I spent the last month of 2012 avoiding hobbits, dodging Quentin Tarantino and trying to remember what I liked about the year about to end.

 Well, there were lots of things to like, good movies and maybe a couple of great ones, And yet, long ago, I decided to leave “best-of” lists and questions of enduring greatness to historians, who have time and perspective to ponder the superiority of Vertigo over Citizen Kane or Battleship Potemkin. The movies below are simply my favorites, arranged in a rough order of preference, films that showed me something new—or at least less commonplace—about our world, and did it engagingly and entertainingly.

 

Sadly, some of these selections had brief appearances at best on Milwaukee’s big screens—often at the UWM Union Theatre or as part of the Milwaukee Film Festival. One, the superb Chicken and Plums by Iranian expatriate Marjane Satrapi, never made it at all.

 

Favorite Films

Lincoln

Flight

Killing Them Softly

Chicken with Plums

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Compliance

The Woman in the Fifth

Savages

Safety Not Guaranteed

Valley of the Saints

Sound of My Voice

Ruby Sparks

Dark Horse

Restless City

The Sessions

Argo

 

Favorite Animated Films

Frankenweenie

The Lorax

 

Favorite Documentaries

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

Searching for Sugarman

Neil Young Journeys