The Top Ten Movies of 2013
As is annual tradition, my best of 2013 list is about a month overdue. Life, ya know. Part of that life has been seeing more old movies in theaters than new movies now that I live in Austin, Texas. More on that some other time. For now, let’s just jump right into the top ten movies of 2013.
10. Laurence Anyways (dir. Xavier Dolan)
I caught Laurence Anyways at the Cleveland International Film Festival and at the time I was sure it would be my favorite movie of the year. In many ways it still is. This rapturous, epic drama that follows a male-to-female transgender-ed person and her one-time girlfriend through a decade in their relationship is Dolan’s best film yet. Watching this film, there are shades of Scorsese, Almodovar, Tarantino and Anderson, but all the while he makes his stories his own. When I saw I Killed My Mother, I knew that Dolan had a masterpiece in him. Laurence Anyways proves he has more than just one.
9. Captain Phillips (dir. Paul Greengrass)
To simply say that Captain Phillips is Paul Greengrass’s best movie is to do both the film and its director an injustice. Greengrass here takes a very cinematic true-life story and boils it down to an intense docu-drama that literally had me digging my fingers into the arms rests. It’s quite big and yet quite intimate. Unlike United 93 or Bloody Sunday, it doesn’t feel politically charged. And unlike Bourne, there’s a substantial human story, helped along by Tom Hanks who gives his best performance since Philadelphia as the captain. This is Greengrass distilled, bottled and aged to perfection.
8. Before Midnight (dir. Richard Linklater)
I’m about a decade younger than the characters in Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy, which means I came to the series late and have seen where life can go very early. That’s the beautiful of a trilogy that has spanned decades in the lives of its characters. While Before Midnight once again gives us just a window into the ongoing relationship between Jesse and Celine, we feel at the end like we know what they’ve been through in the last decade since Before Sunset and want to know where they’ll go in the next. There’s never been a cinematic series quite like the Before films. (Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel films are the closest comparison.) And with Before Midnight, this decades old series seems as fresh as ever.
7. Beyond the Hills (dir. Cristian Mungiu)
After watching 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Mungiu’s Palme d’Or winning abortion film, you had to wonder, where would the director go next. Exorcism wasn’t the most obvious answer, but it worked. This film about an Orthodox nun and her obsessed former lesbian lover who is presumed possesed by the devil is a stunner. When the film goes to its illogical conclusion, it’s hard to believe that its based on a true story. Regardless, this second masterpiece from Mungiu puts him near the top of list of the world’s best directors. You’ll learn almost everything you need to know about cinema watching just a single scene in any of his films. He’s a true master of the craft. That his film’s are dramatically entertaining is a bonus.
6. Inside Llewyn Davis (dirs. Joel & Ethan Coen)
The Coen brothers haven’t ever made a film like Inside Llewyn Davis. It’s much more emotionally raw than any of their previous works. You could even say it’s sad at times. All of the Coen fingerprints are still there, from the colorful cast of characters to the existential comedy. Yet, it’s amazing that after all these years, the Coens can still surprise even the most devoted followers. And that’s really what makes Inside Llewyn Davis so spectacular.
5. Short Term 12 (dir. Destin Cretton)
It’s hard to say if Destin Cretton’s debut feature, a subtle yet emotionally supercharged indie, is a sign of coming greatness or simply a drama that had the right actress in the right role at the right time. But watching the film it doesn’t really matter. Brie Larson throws us through a loop as Grace, a counselor at a home for troubled youth who encounters a girl whose story is similar to her own. The scene where the girl reveals her abuse is one of the single best moments in cinema this year. Cretton’s script and direction is certainly responsible for that, as much as Larson’s performance. Hopefully, the up-and-coming director and up-and-coming star can work together once again because after seeing Short Term 12, you’ll be dying to see another collaboration.
4. Mud (dir. Jeff Nichols)
Jeff Nichols isn’t a flashy director. But he’s certainly a stunning one. With Mud, Nichols third film and follow-up to Take Shelter, we’re once again confronted with the unrealities of his complex characters. Nichols films are novelistic in this sense. But in Mud, what could have been a standard coming of age drama becomes a much more layered emotional unravelling of boyhood to manhood. It’s about understanding how complicated this life can really be. That Matthew McConaughey gives the performance of his career here is just icing on the cake.
3. The Act of Killing (dir. Joshua Oppenheimer)
There’s an argument to be made that The Act of Killing is the most important film of the year. But as soon as you say something like that, the sentiment seems artificial. So instead, The Act of Killing should simply be called what it is: A film investigating the compartmentalization that helps us, as humans, survive. Could The Act of Killing change lives? Quite possibly. But even if it doesn’t, the barbarism and human cruelty that we experience through executioners reenactments of their crimes in the style of Hollywood films give us a gateway into the human psyche that few films could claim to achieve. It’s a documentary worth of being compared to the best of Errol Morris. That alone says it all.
2. The Wolf of Wall Street (dir. Martin Scorsese)
At 71 years old, Martin Scorsese’s still got it. In what is probably the most fully-charged film of the director’s career, we experience yet another story of male bad behavior that’s fitting for our times. It’s structurally almost identical to Scorsese’s greatest works including Goodfellas and Raging Bull. That doesn’t take away from the film. Not at all. Instead, it puts the film near the top of Scorsese’s filmography in terms of quality. And with Leonardo DiCaprio giving a performance worthy of being compared to De Niro in Raging Bull, it’s hard to see how The Wolf of Wall Street could be anything other than another Scorsese masterpiece.
1. Her (dir. Spike Jonze)
Depending on who you ask, Spike Jonze’s Her is a great film about the human experience draped in science fiction, or a masterful sci-fi film told with the most common human emotions. Either way you look at it, Jonze has created one of the great films of the 21st Century. The film about a man who falls in love with his artificially intelligent operating system is the most complete film of Jonze’s career, from script to screen. Is it the best science fiction film since 2001? Quite possibly. Is it the best dramedy of the decade? Most likely. What is for sure here is that even after repeat viewings, you can still see something new and even more astounding in every scene, every frame. This is a film that will never feel old because, whether it’s in the future or in the past, the emotions that Jonze so beautifully articulates are as timeless as the human condition itself.
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