The 10 Best Films (I saw) in 2012

If I were a professional critic and had seen (and suffered through) nearly every new release of the year, I'd give you my Top 10 (or 100) Films of 2012, but I'm not so I can't. There are few that got great reviews this year that I haven't seen yet (The Master, Zero Dark, Silver Linings) that I plan to see and a few that got great reviews (Lincoln, e.g.) about which I was indifferent or worse. Based on what I've seen this year, which includes as usual a lot of foreign films, indies, classics, and documentaries, here is my list of the Ten Best Movies (I saw) in 2012, arranged alphabetically (with older movies so noted), with a few also-rans at the end:

Argo. What a surprise. Who would have thought anyone could make a movie that weaves together great suspense and drama and broad, satiric comedy? In my view, the best new movie of 2012 so far.

Coriolanus. The history of Shakespeare on film is a pretty dismal record, adaptations (e.g., Ran) and the occasional genius (e.g., Welles) aside. Coriolanus, therefore, was another surprise of the year - a terrific film-version of a smart production in present-day setting of a S. tragedy that is rarely performed and very much on point today. One of the plays, I think, in which S. actually anticipated the capacity of cinema to do his vision full justice.

Monsieur Lazhar. Amid all the crappy, sentimental, cliched movies about the life of a schoolteacher, Monsieur Lazhar stands out as one of the best school-based movies ever. An incredibly moving, well-paced, beautifully acted story about a teacher who takes on a very difficult situation in a Montreal elementary school and does the best he can - while struggling with some personal demons.

The Nasty Girl. A powerful German film from 1989, loosely based on true events, apparently, about a German schoolgirl who wrote an essay about the role her town played in the Holocaust and suffered public outrage and ostracism. This couldn't happen today of course (ha).

 Onibaba. A Japanese b/w classic from 1964 that's about as scary and horrifying as anything you're likely to see, including some of the most visually striking scenes ever filmed. All takes place in and around a hut in a marsh, everything surrounded by tall sawgrass that gives the entire movie a weird perspective and keeps everything on edge.

Pariah. Among the many recent (and not so recent) films about misfit teenagers struggling to find their identity, to fit in some some of the peers, and to win the love of their difficult or indifferent parents, Pariah is one of the best. A simple story of a young girl in an NYC high school struggling with her sexual identity and with overbearing parents. Very realistic and very touching.

Sleepless Night. This French film from 2011 is just about a perfect genre action drama - cops, gangsters, drugs - all very fast-paced and exciting, expertly scripted, takes place over a classic 24-hour span, will keep you riveted. I hear an English-language version is in the works, but they'll probably make it big budget and screw it up, so see the original.

 Sweetgrass. Another one of those films that you think would be impossible, but turns out to be astonishing. A documentary from 2009 about Montana sheep farmers. Huh? But it contains scenes and footage of extraordinary power and beauty. This is an absolutely pure documentary - just the edited footage, no voice-overs, sound track, B-role footage, nothing but what the filmmakers observed over time.

The Taste of Others. A very entertaining French film from 2000 that follows the paths of several characters, each pursuing a separate line of plot, and the lines cross occasionally - bringing together various unlikely compositions. It's about gangsters, corporate execs., and a theater troupe, among other things. This technique is often pretentious or preposterous (e.g., Crash), but here it's understated and effective.

Tuesday After Christmas. Like many Romanian films, this one starts slowly and build gradually, drawing you in - and by the end you're completely engaged in the lives of these difficult characters. Very little exposition, and we learn about the characters and their interrelations only by careful observation - each scenes gives us a bit more information, and we gradually put all the pieces together (much like in life) - as the film moves inexorably toward its powerful closing scenes.

A few others worth mentioning: The Iranian A Separation, which I liked though maybe not as much as some others did; the Israeli Footnote, which was marred by the jaunty score; the classic Billy Wilder film Ace in the Hole, for its unique and prescient look at social forces in conflict in the American West; the classic documentary The Thin Blue Line, an anatomy of a crime and conviction; and two from 2011 that I didn't see until this year and that were both good if not great: The Help and The Artist.