A 10th Anniversary Retrospective: A LOOK AT THE BEST FILMS OF 2013

Let the nostalgia fest continue yet again!

This is now the third installment of my Anniversary Retrospective series in which I will discuss my top 10 favorite films from certain years that are celebrating a milestone anniversary (i.e. 10th, 20th, 25th, etc...)

So far, I have done 20th and 35th. I guess you can say I am going in no particular order; if anything, I am just going in the order of what year strikes me the most.

Next up, we will go with 2013 as these films are now a decade old.

My thoughts on 2013 would be that it was a very solid year for film. It was also a bit of a slight resurgence considering that 2011 and particularly 2012 were not as strong as 2010. 

This was a strengthening that would continue into 2014, which I considered to be an even better year than 2013...but that is a topic for another day.

2013-2015 was an era in which I sort of paid less attention to films, which mostly coincided with a lack of passion for films at the time plus I made a big move to NYC during that time period. It really wasn't until 2016 that I began to resume a lot of movie watching...and it took until that time to even watch some of the movies you will see below.

With that all said, here are my selections for the best films of 2013: a DEACADE OLD! 

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#10 - Captain Phillips

(Paul Greengrass)

I think Paul Greengrass is a director I can always count on when it comes creating tension. This was a man who was able to take such a well-known horrific terrorist attack (United 93) and made it with such integrity and passion. It was a prime example of a film that was dealing with a truly questionable subject matter for a film (considering it was only 5 years after 9/11) and he just made it work.

With Captain Phillips, he focuses on the real-life 2009 Maersk Alabama hijacking by Somali pirates.

I consider Captain Phillips to contain one of Tom Hanks' finest performances and I still think it was a shame he was left off the list of nominees for that year. 

One of the reasons I think his performance works so well is because of how much he paces himself when it comes to emotion. He does an amazing job at trying to remain calm and stable, but you can clearly see the fear underneath. This all builds to a magnificent climax where, when I first saw it, I literally cried when he cried. 

As Abduwali Muse, this was also a truly great debut for Barkhad Abdi. I mean..."I'm the captain now" has become one of the most iconic quotes from a film in the last two decades. I seriously think he would've made more of a worthy winner than Jared Leto that year...if we are basing it strictly on the nominees.

A truly well-made action/thriller and another homerun in the genre for Paul Greengrass.

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#9 - The Great Beauty

(Paolo Sorrentino)

I have never been an avid lover of the work of Paolo Sorrentino. His most recent film, The Hand of God, left me cold as if he was trying so hard to make his own kind of Fellini-esque memory piece but set during the 80s...only without the vibrancy and wit of Fellini. 

The only film of Sorrentino's that I responded highly to would've been The Great Beauty, which managed to win Best Foreign Language Film at that year's Oscars.

The Great Beauty is a love letter to Rome and in that sense, it almost feels like a more passionate take on how Woody Allen often would romanticize New York City at a time where that city was facing one crisis after another. 

There is just a very whimsical quality to the film and I would say that the vibrancy mixed with moments of quiet contemplation are what make this film seem far more successful in being something that would be worthy to be compared to the works of Federico Fellini. 

Some have criticized this film of being a bit self-indulgent and that it is a bit of "all style, no substance". I suppose I can sort of see that...and that might be why I rank it on the lower end of my top 10.

I just found it to be a truly rapturous experience to view...but that isn't to say that my feelings towards the film ever extended to his other works. Like I said, Sorrentino often leaves me cold. 

I just think this one happened to be at the right place at the perfect time for me.

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#8 - Ida

(Pawel Pawlikowski)

This is an example of including a film on my list based on the year in came out in its home country as opposed to when it came out in the U.S., which would've been 2014.

Ida actually won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar the year following The Great Beauty and I think I slightly preferred it more to that film...even if it seemed to divide people little more.

