The Top 25 Best Films of 2012

Well, it's that time of the year again when I count up the finest theatrical releases of the past 12 months, and 2012 was a fine year for cinema indeed ("Keith Lemon: The Film" not withstanding). Offering up a succulent feast of stirring political thrillers, epic blockbusters, laugh-out-loud comedies and flat-out bonkers surrealist oddballs, 2012 proved itself to be a reassuring, truly electrifying year to be a dedicated movie enthusiast. Let's hope 2013 is just as thrilling.

25. "End of Watch"

Writer-director David Ayer has been working towards “End of Watch” his whole career. In his scripts for “Training Day,” “S.W.A.T.” and “Dark Blue,” he attempted to enter and explore the mindset of the American law enforcer, with mixed results. In “End of Watch,” he nails it, providing a captivating, intimate insight into the daily lives of two workaday beat cops patrolling the mean streets of South Central Los Angeles. In leading men Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña, we have a buddy cop duo worthy of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover: sitting in their squad car with them, listening to them talk and joke and trade amusing, heartfelt anecdotes proves just as enthralling and stimulating as the vivaciously visceral action sequences.

24. "Magic Mike"

It’s a pity “Magic Mike" wasn’t presented in 3D: what with its lip-smacking line-up of baby-oiled pecs and bulging leather thongs thrusting rhythmically towards the screen, it’s exactly the sort of film stereoscopy was made for. But director Stephen Soderbergh’s indie dramedy, set in Florida male strip joint Xquisite, turned out to be much more than a wet and wild girls’ night out, although the rousing routines are available by the handful: ably carried by career-spinning hunk Channing Tatum, on whose teenage experiences the film is loosely based, it’s a smartly written, maturely handled, “Boogie Nights”-lite charting of the ups and downs of seedy showbusiness. Alongside Tatum, English rising star Alex Pettyfer - so wooden in “Beastly” and “I Am Number Four” - is surprisingly engaging as a young Xquisite amateur while Matthew McConaughey steals the show as the sizzlingly seductive megalomaniac running the joint.

23. "Holy Motors"

French acting maestro Denis Lavant gives a powerhouse performance in “Holy Motors,” and surely one of the strangest of the year. In Leos Carax’s surreal, distinctly European curiosity, Lavant plays a man who travels around Paris in the back of a white stretch limo, attending “appointments” which appear to consist of him entering a parallel universe and transforming into a different person; in one appointment, he’s an elderly female beggar; in another, he’s an assassin; next, an old man on his deathbed; in perhaps the most bizarre one, he dons a skin-tight mo-cap suit and engages in a simulated sex scene, the computer-generated result of which is a clear poke in the ribs to James Cameron’s “Avatar.” There are more than a few Lynchian vibes in “Holy Motors,” a bizarre, bewildering tour de force around the ever-changing nature of movie acting. Keep an eye out for Kylie Minogue, who pops up to sing a song of heartbreak in a memorable musical number.

22. "Brave"

With their thirteenth full-length feature, the esteemed wizards at Pixar Animation Studios affectionately pay tribute to the timeless fairytales of Disney. The tale - one of kings and queens and witches and magic - focuses on Merida, a rebellious, independently minded Scottish princess whose defiance of her parents’ age-old customs results in a curse being placed upon her kingdom. The sweeping, immersive landscape of craggy cliffs and mountainous glens is vibrantly rendered and lusciously detailed by top-of-the-range computer animation, but what’s most enchanting about this spellbinding fantasy adventure is the Kelly MacDonald-voiced heroine Merida, whose spirit is as free and untamable as her flame-tinted barnet.

21. "The Intouchables"

An uplifting, fabulously funny French feelgood dramedy much-touted as an “international sensation,” Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano’s “The Intouchables” is one film that lives up to the hype. At its heart is an odd couple: Omar Sy is a poverty-stricken, high-spirited benefits cheat who becomes the official carer for François Cluzet, a lonely, quadriplegic millionaire paralysed from the neck down. The film, while undeniably painted with broad strokes, boasts a winning, crowd-pleasing charm, with Cluzet and Sy both outstanding and sharing the kind of crackling bromantic chemistry that can’t be forced and could only have been a lucky coincidence.

