Demi more

Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian is one of my favourite film critics - he's erudite, learned and passionate. He also seems to take the absolute shellacking he regularly receives from commentators on the paper's website with infinite good grace. Bradshaw has this week compiled a list of the best 50 films of the "demi-decade" (that's five years to you and me: 2010-2014). You can find it here

It's filled with a winning mix of great films, stuff I haven't seen but can't wait to check out, and a few curveballs to keep everyone on their toes - Ted and Only God Forgives being the two choices that seem to have raised the most hackles. Reading some of the below-the-line comments, it's clear Bradshaw can't win: slagged off for picking the odd mainstream Hollywood hit (Toy Story 3, Bridesmaids) and rollicked for including too much "dire and pretentious arthouse rubbish". To be honest, some of the comments from the cinematically deranged are as entertaining as the list itself.

Anyway, the Guardian feature made me consider what my favourites for 2010-14 might be and I came up with this quick list of 25 (perhaps weighted a little too much in favour of those films freshest in my memory)...

1. Melancholia (Director: Lars von Trier)

2. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer)

3. Blue Jasmine (Woody Allen)

4. The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer)

5. Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn)

6. Sightseers (Ben Wheatley)

7. The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson)

8. The Social Network (David Fincher)

9. Shame (Steve McQueen) 

10. Wadjda (Haifaa Al Mansour)

11. The Selfish Giant (Clio Barnard)

12. Ida (Pawel Pawlikowski)

13. Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine)

14. Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel Cohen and Ethan Cohen)

15. Blue is the Warmest Colour (Abdellatif Kechiche)

16. Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy)

17. Boyhood (Richard Linklater)

18. Pacific Rim (Guillermo Del Toro)

19. The Cabin in the Woods (Drew Goddard)

20. The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)

21. Super (James Gunn)

22. Pride (Matthew Warchus)

23. Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach)

24. Winter's Bone (Debra Granik)

25. Excision (Richard Bates Jr.)