Manohla Dargis: Top 36 Movies of 2012, as published by The New York Times
[see also 2010s, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2011]
- Amour — Michael Haneke
- The Deep Blue Sea — Terence Davies
- The Gatekeepers — Dror Moreh
- Holy Motors — Leos Carax
- The Master — Paul Thomas Anderson
- Moonrise Kingdom — Wes Anderson
- Once Upon a Time in Anatolia — Nuri Bilge Ceylan
- Searching for Sugar Man — Malik Bendjelloul
- Silver Linings Playbook — David O. Russell
- Zero Dark Thirty — Kathryn Bigelow
- Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry — Alison Klayman
- Argo — Ben Affleck
- August and After — Nathaniel Dorsky
- Auto-Collider XV — Ernie Gehr
- Barbara — Christian Petzold
- Beasts of the Southern Wild — Benh Zeitlin
- Bernie — Richard Linklater
- Brooklyn Castle — Katie Dellamaggiore
- The Dark Knight Rises — Christopher Nolan
- Departure — Mr. Gehr
- Footnote — Joseph Cedar
- The House I Live In — Eugene Jarecki
- The Kid with a Bike — Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
- Life of Pi — Ang Lee
- Magic Mike — Steven Soderbergh
- A Man Vanishes — Shohei Imamura
- Middle of Nowhere — Ava DuVernay
- Miss Bala — Gerardo Naranjo
- Napoleon (1927) — Abel Gance, restored by Kevin Brownlow
- Oslo, August 31st — Joachim Trier
- The Pirates! Band of Misfits — Peter Lord
- Rust and Bone — Jacques Audiard
- Skyfall — Sam Mendes
- Starlet — Sean Baker
- This is Not a Film — Jafar Panahi & Mojtaba Mirtahmasb
- The Turin Horse — Béla Tarr & Agnes Hranitzky
- View From the Acropolis — Lonnie van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan