Twenty Twelve: Films

I think I’m ready to commit now. Here are my Top 20 films of 2012. From where I’m sitting – which is usually in a cinema, with a paid-for ticket in my hand, watching something subtitled, but not exclusively – it’s been a very good year: stimulating, surprising, modest and varied. (I’ve discounted reissues from the Top 20, although there are very few films I loved as much as Ordet and Le Quai des brumes.)

1 Once Upon A Time In Anatolia | Nuri Bilge Ceylan | Turkey/Bosnia and Herzegovina

2 Amour | Michael Haneke | Austria/France/Germany

3 Sightseers | Ben Wheatley | UK

4 Aurora | Christi Piui | Romania

5 The Kid With A Bike | Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne | Belgium/France/Italy

6 Marvel Avengers Assemble | Joss Whedon | US

7 Beasts Of The Southern Wild | Benh Zeitlin | US

8 The Master | Paul Thomas Anderson | US

9 The Hunt | Thomas Vinterberg | Denmark

10 Martha Marcy May Marlene | Sean Durkin | US

11 Carancho | Pablo Trapero | Argentina/Chile/France/South Korea

12 Headhunters | Morten Tyldum | Norway/Germany

13 Berberian Sound Studio | Peter Strickland | UK

14 The Queen Of Versailles | Lauren Greenfield | USA/Netherlands/UK/Denmark

15 A Royal Affair | Nikolaj Arcel | Denmark/Sweden/Czech Republic

16 Silent Souls | Aleksi Fedorchenko | Russia

17 Margin Call | JC Chandor | USA

18 The Descendants | Alexander Payne | US

19 A Simple Life | Ann Hui | Hong Kong

20 Tabu | Miguel Gomes | Portugal/Germany/Brazil/France

Now, I’m just doing the following for the record. It’s every new film I have seen this year, pretty much in order of theatrical release (although some I will have caught up with on DVD), and this includes reissues. I think it adds up to 121 films. I feel annoyed that I somehow missed Argo, and This Is Not A Film, and Ill Manors, but there are only so many hours in a day, and days in a week. I’ve been a real trainspotter about country of origin, but usually, the first country is the “nationality” of the film.

The Iron Lady | Phyllida Lloyd | UK/France

Margin Call | JC Chandor | USA

Shame | Steve McQueen | UK

War Horse | Steven Spielberg | USA

Haywire | Steven Soderbergh | USA/Ireland

Coriolanus | Ralph Fiennes | UK

J. Edgar | Clint Eastwood | USA

The Descendants | Alexander Payne | USA

The Grey | Joe Carnahan | USA

Carnage | Roman Polanski | France/Germany/Poland/Spain

Man On A Ledge | Asger Leth | USA

Martha Marcy May Marlene | Sean Durkin | USA

A Dangerous Method | David Cronenberg | UK/Germany/Canada/Switzerland

Girl Model | David Redmon, Ashley Sabin | USA/Russia/Japan/France

The Woman In Black | James Watkins | UK/Canada/Sweden

Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close | Stephen Daldry | USA

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel | John Madden | UK/USA/UAE

Rampart | Oren Moverman | USA

Carancho | Pablo Trapero | Argentina/Chile/France/South Korea

If Not Us, Who? | Andres Veiel | Germany

Michael | Markus Schleinzer | Austria

Bel Ami | Declan Donnellan, Nick Ormerod | UK/Italy

John Carter | Andrew Stanton | USA

Ordet | 1955, Carl Theodor Dreyer | Denmark

Trishna | Michael Winterbottom | UK

21 Jump Street | Phil Lord, Chris Miller | USA

Bill Cunningham New York | Richard Press | USA/France

Contraband | Baltasar Kormákur | USA/UK/France

In Darkness | Agnieszka Holland | Poland/Germany/Canada

Once Upon A Time In Anatolia | Nuri Bilge Ceylan | Turkey/Bosnia and Herzegovina

We Bought A Zoo | Cameron Crowe | USA

The Hunger Games | Gary Ross | USA

The Kid With A Bike | Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne | Belgium/France/Italy

Into The Abyss: A Tale Of Death, A Tale Of Life | Werner Herzog | USA/UK/Germany

A Cat In Paris | Jean-Loup Felicioli, Alain Gagnol | France/Netherlands/Switzerland/Belgium

Headhunters | Morten Tyldum | Norway/Germany

La Grande Illusion | 1937, Jean Renoir | France

Le Havre | Aki Kaurismäki | Finland/France/Germany

This Must Be The Place | Paolo Sorrentino | Italy/France/Ireland

Battleship | Peter Berg | USA

Blackthorn | Mateo Gil | Spain/USA/Bolivia/France

The Cabin In The Woods | Drew Goddard | USA

Elles | Malgorzata Szumowska | France/Poland/Germany

Marley | Kevin Macdonald | USA/UK

Marvel Avengers Assemble | USA

African Cats | Alastair Fothergill, Keith Scholey | USA

Albert Nobbs | Rodrigo García | UK/Ireland/France/USA

Damsels In Distress | Whit Stillman | USA

The Monk | Dominik Moll | Spain/France

American Reunion | John Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg | USA

