Ten Best Films Of 2013

People often say ‘it was a great year for movies!’, but let’s be honest: 2013 was no different to the rest. As with everything else (people, artwork, cats), the 10% rule applies to films. I’m not proud to say that I saw almost all of the 90% worth of the shit ones, but I sure did. I sat through ’em all.

There were some gems in there, though, and the following is a completely, utterly, totally subjective guide to those. I’m already feeling like I should have replaced American Hustle with The Bling Ring. But, y’know, what’s a year without regrets?

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The One I Wanted To Crawl Inside And Live There Forever With My New BFF

Frances Ha

Directed by: Noah Baumbach

Starring: Greta Gerwig, Mickey Sumner, Adam Driver

Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig – everyone’s favourite couple since Noah Baumbach and Jennifer Jason-Leigh – happily reunited (see also: Greenberg) for this little slice of black-and-white heaven. Together they co-wrote this story of hapless twenty-something Frances (Gerwig), a struggling modern dancer at odds with the position she’s found herself in when her best friend/sister figure Sophie (Mickey Sumner) moves out and on in life.

It’s not often you get to see a film about a young woman facing up to the realities of evolving friendships, career goals and dreams without it heading into Boring Romance Territory, and that — combined with Gerwig’s fresh, funny and slightly daffy on-screen charm — should really just sail this one on up to the top of the list. Awkwardly goofy and sweetly honest, Frances Ha is a sincere film but, importantly, never an earnest one.

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The One That Proves Tavi Gevinson Is A Talent Angel Sent From Heaven/The Future

Enough Said

Directed by: Nicole Holofcener

Starring: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, James Gandolfini, Toni Colette

An easy favourite of the year, Nicole Holofcener’s (Please Give, Friends With Money) film about love and family and moving on is so full of real warmth and humour, you may actually drop your sarcastic, curmedgeonly schtick for at least half an hour after watching. (Or maybe that’s just me.)

Eva (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is a happy-go-lucky masseuse, happily divorced but unhappy that her only child Ellen is about to move away for college. Albert (James Gandolfini) is pretty much in the same boat and, as the posters will tell you, yes, they do meet and sit on a stoop and look really pleased.

That it’s Gandolfini’s final role and his first as a leading lover is irrevocably tied up in Enough Said, an already sparkling, lovely film. Oh yeah and Tavi’s in it. She’s predictably good.

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The One That Made Me The Most Uncomfortable In The Cinema

Spring Breakers

Directed by: Harmony Korine

Starring: Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, James Franco

Bad boy for life Harmony Korine (Trash Humpers, Gummo) may still be the same jittery dude that appeared on Letterman in ‘97 but his commitment to and interest in exposing the trashy underbelly of pop culture has never been more apparent than with Spring Breakers.

It’s a vile, energetic fever dream of neon, tits, ass, guns and misplaced entitlement. When three blondes and a brunette (names optional here) rob a chicken shop to fund their Florida vacay, of COURSE they’re going to end up hanging out with a corn-rowed rapper/gangster named Alien (James ‘Ubiquitous’ Franco), who helps fuel their trippy, hedonistic sea change.

I hated it. I loved it. I hated it. I LOVED IT.

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The One That Made Me Snap Quite Unfairly At My Girlfriend Afterwards Because It Was So Deeply Upsetting. (Sorry Babe).

Amour

Director: Michael Haneke

Starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva, Isabelle Huppert

We all know that Michael Haneke can be a bit of a monster in the manipulation stakes (Funny Games, the other Funny Games), but Amour is so genuinely moving, and so tragically sad, that you’re likely to drown yourself with your own tears. The elegant tone of 2009’s The White Ribbon continues here (they both rightly won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in their respective release years), the tale of an elderly Parisian couple (Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva) in decline. Following a sudden kitchen table stroke, we see the slow tumble towards death, and the aching, unshaking love between a pair who have already been through it all, including the estrangement of their daughter (Isabelle Huppert).

The ethereal, almost romantic ideas of death often shown on film give way to the corporeal realities of mortality, and it is heartbreaking.

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The One Guaranteed to Make You Vow Never, Ever, Ever, Ever, Ever, Ever Go To Sea World Ever, Ever, Ever Again.

Blackfish

Directed by: Gabriela Cowperthwaite

Starring: Tilikum

What started out as an exploration of the human connection to large mammals, filmmaker Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s documentary quickly changed focus after she started hanging around the Sea World tanks (jails!) and talked to ex-employees (regretful ex-accomplices!), and what she uncovered is going to make you cry the snottiest tears since Amour.

