At Long Last, My Favorites of 2012

Now that I've seen Frances Ha, which I'd been waiting for since it premiered at all those North American festivals last September, and Museum Hours, which wasn't even on my radar until last week, I finally feel ready to choose my favorites of the film year 2012. And we're only five weeks away from 2014!

I'm sure there are some excellent 2012 films/performances still left for me to discover (I've yet to see No, for example), so these top fives might not be set in stone, but it doesn't matter anyway - I just want to use this space to acknowledge the great work of the following people.

Best Film

Amour

Frances Ha

Holy Motors

Museum Hours
Sister

Best Screenwriter

Sean Baker, Chris Bergoch - Starlet

Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig - Frances Ha

Michael Haneke - Amour

Antoine Jaccoud, Ursula Meier, Gilles Taurand - Sister

Alice Lowe, Steve Oram - Sightseers

Best Director

Noah Baumbach - Frances Ha

Leos Carax - Holy Motors

Miguel Gomes - Tabu

Michael Haneke - Amour

Peter Strickland - Berberian Sound Studio

Best Actress

Marion Cotillard - Rust and Bone

Greta Gerwig - Frances Ha

Nina Hoss - Barbara

Helen Hunt - The Sessions

Emmanuelle Riva - Amour

Best Actor
Toby Jones - Berberian Sound Studio
Denis Lavant - Holy Motors
Kacey Mottet Klein - Sister
Joaquin Phoenix - The Master
Jean-Louis Trintignant - Amour

Best Supporting Actress
Eva Green - Dark Shadows
Diane Kruger - Farewell, My Queen
Corinne Masiero - Rust and Bone
Ela Piplits - Museum Hours
Léa Seydoux - Sister

Best Supporting Actor
Garrett Hedlund - On the Road
Samuel L. Jackson - Django Unchained
Tommy Lee Jones - Lincoln
Tim Roth - Broken
Michael Zegen - Frances Ha

"27 is old, though."

Okay, so I just stumbled upon this photo of Andrea Riseborough from last year's British Independent Film Awards, and... yes. Very Amy-Adams-in-American-Hustle-esque. I think this is the best thing Andrea's done so far, even surpassing her very good performance in Shadow Dancer (for which she won the Best Actress award the same night, by the way) by some distance.