Critics' choice

 Last year, Washington Post movie critics watched hundreds of hours of film. But only 12 movies received their top rating, including the George Clooney drama The Descendants, the captivating baseball story Moneyball and the Ryan Gosling breakout Drive.

So for movie buffs planning to settle in for pre-Oscar catch-up this weekend, here's what the critics had to say about their favourite flicks of 2011.

The Artist

The Artist comes as a particularly refreshing balm: It's a film that simply offers viewers an elegant escape from the toils and worries of the real world, plunging them into an alternate universe where glamour, romance and indefatigable optimism rule the day. The fact that that world happens outside the aural assault of modern life makes The Artist not just a diverting novelty, but a psychic necessity.

 Releasing in the UAE on March 29.

Incendies

In the end, the effect of the sinuous, snaking drama - which elegantly traces a timeline stretching from contemporary Quebec to war-torn Lebanon of the 1970s and back — like a tripwire. It knocks you off your feet and leaves you shaken.

 In French and Arabic with English subtitles.

Beginners

Filmmaker Mike Mills, who wrote the script largely from events in his own life, addresses issues of history, culture, Los Angeles' graffiti subculture and, yes, telepathic canines with deft, perceptive finesse.

The Descendants

George Clooney doesn't put a foot wrong except on purpose in The Descendants, a pitch-perfect movie that threads a microscopically tiny needle between high comedy and devastating drama.

 Releasing in the UAE on January 26.

Drive

Star of the moment Ryan Gosling delivers a slow, white-hot burn of a performance in Drive, a nervy, understated ode to one of Hollywood's most cherished archetypes, the sad-eyed man of few words.

Meek's Cutoff

Director Kelly Reichardt deconstructs, de-mythologises and thoroughly redefines the American Western with Meek's Cutoff, a mesmerising cinematic journey that is often as arduous and spare as the lives of its hard-bitten protagonists.

 Le Havre

With its ragtag cast of cinematic archetypes .... Le Havre is propelled by equal parts theology and whimsy. It's a treacherous combination that in [Aki] Kaurismaki's capable hands results in one of the finest films of the year, a comedy of unusual compassion and generosity that can get away with its most fanciful contrivances because its style is so simple and its tone so gentle and forgiving.

 In French with English subtitles.

Moneyball

Like a flawless line drive on a warm summer's day; like a long, languorous seventh-inning stretch — Moneyball satisfies.

 Nostalgia for the Light

With Nostalgia for the Light, Patricio Guzman broadens his scope to take in larger existential questions. The result is a film that rates as the film-maker's masterpiece, an exquisitely filmed, poetically written meditation on how past and present fuse in humanity's most unresolved questions.

 In English and Spanish with English subtitles.

Of Gods and Men

Xavier Beauvios' haunting, exquisitely crafted film achieves a flawless balance between taut, truth-based contemporary drama and the timeless question of spiritual commitment and obedience.

 Take Shelter

Taut, unsettling, haunting and powerful, Take Shelter stars Michael Shannon in a shattering performance as a man caught up in forces beyond his control.

Win Win

Paul Giamatti stars in a wrestling picture that reinvigorates the genre with verve, warmth and heart. Win Win exemplifies movies the way they oughtta be.