The Best Films of 2012

Let no one say that cinema is dead, least of all American cinema. Excepting the blazing resurrection of a British secret agent and a fairy tale about a fiery princess, the winner’s circle at this year’s box office is mostly stuffed with franchise mediocrities and dreary kiddie fare. However, when one looks beyond ticket sale at genuine artistry, 2012 was a year when both veteran and novice filmmakers contributed a plethora of significant, engaging cinema. The American showing was strong this year, boasting a long list of excellent features that ranged from invigorating genre outings to observant character pieces to captivating documentaries. Not that artistry was exclusively a Stateside phenomenon, as 2012 saw established masters from Hungary, Belgium, Canada, Britain, and France offering up exciting new work.

For the purposes of this list, a film qualifies as a “Film of 2012” if it could be viewed theatrically in St. Louis between January 1 and December 31, 2012. Festival screenings and other limited engagements in St. Louis are included, but revivals and re-releases are not.

10. We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay, UK / USA)

Ruthless, unsettling, and fantastically cinematic, Ramsay’s adaptation of Lionel Shriver’s 2003 novel hits so many bull’s-eyes, it’s downright spooky. Anchoring this despairing tale of curdled motherhood are superb portrayals from Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller—the former brittle and creased with contradictions, the latter as cold and unknowable as the void. Ramsey combines these vital performances with stunning visuals to craft a slow-burn, zigzagging escalation to a horrific crescendo. Then, unexpectedly, underneath all the scarlet terror: a portrait of maternal love as an undeniable, tidal force. Available now on DVD and Blu-ray.

9. The Cabin in the Woods (Drew Goddard, USA)

This year’s shrewdest and most deliriously entertaining work of genre filmmaking has Joss Whedon’s bloody fingerprints all over it, but it features not a single superhero. The Cabin in the Woods, co-written and brought to gleefully vicious life by director Goddard, functions foremost as a wily satire of horror movie conventions, although observant filmgoers will discern startlingly thoughtful ruminations on the self and free will (in between the screams). Then again, who needs profundity when you have a brilliant script, an enthusiastic ensemble cast, and a cavalcade of walking nightmares? Available now on DVD and Blu-ray.

8. The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies, USA / UK)

Rarely is a film as attuned to the fickle tyranny of lust as Davies’ luscious, affecting adaptation of Terence Ratigan’s acclaimed 1953 play. The Deep Blue Sea’s soft-focus depiction of a rubble-strewn post-War Britain stumbling listlessly forward provides a fitting stage for a tale of adulterous love shriveling on the vine. Davies’s masterful direction lends the story both swooning wistfulness and caustic bite, but it’s Rachel Weisz’s enthralling lead performance—alternately frantic and melancholy, dewy and scornful—that makes the film such a heartrending, humane marvel. Available now on DVD and Blu-ray.

7. The Kid With a Bike (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Belgium / France / Italy)

No performance this year cuts to quick like Thomas Doret’s riveting portrayal of Cyril, a 12-year-old boy who hungers so deeply for the attention of his absent, ambivalent father that his longing crackles around him like radioactivity. In depicting the tribulations of Cyril as he pinballs through a succession of guardians (official and otherwise) the Dardennes add a fairy tale glint to their venerable brand of gritty social realism. The result is a staggeringly authentic portrait of pre-teen angst, as sweetly aching as anything the filmmakers have created. Available on DVD and Blu-ray on February 12.

6. El Bulli: Cooking In Progress (Gereon Wetzel, Germany)

Wetzel’s fly-on-wall observation of a year at the world’s most legendary avant-garde restaurant might seem an unlikely candidate for the documentary film of the year, but that’s exactly what El Bulli: Cooking in Progress achieves. The film’s approach is one of elegant minimalism: It regards the bizarre gastronomical creations of chef Ferran Adrià and his staff with quiet awe, allowing the artistic joy of El Bulli’s culinary ballet to emerge naturally from a studious inspection of process. The experience proves ravishing, a true work of art in its own right. Available now on DVD.

5. Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, USA)

Tarantino cooks up a Hero’s Tale of antebellum black vengeance and serves it with blazing pistols, crackling humor, and cultural criticisms that range from the sucker-punch blunt to the stupendously sneaky.  Most elementally, Django Unchained functions as a blood-drenched guilty pleasure bubbling with enthusiasm for its Western and blaxploitation antecedents. However, between the white-knuckle suspense and the slaughter of Southern demons, the film finds space for sardonic, ambiguous explorations of race, justice, and violence. It’s cinematic revenge fantasy done exactly right: thrilling, pitiless, and forthright about its sticky moral landscape. In theaters now.

4. It’s Such a Beautiful Day (Don Hertzfeldt, USA)

Indie animator Hertzfeldt completes the series that began with Everything Will Be OK and I Am So Proud of You, and assembles the shorts into a devastating feature-length triptych. It’s Such a Beautiful Day follows the everyday experiences of hapless stick-figure protagonist Bill, whose has just enough self-awareness to discern the tragedy of the human condition as he stumbles toward his obligatory end. Daringly designed, perversely hilarious, and tremendously poignant, Beautiful Day stands as one of the essential works of existential filmmaking of the past decade, animated or otherwise. Available on DVD exclusively from the filmmaker.

3. Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg, Canada)

Cronenberg’s mesmerizing adaptation of Don DeLillo’s 2003 Odyssey riff is the filmmaker’s most audacious, most nuanced, and—yes—funniest film in years. There’s no denying that Cosmopolis is an aggressively alienating work of cinema. Between the affectless chill of Robert Pattinson’s billionaire, the sickening drone of buzzword-laden conversations that go nowhere, and the atmosphere of economic and social disintegration, there is something to unnerve everyone. Fortunately, no one unnerves like Cronenberg, who uncovers the mischievous wit in DeLillo’s words while also fortifying his tale with dark urgency and cinematic spark. Available on DVD and Blu-ray on January 1.

2. The Turin Horse (Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky, Hungary)

Tarr’s allegedly final feature is almost a parody of a pretentious European art film: 146 lugubrious, black-and-white minutes featuring an old man and his daughter shuffling through their routine in a wind-battered farmhouse, scored to the same endless loop of droning strings. Repetitive? Yes. Dismal? Yes. Spellbinding? Absolutely. Assembled from a mere handful of enthralling long-take shots, The Turin Horse offers an emphatic, hellish vision of futility and suffering, punctuated with a whimper. It’s a singular cinematic experience for those who like their art cruel and true. Available now on DVD and Blu-ray.

1. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, USA)

Anderson’s portrait of a broken man’s futile search for salvation in post-War America offers endless avenues for exploration: as a character study of recidivism; as a romantic tragedy about a convert and his guru; as a critique of ideology’s limitations; as a meditation on the tyranny of regret; and on and on. Headlined by an enthralling yet enigmatic performance from Joaquin Phoenix, The Master is peerless cinema at every level. Gorgeous to behold and magnificently structured, it slices through cherished American myths about revival, reformation, and revelation. Available on DVD and Blu-ray in 2013.

Honorable Mentions: Anna Karenina, Brave, Detropia, Low & Clear, Moonrise Kingdom, ParaNorman, The Secret World of Arrietty, A Separation, Skyfall, Turn Me On, Dammit!, The Waiting Room, Your Sister’s Sister

Worth Another Look: Compliance, Coriolanus, Haywire, Holy Motors, The Imposter, The Island President, Jayne Mansfield’s Car, Looper, Killing Them Softly, Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present

Elevated by a Great Performance: Flight, Guilty, Hello I Must Be Going, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Killer Joe, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Prometheus

Elevated by Great Design: Beyond the Black Rainbow, John Carter, Rise of the Guardians, Tales of the Night

Guilty Pleasure of the Year: Cloud Atlas

Overrated, Slightly or Highly: Argo, The Dark Knight Rises, The Forgiveness of Blood, Goodbye First Love, Headhunters, Life of Pi, Polisse, Wreck-It Ralph

Notable Films I Missed: Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, Footnote, Gerhard Richter – Painting, The House I Live In, How to Survive a Plague, I Wish, The Queen of Versailles, The Sessions, Silver Linings Playbook