My Top 25 Films of 2013
My argument remains the same – When the national average here in the UK is roughly 4 new releases per week, resulting in potentially 1408 new films a year (not counting straight-to-dvd fare), it’s not the most unfair thing in the world to pull 25 from 1408 that are worth highlighting instead of 10.
The criteria this year was choosing films that have had UK releases between January 1st 2013 and December 31st 2013. Last year, my stand-alone Top 10 of the films that I desperately wanted to see but never got the chance to was SHAMEFULLY made up of titles that featured on most critics actual end-of year lists. So, special mention must go to The Hunt, Killing Them Softly, Amour, Silver Linings Playbook, The Master, Beasts of the Southern Wild, End of Watch and Argo – all of which I FINALLY got round to seeing in the opening months of the year!
To undo the shame of last year, I made a concerted effort to see as much as I could and get in a varied diet of the great and the highly recommended. On my list of films I was highly anticipating, only Philomena, Big Bad Wolves, the much-derided remake of Oldboy, Disney’s Frozen, Nebraska and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty have slipped through the net.
Before heading into the list itself I have to give special mention to those that fell just outside of the final twenty-five. I’ve LOVED a lot this year. Which is unusual because most of the fellow geeks and critics I respect consider it to be one of the most disappointing years in cinema overall. My Top 25 is based on films that I’ve had a great experience with, that in some way offer an example of the best that their cinematic genre has to offer and that I’ve revisited in the compiling of this list and loved just as equally the first time. Here’s a quick Top 10 list of films that just didn’t make the cut but all could’ve/should’ve/would’ve with the easiest of mood changes:
10) The Bay
9) This Is The End
8) Wreck It Ralph
7) This Is 40
6) Behind The Candelabra
5) Trance
4) A Hijacking
3) Stories We Tell
2) Stoker
1) Klown
Special Mention must also go to two films I saw this year via import that have not been given UK releases yet in any form but would’ve both landed in my Top 10 for this year if they had – the bullet-fast actioner, Sleepless Night, which was a French mix of Die Hard and Taken set in a nightclub and told in real time AND Kon-Tiki, the true story of Thor Heyerdahl and his 1947 expedition across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands using only the materials and technologies available to the South Americans in pre-Columbian times.
… Anyway, I’ve raved on about TWENTY films already before even touching on the actual list. My apologies. Without further ado, here’s my Top 25 Films of 2013:
25) Olympus Has Fallen
Seeing this as the opening film on this list probably has a lot of you tuning out straight away, thinking “Christ! If THIS is on there, then how bad is this rundown?” but stick with me… As B-movie action films go, I had a great time with this. Mainly because I could never get my head around how a film so poe-faced and jingoistic could also find a way to not take itself so seriously. In a year where it is was going up against an ACTUAL Die Hard sequel AND a $200 million “terrorists in the White House” competitor, no one would have put their money on a scrappy medium-budgeted Gerard Butler movie that couldn’t even bring itself to spell “White House” properly – Yet its underdog spirit won out and proved to be the brutal, pacey, unrestrained Die Hard movie we were all wanting this year. The similar White House Down was a turgid, tonal mess in comparison.
24) Flight
To put it simply, come for one of the most astounding opening sequences in the whole of cinema this year and stay for one of the best performances Denzel Washington has ever given. This was a genuinely great piece of adult drama thanks to an assured ensemble and one of America’s most accomplished directors working together at the top of their games. Yes, the soundtrack choices and their placements might have been a little bit ‘unsubtle’ at times, but it’s a minor grumble against one of the best studies of the decaying nature of addiction ever put on screen.
23) Drug War
I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Johnnie To. When he’s good he’s bloody great. But when he’s not on point his films can sometimes feel like a bit of a mess to me. This is Johnnie To at his best – detailing the story of a police captain who partners with a drug lord after he is arrested. To avoid the death penalty, the drug lord agrees to reveal information about his partners who operate a methamphetamine ring. But suspicions of his honesty and reliability come to the forefront when cops begin raiding the drug rings. To’s film has the feel of 70s style police procedural, all slow-burning authenticity, right the way up to its climactic explosion of violence choreographed and shot as real as Michael Mann’s botched bank robbery “dust-up” in Heat.
22) Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa
One of the best comedies of the year in my opinion. The history of the ‘television character taken to the big screen’ is bathed in neither a great deal of success or acclaim so I went into this with great trepidation. More so because Steve Coogan’s Alan Partridge is a character I’ve adored from the outset and seen through one loose variation of a sketch show, one ‘chat show’, two series of sitcoms, various live appearances, a ‘biography’ and a collection of webisodes and specials. I honestly thought that if anything was going to ‘kill’ the character off it was going to be a big-screen adventure. However, what we were served was a surprisingly tight, brilliantly realised roll out for one of the UK’s best comic creations. The gag quota was amazingly high, the beats for long-standing fans were a joy and the whole thing came together as a great little comedy in its own right.
21) Paradise: Love / Faith / Hope
I knew nothing of these films other than that Empire’s Simon Crook (one of the critics I tend to agree with more than most) repeatedly extolled their virtues on his twitter feed. His praise was infectious and I took to reading up on them and their director, Ulrich Seidl. Learning that the film was originally one interconnected piece looking at certain themes (“love”, “faith” and “hope”) through the respective journeys of three women in the same family (that was separated into three separate films) intrigued me but when I learnt more about Seidl’s methods (he writes outlines and targets locations then sends the cast out to ‘experience’ the moment and improvise the scene, the results of which dictate where the film goes next - a style that many could suggest falls in line with Christopher Guest, Larry David or Judd Apatow’s way of filmmaking) I became very interested in experiencing it. It was recommended to me as a ‘whole’ and that’s how I experienced it. Pulled apart, I’d say ‘Love’ (the story of old ladies heading out to Kenya for ‘sex holidays’ with young black men) is the comedic romp that lures you into the harrowing drama of ‘Faith’ (a woman trying to balance her strong belief in the word of God alongside the return of her estranged Muslim husband) before seeing you off with the disturbing and yet strangely heart-warming ‘Hope’ (a young girl experiences her first feelings of love whilst away at a fat camp). Together though, the three make a majestic piece of cinema so naturally executed it often feels like you’re watching a documentary.
20) Compliance
I’d heard of the true story this is based on through a long-form article I’d read on the internet years before this film was made. I was also familiar with Dreema Walker through a (now cancelled) TV sitcom that my fiancée liked to watch. The story itself seemed just too grubby for me to have any desire to check it out but Walker proved to be such an enjoyable talent on that aforementioned sitcom I thought I’d check it out and see what her ‘dramatic chops’ were like. I went in with low expectations, thinking that the real events – whereby a prank caller who pretends to be a police officer convinces the manager of a fast-food restaurant that one of her employees committed a crime which in turn leads to an innocent woman being held captive, debased and sexually assaulted within her own place of work – would be heavily sensationalised. Instead I was transfixed, enthralled and left outraged by one of the best dramas I’ve seen this year. The film itself is all but forgotten already, it seems, but if there was any justice Dreema Walker would have had an Academy Award nomination for her performance here.
19) Ea$y Money
Released in its native Sweden under the name Snabba Cash in 2010, it’s taken three years and Martin Scorsese’s backing to get this film onto UK screens but it was well worth the wait – with two sequels on their way too (the first was released in Sweden in 2012 [still unreleased here], while the third has apparently just been released there last month). Ea$y Money follows a poor student living a double life in the upper class areas of Stockholm. After meeting a wealthy girl, he is enticed into the world of organised crime to fund an affluent lifestyle that she would deem attractive. In doing so he becomes drawn into gang wars, murder and betrayal. Complex, expertly crafted and a must-see for anyone who was a fan of last year’s Headhunters,
18) Iron Man 3
Marvel are on a roll at the moment that not even Thor 2’s mediocrity can stop. Of all the blockbusters released this year, this was the one with a level of swagger and confidence that almost matched its lead character’s own egotism. Part comic book blockbuster, part espionage thriller, part buddy movie, part Shane Black festive action flick, Iron Man 3 deftly ducks and dives out from underneath the weight of expectation thrust upon it by the might of The Avengers and expertly delivers all of the high octane set-pieces, thrills and laughter you could possibly hope for. If this *really* is the last stand-alone Tony Stark movie then it’s a hell of a farewell.
