With the Edinburgh Film Festival finished for this year, I thought that it would be a great opportunity to list my personal top ten films at the festival.

Although I loved all of these films, there has to be a winner out of the bunch and so I will count from my tenth favourite film to my number one from the fantastic film festival and it’s amazing line-up.

You can click on the name of the film to link to my review.

10. Winter’s Bone
This dark drama managed to win the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and really deserves its critical success, with a strong female protagonist, shifty characters and a dark, realistic story that keeps your attention all the way through. The reason for being number ten? It’s a dark, gritty film that I loved seeing on the big screen, but I probably would not want to watch it over and over again on DVD. Also, this is slightly too long paced for me and I did fidget a couple of times during the film. But I definitely recommend seeing this film.

9. Au Revoir Taipei

A great multi-stranded story with a bunch of lovable characters, I really enjoyed this film with these qualities alone and I have not even delved into the great direction and writing involved in this film. Even with the amount of effort that the crew and cast managed to push into this film, it did suffer from a slightly predictable story, but then it did not affect my enjoyment with this film too much and has secured itself in my number nine slot.

8. The People vs. George Lucas

Offers what it exactly says in the title. With an engaging history lesson of the Star Wars fans’ relationship with George Lucas and his films, showing just how much people were dedicated and disappointed by Lucas’s attempt at keeping his films to himself. I am not a big fan of cutting huge swathes of other people’s work in a film, but the director managed to make it work and fit beautifully with the journey the documentary takes us on. However, this does not quite beat Anvil! The Story of Anvil (dir. Sacha Gervasi) in terms of being my favourite comedic documentary, but this is still a very worthy entry into the list.

7. Son of Babylon
Although I am getting tired of the amount of films based on Iraq and the war recently (including The Hurt Locker (dir. Kathryn Bigelow) and Green Zone (dir. Paul Greengrass)), this is a really refreshing take on the current state of the country as it focuses on a grandmother and her grandson travelling through Iraq. While the story might not be the strongest I have seen out of all these films, it does show a very rare side of the subject matter and focuses on the hardships that their country has taken along their journey, supporting these very human characters all the way through their journey.

6. Mai Mai Miracle
One of the biggest surprises in terms of getting more than I expected and really enjoying a non-Studio Ghibli anime film, this oozes so much charm and the different emotions that children go through during their childhood. While the animation not be as smoothly framed nor as stylistic as some of the other hand drawn animated films that I have seen this year, the lovable characters really draws you away from a couple of the very small technical faults of the film.

5. Third Star

Without a doubt one of the best directorial debuts into feature-length films that I have seen at the festival this year, Hattie Dalton makes a beautiful and honest film focusing on a dying young man and his four friends’ last trip together. British cinemagoers do not see many British films of this calibre and this is definitely going to be one of the best this year and while it may not be on top of the list, I really liked this film and can not wait to see what the director does next.

4. Lucky Luke
Wacky, funny and having some of the coolest gunslinging action I have seen in a long time on the big screen, this is a great film that is fun to watch from start to finish. While the only draw back on itself is the long middle section of the film, the beginning and ending really help it revive itself. This may not be everyone’s cup of tea, those who want to see this film and know that this is a really crazy western, with a top comedic performance from Jean Dujardin that equals to his work in OSS 117 – Lost in Rio (dir. Michel Hazanavicius).

3. The Illusionist
This year has proven to be one of the best years for animated films, with the likes of The Princess and the Frog (dir. Ron Clements and John Musker), How to Train Your Dragon (dir. Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders) and Ponyo (dir. Hayao Miyazaki) and this stands proudly tall among all of them. Having a simple, yet effective, narrative and some of the most fluid animation I have seen, this is highly recommended and when it is released in August, you better get yourself a ticket and enjoy this wonderful film.

2. Fog (Wu)
Only in second place, this automatically became one of my personal favourites during the festival and has remained that way even after the festival has ended. Using the concept of a young man suffering from memory loss and trying to rediscover himself is used on top quality form and with the director blending Eastern and Western storytelling, this risky move works extremely well. This is Kit Hui’s feature-length debut as a director, writer, producer and editor, she managed all four roles and pulled off the effort and I really cannot wait to see what she does next.

1. Toy Story 3
This might be a bit obvious as it was the biggest film showing at the festival, but this is my number one film for the team behind it pulling off a grand finale to one of the best film series of all time. Even though John Lasseter stepped down from directing, Lee Unkrich takes over and manages to keep the feel of the Toy Story films while making it the most emotional of the trilogy. I personally did not think that this was better than the first two, but this is only very, very slightly behind the previous Toy Story films. For those who love the characters and have remained faithful to the series since the original release of Toy Story (dir. John Lasseter), this is the perfect way to see the beloved toys one more time! Once again, Pixar have made another modern animated classic!

Please feel free to leave comments and have your say on the films from the Edinburgh Film Festival.