MOVIES: Best of 2010 -- top ten movies

Starting with #10 and working up to #1, these are the movies that made the biggest impression on me this year:

• True Grit -- as usual from the Coen brothers, every role is impeccably cast (Dakin Matthews is a special treat as Mattie's horse-trading nemesis), and the tone is perfectly controlled.
• The Social Network -- Despite the movie's factual inaccuracies and distortions, the story it does tell is wildly entertaining, and the actors handle Sorkin's dizzying dialogue with astounding grace and ease.
• Another Year -- The more I think about this movie, the more I begin to pity its central couple, Tom and Gerri, who are so hermetically sealed within their own happiness that they are almost willfully oblivious to the sorrow of their friends.
• The King's Speech -- Yes, it's shamelessly old-fashioned, and deliberately pushes every "give me an Oscar!" button known to man, but it pushes them extremely well, and while I think it's been a bit over-rewarded by the Academy, it's a solid piece of entertainment.
• Tangled -- Gorgeous animation; solid voice performances; lively songs and production numbers. And the lantern scene is the animation set piece of the year.
• Shutter Island -- A deliriously loopy homage to and parody of B-movie horror, with Scorsese setting just the right over-the-top tone, and getting impeccable performances, especially in the smaller roles.
• The Ghost Writer -- A masterful thriller, with the best final image of the year.
• Blue Valentine -- A devastating portrait of a marriage in collapse. Writer/director Derek Cianfrance is superb at showing the way that the traits which draw people together are the very things that will eventually pull them apart.
• Exit Through the Gift Shop -- A spectacularly entertaining documentary about the insanities of the contemporary art world. The possibility that the entire thing is some sort of massive hoax only plays into the movie's central question: Is there any real meaning to art, or do we simply accept that art has value because we've been told that it does?
• Toy Story 3 -- How does Pixar keep getting better and better at this? It's funny, it's devastatingly emotional, and it presents serious issues in a way that entertains the kids and moves the adults. If you're not crying after Andy's final scene, then you have no soul, my friend.

And a group of runners-up, any one of which might have made the top ten on a different day: Animal Kingdom, Barney's Version, Dogtooth, Inception, Mother and Child, Night Catches Us, The Secret in Their Eyes, The Square, Timer, Unstoppable.