Ben Sachs: 20 Best Films of 2011, as published by The Chicago Reader [more commentary]
- Aurora — Cristi Puiu
- Secret Sunshine — Lee Chang-dong
- Film Socialisme — Jean-Luc Godard
- Goodbye First Love — Mia Hansen-Løve
- Poetry — Lee Chang-dong
- The Strange Case of Angelica — Manoel de Oliveira
- Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame — Tsui Hark
- Target — Alexander Zeldovich
- 13 Assassins — Takashi Miike
- And Everything is Going Fine — Steven Soderbergh
- Don’t Go Breaking My Heart — Johnnie To & Wai Ka-fai
- Once Upon a Time in Anatolia — Nuri Bilge Ceylan
- The Tree of Life — Terrence Malick
- Mysteries of Lisbon — Raoul Ruiz
- The Skin I Live In — Pedro Almodóvar
- Restoration — Joseph Madmony
- Another Year — Mike Leigh
- Ne Change Rien — Pedro Costa
- Miss Bala — Gerardo Naranjo
- The Turin Horse — Béla Tarr & Agnes Hranitzky