As we draw near the end of the decade, I’ve been looking back at the past ten years of cinema and gathering my thoughts on each film released within each of them. In the leadup to my Best Films of the 2010’s list, I will also be sharing a Top 10 for every year this decade that I didn’t get a chance to before starting this blog. So here are my top 10 films of 2012!
2010|2011|2012|2013|2014|2015|2016|2017|2018|2019
Honorable Mentions: Silver Linings Playbook, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Zero Dark Thirty, Searching for Sugarman
I had forgotten how strong 2012 was before I checked to see what came out this year! Many of these films entertained me on a deeper level, and in any other year most of these might have cracked the Top 10. Regardless of where all these films land on my best of the decade list, I hope I’ll be able to look back and remember them in the future as powerful and effective experiences worth revisiting years and decades later.
10. Skyfall
Ready for a hot take? Daniel Craig is the best Bond, period. He has brought 007 into the 21st century with a fresh take on the classic character, portraying him as an aging and conflicted man struggling to reconcile his occupation with his personal desires. Featuring a chilling villainous turn from Javier Bardem, yet another fantastic Craig performance, and a gorgeous visual style from the tandem of Sam Mendes and Roger Deakins (a preview of their jaw-dropping work in this year’s 1917!). It’s the rare franchise flick to ascend to something more than the sum of its parts, and the top-tier work from all parties makes this a Bond film that does not feel designed by committee, which cannot be said for the other installments.
9. Seven Psychopaths
Fine, I’ll say it: Martin McDonagh is one of the greatest writers of the 21st century. His prolific work in theater speaks for itself, and his recent forays into film have all been excellent. He created one of my top 5 films of all time and an Oscar frontrunner with two of his three attempts, and his third (this one) is a rollicking good time. He can write effective and original humor like few others on the planet, and his characters are always unpredictable and fascinating to watch. The plot may be mindless fun, but fun it is, holding my interest all the way through and proving resilient to scrutiny and the rewatchability factor. It won’t be his film that I look back the most fondly upon, but it’s a reminder that even the worst McDonagh flick is still miles better than 99% of the field.
8. Amour
I typically hate movies like this, that take an agonizing and uncomfortable subject matter and put it on full display for our “enjoyment”. However, the filmmaking mastery on display from Michael Haneke is impossible to ignore, and I was riveted at every turn thanks to his brilliant decision-making. He chooses to present the story of this couple in its rawest form: no music, no flashy visuals, no distractions. We are forced to sit with them and their struggles from beginning to end, with no reprieve, so that we fully understand the agony that this disease brings them and yearn for peace with every fiber of our being. It’s yet another fantastic example of characterizing people who do horrible things in a way that we sympathize with them, and I feel these characters could have done much worse in this film and still been excused due to their horrific circumstances. I won’t be watching this film ever again, but I respect the craft and will be haunted by it for decades to come.
7. Chronicle
This film had one of my favorite trailers of the decade, and thankfully it lived up to the hype it built for itself. The found-footage genre may have been on its way out the door by the time this film came out, but it still managed to do enough to justify its existence and give the audience a great time. It was exploring alternate-timeline superhero origin stories before Brightburn made it cool! I connected with the protagonist(s) and enjoyed simply spending time with them and learning what makes them tick. Sure, some of the plot points are a bit predictable and cliche, but I still loved the ride it took me on. It features some spectacular action sequences and moments of humor that only this film could have given us, and the filmmakers did a great job exploring every option that a scenario like this would open up for a unique cinematic experience. Sure, Josh Trank’s directing career went off a cliff after this film, but I’ll still fondly remember his debut.
6. The Master
Despite my predilection for intricate and complex plots, sometimes a film can get by on minimal action if they have really strong characters. Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master is such a film: not very much happens throughout the two-and-a-half-hour runtime, and yet every scene is memorable and necessary because we are getting to know these fascinating characters so in-depth. Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman turn in some of the best acting performances of the decade, including one scene in particular (the processing sequence) that will stick with me for a while. The film explores humanity in a way that I really connected to: using Phoenix’s character as a sort of lab rat, as we observe his behavior and reflect on whether humans are better off serving a master of being left to their own devices. It’s a question without an easy answer, but PTA does an excellent job of exploring it in-depth and leaving the audience to draw its own conclusions.
