It's that time of year again. The biggest night in Hollywood is fast approaching, with the Academy Awards coming up this Sunday. Last year, on the eve of the Oscars, I released my Best of the Year list and so I decided to stick with tradition and bring this year's edition of the list at the same time. Now, in my four years of making these lists, I've a gained a very small, but very loyal readership, and to those people I say thank you. Thank you for caring about film enough to read every year. That said, this is probably the last time I do one of these. Various factors played into that decision, but one of the big ones is that 2013 was by far the best year for films I can remember. I find it hard to believe any year will be able to compete with the quality of films that were released. Overall, I saw 183 films (a complete list of which can be found
here) and the majority of them saw some consideration for the top 50. Not all of them can make the cut, though, but there are plenty of "honorable mentions".
Films like
Ain't Them Bodies Saints, Danny Boyle's
Trance,
Kon-Tiki,
Prince Avalanche,
The Grandmaster,
The Iceman,
Enough Said (featuring a great performance by the late Jame Gandolfini),
In a World...,
Drinking Buddies,
What Maise Knew, Woody Allen's
Blue Jasmine, It's a Disaster,
A Hijacking, Fruitvale Station and
Disconnect were a fantastic showcase for some great independent cinema.
It was also a good year for horror films. A few cracked the top 50, but movies like
You're Next,
American Mary,
Byzantium,
Evil Dead,
Resolution, and
Warm Bodies really showcased the genre. One special mention has to go out to
V/H/S 2. I was a big fan of the first film in the anthology series and the first viewing really scared me. Subsequent viewings have kind of lost a little luster, but I was excited for this one. While I wasn't as scared this time around, the second one was much more impressive quality-wise. Especially the
Safe Haven segment, directed by Gareth Evans and Timo Tjahjanto. One of the most bonkers, crazy, awesome things I saw this year. If it had been a full length movie, no doubt it would have been comfortably in the top 50.
Documentaries also had a big year. There are seven of them in the top 50 and I was really hard-pressed to leave films like
20 Feet From Stardom,
Blackfish,
Leviathan,
Cutie and the Boxer,
Salinger, and
Dirty Wars off the list.
Then I have a few guilty pleasures. Zack Snyder's
Man of Steel left a little to be desired, but I definitely enjoyed it. Ridley Scott's much maligned
The Counselor may have been a little strange, but I admired it. Ditto for
Gangster Squad. I liked the Tom Cruise-led sci-fi flick
Oblivion a lot as well.
Bad Grandpa showed me I still have a lot of growing up to do. It's hilarious, as was
Anchorman 2. Then there's my guiltiest of guilty pleaures, a
Twilight-wannabe called
Beautiful Creatures. I caught it one day on HBO and for some reason (I really don't know what it was) I liked it.
A few more special shout-outs go to
The Hangover Part III,
Identity Thief,
Olympus Has Fallen,
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, and
Parker for being frickin' awful. But let's move on from that and get to the the good stuff.
