The Best Movies of 2013

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Director: Justin Lin

Stars: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Luke Evans, Gina Carano, Joe Taslim, Gal Gadot, Sung Kang, Ludacris, Elsa Pataky, Shea Whigham

Say what you want about how dumb and burly the Fast and Furious movies are, but truth be told, they're the most fun you can have at the movies in 2013. Led by a diverse cast of action heroes and comedic performers, Fast 6 brought back everything you've grown to love about the franchise-sweet rides, epic, unimaginable chases, and Vin Diesel channeling his ultimate cool guy. This franchise knows what it is, what its fans want, and it delivers. —Tara Aquino

Director: John Wells

Stars: Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor, Julianne Nicholson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dermot Mulroney, Abigail Breslin, Chris Cooper, Margo Martindale, Juliette Lewis, Sam Shepard, Misty Upham

August: Osage County was either an odd or an inspired choice for a Christmas release. Perhaps both. The dark dramedy, which playwright Tracy Letts adapted from his 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, sits with a dysfunctional family that gathers around a bitter, mean, mouth cancer-afflicted and pill-addicted matriarch when her alcoholic poet husband disappears and is found to have committed suicide. (One might consider it a mercy killing.) Full of disturbing family secrets and the kind of cold-hearted (but hilarious) insults that only relatives can hurl, it's an uncomfortable comedic viewing experience that can make even your most strained relationships seem loving by comparison.

Director John Wells, who was familiar with family dramedy from showrunning the Showtime series Shameless, masterfully and mercifully balances the dark comedy and heavy drama. It no doubt helped that his cast list could double as an Academy Awards nominations sheet. With Meryl Streep playing the matriarch Violet and Julia Roberts her foul-mouthed eldest daughter and chief combatant Barbara, the film's thespian foundation is rock solid, and only strengthened by supporting cast members like Benedict Cumberbatch, Ewan McGregor, Chris Cooper, and Margo Martindale.

In less capable hands than Letts's and Wells's, with less talented artists, August could have been snuff-film depressing. That it achieves realism with the kind of well timed humor we all use as a coping mechanism speaks to how in sync and close-knit of a family everyone on this production was. —Justin Monroe

Director: Amy Seimetz

Stars: Kate Lyn Sheil, Kentucker Audley

Everybody’s got baggage. Some folks just have the kind that can get you the death penalty in Florida. In the unconventional road trip movie Sun Don’t Shine, Crystal (Kate Lyn Sheil) and her boyfriend Leo (Kentucker Audley) drive tensely from Jacksonville to Tampa trying to keep a trunk full of trouble secret so they can lighten their load, physically if not mentally, in the Everglades.

Carried by Sheil and Audley's performances, which are believably trashy, self-defeating, and hopeless, Sun Don’t Shine feels like a crime documentary following two people who, as criminals, are fish out of water—a theme that is paralleled charmingly in scenes at a real-life roadside mermaid attraction, about which actress and filmmaker Amy Seimetz (Upstream Color, You're Next) made the 2008 documentary short We Saw Such Things. As Crystal’s dim-witted inability to recognize the stakes, and her jealousy of a woman Leo seeks help from, threaten to ruin them both, their bond and the fantasy of happily ever after begins to melt under the stifling sun.

A native Floridian, Seimetz does a magnificent job capturing the flavor of central Florida. Watching her film, you can practically feel the dirt caking on your face, then streaking down muddily as you sweat in the kind of oppressive heat that causes blood to boil and leads people to do very bad things. —Justin Monroe

Director: Woody Allen

Stars: Cate Blanchett, Alec Baldwin, Sally Hawkins, Bobby Cannavale, Louis C.K., Andrew Dice Clay, Peter Sarsgaard, Michael Stuhlbarg, Tammy Blanchard, Max Casella, Alden Ehrenreich

It seems like every couple years there's an opportunity to call Woody Allen's new film his best since [insert generally agreed upon Allen classic], so here we go again: Blue Jasmine is Allen's best film since 2005's Match Point. Though the film's central character, a once-rich widower forced out of her bubble of wealth amidst a huge scandal, is a kind of Blanche DuBois, Cate Blanchett's performance as Jasmine Francis is so commanding it's possible to leave the theater without even thinking of A Streetcar Named Desire. She's going to win a Best Actress Oscar for this.

Blue Jasmine follows her as she travels to live with her sister in San Francisco. Jasmine, as she'll tell anyone that will listen, is used to a certain kind of lavish life, one we see in the film's frequent flashbacks to her time with a Bernie Madoff-esque New York multimillionaire named Hal (Alec Baldwin in Jack Donaghy mode, minus the jokes). That Hal cheated Jasmine's sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins), out of a small fortune is still a point of tension between the sisters. But not as big a problem as Ginger's new boyfriend, a handsome goon with slick hair and bad designer jeans named Chili (Bobby Cannavale).

