2012
Argo
(2012)
Chris Terrio (screenplay), Tony Mendez (based on a selection from "The Master of Disguise" by), Joshuah Bearman (based on the Wired Magazine article "The Great Escape" by)
Won 3 Oscars. Another 83 wins & 144 nominations.
In 1979, the American embassy in Iran was invaded by Iranian revolutionaries and several Americans were taken hostage. However, six managed to escape to the official residence of the Canadian Ambassador and the CIA was ordered to get them out of the country. With few options, exfiltration expert Tony Mendez devised a daring plan: create a phony Canadian film project looking to shoot in Iran and smuggle the Americans out as its production crew. With the help of some trusted Hollywood contacts, Mendez created the ruse and proceeded to Iran as its associate producer. However, time was running out with the Iranian security forces closing in on the truth while both his charges and the White House had grave doubts about the operation themselves.
Berberian Sound Studio
(2012)
Peter Strickland
16 wins & 15 nominations.
A sound engineer's work for an Italian horror studio becomes a terrifying case of life imitating art.
Black Rock
(2012)
Mark Duplass (screenplay), Katie Aselton (story)
N/A
Three childhood friends set aside their personal issues and reunite for a girls' weekend on a remote island off the coast of Maine. One wrong move turns their weekend getaway into a deadly fight for survival.
Chronicle
(2012)
Max Landis, Josh Trank
2 wins & 7 nominations
The shy, lonely and outcast teenager Andrew Detmer is bullied and has no friends at high-school and lives with his abusive and alcoholic father Richard Detmer and his terminally ill mother Karen. Andrew buys a camera to film his everyday life. His cousin Matt Garetty drives him to school and invites Andrew to go to a party at night. Nearby they find a tunnel and suddenly acquire telekinetic abilities and Andrew becomes the most powerful. But he easily loses his temper and becomes dangerous while Matt tries to control him. When his mother needs a medicine and Andrew does not have enough money to buy it, his darker side overwhelms him and he becomes a menace.
Cleanskin
(2012)
Hadi Hajaig
N/A
Cleanskin: Ewan (Sean Bean) is a British Secret Service Agent faced with the task of pursuing and eliminating a British born Asian suicide bomber Ash (Abhin Galeya) and his terrorist cell, whilst Ash wrestles with his conscience and reflects on his journey to terrorism.
Cloud Atlas
(2012)
David Mitchell (novel), Lana Wachowski (written for the screen by), Tom Tykwer (written for the screen by), Andy Wachowski (written for the screen by)
Nominated for 1 Golden Globe. Another 15 wins & 69 nominations.
An exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution.
Dark Shadows
(2012)
Seth Grahame-Smith (screenplay), John August (story), Seth Grahame-Smith (story), Dan Curtis (television series)
2 wins & 12 nominations.
In the year 1752, Joshua and Naomi Collins, with young son Barnabas, set sail from Liverpool, England to start a new life in America. But even an ocean was not enough to escape the mysterious curse that has plagued their family. Two decades pass and Barnabas (Johnny Depp) has the world at his feet-or at least the town of Collinsport, Maine. The master of Collinwood Manor, Barnabas is rich, powerful and an inveterate playboy...until he makes the grave mistake of breaking the heart of Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green). A witch, in every sense of the word, Angelique dooms him to a fate worse than death: turning him into a vampire, and then burying him alive. Two centuries later, Barnabas is inadvertently freed from his tomb and emerges into the very changed world of 1972. He returns to Collinwood Manor to find that his once-grand estate has fallen into ruin. The dysfunctional remnants of the Collins family have fared little better, each harboring their own dark secrets. Matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer) has called upon live-in psychiatrist, Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter), to help with her family troubles.
Django Unchained
(2012)
Quentin Tarantino
Won 2 Oscars. Another 52 wins & 137 nominations.
Former dentist, Dr. King Schultz, buys the freedom of a slave, Django, and trains him with the intent to make him his deputy bounty hunter. Instead, he is led to the site of Django's wife who is under the hands of Calvin Candie, a ruthless plantation owner.
Flight
(2012)
John Gatins
Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 13 wins & 40 nominations.
Whip Whitaker is a commuter airline pilot. While on a flight from Orlando to Atlanta something goes wrong and the plane starts to fly erratically. With little choice Whip crashes the plane and saves almost all on board. When he wakes up in the hospital, his friend from the airline union introduces him to a lawyer who tells him there's a chance he could face criminal charges because his blood test reveals that he was intoxicated with alcohol and cocaine. He denies being impaired, so while an investigation is underway, he is told to keep his act together. However, letting go of his addiction is not as easy as it seems...
House at the End of the Street
(2012)
David Loucka (screenplay), Jonathan Mostow (story)
1 win & 3 nominations.
Newly divorced Sarah and her daughter Elissa find the house of their dreams in a small, upscale, rural town. But when startling and unexplainable events begin to happen, Sarah and Elissa learn the town is in the shadows of a chilling secret.
Iron Sky
(2012)
Jarmo Puskala (original concept), Johanna Sinisalo (based on a story by), Michael Kalesniko (screenplay), Timo Vuorensola (screenplay)
4 wins & 2 nominations.
The Nazis set up a secret base on the dark side of the moon in 1945 where they hide out and plan to return to power in 2018.
Jack Reacher
(2012)
Lee Child (based on the book "One Shot" by), Christopher McQuarrie (written for the screen by)
1 win & 4 nominations.
A homicide investigator digs deeper into a case involving a trained military sniper who shot five random victims.
Lawless
(2012)
Nick Cave (screenplay), Matt Bondurant (novel)
1 win & 8 nominations.
In 1931, in Franklin County, Virginia, Forrest Bondurant is a legend as immortal after surviving the war. Together with his brothers Howard and the coward Jack, the Bondurant family has a distillery and bootlegging business. When the corrupt District Attorney Mason Wardell arrives in Franklin with the unscrupulous Special Deputy Charles Rakes, the Bondurant family refuses to pay the required bribe to the authorities. Rakes pursues the brothers and unsuccessfully tries to find their distillery. Meanwhile Forrest hires the waitress Maggie, a woman with a hidden past in Chicago, and they fall in love with each other. Jack courts the preacher's daughter Bertha Minnix and deals a great load of alcoholic liquor with the powerful gangster Floyd Banner. Jack shows off in Franklin attracting the attention of Rakes that finds the location of their distillery. When he kills the crippled Cricket Pete, the locals join forces to face the corrupt authorities.
Life of Pi
(2012)
Yann Martel (novel), David Magee (screenplay)
Won 4 Oscars. Another 71 wins & 119 nominations.
A young man who survives a disaster at sea is hurtled into an epic journey of adventure and discovery. While cast away, he forms an unexpected connection with another survivor: a fearsome Bengal tiger.
Looper
(2012)
Rian Johnson
15 wins & 43 nominations.
In 2074, when the mob wants to get rid of someone, the target is sent into the past, where a hired gun awaits - someone like Joe - who one day learns the mob wants to 'close the loop' by sending back Joe's future self for assassination.
Man on a Ledge
(2012)
Pablo F. Fenjves
1 nomination.
An ex-cop turned con threatens to jump to his death from a Manhattan hotel rooftop. The nearest New York Police officer immediately responds to a screaming woman and calls dispatch. More Officers arrive with SWAT and tactical command along with fire-fighters. The police then dispatch a police psychologist personally requested to talk him down from the ledge. However, things aren't as they seem.
Maniac
(2012)
Alexandre Aja (screenplay), Grégory Levasseur (screenplay), Joe Spinell (original screenplay)
4 wins & 5 nominations.
Just when the streets seemed safe, a serial killer with a fetish for scalps is back and on the hunt. Frank is the withdrawn owner of a mannequin store, but his life changes when young artist Anna appears asking for his help with her new exhibition. As their friendship develops and Frank's obsession escalates, it becomes clear that she has unleashed a long-repressed compulsion to stalk and kill.
Mud
(2012)
Jeff Nichols
11 wins & 34 nominations.
14 year-old Ellis (Tye Sheridan) lives on a makeshift houseboat on the banks of a river in Arkansas with his parents. He sneaks out early one morning to meet his best friend, Neckbone (Jacob Lofland). The two boys set out to an island on the Mississippi River, where Neckbone has discovered an unusual sight-a boat, suspended high in the trees due to an extreme flood some time in the past. They climb the tree and into the boat only to find fresh bread and fresh footprints. Realizing that they are not the only ones who have discovered the treehouse boat, they decide to leave. When they reach the shore, they find the same footprint in their boat. And that's when they meet Mud (Matthew McConaughey). Mud is a gritty, superstitious character; his clothes are dirty, his tooth is cracked, and he needs help. He tells the boys he will give them the treehouse boat, his current hideout, in exchange for food. Neckbone is reluctant, but Ellis brings food to Mud, and they develop a tentative friendship. Ellis learns that Mud has killed a man in Texas, and police and bounty hunters are looking for him, but Mud is more concerned about reuniting with his longtime love, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon). Ellis agrees to help Mud escape with Juniper. Ellis and Neckbone carry out bold schemes in an effort to protect Mud and relay messages to Juniper, who is holed up in a fleabag motel, under constant surveillance by Carver, a Texas bounty hunter. Carver and his gang are intent on capturing Mud, on orders from the cold-blooded King. As the boys risk everything to reunite these seeming mythical lovers, Ellis's own ideas about love and romance are challenged by the strains in the relationships closest to him: his parents' marriage is dissolving while he himself falters in his efforts to impress May Pearl (Bonnie Sturdivant). Through it all, Ellis struggles to look for an example of love that he can believe in, learning about the unspoken rules and risks of love and the reality of heartbreak.
Prometheus
(2012)
Jon Spaihts, Damon Lindelof, Dan O'Bannon (elements), Ronald Shusett (elements)
Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 6 wins & 42 nominations.
Following clues to the origin of mankind a team journey across the universe and find a structure on a distant planet containing a monolithic statue of a humanoid head and stone cylinders of alien blood but they soon find they are not alone.
Red Lights
(2012)
Rodrigo Cortés
2 nominations
The skeptical psychologist Dr. Margaret Matheson and her assistant, physicist Tom Buckley, are specialists in disclosing fraudulent paranormal phenomena. When the famous psychic Simon Silver reappears to his public after many years of absence, Tom becomes singularly obsessed in determining whether Silver is a fraud or not.