With 2012 upon us with a vengeance, we thought it would be fun to take a quick look back at a year in film here at Watershed.

2011 kicked off with a relatively unassuming royal costume drama by the name of The King’s Speech. It had a trio of great performances – from Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter – but no one (yep, not even us) quite expected it to be the box office (and awards) success it turned out to be.

Bolstered by a special BAFTA preview with its soon-to-be Oscar®-winning producers Iain Canning and Gareth Unwin, which is published over on DShed, it went on to be our biggest selling film of the year.

Here are the rest of the films you helped to get on to our Top 10 sellers of 2011 list:

1. The King’s Speech
2. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
3. Submarine
4. True Grit
5. Senna
6. The Guard
7. The Cave of Forgotten Dreams
8. We Need To Talk About Kevin
9. Blue Valentine
10. The Ides of March

From Tomas Alfredson’s adaptation of John Le Carré’s novel that had everyone queuing to see Gary Oldman’s tremendous George Smiley, to Richard Ayoade’s refreshingly quirky debut Submarine and Asif Kapadia’s Formula One documentary Senna, it was evidently a great year for British films.

Do our best sellers reflect your film favourites from last year? Is there anything missing that made 2011 a great year at the cinema for you? Let us know in the comments section below - we want to celebrate the little gems that got away!

Looking ahead to 2012

Last year's bonzer British bonanza looks set to continue in the early months of 2012. The awards season is fast approaching, and high on the Brit-tipped list is Shame, Steve McQueen’s follow up to his stunning debut Hunger.

An uncompromising look at sex addiction, and featuring an extremely brave performance by Michael Fassbender, it’s already become one of the most talked about films of the year. Shame is out this Friday (13 Jan), and in a neat mirror of last year, its producer Iain Canning joined us for a preview and Q&A last month, which is published over on DShed.

Our Head of Programme Mark Cosgrove gives his take on his personal forthcoming highlights in his January Podcast – including The Artist, Slapstick Festival, Shame, Coriolanus, A Dangerous Method and Carnage, which are both coming up in February.

Another exciting new year feature for us is Filmic, a brand new festival of film and music we've produced in collaboration with our friends up the road at St George's. Running throughout February and March, Filmic's talks, concerts and films will focus on two of the world's best loved composers: Ennio Morricone and Michel Legrand, who will be appearing in a special in conversation event here in March.

2012 is already shaping up to be another stellar year in the film world - thanks for making 2011 so special, and here's to another twelve months of cinematic splendour.

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