As Jasmine tries and fails to distance herself from the harsh realities of her new life without Hal, her grip on the world slips and slips. It provides Allen with plenty of opportunities to clown moneyed New Yorkers but Blue Jasmine is a downer with one of the most devastating endings in movies this year. —Ross Scarano

Director: Ben Wheatley

Stars: Alice Lowe, Steve Oram

Um, Sightseers is about a new couple, Chris and Tina, (Steve Oram and Alice Oram) who decide to go on a road trip to strengthen their relationship—and along the way Chris turns out to be a sociopath and kills everyone who insults them. So it's not your traditional romance, but it's hilarious. The beauty of Ben Wheatley's film is that you don't even have to be into that sort of dark, messed up thing to enjoy it. When you look past the blood and bludgeoning, it's actually an endearing look into a relationship between a couple of socially awkward messes. All credit goes to careful directing by Ben Wheatley and witty lines crafted by Lowe and Oram. —Tara Aquino

Director: James Wan

Stars: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Lili Taylor, Ron Livingston, Shanley Caswell,Joey King, Hayley McFarland, Mackenzie Foy

Between standard Hollywood productions and edgier indies, horror movies come a dime a dozen, but movies that are actually scary? Those are harder to find, but when they arrive, the world takes notice. And collectively shits its pants.

Such was the case in July as word spread that Saw/Insidious director James Wan's The Conjuring was the real deal, a horror movie that could legitimately terrify audiences. And people flocked to theaters to see for themselves, to check whether it was all hype or if their summer sleeping routines were about to get disrupted. Incredibly, the latter happened for damn near everyone who saw The Conjuring, a testament to Wan's superlative ability to create frights with nightmarish precision.

In The Conjuring, Wan has his very own The Amityville Horror by way of The Exorcist. Part haunted house movies and part demon-heavy freak-out, it's Hollywood's first direct exposure to real-life paranormal investigation mavericks Ed and Lorraine Warren, played wonderfully by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. Summoned to the Perron family's new off-the-grid house, the Warrens encounter dead kid spirits, Satanism, and a batshit crazy Lili Taylor, and Wan plays it all with terrific patience.

Little is seen throughout The Conjuring first hour, though the mood is taut and the dread keeps on mounting, but once all hell breaks loose, Wan goes for the viewer's jugular. It's old-school horror filmmaking done right, by a director who's at the top of his game. The bar for modern-day scary movies has been raised, significantly. —Matt Barone

Director: Francis Lawrence

Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Donald Sutherland, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jena Malone, Sam Claflin, Stanley Tucci, Toby Jones, Jeffrey Wright, Lenny Kravitz

Catching Fire could've been a real bomb and it still would've raked in the money. With such a loyal fanbase pre-ordering tickets and lining up for midnight showings, Gilbert Gottfried could've played Katniss and it still would've been the highest grossing movie at the box office the weekend of its release. Thankfully, that's not the case.

In fact, Catching Fire was one of the most fun experiences you could've had at the movies this year. The errors made in the first film are corrected here, like that nauseating shaky cam, leaving viewers enthralled by the emotional journey its pitch perfect cast—Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson, and Liam Hemsworth—takes them on. With its fidelity to the book, Catching Fire easily won over any of its hard-to-please book fanatics. —Hope Schreiber

Director: Jim Mickle

Stars: Ambyr Childers, Julia Garner, Bill Sage, Michael Parks, Kelly McGillis, Wyatt Russell, Nick Damici, Jack Gore

Jim Mickle is more than ready for his close-up. Quietly, the independent writer-director is the horror genre's most gifted young talent, a compelling mix of Terence Malick and a young Wes Craven. Although his films don't chump out on the gore and violence, Mickle's style of scary moviemaking is impressively elegant, putting heavy emphasis on characters, cinematography, and patient, human narratives. See his 2011 vampire flick Stake Land, or just go directly to his latest, the cannibal drama We are What We Are, his best movie yet.

A remake of Mexican filmmaker Jorge Michel Grau's grim 2011 festival darling of the same name, Mickle's We Are What We Are is the rarest of genre re-imaginings, one that's much better than its predecessor and doesn't merely rehash what's already been done. Mickle and writing partner Nick Damici move the story flesh-eating family dynamic to rural upstate New York, centering on a God-fearing, subtly tyrannical patriarch (a menacing Bill Sage) and his two teenage daughters (Ambyr Childers and Julia Garner), both of whom want to drop their family's history of ritualistic cannibalism and live like normal kids. Daddy doesn't want that for them, unfortunately, and We are What We Are shows the family's disintegration, one murder and intestine feast at a time.

It's a grisly, disturbing horror film that even the most uptight of snooty film critics has to appreciate. In time, Jim Mickle's name will be on all of their minds. —Matt Barone

Director: Jeff Nichols

Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Tye Sheridan, Jacob Lofland, Sam Shepard, Ray McKinnon, Sarah Paulson, Michael Shannon, Paul Sparks

If Mud's writer-director were to ever turn his excellent screenplay into a book, it'd be the perfect summer-reading assignment for kids entering high school.

A modern-day Huckleberry Finn of sorts, Nichols' follow-up to 2011's darker, more psychologically unnerving Take Shelter is the kind of young-adult adventure tale that, frankly, doesn't seem to exist anymore. The film centers on Mississippi youngster Ellis (Tye Sheridan, a fine young actor), who, along with his awesomely named buddy Neckbone, befriends the grizzled yet charismatic Mud (Matthew McConaughey) on a secluded, backwoods island. While helping Mud reunite with main squeeze (Reese Witherspoon) and further hide from the men out to kill him, Ellis learns valuable lessons about trust, love, and what it means to be a man.

