Alike’s journey is a harrowing one, filled with victories and setbacks, heartbreak and heroism, forgiveness and despair. Most of all, however, there is hope and there is love, and no matter how dark the night the light streaming from the horizon at dawn will almost certainly warm the cockles of even the most miserly heart.

Put simply, A Separation is one of the great cinematic achievements I’ve ever seen, and in my opinion is the best film I saw in 2011.

Big, bold and loud, Tarsem Singh’s mythological adventure Immortals is a lot of fun.

Contagion coughs up several scares and makes the fantastical feel unbearably believable.

Cornish has delivered an invigorating, supercharged frolic. Attack the Block is out of this world, and to call it anything else would be a bloody man-eating crime.

Captain America: The First Avenger is an engaging sensation I didn’t want to end, and when the Avengers do assemble next year, here’s hoping their initial adventure is half as thrilling a spectacle as this one is.

Terrence Malick’s fifth motion picture The Tree of Life is a breathless cinematic miracle that’s unlike anything else I’ll see in all of 2011.

Marvel’s Thor may be silly, but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining.

Another Year is an experience unlike almost any other. The world it showcases might be in London, might be filled with British customs and mannerisms, but what it is talking about in regards to friendship, family and life is stunningly universal.