Best female performances of 2010

Following our entry on the best films of 2010, here is our choice of the best female performances of the year. We have tried to be commercially and geographically unbiased in our selection. The list accommodates a small South Korean film (or, in this case, two) with an art house vocation as much as a high-school comedy with blockbuster aspirations.

Screen time has not been a factor when taking our decision either. From Juliette Binoche's omnipresent turn in Certified Copy to the few scenes granted to Blake Lively in The Town, we have judged the actresses by their achievement in acting and not by the time we were fortunate to admire them on screen.

Lesley Manville's portrayal of an emotionally shattered woman in Mike Leigh's Another Year left me spellbound when I first saw the film in the Sarajevo Film Festival back in July and, as we approach the end of the year, no other performer has been able to oust her from the top of our list.

Jackie Weaver comes second as the matriarch of a criminal family in Animal Kingdom, while Kim Hye-ja completes the top 3 for her role of an incestuous mother ready to literally go to any lengths to defend the innocence of her son in Joon-ho Bong's Mother. Maybe because I saw the film yesterday, her impressive work in the film is vividly fresh in my memory.

As we always do in Imitation of Life, our opinion is based on films we have actually seen, and not in the buzz or media attention that a picture or performance may have generated. That is why some of the most talked about performances of the year, like Natalie Portman's in Black Swan, are not included in our list.

Here is our list of the 15 best female performances of the year.

1. Lesley Manville in Another Year (Mike Leigh)

2. Jacki Weaver in Animal Kingdom (David Michod)

3. Kim Hye-ja in Mother (Joon-ho Bong)

4. Juliette Binoche in Copie Conforme (Abas Kiarostami)

5. Yoon Jeong-Lee in Poetry (Lee Chang-dong)

6. Olivia Williams in The Ghost Writer (Roman Polanski)

7. Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone (Debra Garnik)

8. Sylvie Testud in Lourdes (Jessica Hauner)

9. Blake Lively in The Town (Ben Affleck)

10. Annette Bening in The Kids Are All Right (Lisa Cholodenko)

11. Emma Stone in Easy A (Will Gluck)

12. Ruth Sheen in Another Year (Another Year)

13. Kristin Scott Thomas in Nowhere Boy (Sam Taylor Wood)

14. Tilda Swinton in Io Sono l'Amore (Luca Guadagnino)

15. Emily Watson in Cemetery Junction (Ricky Gervais and Steven Merchant)