1. Silver Linings Playbook
Silver Linings Playbook has a chance to become the eighth film ever to win Oscars for both Best Actor and Actress. Its two leads, played by Bradley Cooper and the star of the year, Jennifer Lawrence, both portray edgy, unpredictable individuals who find some semblance of grace in each other. Sound dramatic? Well, director David O. Russell is never one to create a film bound by any one genre. Silver Linings is dramatic, but it's also the best comedy of the year.
2. The Dark Knight Rises
By suffusing his Batman finale with intense dread, Christopher Nolan took The Dark Knight Rises to levels of despair never seen before in comic book films. Set eight years after the events of The Dark Knight, Batman comes out of retirement to meet his match in Bane, a hulking masked sociopath who becomes the hero's greatest foe.
3. Zero Dark Thirty
Who better to make a film about the hunt for Osama bin Laden and the final mission that killed him than Hurt Locker scribe Mark Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow? It's rare to see a film made about an event that happened so recently, but this manhunt was 10 years in the making, and the story has much more to it than a team of Navy SEALs and Apache helicopters.
4. Argo
Argo is significant for a number of reasons. First, it's a clinic in the art of building suspense. Second, it marks Ben Affleck as the first real (with apologies to George Clooney) actor-turned-director to watch since Clint Eastwood started churning out Oscar winners. Argo's subtle framing techniques and brilliant pacing won over critics, and placed it near the front of the race for Best Picture of the Year.
5. Looper
Film buffs everywhere couldn't wait for Looper, Rian Johnson's fantastically-realized time travel thriller that boasts one of the year's best scripts. Deftly pairing science-fiction with film noir, horror, and western genres, Johnson's film explodes with moment after moment of cinematic euphoria. Looper contains: time-travel, telekinesis, psychedelic drug binging, futuristic weapons, one terrifying little boy, and two actors playing the same person, one from the present and one from the future; it's a hell of a ride.
6. The Avengers
The top-grossing film of the year and third-highest of all-time, The Avengers had the perfect formula to succeed: Take a bunch of superheroes who've all starred in their own successful films and put 'em all in one movie. Simple. More interesting is The Avengers is actually a darn good movie. Directed by Joss Whedon, the film combines intense human drama with amazing comic book fun, doing what no other Marvel film (save for Spider-Man 2) has done.
7. Beasts of the Southern Wild
Beasts was the Grand Jury Prize winner at the Sundance Film Festival and the year's marquee independent film. Shot deep in the Louisiana bayou, the film boasts amazing performances from a cast of non-actors led by Quvenzhane Wallis, a (then) 5 year-old spitfire who plays Hushpuppy, the film's thoughtful narrator and hero.
8. Django Unchained
Quentin Tarantino films always grab headlines and Django Unchained is the director's most signature film since the one, two punch of Kill Bill. Django merges Tarantino's unrivaled ear for dialogue with the look and music of 1970s spaghetti westerns, even using Sergio Leone's composer, Ennio Morricone, to craft two of the film's songs. The result is a bloody and very funny antebellum revenge tale.
9. The Hunger Games
While 2012 marked the end of The Twilight Saga, it ushered in a new young adult franchise with another gigantic built-in literary fanbase. Raking in over $400 million at the box office, The Hunger Games combined the book's uneasy love story and its violence into a neatly-wrapped PG-13 film experience that played it straight, and made its legions of fans very happy.
10. The Master
Controversial before its release for its purported cross-examination of Scientology, The Master continued making waves once it hit theaters as many audiences couldn't identify with its unconventional plot and (spoiler alert!) lack of payoff. But, those people are missing the point. The Master questions the value of easy answers sought by religious zealots. By ending the film ambiguously, Anderson is challenging us to find our own path.
11. Les Miserables
By abandoning the spoken word, director Tom Hooper took a major risk with his big screen, star-filled adaptation of the wildly popular musical. Hooper had all his actors sing live in front of the camera, as opposed to lip-syncing to prerecorded tracks as usual. The result is film at its most grandiose. The quintessential example being Anne Hathaway's performance of the musical's most famous song, "I Dreamed a Dream."
12. Magic Mike
Unheralded due to a plot centered in the world of male stripping, audiences would've been smart to take notice of the man behind the lens, Steven Soderbergh, who rarely makes a film not worth seeing. Yes, it contains a number of all-out performance numbers by Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey, and company but the film does explore the boys' real lives. Tatum has the film to thank for his "Sexiest Man Alive" status.
