Pre-autumn look at the year’s best movies so far

My top movie pick so far in 2012 - THE KID WITH THE BIKE

Here’s a pre-autumn check in with my running list of the year’s best films – Best Movies of 2012 – So Far.  I’ve included six foreign language films, from Belgium, France, Quebec, Iran, Russia and Turkey, and five American and Canadian independent films.  That’s par for the course, because I usually call out 23-28 movies on my end of the year list.

The Kid on the Bike and A Separation had very limited US theatrical runs at the end of 2011 to qualify for the 2012 Oscars.  But they weren’t available to most Americans until this year, so they’re on my 2012 list.

And guess what – there are zero Hollywood movies on the list.  That’s not a huge surprise because Hollywood generally releases its Oscar bait in the fall.  The hyped Hollywood fare coming up in 2012 includes Argo, Cloud Atlas, The Sessions and Hyde Park on Hudson (being released by the prestige arms of major studios).  The other promising prestige movies (Killing Them Softly, Silver Linings Playbook, Lincoln, etc.) are being released by mini-majors such as The Weinstein Company and Touchstone (the prestige arm of Dreamworks) and by the smaller indie distributors.

Here’s another surprise –  there no documentaries on my list so far.  Last year at this time, Project Nim, Buck and Tabloid were all on the list.  There are several promising documentaries yet to be released (Paul Williams Is Still Alive, Undefeated, The Gatekeepers, Stories We Tell, Mea Maxima Culpa, ), but, as of now,  it’s a down year.

Incidentally, you can still find Beasts of the Southern Wild in theaters.   Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Rampart, A Separation and Monsieur Lazhar are already available on DVD.   Detachment, Moonrise Kingdom, Elena and Take This Waltz will become available on DVD in  October.

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