Mud's emotional impact, however, is deeper than its coming-of-age themes. Nichols, quite cleverly, uses the film's genre elements to fashion one hell of an allegory for how kids process weighty, potentially devastating issues like divorce, betrayal, and heartbreak. —Matt Barone

Director: Rodney Ascher

Oh, you're a big fan of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining? Prepare to see the iconic director's Stephen King adaptation in all new, mind-bending ways, thanks to documentary filmmaker Rodney Ascher's bewildering, deconstructive knockout Room 237. Using the committed, albeit seemingly delirious, voiceovers from five Shining obsessives, Ascher's endlessly fascinating film pulls apart every minute detail within Kubrick's horror masterwork to present a series of crackpot theories that, by the picture's end, actually sound probable.

As in, The Shining was Kubrick's way to atone for staging the Apollo 11 moon landing; or, Kubrick's masked commentary on both the Holocaust and the genocide of Native Americans in our beloved U.S.A.—sounds batty, right? With Ascher's stellar craftsmanship and slick editing to thank, the strangely hypnotic Room 237 begs to differ. —Matt Barone

Director: Spike Jonze

Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, Amy Adams, Olivia Wilde, Chris Pratt, Matt Letscher, Portia Doubleday

You won't see a prettier thing this year than Her. It's Spike Jonze's poignant glimpse into a possible future, and this is what it looks like: a hazy mixture of the L.A. we know now with hints of China's influence; the world's embraced going green; everything we own looks like Apple made it; and operating systems can double as cognizant best friends and lovers. Which is exactly what happens to the lonely and recently divorced Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), who falls in love with a voice named Samantha (Scarlett Johansson), no more tangible than your iPhone's Siri. It's a socially accepted reality shared by the ones he's closest to, and the relationship functions like one of long-distance love.

The story is as sweet as it is heartbreaking, the shots as visually captivating as they are inspiring, and the acting as charming as it is powerful. It's a neatly packaged  letter written by Jonze about the evolving way we communicate with each other. And it hurts. —Tara Aquino

Director: Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead

Stars: Peter Cilello, Vinny Curran, Skyler Meacham, Bill Oberst Jr., Zahn McClarnon, Kurt David Anderson

Speaking loosely, Resolution is a horror movie. But first-time directors Justin Benson (also the screenwriter) and Aaron Scott Moorhead had too many wild influences in their heads while assembling this bizarre, clever, and meticulously ambiguous genre mash-up to simply lump it into the horror lane.

Besides, lead actors Peter Cilella and Vinny Curran—the former playing a worried friend who forces his drug-abusing best friend (Curran) into a makeshift rehab inside a run-down cabin—are too damn funny to leave viewers just unsettled. That task is left to Benson's subversive script, a sneaky baffler complete with allusions to Lovecraftian mythos, Native American customs, and meta supernaturalism.

A do-it-yourself indie that's low on finances but high on ambition, Resolution deserves a chance to confound more viewers once it hits DVD later this year. —Matt Barone

Director: Lake Bell

Stars: Lake Bell, Fred Melamed, Michaela Watkins, Ken Marino, Demetri Martin, Rob Corddry, Alexandra Holden, Nick Offerman, Tig Notaro, Geena Davis

Directed, written by, and starring Lake Bell, In a World... is a surprise. At first glance, it's easy to assume that the film will be another low-budget indie comedy as forgettable as the rest. But its inventive story—about a woman trying to break into the male-dominated voiceover world— and side-splitting laughs won't just leave you impressed, it'll give you a newfound respect for Lake Bell. She's not just "that girl that was on How to Make It in America" anymore. She's a bona fide multi-talented film star. —Tara Aquino

Director: Joe Swanberg

Stars: Olivia Wilde, Anna Kendrick, Jake Johnson, Ron Livingston, Ti West

Fans of tradition will hate Drinking Buddies. If you go into this expecting a Shop Around the Corner-type story, then sorry 'bout it, you're shit outta luck. Sure, the IMDB synopsis mentions that the film is about a couple of craft brewery co-workers (Olivia Wilde and Jake Johnson) who flirt and clearly have more chemistry than the people they're actually dating (Ron Livingston and Anna Kendrick, respectively). But given this, know that Drinking Buddies doesn't follow the tried and true beat of a romcom, which is something you'd expect if you're familiar with director Joe Swanberg's work.

Considering all the lines are entirely improvised by the cast (within a story outline, provided by Swanberg), the nuanced portrayal of modern relationships in the movie comes from a very real place. It's a reminder that what's obvious and what's right in a fairytale land doesn't matter because real life isn't that cut and dry. Real life, as examined in Drinking Buddies, is essentially a compilation of lies and excuses we tell ourselves to make the day easier. Now who's up for a beer? —Tara Aquino

Director: Jia Zhangke

Stars: Jiang Wu, Zhao Tao, Wang Baoqiang

In the war between the haves and the have-nots, don't underestimate the less blessed latter group—put someone's back against the wall, and they're liable to lash out. That's the main theme in Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke's hard-hitting A Touch of Sin, a brutal, in-your-face look at four different lower-class Chinese characters who fight back against various forms of oppression.

