Our PorchDrinking staff wanted to take a look back on the best movies of the year. 2012 proved to be a fantastic year for movies, with the conclusion of Christoper Nolan’s Batman franchise and the first comic book film to make the Hulk interesting and fun (thanks, Joss Whedon!) leading a huge summer. While The Dark Knight Rises was easily the PD staff’s favorite movie of 2012, the rest of the top 5 was only separated by a few votes. See our list below and leave yours in the comment section!

1.The Dark Knight Rises

The conclusion of Christopher Nolan’s trilogy somehow exceeded the immense expectations that preceded its release. Concerns over Bane’s overdubbed voice proved overblown as Tom Hardy had one of the more memorable villain roles outside of Heath Ledger’s Joker, and Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman almost made people forget about Michelle Pfieffer and Halle Berry.

2. Lincoln

Daniel Day Lewis’s portrayal of Lincoln is the odds on favorite for a host of Academy Awards this season. The film focuses on the president’s fight to abolish slavery by pushing for the thirteenth amendment. Meanwhile Lincoln must also deal with trying to end the bloody Civil War that has torn his nation apart.  The film has already been nominated for 7 Golden Globes and features outstanding performances by the aforementioned Lewis, Tommy Lee Jones, Joseph Gordon Levitt, and Sally Field.  What makes Lincoln standout is the ability to capture the several layers of conflict that the president had to juggle while also focusing on his own family.  Spielburg was able to put a unique spin on one of the most beloved and well known presidents our nation has ever seen.

3. Moonrise Kingdom

Moonrise Kingdom is vintage Wes Anderson.  Overhead shots, witty one-liners, kitsch-y indie mannerisms and music, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and a shit load of awesome. Kingdom tells the tale of a boyscout who falls in love with a young girl and the two decide to run away together.  Hijinks ensue, Bruce Willis and Bill Murray bring a major cool factor, add in some indie French tunes, and round it out with a happy conclusion.  This one is definitely worth checking out if you dig Anderson’s other films: The Royal Tenembaums, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Darjeeling Limited, Rushmore, The Life Aquatic, etc.

4. Looper

In my opinion Joseph Gordon-Levitt has reached Leonard Dicaprio’s level of only being in amazing movies. We’re talking Tom Hanks quality (lets forget Cloud Atlas ever happened) movies. It’s no wonder that JGL was in 3 of our top 6 movies of the year.  Looper manages to take a movie about time travel and make it exponentially more bad ass than it sounds. It involves paid assassins, the idea of having to kill your future self, Bruce Willis yet again, and Emily Blunt. Also what I really love most about this movie is that the trailer is enough of a tease to make you want to see the film, and yet after seeing it you realize it gives practically nothing away. This is a must see!

5. The Avengers/Skyfall (tie)

As alluded to before the biggest success of the Avengers was finding the formula to not make the Hulk suck.  And Mark Ruffalo managed to do just that.  Give major credit to Joss Whedon for assembling this dysfunctional dream team of super heros and pull off a storyline that harnesses that super squad and allows each character to play to their strengths, all while avoiding Michael Bay levels of cheese and explosion.  Also Robin from HIMYM kicks some major ass which makes it worth seeing to begin with.

The 007 franchise is one of the most successful running franchises, but it started to lose a step or two in Quantum of Solace.  Well forget all of that because Bond is BACK!  Skyfall conjures the felling of the old school Connery, Moore, kind of Bonds.  Skyfall also takes a departure from the technology and gadget focus that were so prevalent in more recent films and focused more on it’s characters.  Javier Bardem plays a quirky troubled evil mastermind and Daniel Craig kills it once again as Bond.

Once again we’d love for you to share our picks for this year’s best movies.  Unfortunately the voting was not recent enough to include the likes of Django Unchained, or Zero Dark Thirty.