My Favourites of the Year 2012

Just like it happens at the end of every year during the awards season, we movie-lovers, make lists of our favourite films / performances / scores etc. of the year that has passed. Have in mind that the films I've chosen for my personal top 10 may not be the best of the best but they are the films that I enjoyed the most and I rewached -or would gladly rewatch- many times. I must also add that this is one of those years that I happen not to agree with almost none of the Oscar Nominated films (except two) and I believe that the Academy missed many opportunities in all the categories. So, let's begin:

BEST ACTOR

Joaquin Phoenix

Even if you didn't like The Master and even if you didn't agree with all of Paul Thomas Anderson's choices, you have to admit that Phoenix's performance is the driving force of the film and that without him, this would be a very different movie. Even the great Daniel Day-Lewis recognises the fact that this might be the best performance of the year and yet, Joaquin Phoenix has been dramatically neglected during the Awards Season.

Runner-Up John Hawkes for The Sessions

BEST ACTRESS

Marion Cotillard

Since La Vie En Rose, Cotillard has become one of my most favourite actresses and admittedly she has every right to be. She is very talented and every single one of her performances is well thought-out. Her performance in De Rouille et D'Os is one of the most heart-breaking ever as Cotillard carries a very heavy film without making it depressing. Felicitations!

Runner-Up Naomi Watts in The Impossible

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Dwight Henry

Watching Beasts of the Southern Wild I was in awe of Dwight Henry's amazing performance and then I found out that he is not an actor, but a restaurant owner. What a shock! He is great in this film and he manages to create a character that's really deep even though he seems quite shallow and unlikeable at first. Great job.

Runners-Up

Tom Hanks in Cloud Atlas. I consider his part a supporting one because he is not the main character in all the stories, and I think he's given one of his greatest performances in this film.
Samuel L. Jackson in Django Unchained. When you have so many great actors in a film and they all give their best, it's hard to choose one of the lot but I think that Jackson's performance stood out.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Helen Hunt

The Sessions was a great film for many reasons and Hunt's performance was one of them. She made sex look neither dirty nor mechanic, and she had nude scenes that didn't stand out as "nude". The way she approached this role was really brave and serious and made me happy to see her back on the big screen.

Runner-Up

Anne Hathaway in Les Misérables. Even though I like Helen Hunt's performance the most, it doesn't mean that I didn't bawl my eyes out with Hathaway's I dreamed a dream, and that I won't clap when she wins her Oscar (which she will).

BEST DIRECTOR

Joe Wright for Anna Karenina. Now, this might be one of the least popular opinions on the internet but personally, I enjoyed Wright's approach to Tolstoy's novel so much that I can't help but give him the first place in this list.

Runners-Up

Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski for Cloud Atlas. I've read the book on which this film is based, and all I can say is a big "good job" for the amazing effort to translate such a difficult material to the big screen. The way the 6 stories of the book were combined, edited and presented was magnificent.

BEST SCORE

Dario Marianelli's score for Anna Karenina. Marianelli always delivers some great works and this is one of his best ever.
Reinhold Heil, Johnny Klimek and Tom Tykwer's score for Cloud Atlas. The score is one of the most important aspects of this film and in many ways it succeeds in giving the viewers the feeling one might experience while reading the book.

MY FAVOURITE FILMS OF THE YEAR 2012

These films are presented just in alphabetical order as it is really difficult for me to choose which I prefer more or less than the others. They are, after all, very different films. So, let's begin.

1. Anna Karenina

I'm not biased when it comes to Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice, Atonement). I really like him as a director but there are films of his that I didn't enjoy very much (Hanna, The Soloist). This, however is one of his films that I watched with an open mind and I managed to lose myself in his vision. After all, if it was presented as another typical love story, it wouldn't be as impressive. (My one complaint when it comes to this film is the casting of Aaron Taylor-Johnson who never manages to convince me.)

2. The Cabin in the Woods

What can I say about this film? It comes from the mind of my beloved Joss Whedon and it is directed by Drew Goddard. When I first saw it, I wasn't that impressed. It was after all a horror film, and I am not a fan of this genre. But, then I rewatched it and I started thinking about all the elements that make this film a serious satire of the horror genre. Cabin is not just a film. It critisises the horror films that don't offer anything new and it also has a jaw-dropping and breathtaking third act that could be a separate film by itself. If you haven't seen it, you have to, but avoid the trailer as it spoils many of the smartest elements of the film.

