I havent seen Basterds, but Avatar was a small notch ahead of District 9 (which I loved). I hadn't read the graphic novel for Watchmen, so a lot of the stuff in it had me lost, making not nearly as enjoyable as Avatar.
Oh and just a couple of thoughts on the movie itself 5 days after viewing it:
Here's the thing (in my eyes) about the story: yeah, it wasn't original, and yeah, it was very predictable, but it still kept me engaged and interested in the movie. It wasn't groundbreaking, and had its flaws, but it did its job. It caused me to actually give a shit about the Na'vi at the end, and was still very immersive (The fact that I am even still thinking about the movie 5 days after seeing it is evidence, because if a movie sucks it's quickly, sometimes instantly, forgotten).
And as for the CGI stuff: I can't remember a single character's name from 2012, and it took me a while to remember what the movie was even about. My immediate memories of 2012 are essentially just the CGI end-of-the-world foolishness scenes. But, that is not the case with Avatar. It's a more advanced movie then 2012 technically, but the CGI isn't the first thing that comes to mind when I think Avatar. Instead, it's characters, major events in the story, relationships, etc, as opposed to awesome eye candy shots. I think this is testament to how Cameron produced amazing special effects, but didn't allow them to take over the film. Sure, his story was far, far from the best, but I still enjoyed it, and to me it wasn't overtaken by the CGI, but used it as a catalyst.
Additionally, I'm no film expert, so don't take what I say too seriously, as its all subjective. And also, I am usually very critical of movies, and rarely really enjoy myself at the movies. But I really enjoyed myself at Avatar, which I probably why I thought it was great. That and the fact that I'm a sucker for (good) epic, SciFi, and High Fantasy movies. (LotR gets me every time when they are on back to back to back, and I always waste the whole day watching them)