5. The Hunt
This film made me physically angry while watching it. Not because of anything it did wrong, but because it so perfectly places the audience in the shoes of the protagonist that we yearn with every fiber of our being for justice to be served. Mads Mikkelsen plays Lucas, a kindergarten teacher falsely accused of raping a little girl, showing us all the ramifications in the tight-knit community and Lucas’s subsequent casting-out from society. It builds its tension so slowly and so cleverly, utilizing dramatic irony perfectly by giving the audience several moments of realization that a character is about to fall into an unintentional trap that they cannot get out of. It’s a frustrating experience, but one very much by design, and I can’t imagine the story being told any other way and having nearly the impact it does.
4. End of Watch
This is one of those films that sadly seems to have slipped through the cracks of public recognition. Granted, David Ayer went on to make some real stinkers after this film (Suicide Squad and Bright), but this down-to-earth exploration of the modern-day LAPD was a gripping and thought-provoking ride. It was shot found footage-style, which made everything feel realistic, and the actors really went through real police training to ensure that they could get every little detail right. The chemistry between leads Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña is infectious, and creates a clever sense of foreboding as we watch them get into trouble and worry for their safety. The film gave me a newfound respect for our boys in blue by immersing me in their day-to-day routines and creating lovable characters whose fates I truly cared about.
3. The Place Beyond the Pines
This ambitious multi-generational drama drew mixed reviews upon release, with many saying it bit off more than it could chew and failed to live up to its ambition. I respectfully disagree. This movie only gets better for me with subsequent rewatches, at once a gripping thriller and an insightful commentary on fathers and sons. The film’s multi-perspective structure, with each act focusing on a different main character, really worked for me and doesn’t feel like a gimmick at all. The acting is incredible as well, with leads Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper among others carrying the emotional weight on their shoulders in scene after scene, preventing the story from devolving into melodrama. It leaves us with an ambiguous ending, one that doesn’t attempt to put a neat bow on the difficult questions raised throughout the story, for which I give major props. Cinema doesn’t need to provide the answers: it simply ought to frame its questions in a context that we can then use to answer ourselves.
2. Looper
Rian Johnson got a lot of flack for his work in the Star Wars universe, and while I won’t defend his choices in The Last Jedi, I won’t stand for any retroactive slander on his body of work from salty fanboys! I don’t think Looper is perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a clever time-travel thriller with fantastic acting, a well-written and paced plot, and some fascinating futuristic iconography. Yeah, the telekinesis stuff was a little weird and over-the-top, but the last five minutes of the film completely blew my socks off and papered over any minor quibbles I had with the film. It’s my second-favorite ending to a film from the entire decade – eclipsed only by one of my favorite films of all time! Original, big-budget thrillers don’t get made very often these days, so when a good one like Looper comes along it’s worth praising.
1. Moonrise Kingdom
I can’t point to any one thing about Moonrise Kingdom that I love, because everything about it just tickles me in the right way. This is the film that grew on me the most over the course of the decade, the one film I could pop on at any time and thoroughly enjoy myself while still finding new things on each rewatch. This is Wes Anderson’s quirky style at its best, infused with a sense of childlike wonder that gives purpose to his garish set designs and unorthodox shooting techniques. It’s a film where the kids act like adults and the adults act like kids, so the fantastical world-building and brazen immersion-breaking make perfect sense. The child acting isn’t perfect, but hey, it’s a movie about accepting imperfections, so even that fits the theme somehow. The humor is on-point, a measured mix of physical slapstick and smart characterization leading to some gut-busting moments. Of all the films on my list, this is the one that I envision myself watching the most often in the decades to come…a perfect rainy-day guilty pleasure flick.
Thanks for reading! Check back soon as I fill out the rest of the decade with my Top 10 lists this month, leading up to my Top 100 Films of the Decade ranking! Check out the home page for more Top 10’s, reviews, and film musings…I’m willing to bet you’ll find something you like!
-Austin Daniel
Scriptophile 