9. Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Films of 2012: The Dark Knight Rises, Premium Rush, Looper, Lincoln When I was watching "Lincoln" in the theaters, the person that I went to see it with exclaimed: "Wait, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is in
another movie," when she saw his character appear. That sums up the past few years with this actor who has been consistently giving good performances in film after film. He helped raise a mediocre film like "Premium Rush" to something entertaining and rounded up the great ensemble cast in "Lincoln" and "The Dark Knight Rise." But, his best performance of the year has to be in "Looper," in which he is not simply doing a great Bruce Willis impression but creating a character around the persona of Bruce Willis (Bruce Willis was just being himself). He was able to convincingly portray the conflicted hero of one of the most original movies of the year. As of right now, he is making his directorial debut at the Sundance Film Festival with 'Don Jon's Addiction".