3. Cloud Atlas

I have the feeling that this film is so under-appreciated and that it will be recognised for what it truly is after some years have passed. I might be biased because I loved the extraordinary book on which it is based, but this is one of my most favourite films of 2012. The music, the performances, the scale of the project and even the message that "everything is connected" and anything you do can and will affect someone in the future make this one of the most unique experiences I've had watching a film. Let's not count out the presence of Tom Hanks, one of my most favourite actors and we have a great film.

4. De Rouille et d'Os

This was a film that I watched knowing nothing about the plot or the subject and I was pleasantly surprised, not only by the amazing performances by Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts but also by the way this very dark subject was approached and the realistic yet optimistic feeling with which it left me in the end. This is the realistic cinema at its best and it is no surprise that it comes from a European country, like France.

5. Django Unchained

What can someone say about Quentin Tarantino? Either you like him or not and in this case he is one of my most favourite directors. Django Unchained was on my list with the most anticipated films of 2012 and it was indeed a very enjoyable film. If I made a list with the best to worst Tarantino films, it wouldn't be on the top spot but it would be really close to the top. With a cast that includes Jamie Foxx, Samuel L. Jackson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz, Franco Nero and so many more, how could it not be one of Tarantino's best?

6. John Carter

When it comes to science-fiction and fantasy I am a sucker and this is a bit of both. This film was butchered at the box-office and it wasn't very well-received by critics either but it is a film that I enjoyed very much and I've seen three times already, something that sort of makes it one of this year's favourites for me. It is not a "serious" film but it is a good film in its own rights and it is based on some classic literature that inspired many of the greatest science fiction of the 20th century, such as Star Wars. So the next time you see it, try and think that it is based on a series of books that was released from 1912 to 1943 and even if it reminds you of other things, that's only because these "other things" stole from the original material.

7. Medianeras

Can true love be found in a big and chaotic city like Buenos Aires? Does the modern way of life with computers, the internet, the long working hours, the reduced human interaction, the increased feeling of loneliness and isolation, the small cage-like apartments that are part of huge impersonal blocks of flats and the intense fear of expressing one's self and one's vulnerability, allow young people to find someone to share their lives with? Medianeras is a small Argentinian film that presents all these questions and it manages to find the silver lining despite its realistic view on our everyday lives. Medianeras is perhaps my top film of the past year and that's because its subject is universal and can happen anywhere in the world and not only in Buenos Aires where its protagonists live. Amazing.

8. Les Misérables

Being a fan of musicals but living very far away from Broadway and the West End, it is always a great pleasure for me to be able to see a classic musical on the big screen. That being said, I have to mention that Victor Hugo's Les Misérables is my most favourite book and I'm a little sensitive when it comes to its adaptation. But what surprised me the most about Les Miz was how faithful it was to the original material. Not only it showed (for the first time) the real ending of the book, but it also incuded important characters, such as Eponine who was always left out of the adaptations. Now, this film might have some problems with the directing and the editing but this doesn't mean that I haven't already watched it twice without getting bored. I love the songs (some more, some less) and I think that the actors did a tremendous job to bring some of the world's literature's deepest characters to life.

9. Prometheus

Remember what I said in the John Carter paragraph about my relationship with science-fiction? Well, here we go again. This film has been severely criticised for many things but I was one of the people that enjoyed it very much. I liked Ridley Scott's work with it, I loved the effects and the sets and I really liked Noomi Rapace in the leading role. It is science fiction and the fact that it doesn't give answers to the questions it raises is fine by me (even though many judged it for that), and that's because if it gave answers, they wouldn't be satisfactory enough to give a realistic feel to the film. This way, it presents a futuristic world which still searches the answers to the same questions that bother us, here in 2013, and it is easier for us -the viewers- to identify with the film's characters.

10. The Sessions

Last but not least, comes this small film that stars Helen Hunt and John Hawkes. I could have gone with Les Intouchables, the amazing french film that had a similar subject, but I chose The Sessions mostly because it touched me a little bit more when I saw it. Maybe it was because I saw it with a big audience during the Athens Film Festival, maybe because it showed a subject that I'd never seen before and that is how people with disabilities approach sex, but anyway, this is the 10th film in this year's top 10. Helen Hunt was amazing in it and the always great John Hawkes gave one of his typically flawless performances. Also, let's not forget the funny and memorable appearance of William H. Macy as a very liberal priest.

So, there you have it. These are my favourite films of 2012 (at least for the moment).

Honorable Mentions: