Cover feature: THE SOUND OF SILENTS Michel Hazanavicius tells James Bell why his affectionate tribute to early Hollywood, The Artist, had to be a silent movie

• Bryony Dixon on the myth of the silent-movie stars whose careers were scuppered by sound

Cover feature: REVIEW OF THE YEAR Nick James introduces the results of Sight & Sound's annual poll for best film of the year

• 60 contributors from around the world on their top-five films and other highlights of 2011

Plus

THE ILLUSIONIST Martin Scorsese's Hugo is not just a 3D adaptation of a hit children’s novel, but a magical tribute to Georges Méliès and the early days of cinema. By Ian Christie

PEACH PERFECT The most glorious of MGM musicals, Meet Me in St. Louis has hidden depths, says Richard Dyer

• Kay Dickinson on Ken Russell’s The Boy Friend, an MGM musical with a very British twist

FORGET ME NOT The case of a Londoner who lay dead and undiscovered in her flat inspired Carol Morley’s Dreams of a Life. The director talks to Nick Bradshaw

A NOSE FOR THE GREY AREAS British documentarist Molly Dineen has turned her camera on everyone from prime ministers to zookeepers. She talks to Poppy Simpson

GOD'S LONLEY MAN After lampooning Berlusconi in his last satire, Nanni Moretti takes on the Vatican with We Have a Pope. He talks to Nick James

ZONES OF CONFLICT In documentary, drama and his distinctive blend of the two, director Peter Kosminsky has never shied away from controversy. He talks to Mark Duguid about a BFI retrospective of his work

FELLOW TRAVELLERS The prizewinning road movie Las acacias announces the arrival of the latest new directing talent from Argentina. Pablo Giorgelli talks to Mar Diestro-Dópido

Plus

Peter von Bagh welcomes a season of Finnish dramas by Teuvo Tulio

Kieron Corless relishes the Viennale

Vadim Rizov on the strange case of Kenneth Lonergan’s Margaret

Ross Lipman discovers J.L. Anderson’s Spring Night, Summer Night

Charles Gant on some good box-office weekends for Weekend

Nick Roddick on how little of the box-office take a producer gets to see

FILM OF THE MONTH:

Mysteries of Lisbon Raúl Ruiz, who died in August, has left behind a magisterial four-hour saga set in 19th-century Portugal that serves as a fittingly elegant summation of his life’s work. Jonathan Romney explores

• 28 other cinema releases reviewed

DVD FEATURES:

• Jonathan Romney on music and social struggle in the films of Hungary’s Miklós Jancsó

• Kim Newman revisits 1970s student satire Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs

• Tim Lucas celebrates Maria Montez, ‘Queen of Technicolor’

• 16 other releases

BOOK REVIEWS:

• Nick Pinkerton assesses the critical legacy of Pauline Kael, the subject of a new biography and collection

• Michael Atkinson is mystified why anyone would want to read an autobiography by Roger Ebert

• Nick Roddick is stimulated and baffled by an unclassifiable study of director Vincent Ward