The 2012 Sundance Film Festival drew to a close over the weekend with a flurry of additional distribution deals, as well as a Saturday night awards ceremony. The fest’s out-of-nowhere buzz hit Beasts of the Southern Wild was among the big winners, nabbing not only the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize, but the US Dramatic Excellence in Cinematography award. The Documentary Grand Jury Prize went to The House I Live In, an examination of the war on drugs from director Eugene Jarecki (Why We Fight). The Israeli film The Law in These Parts won the World Cinema Jury Prize for Documentary, while the Latin American musical drama Violeta Went to Heaven won the Dramatic World Cinema Jury Prize.

True to my history of excellent scheduling judgment, your humble correspondent saw not one of those films during my eight days in Park City, though I did take in — and greatly enjoy — the US Audience award winners The Invisible War (Documentary) and The Surrogate (Drama); the latter film also won a richly-deserved US Dramatic Special Jury Prize for Ensemble Acting. My favorite film of the fest, Mike Birbiglia’s warm, winning comedy Sleepwalk With Me, won the Best of NEXT Audience Award; another favorite, the wry time-travel comedy/drama Safety Not Guaranteed, won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award.

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Prop 8 boycotters be damned, the slate for this year’s Sundance Film Festival has been announced, and as always it reads like an overwhelming buffet of tasty cinematic treasures along with a few movies that we would never, ever want to see. The ones that we’re the most excited about? The films that star the actors who we love most, naturally.

(Admittedly this is a flawed way of doing things, as last year it meant that we completely missed out on Momma’s Man and Man on Wire, but our screening powers are only as good as our unhealthy crush on Michael Cera.)

After the jump, the five flicks that we’ll be vying for good seats at come January; leave your own picks in the comments.

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