Year-End List 2012: 20 Best Movies

Compared to previous years (2011 and 2010) my movie watching this year - or maybe just the reviewing - sucked. Haha. 2012 was the year I started incorporating a DAM NATION Movie Pool that worked fine until my blog got deleted - for reasons I explained before - and everything just went chaotic. So yeah, I somehow stopped writing reviews and the Movie Review segment of this blog collapsed.

But just the same - and maybe to start 2013 right - I'm still putting up my year-end list of the 20 Best Movies of 2012. Instead of a snippet of my reviews, which I'm seriously lacking, I've decided to just quote critics giving praises to the movies I have selected.

Oh, and since I'm not particularly fond of independent films - just my personal preference. Sue me! - so better not bash me for not including most of them in this list. Also, it’s not physically and financially possible for me to go and watch ALL films that were released this year, so just chill. Haha. This is just for fun.

So, without further ado, DAM NATION presents the 20 Best Movies of 2012..

20. Rise Of The Guardians

The joy of Peter Ramsey's clever and well-paced film is how it maintains its focus on the experience of childhood wonder rather than on holiday loot. - Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer

19. Ted

To fully appreciate Ted, it's best to simply forgive its bad behavior upfront and save any apologies for liking it until later. Sorry. - Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times

18. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2

Breaking Dawn, Part 2 expands with a full intensity of force, stronger and more epic than the films that led to this impactful finale. - Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News

17. Brave

Though it falls short of the studio's best in many respects, Brave is ravishing to look at. Merida's carrot corona is alone worth the price of admission. - Christopher Orr, The Atlantic

16. Prometheus

When it comes to technical wizardry and sheer visual spectacle, Prometheus unequivocally delivers. - Claudia Puig, USA Today

15. Magic Mike

Soderbergh has created a spicy yet lucid, surgingly high-energy yet smartly modernistic musical. - Richard Brody, New Yorker

14. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

I found that it provided a pretty convincingly immersive experience, and I look forward to the technology's evolution/refinement. Which I guess also means I look forward to the next two installments of the trilogy. - Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies

13. Chronicle

A semi-serious sci-fi romp, lighter and more fun than many of the comic-book movies that it steals from, a superhero movie in which nobody ever crusades, or wears a cape. - Roger Moore, McClatchy-Tribune News Service

12. 21 Jump Street

21 Jump Street makes clear from the beginning it is gobbling up some pop culture refuse in the name of nothing more than making fun of it and having fun with it. - Tom Long, Detroit News

11. Wreck-It Ralph

The most inventive and entertaining family movie I've seen this year, packed with wickedly smart humor and joyful animation. - Mary Pols, TIME Magazine

10. The Amazing Spider-Man

This is a grittier webslinger saga, led by a Peter Parker with swagger and angst and a tone defined more by emotional resonance than wide-eyed wonder. It still has plenty of fizz. - Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News

09. The Cabin In The Woods

For all of its many intellectual pleasures, and smart commentary, Cabin in the Woods is a visceral roller coaster of a movie at heart. And like the best thrill rides, when it's over, you just want to get back on and go again. - Ian Buckwalter, NPR

08. Pitch Perfect

Pitch Perfect totally gets one critical fact: A cappella singing contests are both a little bit amazing and a little bit ridiculous. The tone that the film strikes is a perfect balance between the two extremes. - Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post

07. Argo

Argo is a triumph. It has tension, sincerity, mystery, artistic responsibility, entertainment value, technical expertise, a narrative arc and a thrilling respect for the tradition of how to tell a story with minimum frills and maximum impact. - Rex Reed, New York Observer

06. Skyfall

This is a brilliant reboot of the canon, mixing a sense of melancholy, the shock of changing times and the darkness of loss with thrillingly staged chase and fight scenes and clever references to all that has come before. - Charlie McCollum, San Jose Mercury News

05. Looper

This is an exciting, exceptionally well-made futuristic thriller that also happens to be loaded with lived-in touches and punchy ideas. - Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald

04. The Hunger Games

Viewers who like a side order of political allegory with their science fiction will find much to savor here. So will romantics, fans of feminist heroines and action enthusiasts. "The Hunger Games" is that rare creation, an event movie of real significance. - Colin Cover, Minneapolis Star Tribune

03. The Dark Knight Rises

Arguably the biggest, darkest, most thrilling and disturbing and utterly balls-out spectacle ever created for the screen. - Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

02. The Perks Of Being A Wallflower

The Perks of Being a Wallflower finds an unexpectedly moving freshness in the old clichés by remaining attentive to the nuances of what happens within and between unhappy teenagers. - Ty Burr, Boston Globe

01. The Avengers

A spectacle in the grandest sense of the word - Laremy Legel, Film.com


NEXT: 10 Worst Films of 2012