2013 brought on an endless supply of great movies from (then-) emerging or already-established filmmaking giants. It is the most recent year for American movies that brings about the most hope for their future.
This is both encouraging and mildly disheartening, considering that the years since have only contained a few sporadic masterworks each, and especially when you consider the year’s most deserving previous rival would have been 1999 (the year of Fight Club, Magnolia, Being John Malkovich, The Insider, Three Kings, Bringing Out the Dead, American Beauty, and many others).
Aside from the junk (of which there was plenty) in 2013, there was an outpour of unique ideas and dangerous material, found in independent and studio productions, theatrical and VOD releases alike. Chances were being taken, there was a sense of freedom in the air that made it feel like a 70’s throwback was right around the corner (only with films that had better technology, updated themes, and tighter pacing, of course).
Or, perhaps even more exciting, it felt like we were possibly on the cusp of something new.
The five years since are steadily proving years of this caliber are a rarity. That’s not to say plenty of great movies haven’t been made since- we just have yet to see them released in such a steady succession. Perhaps the stars are waiting to properly align. Regardless, take a moment to appreciate this selection of great titles. And, if you don’t agree with the choices from this particular list, remember there are plenty of other titles from 2013 to choose from.
10. The Wolf of Wall Street
This is the movie Martin Scorsese had to wait to be an orphan to make. While it is full of the filmmaker’s frenzied style of shooting, editing, and popular music choices, it also lacks the filmmaker’s usual stamp of morality, humanity, and introspection.
Based on Jordan Belfort’s memoir of the same name, The Wolf of Wall Street is, quite simply, foul. It’s an unapologetic, nasty piece of satire depicting the illegal schemes of a very successful Wall Street investment company in the 1990’s. Cocaine, casual and irresponsible sex, cocaine, rampant misogyny, midget tossing, and more cocaine are just some of the debaucheries depicted within the film in such a sensationalized manner that you almost feel high while watching it.
The point to The Wolf of Wall Street lies in its absurdly thorough, and often hilarious, depiction of excess (a common theme of 2013 also examined effectively in Pain & Gain, Spring Breakers, and American Hustle). Scorsese created a film that was so intent on depicting that excess that it simply didn’t have any room for a moral barometer. Simply put, The Wolf of Wall Street is cocaine in cinematic form: pumping you up to obnoxious heights only to leave you feeling hollow and empty, scrutinizing why you were ever having such a good time in the first place.
8./9. (tie). Saving Mr. Banks/ Captain Phillips
There will never be another movie star like Tom Hanks. He’s better than any special effect, magic in and of himself. You trust him. You believe every word he says- and he always does it simply by being present as Tom Hanks.
Whether he’s an earnest sea captain negotiating with pirates or a slightly slimy version of Walt Disney trying to manipulate Mary Poppins’ screen rights away from her creator, he exudes decency, humanity, and reality with every role he chooses.
Both Saving Mr. Banks and Captain Phillips, though supported by strong filmmakers and other wonderful actors, are showcases for Hanks’ ability to engage his audience. They are character-driven and intelligent works in completely different genres (Mr. Banks is a biographical comedy/drama and Phillips is a dramatic thriller) that remind us of what makes him such a presence in the first place: No matter the story or the situation, it’s always that much more engaging and relatable when we see it happening to Tom Hanks.
7. August: Osage County
Julia Roberts delivers her best performance since Closer in August: Osage County. The film, not exactly an uplifting one, is something of an amusing and tragic orgy of negative emotions spewed forth from what is possibly the most dysfunctional family represented on movie screens since The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
The raw, dysfunctional reality of Tracey Letts’ script (based on his own play) is well-served by director John Wells’ inherent understanding of it. The cast of greats (Meryl Streep, Dermont Mulroney, Chris Cooper, Ewan McGregor, Sam Shepard, Juliette Lewis, Abigail Breslin, Benedict Cumberbatch) shines light on the material’s darkest of moments, giving humanity and heart to even the most ragged and damaged of Osage County’s inhabitants.
6. Don Jon
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is too good-looking and too talented of an actor to also be a such a promising writer and director. But, sadly, his directorial debut, Don Jon, is a great movie… So it’s okay to hate him a little.
On the surface, Don Jon is a standard comedic rom-com. By its end, it becomes much more: an extraordinarily insightful depiction of how media has shaped our minds and given us expectations that can never exist in reality- particularly with sex and intimate relationships.
It’s also very funny and entertaining. And very creatively executed in its direction, cinematography, and editing. Gordon-Levitt is also predictably committed and charming as the lead.
It really is okay to hate him.