The most startling of the film's four stories comes from Dahai (Jiang Wu), a coal miner enraged over his presumption that his industry's leaders aren't sufficiently compensating him. It results in Dahai going on a rampage with a shotgun. A second character, a sauna receptionist who's treated like a prostitute, chooses a knife to exact her revenge. In all four chapters of A Touch of Sin, though, the outcomes are alternately shocking and profound, with Zhangke intelligently balancing action movie visuals with social analysis. The violence is brutal, and what's more, probably useless. —Matt Barone

Director: Rob Zombie

Stars: Sheri Moon Zombie, Meg Foster, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Judy Geeson, Bruce Davison, Patricia Quinn, Dee Wallace, Ken Foree, Maria Conchita Alonso

Steeped in European horror sensibilities, writer-director Rob Zombie's The Lords of Salem is his most ambitious and befuddling work yet—befuddling in positive ways comparable to the least comprehensible, yet no less enthralling, films from, say, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Dario Argento. Except that The Lords of Salem is unmistakably a Rob Zombie vision, one that never suffered the same big-wig interference that befell his Halloween studio assignments. Given total creative freedom from mega-producer Jason Blum (Insidious, the Paranormal Activity series), Zombie holds nothing back.

The outcome is about as close to modern-day audiences may ever come to experiencing the midnight-movie weirdness of films like Santa Sangre and Alucarda. The Lords of Salem opens with naked and flabby witches performing a wild Satanic ritual, so there's never any doubt as to what kind of movie you're viewing, and Zombie completely uses that license to his advantage. The film's parade of grotesqueries will definitely repulse some, if not have them laughing for all the wrong reasons. Chances are, though, anyone who voluntarily seeks out "video nasties" and prefers the lurid over logical will happily kneel before Zombie's strange altar. —Matt Barone

Director: David O. Russell

Stars: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner, Louis C.K., Jack Huston, Robert De Niro, Michael Peña, Alessandro Nivola

Just look at the cast and the man behind the camera—it would be impossible for American Hustle to be anything less than awesome. Luckily, it didn't disappoint. Bale and Adams are at their best as a couple of crooks who find themselves working with the FBI to take down the mafia and corrupt politicians. Cooper has never been funnier as a curly-haired cop. Jeremy Renner puts on a performance as a framed politician that just makes you want to cradle him. And last but not least, Jennifer Lawrence proves why she deserved last year's Oscar win. She's never been more manic or pained. You can't take your eyes off of her.

It's '70s goodness at its most hilarious, complete with bell-bottom jeans, awful haircuts, and all the exposed chest hair you never knew you wanted. Park the Oscar potential (and this is chock full of Oscar potential) in the back of your mind and just let this take you on a ride. —Tara Aquino

Director: Alfonso Cuarón

Stars: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney

When sci-fi luminary James Cameron called Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity "the best space film ever," Complex's hyperbole police launched an investigation into his comment. Was this movie about astronauts struggling to survive when orbiting debris destroys their space station really better than Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey? Ridley Scott's Alien? Cameron's Aliens? Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris?

Story-wise, no. It's essentially a one-note, occasionally schmaltzy, survival piece with some underdeveloped characters that the viewer isn't invested in. But what Cuarón's film lacks in narrative, it makes up for with visual brilliance and an unprecedented outer space experience, made possible by the best use of 3D technology since Cameron's Avatar. It's the closest most people will ever come to space, and a ticket costs a hell of a lot less than the education required to join NASA. —Justin Monroe

Director: Alexander Payne

Stars: Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb, Stacy Keach, Bob Odenkirk, Mary Louise Wilson

Many have written Nebraska off as a minor work from Alexander Payne, the director who has already visited the titular state in Citizen Ruth, Election, and About Schmidt. The story may be low-key, just like its characters, but Payne's latest road trip fires on all cylinders.

In a pitch-perfect performance, Bruce Dern stars as Woody, a craggy old man possibly suffering from dementia who believes he won a million dollars because his junk mail says so. As Woody insists upon his middle-aged son (Will Forte) to drive him to Nebraska to collect his imaginary winnings, Payne paints a portrait of the Midwest and its citizens as a faded memory, left to grow old like seniors in a retirement home and find happiness within their own devices.

Payne strikes the perfect balance between his trademark wry humor and more recent sensitive side (as seen in The Descendants). He may invite us to laugh at these country folk but his fondness and empathy for them has never been so deeply felt. —Radheyan Simonpallai

Director: Edgar Wright

Stars: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan, Rosamund Pike, Michael Smiley, Bill Nighy, Pierce Brosnan

It's difficult not to be blown away by an Edgar Wright movie. The dude's obsessive, and you can see it in every frame he shoots. The World's End is simply another testament to his genius. The final film of Wright's Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy (the first two being Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) follows functioning alcoholic Gary King (Simon Pegg) as he wrangles his long lost childhood friends (Nick Frost, Eddie Marsan, and Paddy Considine) for one last go at the elusive Golden Mile, a 12-pub crawl in their quaint English hometown. But a night meant for booze and bonding turns into one of battling Blanks, humans possessed by aliens all part of the Network, an extraterrestrial army that's taken over the town and setting its sights on the rest of the world.

