On Friday, we announced the shortlist for the Guardian first album award; today it's the turn of the first film. Previous winners have included The Arbor, Unrelated and Sleep Furiously; this year, after exhaustive polling of the Guardian's film writing team, the 10 debut films jostling for the big one take in everything from an alien-attack thriller set in London to a Danish Afghan-war documentary. We will lock the judges – who include Guardian film team Peter Bradshaw, Xan Brooks and Catherine Shoard – in a room next week, and hammer out a result. The winner will receive a handsome piece of glass and plastic purchased, as Michael Hann revealed on Friday, from the trophy shop round the corner. Nevertheless, bragging rights will be awesome.

So here's the shortlist (in alphabetical order):

Animal Kingdom (dir: David Michôd)

We said: "A kingdom of wounded and dying animals – that is, animals of the most vicious, dangerous kind – is what director David Michôd portrays here, and this is maybe the nearest we're going to get to an Australian GoodFellas. It is a tense, violent and supremely watchable crime drama, set in the bluecollar-gangland of Melbourne … reviving memories of Eric Bana in Chopper and Scott Roberts's heist thriller The Hard Word." (Peter Bradshaw)

Armadillo (dir: Janus Metz)

We said: "Embedded with a Danish regiment for a six-month tour of duty in Afghanistan, this striking film gives you the character development, food for thought and edge-of-seat action of a scripted film. There's little for fiction to add. In addition, unlike the similar American documentary Restrepo, this looks like a feature film rather than a documentary … the high contrast, treated colours and crisp focus make it look more like an art movie than your standard war reportage." (Steve Rose)

Attack the Block (dir: Joe Cornish)

We said: "Attack the Block draws on the classic science-fiction model such as Independence Day and the siege drama – Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 – but there's also something very innocent and English here, reminiscent of the 1947 Ealing comedy Hue and Cry… in his early comedy career, Cornish made his name by pastiching and taking the mickey out of Hollywood movies. But this doesn't look like a pastiche; it looks like the real thing." (PB)

Black Pond (dirs: Tom Kingsley, Will Sharp)

We said: "If Syd Barrett had ever written and directed a movie, it might well have looked like this: an indie tragicomedy from the dark heart of rural suburbia, by newcomers Tom Kingsley and Will Sharpe. Black Pond is funny, dreamily lyrical, armour-plated with eccentric self-confidence and also intensely English. (PB)

The Guard (dir: John Michael McDonagh)

We said: "Ireland has developed a nice export line in eccentric crime comedies… [this] has Gleeson on fine form as a unorthodox garda (special interests: class-A drugs, Russian literature, prostitutes, swimming, swearing) whose quiet corner of coastal Connemara becomes an international crime hotspot. Thus he is paired with urban FBI man Don Cheadle, who looks genuinely flummoxed by Gleeson's inappropriate outbursts … if signs point to a mismatched-buddy cop movie, well, that's sort of what you get, but nothing in this sly, wry little movie is quite what it appears." (SR)

The Inbetweeners Movie (dir: Ben Palmer)

We said: "They could have called it British Pie, but this TV sitcom spin-off updates the teen summer holiday formula surprisingly entertainingly, considering it doesn't subvert it one iota … The gags come crude, fast and in a language the target audience will understand, and the worst of the humour is offset by some fond observation of British holiday rituals." (SR)

Sleeping Beauty (dir: Julia Leigh)

We said: "A whiff of creepiness perfumes every scene of this film, a distinct eau de perv. It's a very bizarre drama about erotic ritual and male obsession: ridiculous in some ways, and naïve about bought sex, but very watchable and eerie. This is an Australian picture, written and directed by the novelist and first-time film-maker Julia Leigh but it has a distinctly European sheen, a feel for rectilinear compositions, deep focus and receding perspective lines in brightly lit interiors – and all with a sense of impending horror or disgust." (PB)

Snowtown (dir: Justin Kurzel)

We said: "Here is a docu-Jacobean nightmare, and a dysfunctional stepfamily drama, based on the career of Australia's most notorious serial killer…this is a well-made but gruesome and often unwatchably violent film, made the more disturbing by its deferred and indirect revelations about the killer's modus operandi, his intimate social embeddedness with his victims, his ambiguous motivation, and the way he makes those closest to the victims complicit in the crimes." (PB)

Submarine (dir: Richard Ayoade)

We said: "It's a dark coming-of-age comedy about a lovelorn teenage boy in 1980s Swansea, written and directed by Ayoade, adapted from a novel by Joe Dunthorne, and executive produced by Ben Stiller, who appears in a subliminal cameo. Ayoade's film has absorbed the influences of Wes Anderson and Michel Gondry in its deadpan ironies and block capital sans-serif titles, but it's still really personal and confident."

Tyrannosaur (dir: Paddy Considine)

We said: "It's a visceral, considered dissection of abuse and rage and the dysfunctional relationships that rage creates, which, in turn, perpetuate that rage, and an examination of people who create their own eco-system of anger and unhappiness. The performances of Mullan, Colman and Marsan are excellent and create a compelling human drama. Tyrannosaur is far from a love story, but it is not simply a hate story, either; it is certainly a very impressive debut from Considine. (PB)