Year-End Lists

Manohla Dargis: Top 36 Movies of 2012, as published by The New York Times

[see also 2025 • 2024 • 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2010s • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013 • 2011]

1. Amour
   Michael Haneke
2. The Deep Blue Sea
   Terence Davies
3. The Gatekeepers
   Dror Moreh
4. Holy Motors
   Leos Carax
5. The Master
   Paul Thomas Anderson
6. Moonrise Kingdom
   Wes Anderson
7. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
   Nuri Bilge Ceylan
8. Searching for Sugar Man
   Malik Bendjelloul
9. Silver Linings Playbook
   David O. Russell
10. Zero Dark Thirty
    Kathryn Bigelow

Rest of the List, Alphabetically

• 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