First of all, I stole this format wholesale from Charles François, who I still hope will one day rediscover his cinephilia and start hanging out with myself and the Skandies crew again. It's been ten years since he last used it and I hereby declare it in the public domain.Listed here are new (made within the past 10 years) movies that I saw or that were released in 2012. Combine the first two columns for the list of films released in 2012, and the last two columns for films seen in 2012. Ordering is preferential within grade groups, as indicated by ratings on the retarded 100-point scale (and also preferential when said ratings are identical).
| 2012 in Films | ||
|---|---|---|
| The first column contains movies I saw in 2011 or before that were released here in 2012. I've added the {year} in those cases where the screening actually took place prior to 2011. Films not yet released but currently scheduled for this year are indicated by a (°). | The middle column lists movies I saw shortly before, during or after their 2012 commercial run. Asterisks (*) indicate those seen prior to their actual release. TV-only "runs" arbitrarily deemed eligible get a (†). | The right column consists of movies I saw in 2012 which are still awaiting a possible local release. Those known to have lined up U.S. distribution are indicated by a (°). Production {year} is listed if film is more than 2 years old. |
| A: For All Time | ||
|---|---|---|
| A-: Event | ||
|---|---|---|
| *Holy Motors (Carax) 88 | ||
| The Imposter (Layton) 85 | ||
| The Loneliest Planet (Loktev) 84 | ||
| B+/A-: Near Great | ||
|---|---|---|
| Miss Bala (Naranjo) 79 | ||
| B+: Must See | ||
|---|---|---|
| *Moonrise Kingdom (Anderson) 78 | ||
| *Amour (Haneke) 77 | ||
| °Frances Ha (Baumbach) 76 | ||
| Eat Sleep Die (Pichler) 75 | ||
| The Deep Blue Sea (Davies) 74 | ||
| °You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet! (Resnais) 73 | ||
| °Leviathan (Castaing-Taylor, Paravel) 73 | ||
| B/B+: Warmly Recommended | ||
|---|---|---|
| *Only the Young (Tippet, Mims) 72 | ||
| Looper (Johnson) 72 | ||
| °This Must Be the Place (Sorrentino) 72 | ||
| Pursuit of Loneliness (Thrush) 71 | ||
| Haywire (Soderbergh) 71 | ||
| You Are Here (Cockburn) {2010} 70 | ||
| Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (Hyams) 70 | ||
| B: Recommended | ||
|---|---|---|
| It's Such a Beautiful Day (Hertzfeldt) 69 | ||
| Jack & Diane (Gray) 69 | ||
| Argo (Affleck) 69 | ||
| *Sister (Meier) 68 | ||
| Oki's Movie (Hong) 68 | ||
| *Seven Psychopaths (McDonagh) 68 | ||
| °NO (Larraín) 68 | ||
| Damsels in Distress (Stillman) 67 | ||
| *Zero Dark Thirty (Bigelow) 67 | ||
| Ernest & Celestine (Renner, Aubier, Patar) 67 | ||
| °Reality (Garrone) 66 | ||
| The Central Park Five (Burns, McMahon, Burns) 66 | ||
| Django Unchained (Tarantino) 66 | ||
| The Secret World of Arrietty (Yonebayashi) 66 | ||
| *Bernie (Linklater) 65 | ||
| Black Venus (Kechiche) 65 | ||
| Chasing Ice (Orlowski) 65 | ||
| *Brave (Andrews, Chapman) 65 | ||
| °Jayne Mansfield's Car (Thornton) 64 | ||
| The Kid With a Bike (Dardennes) 64 | ||
| *Rust and Bone (Audiard) 64 | ||
| Crows Zero (Miike) {2007} 64 | ||
| B-/B: Recommended with Mild Reservations | ||
|---|---|---|
| *Killing Them Softly (Dominik) 63 | ||
| °Byzantium (Jordan) 63 | ||
| Skyfall (Mendes) 63 | ||
| Attenberg (Tsangari) 63 | ||
| Your Sister's Sister (Shelton) 63 | ||
| *Young & Wild (Rivas) 62 | ||
| Arbitrage (Jarecki) 62 | ||
| Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters (Shapiro) 62 | ||
| The Three Stooges (Farrellys) 62 | ||
| *Beasts of the Southern Wild (Zeitlin) 62 | ||
| °Mud (Nichols) 62 | ||
| Almayer's Folly (Akerman) 61 | ||
| *The Master (Anderson) 61 | ||
| Return (Johnson) 61 | ||
| *The Queen of Versailles (Greenfield) 61 | ||
| *Lawless (Hillcoat) 61 | ||
| B-: Recommended with Strong Reservations | ||
|---|---|---|
| *Bad 25 (S. Lee) 60 | ||
| *Neighboring Sounds (Mendonça Filho) 60 | ||
| Life of Pi (A. Lee) 60 | ||
| Abendland (Geyrhalter) 60 | ||
| Goon (Dowse) 60 | ||
| We Have a Pope (Moretti) 60 | ||
| *Cosmopolis (Cronenberg) 59 | ||
| About the Pink Sky (Kobayashi) 59 | ||
| °To the Wonder (Malick) 59 | ||
| *Wanderlust (Wain) 59 | ||
| °Beyond the Hills (Mungiu) 59 | ||
| *Barbara (Petzold) 58 | ||
| Ted (MacFarlane) 58 | ||
| *Room 237 (Ascher) 58 | ||
| Frankenweenie (Burton) 58 | ||
| A Simple Life (Hui) 58 | ||
| The Cabin in the Woods (Goddard) 58 | ||
| Lockout (Saint Leger, Mather) 57 | ||
| *Promised Land (Van Sant) 57 | ||
| Monsieur Lazhar (Falardeau) 57 | ||
| 4:44 Last Day on Earth (Ferrara) 57 | ||
| Safe (Yakin) 57 | ||
| °The Angels' Share (Loach) 56 | ||
| Keyhole (Maddin) 56 | ||
| Footnote (Cedar) 56 | ||
| *Tabu (Gomes) 56 | ||
| Bwakaw (Lana) 56 | ||
| *Safety Not Guaranteed (Trevorrow) 56 | ||
| I Wish (Kore-eda) 56 | ||
| °Night Across the Street (Ruiz) 56 | ||
| 38 Witnesses (Belvaux) 55 | ||
| The Turin Horse (Tarr) 55 | ||
| Post Mortem (Larraín) 55 | ||
| °Berberian Sound Studio (Strickland) 55 | ||
| For Love's Sake (Miike) 55 | ||
| *The Bay (Levinson) 55 | ||
| Polisse (Maïwenn) 55 | ||
| C+/B-: On the Fence, Leaning Forward | ||
|---|---|---|
| The Day He Arrives (Hong) 54 | ||
| Crazy Horse (Wiseman) 54 | ||
| Nights With Theodore (Bedbeter) 54 | ||
| Prometheus (Scott) 54 | ||
| God Bless America (Goldthwait) 54 | ||
| °The Hunt (Vinterberg) 54 | ||
| *Compliance (Zobel) 53 | ||
| Goodbye First Love (Hansen-Løve) 53 | ||
| °In the House (Ozon) 53 | ||
| Sinister (Derrickson) 53 | ||
| Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (Miike) 53 | ||
| Being Flynn (Weitz) 53 | ||
| Laurence Anyways (Dolan) 53 | ||
| *V/H/S ([Various]) 52 | ||
| The Dish and the Spoon (Bagnall) 52 | ||
| West of Memphis (Berg) 52 | ||
| Me and You (Bertolucci) 52 | ||
| Intruders (Fresnadillo) 52 | ||
| Marvel's The Avengers (Whedon) 52 | ||
| °The We and the I (Gondry) 52 | ||
| C+: Take It or Leave It | ||
|---|---|---|
| °The Last Time I Saw Macao (Rodrigues, Guerra da Mata) 51 | ||
| This Is Not a Film (Panahi, Mirtahmasb) 51 | ||
| Neil Young Journeys (Demme) 51 | ||
| *On the Road (Salles) 51 | ||
| *In Another Country (Hong) 51 | ||
| °Something in the Air (Assayas) 51 | ||
| Wuthering Heights (Arnold) 50 | ||
| Photographic Memory (McElwee) 50 | ||
| Dark Shadows (Burton) 50 | ||
| Kinshasa Kids (Wajnberg) 50 | ||
| °In the Fog (Loznitsa) 50 | ||
| Farewell, My Queen (Jacquot) 50 | ||
| Lincoln (Spielberg) 49 | ||
| Pieta (Kim) 49 | ||
| Oslo, August 31st (Trier) 49 | ||
| *Keep the Lights On (Sachs) 49 | ||
| Flight (Zemeckis) 49 | ||
| °Post tenebras lux (Reygadas) 48 | ||
| *This Is 40 (Apatow) 48 | ||
| *The Hunger Games (Ross) 48 | ||
| Lines of Wellington (Sarmiento) 48 | ||
| Magic Mike (Soderbergh) 48 | ||
| °Simon Killer (Campos) 47 | ||
| *End of Watch (Ayer) 47 | ||
| °Paradise: Love (Seidl) 47 | ||
| The Grey (Carnahan) 47 | ||
| Robinson in Ruins (Keiller) 47 | ||
| Anna Karenina (Wright) 46 | ||
