The Best Films of 2013

As much fun as it is to make my annual lists of worsts and rejects, it pales in comparison to the wonderful ordeal that is coming up with my annual selections for the best films of the year. After all, good movies are a whole lot more fun to watch than bad movies, and as such writing about good movies winds up being a whole lot more rewarding. (Usually. There are exceptions, of course.) This year, making this list was particularly thrilling, and particularly difficult. As I mentioned the other day, this was my first list-making year where I had considerable trouble choosing a number one. Normally that is one of the first things I’m able to come up with. That only speaks to how many great films came out this year, and now I’m excited to share my picks for the best cinema had to offer in 2013. Let's do it.

The Outside Looking In

These are the films that came close, but didn’t quite crack the top ten.

20) This is the End: Many celebrities play themselves in the second best apocalyptic comedy of the year, which comes from first time directors Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.

19) Gimme the Loot: Not many people know about this charming indie comedy from Adam Leon, which follows a small crew of graffiti artists who seek to hit the New York Mets’ Home Run Apple.

18) No: The Chilean national plebiscite of 1988 allowed citizens to vote either for or against the continuing rule of Augusto Pinochet. This film from Pablo Larraín tells the story of a man (Gael García Bernal) who is put in charge of the anti-Pinochet advertising campaign.

17) The Spectacular Now: A fairly standard teen drama in many respects, but the central relationship between Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley is one of the best romances of the year, and every scene between them feels completely (and sometimes devastatingly) real.

16) Blue Jasmine: One of the better films Woody Allen has made in recent years, and much of that is due to the great work of Cate Blanchett as a former millionaire’s wife who now finds herself without a penny to her name. It’s as amusing as it is bleak.

15) Her: Another one of the best romances of the year is between Joaquin Phoenix and his operating system, as voiced by Scarlett Johansson. Writer/director Spike Jonze approaches this odd subject with complete sincerity, and it results in some unforgettable sequences.

14) The Conjuring: Just a tremendously executed haunted house film from prolific horror director James Wan, who wrings every bit of tension out of this material as he can.

13) Gravity: A masterclass in 3-D filmmaking from Alfonso Cuarón and a dynamite lead performance from Sandra Bullock made Gravity one of the more mesmerizing theatrical experiences of the year.

12) All is Lost: Margin Call director J.C. Chandor leaves dialogue behind with this minimalist survival thriller starring Robert Redford. It’s nothing more than a nameless man doing battle with the elements, and it proves that most of the baggage seen in others movies is completely superfluous.

11) Frances Ha: Perhaps one of the best quarter-life crisis comedies ever made, Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha follows a brilliant Greta Gerwig as she struggles to get her life out of neutral.

And now, the top ten films of 2013:

10.

Captain Phillips

Considering the story, it could have been easy to make Captain Phillips a typical film about a brave American triumphing over the evil Somali pirates. Fortunately, Paul Greengrass has never been one to indulge such simplicities. He is much more interested in why such hijackings occur, and his film winds up being a quite profound examination of two completely opposite worlds colliding in the Indian Ocean. It’s also an incredibly tense and exciting film, of course, but much like he did with the terrorists in United 93, Greengrass is able to find significant emotional resonance beneath the acts occurring onscreen. And then, of course, there is Tom Hanks’ final scene. Acting does not get any better than that.

9.

Blue is the Warmest Color

Taking a fairly conventional coming-of-age story and extending it to three hours is a bold move to say the least. That is exactly what Abdellatif Kechiche does with his Palme d’Or winner Blue is the Warmest Color, and against all odds he takes what should be interminable and makes it profound. It is about a teen girl named Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos) who starts a lesbian relationship with the older Emma (Léa Seydoux) and maintains it for quite some time. The audience watches in slow motion as Adèle changes from a young student into a teacher, and in that time her feelings for Emma inevitably change as well. Kechiche is focused on every single detail and every moment, and his perfectionism can be felt in every frame. We are watching a human being mature before our very eyes, and Kechiche is so enthusiastic about these characters that it can’t help but rub off on the audience.

8.

Upstream Color

To call Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color “bonkers” may be an understatement. Another word might be “confusing.” These are both true, but sometimes there are movies that befuddle audiences in a good or engaging way. Upstream Color is one such film, and it is likely to inspire debates among cinema fans for many years to come. The two main characters are Kris (Amy Seimetz) and Jeff (Shane Carruth), and after the former goes through a strange, traumatic experience the two of them begin an even stranger romance. Also, there is a man who watches over a group of pigs and is able to look into random peoples’ lives when he touches them. Or something. This is a film that defies description, and it is worth seeking out simply because nothing like it has ever been made before.

7.

Inside Llewyn Davis

The Coen brothers are no strangers to protagonists like Oscar Isaac’s Llewyn Davis, a man unable to break out of the repetitive, meager existence he has set up for himself. He spends each night sleeping on a different couch, accepting the charity of others, and almost never is able to offer anything back. Inside Llewyn Davis is no less ruthless than past Coen efforts, but the beauty of this film is the way much of the usual cynicism drifts away whenever the music kicks in. The soundtrack alone is worth the price of admission, and the folk music provides the film with a purity it might not otherwise have. This is a world filled with complications and cruelty, but once Llewyn starts strumming on his guitar nothing else seems to matter. However, the real world can pack quite a nasty punch once the music goes away.

6.