While Wright's quick cuts and fondness for symmetry make for a sleek and exciting film, it's the devil in the details that's most impressive. The World's End isn't just an apocalyptic action-comedy, it's a story about coming to terms with yourself and your personal demons. And here, it's King confronting the fact that he's fallen off his throne and withering away with every sip. While the world is ending, Gary fucking King gets a second chance to create a new one for himself. —Tara Aquino

Director: James Ponsoldt

Stars: Miles Teller, Shailene Woodley, Brie Larson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Dayo Okeniyi, Kyle Chandler, Andre Royo, Bob Odenkirk, Kaitlyn Dever

If you've recently asked yourself, "What the hell happened to old-fashioned teen movies and why've they all been replaced by vampire romances and dystopian adventure stories?" The Spectacular Now answers that question. It's 2013's Say Anything. Based on the book of the same name, the Sundance film fest selection follows a deadbeat high school senior (Miles Teller) who falls in love with a sci-fi nerd (Shailene Woodley) who is more concerned about getting out of their bumblefuck town than being crowned prom queen. It's because of her that he realizes he's capable of things far more ambitious than the longest keg stand. And it's because of her that he's able to deal with the family problems he's spent high school attempting to drown with a bottle.

It's a stripped-down, honest story of two kids in love, and how that transforms you. Forget the spectacle of dodging werewolves and bullets, sometimes simplicity is all you need to make a movie spectacular. —Tara Aquino

Director: Adam Wingard

Stars: Sharni Vinson, A.J. Bowen, Joe Swanberg, Wendy Glenn, Nicholas Tucci, Barbara Crampton, Rob Moran, Margaret Laney, Ti West, Amy Seimetz

The underwhelming box office performance of You're Next isn't all that hard to understand. One, summer movie audiences already received their big horror movie fix through The Conjuring, and, two, You're Next's commercials made it look like a familiar hybrid of The Strangers and this summer's surprise home invasion hit The Purge. A better move for Lionsgate would have been to release You're Next in October, not August, since this year's 10th month is curiously light on big-deal horror, save for the shaky-looking Carrie remake.

No worries—indie filmmaker Adam Wingard's unlikely mainstream film will find its audience on home video. And those late-coming viewers will kick themselves for missing You're Next in theaters, because it's tailor-made to be seen with large, loud, energetic crowds.

It's also far better than the more successful The Purge, in that You're Next cleverly subverts the home invasion norms, rather than mindlessly submitting to obvious tropes. With a strong, sly sense of humor, screenwriter Simon Barrett, along with help from the film's excellent cast, takes everything you know from movies like the aforementioned The Strangers and toys with those expectations. The masked intruders, for once, aren't unstoppable killing machines. No victims get tied to any chairs tp be sadistically tortured. And, finally, one of those victims actually fights back.

That fighter is played with impressive physicality and gumption by Sharni Vinson, whose performance guarantees she'll be asked to quite a few horror conventions in the years to come. She's the reason why the lucky viewers who've watched You're Next in packed theaters have stood up and cheered. When Vinson's character, Erin, attacks the bad guys with screwdrivers and other home-improvement weaponry, it's a rush, and often played brilliantly for laughs. Other home invasion movies are too maliciously one-note to yield that kind of reaction. —Matt Barone

Director: Ryan Coogler

Stars: Michael B. Jordan, Octavia Spencer, Melonie Diaz, Kevin Durand, Ahna O'Reilly, Chad Michael Murray

The year's most heartbreaking performance so far? Short Term 12's Brie Larson certainly deserves that honor, but we're calling it a two-way tie between Fruitvale Station co-stars Melonie Diaz and Octavia Spencer, the two unsung devastators in first-time filmmaker Ryan Coogler's overwhelmingly powerful film about Oscar Grant (played by Michael B. Jordan), the 22-year Bay Area man who was wrongfully gunned down by cop January 1, 2009.

As Grant's girlfriend and mother, respectively, Diaz and Spencer represent the lights in Grant's often dark life-watching them break down once Fruitvale Station reaches its tragic, inevitable climax is gut-wrenching, thanks to performances so raw and heartfelt.

As for Jordan, the film's anchor, he's just as strong, though in different ways. Always a solid screen presence, from The Wire to Friday Night Lights and last year's surprise box office hit Chronicle, he's a revelation here, proving himself to be a charismatic leading man who's able to effortlessly bounce around from sympathetic to explosive, though he's consistently multifaceted.

