Beasts Of The Southern Wild

When we look back at cinema in 2012, The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises will probably first come to mind, what with their enormous box office totals and spectacle. But there's another hero that deserves a place alongside these caped crusaders and her name is Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis).

Hushpuppy is a fearless six-year-old who resides in a fictitious Southern bayou community called The Bathtub – basically a ramshackle town surrounded by rising waters and filled with a warm, merrymaking community waiting for the inevitable floods, in director Benh Zeitlen's debut film.

There she spends her days adventuring, getting survival advice from her father Wink (non-actor Dwight Henry) – himself mostly drunk and trying to keep a mystery illness from his daughter who lives in a separate “house” to him since her mother left the community.

It's a magical film, viewed through the eyes of a young girl who is in touch with the earth around her (she listens to the heartbeats of everything), filled with fantastical elements; once she learns of prehistoric beasts called Aurochs, thunder becomes the ice caps melting, setting the beasts free and floods racing toward The Bathtub. And while Henry is brilliant as Hushpuppy's rabble-rousing yet loving father, Wallis shines as the fierce, strong-willed and emotional youngster, her whimsical narration of the events at hand as heartbreaking as it is beautiful.

To say anymore is unnecessary; Beasts Of The Southern Wild is, simply put, one of the year's best films.