It's that time when people rate their favourite movies for the past year and film magazines start publishing their lists. This is Sight and Sound's top 10 for 2013:


The Act of Killing (Oppenheimer) 23 votes

2. Gravity (Cuáron) 18 votes

3. Blue is the Warmest Colour (Kechiche) 17 votes

4. The Great Beauty (Sorrentino) 15 votes

5. Frances Ha (Baumbach) 14 votes

= 6. A Touch of Sin (Jia Zhangke) 13 votes
= 6. Upstream Color (Carruth) 13 votes

8. The Selfish Giant (Barnard) 12 votes

= 9. Norte, the End of History (Diaz) 11 votes
= 9. Stranger by the Lake (Guiraudie) 11 votes

While we still got a month to go, it should be noted that in North America, Blue is the Warmest Color is slapped upside the noggin with an NC-17. Which means it will have an uphill battle with distribution and marketing. The film may have won the  Palme at Cannes, but it means (sadly) very little with today's audiences. So most people won't even get a chance to see it. I also noticed that this list covers mostly the art house films and/or foriegn films. Of these on the list, so far only one of them is accessible to a mainstream audience (Gravity).

Oh, and I couldn't give a hoot about what Sight & Sound thinks. What about the person who posted it?

Quoted from DarrenJamesSeeley I also noticed that this list covers mostly the art house films and/or foriegn films. Of these on the list, so far only one of them is accessible to a mainstream audience (Gravity).

I'd say mainstream films that are better than mediocre are becoming increasingly close to non-existent. Looking over our lists on Simply from last year, I count mayyyybe three or four mainstream movies that weren't utterly forgettable -- Django, Silver Linings Playbook, Looper, and Dark Knight Rises (which I'd personally call utterly forgettable, but was definitely better than mediocre).

I mean, if you're picking the ten best movies of the year, odds are that most of those spots won't go to movies that have been market-driven and committeed into artistic oblivion. I think there's probably no more important film than the mainstream-accessible blockbuster that has a point and a real story to tell, but very few blockbusters meet those criteria at the moment. Of the top 20 high-grossers for this year, no-one except Gravity, Oz, and Gatsby even made an attempt at being a real movie, in my opinion.

Quoted from DarrenJamesSeeley While we still got a month to go, it should be noted that in North America, Blue is the Warmest Color is slapped upside the noggin with an NC-17. Which means it will have an uphill battle with distribution and marketing. The film may have won the  Palme at Cannes, but it means (sadly) very little with today's audiences. So most people won't even get a chance to see it. I also noticed that this list covers mostly the art house films and/or foriegn films. Of these on the list, so far only one of them is accessible to a mainstream audience (Gravity). Oh, and I couldn't give a hoot about what Sight & Sound thinks. What about the person who posted it?

I'm with Heretic on this one. Nevertheless, this is only one list. Here's two more to shake things up a bit:

Quentin Tarantino (alphabetical order):

1. Afternoon Delight
2. Before Midnight
3. Blue Jasmine
4. The Conjuring
5. Drinking Buddies
6. Frances Ha
7. Gravity
8. Kick Ass 2
9. The Lone Ranger
10. This Is The End

John Waters:

1. Spring Breakers
2. Camile Claudel 1915
3. Abuse of Weakness
4. Hors Satan
5. After Tiller
6. Hannah Arendt
7. Beyond The Hills
8. Blue Jasmine
9. Blackfish
10. I'm So Excited

--

As for me, I LOVE Best Of lists. I'll post mine after the year is over. We've still got new Scorsese AND new Coen bros. in December.

Quoted Text Of the top 20 high-grossers for this year, no-one except Gravity, Oz, and Gatsby even made an attempt at being a real movie, in my opinion.

That is a very good point.

Speaking of the top 20 grossing films from 2013, here they are"  

1     Iron Man 3
                              
2     Despicable Me 2
                              
3     The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
                              
4     Man of Steel
                              
5     Monsters University
                              
6     Gravity
                              
7     Fast & Furious 6
                              
8     Oz The Great and Powerful
                              
9     Star Trek Into Darkness
                              
10     World War Z
                              
11     The Croods
                              
12     Thor: The Dark World
                              
13     The Heat
                              
14     We're the Millers
                              
15     The Great Gatsby (2013)
                              
16     The Conjuring
                              
17     Identity Thief
                              
18     Grown Ups 2
                              
19     The Wolverine
                              
20     G.I. Joe: Retaliation

@Heretic: So what do you think makes Gravity, Oz and Gatsby different from the other 17?  
                              
                                        

Hiya Takeshi,

Keeping in mind that there's obviously a bit of subjectivity involved here, for me it comes down to two things -- cinematic vision and inspiration.

What I mean by cinematic vision is that theoretically, every film's story is different and new, and since film is a visual medium, every film should therefore look a little bit different -- it should look like itself, if that makes sense, it should look like its story and purpose. So if you take a film like The Dark Knight, which is a bombastic philosophical argument about the nature of good and evil, that's exactly what it looks like, from cinematography to camerawork to colour timing; if you take a film like The Great Gatsby, which is a regretful fairy tale about beautiful superficialities and impermanence and decadence, that's exactly what it looks like, too.

