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Special Report
Best of the arts
Our picks for this year’s best music, movies, television, arts, classical music, dance, museums and theater.
Best of pop culture 2012 From acclaimed crooner Frank Ocean’s “Channel Orange” to AMC’s hit series “Breaking Bad,” we rank our favorite offerings from music, television and movies from this year.
Best TV: “Breaking Bad”
With Walter White’s hubristic attempt to run his own meth mini-cartel, AMC's “Breaking Bad” continued to prove why it is far and away TV’s best show.
Ursula Coyote
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AMC
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Best TV: “Mad Men”
Jessica Pare’s happy/sad turn as Don Draper’s new wife, Megan, added steam to AMC's “Mad Men.”
Ron Jaffe
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AP
Best TV
Once the survivors on AMC's “The Walking Dead” fled Hershel’s farm, the sociocultural zombie drama is going places again — and boldly shedding important characters.
“The Walking Dead”
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TWD Productions/AMC
Best TV: “Homeland”
The second season of Showtime's “Homeland” veered smartly into a new arrangement (double agent!).
Ronen Akerman
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AP
Best TV: “Veep”
HBO's “Veep” broke a long spell of boring Beltway-related TV shows by ignoring politics and deliciously chronicling the raw, ugly ego of the Hill.
Bill Gray
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AP
Best TV: “Dallas”
Sometimes lowered expectations give way to a delicious bit of guilty pleasure, as with TNT's faithfully fun “Dallas” update, which came on sharply and stylishly.
Martin Schoeller
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TNT
Best TV: “Girls”
HBO's “Girls” got off to an annoying start, but built to a compelling and melancholy finish worthy of its hype.
Jojo Whilden
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HBO
Best TV: “Nashville”
ABC's “Nashville” won audiences with a near-perfect pilot episode.
Katherine Bomboy-Thornton
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ABC
Best TV: “American Horror Story: Asylum”
While this season's “American Horror Story: Asylum” yarn is a mean-spirited, unfrightening gross-out that quickly ran through all its good ideas, Jessica Lange’s Sister Jude saves the show.
Frank Ockenfels
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FX
Best movies: “Zero Dark Thirty”
Kathryn Bigelow’s taut thriller, “Zero Dark Thirty,” about the hunt for Osama bin Laden exemplifies the Oscar-winning director by creating a brand-new cinematic genre: the reported film.
Jonathan Olley
Best movies: “Lincoln”
Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner’s historical drama “Lincoln” leaves behind fusty, great-man portraiture and instead engages in a lively game of political cat-and-mouse.
David James
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Disney/Dreamworks
Best movies: “The Waiting Room”
Peter Nicks’s magnificent documentary “The Waiting Room” spends a day in the life of an over-crowded and under-resourced hospital emergency room in Oakland, Calif.
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Courtesy of International Film Circuit
Best movies: “Middle of Nowhere”
Ava DuVernay, right, created a finely calibrated drama in “Middle of Nowhere,” about a woman navigating life while her husband is in prison. It features a breakout performance by lead actress Emayatzy Corinealdi, left.
Valerie Macon
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Getty Images for TheWrap
Best movies: “Monsieur Lazhar”
Philippe Falardeau’s affecting drama “Monsieur Lazhar” is about an Algerian immigrant teaching in a Montreal elementary school, and it goes straight and simply for the heart.
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Courtesy of Music Box Films
Best movies: “This is Not a Film”
Jafar Panahi’s “This is Not a Film,” about living under house arrest in Iran, uses Brechtian staging, blurred lines between documentary and drama, and an iPhone to explore the notion of physical and political boundaries
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Image courtesy of Palisades Tartan
Best movies: “Margaret”
Kenneth Lonergan’s epic coming-of-age tale “Margaret,” about a Manhattan teenager sent into an ethical tailspin after being involved in a tragic bus accident, was well worth the wait.
Myles Aronowitz
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AP
Best movies: “Argo”
Ben Affleck’s thoroughly entertaining thriller “Argo,” about a little-known chapter of the Iran hostage crisis, strikes a tricky tonal balance between history lesson, action-adventure and showbiz satire.