20. "Searching for Sugar Man"

Have you heard of Rodriguez, the singer-songwriter from Detroit so popular in South Africa his records are regularly placed alongside those of the Rolling Stones and Elvis Presley? I thought not, but then his music flopped in America, and up until recently his core fanbase believed him to be dead. Some say he set himself ablaze on-stage. Some say he blew his brains out. Others say he died of a drug overdose in a hotel room. In this powerful, poignant documentary, Cape Town-based fans Stephen Segerman and Craig Bartholomew Strydom attempt to track down the mysterious, forgotten folk hero who unwittingly inspired a generation of South Africans and for whom international fame never came calling. Not to give away the ending, but if you’re not weeping tears of joy in the final 20 minutes you may not have a soul.

19. "The Cabin in the Woods"

“Cabin in the woods” horror movies such as “The Evil Dead” and “Friday the 13th” were simultaneously given a good firm kicking and a loving homage in this wildly subversive, deviously clever genre deconstruction that did for those “cabin in the woods” movies what Wes Craven’s “Scream” did for the stalk-n-slash flicks back in 1997 - that is to say, it skewered them. Writer-director Drew Goddard and co-writer Joss Whedon brilliantly pastiched, parodied and praised the genre and its many familiar conventions in an ingeniously assembled satire that provides not just old-school popcorn entertainment but fascinating insight into why we watch horror movies. The unforgettable, blood-splattered climax, in which - spoiler alert - an army of ghosts, goblins and unicorns launch a full-scale attack on an office building was one of the most balls-out batshit crazy sequences of last year. You’ll never look at a merman in the same light again.

18. "The Imposter"

So cinematic is awards-showered documentary “The Imposter” that when director Bart Layton first screened the film at Sundance, one viewer, convinced that what they had just witnessed unfold was a scripted work of fiction, raised their hand and asked him whether or not the film was based on a true story. The story, as unbelievable as it is completely true, is as follows: in 1997, 23-year-old French con artist Frédéric Bourdin managed to convince a grieving Texan family that he was in fact their blonde-haired, blue-eyed 16-year-old son Nicholas Barclay, who disappeared without a trace three years previously. Slithering his way past both the Spanish and American authorities and living among the Barclays in their San Antonio home, Bourdin pluckily impersonated the lost schoolboy for almost five whole months, fooling not just FBI officials but the boy’s closest family members too. Hypnotically narrated by the identity thief himself and as gripping as any great Hollywood thriller, “The Imposter” is an unmissable documentary that must be seen to be believed (even then, it’s still rather baffling).

17. "Cloud Atlas"

A film bold in its ambition and galactic in its scope, Tom Twyker and the Wachowski siblings’ “Cloud Atlas” tells six seemingly unrelated stories that span from the mid-1800s to the post-apocalyptic 2300s. Starring in each story are Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving and Ben Wishaw, among others, who display staggering versatility and, thanks to the magic of special effects, sometimes swap their race and gender when playing one of their characters (often, it’s difficult to tell which actor we’re watching). What’s most startling about this indefinable masterwork is how the stories, when interwoven, regularly enhance and complement the unfolding drama of each other, even when decades and even centuries apart: the thrills of a gadget-heavy chase sequence set in a neon-lit future Asia seamlessly ripple over to a 1970s shoot-out in the streets of California, and vice versa. As an epic ode to the power of storytelling, “Cloud Atlas” is sensational.

16. "Killer Joe"

As the eponymous hitman of William Friedkin’s “totally twisted deep-fried Texas redneck trailer park murder story,” Matthew McConaughey gives the best and gutsiest performance of his career. Previously stuck in a seemingly inescapable rut of heading bright and breezy studio rom-coms (the posters for which saw him forever leaning against his grinning, twinkly eyed love interests), he gleefully reinvented himself as a slimy, sociopathic, devilishly charming contract killer in this blackly comic, deliciously depraved, adults-only dark farce that marked a glorious return to form for Friedkin. At 77 years old, the “Exorcist” director still packs the power to shock: the film’s nail-biting, finger-licking third act, which involves sexual abuse via a Kentucky-fried chicken leg, rightly earned the film fierce notoriety and put many movie-goers off dropping by their local KFC on the way home from the theatre.