Coogler doesn't shy away from Grant's criminal past in Fruitvale Station, and he doesn't have to—Jordan plays Grant with such convincing warmth and honesty that Grant's never less than likable, flaws and all. And when the story's maddening injustice happens, you're right there with Diaz and Spencer's characters, left in shambles. —Matt Barone 

Director: Jill Soloway

Stars: Kathryn Hahn, Juno Temple, Josh Radnor, Jane Lynch

From a goofy rom-com premise—woman in a passion-less marriage befriends a stripper, invites her to live at her home—writer/director Jill Soloway has made the year's most surprising movie about sex, class, and relationships. Nothing in the trailer for Afternoon Delight prepares you for the actual experience of watching the film, which takes all kinds of sharp, dark lefts away from the basic plot outline.

In an Oscar-worthy performance, Kathryn Hahn plays Rachel, an unhappy L.A. housewife raising a son in a largely Jewish community with little support from her distracted husband, Jeff (Josh Radnor), a successful tech dude. In an attempt to end a long sexual dry spell, Rachel and Jeff go to a strip club with another couple. Wanting to explore her sexuality, Rachel gets a lap dance from McKenna (Juno Temple). The night out doesn't solve her and Jeff's problem, and Rachel begins going back to the club during the day for coffee and conversation with McKenna. After a nasty scene with her boyfriend, McKenna moves in with Rachel under the guise of looking after her and Jeff's son.

As a viewer, you're waiting for the film to take the expected turns toward a neat resolution. They don't come. Instead, Afternoon Delight becomes the rare movie that treats sex workers with respect and empathy while exposing the ugly pettiness of a wealthy community that ultimately doesn't have much honesty holding it together. It explores female sexuality in a way that doesn't rely on eye-rolling homoerotic experimentation. This movie gets uncomfortable, real, and messy as these characters are forced to tell each other the truth. All of your applause is owed to Soloway and her great cast. —Ross Scarano

Director: Sarah Polley

Sarah Polley is a magnificent spin doctor. The Canadian actress/filmmaker took a sensitive, family secret ripe for the tabloids and turned it into a cinematic inquiry on truth and all of its intricate layers.

Working as both a touching portrait of Polley's late mother Diane (also an actress) and an autobiography of the filmmaker herself, Stories We Tell chronicles a personal history that we can no longer discuss because it unfolds like a mystery that you have to experience for yourself. What we can discuss is Polley's refusal to take ownership of her own past. Her film is a self-aware reminder that stories are affected by those who tell it. Memories fade and emotional attachments deviate, so Polley interviews several relatives and even strangers, trying to grasp the bigger picture without bias. Meanwhile, she constantly recognizes the conflicted thumbprint she leaves behind as director.

Prodding and probing at the idea that a documentary can be neutral, Stories We Tell makes a much more resonant splash than any tabloid headline ever could. —Radheyan Simonpallai

Director: Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg

Stars: Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, James Franco, Danny McBride, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, Emma Watson

It took balls to make This Is the End: giant demon balls, Michael Cera balls, all kinds of balls. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, the longtime collaborators who co-wrote and co-directed the smart and uproarious send-up of celebrity and apocalypse blockbusters, could not have made the movie without getting a bunch of their actor friends to play on public perceptions and take the piss out of themselves.

It’s wonderfully unclear where exactly the line between truth and fiction lies in the flick about a group of real-life stars from the Apatow collective who hole up at James Franco’s pad and butt heads when the end of days interrupts a house party. (Except for the well-rendered CGI hellfire and demons, of course.) From Jonah Hill’s self-important serious acting career, to Franco’s professional eccentricity and gay rumors, to the absolute meekness of Michael Cera, there is nothing This Is the End considers too precious to skewer. (There was arguably nothing funnier in 2013 than seeing Cera rip lines of cocaine, slap Rihanna’s ass, offer a juice break to two women servicing him front and rear in Franco’s bathroom, and get impaled.)

The vast majority of the risks that Rogen, Goldberg, and their actors take result in gut laughs deeper than those earned by other comedies this year. There are, admittedly, points at which the script could have been tightened—the actual end of This Is the End, for instance—but after 106 minutes of audacious side-splitting meta comedy, anybody complaining could just go to Hell. —Justin Monroe

Director: Noah Baumbach

Stars: Greta Gerwig, Mickey Sumner, Charlotte d'Ambroise, Adam Driver, Michael Esper, Grace Gummer, Patrick Heusinger

For sure, it could have been called "#WhiteGirlProblems" And yeah, it does tread that line between earnest and treacly. But Frances Ha the film is as indefatigable as its title character. Plus, it checks off a lot of boxes of movies I like. Set in NYC, check. Coming of age, check. Precocious female protagonist—the kind who stumbles, rises, stumbles, then rises again, like the heroine of a Korean drama—check. And then all of those little Noah Baumbach touches—lingering glances, misconstrued convos, awkward dalliances. You know, the stuff of life. 

Bonus: It all checks in at a very compact, tidy 86 minutes. In a year of engorged running times, this merits praise.—Donnie Kwak

Director: Martin Scorsese

Stars: Leonardo Dicaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, Kyle Chandler, Matthew McConaughey, Rob Reiner, Jon Favreau, Jon Bernthal, Cristin Milioti, Jean Dujardin, Kenneth Choi, Ethan Suplee, Spike Jonze

Martin Scorsese's filmography is packed with classic scenes. For example, there's the "You talking to me?" moment in Taxi Driver, and the "You think I'm funny?" exchange in Goodfellas. In the director's latest film, The Wolf of Wall Street, there's more than one such scene—in fact, there are three that, years from now, will, or at least should, rank among Scorsese's most memorable movie moments. One involves Matthew McConaughey and the topic of masturbation; another finds Jonah Hill at his most hilariously vulgar; and the third, the film's crowning achievement, is an insane, riotous bit of physical comedy from star Leonardo DiCaprio. It'll forever be known as the "cerebral palsy" sequence, and it needs to be seen to be believed.

