In movie theaters, as in life, 2011 was a tough year. Whether because of bad movies or good television, attendance was down to its lowest level in 16 years.

With the latest "Potter" and "Panda" and "Pirates" hogging the screens, mainstream audiences stayed home with a too-many-sequels hangover, while connoisseurs of quality cinema waited in vain for an instant classic like "The Godfather" or "Annie Hall." True, Woody Allen scored the biggest money-maker of his career with the whimsical "Midnight in Paris," but like Alexander Payne's deserving award contender "The Descendants," it was a familiar exercise.

For me, the best films of 2011 were those that used the big-screen medium to reawaken the wonder of life. In many cases, they were movies about movies. Werner Herzog's 3-D documentary "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" invited us inside a prehistoric theater to marvel at flickering shadows on a wall.

Martin Scorsese's "Hugo," also in 3-D, was the legendary director's tribute to an early master of motion pictures. The under-the-radar British indie "Submarine" was a sly homage to modern master Wes Anderson.

The most lauded film of the year was "The Artist," a virtually silent black-and-white ode to old Hollywood. The filmmaking of the '50s was resurrected in the true story "My Week With Marilyn."

Another meteoric celebrity was profiled in the philosophical sports documentary "Senna." Two even less likely seekers of truth were the sleepless small-town dad in "Take Shelter" and the aging Korean housemaid in "Poetry."

But no one aimed his gaze higher than Terrence Malick, whose ambitious coming-of-age drama "The Tree of Life" is my pick for the best film of the year. The reclusive director dared to depict both the dawn of creation and the mysteries of the afterlife, but the very human middle interlude was the most wondrous.

Top 10 movies of 2011 (in alphabetical order)

"The Artist" • In a delightful, black-and-white satire of silent cinema, a Hollywood heartthrob of the 1920s (Jean Dujardin) resists the switch to talkies while his biggest fan (peppy Berenice Bejo) becomes a sound sensation. This mock melodrama is a master class in cinematic craft, with an undercurrent of comedy that keeps it buoyant.

"Cave of Forgotten Dreams" • Imagine an opulent movie palace that was 30,000 years old, with posters preserved on the curving walls and the bones of the Stone Age patrons peacefully sleeping in the fairy dust. That's essentially what archaeologists found in a French canyon in 1994 and what Werner Herzog brings back to life in this extraordinary 3-D documentary that equates cave paintings with cinema.

"The Descendants" • In Alexander Payne's long-awaited follow-up to "Sideways," George Clooney gives the most humane performance of his career as a father in Hawaii who learns that his dying wife had been unfaithful to him. Although there is some squirm-inducing comedy, this is a meaty drama with an emotional punch and just enough pineapple glaze to aid the digestion.

"Hugo" • In a Paris train station in the 1930s, an orphaned boy fixes an old robot that may hold the clue to his father's death. Martin Scorsese's 3-D valentine to silent-cinema pioneer Georges Melies is a hugely ambitious and wholly satisfying feat, a living lesson in movie magic wrapped in a classic kiddie flick.

"My Week With Marilyn" • In an intoxicating movie-biz memoir, insecure Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams in the performance of the year) and condescending Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) clash on the set of a 1956 costume comedy. Eddie Redmayne plays the starry-eyed assistant who becomes the companion and confidant to the love goddess, but he's really a stand-in for all of us who love Marilyn and the movies.

"Poetry" • In one of the finest films of recent memory, a Korean grandmother in the early stage of dementia enrolls in a poetry course. A potentially melodramatic subplot about sexual abuse lurks beneath the surface, but this artful film is composed of graceful gestures and delicate images that speak softly.

"Senna" • Ayrton Senna was the Elvis Presley of racing, the king of the Formula One circuit in the late '80s and early '90s. Yet he was also an articulate and deeply spiritual man who felt that a fearless embrace of the race car brought him closer to God. Blessed with such a catalytic character, this thrilling documentary is simply the greatest sports movie I have ever seen.

"Submarine" • A Welsh schoolboy tries to free his prim mother from a New Age charlatan and win the love of a mean-girl classmate. This self-reflexive flick alludes to love stories from "The Graduate" and "Garden State," but it's steering by the stellar light of Wes Anderson's "Rushmore."

"Take Shelter" • Haunted by dreams of impending doom, a small-town husband and father (Michael Shannon) squanders his savings to build a fallout shelter for his wife (Jessica Chastain) and deaf daughter. Shannon's quietly powerful performance speaks to the seeping terror of our times.

"The Tree of Life" • Terrence Malick ("Days of Heaven") addresses the mysteries of existence in an exquisite film about a successful man (Sean Penn) remembering his loving mother (Jessica Chastain), his competitive father (Brad Pitt) and a brother who died young. The cosmic beginning and end of this long-gestating labor of love may be too ambitious for casual moviegoers, but in the middle, the molding of the Penn character's consciousness is the most beautifully sustained achievement in the history of the medium.

(Honorable entertainments: "Bridesmaids," "Captain America: The First Avenger," "Rango," "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," "Young Adult.")