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Summary: Buzz, Woody et al return for a third outing in a Great Escape inspired breakout from a daycare centre. Children across the world were thrilled whilst adults complained of something in their eye in the final scenes. The best all-audiences film of the year, hands down.
Favourite scene: It genuinely looks like the end for our toy heroes as they bravely hold hands and accept their inevitable demise in the incinerator, when suddenly...the claw!
The Secret In Their Eyes
Summary: An investigation into a rape and murder against the backdrop of the rising Argentine dictatorship in the 1970s, where trifling matters like catching and punishing the killer are brushed aside in favour of political considerations. Absolutely riveting. See it now before the inevitable and pointless Hollywood remake.
Favourite scene: An astonishing single take sequence which outdoes Brian DePalma, involving a helicopter shot that swoops over a football stadium then seamlessly swoops down into the crowd where it follows the protagonists as they attempt to catch a suspect.
Summary: David Fincher's latest shows how Facebook was born out of selfishness and bitterness. The film then brilliantly exposes the whole online social networking era for the shameless, cowardly and vindictive thing it so often is.
Favourite scene: The quiet irony of the very last scene, which I won't spoil.
Winter's Bone
Summary: A teenage girl living in the Ozark Mountains attempts to track down her father who has skipped bail, to prevent her family losing their house. Brilliantly acted with terrific location work and a fascinating insight into a rather frightening community.
Favourite scene: One disturbing moment involving a police car pulling someone over at night details just how powerless and afraid the authorities are, and how the Ozark community are effectively a law unto themselves.
The Illusionist
Summary: In the late 1950s, when music hall theatre is dying and rock bands are on the rise, a stage magician who has fallen on hard times travels to Scotland where he meets a naïve girl that thinks he has real magic power. Based on an unproduced Jacques Tati screenplay, this beautiful animated film for grown-ups from Belleville Rendez-vous director Sylvian Chomet is nothing less than a masterpiece. Unrushed, heartfelt and nostalgic, it is both a love letter to 50s Edinburgh and a quietly funny, achingly sad tale of the passing of an era. The Illusionist is not tragic in an overblown, Shakespearean, my-sister-is-also-my-mother kind of way, but it details the quiet, everyday tragedy that we all experience with the passing of time.
Favourite scene: The understated, poignant finale is almost unbearably moving.
Favourite film of the year? Well, my head says Inception but my heart
says The Illusionist. Not sure I can choose between them as I love
them both for completely different reasons. You've probably all seen
Inception by now but I doubt many of you have seen The Illusionist. To
give you an idea of how good I think it is, I place it above Toy Story
3 as my choice to win the Best Animated Film Oscar (not that I think
it stands a chance). 
Simon Dillon was born the year Steven Spielberg made moviegoers terrified of sharks He loves books and films, writing the former and reviewing the latter. His novels include Peaceful Quiet Lives, Children of the Folded Valley, Spectre of Springwell Forest, and Uncle Flynn. Simon is a fully committed Christian, but doesn’t like to “identify” with any particular denomination. He doesn’t do hugs, and generally prefers moody, sombre Gregorian chants to bouncier Christian music (with a few exceptions). In his reviews, he isn’t interested in counting f-words and miniskirts, but he attempts to unpack the message of the film, with faith issues in mind.
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