15. "Beasts of the Southern Wild"

Part survival drama and part mythical fantasy, Benh Zeitlin’s beautiful and imaginative Cannes hit “Beasts of the Southern Wild" is all magic. Its setting is the Bathtub, an isolated bayou in southern Louisiana, where a small, self-reliant community struggles to survive, struck by fearsome storms and seemingly about to be rampaged through by an unstoppable horde of prehistoric warthogs. In 6-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis, we have a new American star: in her debut role, Wallis is a force to be reckoned with, bravely carrying the film on her tiny but sturdy little shoulders, delivering a tough, unbreakable performance that outshines that of even her grown-up co-stars.

14. "The Perks of Being a Wallflower"

Based on his 1999 teen bestseller, Stephen Chbowski’s “The Perks of Being a Wallflower" is a timeless, astutely observed coming-of-age drama with much to say about adolescence, first love, growing up and the importance of friendship. Logan Lerman, best known for playing the title role in “Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief,” shines as Charlie, a friendless freshman taken under the wing of a pair of misfit high school seniors sassily played by Emma Watson and Ezra Miller. Watson, flinging decade-long memories of her as Hermione in the “Harry Potter” series into the fire, stuns as the free-spirited Sam, while Miller, last seen as a sinister psychopath in “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” steals the show as her giddy, witty step-brother Patrick. Smart, moving and completely authentic, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower" is the best of its kind since the heydays of John Hughes.

13. "Lincoln"

The single greatest movie performance of 2012 is in Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” as Daniel Day-Lewis dons the top hat and chin curtain to play America’s heralded 16th president. Ever the method actor, Day-Lewis sidesteps cheap mimicry, opting instead to crawl inside Lincoln’s reputed thick skin, getting a feel for him as a complex man of flesh and blood, dignity and humour, calm restraint and fierce moral fury. Spielberg, while more discreet than usual, directs this immersive historical epic with undeniable admiration for the American icon at its centre, but then who can blame him when Day-Lewis is so blindingly magnificent? Pullitzer prize-winning screenwriter Tony Kushner covers Lincoln’s heated final four months - in which he swayed the House of Representitives to pass the slavery-abolishing 13th Amendmant - with fascinating insight not just into Abe’s arm-twisting political strategies but also into Abe as a man of the people and as a man, full stop.

12. "Moonrise Kingdom"

Wes Anderson’s trademark kooky style is epitomised in “Moonrise Kingdom,” a colour-coded, unfashionably fashioned, folk song-soundtracked deadpan caper that is arguably the most enchanting entry in Anderson’s filmography. This is thanks to gifted 12-year-old stars Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward, a pair of misfit runaways whose blooming, pre-adolescent romance on a New England island idyll give the film’s centre an all-important beating heart in amongst the gorgeously assembled visual quirks. Naturally, detractors of Anderson’s uniquely coordinated clockwork aesthetic, and I know there are many, will likely feel alienated by what is admittedly an unashamed exercise in hyper-stylised self-indulgence; converts, on the other hand, will find it an unmitigated, wondrous joy.

11. "Berberian Sound Studio"

The banshee-like screams recorded in the “Berberian Sound Studio” will pierce your eardrums and haunt your nightmares. Peter Strickland’s second feature, following his slow-burning revenge thriller “Katalin Varga,” is a skin-crawling chiller about the making of a fictional, “Suspiria"-inspired giallo splatter-horror called “The Equestrian Vortex,” or rather the making of its backing track. Toby Jones is the taciturn British sound engineer flown from the English countryside to an Italian post-production suite to create the film’s audio effects, itself a fascinating insight into the under-appreciated foley process: did you know that a watermelon being decimated by a mallet sounds exactly like the crushing of a human skull? Jones’ character becomes increasingly suspicious that something fishy is going on with the film’s production team, all the while he finds himself hopelessly lost within the film’s spinning, whirring reels, of which we do not see a single frame (or do we?). But is the film leaking into him or is he leaking into it?

