Film Comment ranks the best films of 2012

THE COMPLETE FILM COMMENT 2012 BEST-OF FILMS LISTS

RELEASED 2012

1. Holy Motors
Director: Leos Carax
2. The Master
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
3. Moonrise Kingdom
Director: Wes Anderson
4. This Is Not a Film
Directors: Jafar Panahi & Mojtaba Mirtahmasb
5. Amour
Director: Michael Haneke
6. The Turin Horse
Director: Béla Tarr
7. The Kid With a Bike
Directors: Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
8. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
9. Lincoln
Director: Steven Spielberg
10. Zero Dark Thirty
Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Rankings #11 – #20

11. Tabu, Director: Miguel Gomes
12. The Deep Blue Sea, Director: Terence Davies
13. Bernie, Director: Richard Linklater
14. Beasts of the Southern Wild, Director: Benh Zeitlin
15. Cosmopolis, Director: David Cronenberg
16. Barbara, Director: Christian Petzold
17. The Loneliest Planet, Director: Julia Loktev
18. Silver Linings Playbook, Director: David O. Russell
19. Oslo, August 31st, Director: Joachim Trier
20. Neighboring Sounds, Director: Kleber Mendonça Filho

Rankings #21 – #30

21. Django Unchained, Director: Quentin Tarantino
22. Almayer’s Folly, Director: Chantal Akerman
23. Magic Mike, Director: Steven Soderbergh
24. Argo, Director: Ben Affleck
25. Attenberg, Director: Athina Rachel Tsangari
26. The Color Wheel, Director: Alex Ross Perry
27. Rust and Bone, Director: Jacques Audiard
28. Killer Joe, Director: William Friedkin
29. Looper, Director: Rian Johnson
30. Life of Pi, Director: Ang Lee

Rankings #31 – #40

31. A Man Vanishes, Director: Shohei Imamura
32. Skyfall, Director: Sam Mendes
33. The Gatekeepers, Director: Dror Moreh
34. Elena, Director: Andrei Zvyagintsev
35. Haywire, Director: Steven Soderbergh
36. Damsels in Distress, Director: Whit Stillman
37. Abendland, Director: Nikolaus Geyrhalter
38. Two Years at Sea, Director: Ben Rivers
39. How to Survive a Plague, Director: David France
40. Keep the Lights On, Director: Ira Sachs

Rankings #41 – #50

41. A Burning Hot Summer, Director: Philippe Garrel
42. Miss Bala, Director: Gerardo Naranjo
43. Footnote, Director: Joseph Cedar
44. Compliance, Director: Craig Zobel
45. Alps, Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
46. Kill List, Director: Ben Wheatley
47. Farewell, My Queen, Director: Benoît Jacquot
48. In Another Country, Director: Hong Sang-soo
49. The Dark Knight Rises, Director: Christopher Nolan
50. The Day He Arrives, Director: Hong Sang-soo

FILMS WITHOUT DISTRIBUTION 2012
1. Our Children
Director: Joachim Lafosse
2. Memories Look at Me
Director: Song Fang
3. First Cousin Once Removed
Director: Alan Berliner
4. When Night Falls
Director: Ying Liang
5. Bwakaw
Director: Jun Robles Lana
6. Gebo and the Shadow
Director: Manoel de Oliveira
7. differently, Molussia
Director: Nicolas Rey
8. Perret in France and Algeria
Director: Heinz Emigholz
9. The Extravagant Shadows
Director: David Gatten
10. Three Sisters
Director: Wang Bing

Rankings #11 – #20

11. Dormant Beauty, Director: Marco Bellocchio
12. Far From Afghanistan, Directors: John Gianvito, Travis Wilkerson, Jon Jost, Minda Martin & Soon-Mi Yoo
13. Camille Rewinds, Director: Noémie Lvovsky
14. Wadjda, Director: Haifaa Al-Mansour
15. Greatest Hits, Director: Nicolás Pereda
16. small roads, Director: James Benning
17. Everybody in Our Family, Director: Radu Jude
18. Shepard and Dark, Director: Treva Wurmfeld
19. Hannah Arendt, Director: Margarethe von Trotta
20. Araf: Somewhere in Between, Director: Yesim Ustaoglu

Rankings #21 – #30

21. Thursday Through Sunday, Director: Dominga Sotomayor
22. Goodbye, Director: Mohammad Rasoulof
23. After Lucia, Director: Michel Franco
24. Reconversão, Director: Thom Andersen
25. Kon-Tiki , Directors: Joachim Roenning & Espen Sandberg
26. Tiger Tail in Blue, Director: Frank V. Ross
and Traveling Light, Director: Gina Telaroli (TIE)
28. Sun Don’t Shine, Director: Amy Seimetz
and Postcards from the Zoo , Director: Edwin (TIE)
and 3, Director: Pablo Stoll (TIE)

Rankings #31 – #40

31. The Invisible Ones, Director: Sebastien Lifshitz
32. Everyday, Director: Michael Winterbottom
33. Twilight Portrait, Director: Angelina Nikonova
and Age Is…, Director: Stephen Dwoskin (TIE)
35. The Strawberry Tree, Director: Simone Rapisarda Casanova
36. Here and There, Director: Antonio Mendez Esparza
and Louise Wimmer, Director: Cyril Mennegun (TIE)
38. Outrage Beyond, Director: Takeshi Kitano
39. Back to Stay, Director: Milagros Mumenthaler
and The Final Member, Directors: Jonah Bekhor & Zach Math (TIE)

Rankings #41 – #50

41. Kinshasa Kids , Director: Marc-Henri Wajnberg
and The War, Director: James Benning (TIE)
and Nights with Theodore, Director: Sébastien Betbeder (TIE)
44. The Minister, Director: Pierre Schöller
45. Celluloid Man, Director: Shivendra Singh Dungarpur
and Gangs of Wasseypur, Director: Anurag Kashyap (TIE)
47. The Dead Man and Being Happy, Director: Javier Rebollo
and The Invader, Director: Nicolas Provost (TIE)
and Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang, Director:Laurence Cantet (TIE)
50. Donoma, Director: Djinn Carrenard