13. Lincoln
Steven Spielberg's intellectual portrayal of the final months of Abraham Lincoln's life is fully-invested in the President's political prowess as he maneuvers to get the 13th Amendment passed and end the Civil War. Led by a typically amazing performance from Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln, the film paints a lively portrait of a man about whom very few details are known. If history texts aren't enough, see the film. Lincoln is right there onscreen for you. Daniel Day is that good.
14. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
The Lord of the Rings prequel was one of the most anticipated films of 2012. It lives up to the hype, with more action sequences per minute than LOTR's first installment, and a heroic ending that sets up the the next two sequels brilliantly. Peter Jackson's decision to screen The Hobbit at 48 frames per second in some locations also set off a firestorm among critics. Is The Hobbit ahead of its time, or an example of its director's hubris? Time will tell.
15. The Cabin in the Woods
With apologies to Kill List and The Innkeepers, the marquee horror film of the year was this lively tribute to the genre itself. Cabin begins as mundane as possible, and that's precisely the point. The film is setting us up. Featuring an all-time great reveal, the movie turns its already twisted plot on its head for the final sequence.
16. Skyfall
The most successful James Bond film ever made shed much of the goofiness that was once the franchise's trademark. The gadgets are gone, but director Sam Mendes was smart enough to reinvent some old 007 signatures (the Aston Martin, the shaken martini). The 23rd Bond film should eclipse $1 billion at the box office. Will we be seeing Bond movies for the rest of our lives? Probably.
17. Searching for Sugar Man
Sundance Special Jury Prize winner Searching for Sugar Man is the year's signature documentary. The film was a labor of love for director Malik Bendjelloul who shot some footage with his iPhone (using a Super 8 app) to save money. It follows two Cape Town fans of American folk singer Rodriguez, and their effort to discover if the rumors of the artist's death were true. The film is a love letter to fanatics everywhere and a testament to faith.
18. Prometheus
Prometheus might be remembered more for what it wasn't than for what it was. Due to numerous plot holes and strange character decisions, Ridley Scott's Alien prequel puzzled theater-goers, but it may be a film best judged in retrospect as a sequel is planned. Either way, the ambitious sci-fi thriller about the search for mankind's origins was one of the most ambitious and best-looking films of the year.
19. Ted
Ted may look like a reboot of Howard the Duck, but Seth MacFarlane's raunchy (thunder) buddy comedy impressed critics and audiences alike to the tune of $218 million, making it one of 2012's most successful films. Chock-full of the Family Guy creator's brazen sense of humor, the cute little bear is constantly drinking or swearing, and when he's not, he's fornicating or indulging in rampant drug use.
20. Moonrise Kingdom
The Cannes Film Festival opener marked a return to form for auteur Wes Anderson, whose last live-action feature, The Darjeeling Limited, underwhelmed critics. Starring two precocious 13-year-olds who run away together, sending their small town into bedlam, Moonrise celebrates the all-encompassing power of young love. The film has it all for Anderson fans: the color, the style, the wit, and, of course, a healthy dose of Bill Murray.
21. Pitch Perfect
One of 2012's surprise hits was this hilariously self-aware college comedy set in the world of competitive a capella. With insanely goofy humor offsetting the Glee-style musical numbers, Pitch Perfect was one of the year's best date-night movies. Scene-stealer Rebel Wilson and perpetual sweetheart Anna Kendrick exemplified the film's perfect casting.
22. Life of Pi
Probably the most beautiful film of 2012, Ang Lee's stunning adaptation of Yann Martel's bestseller featured an Indian boy adrift at sea with a Bengal tiger, a phosphorescent breaching whale, an island filled with a million meerkats, a school of flying fish, and that's just for appetizers. Equal parts Perfect Storm and Planet Earth, Lee's visionary film is marvelously spiritual while skipping any sense of self-righteous piety.
23. Brave
24. Flight
25. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2
Generating over $750 million worldwide, The final Twilight episode was the fifth most successful film of 2012. BD2 featured an uncharacteristic sense of menace the other films didn't have. Bella and Edward must protect their half-vampire baby girl from the Volturi, who want all three dead. Plus, the film's twist ending delighted Twi-Hards and gave the series a memorable finale they could feast on again and again.
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