Much like The Wolf of Wall Street as a whole. Scorsese's craziest and funniest movie to date, the real-life story of excess-reveling, criminalistic/hedonistic stock broker Jordan Belfort (DiCaprio) has been described by DiCaprio as a more contemporary take on Caligula, a comparison that feels on-point during every kinky sex scene and disastrous drug trip. Written by Terence Winter (Boardwalk Empire's showrunner, and a former Wall Street worker himself), the film basks in its deplorable characters' worst impulses, staging their horrible acts as balls-to-the-wall comedy.

To say that Scorsese, DiCaprio, and everyone else on The Wolf of Wall Street "go for it" wouldn't do the film justice. Both figuratively and literally speaking, they slather "it" with mashed-up qualuudes, surround it with more drugs, and let it run wild. The end result: a new highpoint of cinematic anarchy in the god Martin Scorsese's already superlative career. —Matt Barone

Director: Richard Linklater

Stars: Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke

With each entry, Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, and Ethan Hawke's Before series gets better. What began in 1995, with Before Sunrise, as a small film about two strangers meeting in Vienna and falling for each while walking the city has grown to become one of the most important cinematic works about love ever made.

Before Midnight opens in the present. Celeste (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) have been living together for years. They have children together, two twin girls. Jesse left his first marriage in America to be with Celeste in Paris, but his unhappiness about his long-distance relationship with his son from that marriage is becoming a problem.

Linklater doesn't alter the style of the first two films for Before Midnight; the characters have long, discursive conversations about time, memory, and love in extremely long takes, and those conversations always lead back to their relationship. The care placed in this dialogue, in particular the argument Celeste and Jesse have in a hotel room near the film's end, is unmatched in American cinema this year. The dialogue is hyper-realistic, sounding superficially like regular speech but with such subtext and intelligence, it's not at all like how people talk. The lengthy scenes make you look at editing with fresh eyes. Each cut in this film means something (pay close attention to a shot of a cup of tea late in the game).

But the real reason you're here is to check in on the relationship between two characters movie lovers have come to care about over the course of 18 years. They aren't falling in love here; no, they're testing the limits of their relationship and their own happiness, exploring what sacrifice means between partners of many years. You'll be surprised by how funny so much of this winds up being, but it's also so painful, you might not have it in you to laugh. —Ross Scarano

Director: Destin Daniel Cretton

Stars: Brie Larson, John Gallagher, Jr., Kaitlyn Dever, Keith Stanfield, Stephanie Beatriz, Kevin Hernandez, Rami Malek

Short Term 12 flirts with several forms of hokeyness, from the white savior movie to the troubled-teen after school special. And in the hands of an inferior filmmaker, either one of those would have surely happened. But indie writer-director Destin Daniel Cretton is too gifted for that.

With a remarkable knack for character development and storytelling, Cretton crafts a film that's got more in common with Half Nelson than Hardball. Except that Short Term 12 is better than Half Nelson.

Carrying most of the emotional weight is breakout actress Brie Larson (21 Jump Street), playing Grace, a supervisor at a California group home who has deep, troubling issues of her own. Through one kid in particular, a female newbie with serious daddy issues (played by Kaitlyn Dever), Grace is forced to confront her inner demons, and, yes, Short Term 12 then heads into some rather dark places, but it's never morose. Cretton loves his characters too much to send them into the abyss—by Short Term 12's beautifully optimistic end, all's not right in their world, but it's certainly hopeful. Just like in real life. —Matt Barone

Director: Joshua Oppenheimer, Christine Cynn, Anonymous

What does it feel like to kill a man? To kill a thousand? To be revered for mass murder? These are questions that documentarians Joshua Oppenheimer and Christine Cynn ask in the powerful and unsettling doc The Act of Killing, which focuses on old, fat, and white-haired Indonesian gangsters who rose to prominence by leading a North Sumatran death squad in 1965-1966, purging the country of alleged communists in the wake of a failed military coup by the 30th of September Movement. Because the current ruling Pemuda Pancasila regime rose out of the death squads, their genocidal acts are considered heroic.

In an utterly surreal and stomach-turning twist, the gangsters revisit their killing days in re-enactments, full-on stylized movie scenes where they play themselves and their victims with the eagerness of children toying around with a video camera they got for Christmas. Some of these are comically bad, like Z-grade horror flicks. Others are so terrifying that the women and children who are playing the women and children who the death squads once pulled from their burning homes, are visibly terrified. Scenes like these are delicate, as the Pemuda Pancasila, which supports the filming as propaganda to remind challengers how truly medieval they’re willing to get, doesn’t want to come across as bloodthirsty and savage.

