My top 10 films of 2012

It's that time of year again. Each year I develop a top 10 list for MediaMatters, a website I write for, mostly film reviews. My list is limited by being in a market where some major films--I'm thinking Amour--have not yet come to the theater. That film may be like this year's A Separation, too late to appear on this year's list but perhaps appearing on next year's.

There were many good films in 2012. I could easily make a top 20 list. Narrowing it to 10 was not easy. And to decide on a No. 1, I turned to a film that won last year’s Oscar for best foreign film but wasn’t released widely here until well into 2012.

1. A Separation. This outstanding film from Iran tells of a married couple faced with a difficult decision—to improve the life of their daughter by moving to another country or to stay in Iran and look after a deteriorating parent who has Alzheimer’s disease. They decide to separate and put off divorce. Their separation leads to a succession of events that disrupt several lives and show the painful consequences of our decisions.

2. Lincoln. This political drama about President Lincoln’s struggle to get the 13^th Amendment, abolishing slavery, passed before the Confederacy surrendered is one of the best-written films of the year. And Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln heads a stellar cast as he reveals the human Lincoln behind the icon we tend to exalt.

3. Zero Dark Thirty. This riveting film chronicles the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden after the September 2001 attacks and his death at the hands of the Navy S.E.A.L. Team 6 in May 2011. It uses an intelligent script and an outstanding performance by Jessica Chastain to follow the trail of clues and tenacity required to find bin Laden. While its depiction of obtaining information from torture is misleading, it shows its horror.

4. Argo. This film recounts the true story, with white-knuckle suspense added, about a CIA “exfiltration” specialist who concocts a risky plan to free six Americans who take shelter at the home of the Canadian ambassador after Iranians take other U.S. embassy workers hostage in 1979. Director Ben Affleck captures the context of Iranian hatred of the United States for its support of a ruthless dictator.

5. Beasts of the Southern Wild. This mythic tale is told through the viewpoint of Hushpuppy (6-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis in an amazing performance). She lives with her father, Wink, in the Bathtub, a southern Delta community at the edge of the world. He has a mysterious illness and tries to prepare Hushpuppy with tough love. A storm hits, and the ice caps melt, unleashing an army of prehistoric creatures called aurochs. Hushpuppy goes in search of her lost mother. Likely you’ve not seen a film like this.

6. Life of Pi. This fable based on the popular, Booker Prize-winning book is about storytelling and belief. It tells the amazing story of a teenage boy surviving a journey across the Pacific on a lifeboat in the company of a 450-pound Bengal tiger. This magical film is one of the most religious released this year.

7. Moonrise Kingdom. This sweet, funny film follows two 12-year-olds who fall in love and run away on an island off New England in 1965. Various factions of the town mobilize to search for them, and the town is turned upside down. Director Wes Anderson has crafted another of his fables, but he includes telling though eccentric detail and shows respect for all his characters.

8. Cloud Atlas. This amazing adaptation of David Mitchell’s intricate novel melds six stories from six different time periods, including two in the future, and shows how the actions of individuals, often against repressive systems, reverberate through time. Despite some miscues, the editing here is often ingenious. Those who haven’t read the book, however, may have trouble following the narrative.

9. The Perks of Being a Wallflower. This gem of a film captures the feelings of Charlie, a high school freshman who is not only an introvert and smart but has lost his best friend to suicide and suffers from a mental illness. Two seniors, step-siblings Sam and Patrick, adopt him into the “wallflowers,” their group of outsiders, and help him adjust to the real world.

10. The Invisible War. This gut-wrenching documentary explores the preponderance of rape in the U.S. military. The film uses interviews of victims of sexual assault with cases going back to the 1960s and up to the present and reveals the unjust military system that provides no accountability to rapists.