17) The Lone Ranger
Heavily (and unjustly) maligned, this – for me – was an out-and-out joy and one of my favourite summer movies of the year. Hell, judiciously pruned in the right places, I’d go so far to call it a near-perfect blockbuster. Yes, the bookends are unnecessary and not well executed. Yes, its middle section is flabby as hell and sags the whole movie down. And yes, there is something almost insane about spending that amount of money on a niche genre (westerns will never again be what they once were) and then delivering a TWO AND A HALF HOUR movie, but it’s that bizarre over-confidence mixed alongside Gore Verbinkski’s inventive and involving direction that makes it something you shouldn’t be too quick to write off. The train sequences are dazzling and awe-inspiringly well executed. Hans Zimmer’s score is dependable as always. And, confoundingly unrelated ‘were-rabbits’ and cannibalism aside, it’s a fantastic romp… that’s considerably better than ANY of the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels!
16) Fast & Furious 6
I was ashamed in my love and affection for the fifth entry in this ramshackle but hugely enjoyable franchise. I won’t make the same mistake this time round – I’m totally unashamed to admit that I’ve grown to love this franchise and specifically this film: It’s utterly ridiculous. It makes no sense. It exists in a world where there’s enormous dramatic stakes applied to scenarios that cannot possibly have any dramatic weight. Its main actor treats the material like Shakespeare and… and… It’s just so unbelievably glorious. There’s military cargo planes driving along 30-odd mile runaways whilst being pinned down by cars. There’s car chases around the streets of London. There’s Dwayne Johnson doing his ‘franchise viagra’ thing and, best of all, there is a sequence involving a tank and cars and enormous collateral damage and one of the most insanely stupid and intelligence insulting pay-offs to said sequence – and you STILL come away grinning like an idiot! This is one of the best action movies of the year.
15) Sleep Tight
No other film this year – The Conjuring included – has made me feel more uncomfortable and unnerved this year. It’s a drama that plays out as a real life horror movie that will genuinely have you checking your wardrobes and underneath your beds for a long time to come after watching it. Starring Luis Tosar, who was genuinely phenomenal in Cell 211, this follows an apartment concierge who has decided to make it his mission in life to subtly torture all of his tenants. One young lady won’t break easy so he goes to creepy extremes to destroy her life. But when he begins to develop an obsession with her at the same time that her boyfriend shows up on the scene, things begin to head towards a disturbing and cataclysmic conclusion. For extra fun – seeing as its filmed in the same apartment complex with a few recognisable faces and produced by the same team – treat it as a prequel to the [REC] movies!
14) The Place Beyond The Pines
Providing the ‘Gosling Fix’ we’re all deserved of in the wake of Drive and which the horrific Only God Forgives failed to deliver, this is a riveting drama filled with great performances (Bradley Cooper, for one, continues an impressive run post-Silver Linings Playbook) and a surprising narrative flip used to great effect in order to present an absorbing parable about the sins of the father being cast upon the fate of the son.
13) Blue Jasmine
I’m a big Woody Allen fan (yes… I prefer his ‘earlier funny stuff’!) who never gave up hope that his mandate of one film annually would yield at least one film worthy of being deemed a classic. Melinda & Melinda came close for me, as controversial as that seems to be to admit. Midnight In Paris was nearly there too, though the love for it was a little overzealous in some critics circles. There was Match Point too which could have been something had it not been sunk by some of the worst performances ever committed to celluloid. I didn’t have the highest hopes for this film despite being an enormous Cate Blanchett fan. The description of it (coming off the back of the likes of You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger and To Rome With Love AND in a year when the whole Mia Farrow / paedophilia ‘wound’ was ripped back open!) didn’t do much for me and the casting around Blanchett seemed bizarre. Yet in the face of all of that, I was met with one of Allen’s best pictures in a long, long time. It’s funny – for a drama about mental illness and Bernie Madoff types. And yet it’s very dramatic – for a comedy about airs, graces and social standings. In a film in which our own Sally Hawkins more than matches the might of Cate Blanchett, and both Alec Baldwin and Bobby Cannavale act up a storm, it’s a genuine surprise that the highlight and heart of the movie comes from an aged, apparently-misogynistic stand-up comic who’s ‘day’ was back in the early part of the 90s; Andrew Dice Clay could and should get a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his work here.
12) The Kings of Summer
Blessed with one of my favourite comedic performances of the year from Moisés Arias, this is a delightful highlight in a sea of ‘coming of age’ movies. Its set-up and style of humour is endearingly off-centre and there’s a lot here to love thanks to great performances, some beautiful shots and a nice soundtrack. Yes, it’s a little ramshackle and thrown together but that’s part of its charm. The flaw of there not being quite enough story to see it through to the end is pleasingly disguised by the comedic beats that are sporadically put forth by Moisés Arias.