Ida is set in 1960's Poland and deals with a young novitiate named Anna who is set to take her final vows before the church when she meets with her aunt, a former Communist state prosecutor who tells her that her parents were Jewish and died in the Holocaust.

This film was my introduction to Pawel Pawlikowski, the Polish filmmaker who would go on to get a Best Director nomination for his fantastic 2018 film Cold War. 

He has become, more or less, the most well known filmmaker to emerge from Poland since the passing of the great Krystof Kieslowski in 1996.

I find that Pawlikowski's style reminds me a lot of a modernized take on Ingmar Bergman...or perhaps those of Robert Bresson.

His works can be classified as "slow-burn" and I know that Ida faced some criticism for being a bit too drab and, perhaps on more of a fun level, it pissed off a lot of the Polish right-wing nationalists for how it depicted Christian-Jewish relations at that time post WW-II.

BUT...the film is short (82 minutes) and it manages to tell the story it wants to tell, tells it very well, and doesn't drag it out. 

Sometimes, a movie doesn't have to be over 2.5 hours to be an award worthy epic.

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#7 - Like Father, Like Son

(Hirokazu Kore-ada)

While not quite on the same level as earlier works of his like Nobody Knows or Still Walking or his later masterpiece Shoplifters, I still think there is a lot to like about Hirokazu Kore-ada's Like Father, Like Son.

In terms of its plot, this is a film that deals with a subject matter that teeters on soap opera melodrama.

A successful architect named Ryoto is, perhaps, too focused on his work and neglects his wife Midori and their son Keita. However, in the midst of their rote routines, the hospital contacts them to say that their son Keita (6 years old) is actually not their biological son...and they now have the opportunity to exchange for their real biological son.

Talk about a truly difficult concept! I mean...what would YOU do if you were told your child wasn't actually your child? 

Like I said, this is a very melodramatic story but it is also a very basic story at the same time. Kore-ada manages to tell the story with a lot of quiet dignity without turning it into the potential melodrama it could've been.

I think it might suffer a little in the final act for being a little too eager to try to remain subtle, but that is just me grasping at straws. It is a very good film that still stands out as being a solid effort in 2013...even if it is not as potent as most of Kore-ada's other works.

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#6 - Before Midnight

(Richard Linklater)

When talking great film trilogies or just film series in general, I think one that has gotten a lot of passionate appraisals in the last decade is Richard Linklater's Before Trilogy.

Having begun in 1995 with Before Sunrise and continued with 2004's Before Sunset, the third installment of Before Midnight feels more like a emotionally darker epilogue.

It has been 18 years since Jesse and Celine met while traveling through Europe, and 9 years since they rekindled their relationship in Paris. Now, they are a couple with two twin daughters living in Greece.

   As expected, time has taken its toll on the two of them...and it does lead to an uncomfortable fight where you wonder if we may be witnessing their relationship coming to an end.

I feel like as a set of films, The Before Trilogy offers so many different qualities with each film that it is hard to choose which one might be my favorite...and as judging by multiple reviews on Letterboxd, each one seems to have an equal amount of selections as being "the best".

Perhaps Before Midnight isn't the most joyous, but it is easily the one of the strongest emotional punch.

And in the end, it is just worth seeking out each one for different reasons.

Before Sunrise: watching two people discover an intimate connection.

Before Sunset: seeing two people who have been apart realizing they have a second chance.

Before Midnight: reality sets in.

It is simply a perfect trilogy.

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#5 - The Wolf of Wall Street

(Martin Scorsese)

Part of me does wonder if it is really the right thing to like The Wolf of Wall Street as much as I do.

A lot of the style and story beats remind me so much of Goodfellas; the film could also use a good trim of about 20 minutes to its screen time; and it does seem to present its lead character in a truly heroic fashion.

And yet...I just found it to be so...to use a word that is used quite a bit in the film..."fucking" entertaining.

I have never really cared about the world of finance (something that has become even more apparent now that I work alongside a lot of finance people...some of whom that cite this film as a badge of pride which....dear lord...), but the kinetic energy of the film and also a performance by Leonardo DiCaprio that is some of his best work help make up for its setting.

