Betty Amann blinks in the 1928 German silent, Asphalt.

I watched at least 81 movies in 2012. I didn't think this was a great year for my movie watching, though. Here are my favorites of the year (btw, I don't include It's a Wonderful Life, or other much-watched favorites: this list is for movies I like which came to my attention this year).

Mrs. Miniver (1942) Quite moving in parts.

Wings (1966) directed by Larisa Shepitko. Excellent, sad film.

A Town Like Alice (1956) Some very good acting; a touching ending.

Being Elmo (2011) An excellent documentary on Kevin Clash.

Goodbye Lenin! (2003) I love this very touching film about people trying really hard to protect someone from knowing a reality which would hurt them, and about the loss of a great many peoples' hopes.

Bill Cunningham New York (2010) Fantastic documentary.

The Falls (1980) Perhaps Peter Greenaway's magnum opus, an amazing 185-minute mock documentary.

If I had to pick a single top film for the year it would either be Wings
or Goodbye Lenin!.

Past lists:

My favorite film viewings of 2011

My favorite film viewings of 2010

My favorite film viewings of 2009

My favorite film viewings of 2008

My favorite film viewings of 2007

Tokyo Story three frame animation. Kyōko Kagawa is disappointed that life is disappointing.

A three-frame animation from Pather Panchali. This is my favorite shot in the film, of the boy in the rain hearing the wail of his father.

I watched over 60 movies in 2011. Looking back over my movie viewing log, these are the ones I think are most worth mentioning:

A Page of Madness (avant-garde Japanese silent film)

Two Women (a painful film, but superbly made)

Abandon Ship! (brutal ethical decisions in a lifeboat)

We Can't Go Home Again (modern, collaboratively produced, very unusual film)

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (great acting)

Everything is Illuminated (I really liked a film made this century!)

The Letter (Bette Davis is fantastic!)

If Winter Comes (very moving)

The Cross of Lorraine

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (I love the ending)

Spies (favorite silent film of the year)

Il Posto (a great tone to this film)

My Darling Clementine (really excellent story and acting; my favorite western ever, though that's not saying much)

A three frame animation from Fritz Lang's Woman In The Moon. This is Gerda Maurus, and Gustav von Wangenheim, I think.

Three frame animation from the intriguing film Linda Linda Linda. I think I am culturally unequipped to appreciate a lot of the film, but maybe you can?

I try to keep a log of every movie I watch. I've done this for the last seven years, and I was wondering: what is the distribution of years of the movies I've watched? Here it is:

I was shocked to see the large spike in the 2000-2005 range. I tend to feel like I watch a lot of older movies, and I do, so I was suprised to see that this range had the most films in it. Quartile-wise, my first quartile was 1943, median was 1962, 3rd quartile was 1990. So I've watched three times as many movies older than 1990 than newer than 1990. I thought the ratio would be higher.

In case you are wondering how I wrangled this data, here's how. My log is a plain html file. Movie years in enclosed in td tags. So I wrote a little perl script, and ran it on the file:

while (<>) {
my($line) = $_;
if ($line =~ /\
(\d\d\d\d{1})/) {
print $1,"\n";
}

(That {1} is probably not needed.)

I sent the output to a file and got a list of all the years, one per line. I fed that into R, and it made the histogram for me.

In the interest of fairness, I probably ought to watch some movies from 1990-1995, the most underrepresented five year period in the chart. Any suggestions for movies from those years I may not have seen?

Here are my favorite films watched this year.

• The Rocking Horse Winner (1949)

Very well written and acted, an unusual, moving story.

• A Man Escaped, or The Wind Bloweth Where it Listeth (1956)

Directed by Robert Bresson, whose sparseness is perfect here.

• Mary and Max (2009)

Excellent, clever, original, moving story.

• Diary of a Country Priest (1950)

Another Bresson film. In the running for my favorite film of the year.

• On Borrowed Time (1939)

I like films with a fantastic element in otherwise regular settings.

• Major Barbara (1941)

I love Wendy Hiller, and she is great in this. The first two-thirds of the movie is just terrific.

• Andrei Rublev (1966)

I watched a bunch of Tarkovsky this year. This was my favorite.

• The Citadel (1938)

I always like films about people trying to be good.

• Young and Innocent (1937)

This year, I thought I'd try to see every Hitchcock film. After watching several dreadful films of his, I gave that up, but not before seeing this great little one. Kind of silly, but I like it a lot.

My favorite films of 2009

My favorite films of 2008

My favorite films of 2007

I watched three Jodorowsky films recently.

La Cravate

El Topo

Holy Mountain

Holy Mountain had the best imagery.