The Best and Worst Movies of 2012

Zero Dark Thirty is the best-reviewed movie of 2012

High Scoring Movies by Year
(Minimum 7 Reviews)

2012	Zero Dark Thirty 95
2011	A Separation 95
2010	The Social Network 95
2009	The Hurt Locker 94
2008	4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days 97

The critical buzz has been deafening for Zero Dark Thirty 95 since it first premiered in early December, which makes it a bit anticlimactic now to crown Kathryn Bigelow's follow-up to The Hurt Locker 94 as our highest-scoring film of 2012. Like its best picture-winning predecessor, ZDT returns to the American military and the war on terror, this time focusing on the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Bigelow once again finds herself and her film an Oscar frontrunner; we'll know on Thursday how many nominations it receives (while on Sunday it will contend for four Golden Globe trophies).

Although it is only playing on 60 screens at the moment, Zero Dark Thirty opens nationwide on Friday, making Bigelow's thriller just the second wide-release film to earn Metacritic movie of the year honors in the last five years (with The Social Network 95 being the other). Note that this slow theatrical rollout means that the film's Metascore may change by Friday when it expands to additional cities, but since it has a considerable lead over the #2 film (Michael Haneke's French-language drama Amour 92), and since the majority of reviews have already been included in the score, we are confident the score won't change enough to affect our final standings.

Overall, the Metascore numbers in 2012 were about on par with 2011's figures. Out of the 561 releases with seven or more reviews from professional critics, 34 received a Metascore of 81 or higher, the cutoff we use to indicate "universal acclaim" from critics. That nearly matches 2011's total of 35 such films, while the average Metascore of all releases actually ticked up in 2012 to 57.2 (from 57.0). On the other hand, only 44.7% of all releases in 2012 received green Metascores (of 61 or higher, indicating generally positive reviews), representing the lowest success rate since 2008. And there were seven films last year to score below 20, up from five equally awful films in 2011 and just three in 2010.

Below, we rank the highest-scoring films of 2012 in a variety of genres, while on the following pages we offer more complete lists of the year's best and worst wide and limited releases. If you are looking for even more of 2012's best movies, be sure to check out our Film Awards Scorecard and our collection of film critic top-ten lists elsewhere on our site.

2012's Best-Reviewed Comedies (English-Language, Live Action)

#1		#2		#3		#4		#5
	84		81		75		72		72
Moonrise Kingdom		Silver Linings Playbook		Bernie		Magic Mike		Safety Not Guaranteed

2012's Best-Reviewed Dramas (English-Language)

#1		#2		#3		#4		#5
	95		86		86		86		86
Zero Dark Thirty		Lincoln		Argo		The Master		Beasts of the Southern Wild

2012's Best-Reviewed Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Superhero Films

#1		#2		#3		#4		#5
	84		78		69		69		67
Looper		The Dark Knight Rises		The Avengers		Chronicle		The Hunger Games

2012's Best-Reviewed Horror Films

#1		#2		#3		#4		#5
	74		72		72		71		70
Frankenweenie		The Cabin in the Woods		ParaNorman		The Road		Sleep Tight

2012's Best-Reviewed Documentaries

#1		#2		#3		#4		#5
	90		87		87		86		84
This Is Not a Film		The Gatekeepers		How to Survive a Plague		Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters		The Waiting Room

2012's Best-Reviewed Foreign-Language Films (Dramatic Films Only)

#1		#2		#3		#4		#5
	92		87		87		87		84
Amour		Barbara		Elena		The Kid with a Bike		Holy Motors

2012's Best-Reviewed Animated Films

#1		#2		#3		#4		#5
	80		77		76		74		74
The Secret World of Arrietty		Consuming Spirits		Chico & Rita		Frankenweenie		The Rabbi's Cat

2012's Best-Reviewed Films in Other Genres (English-Language)

Action		Musical		Remake		Rom-Com		Western
	95		63		54		81		80
Zero Dark Thirty		Les Miserables		Sparkle (2012)		Silver Linings Playbook		Django Unchained

For this and all tables in this article, only movies with seven or more reviews released between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2012 were considered. Re-releases are excluded. The Metascore is a weighted average of scores from top professional critics, on a scale from 0 (bad) to 100 (good). Although scores have been rounded to the nearest whole number, movies are ranked prior to rounding. All scores in this article are from January 6, 2013.

On the next page ...

Continue reading for a look at the best and worst wide releases of 2012.