You could say that the film glorifies Jordan Belfort...but if anything, I view the film as all of these people as being shallow idiots.

Belfort may have served his time and ended up doing a victory tour after his sentence, but he will always be a ridiculous and insane finance bro.

And the comedic tone the film takes helps with not taking these jerks too seriously.

A truly great effort from Scorsese and crew.

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#4 - Blue is the Warmest Colour

(Abdellatif Kechiche)

Movies like The Great Beauty divided people over whether or not it was style over substance while a movie like The Wolf of Wall Street angered some for presenting a story that seemed to glorify the actions of Jordan Belfort.

There is a sharper divide in the opinions towards Blue is the Warmest Colour, and the main critique is around one simple concept: it is basically softcore lesbian porn. 

Is it that? Well...yeah...

It got an NC-17 rating here in the U.S. due to its "explicit sexual content" but this is the United States of America, a country that would sooner allow children to watch the bloodshed of war before seeing a naked breast. 

There are certain aspects of the film that do play into stereotypes, such as someone who is bisexual still preferring to cheat on someone of the opposite sex....and the film does sort of meander.

However, the roughness around the edges works so well for this film...and it also doesn't hurt that the two leads (Adele Exarchopolos and Lea Seydoux) are sublime.

Exarachopoulos, in particular, is Oscar worthy in this and should've served as Cate Blanchett's biggest competition for Blue Jasmine that year.

Perhaps the biggest issue of the film is that this is a lesbian film made by a man...and you can really feel the "male gaze" throughout the whole film as if it plays into the fantasy of straight men longing to see hot lesbians play with one another.

I might've even given it my #2 spot if it weren't for that re-evaluation, but these two women together make it so compelling that it is worth the viewing if only for that.

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#3 - 12 Years a Slave

(Steve McQueen)

I have struggled with 12 Years a Slave pretty much from the first moment I saw it.

Just this past year, I feel like I joined the discourse regarding the movie Till and how it basically tied into the idea of making a film about a truly horrific racially charged event (the murder/lynching of Emmett Till) and turned it into a film that many on Twitter called "black trauma porn".

Now...Till was directed by Chinoye Chukwu, a Nigerian-American filmmaker...so it isn't like that film was put together by a group of white people. However, I do think that movie suffered from some tonal issues and tried a little too hard to be polished to seemingly appeal to a wider demographic.

With a film like 12 Years a Slave, I remember being truly uncomfortable when I first saw it...but yeah, that is obviously fair because it is a movie about slavery. If a slavery film ends up making you feel all warm and fuzzy then that is a problem in more ways than one.

The film was made by the great British writer/director Steve McQueen and up to that point, he was mostly known for his smaller indie films Hunger and Shame...and I was very fond of both of those.

I think where I struggled with 12 Years a Slave...and I get that it was based on a true story that Solomon Northup turned into a book...is that it ends up becoming a white savior narrative by the end. 

However...the one thing I cannot deny is that McQueen was truly successful in not shying away from the brutality...and the performances of everyone involved are fantastic.

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#2 - Inside Llewyn Davis

(The Coen Brothers)

The career trajectory of the Coen Brothers has been interesting.

Early on, their streak of films was highly impressive and their style was unmistakable and vigorously strong from Blood Simple to Raising Arizona to Miller's Crossing to Barton Fink.

THEN...they manage to top themselves with a movie like Fargo and nearly a decade after that, adapt a Cormac McCarthy novel, No Country for Old Men, that would lead to their (arguably) greatest critical and (definitely) awards success.

What I find fascinating is that amongst a lot of their great films, they occasionally will have a dud...and not just a basic dud, but highly forgettable and shocking in how weak they are.

I got the sense at the time that Inside Llewyn Davis was not going to be as well received at first...and while that was true of its awards haul (only receiving a couple of tech nods at the Oscars), I feel like the critical pedigree and also time itself has been glorious to the film.

