Let’s face it, compared to 2011, this year was a relatively boring year for movies. While the year started out great with some fantastic films getting released after June the quantity of quality films dropped significantly. That’s not to say that there are not any great movies to be seen, but compared to 2011 where it was one great film released after another, this year has been very disappointing. Granted I have not seen a few films yet such as Zero Dark Thirty, Cloud Atlas, Lincoln, Skyfall, Django Unchained and The Hobbit. But even if all those movies were great I still don’t think it would’ve come close to last year.

I found that it was much easier this year to make a top ten list then last year. Where last year it took me maybe a week to decide what goes where, this year I probably spent a day overall on my list. Without further ado, here is my list of ten films which I felt were far and away the best of the year. Following my top ten list is my selection of honorable mentions; films I felt were oh so close to making my top ten but ultimately were not as good.

Blake Ginithan’s Top 10 Films of 2012

Honorable Mentions

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
Killer Joe
Cabin in the Woods
The Amazing Spider-Man
Cosmopolis

Film Independent announced the nominations for the 28th annual Independent Spirit Awards this morning by Zoe Saldana and Anna Kendrick. Last year many of the award winners went on to win Oscars but I suspect that will be a little different this year. The winners will be announced at the 28th annual Film Independent Spirit Awards on February 23th and the broadcast will air at 10 p.m. ET/PT on IFC.

There were two films that tied for the most amount of nominations and those were Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom and David O. Russells’s Silver Linings Playbook with five total nominations. Both of the films will be competing for the top award of Best Feature.

It was a little shocking to see that the Sundance standout Beasts of the Southern Wild did not have quite as many nods but four is a healthy amount of nominations to receive. The film bypassed Best First Feature even though it is technically Benh Zeitlin’s first and step up to the bigger category Best Feature (rules prohibit a film from being in both). Beasts of the Southern Wild was ousted from the Best Screenplay category.

John Hawkes makes his third straight appearance in the nomination list with his role in The Sessions. This time he will move up to the Best Lead Male category against some pretty strong contenders. Hawkes was nominated for Best Supporting Male last year for Martha Marcy May Marlene and won the award in the previous year for Winter’s Bone. Matthew McConaughey will get two chances to win for two different films. He got a nod for Best Male Lead (for Killer Joe) and Best Supporting Male (for Magic Mike).

Perhaps the most interesting category this year belongs to the Best International Film section as there was quite a bit of potentials for it this year. Michael Haneke’s Amour made the cut, unsurprisingly, and will likely be the favorite to win (as well as for the Oscar). It was a bit of a surprise to not see Holy Motors in that list but seeing War Witch get a nod was lovely as it is definitely a film worth seeing. I didn’t expect to see Paradise: Love or Goodbye First Love on this list but it would have been if it were up to me.

Watch for our predictions for the 2013 Film Independent Spirit Awards post to come in the coming weeks.

Full List of 2013 Independent Spirit Award Nominations:

Beasts of the Southern Wild
Bernie
Keep The Lights On
Moonrise Kingdom
Silver Linings Playbook

Wes Anderson – Moonrise Kingdom
Julia Loktev – The Loneliest Planet
David O. Russell – Silver Linings Playbook
Ira Sachs – Keep The Lights On
Benh Zeitlin – Beasts of the Southern Wild

Fill The Void – Rama Burshtein
Gimme The Loot – Adam Leon
Safety Not Guaranteed – Colin Trevorrow
Sound of My Voice – Zal Batmanglij
The Perks Of Being A Wallflower – Stephen Chobsky

Jack Black – Bernie
Bradley Cooper – Silver Linings Playbook
John Hawkes – The Sessions
Thure Lindhart – Keep The Lights On
Matthew McConaughey – Killer Joe
Wendell Pierce – Four

Linda Cardellini – Return
Emayatzy Corinealdi – Middle of Nowhere
Jennifer Lawrence – Silver Linings Playbook
Quvenzhane Wallis – Beasts of the Southern Wild
Mary E. Winstead – Smashed

Matthew McConaughey – Magic Mike
David Oyelowo – Middle of Nowhere
Michael Pena – End of Watch
Sam Rockwell – Seven Psychopaths
Bruce Willis – Moonrise Kingdom

Rosemarie DeWitt – Your Sister’s Sister
Ann Dowd – Compliance
Helen Hunt – The Sessions
Brit Marling – Sound of My Voice
Lorraine Toussaint – Middle of Nowhere

