My Best Picture: It's 'Lincoln.' It's Always Been 'Lincoln'

Picking the best movie for a year is a lot like being asked if you have a favorite child. Or, at least, I assume the two things are similar. I don't have children, but from what I understand, you're not supposed to ever openly admit that you have a favorite child, even if you actually do. Unlike 2011, which only had a handful of standout films, 2012 was probably one of the best years for movies in a long time. There were numerous occasions over the past 12 months when I left the theater ready to proclaim the film that I had just seen as the best of the year, which made picking my favorite all the harder.

I didn't agree with the Academy choosing The Artist as Best Picture last year, and I still stand by that thought. A great film should be one that people will return to time and time again and still find themselves amazed by what they're watching. The Artist was a gimmick, propelled by black and white and a lack of spoken word. It was a box to check off for anyone who wanted to say they saw the Best Picture selection. Over the past year, has anyone popped The Artist into their blu-ray player to enjoy a second or third or fourth time? I doubt it.

I've already done that several times with films I saw during 2012, even going back to the theater additional times for films that weren't out on home media yet. Films like Lincoln, Argo, Zero Dark Thirty, The Dark Knight Rises, Looper, Skyfall, Moonrise Kingdom and Silver Linings Playbook are movies that I'll never get tired off. I'm still excited to watch each of these movies every time I decide to do so. But if I have to pick my best picture, which one gets that honor?

It's Lincoln. It's always been Lincoln. Sure, I flirted around with some other films, at times declaring The Dark Knight Rises or Looper as the best of 2012. I saw Argo in theaters before Lincoln debuted, so Ben Affleck's triumphant film occupied that top spot for a bit. Zero Dark Thirty, a morally murky movie itself, definitely made my personal best picture picture murky for a period. When the time came to finally declare a film as my favorite of 2012, there's no way I could pick another movie other than Lincoln.

I could go on about Tommy Lee Jones or Sally Field or Steven Spielberg, but for Lincoln, this entire argument comes down to one person: Daniel Day-Lewis. The Oscars are an activity in hyperbole, deeming a handful of actors and movies as worthy to be discussed among the greats. When it comes down to it, though, we often forget about many of these films and performances almost immediately after the credits roll at the end of the Oscar telecast. It's a rare thing for an Oscar winner to actually transcend the standard Oscar praise and truly belong among cinema's legends. Day-Lewis in Lincoln is one of those occurrences.

I have trouble recalling a performance that I would rank above Day-Lewis' portrayal of Abraham Lincoln. His performance was seamless, instantly erasing a century of cinematic Lincolns and replacing them with a nuanced, imperfect version of a man who managed to rise above politics and save the Union. No matter how great of performances we see in movies, there's always a part of an actor that tethers us to reality, reminding us that we're watching a person pretend to be someone else for the cameras. That tether was gone with Day-Lewis in Lincoln. He was Lincoln.

A Best Picture winner should speak to the times it was released while still being timeless. Lincoln pulls that off, coming at a time when American politics are fractured and ineffective. Lincoln goes beyond that, though, standing as a testament to the enduring success of the American democratic experiment and reminding viewers that just as others once fought to keep it alive, we should too.

The film has also earned Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress and a ton of other Oscar nominations. While the quantity of nominations isn't always a barometer for the quality of a film, in Lincoln's case, these nominations show how complete of a piece of work Spielberg's film is. The snub of Affleck for Best Director aside, Argo only garnered a single Best Supporting Actor nomination. Besides Silver Linings Playbook, no other Best Picture nominee can boast the cast that Lincoln brought together.

Come Oscar night, I believe that it will be Affleck and his fellow Argo producers on stage accepting the statuette for Best Picture, and while Argo is a deserving film, I'll feel saddened that Lincoln, a great film featuring a performance by one of the most talented actors to ever grace the big screen, will have fallen victim to movement that the Academy set into motion when it snubbed Affleck for Best Director. That's the story that will forever be written about the 85th Academy Awards. It's exciting, but it's a shame.

Bill Kuchman will reveal his top ten films of 2012 on Friday. Which films will join Lincoln?