I personally think Inside Llewyn Davis might be their best film of the last two decades. My opinions on  No Country for Old Men have grown since 2007, but I do feel like this is one film of theirs that they just truly nailed. (SHOUTOUT to 2009's A Serious Man as well)

The 60s Village setting is infectious and handled with such care...and I felt so drawn to everything that was happening that I couldn't help but succumb to yet another world that they put me into.

It is kind of remarkable how these two brothers have the ability of making you enjoy being in so many kinds of strange settings...but I think this is a case where they managed to really find lightening in a bottle.

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#1 - Her

(Spike Jonze)

Back while we were still in quarantine during 2020, I did a lot of movie watching...and this also consisted of me revisiting certain films that I felt a strong urge to take a second (or a third) look at.

Among these films would've been Her.

Now, I have already mentioned about how 2013 was a year in which I didn't really actively watch a lot of movies...but Her was one of the few that I remember going to see in theaters at the time.

My response back then was highly positive, and it was easily one of two films that I considered to be my favorite of the year (the other being Blue is the Warmest Colour, but I explained why it dipped from my #2 slot).

I was worried that when I would revisit Her that a lot of its impact and approach would not age well and that it might seem too cloying and sweet.

Instead, I might've even liked it a little more the second time. 

Most of you probably know the concept of Her:

A man by the name of Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) works as a ghost writer for people who may not be capable to write letters/documents for themselves. He is saddened over the impending divorce from his childhood sweetheart Catherine (Rooney Mara) and during his grief, purchases an AI operating system that is designed to adapt and evolve.

He chooses a female voice that is called Samantha (Scarlett Johannsen) and quickly becomes impressed with how much she is able to learn and grow and hold a conversation with him.

Her is the movie that can be dubbed as "that one where Joaquin falls in love with a disembodied voice" and might've been a colossal failure...but I think Her is one of the most enriching and satisfying and emotionally powerful films to have come out in the last two decades.

I didn't remember every single plot beat when I watched it for the second time, so a lot of it played out just as it had for me viewing it back in 2013.

It's a stellar script (Oscar winning at that) with equally fantastic direction and performances from a small ensemble that are splendid...but it is Joaquin Phoenix who holds this together so smoothly. Considering this is a man who had the year prior played the bombastic Freddie in The Master and would go on to win an Oscar for playing the iconic Joker, Phoenix often shows us how compelling he can be when playing such a quiet and sensitive soul...similar to how he was in 2021's little-seen C'mon C'mon.

    This is just a movie that is nothing but pure beauty...and it really makes you think about the idea of love as a concept/verb.

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IN CONCLUSION:

2013 was a year that I felt less compelled to write about at first because it was the year which was going to be the most recent of the series. 

Full disclosure, I do have drafts of other years lined up including 1993, 1983, 1978, and 1973...and for some reason, I looked at the list for 2013 and was like "Let's tackle this next!"

I would say that time has treated the films of 2013 rather well. 

Well, except for maybe Gravity, which actually did have a valid chance at winning Best Picture at the Oscars over 12 Years a Slave resting solely on great visuals and a solid performance by Sandra Bullock....but seriously, imagine THAT movie with THAT script winning over the likes of 12 Years a Slave, Her, The Wolf of Wall Street, Philomena, and Captain Phillips?

Also - was not a big fan of Dallas Buyers Club from that year...and while McConaughey was good, I still think DiCaprio, Ejifior, and the snubbed Tom Hanks would've been better choices in that race. Don't even get me started on Jared Leto...

As for what is next in the series, I would say look at for one of the years I listed above. Hopefully you are all still enjoying this stroll of sorts down memory lane...even if this one wasn't so far away.

To check out other installments of this series, please use the links below!

35th Anniversary Retrospective: The Best Films of 1988

20th Anniversary Retrospective: The Best Films of 2003