11) Elysium
Most critics seemed to hastily dismiss this because it wasn’t District 9, which felt enormously unfair to me. One critic in particular seemed to review it in side by side comparison with Neill Blomkamp’s debut movie and write it off as just an empty-headed piece of sci-fi excess – which seems incredulous to me as there’s nothing “empty-headed” about it. Another complained that it was “overly preachy” because it had the audacity to explore things like immigration, overpopulation, health care, exploitation, and class issues within the confines of a stupendously entertaining blockbuster with some of the best visuals I’ve seen on a cinema screen all year. The ‘heist’ set-piece alone is one of the greatest sequences out of all of 2013’s cinematic output.
10) Django Unchained
Gloriously excessive in just about every conceivable way, this is an enormously entertaining genre mash-up delivered in only the way Quentin Tarantino could. Controversially taking the history of slavery as its narrative backbone and set in the antebellum era of the Deep South and Old West, Tarantino’s exploitation-western-revenge-epic follows a freed slave who treks across the United States with a bounty hunter on a mission to rescue his wife from a plantation owner. Within a cast all pitching to the back seats, Samuel L Jackson is the stand-out. His work ethic and output has diluted his talent to a point where he’s phoning it in left, right and centre in a lot of movies that are quite frankly beneath him. It’s all too easy to forget just how GREAT he can actually be. Django Unchained forcibly reminds you. It’s violent, it’s profane, it’s grand and it’s really quite brilliant – and no terrible dodgy-accented Tarantino cameo can change that.
9) Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
It’s overlong and self-indulgent by a good fifteen to twenty minutes and it’s enormously preachy in the message about the media that it’s trying to pointedly deliver in amidst an absurdist comedy about an old-fashioned, racist, misogynistic, blow-hard news-anchor but… truth be told… there’s no getting away from the fact that it is just unrelentingly laugh-out-loud hysterical with a gag quota we’ve not seen in modern comedies in some time. Steve Carrell’s Brick is the stand-out but judging from his enhanced screen-time that appears to be by the design of the filmmakers. Paul Rudd is underserved. And that ‘All-Star’ climax is fantastic. If you loved the first as much as I did then you’re not going to be disappointed. If you’ve ever questioned the point of its existence then this is not for you. The comedy of the year!
8) The Act of Killing
Probably one of the most sickening yet innately fascinating pieces of documentary cinema that I’ve seen this year, if not at all. Filmmaker Josh Oppenheimer headed into Medan in North Sumatra to interview two of the most notorious leaders of the Indonesian Death Squads of 1965-1966, Anwar Congo and Adi Zulkadry. Now revered as founding fathers of the right-wing paramilitary organisation that rules the country, the duo along with some of the other Death Squad members, are invited to revisit and re-enact their murders using the cinematic form. But as Anwar’s own recollections are dramatised in the style of gangster movies and musicals using local villagers and family members of their victims, we’re slowly and terrifying drawn into a study of real evil, post-traumatic stress disorder, mental instability and the horrifying and despicable nature of power, corruption and genocide. This is by no means an easy watch – but it is one that NEEDS to be seen.
7) Prisoners
I can’t be the only one that thought that the days of a mainstream, all-star, well-budgeted adult drama were all put gone? Most actors and filmmakers these days seem to use every interview opportunity to talk about the death of the “mid-budget studio potboiler”. The acclaim for Prisoners should hopefully see a return. Cast brilliantly (even Terence Howard, who’s been sleepwalking through everything recently, brings his A-game!) and given a strangely luxurious running time in order to breathe slowly, the film is a slow-burning, dark, edge-of-the-seat morality play dressed up in the clothes of a mainstream thriller. Hugh Jackman is excellent, as is Jake Gyllenhaal. There’s no awkwardly inserted ‘this is for the trailer’ action beats. It’s just an almost old-fashioned, twisting and turning ‘whodunnit’ that is definitely worth checking out.
6) The Way Way Back
I went in expecting this to be dispensable at best – a nice, entertaining, but forgettable comedy with Steve Carrell playing against type and a slight Little Miss Sunshine vibe being evoked. Instead I found something that really hit me hard and connected with me and my own upbringing whilst being lovely and warm and funny and just everything that you could possibly hope for. Sam Rockwell shamelessly cribs from early Bill Murray to great effect and, by this point, there’s no one out there on the planet that doesn’t think Allison Janney is one of the best actresses working in the industry today, right? This was a film talked up through the festival circuit, then dropped into cinemas with little pomp or circumstance. It’s actually a real jewel of a film just waiting to be discovered.