Regarding the top 20 from this year, all but the three I mentioned fail to achieve (or attempt) this. They look good, because they've got some of the most experienced people in the world working on them. But they don't have a look with a purpose; Iron Man 3 looks like a superhero movie, just like Wolverine does. We're the Millers looks like a family comedy, just like Identity Thief does. They look good, but just arbitrarily good. The visuals are there to be a pretty picture, not to support a specific purpose -- as they do in Oz, Gravity, and Gatsby.

What I mean by inspiration is that the goal of the film, and its story, is to inspire thought above and beyond that contained in the film. So Oz pushes us to question the nature of imagination and the sense of wonder in a rational world, and Gravity pushes us to think about death, mourning, and solitude, and Gatsby pushes us to think about resistance to change and the nature of moral purity.

The rest of the films on this list are closed works -- every sequence in them is designed to manipulate your emotions or thoughts in a way that is in service to the experience of the film as an end in itself. So in The Heat, when the very real problem of institutionalized "boys club" sexism is briefly addressed, it's not to get us to think about that issue -- it's a ploy to invest us in Sandra Bullock's character. Or in Star Trek: Into Darkness, when Uhura suggests that they use diplomacy instead of violence in approaching the Klingons, the film doesn't ask us to consider the real-world implications of that question -- it just desperately needs something for that black chick to do so the progressives don't get all up in arms.

I am now late for class but I may attempt to elaborate on this further at a later time...

EDIT: Okay, so I thought further on the walk home. I think what I'm really getting at is generosity. One of the things that sets us apart from the majority of the other animals on the planet is our tendency to create art -- something that defies logic, exists without practicality, yet seems to be a fundamental part of the H. Sapiens experience. So art is, by its nature, generous -- something created of the self that has no purpose but what we make of it and no value but what we place on it. Films should be generous -- like Gravity, a film that helped me think in new ways about people I've lost in my life; like Oz, a film that reminded me of the joy of unabashed, unqualified wonderment; like Gatsby, a film that challenged some of the ways I think about love sometimes -- and not selfish. A film that attempts to inspire is generous, even if it makes money as well. A film that tries to contain and manipulate response is selfish; it is designed as a tool with a purpose; it is the commodification of shared human experience.

Ain't nobody got time for that.

Hmm, I'd have to pick:

  1. Gravity
  2. Man of Steel
  3. Monsters University
  4. Fast and Furious 6
  5. Ender's Game
  6. Star Trek Into Darkness
  7. Pacific Rim
  8. Mud
  9. Hunger Games Part 2: Catching Fire
10. *Reserved*

*Reserved* means there might be a place here for Desolation of Smaug.  If it flops, it'll likely go to GI Joe 2.

*ducks* I thought Gravity was pretty overrated.

I like Prisoners. I thought Insidious Part Two was one of the best horror movies.

I find it hard enough to remember what I watched yesterday, let alone for the whole year. I tend to just use netflix these days. I prefer British film, and they all appear on Netflix quite quickly. Hollywood is not worth my time. I watched Star Trek, and I actually liked that film. I watched Man of Steel and hated it, but then I've never really been a superman fan. I used to hate the comic books too. Iron Man, I don't bother with. Robert Downey Junior is a huge let down playing that part. All previous respect I had for that actor is now gone.

I would like to watch Gravity, but I can wait. Sometimes I'll buy DVD's for £3 each. I'll wait for Gravity to hit that level or end up on Netflix, whichever comes first. I still regret paying £3 for Jack Reacher though. The good thing about the £3 DVD's is that I can do a car boot sale every now and then to get rid of them for £1. So really the film only cost £2. Still regret it though. Tom Cruise was completely miscast. He should have cast somebody younger. I haven't seen world war z either, come to think of it. Looks like another wank film.

I really couldn't pick a favourite from this year. Chances are I won't get to see many of them till next year anyway. So if I had to pick one, it'd be Danny Boyle's Trance, even though I didn't really like it that much.

Neighbour - I agree about Insidious part 2. It was a great movie and had a few good scares. Was even better than the Conjuring, IMO.

Not sure I have seen 10 films this year, but I did like Rush. It seemed to be ignored by most but I found the acting to be sound, the story interesting and revealing, with a touching finish.

That's good enough for me.

meh... this year sucked for movies imo. last year was one of the best in recent memory.

I liked Gravity... but a top 10 list?

I cant even come up with a top 5....

Personally, I'm surprised Kick-Ass 2 isn't getting more praise. It struck me as the kind of film that doesn't take itself seriously, at all. I thought it really nailed the entertainment factor too.

I thought this year had lots to offer! I'll wait a bit before a top ten, but there was Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, John Dies at the End, To The Wonder, Stoker, I'm So Excited, Oz, Spring Breakers, The Call, Wrong, Evil Dead, Upstream Colour, Oblivion, It's A Disaster, At Any Price, Before Midnight, Only God Forgives, This is the End, Pacific Rim, The World's End, The To Do List, You're Next, Hell Baby, Prisoners, Gravity, Escape Plan…

Tons of super solid, super fun stuff, in my opinion!

Plus Spike Lee went down like a sucker and The Lone Ranger flopped hard!