Fresh off completing his 3-D dance documentary Pina, Wim Wenders is already shooting his next 3-D work: a documentary on architecture, but the production is in “the very, very beginning” stages.

While not sold on Michel Hazanavicius’ black-and-white film The Artist, it does include some Oscar-worthy acting: “I’m flabbergasted by the performance of Uggie the dog, mutt extraordinaire, which has got to be one of the best canine turns in the history of cinema.”

A.O. Scott on Wim Wenders’ 3-D film Pina, which screens at the Walker in February: “[I]nstead of enduring yet another well-meaning specimen of ‘dance on film’ you are experiencing dance and film, fully and simultaneously.”

“There’s a clear line where you’re considered a human rights activist,” says a subject in Alison Klayman’s documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, which premiers at Sundance. “Should you cross that line, that’s where the fun ends with the Chinese government.”

Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life, screened at the Walker last spring, tops Film Comment’s list of the best films of 2011, as chosen by a panel of critics. At number 50, Wim Wenders’ 3-D work, Pina, screening here in February.

Michel Gondry whittled Taxi Driver to just over two minutes in a remake that screened before the French premiere of Martin Scorsese’s Hugo. The style is pure “swede,” the lo-fi technique he featured in his film Be Kind, Rewind.

“If Spielberg deserves to be called a master of audience manipulation, then this is his signature stroke,” says Kevin B. Lee in his video essay. “You can’t think of the most iconic moments in Spielberg’s cinema without The Spielberg Face.”

As our film department works on rounding up its favorites films of the year, here’s what Times critics A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis liked best. Pictured: Miranda July’s The Future.