10. "The Raid"

Who would have guessed that the next John Woo would be a Welshman? Gareth Huw Evans, born and bred in the Cynon Valley village of Hirwaun, is the man behind “The Raid," a no-holds-barred Indonesian martial arts extravaganza fitted with the rawness of “Hard Boiled,” the claustrophobic intensity of “Assault on Precinct 13,” the awesome action of “Ong-Bak” and the endless entertainment value of “Die Hard.” It’s a ballet of bloodshed in which a 20-man SWAT team work their way up the 15 floors of a Jakartra high-rise, faced on their way by a never-ending onslaught of machete-wielding, AK-47-firing henchmen. With near-constant bare-knuckle brawls and bullet-dodging shoot-outs, “The Raid” is a pulse-pounding, bone-crunching, head-cracking surge of eye-popping adrenaline and an exciting revitalisation of the action genre - as rookie cop hero Rama, Iko Uwais is the new John McClane.

9. "Marvel Avengers Assemble"

“The Avengers," or “Marvel Avengers Assemble" as it was clunkily retitled in the UK to avoid confusion with a vaguely remembered spy show from the 1960s, was, for all intents and purposes, such stuff that nerds’ dreams are made of. The ultimate superhero mishmash, it audaciously brought together world-saving Marvel idols Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and The Hulk, along with the lesser known Black Widow and Hawk Eye, to face off against egomaniacal Asgardian god Loki, who schemes to subjugate the planet with an army of aliens. Witnessing each character clash and communicate under the wise-cracking guide of geek favourite Joss Whedon inspires quivering, childlike glee, as does a swooping, unbroken shot that takes us gliding through the crumbling skyscrapers of NYC as each hero individually does battle against a full-scale alien invasion. Perhaps it doesn’t quite pack the emotional punch or immense thematic weight of “The Dark Knight Rises,” but hey, who’s complaining when The Hulk is punching Thor in the face?

8. "Looper"

Rian Johnson’s “Looper” is an ingeniously devised, hypnotically complex, high-concept science-fiction thriller that dazzles the eyes, fries the nerves and confounds the mind. It is a film about time travel, starring Bruce Willis as an assassin from the future sent back in time to be assassinated by his younger self, as played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Its labyrinthine plotting and brain-boggling central concept reminded me of Christopher Nolan’s masterful “Inception,” a tricky act to follow, but Johnson pulls it off with grace and verve, proving himself to be one of America’s most gifted up-and-coming movie directors. This is an intelligent, ambitious, tremendously entertaining sci-fi flick with a pulpy edge and a grinning brio - for my money, it’s a classic in the making.

7. "The Dark Knight Rises"

With “The Dark Knight Rises,” writer-director Christopher Nolan once again took a veritable sledgehammer to the so-called boundaries of the mega-budget studio blockbuster. Following on from his daringly complex, dream-invading sci-fi thrill-ride “Inception,” Nolan’s eagerly anticipated, suitably epic conclusion to his earth-shattering Batman trilogy was a towering triumph in showing that tentpole Hollywood movies needn't be bird-brained to be successful. Indeed, this series ender, in which Christian Bale’s mentally and physically scarred caped crusader does battle with Tom Hardy’s terrifying masked terrorist Bane, made an absolute killing at the international box office, in spite of the fact that Nolan spends much of the film revelling in thought-provoking, meticulously explored themes such as despair versus hope, the body versus the spirit and good versus evil. Still, Nolan provides the comic-book crowd with the exhilarating superhero spectacle they so desperately crave, not least in a bombastic, bomb-defusing climax that brings the trilogy to a breathtaking, tear-jerking close. Joel Schumacher, eat your heart out.

6. "Skyfall"

In an awe-inspiring, action-packed prologue that begins on foot, moves onto a motorbike, dives onto a speeding train and then finally climbs inside a digger on top of that train, James Bond adventure “Skyfall” triumphantly vanquished the bitter aftertaste left behind by 007’s previous escapade, the arse-numbing “Quantum of Solace,” and boldly promised that great things were to come. Thankfully, that promise went unbroken: under the passionate but controlled direction of Oscar-winner Sam Mendes, “Skyfall” proved to be the greatest adventure of the MI6 agent's 50-year career, featuring a campily sinister villain in Javier Bardem’s cyber-terrorist Raoul Silva, a thrilling story of vengeance and betrayal, and, as performed for the third time by Daniel Craig, a Bond who’s broken, vulnerable and - most shocking of all - human. “James Bond will return,” promise the end credits once again. I assure you, Mr Bond, we will be there.

