I didn’t expect to have any trouble when I sat down to compile another year-end list of ten Blu-ray releases I’m glad I forked over cash for, but this year wasn’t quite as spectacular as I’d mistakenly thought. There’s been something of a slowdown in worthwhile catalog titles (still no Lawrence of Arabia and still no original Indy trilogy, but you can get Fire on the Amazon and Scary Movie 4), and most of the really good movies from this year won’t be out on disc for another few months. But I did manage to come up with ten, split evenly between catalog releases and new titles.

I’m not going to make any predictions about/wishes for what the coming year will possibly bring us, as that didn’t work out so well for me last time around. But I will leave you with a few titles I left off the above list but are deserving of mention: Taxi Driver, Star Wars and Criterion’s excellent high-def upgrades of The Lady Vanishes, Dazed and Confused and Rushmore. Treat yourself to any (or all) of them. You’ll be glad you did.

Ben-Hur

We didn’t get a whole lot of big-time catalog releases this year, but we did get a couple pretty spectacular ones. Being one of the biggest of the old-school Hollywood spectacles, Ben-Hur was high on many wish lists. Some new bit of information on its digital restoration would come along ever few months, which had a two-fold effect: you wanted everyone involved to take all the time needed to get it absolutely right, and you also wanted them to hurry up. The results are, to put it mildly, spectacular, breathing life into a movie I used to fall asleep to on a regular basis back when I was young. Whether you choose to get the big box (which comes with some cool swag and a copy of the 1925 version) or pick up one of the retailer-exclusive movie-only editions, you’ll get your money’s worth. [Buy from Amazon]

Cars 2

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. It was critically maligned and didn’t exactly rake in dough, which is a first for a Pixar movie. But the movie’s not bad; it’s an out-and-out lark, an unabashedly cartoonish action romp, a change from the usual Pixar routine (and maybe it’s about time they just sat back and had some fun) but entertaining on its own terms. And although it didn’t earn a kajillion bucks (if it’s anything like the movie first movie, though, the merchandising will more than make up for this), the Blu-ray looks like a kajillion bucks. I didn’t put any title on this list strictly for technical merits, but if I had, it probably would’ve been this one. [Buy from Amazon]

Citizen Kane

Where would we be without it? Had Orson Welles and Gregg Toland not done it, would someone else have come along and given the proverbial finger to the cinematic status quo? The question’s moot, so why wonder? Kane is an important film, and it’s a great film (even if the whole story is constructed on a plot hole). It’s also a fun film, which doesn’t get mentioned enough. Much like Ben-Hur, this one received a loving treatment by Warner Bros., making it sound and (especially) look like it’s brand new. Also like Ben-Hur, this one’s available in multiple editions, including one that throws in a DVD copy of The Magnificent Ambersons, which was famously ripped from Welles’s hands and ordered re-cut by RKO execs (Robert Wise was one of the editors brought in to hack it up, and he went to his grave wondering why Welles made such a stink about it). Whichever you decide to pick up, I can’t image you’ll be dissatisfied. [Buy from Amazon]

The Killing

Two Kubrick movies for the price of one. One’s great, one’s, well, not so great, but watching them will allow you to see just how much one of the medium’s masters refined his skills in the short time between his second and third features. But had Criterion not included Killer’s Kiss, this would still be worth the asking price, as The Killing is one of the best exercises in noir filmmaking you’re ever likely to see. This is genre filmmaking at its best, a textbook example of how to play by the rules and still make something people will be obsessing over six decades later. [Buy from Amazon]

Let Me In

I’m not sure how this one did on home video, but I hope people started catching on to it. I’ve still yet to see Let the Right One In, but I have a feeling it will pale in comparison (I’m not saying to what degree, but I’m sure it will) to Matt Reeves’s adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel. Impeccably crafted, beautifully scored, and acted to perfection, this is the vampire movie everyone should be seeing and talking about, and I won’t shut up until everyone is. [Buy from Amazon]

Super 8

Some people weren’t knocked out by J.J. Abrams’s homage to Spielberg flicks of yore, but unless Jack and Jill turns out to be a masterpiece, this will likely go down as my favorite movie of the year. And if something does come along and bests it, I don’t think anything will prove to be more fun. Super 8 pushed all of the right buttons for me, which is exceedingly rare. The presentation afforded it here couldn’t be any better; the transfer is spotless, and the audio is arguably the year’s best. [Buy from Amazon]

The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy (Extended Editions)

Ack! It’s green! Remember all that nonsense? Forum nerds were tripping over themselves condemning this release before they’d even seen it, viewing a couple screenshots provided by other forums nerds as all the evidence they needed that this set had been botched. I’d like to take this opportunity to laugh in the face of those nerds (I’d also like to punch them for making me use an expression most commonly associated with a certain comic-strip character), many of whom no doubt bought it anyway. Yes, the color timing on the first movie has been tweaked; Peter Jackson and cinematographer Andrew Lesnie went back and performed the color correction and digital grading they didn’t have time to complete before the theatrical release. Is it noticeable? Yes. Does it look like someone slathered green slime all over the screen? No. This set pulls together all of the extras from the Extended Edition DVDs, spreads the whole thing across fifteen discs (yeah, the discs that house the extras are DVDs, but so be it), and gives the movies a great visual presentation and an explosive aural one. You got neighbors you want to get rid of? Watch the Moria sequence with the volume on your receiver cranked. There’ll be a For Sale sign in their yard in no time. [Buy from Amazon]

The Social Network

David Fincher was robbed...again. The bozos at the Academy ignored him when he made the best movie of what’s technically the first decade of the new century/millennium (Zodiac), then turned around and ignored him when he made the best movie of 2010. You want to know how to take talky material and turn it into a visual feast? Look no further. Fincher took Aaron Sorkin’s witty, wordy script and made it fun to look at. Who knew that shots of people suffering through a deposition or nerds scribbling algorithms on a dorm-room window could be so visually exciting? It’s the sort of perfect melding of the written and the photographed that comes along all too infrequently. And it’s an incisive, biting snapshot of a large part of the world in which we currently live. The more I think about it, the more I think it’s second only to Zodiac as the best movie of what’s technically the first decade, etc. [Buy from Amazon]

The Ten Commandments

Here’s another one that sent the forum nerds into apoplectic rage. Some bozo posted screenshots that seemed to indicate the presence of an unnatural amount of digital noise reduction had been applied (it made what was done to Predator and Patton look restrained), which turned out to be a load of nonsense. The presentation here rivals that of the other Chuck Heston title on this list as the most jaw-dropping catalog release the Blu-ray format has so far given the world. I used to fall asleep to this one, too, but not anymore; I’m too wowed to nod off. [Buy from Amazon]

The Tree of Life

Terrence Malick’s attempt to do 2001 one better was a bit too ambitious for its own good, telling the sort of story that’s generally best left to the world of prose, but if you’re going to make visual poem, you can’t go wrong (or at least not completely wrong) making it this beautiful. And even if his grasp and his reach aren’t of equal length, it’s great to see Malick not waiting two decades between movies. The Tree of Life is visually stunning, and the presentation here is equally stunning. When it comes to the year’s best live-action transfers, the one you’ll find here is the one to beat. [Buy from Amazon]