger was a clear winner in a year of unexpectedly terrific films, says Nick James
PLUS: download our full critics’ lists
The DVDs of 2008
Our inaugural poll of best new DVD releases welcomed Carl Dreyer’s Vampyr and Maurice Pialat’s L’Enfance nue back into the world
2007 and back
The films of 2007
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Inland Empire and Zodiac top our list in one of the best years for all-round quality in recent memory
PLUS: download our full critics’ lists
The films of 2006
The year of Hidden, Volver and more. Plus our full critics’ lists
The films of 2005
Brokeback Mountain, A History of Violence and The Holy Girl lead our poll in a year when a British horror film breached our top ten. Nick James wonders if the movies got richer or if critical tastes were diverging
PLUS: see all 72 titles cited in our full critics’ lists