I have not yet seen Les Miserables or Django Unchained, two major releases still coming out in 2012. However, I have seen quite a few major movies released this year. I also still need to see Seven Psycopaths, but I digress.
Feel free to list your favorites if you like, but let’s try to pick one that was at the top.
I liked:
Hunger Games
Cabin in the Woods
The Avengers
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
Expendables 2
Looper
Skyfall
The Hobbit pt 1
I may have missed something that came out this year, but I do think the best of those I listed was probably **The Hobbit pt 1. **
Zero Dark Thirty and Robot & Frank are shoe-ins, I think. The Master as well. Django could make the list. Although I was really entertained by Avengers and Cabin in the Woods, those aren’t the sort of films that make the cut for Best Picture (though it’s not clear if we’re talking about potential Academy nominees).
As of right now, my favorite movie of the year is Moonrise Kingdom, with The Master, Holy Motors, and Wreck-It Ralph as runners-up. But I usually don’t consider the moviegoing year really over until the end of January or early February, since studios cram so many high-profile movies into December and keep expanding them for months, and it takes a while to catch up. I’d say there are about a dozen from this year I have to see yet, with the most significant ones being Django Unchained, Les Miserables, Amour, Rust and Bone, Searching for Sugar Man, The Imposter, and Zero Dark Thirty.
So far I’ve seen a lot of good movies this year, but not one I will call great or “The Best.” So far, I most liked Argo (although too much this “true story” was fabricated to me), but I still haven’t seen Looper or Django Unchained. I thought Zero Dark Thirty, while very well done, didn’t entirely grab me.
Maybe it was more drawn out than I prefer, maybe the suspense lacked because I already knew the outcome, maybe the bureaucratic element got tiresome, maybe torture scenes just aren’t my cup of tea.
All that said, I think ZDT or Lincoln will win Best Picture (which far from determines it as The Best).
I watched Silver Lining Playbook in fits and starts (at work) and really liked it, maybe more so if I had seen it in a theatre.
Still waiting for Zero Dark Thirty and Silver Linings Playbook to play near me, and I haven’t seen Django yet - I expect all three of those to be in my top 10 list. But here are the best of what I have already seen ranked by what I enjoyed the most, not necessarily those that are the ‘best’ movies in the Oscar sense.
Argo
The Avengers
Lincoln
Les Miserables
Wreck-it Ralph
The Hobbit
I think I’m forgetting one or two movies from earlier in the year, but I can’t recall them right now.
I also missed Cabin in the Woods and Flight among those mentioned in this thread.