Iranian critics pick best films of 2010s

Iranian critics have picked Terrence Malick’s ‘The Tree of Life’ as the best film of the 2010s.

The film was selected during a poll of 55 critics conducted by Cine Eye, an online film magazine directed by top Iranian critic Parviz Jahed.

The magazine picked 12 best film of the decade. The picked films are:

1-        ‘The Tree of Life’ by Terrence Malick from the US

2-        ‘The Turin Horse’ by Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky from Hungary

3-        ‘Once Upon a Time in Anatolia’ by Nuri Bilge Ceylan from Turkey

4-        ‘A Separation’ by Asghar Farhadi from Iran

5-        ‘Holy Motors’ by Leos Carax from France

6-        ‘Amour’ by Michael Haneke from Germany

7-        ‘Her’ by Spike Jonze from the US

8-        ‘Toni Erdmann’ by Maren Ade from Germany

9-        ‘Melancholia’ by Lars von Trier from Denmark

10-     ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen from the US

11-     ‘The Great Beauty’ by Paolo Sorrentino from Italy

12-     ‘Inception’ by Christopher Nolan from the UK

‘The Tree of Life’ is a 2011 American experimental epic drama film featuring a cast of Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Hunter McCracken, Laramie Eppler, Jessica Chastain, and Tye Sheridan.

The film chronicles the origins and meaning of life by way of a middle-aged man's childhood memories of his family living in 1950s Texas, interspersed with imagery of the origins of the known universe and the inception of life on Earth.

After several years in development and missing its planned 2009 and 2010 release dates, ‘The Tree of Life’ premiered in competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival where it was awarded the Palme d'Or.

It ranked number one on review aggregator Metacritic's "Top Ten List of 2011" and made more critics' year-end lists for 2011 than any other film.

It appeared in the 2012 Sight & Sound critics' poll of the world's top 250 films as well as BBC's poll of the greatest American films, one of the few 21st-century works to be included in either.

MG/MG