Ty Burr: Top 26 Movies of 2012, as published by The Boston Globe
- Beasts of the Southern Wild — Benh Zeitlin
- Amour — Michael Haneke
- Zero Dark Thirty — Kathryn Bigelow
- Moonrise Kingdom — Wes Anderson
- Holy Motors — Leos Carax
- Lincoln — Steven Spielberg
- Argo — Ben Affleck
- Django Unchained — Quentin Tarantino
- This is Not a Film — Jafar Panahi & Mojtaba Mirtahmasb
- Oslo, August 31st — Joachim Trier
- Bachelorette — Leslye Headland
Honorable Mention
- The Sessions — Ben Lewin
- The Master — Paul Thomas Anderson
- Silver Linings Playbook — David O. Russell
- Safety Not Guaranteed — Colin Trevorrow
- The Central Park Five — Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon
- Killing Them Softly — Andrew Dominik
- The House I Live In — Eugene Jarecki
- Frankenweenie — Tim Burton
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower — Stephen Chbosky
- Searching for Sugar Man — Malik Bendjelloul