As expected, "Best of..." movie lists for 2012 are coming out this time of the year. This one try to shy away from blockbusters and go for "slice of life" themed films.

Ranked accordingly:

10. "How to Survive a Plague": A documentary about the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, better known by its acronym ACT UP. ACT UP organized a series of protests in the late '80s and early '90s to speed up AIDS treatment drugs and educate the public on HIV transmission.


9. "Django Unchained": A German dentist (Christoph Waltz) liberates a slave (Jamie Foxx), makes him his partner, then discovers the younger man -- Django by name -- is "a natural" with a gun.


8. "Amour": Georges and Anne in their 80s live a quiet, contented life. "Amour" confronts the sudden downturn in Anne's health -- her independence effectively vanishing over the course of a single breakfast -- and its ramifications for the couple.


7. "Beasts of the Southern Wild":It tells the story of a little girl named Hushpuppy and her father, Wink, as they survive and navigate the aftermath of a tremendous storm that devastates their isolated bayou community known as the Bathtub.


6. "Argo": "Argo" is loosely based on the true story of a CIA operative who rescued six American diplomats from Tehran during the Iran hostage crisis in 1979.


5. "Holy Motors": A modern-day Lon Chaney named Monsieur Oscar walks through a hotel wall into a crowded movie theater. Thereafter, he's chauffeured by an elegant older woman to a series of "appointments"/performances.


4. "Moonrise Kingdom": There's a great adult cast -- Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Edward Norton, Harvey Keitel, Tilda Swinton, and especially Bruce Willis as a lonely island lawman who gets a second chance -- but the film belongs to these restless kids.


3. "The Master": This is a "difficult" film, because it's about difficult people. At heart, it's about the uneasy truth that all people are difficult, that rage is an all-too-human trait, and that the things we do to deal with that rage.


2. "Lincoln": If you ever had the impression that films about American history were "boring," Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" will change your mind.


1. "Zero Dark Thirty": It depicts a hunt against the odds, and what that costs the people committed to following a trail of rumors and half-truths.

Top 10 movies of 2012