Manohla Dargis: Top 36 Movies of 2012 (as published by The New York Times)

1. Amour – Michael Haneke
2. The Deep Blue Sea – Terence Davies
3. The Gatekeepers – Dror Moreh
4. Holy Motors – Leos Carax
5. The Master – Paul Thomas Anderson
6. Moonrise Kingdom – Wes Anderson
7. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia – Nuri Bilge Ceylan
8. Searching for Sugar Man – Malik Bendjelloul
9. Silver Linings Playbook – David O. Russell
10. Zero Dark Thirty – Kathryn Bigelow

Rest of the List, Alphabetically

• Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry – Alison Klayman
• Argo – Ben Affleck
• August and After – Nathaniel Dorsky
• Auto-Collider XV – Ernie Gehr
• Barbara – Christian Petzold
• Beasts of the Southern Wild – Benh Zeitlin
• Bernie – Richard Linklater
• Brooklyn Castle – Katie Dellamaggiore
• The Dark Knight Rises – Christopher Nolan
• Departure – Mr. Gehr
• Footnote – Joseph Cedar
• The House I Live In – Eugene Jarecki
• The Kid With a Bike – Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
• Life of Pi (only at sea) – Ang Lee
• Magic Mike – Steven Soderbergh
• A Man Vanishes – Shohei Imamura
• Middle of Nowhere – Ava DuVernay
• Miss Bala – Gerardo Naranjo
• Napoleon (1927) – Abel Gance, restored by Kevin Brownlow
• Oslo, August 31st – Joachim Trier
• The Pirates! Band of Misfits – Peter Lord
• Rust and Bone – Jacques Audiard
• Skyfall – Sam Mendes
• Starlet – Sean Baker
• This Is Not a Film – Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb
• The Turin Horse – Béla Tarr
• View From the Acropolis – Lonnie van Brummelen and Siebren de Haan