Let's start with Sight and Sound, providing the first list of the year that should be taken seriously.

1. "The Tree of Life" (Terrence Malick)

2. "A Separation" (Asghar Farhadi)

3. "The Kid With a Bike" (Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne)

4. "Melancholia" (Lars von Trier)

5. "The Artist" (Michel Hazanavicius)

=6. "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

=6. "The Turin Horse" (Béla Tarr)

8. "We Need to Talk About Kevin" (Lynne Ramsay)

9. "Le Quattro Volte" (Michelangelo Frammartino)

=10. "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" (Tomas Alfredson)

=10. "This Is Not a Film" (Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmash)

I will never understand how films ranked anywhere between 1 - 9 can be tied. I understand plugging 2 films in at #10 as a tie, but to say there are two film exactly the same at, say, #4 or something is just ridiculous.

Too early for my 2011 Top Ten list, since many of the (less mainstream) movies I really want to see I'll have to wait for on video sometime next year. I am, however, just about ready with my 2010 Top Ten list, though I'm sure it's no longer deemed relevant here:

10. "The Illusionist" (Sylvain Chomet)
9. "Another Year" (Mike Leigh)
8. "Inside Job" (Charles Ferguson)
7. "Rabbit Hole" (John Cameron Mitchell)
6. "The Town" (Ben Affleck)
5. "The Trip" (Michael Winterbottom)
4. "Inception" (Christopher Nolan)
3. "Toy Story 3" (Lee Unkrich)
2. "Blue Valentine" (Derek Cianfrance)
1. "Black Swan" (Darren Aronofsky)

Honorable Mentions: "Winter's Bone" (Debra Granik), "The Kids Are All Right" (Lisa Cholodenko), "Everything Must Go" (Dan Rush), "Beginners" (Mike Mills)

For the past couple of years I've used Slant as my starting point for playing catch-up. The list this year looks like it has some promising titles.

Slant Magazine's Top 25:

1. Certified Copy
2. A Brighter Summer Day
3. Mysteries of Lisbon
4. The Tree of Life
5. A Separation
6. Margaret
7. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
8. Tuesday, After Christmas
9. Nostalgia for the Light
10. Poetry
11. Take Shelter
12. Film Socialisme
13. In The Family
14. Tomboy
15. Beginners
16. El Sicario, Room 164
17. A Dangerous Method
18. Leap Year
19. Meek's Cutoff
20. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
21. The Time That Remains
22. Extraordinary Stories
23. The Skin I Live In
24. Hugo
25. Of Gods and Men

Here's Dustin Putman's list:

http://www.dustinputman.com/essays_2011bestworst.htm

I didn't see anything resembling excellence in Kristin Wiig's Bridesmaids performance and have noted, in permanent marker, that at least a few people -- some reasonable, others perhaps not -- saw something glorious. I'm left wondering if she actually was great and I'm just predisposed to disliking anything within the sitcom domain of comedy.

Am I the only one who didn't like The Descendants? Quite frankly, apart from Sideways, I haven't like ANY of Alexander Payne's films. Citizen Ruth was movie-length sitcom that wasn't nearly as edgy as it thinks it is and "Election" was the same thing with a plot that was all over the map.

Election is the best high school movie ever made

That could definitely have something to do with it, I recall JB saying something very similar in one of his Reelthoughts, and the "sitcom" comparison comes up in alot of his older reviews of comedies, so it makes sense that you and James didn't like Bridesmaids. Me, I love watching sitcoms, so I certainly enjoyed the film, though I personally wouldn't call it a masterpiece as it was too long for it's own good, two hours is just way too long for a comedy, and there's plenty of fat in the film that could've been trimmed(did we really need all that stuff with Annie's annoying brother/sister roommates?). Also while I did like Wiig's performance for the most part, I think she overacted a bit too much during the party scene, which was too over-the-top for me, I personally think that scene would've been more effective if it wasn't played so broadly and was more subtle.

Mubi.com, which I've tried many times, in vain, to recommend to you dudes, has an entire collection of 2011 lists that "matter".

See here:
http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/awards-and-lists-2011-index

Metacritic (as is their wont) put together a compilation of Film Critic Top 10 lists, using something around 100 different individual lists. With links to each. http://www.metacritic.com/feature/movie-critic-best-of-2011-top-ten-lists

Makes for a fairly interesting Top 30. Planet of the Apes made the cut! And Bridesmaids is on a surprising number of lists (including a best-movie-of-the-year vote!). Ides of March made only a single list. JB is one of three who put ELAIC on his list. Etc.

I liked Bridesmaids well enough, but I can't imagine anyone seriously thought it was the best film of the year and wasn't simply pursuing an 'agenda'

I don't know. Seems to be a serious opinion. Guy's name is T. V. Guide. Haven't heard of him, but if he's any relation to--wait, what? Oh. Oh ok. Hm.