5) All Is Lost
I can’t remember the last great performance I’ve seen from Robert Redford – even though his entire output from the 1970s shows he’s more than capable of it. He’s lazily coasted for too long on the weight of his reputation and his good-looks, famously refusing to take roles that demeaned, challenged or diminished them in any way. Here, he puts himself into a physically demanding role (especially for his age) with barely any dialogue and at the hands of a director working on only his second film (his first being the financial crisis ensemble piece, Margin Call). What results is an actually awe-inspiring survival movie that throws us in moments after the point of impact that gets the narrative underway and pulls us in deep as Redford’s experienced sailor fights to first keep his yacht – and then himself – afloat in the vast loneliness of the ocean that surrounds and engulfs him. All Is Lost is a confident and brutally unrelenting masterpiece.
4) Gravity
Thematically similar in a lot of regards to All Is Lost, Gravity is a film so technically audacious and oh so genuinely astounding on a visual level that it manages to see away flaws that would not only sink other films but stop them from getting on anyone’s end of year list (let alone as high up as it has on everyone’s!) From its sublime one-shot opening through to its moving conclusion, with a stop from a few pummelling sequences along the way, it’s every bit the nail-biting thrill-ride that you’ve heard it is. I don’t think the script is particularly strong. Nor do I think George Clooney is taking any of it as seriously as he needs to for his character’s sake or that Sandra Bullock delivers a consistently measured performance. But it feels trite to mention any of that because it’s all almost (strangely) immaterial. This is less a film about dramatic performances or strong screenwriting, and more about a dazzling array of show-stopping and jaw-dropping technical advancements in filmmaking. And in that regard it is not only beyond reproach but also the reason it sits as high as it does on this list.
3) Blackfish
There’s no more an important documentary you see this year then this, in my opinion. Focusing on the captivity of Tilikum, a killer whale involved in the deaths of three individuals, Gabriela Cowperthwaite uses this as a narrative spine in which to look at the consequences of keeping killer whales in captivity. It’s all parts disturbing, upsetting and appalling in the information it uncovers and presents to its viewers. Courageously going up against the might of SeaWorld and the foundation of lies and misrepresentation they’ve built their organisation upon, Gabriela Cowperthwaite has delivered a gripping piece of investigatory documentary filmmaking that is already proving powerful enough to necessitate change and strong discussion on a wider platform.
2) Captain Philips
Remove the whole host of articles swimming around the internet that strongly suggest the real life figure on which this film is based has been less than truthful about events and is in fact a particularly narcissistic blowhard within the maritime community, and just judge the film for what it is. Based solely on factors relating to the acting, directing, writing and general execution, this is unarguably one of the best dramatic thrillers of the year. The term ‘edge of the seat’ doesn’t do justice to just how captivating (pardon the pun) and enthralling the whole film turns out to be. Taking the time to represent both kidnappers and captive appropriately (over any desire to make the entire movie a militaristic, bombastic, rescue flick) is the film’s best move because it gives the heavily-realistic rescue sequences late in the second act more weight and power when they do arrive. Any shadow of doubt as to the worth of America’s Treasure, Tom Hanks, as one of the greatest living actors is erased instantly in the final five minutes of the film. His final scene alone stands as the best male performance of 2013.
1) Zero Dark Thirty
Sublimely perfecting the cinematic procedural last seen so well executed by David Fincher with Zodiac, Kathryn Bigelow has turned the Bin Laden man-hunt into an engrossing, exhilarating, fascinating, intelligent, thought-provoking piece of cinema. Spearheading a flawless cast of character actors, Jessica Chastain gives one of the best performances of the year and cements her reputation as the greatest actress of our generation. Stand where you like with regards to the issues surrounding the films stance on torture and its use / the part it played, it doesn’t dilute its power. There is a level of control on show here that marks Bigelow as one of the great directors of our time – She never lets the film get away from her and ascend to heady heights of overt-patriotism and overblown action set-pieces to pad out the sense of military might. The (well known) climax could’ve been presented as a slow-motion heavy, squib-soaked piece of action porn in the hands of a lesser director – Bigelow presents it as night-vision-drenched docu-drama instead. It came out of the gate as a ready made modern masterpiece but US political figures clouded a lot of its excellence with debate and accusations. Time will outrun such obstacles and Zero Dark Thirty will stand, not just as the best movie of 2013, but as one of the great modern American movies.
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