The Social Network
The technological zeitgeist meets the lost art of snappy, lighting-fast movie dialogue in David Fincher’s dramatisation of the genesis of Facebook. Narrated with attitude and intellect, The Social Network delivers on its simple yet ironic title, offering a not-so-friendly sketch on the social inadequacy of the computer whiz turned billionaire site exec, Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg). Under writer Aaron Sorkin’s mischievous and highly perceptive script, the film’s magnificent opening scene alone – a heated exchange between Zuckerberg and his girlfriend (Rooney Mara) – is enough to reveal the limits of interaction that Facebook sought, and failed, to plaster over. The anti-hero wants to make friends and can’t. His next best option is one click away.

Runner-up: Inception
The talk of the town for so many indecipherable reasons, this mega-budget mindbender has resolutely installed Christopher Nolan as the new king of Hollywood – and rightly so. Without resorting to superhero antics or the financial guarantees of popular source materials, the director of Memento and The Dark Knight has crafted a totally original story that wraps itself in layers after layers of subconscious mythology. Whole theses, without a doubt, will be written as if Nolan was the true master of dreams. Next up: The Dark Knight Rises.

Honourable Mentions 

Confessions
Japanese director Tetsuya Nakashima’s perversely invigorating thriller touches on every contentious subject from high school bullying to social reclusion, infanticide and HIV infection. The film was a big hit in town; not that it says anything about our collective mentality…

The Ghost Writer
Adapted from Robert Harris’ political pot-boiler involving a ghostwriter (Ewan McGregor), a former British prime minister (Pierce Brosnan) and an isolated island home, Roman Polanski’s intensely paranoiac genre exercise is a slow-burn near-masterpiece.

A Serious Man
Returning to their own Jewish boyhood in late-1960s suburban Minneapolis, the Coen Brothers have painted an operatic – and cruelly comical – portrait of one ordinary maths professor’s decline into complete spiritual oblivion. Misanthropy doesn’t get more sublime than this.

Readers' Choice: Inception
Chris Nolan is once again your favourite after 2008’s The Dark Knight.

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