The 100 Best Films of 2012
Kam Williams’ Annual Assessment of the Cream of the Cinematic Crop
It’s impossible for me to limit my favorite films of 2012 to just 10 of the year’s 1,000 or so releases After all, it feels unfair even to compare most of them to each other, since they represent so many different genres, countries and cultures, and enjoyed such a range in budgets.
Therefore, as per usual, this critic’s annual list features 100 entries in order to honor as many of the best offerings as possible. And despite the cloud of controversy swirling around Kathryn’s Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty for its depiction of torture and Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained for its violence and use of the N-word, both of these movies are nevertheless deserving of high accolades in my humble opinion.
Best Big Budget Films
- Zero Dark Thirty
- Silver Linings Playbook
- Django Unchained
- Looper
- Argo
- Life of Pi
- 21 Jump Street
- Cabin in the Woods
- Flight
- Magic Mike
- The Hunger Games
- Skyfall
- The Amazing Spider-Man
- Safe House
- The Sessions
- Savages
- The Avengers
- Think Like a Man
- Hitchcock
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days
- Mirror Mirror
- Anna Karenina
- Lincoln
- Sparkle
- Promised Land
Best Foreign Films
- Amour (France)
- Turn Me on, Dammit! (Norway)
- Nobody Else but You (France)
- Let the Bullets Fly (China)
- The Other Son (Israel)
- Putin’s Kiss (Russia)
- Sound of Noise (Germany)
- Attenberg (Greece)
- I Wish (Japan)
- The Fairy (Belgium)
- The Well Digger’s Daughter (France)
- Jiro Dreams of Sushi (Japan)
- Ikland (Uganda)
- Elles (France)
- Simon and the Oaks (Sweden)
- The Intouchables (France)
- Unforgivable (Italy)
- Dolphin Boy (Israel)
- Oslo, August 31st (Norway)
- A Royal Affair (Denmark)
- Busong (Philippines)
- Gerhard Richter Painting (Germany)
- Somewhere Between (China)
- Crazy Horse (France)
- 360 (Brazil)
Best Independent Films
- Beasts of the Southern Wild
- The Deep Blue Sea
- Quartet
- Take This Waltz
- Middle of Nowhere
- Safety Not Guaranteed
- Compliance
- Restless City
- Goon
- Changing the Game
- God Bless America
- Ginger & Rosa
- Yelling to the Sky
- Nobody Walks
- V/H/S
- Tim & Eric’s Billion-Dollar Movie
- Model Minority
- The Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best
- 28 Hotel Rooms
- Velvet Elvis
- Deadfall
- Mosquita & Mari
- Happy New Year
- 96 Minutes
- Jack & Diane
Best Documentaries
- The Central Park Five
- Head Games
- Chasing Ice
- Bully
- The Loving Story
- The Queen of Versailles
- Hoodwinked
- Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel
- 65_RedRoses
- Heist
- Booker’s Place: A Mississippi Story
- The Revisionaires
- Six Million and One
- Marley
- High Ground
- Bonsai People
- Follow Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story
- Soul Food Junkies
- Brooklyn Castle
- Chimpanzee
- Detropia
- Inventing Our Life: The Kibbutz Experiment
- Never Stand Still
- 5 Broken Cameras
- Samsara
Also check out our annual Blacktrospective — The Best Black Films of 2012