Breakfast With Curtis – Laura Colella
Middle of Nowhere – Ava DuVernay
Mosquita y Mari – Aurora Guerrero
Starlet – Sean Baker
The Color Wheel – Alex Ross Perry

How To Survive A Plague – David France
Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present – Matthew Akers
The Central Park Five – Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon
The Invisible War – Kirby Dick
The Waiting Room – Peter Nicks

Amour – Michael Haneke
Once Upon A Time In Anatolia – Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Rust and Bone – Jacques Audiard
Sister – Ursula Meier
War Witch – Kim Nguyen

Yoni Brook – Valley Of Saints
Lol Crawley – Here
Ben Richardson – Beasts of the Southern Wild
Roman Vasyanov – End of Watch
Robert Yeoman – Moonrise Kingdom

Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola – Moonrise Kingdom
Zoe Kazan – Ruby Sparks
Martin McDonagh – Seven Psychopaths
David O. Russell – Silver Linings Playbook
Ira Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias – Keep The Lights On

Rama Burshtein – Fill The Void
Derek Connolly – Safety Not Guaranteed
Christopher Ford – Robot & Frank
Jonathan Lisecki – Gayby
Rashida Jones and Will McCormack – Celeste and Jesse Forever

Starlet
Director: Sean Baker
Casting Director: Julia Kim
Ensemble Cast: Dree Hemingway, Besedka Johnson, Karren Karagulian, Stella Maeve, James Ranson

Alicia Van Couvering – Nobody Walks
Mynette Louie – Stones in the Sun
Derrick Tseng – Prince Avalanche

Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel – Leviathan
Peter Nicks – The Waiting Room
Jason Tippet and Elizabeth Mims – Only the Young

David Fenster – Pincus
Adam Leon – Gimme The Loot
Rebecca Thomas – Electrick Children

In what will more than likely go down as the biggest disappointment of the year in film for me, Jacques Audiard’s Rust and Bone isn’t something that I would label as bad but I certainly couldn’t call it very good either. After three straight works of brilliance, this is definitely a step back for him as a filmmaker, though more than anything else that’s due to his screenplay (he co-wrote again with Thomas Bidegain, his collaborator on A Prophet). There isn’t much to fault here when it comes to Audiard’s direction; Rust and Bone is a visceral punch to the gut at times, and there’s a palpable physicality in the lives of these two characters which he is able to capture with a strength that few others would be able to succeed at on this level.

No, the problem here is in the writing, which is all over the place in terms of its narrative, its characters and its authenticity. Rust and Bone centers on the relationship between the brutish Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts) and the recently crippled Stephanie (Marion Cotillard), the two coming together early on after a horrific accident that leaves her without her legs. Whenever the film is focusing on the relationship between these two, it is absolutely on point. The contrast between the incredibly physical presence of Ali and the emotional struggles that Stephanie faces when her physicality is taken away from her is poignant, and both actors deliver phenomenal performances.

Schoenaerts, who exploded onto the scene with his powerful work in Bullhead, has an immediately intimidating approach that makes you fear him but he fuses this character with so much heart that it’s hard not to root for him, even when he’s making mistakes when it comes to his career or parenting his young son. Cotillard provides the perfect contrast, matching that physical, internal approach with a devastating rawness that is absolutely heartbreaking. Audiard manages his leads well and has two actors who deliver in every moment, shining individually but even brighter when they are able to share the screen. It’s when the two are split up that the script begins to fall apart, with subplots that don’t add much of anything, thin supporting characters and glaring narrative contrivances.

Even with the extensive 155-minute running time of the much more subtle A Prophet, Audiard created a pace that move it along so well that it never dragged for a moment, but running at a brisker 120-minute duration this one feels like it runs at least an hour longer. Rust and Bone ratchets the drama up to a level that is strangely aggressive for Audiard, hitting the audience far too loud at times without ever achieving the kind of emotional strength that Read My Lips or The Beat That My Heart Skipped were able to. For the first time, Audiard lets the melodrama control his picture more, presenting it in a way that embraces that as opposed to presenting the more gritty, authentic approach that he has shown such skill within.

This becomes especially troublesome in the film’s final act, where the contrivances are taken to an eye-rolling extreme that actively works against that raw emotional anguish Cotillard and Schoenaerts bring to their roles. Rust and Bone probably has a little more going for it than it does against, but with Audiard’s magnificent track record going into it, the inconsistencies in the writing are surprising and very disappointing. The two leads deliver incredible work, but this is a prime example of how much a bad script can impact an overall picture.