The 78th New York Film Critics Circle Awards, honoring the best in film for 2012, were announced on 3 December 2012 and presented on 7 January 2013.^[1][2][3]

• Best Film:
  • Zero Dark Thirty
  • Runners-up: Argo and The Master
• Best Director:
  • Kathryn Bigelow – Zero Dark Thirty
  • Runners-up: Ben Affleck – Argo and Paul Thomas Anderson – The Master
• Best Actor:
  • Daniel Day-Lewis – Lincoln
  • Runners-up: Jack Black – Bernie, Denis Lavant – Holy Motors, and Joaquin Phoenix – The Master
• Best Actress:
  • Rachel Weisz – The Deep Blue Sea
  • Runners-up: Jessica Chastain – Zero Dark Thirty, Jennifer Lawrence – The Hunger Games and Silver Linings Playbook, and Emmanuelle Riva – Amour
• Best Supporting Actor:
  • Matthew McConaughey – Bernie and Magic Mike
  • Runners-up: Tommy Lee Jones – Lincoln and Christoph Waltz – Django Unchained
• Best Supporting Actress:
  • Sally Field – Lincoln
  • Runner-up: Anne Hathaway – The Dark Knight Rises and Les Misérables
• Best Screenplay:
  • Tony Kushner – Lincoln
  • Runners-up: Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola – Moonrise Kingdom and Mark Boal – Zero Dark Thirty
• Best Animated Film:
  • Frankenweenie
  • Runners-up: Brave and ParaNorman
• Best Cinematography:
  • Greig Fraser – Zero Dark Thirty
  • Runner-up: Mihai Mălaimare Jr. – The Master
• Best Foreign Language Film:
  • Amour • Austria / France / Germany
  • Runners-up: Holy Motors • France / Germany and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da) • Bosnia and Herzegovina / Turkey
• Best Non-Fiction Film:
  • The Central Park Five
  • Runners-up: The Gatekeepers and This Is Not a Film
• Best First Film:
  • David France – How to Survive a Plague
  • Runner-up: Benh Zeitlin – Beasts of the Southern Wild