5. Only God Forgives
Only God Forgives is the universally hated Nicolas Winding-Refn/Ryan Gosling follow-up to their eighties neon and blood-soaked masterpiece, Drive. Director Refn delivers the best surrealist narrative feature since David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. Most critics weren’t so kind, seemingly united on the opinion that Only God Forgives is a visually oriented, stylistic exercise that has no soul.
Well… So what?
(SPOILER ALERT!)
Any movie that ends with a sex symbol like Gosling cutting open his mother’s womb with a sword just so he can deal with her death cannot be ignored. It just can’t. Gosling is probably the only major star in the world who could have starred in a film as beautifully twisted and brutal as this one and not have his career annihilated as a result.
4. 12 Years a Slave
Director Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, based on the true story of a kidnapped African-American forced into slavery for twelve years, is the kind of movie that just doesn’t get made too often anymore. At least not with the class, character, humanity, artistry, and skill that 12 Years a Slave exhibits.
The film doesn’t preach, nor does it take any easy roads. 12 Years A Slave observes. It presents unspeakable horror without telling us how to feel about it. It heightens sadness and pain in the right places, but never lowers itself to emotional manipulation or easy solutions.
McQueen’s direction of John Ridley’s screenplay (based on Solomon Northrup’s 1853 memoir) is calculated and unobtrusive. Chimwetel Ejiofor’s portrayal of Northrup is the definition of dedicated, as utterly painful to watch as it should be.
Michael Fassbender gives one of the most terrifying screen performances in recent years as a hopelessly self-righteous and hate-filled slave owner.
One of the best movies to have any kind of an Oscar sweep (it won Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress for Lupita Nyong’o, and Best Adapted Screenplay) in recent memory.
3. Prisoners
Jake Gyllenhaal gives the performance of his career (to date) in director Denis Villeneuve’s masterful entry into Hollywood filmmaking, Prisoners. There is a bleak, fascinating history on Gyllenhaal’s face, in his mannerisms, and in his voice which mirror the somber mood that dominates the film’s atmosphere. He effectively brings the film and his character, a detective trying to track down two missing girls, to life in a very specific and nuanced fashion that is as effortless as it is masterful.
The script, by Aaaron Guzikowski, is just as rich and layered with detail, providing the blueprint for a very disturbing, yet painfully human, dramatic thriller that rises above any genre trappings. Paul Dano and Hugh Jackman are predictably brilliant as the prime suspect and the grieving father who will stop at absolutely nothing to find his daughter.
Villeneuve’s expert execution, combined with Roger Deakins’ beautifully dark and shadowy cinematography, makes Prisoners the best American thriller since Silence of the Lambs.
2. The Place Beyond the Pines
An emotional powerhouse of a movie (and easily the most overlooked of 2013), The Place Beyond the Pines is a three-part story about lineage, absent fathers, and crime. The film’s only flaw is its overly ambitious script, which slightly derails in the second act by becoming too complicated for its own good.
Ryan Gosling portrays a motorcycle stunt rider who succumbs to robbing banks so he can provide for his newborn son- setting off a chain of events that echo throughout the film’s near two-decade timeline. Even though he only appears in the first third of the film, the presence of Gosling’s character (aided by his masterfully sympathetic portrayal) is felt throughout. The excellent ensemble also includes Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, Ben Mendelsohn, Ray Liotta, Mahershala Ali, Emory Cohen, and Dane DeHaan.
With The Place Beyond the Pines, co-writer/director Derek Cianfrance further proves, as he had previously with 2010’s equally devastating Blue Valentine, that he is one of the most exciting and uncompromising rising talents working in Hollywood today.
1. Spring Breakers
Four college girls (Ashley Benson, Vanessa Hudgens, Rachel Korine, and Selena Gomez) conspire in a restaurant robbery to fund their spring break vacation, then get busted for drug use. A Florida rapper and drug lord named Alien then bails them out and brings them into the underworld of their American Dream.
Harmony Korine created a masterpiece with Spring Breakers. Imagery that is as exploitive and hallucinatory as it is poetic reflects the vapid end to today’s youngsters’ dreams. James Franco delivers a standout performance as the sociopathic, yet strangely innocent, Alien.
Korine explores the glorious, sexy surface of American spring Break imagery, then uses it against us when the price of its existence is revealed underneath. A wild, weird, and wonderful ride. If Terrence Malick directed a Russ Meyer screenplay, it would be something like Spring Breakers.
Honorable Mentions: Man of Steel, American Hustle, Gravity, Mud, The World’s End, Secret Life of Walter Mitty, This is the End, Dallas Buyers Club, Nebraska, Fast & Furious 6, Pain & Gain, Stoker
