CHRIS TOOKEY: The top of the tops: The five best flicks to come out of a vintage year for film

By Chris Tookey

PUBLISHED: 20:00 EST, 27 December 2012 | UPDATED: 20:01 EST, 27 December 2012

Against almost everyone's expectations, 2012 has been a vintage 12 months for cinema. In a normal year, I give the top rating of five stars to only three or four movies. In 2012, I awarded 16. Here are my five favourites — and the good news is that the top two are still on in cinemas.

1. SKYFALL (12A)

Not just the best Bond movie, this is up there with the top action adventures of all time. Sam Mendes's film is a reminder that computer-generated imagery is no match for superb stunts, fearlessly staged.

With this film, Bond enters the age of cyber-terrorism. Daniel Craig's 007 has been regenerated so that now it is he who makes Jason Bourne look old-fashioned.

Top flick: This year's Bond film Skyfall, featuring Daniel Craig as 007 and Javier Bardem as a bleach-blonde villain

Top flick: This year's Bond film Skyfall, featuring Daniel Craig as 007 and Javier Bardem as a blonde villain

2. WEST OF MEMPHIS (15)

A marvellous achievement of investigative journalism and story-telling, Amy Berg's film is among the most gripping of 2012. It's understandably angry about the injustice visited on three innocent American teenagers, incarcerated for the Satanic torture and murder of three young boys in Arkansas. It's a timely and memorable study of police, judicial and forensic incompetence.

3. THE CABIN IN THE WOODS (15)

Adverts made The Cabin In The Woods look like a cliched exploitation film, with good-looking young people murdered one by one in a spooky forest cabin. Far cleverer than that, it's an innovative mixture of horror, science fiction and black comedy.

4. WILD BILL (15)

Just when many of us wanted never to suffer through another British gangster film, along comes the best of the lot — a picture that sums up everything that's good about British movie-making. Quirky, warm and charming, it's also well acted, beautifully written and superbly directed by first-timer Dexter Fletcher.

Teen film: The Perks Of Being A Wallflower - starring Logan Lerman, Emma Watson and Ezra Miller was one of the top films of the year, and one of the best coming-of-age films ever made

Yes, another teen movie: The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, starring Logan Lerman, Emma Watson and Ezra Miller, was one of the top films of the year, and one of the best coming-of-age films ever made

5. THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER (12A)

One of the best coming-of-age films ever made, this successfully captures the hell and heaven of being a teenager. It's sweet but not sickly, cute but not sentimental. The movie contains an Oscar-quality  performance by Emma Watson  and a wonderfully astute one by Logan Lerman as the film's  15-year-old hero, Charlie.

For many teenagers it will be a  landmark movie in their emotional development. But it will also strike chords of memory with many  who are much older than the film's target audience.

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The Rise Of The Guardians (PG) 5 Star Rating

If you're looking for fun that the whole family can share, this new animated extravaganza from DreamWorks is  the most accomplished since Pixar's The Incredibles.

Jack Frost, Santa, the Tooth Fairy and other unlikely superheroes unite to defeat a bogeyman whose mission is to give children nightmares. The  film is visually stunning and a clever evocation of childhood fears  and fantasies.

The message is just as welcome: a celebration of kindness to children, courage in the face of danger, and the importance of fun. Dickens and J.M. Barrie would have thoroughly approved.

Dream team: (clockwise from left) Sandman, Tooth, North, Easter bunny and Jack Frost

Dream team: (clockwise from left) Sandman, Tooth, North, Easter bunny and Jack Frost

Life Of Pi (PG) 4 Star Rating

Ang Lee has made the most  beautiful film of the year, about an Indian teenager shipwrecked in a lifeboat with a ravenous Bengal tiger.

Based on Yann Martel's  Man Booker Prize-winning novel, the wonders the pair encounter are brought to the screen with dreamlike intensity.

Though it's more a feast for the eyes  than food for thought, it's an unmissable experience. And do see it in a good-quality cinema in 3D.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (12A) 3 Star Rating

Peter Jackson's new Tolkien epic is worth seeing in the cinema, though not necessarily in 3D or at 'high definition' 48 frames  per second.

It's overblown, but offers many moments of enchantment and ends with spectacular action sequences.

Let's hope the other episodes in the  trilogy will be pacier and pack more emotional punch.

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