Best Films of 2010: More Lists

My 2010 year-end piece and top 10/20 films has been up for a few weeks, and with the Academy Awards upon us we’re almost ready to be finished with the movie year 2010. Before turning the page entirely, though, I’d like to draw attention to a few more year-end lists worth noting.

Earlier this month, Christianity Today Movies & TV released its two annual top 10 lists, the Most Redeeming Films and Critics’ Choice Awards, both of which I vote in.

From the top, the 2010 CT Movies & TV Critics’ Choice winners are:

  1. The King’s Speech
  2. The Social Network
  3. True Grit
  4. Toy Story 3
  5. Inception
  6. The Fighter
  7. Winter’s Bone
  8. Get Low
  9. 127 Hours
  10. Tangled


Seven of those films appear on my own top 10—and seven (but not the same seven) also appear on the Most Redeeming films list:

  1. Toy Story 3
  2. The King’s Speech
  3. Get Low
  4. True Grit
  5. Winter’s Bone
  6. Despicable Me
  7. Tangled
  8. The Fighter
  9. Letters to Father Jacob
  10. Like Dandelion Dust


Over at Image Journal, Jeffrey Overstreet listed his top 20 films of 2010 in two separate lists. His top 10, which hits 6 of the same films as my top 10, are:

  1. Toy Story 3
  2. True Grit
  3. Winter’s Bone
  4. The Social Network
  5. The Secret of Kells
  6. Four Lions
  7. The Secret of the Grain
  8. The Sun
  9. The King’s Speech
  10. Babies


You can also check out his 10 runners-up.

At AmericanCatholic.org, Sister Rose Pecatte named the winners of her 2010 CineRose awards. Seven films were awards “A Bouquet of Roses”; they are listed in this order, though I’m not sure why:

  • The King’s Speech
  • Waiting for “Superman”
  • 127 Hours
  • Conviction
  • How to Train Your Dragon
  • The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
  • Countdown to Zero


Films that show up in her “Four Roses” and “Three Roses” lists: The Social Network, True Grit, Get Low, Toy Story 3, Secretariat, Letters to Juliet, Winter’s Bone.

Edward Reginald Frampton, “The Voyage of St. Brendan,” 1908, Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, Wisconsin.

Which Way Is Heaven?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s mystic west was inspired by the legendary voyage of St. Brendan, who sailed on a quest for a Paradise in the midst and mists of the ocean.