5. "The Master"

“The Master,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s polarising follow-up to his oil-draining magnum opus “There Will Be Blood," is as enigmatic as its eponymous cult leader. Entrancingly mysterious and bandaged in intriguing ambiguities, it is a film that invites debate over what it is really about. On the surface, it is a post-war epic about an emotionally disturbed seaman-turned-drifter (Joaquin Phoenix) who befriends an L. Ron Hubbard-like figure (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and is trained in the ways of a Scientology-like philosophical movement called The Cause. What’s really bubbling underneath that often-impenetrable surface, well, that’s a tough nut to crack, and perhaps one that is ultimately uncrackable. Many found “The Master” a challenging watch; indeed, in the screening I attended, nine of my fellow movie-goers ventured out of the room before the film had finished, never to return. Me, I thought it was a masterpiece.

4. "Amour"

Austrian arthouse auteur Michael Haneke is perhaps best known for his 1997 work “Funny Games," a nihilistic home-invasion shocker so stomach-churningly violent that at several points in the film one sadistic torturer knowingly turns to the camera and smirks at the audience. There’s none of that in “Amour," Haneke’s Palme d’Or-winning, French-language drama about an elderly woman left paralysed on one side of her body following two strokes and her husband, who, through the good times and the bad, cares for her until she takes her final breath. The title (meaning “love”) is apt: this is an unflinching, unblinking and wholly human portrayal of love, performed with devastating authenticity by Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva.

3. "Argo"

Even when over 5,000 miles east from his native state of Massachusetts, leading man turned big-shot director Ben Affleck wields the same unwavering confidence and unabashed brio boasted in his first two features, Boston-based crime dramas “Gone Baby Gone" and “The Town." His third feature, “Argo,” is a knuckle-gnawing, old-school political thriller and rib-tickling Hollywood satire set in revolutionary late-’70s Iran. It tells the stranger-than-fiction true-life story of a half-dozen U.S. diplomats hiding from hostage-takers in Tehran and the CIA man who stages a fake space opera production (think “Star Wars” or “Flash Gordon”) in an effort to extract them. To describe “Argo” as merely gripping would be to undermine the grasp in which it holds us: this is first-class entertainment from a director at the top of his game and whose skill continues to climb.

2. "Zero Dark Thirty"

In March of 2010, Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to ever win the Best Director Oscar for her brilliant Iraq war drama “The Hurt Locker," which rightly also won Best Picture. She may well reexperience that success this coming February with “Zero Dark Thirty,” a bold, brave political thriller chronicling the decade-long manhunt for Osama bin Laden. Opening with grisly depictions of torture by the CIA on battered and bruised al-Qaeda suspects (at its most controversial, the film is stubbornly ambiguous on the subject), Bigelow’s film only grows in intensity as it slowly but surely builds towards a heart-stopping, deftly handled finale placing us inside the fateful raid on bin Laden’s secret Pakistani fortress. Jessica Chastain gives a bravura, fiercely determined performance as the CIA woman heading the mission, strongly supported by Jason Clarke, Joel Edgerton and Mark Strong. For the whole of the film’s 157-minute length, Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal keep us sitting firmly on the edge of our seats, regularly planting the thought inside our heads that a bomb could go off at any given second (as in one unexpectedly explosive moment which made me leap out of my chair). “Zero Dark Thirty” is the year’s most thrillingly suspenseful film.

1. "Life of Pi"

Yann Martel’s worldwide bestseller “Life of Pi," something of a modern classic, was popularly deemed “unfilmable” when it was first published in 2001: with its tale of an Indian teenage boy named Pi drifting across the vast Pacific Ocean in a 25-foot lifeboat along with a fully grown male Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, how would one go about bringing it and its complex philosophical and spiritual musings to the big screen? With much ease, it seems, as shown in director Ang Lee’s magnificent adaptation, which tells Martel’s story and handles its physical and metaphysical elements with such grace and grandeur that one struggles to recall why a faithful and elegant transition from page to screen was considered so unassailable and unthinkable. While “Life of Pi” did nothing to make me believe in God, it did much to confirm my beliefs in the power of cinema and the miraculous possibilities of storytelling.