The most disturbing thing about The Act of Killing is how human the mass murderers are. In many ways, they appear as genial and unremarkable as your next door neighbor. It appears that anyone, given the right circumstances, could become part of a genocidal machine and devise ways to snuff out life more efficiently and with less mess. The documentary and its re-enactments force reflection, and yet it's little solace to see Anwar, one of the most exalted executioners, struggle with portraying his victims, gag violently when he revisits the roof where he strangled many to death with a wire system he invented, and cry about his fears of being haunted. The dead are dead and wishing it were some other way can never change that. —Justin Monroe

Director: Abdellatif Kechiche

Stars: Adèle Exarchopolous, Léa Seydoux

First love is a wet, fucked up mess. And the worst part is, it's a wet, fucked up mess you'll never forget. Like the topic it tackles, Blue Is the Warmest Color is just as unforgettable. Carried by the harrowing performances from leads Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos, the film is a frank and tellingly uncomfortable chronicle of a young woman's (Exarchopoulos) rocky journey of self-discovery. Along the way, she falls for another woman (Seydoux), with whom she begins a long-term relationship. You travel with her from puppy love to the open water of whatever the hell lies beyond the honeymoon phase.

But don't be fooled by its familiar premise. The winner of the Cannes film festival grand prize, the Palme d'Or, the story (based on the graphic novel by Julie Maroh) isn't wispy young adult fare. It's a naturalistic portrayal of the pain, obsessive attachment, and the passion you feel when you first fall in love—and the shell of yourself you're left with when it's taken away. —Tara Aquino

Director: Joel and Ethan Coen

Stars: Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Justin Timberlake, Garrett Hedlund, F. Murray Abraham, Stark Sands, Adam Driver, Max Casella

Lovers of the Coen Brothers, Bob Dylan, and cats will look at the filmmaking duo's take on the early 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene as a masterpiece. It helps that the brothers' craft here is as tightly coiled as guitar strings. Like so many great folk songs, Inside Llewyn Davis is dour but affectionate, setting the hardscrabble lyrics of New York's daily grind to a tune that has mythical proportions.

Oscar Isaac's titular, talented, couch-crashing schmuck Llewyn (loosely inspired by Dave Van Ronk) will constantly reap what's coming to him for his asshole ways (like insulting gracious hosts and impregnating married women) but never see the rewards for his musical gifts. The Coens' make sure Llewyn's life stays true to the music he performs on stage-Dylan-like success would seem too paradoxical. While setting Llewyn on a wry, hysterical, surrealist odyssey (with the aforementioned cat) through the east coast that goes nowhere and back, the Coens' savor every note of tender hope and cynicism. —Radheyan Simonpallai

Director: Steve McQueen

Stars: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong'o, Sarah Paulson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Brad Pitt, Paul Giamatti, Scoot McNairy, Taran Killam, Garret Dillahunt

It had to be Steve McQueen. There is no director who has proved himself more capable of capturing the visceral horror of slavery in America than the British visual artist turned filmmaker; this was obvious from his debut, Hunger, a formally rigorous ordeal movie about the hunger strike among imprisoned IRA agents in 1981.

Adapting Solomon Northup's slavery memoir, 12 Years a Slave, McQueen is unflinching. His camera, often in long takes, asks the viewer to contemplate the unfathomable: a near-lynching, a whipping, the appearance of grace in the form of song at a burial.

Much has been written about whether McQueen's camera renders these scenes of horror so painterly that they become as cold as an art installation. That's silly. Visual art has just as much capacity for emotion as narrative filmmaking, and just because the takes are long and the camera steady doesn't mean McQueen wants you to feel less.

Many of 2013's best films were about the power of the human face. It's true of Blue Is the Warmest Color, and it's true of 12 Years a Slave. The shot of Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) beginning to sing at the funeral of a fellow slave is one of the most powerful images of the year, and may go down as one of the most moving in movie history. It's powerful for its simplicity and duration. Watch this, it asks. Watch what it means for this person to sing. —Ross Scarano

Director: Harmony Korine

Stars: Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, James Franco, Rachel Korine, Gucci Mane

Guns, bikinis, and a Riff Raff-esque James Franco—it's a fix you didn't even know you were fiending for. The most divisive film of 2013, Harmony Korine's ecstasy trip follows three former goody-two shoes from the Disney channel and Korine's wife as they embark on a drug-fueled spring break trip gone so wrong, but so damn right.

Sick of their boring bumblefuck nowhere college life, the powerful foursome rob a restaurant to travel to St. Petersburg, Florida, with the rest of the topless and twerking borderline-alcoholic students of the south. A party gone wrong lands them in jail, only to be bailed out by a corn-rowed rapper/dealer named Alien, James Franco. What follows is a nasty crime thriller that could make any parent send their kid to Jesus Camp.

Only it's more than a crime thriller. It's a bizarro feminist fairy tale. And an indictment of white privilege. It's also a feature-length music video that contains a miniature music video for Britney Spears "Everytime," with Franco on a white baby grand and the girls doing a synchronized dance with guns. It's all of America in 2013 refracted through a sick kaleidoscope. It's the most deliciously batshit movie of the year. —Tara Aquino