My Top 5 Films of 2010

Catfish: A documentary that began life as a project by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman to chart the budding, online relationship between Ariel's brother Nev, and the family of a young, talented painter named Abbey, slowly turns into something different altogether. A must-see for Facebook addicts and stalkers alike, Catfish is a film that the less you know about before watching, the more fascinating it becomes.

Another Year: Mike Leigh's latest shows us a year in the life of happily married couple, Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen). Their positive outlook on life is counter-balanced by their friends, each of whom suffer some degree of unhappiness, ranging from drinking problems to struggling to cope with entering the latter stages of their life. The film is desperately sad at points but is played so believably that it becomes one of the most interesting, engaging films of the year.

Buried: Spending 90 minutes in a coffin with Ryan Reynolds may be a slightly twisted fantasy for some women, but Buried  is a tough, claustrophobic watch. Unfolding largely in real time, director Rodrigo Cortés, manages to create more ways of filming a man in coffin than would be thought possible but in doing so he has created an utterly enthralling watch that brings everyones nightmares about being buried alive to life.

Shutter Island: As good as Inception was, Di Caprio’s best role came in Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island, a film that sees Leo's US Marshall, Teddy Daniels, travel to the ominous Shutter Island hospital to investigate a missing patient. It's a film that Scorcese pumps full of haunting sound, eerie visuals and dark atmospherics whilst still managing to retain impressive shocks, twists, and an amazing ending.

A Single Man: In what had to be the most amazing looking film of the year, Tom Ford's first film follows George Falconer (Colin Firth), on what he plans to be the last day of his life, after struggling to overcome the depression that has plagued him since his partner's death. A Single Man sees Firth at the top of his game and Ford manages to walk the line between style and substance perfectly.