Goodbye, First Love | France

Monsieur Lazhar | France

Le Quai des brumes | Marcel Carné | France

Cafe de Flore | Mia Hansen-Løve | France/Germany

Dark Shadows | Tim Burton | USA

The Raid | Gareth Evans | Indonesia/USA

Moonrise Kingdom | Wes Anderson | USA

Prometheus | Ridley Scott | USA/UK

The Angels’ Share | Ken Loach | UK/France/Belgium/Italy

Woody Allen: A Documentary | Robert B Weide | USA

Cosmopolis | David Cronenberg | Canada/France/Portugal/Italy

A Royal Affair | Nikolaj Arcel | Denmark/Sweden/Czech Republic

Rock Of Ages | Adam Shankman | USA

Killer Joe | William Friedkin | USA

Silent Souls | Aleksi Fedorchenko | Russia

Friends With Kids | Jennifer Westfeldt | USA

The King Of Devil’s Island | Marius Holst | Norway

Your Sister’s Sister | Lynn Shelton | USA

The Amazing Spider-Man | Marc Webb | USA

God Bless America | Bobcat Goldthwait | USA

The Hunter | Daniel Nettheim | Australia

You’ve Been Trumped | Antony Baxter | UK

Magic Mike | Steven Soderbergh | USA

Electrick Children | Rebecca Thomas | USA

The Giants | Bouli Lanners | Belgium

Nostalgia For The Light | Patricio Guzmán | France/Germany/Chile/Spain

Something From Nothing: The Art Of Rap | Ice-T/Andy Baybutt | UK/USA

The Dark Knight Rises | Christopher Nolan | USA/UK

In Your Hands | Lola Doillon | France

Swandown | Andrew Kötting | UK

Searching For Sugar Man | Malik Bendjelloul | Sweden/UK

El Bulli: Cooking In Progress | Gereon Wetzel | Germany

Dark Horse | Todd Solondz | USA

Ted | Seth MacFarlane | USA

Eames: The Architect And The Painter | Jason Cohn, Bill Jersey | USA

A Simple Life | Ann Hui | Hong Kong

Sound Of My Voice | Zal Batmanglij | USA

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry | Alison Klayman | USA

360 | Fernando Mereilles | UK/Austria/France/Brazil

The Bourne Legacy | Tony Gilroy | USA

Take This Waltz | Sarah Polley | Canada/Spain/Japan

The Imposter | Bart Layton | UK

The Watch | Akiva Schaffer | USA

Shadow Dancer | James Marsh | UK/Ireland

Berberian Sound Studio | Peter Strickland | UK

Anna Karenina | Joe Wright | UK

Lawless | John Hillcoat | USA

The Queen Of Versailles | Lauren Greenfield | USA/Netherlands/UK/Denmark

Tabu | Miguel Gomes | Portugal/Germany/Brazil/France

To Rome With Love | Woody Allen | USA/Italy/Spain

Killing Them Softly | Andrew Dominick | USA

Untouchable | Olivier Lakache, Eric Toledano | France

Barbara | Christian Petzold | Germany

Holy Motors | Leos Carax | France/Germany

Looper | Rian Johnson | USA/China

On The Road | Walter Salles | France/UK/USA/Brazil

Beasts Of The Southern Wild | Benh Zeitlin | USA

Grassroots | Stephen Gyllenhaal | USA

Ginger & Rosa | Sally Potter | UK/Denmark/Canada/Croatia

Elena | Andrey Zvyagintsev | Russia

Skyfall | Sam Mendes | UK/USA

Keep The Lights On | Ira Sachs | USA

Rust And Bone | Jacques Audiard | France/Belgium

The Master | Paul Thomas Anderson | USA

Alps | Giorgos Lanthimos | Greece

Aurora | Cristi Puiu | Romania/France/Switzerland/Germany

Great Expectations | Mike Newell | UK/USA

I, Anna | Barnaby Southcombe | UK/Germany/France

The Hunt | Thomas Vinterberg | Denmark

Amour | Michael Haneke | Austria/France/ Germany

Sightseers | Ben Wheatley | UK

A busy filmgoing year. Perhaps this is why I’ve spent so little of listening to new music – a fact that will be apparent when I do my Top 10 Albums of 2012 – and reading new books – ergo: my forthcoming Top 3 Books of 2012!

Looking forward to your own choices. Ideally, you won’t begin your comments with “I can’t believe you missed out …”