The World’s End

Few directors make filmmaking look as effortless as Edgar Wright, even though all of his movies are meticulously crafted and composed from line to line and shot to shot. This is especially true of The World’s End, which starts out as a comedy about a bunch of friends heading back to their hometown for a pub-crawl and morphs into something else entirely. This film is the third and final installment of the so-called Cornetto Trilogy, and this time around Wright and his collaborators Simon Pegg and Nick Frost take on the sci-fi genre to tell another tale of male bonding and the importance of individuality. At the center is one of the best performances of Pegg’s career as Gary King, a full-grown man who has never been able to evolve past his glory days in the ’90s. This addiction to nostalgia winds up costing him, along with the rest of the planet.

5.

Nebraska

Alexander Payne’s Nebraska isn’t necessarily a post-apocalyptic film, but it might as well be. As Woody Grant (Bruce Dern) and his son David (Will Forte) drive across the barren landscapes of the American Midwest, there are barely any signs of life to be found. When they stop to spend the weekend with family in Hawthorne, it feels like a ghost town. Many of its inhabitants talk about how alive and vibrant the town was back in their day, but now that world seems to have been left behind. One of the most uproarious scenes comes when Woody’s wife, played brilliantly by June Squibb, goes down a row of tombstones at the local cemetery and quite willingly speaks ill of the dead. And yet, Nebraska isn’t all cynicism. Payne is able to find real beauty in Woody’s quest to claim a fictional $1 million prize, even though the disappointments of these characters’ lives can sometimes outweigh the triumphs.

4.

Before Midnight

Richard Linklater’s impossibly beautiful Before… trilogy comes to an end with Before Midnight, a heartbreaking but absolutely perfect conclusion that sees our old friends Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy) as a couple hitting their 40s. In fact, they even have a pair of twin girls together. Much of the excitement of their relationship has inevitably fizzled, and their frustrations start to bubble over one summer while vacationing on the Peloponnese peninsula. It’s a bit jarring to watch after the first two films provided nothing but pure romance, but it rings true, and is ultimately satisfying in its own way. Jesse and Céline are one of the most engaging couples in movie history, and it would have felt cheap if Linklater and his stars settled for a simple “happily ever after.” These people are much more complicated than that, and much of Before Midnight is spent challenging that relationship. This film is a much different experience than its predecessors, but it winds up being equally rewarding, if not more so.

3.

12 Years a Slave

Scores of films have been made about the evils of slavery, but none have ever been as unsparing and exhaustive as Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, which follows free man Solomon Northup (Chiwitel Ejiofor) as he is kidnapped and sold to a plantation owner played by Benedict Cumberbatch. From there we follow him on his horrific tour through the South, until he eventually winds up in the possession of the brutal Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender). McQueen has not just made a great slavery film, but a film that brutally explores the difference between “surviving” and “living.” This is the absolute worst of humanity, and any glimmers of hope or freedom are few and far between. This film does not hold back, nor should it. Slavery was, obviously, a wholly evil institution, and never before has a film more brilliantly and fully captured these atrocities.

2.

The Wolf of Wall Street

When Martin Scorsese makes a film like The Wolf of Wall Street, it’s a reminder of how utterly alive movies can feel. Made with a level of manic energy hardly befitting a 71-year-old, this is a hilarious and angry film about some truly despicable human beings, and at no point does it hold back in depicting their debauchery. Scorsese piles excess on top of excess and then brilliantly tears it all down in the second half. Those who complain that the film glorifies Belfort are directing their anger at the wrong people. The Wolf of Wall Street is not about Belfort alone, but instead about a world that allows him to exist and become an icon. There is no dignity or intelligence here. There is just a selfish, shortsighted desire for instant wealth, and no regard for the inevitable consequences. One of the more telling scenes comes when Belfort has a golden opportunity to get out scot-free, and then immediately turns around and dives back in. It’s a stupefying move, but utterly believable. His life is a never-ending barrage of alcohol, prostitutes and drugs, but even at the end no substance is as addictive, or as destructive, as money. The Wolf of Wall Street is a great film about a culture that has placed wealth above all else.

1.

The Act of Killing

I know this choice may come out of left field considering I never got the chance to write a full review, but Joshua Oppenheimer’s documentary The Act of Killing is as bold as filmmaking gets. The primary subject is Anwar Congo, a gangster who killed hundreds, perhaps thousands of people during the Indonesian anti-communist purge of 1965-1966. Oppenheimer asks Anwar to get several former death squad leaders back together to reenact the killings for the cameras, and much of the documentary follows their attempts to turn these horrific acts into a movie. This forces Anwar and others to come face to face with what they’ve done, and the results are alternately haunting, horrifying, and sometimes darkly comedic. Most westerners could not fathom a world where these people are allowed to survive, let alone thrive. As one person says: “war crimes are defined by the winners. I’m a winner.” That right there summarizes how surreal it is to experience this film, and it often feels as though we’re getting a peek into an alternate universe. Unfortunately, the world of The Act of Killing is very real, and that is only reinforced by the amount of times “Anonymous” appears in the end credits. This film was an audacious, perhaps dangerous undertaking, but the result is a film sure to forever haunt all who seek it out.

Notable Films I Haven’t Seen

At Berkeley

Beyond the Hills

Blackfish

Computer Chess

The Hunt

In A World…

The Past

Post tenebras lux

Stories We Tell

A Touch of Sin

The Wind Rises

Okay, that will just about do it. Thank you all very much for continuing to read my little blog, even though I’ll admit this wasn’t my most prolific year. I’m going to try my best to change that in 2014, and I do hope that there will be some exciting developments on the horizon.