Here you’ll very quickly pick up on another theme: almost invariably the winner of this category has been a family film. I very intentionally use the word genre in my rating scale because I frequently think that people misuse ratings as a mode of comparative analysis. I try, to the best of my ability, to judge a film on its own merits and not compared to the best film ever made. The knee-jerk reaction too many have when rating a film is thinking “Oh, well, it’s not Citizen Kane” and then knock it down a peg. Well, some films aren’t trying to reach those lofty heights but have different goals entirely and are just as valid. A top films of the year list is where you stratify films, a rating is merely how well you think this film did what it set out to accomplish.

This year I may use a metric to determine both underrated and overrated, at least in terms of nominees, in years past it’s almost become kind of like a runner-up Best Picture because the winner has typically not won that award but has been a nominee in that category as well (the only films to win both came in a three-year run from ‘01 to ‘03).

Here are the winners:

2018 All These Small Moments

2017 Columbus

2016 The River Thief

2015 O menino no espelho (The Boy in the Mirror)

2014 Stations of the Cross

2013 Class Enemy

2012 Kauwboy

2011 Toast

2010 The Last Airbender

2009 Aliens in the Attic

2008 The Son of Rambow

2007 The Last Mimzy

2006 How to Eat Fried Worms

2005 The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D

2004 Catch That Kid

2003 Peter Pan

2002 Star Wars: Episode II- Attack of the Clones

2001 Artificial Intelligence: A.I.

2000 Billy Elliot

1999 The Other Sister

1998 Wide Awake

1997 Little Men

1996 Harriet the Spy