Films Of The Year 2012

For the ninth year running, it's time to reflect on the films I've seen over the last 12 months.

During 2012, I went a little crazy - and went to the cinema a staggering 74 times, up from 47 last year and 33 in 2010. Admittedly I spent most of the year in a great deal of pain, making a cinema visit an easy and relatively comfortable outing, but it has also been a great year for film. There have been some great documentaries - The Island President, Searching for Sugar Man and Into The Abyss were great, while Marley and The Imposter were brilliant. The year ended strongly too - every film I saw from September's release of the remake of Dredd (which I really enjoyed, despite it having almost the same plot as The Raid) was highly watchable and five of them - Looper, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Skyfall, Argo and The Life of Pi - were unmissable.

Somehow, despite so many cinema visits, I managed to avoid every one of Mark Kermode's "Worst Films of 2012":


In keeping with previous years, I only count actual trips to a cinema - not films on DVD or BluRay - and as usual I've arbitrarily rated the films I've seen. You can find ratings for previous years here. Here's the 2012 list:

Ratings:
5 stars: Unmissable!
4 stars: Definitely worth seeing
3 stars: Decent film
2 stars: Disappointing
1 star: Pants
No stars: Why was this released?

In date order - five star films highlighted in bold:

The Artist (***)
War Horse (**)
Touch of Evil (****)
J Edgar (**)
Corionlanus (****)
Haywire (***)
The Descendants (*****)
Martha Marcy May Marlene (****)
Chronicle (****)
Carnage (****)
A Dangerous Method (**)
The Woman in Black (***)
Rampart (**)
Safe House (***)
The Raven (**)
Trishna (**)
The Hunger Games (****)
Into The Abyss (****)
The Kid With The Bike [Le gamin au vélo] (***)
The Island President (****)
Headhunters (***)
The Cabin In The Woods (****)
Marley (*****)
Being Elmo (**)
Marvel Avengers Assemble 3D (****)
Delicacy (**)
Dr Strangelove (****)
part of the Kubrick Season at Stratford Picturehouse
Dark Shadows (***)
The Dictator (no stars)
Monsieur Lazhar (***)
The Raid (*****)
2001: A Space Odyssey (****)
part of the Kubrick Season at Stratford Picturehouse
Iron Sky (****)
Town of Runners (***)
Prometheus 2D (***)
Moonrise Kingdom (*****)
Snow White and the Huntsman (**)
Ill Manors (***)
CoIntelPro 101 (***)
The Angel's Share (***)
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter 3D (**)
Storage 24 (***)
Quatermass and The Pit [1967] (***)
Anarchy Girls [Anarchija Zirmunuos] (**) - part of the East End Film Fest
The Amazing Spider-Man (***)
The Olympic Side of London (**) - part of the East End Film Fest
The Dark Knight Rises (****)
Salute (***)
Ted (***)
Undefeated (***)
Searching for Sugar Man (****)
The Bourne Legacy (**)
Shadow Dancer (****)
Total Recall (**)
The Imposter (*****)
Shut Up and Play the Hits (***)
Lawless (***)
Dredd 3D (****)
Looper (*****)
Killing Them Softly (****)
Liberal Arts (****)
Zaytoun (****) - part of the London Film Festival
On The Road (****)
Beast of the Southern Wild (*****)
SkyFall (*****)
5 Broken Cameras (****)
Argo (*****)
Silver Linings Playbook (****)
End of Watch (****)
Great Expectations (***)
Seven Pychopaths (***)
The Hobbit 3D (***)
The Life of Pi 3D (*****)
Jack Reacher (***)