The office weighs in on their favorites of the year. We hope you enjoy!

SHANI ANKORI – Marketing & P.R.
1. The Hurt Locker
2. Inglorious Basterds
3. An Education
4. Funny People
5. The Messenger
6. In The Loopv
7. Up
8. I love you, man
9. Up in the Air
10. Medicine for Melancholy

NAT BARUCH – Marketing & P.R.
1. Inglorious Basterds
2. Public Enemies
3. In the Loop
4. Where the Wild Things Are
5. The White Ribbon
6. Up
7. A Serious Man
8. Hunger
9. The Hurt Locker
10. Moon
11. District 9
12. Avatar
13. Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince
14. Star Trek

JEFF DEUTCHMAN - Acquisitions
The perception of bias is probably unavoidable, but the truth is that there is a significant overlap between the films we buy and the films I love…
1. Summer Hours
2. Antichrist
3. Up
4. Afterschool
5. Tokyo Sonata
6. Sugar
7. The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
8. Police, Adjective
9. Thirst
10. District 9

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Adventureland, Avatar, Beeswax, Bruno, The Carter,, Collapse, Duplicity, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Goodbye Solo, Home
The House of the Devil, Humpday, The Hurt Locker, In the Loop, The Informant!, Left Bank, Lorna’s Silence, Medicine for Melancholy, The Messenger, A Serious Man, The White Ribbon, The Windmill Movie

Jonathan Hertzberg - Distribution
1. The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow)
2. Adventureland (Greg Mottola)
3. 35 Shots of Rhum (Claire Denis)
4. Jerichow (Christian Petzold)
5. La Vie Moderne (Modern Life) (Raymond Depardon)
6. Inglorious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
7. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (Werner Herzog)
8. You, The Living (Roy Andersson)
9. Up (Pete Docter / Bob Peterson)
10. Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson)

KEATON KAIL – Marketing & P.R.
1. THE WHITE RIBBON - The filmmaker of the decade in near perfect command of his terribly austere vision. An evocation of malign components of human nature peppered with tenderness and bleary aesthetic yearning.
2. STILL WALKING – Joyful, affectionate, celebrates life with delicate grace.
3. THE CHASER - With obsessive intensity and pragmatic style, Na spins out one of the best horror/thrillers in recent memory. Gives terrific new life to the chase, a kinetic trope of film that others have long since quit reveling at.
4. THE SUN – An utterly strange, transfixing Petri dish study of the perfect character for Sokurov’s cockeyed, breathy lens. The sequence with the koi fish bombers is mindblowing!
5. THE HURT LOCKER - Probably the nearest to perfect a film with a Hollywood head on its shoulders will come to capturing the trap that is the Iraq War. Terrence Malick can’t visit all the wars. Impeccable title. Should win Best Picture.
6. POLICE, ADJECTIVE - Something like holding in a quick burst of laughter for two hours, finally letting it go, and then turning your head sideways and giving a faint sigh of epiphany.
7. ANTICHRIST
8. PONYO
9. DRAG ME TO HELL
10. FADOS

Of special note: AVATAR
I struggle to conclude that any great achievement of form can be truly that without substance to match it, but this film is a certain exception. AVATAR provided an experience of such wonderful cinematic immersion that I was wont to ignore – even embrace - its puerile, somewhat troubling themes and pseudo-spiritualism. The film managed even in consideration of these silly aspects to encourage the spectator to leave his body. It’s a work of such earnest, quixotic escapism as to really, truly change the course of how we enjoy cinema in years to come.
+ The first four minutes of UP
The unfortunate latter half of this film – the last installment in a decade-spanning boon to cinema that is Pixar – might be proof that some simple ideas should be realized in comparably simple bodies. But, if the wonder and charm of UP unravels in full form, the magnificent emotional reach and narrative thrift of the ‘short film’ at its beginning is cause for celebration.

Runners Up: FADOS, SUGAR, THE ROAD, CORALINE, SUMMER HOURS, IN THE LOOP, MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY
Not seen: 24 CITY, TOKYO SONATA, 35 SHOTS OF RHUM, BEACHES OF AGNES

HUMA KHAN – Legal
1. Up in the Air
2. Julie & Julia
3. Summer Hours

LIZZIE NASTRO – Acquisitions
1. Inglorious Basterds
2. Summer Hours
3. Fantastic Mr. Fox
4. In the Loop
5. Bad Lieutenant
a. The Informant
6. The Cove
7. The Hangover
8. Up
9. Avatar

*Have not seen: The Hurt Locker, Precious, A Serious Man, The Road

COURTNEY OTT – Publicity
1. Hurt Locker
2. Inglorious Basterds
3. Summer Hours
4. In The Loop
5. Funny People
6. Star Trek
7. The Hangover
8. Where The Wild Things Are

JONATHAN SEHRING – President, IFC Entertainment
1. Hurt Locker
2. Summer Hours
3. An Education
4. Bad Lieutenant
5. Avatar
6. Paranormal Activity
7. The Messenger
8. Young Victoria
9. Antichrist
10. Hunger

Most overrated movies of the year - tie: Inglorious Basterds and Up in the Air - Basterds is over long, self-indulgent and at more times than not just plain stupid and boring (except for Brad Pitt and Michael Fassbender).

ROSE SURNOW – Marketing & Publicity
1. Bad Lieutenant
2. Anvilv
3. Fantastic Mr. Fox
4. The Hurt Locker
5. Funny People
6. Sin Nombre
7. An Education
8. Food Inc
9. A Serious Man
10. Up

CHRIS WELLS – IFC Center
1. POLICE, ADJECTIVE
2. PUBLIC ENEMIES
3. THE FRONTIER OF DAWN
4. FANTASTIC MR. FOX
5. NIGHT AND DAY
6. THE LIMITS OF CONTROL
7. HOME
8. PARADISE
9. LAKE TAHOE
10. TONY MANERO

RYAN WERNER – Marketing & P.R.

** IFC Films releases omitted.

1. The Hurt Locker
2. Fantastic Mr. Fox
3. Avatar
4. A Serious Man
5. The Informant!
6. Invictus
7. Inglorious Basterds
8. The Beaches of Agnes
9. Public Enemies
10. Two Lovers

Other Films I really liked (not in order); Me and Orson Welles, Tulpan, Star Trek, You, The Living, Lorna’s Silence, The Messenger, 24 City, The White Ribbon, Broken Embraces, Goodbye, Solo, Treeless Mountain, I Love You Man, Bad Lieutenant, Tokyo Sonata, The Maid, Thirst, Bruno, Il Divo, Sugar, The Headless Woman, Taking Woodstock, Thirst, Funny People, Julia, House of the Devil