Sorry this has taken so long. This has been a really busy couple of months for me.
It's impossible for the average movie-goer to say what the best movies of the year were actually AT the end of the year, because inevitably most of us cannot afford to see every single movie at the cinema and there will inevitably be high quality movies already on DVD from that year that we still won't have had a chance to check out. Still, that doesn't stop me from making a preliminary list, just like I did at the end of last year. (A more informed 'best of' list for 2012 will be forthcoming later this year.)
So what follows is my list of my favourite 20 movies from 2013. Naturally it can only include movies that I've actually seen and naturally I still have a lot of movies from that year I need to check out, but this is at least a helpful guide for highly enjoyable films.
20. John Dies at the End (2012)
UK release date: 22 March 2013
This was ridiculous fun and simply full of ideas. There's not much in the way of a consistent plot but, and this is somewhat hard to explain, the lack of plot is kind of intentional. What you are left with is a highly creative film where absolutely anything can happen, and often does.
Don Coscarelli was the director of the Phantasm movies and, more recently, "Bubba Ho-Tep". This is as bizarre as you'd expect from him and wonderfully enjoyable.
(My review here)
19. Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
UK release date: 25 January 2013
While "The Hurt Locker" was like 'Die Hard in the army', "Zero Dark Thirty" seems to take itself rather more seriously. While the central character comes off as rather cold, that's also what makes her unique as a protagonist. By not making moral judgements on what happened during the War on Terror leading up to the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, the film is able to give us a believeable almost fly-on-the-wall account. It's not the first film where the message has been unclear, but I think if they'd tried to make the message clear it would not have satisfied anyone. Sometimes leaving things ambiguous is the right way to go and as a result this is a film that I think we'll still be talking about for years to come.
(My review here)
18. Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (2013)
UK release date: 7 August 2013
It's been a long wait. I was still in secondary school when the series "I'm Alan Partridge" was on television. But it's been a very welcome return for Steve Coogan's most well-loved comedy character. With Armando Ianucci doing the writing and with an excellent cast, this is unsurprisingly hilarious. Alan Partridge is as morally bankrupt as ever, just as we like him.
(My review here)
17. Side Effects (2013)
UK release date: 8 March 2013
Steven Soderbergh has a really varied career and he seems to be making some of this best stuff in recent years. In 2013 he actually released two different films and "Behind The Candelabra" (which was released in cinemas over here) very nearly cracked this top 20 too. (For the record, the performances in "Behind The Candelabra" were AMAZING. But I thought the way it ended was a bit flat. It can be tough to work out how to end films about real life because in the end, events unfolded in a particular way and you cannot do much to change that when adapting it for the screen.) Side Effects seemed pretty good initially, but the ending was just fantastic. Jude Law does a fantastic job here as the therapist treating Rooney Mara for depression, whose career runs into problems when she murders her husband after taking a new experimental drug he prescribed.
(My review here)
16. Carrie (2013)
UK release date: 29 November 2013
Remakes are a tough thing to do well, particularly when the original is a sacred cow. Still, while not better on every level, this version has some significant improvements over the original. The improvements can be summed up as follows: the characters. In the original movie, I found it hard to believe in any of the characters. Carrie's mother was hammed up to all hell and her peers in the school seemed very strange indeed. And the decision by one girl to encourage her boyfriend to take Carrie to the prom just felt stupid in the original. I'd always presumed that the girl in the original movie did this to help set up the central horrifying prank in the film, but this adaptation makes me question whether that was ever the intended interpretation. The actress playing Chris, the main bully of the film, does a very convincing job of portraying an entitled, selfish and generally obnoxious teenage bully. That performance in particular was extremely true to life. What's more, the performance by Julianne Moore as Carrie's mother gave that creepy character a humanity we never saw in the original movie. The main thing that this Carrie remake is missing, however, is the creepy atmosphere of the original. Comparing the two movies, there's an element of swings and roundabouts here. But the "Carrie" remake is formidable enough not to seem like an inferior knock-off.
(My review here)
15. V/H/S/2 (2013)
UK release date: 14 October 2013
The mark-up in quality here is very impressive. While the original V/H/S was stunted by an unbearable wrap-around segment and an embarrasingly poor entry from Ti West, V/H/S 2 has a more interesting wraparound story this time as well as the incredible Lovecraftian "Safe Haven" film. There's also an excellent first-person perspective zombie film here and even the lowest quality entry has a neat element in the form of a 'dog-cam' (camera strapped to a dog = cool). V/H/S/2 is genuinely creepy and consistently good quality.
(My review here)
14. Thor: The Dark World (2013)
UK release date: 30 October 2013
After the enormously positive reception which greeted "Avengers Assemble", Marvel seemed to put even more effort into continuing their series of action-comedy movies this year. Thor 2 was exciting and funny and Natalie Portman didn't seem so wooden this time around. Loki has gone from being a character with ridiculously mixed-up motivations in the original "Thor" movie, to being arguably Marvel's most popular character. There was further exploration of Loki's character here, a good balance of attention on the background characters too and some quite wonderful ideas and imagery related to the dark and brooding villains.
(My review here)
13. Iron Man Three (2013)
UK release date: 25 April 2013
The third Iron Man movie paid very little heed to the continuity of the Marvel series, instead focussing on being a stand-alone comedy. This was by far the funniest of the Marvel movies as well as having some of the most impressive set-pieces so far in the Marvel Studios series. Perhaps the funniest element of all was related to the villain, played by Ben Kingsley. Though apparently infuriating fans of the comics, this scene was arguably the most brilliant moment in the Marvel movies so far. Shane Black takes the actor whose career he re-invigorated with "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" and takes a crack at his now iconic role of Iron Man with huge success. While there's been no end to bitching by fanboys on the internet, as a Marvel Studios sceptic this was actually the superhero movie that captured my imagination the best. If it were not for a rather less polished fight scene finale in a shipyard, this might well have cracked my top 10.
(My review here)
12. Pacific Rim (2013)
UK release date: 12 July 2013
The main star Chris Hunnam was rather less interesting than his co-stars Idris Elba and Rinko Kikuchi, but they were amazing enough to counter-balance that. But the real attraction here is Guillermo's imagination, building a whole exciting mythology surrounding the robotic suits that require a combination of two minds to run and their struggle to fight the mysterious giant monsters. While far from being Del Toro's best film, it fully expresses his sense of fun and inventiveness.
(My review here)
11. Maniac (2012)
UK release date: 15 March 2013
Elijah Wood played a serial killer in the movie "Sin City" and he does so again here. This remake of the super-low-budget horror 'classic' inserts an interesting and compelling plot into the mix. The decision to film the whole film from the perspective of the killer is inspired. There's a very interesting aesthetic here as well as an impressive soundtrack. This elevates the original horror movie in about every possible way.
(My review here)
My end-of-year top ten movies of 2013 will be coming soon!
