I was surprised at how much trouble I had narrowing down my top ten movies this year.  My top 20 were all very close, but here are the movies that I ultimately enjoyed the most. I readily admit that I did not see near as many foreign films as I would have liked, but by the time I cover most of the mainstream fare, there is simply no time left.

Honorable Mentions: Fair Game, Tiny Furniture, Greenberg, Cyrus, The Tillman Story, The American, Mother and Child, Scott Pilgrim.

10. Waiting for Superman
This Documentary was equal parts frustrating, inspirational, and heartbreaking. Director Davis Guggenheim (No End in Sight) sheds light on the dismal state of our public school system. He follows the plight of several children who live in various geographic regions who are placing all of their hope for an decent education into lottery systems for charter or private schools. Guggenheim relies on their compelling stories for a narrative, while interspersing lots of graphics and cartoons illuminating some pretty harrowing statistics.

A lot of people thought that Secretariat would be a shoo-in for first place this week. There has been Oscar talk for Diane Lane, and Disney was pinning its hopes on having a “Blind Side” type four-quadrant hit film on its hands. Alas, at the end of the day, Secretariat stumbled across the finish line in third place with $12.6M  for the weekend, dashing the dreams of studio executives hoping for a huge hit.

The Social Network came in at the top spot, with $15M.  It dropped about 30% from its opening weekend, and has made $46M to date. Katherine Heigl’s latest rom-com Life As We Know It came in at a respectable $14.6M, good enough for second place this weekend, though it came in on the lower end of expectations.

Holdover Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole won the number four spot. Wes Craven’s latest offering, My Soul To Take, was a disappointment with $6.9M, despite having 3D up charges.  It goes to show that 3D does not ensure big numbers at the box office.

You still have to have a quality product.  The movie wasn’t screened for critics, and feedback from audience members has been dismal.  Cinemascore reports a horrible “D” grade.

Newcomers Buried and It’s Kind of a Funny Story were on limited screens, but their per/screen averages were pretty bleak.  Each only garnered about $2,000 per showing, and neither placed in the top ten. I Spit on Your Grave only made $33,000 over the weekend, a truly frightening total.

David Fincher’s The Social Network piqued the interest of audiences over the weekend and grossed over $23M, on just over 2,770 screens.  That is a full thousand fewer screens than big releases typically get.

The film was enthusiastically embraced by critics, receiving some of the best reviews of the year. According to Cinemascore, the film scored a solid B+ with audiences as well.  There is lots of Oscar talk swirling around this film, and it is unofficially considered a bookend to the upcoming award season. Look for this film to perform in theaters for several weeks.

There seems to be a bit of hand-wringing over the gross of the film, because many thought would make more money.  However, if you look at the per/screen average, the film did quite well, with over $8,300 per a showing.  That simply annihilates the per/screen totals of everything else in the top ten this week.

If the film had opened on more screens, it likely would have grossed more money.  Keep in mind that there are no big name stars in the film (save for Justin Timberlake, who is a co-star,) and David Fincher is still not a household name for mainstream America.

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole maintained its number two spot from last weekend with  $10.8M, with a standard drop of about 32% over opening weekend. After two weeks in release, the film has made about $30M, which is still a long way from its estimated $80M budget.