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Courtesy Warner Bros. Entertainment
Best movies: “Anna Karenina”
Joe Wright’s ingenious, intoxicating adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s novel “Anna Karenina,” brilliantly re-imagines the author’s dense tale of love, adultery, politics and aristocratic manners as light opera.
Laurie Sparham
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Focus Features
Best movies: “Holy Motors”
“Holy Motors” is an electrifying, confounding, what-the-hell-just-happened exercise in unbounded imagination, unapologetic theatricality, bravura acting and head-over-heels movie-love.
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Courtesy of Indomina Releasing
Best pop music: Frank Ocean
As a singer, songwriter and storyteller, Frank Ocean is every bit as fluid as he is commanding, delivering songs crammed with moods, memories and detailed characters.
Karl Walter
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Getty Images for Coachella
Best pop music: Frank Ocean
Cover art for Ocean's album "Channel Orange."
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Courtesy of Def Jam
Best pop music: Neil Young and Crazy Horse
The latest album by rock legend Neil Young and his trusty band is jammy and cagey, demanding and rewarding, thick with improvisation and rife with an energizing fury.
Richard A. Lipski
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For The Washington Post
Best pop music: Neil Young and Crazy Horse
Cover art for Neil Young and Crazy Horse's album "Psychedelic Pill."
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Courtesy of Reprise
Best pop music: Jessie Ware
With so many British chanteuses willing to abuse their lungs in the name of American soul music, 28-year-old Jessie Ware stands out by being subtle.
Ben Pruchnie
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Getty Images
Best pop music: Jessie Ware
Cover art for Ware's "Devotion."
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Island Records
Best pop music: Future
While Drake and his imitators continue to preen on the fault line between singing and rapping, Atlanta sensation Future rhymes in Auto-Tuned grumbles.
Jason Merritt
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Getty Images for BET
Best pop music: Future
Cover art for Future’s “Pluto”
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Epic Records
Best pop music: Janka Nabay & the Bubu Gang
Washington’s own Janka Nabay electrifies traditional bubu music from his native Sierra Leone with a hand from some Brooklyn rock musicians.
Kyle Gustafson
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For The Washington Post
Best pop music: Janka Nabay & the Bubu Gang
Cover art for Janka Nabay & the Bubu Gang's album "En Yay Sah."
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Courtesy Janka Nabay & the Bubu Gang
The band, Fresh and Onlys, will perform in the Washington DC area. Input images input by Twila Waddy. (Photo by Brian Pritchard)
Brian Pritchard
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PHOTO BY BRIAN PRITCHARD
Best pop music: The Fresh & Onlys
Cover art for the Fresh & Onlys "Long Slow Dance."
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Courtesy of the Fresh & Onlys
Best pop music: Kellie Pickler
On her third album, “American Idol” survivor Kellie Pickler finally uses that big voice to sing big songs about no-good men, absentee parents and her own backbone.
Christopher Polk
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Getty Images for CMT
Best pop music: Kellie Pickler
Cover art for Pickler's album "100 Proof."
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Courtesy of Sony Music Nashville
Best pop music: Laurel Halo
Laurel Halo's fantastically forlorn, severely synthetic pop songs sound native to the great digital everywhere.
Timothy Saccenti
Best pop music: Laurel Halo
Cover art for Halo's "Quarantine."
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Hyperdub
Best pop music: Dierks Bentley
Seems like every man in Nashville wants to be the Nashville Everyman. Dierks Bentley actually pulls it off, singing from various vantages with smarts and charm.
Kevin Dietsch
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Getty Images
Best pop music: Dierks Bentley
Cover art for Bentley's album "Home."
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Courtesy of Capitol Nashville
Best pop music: A Tribe Called Red
Canadian trio A Tribe Called Red meshes Native American music with crushing electronic dance rhythms.
Pat Bolduc
Best pop music: A Tribe Called Red
Cover art for A Tribe Called Red's self-titled album.
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A Tribe Called Red
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Section:/lifestyle/style
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