They’re called “moving pictures” for a reason.

Moving pictures are the ones that endure, that stick in our memory after the credits fade.

“State of the art” changes, visceral “popcorn” entertainments entertain ― until they’re over.

But a movie that touches, that’s one worthy of being called one of the best pictures of the year.

This year, which didn’t end 12-21-12, had advances in technology and technical exercises that advanced the art form. Genre films improved on their genres, popcorn pictures sold a lot of popcorn.

Movies that transcended digital IMAX 3-D 48 frames per second image reproduction? Rare.

Here are the best films of 2012.

“The Impossible” ― Naomi Watts, as a perhaps mortally injured mom, hanging on to protect and teach one or two more life lessons to her son in the chaotic days after the horrific 2004 tsunami, gives the year’s most touching performance in a film that recreates that disaster and how one vacationing family, and poor local people who have lost everything, survive.

“Jeff, Who Lives at Home” ― Funny, dark, and wise, here’s a film about a slacker (Jason Segel) who finds meaning and purpose to his years-long obsession with M. Night Shyamalan’s “Signs” over the course of one fateful, hilarious day. Ed Helms is the brother who no longer lives at home, Susan Sarandon is the mom realizing what a disappointment both her maladjusted sons are.

“Zero Dark Thirty” ― Riveting, painful to watch at times, controversial in its treatment of torture, this is heroic in its celebration of the dogged intelligence work that, in the end, brought justice down on Osama bin Laden. There are touching moments, mostly in a montage of 9-11 phone messages in the opening credits. Performances are secondary in this, another painstakingly detailed military movie from the “Hurt Locker” team of Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow.

“Beasts of the Southern Wild” ― A minor miracle, here’s the best argument for “regional” filmmaking ever ― a vivid, post-Katrina bayou setting where unforgettable, impoverished characters battling the rising tide of climate change and history. 

By Roger Moore

(McClatchy-Tribune News Service)

(MCT Information Services)