| Sleep Tight (Balagueró) 46 | ||
| Marley (Macdonald) 46 | ||
| 7 Days in Havana ([Various]) 46 | ||
| C/C+: On the Fence, Leaning Backward | ||
|---|---|---|
| °Caesar Must Die (Tavianis) 45 | ||
| *Les Misérables (Hooper) 45 | ||
| The Intouchables (Toledano, Nakache) 45 | ||
| The Forgiveness of Blood (Marston) 45 | ||
| Silver Linings Playbook (Russell) 44 | ||
| °Ginger and Rosa (Potter) 44 | ||
| Elena (Zvyagintsev) 44 | ||
| Cloud Atlas (Wachowski, Tykwer, Wachowski) 44 | ||
| Blondie (Ganslandt) 43 | ||
| I'm Carolyn Parker (Demme) 43 | ||
| *The Dark Knight Rises (Nolan) 43 | ||
| C: Pass | ||
|---|---|---|
| The Invisible War (Dick) 42 | ||
| *Not Fade Away (Chase) 42 | ||
| *The Gatekeepers (Moreh) 42 | ||
| The Color Wheel (Perry) 41 | ||
| Fill the Void (Burshtein) 41 | ||
| °Mekong Hotel (Weerasethakul) 41 | ||
| *Corpo celeste (Rohrwacher) 41 | ||
| Dredd (Travis) 40 | ||
| The ABCs of Death ([Various]) 40 | ||
| Alps (Lanthimos) 39 | ||
| Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Ceylan) 39 | ||
| °The Taste of Money (Im) 39 | ||
| °Passion (De Palma) 38 | ||
| After the Battle (Nasrallah) 38 | ||
| Unforgivable (Téchiné) 38 | ||
| *Hyde Park on Hudson (Michell) 37 | ||
| C-: Ugh | ||
|---|---|---|
| *For Ellen (Kim) 36 | ||
| Penance (Kurosawa) 35 | ||
| Bully (Hirsch) 35 | ||
| Stand Up Guys (Stevens) 34 | ||
| Outrage Beyond (Kitano) 34 | ||
| Michael (Schleinzer) 32 | ||
| Killer Joe (Friedkin) 29 | ||
| D+: Double-Ugh | ||
|---|---|---|
| °Like Someone in Love (Kiarostami) 26 | ||
| *Silent House (Kentis, Lau) 25 | ||
| *Alex Cross (Cohen) 21 | ||
| D: Bomb | ||
|---|---|---|
| *The Paperboy (Daniels) 9 | ||
| F: Burn the negative | ||
|---|---|---|
| Walk-outs: Channel Surfing | ||
|---|---|---|
| °The Act of Killing (Oppenheimer, Cynn, [Anonymous]) | ||
| *All In: The Poker Movie (Tirola) | ||
| The Ambassador (Brügger) | ||
| °Antiviral (Cronenberg) | ||
| *Aquí y allá (Méndez Esparza) | ||
| Augustine (Winocour) | ||
| Belle Epine (Zlotowski) | ||
| The Big Picture (Lartigau) | ||
| Bonsai (Jiménez) | ||
| *Celeste & Jesse Forever (Krieger) | ||
| Chico & Rita (Trueba, Mariscal, Errando) | ||
| Declaration of War (Donzelli) | ||
| Easy Money (Espinosa) | ||
| *Five Broken Cameras (Burnat, Davidi) | ||
| *Found Memories (Murat) | ||
| Gangs of Wasseypur (Kashyap) | ||
| °Gimme the Loot (Leon) | ||
| A Hijacking (Lindholm) | ||
| How to Survive a Plague (France) | ||
| In the Family (Wang) | ||
| It Looks Pretty From a Distance (Sasnal, Sasnal) | ||
| Kill List (Wheatley) | ||
| La Sirga (Vega) | ||
| *Las acacias (Giorgelli) | ||
| *A Late Quartet (Zilberman) | ||
| Maniac (Khalfoun) | ||
| Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present (Akers) | ||
| Miss Lovely (Ahluwalia) | ||
| *Now, Forager (Cortlund, Halperin) | ||
| Our Children (Lafosse) | ||
| ParaNorman (Fell, Butler) | ||
| Peddlers (Bala) | ||
| The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Chbosky) | ||
| The Raid: Redemption (Evans) | ||
| Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir (Bouzereau) | ||
| Romance Joe (Lee K.) | ||
| The Sessions (Lewin) | ||
| 7 Boxes (Maneglia, Schémbori) | ||
| Smashed (Ponsoldt) | ||
| The Snowtown Murders (Kurzel) | ||
| Starlet (Baker) | ||
| Tales of the Night (Ocelot) | ||
| °Thale (Nordaas) | ||
| 21 Jump Street (Lord, Miller) | ||
| Two Years at Sea (Rivers) | ||
| Villegas (Tobal) | ||
| °Viola (Piñeiro) | ||
| Wreck-It Ralph (Moore) | ||
| Incomplete: Bad Timing | ||
|---|---|---|