Now that both Willy and Winona are free, let us turn our collective sense of indignant righteousness to Tilikum, the killer whale who has such a depressing, unjust life at the hands of fatcat, heartless dickheads who pay their star talents with meagre buckets of fish and a big fuck you to anything that is good in this world. Better to let Tilikum’s story unravel onscreen rather online, but make sure you do. And bring tissues. And try to keep your dorsal fin from flopping.

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The One That Will Make You Want To Decorate Your Home With Large Ceramic Leopards, I Kid You Not

Behind The Candelabra

Directed by: Steven Soderbergh

Starring: Michael Douglas, Matt Damon, Rob Lowe

It’s a travesty that Behind the Candelabra only played on television in the USA, because Steven Soderbergh (Magic Mike, Side Effects) gave this doomed love story the ‘palatial kitsch’ it truly deserved. Based on the autobiography of young Hollywood animal trainer Scott Thorson (Matt ‘sequin speedo’ Damon) and his relationship with Liberace, aka the most extravagant man to have ever existed (Michael Douglas), this biopic was surprisingly tender in its depiction of two queer men in an age of closets so deep they were practically living in Narnia.

A deft balance of humour and fucked-up romance, the kaftans on display here are only one-upped by Rob Lowe’s career-defining performance as California Diet/ cosmetic surgery guru Doctor Startz, which will leave your face twitching for days.

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The One I Adored But Fear Most People Did Not See

Tabu

Directed by: Miguel Gomes

Starring: Laura Soveral, Ana Moreira, Carloto Cotta

Miguel Gomes’ Tabu was a rare, dreamy cinematic excursion: a beguiling slow burn of love, melancholia and crocodiles.

Shot in nostalgic black and white and bisected, Tabu travels between modern-day Lisbon and colonial Africa, telling the story of Aurora (Laura Soveral and Ana Moreira), and how a once listless, possibly bi-polar, rifle-slinging, big-game hunter eventually turned into a superstitious, hand-wringing, frail but feisty elderly woman.

Funny, melancholic, dark and romantic, the film’s beauty is only ever a stone’s throw from the realities of invasion, ownership and war. An absolute gem with a wonderful soundtrack; please tell me you saw it.

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The One That is The Best And Least Blockbustery Blockbuster

Gravity

Directed by: Alfonos Cuarón

Starring: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney

Absolutely the first narrative feature worthy of being filmed in 3D.

With only occasional forays into slight cliché, Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men, Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban, Y Tu Mama Tambien) managed to portray both anxious isolation and thrilling movement with a dazzling, seamless combination of live action and animation. As medical engineer and first-time astronaut Ryan Stone, Sandra Bullock gave a bloody great performance as a tiny little human stuck out there in infinity. Bonus points for the fact that the first fifteen minutes of the film’s whirling, swirling opening scene made me feel so exceptionally drunk when I was (for once) stone cold sober.

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The One That, Despite Not Being A Biopic About A Feminist Icon, Will Make You Want To Throw Away Your Goddamn Bra

American Hustle

Directed by: David O. Russell

Starring: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper

From mother-son incest to existential detectives, director David O. Russell’s penchant for slightly oddball topics are almost as famous as his on-set fights with cast members. He rose above the latter with Silver Linings Playbook, the mental health remake of Dirty Dancing, and returned almost immediately with American Hustle: his best, most bronzed work to date.

A pumped, plumped and fluffed up (hey, it’s the ’70s) take on the infamous FBi Abscam sting starring all of Russell’s fave raves: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, with some scene-stealing appearances from Louis C.K., Robert De Niro and Jeremy Renner (who looks uncannily like a baby Liberace). Straight up fun, this one.

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Film I Wish I Had Seen, Particularly When John Waters Listed It In His Top Ten

Beyond The Hills

Directed by: Cristian Mungiu

Starring: Cosmina Stratan, Cristina Flutur

Because I’m a ratbag who missed it, I’ll have defer to John Waters: “If you thought Mother Joan of the Angels was the best arty Catholic movie about exorcism, think again. The supposedly demonized young girl is not possessed — she just wants to be a lesbian!”

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The One That Would Have Topped This List Had It Been Coming Out in 2013

Her

Directed by: Spike Jonze

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlet Johansson, Amy Adams

Let’s talk again on January 16, 2014, huh?

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Kate Jinx is an artist, writer and broadcaster. She is the National WATCH Editor for The Thousands and picks all the films at Golden Age Cinema in Sydney. You can find her on Twitter @katejinx, and watch her hypnotise a rabbit at www.katejinx.com