Best and Worst of 2013

Since most screeners have dropped and we’ve pretty much seen all the big hitters from 2013, I figured it’s time for a special thread. Let’s do some lists—share your absolute favorites or even the ones you totally hated.

I know making top lists can be a bit tricky because tastes shift after six months or a year, and sometimes a movie just hits differently on a second viewing, but since not everyone can keep up with "recently watched" threads, this could be a great spot for recommendations...

So yeah, go ahead and jump in, I don't want to be the only one talking...

I dropped my top 10 best movies of the year about a week ago over at http://passpopcorn.com/2014/01/09/to...ovies-of-2013/. Honestly, though—like I mentioned back then—I hadn't actually sat down with Her yet, but now? It’d probably land pretty high up there. Planning to catch Inside Llewyn Davis in the next few days to see if it earns a spot on the list.

As for the bottom 10 worst films of the year, I don't think we're looking at any massive shifts—you can check out that list here:
http://passpopcorn.com/2013/12/21/to...ovies-of-2013/
It was a super tight race between the three worst ones on the list 😁

2013 in film (Wikipedia)

Here’s the full list of movies—fingers crossed I didn't miss any of them!

As for me, before I start picking out my favorites, I really need to organize my thoughts and clear my head a bit first.

Terry Morris41 said:Well, please, go ahead and jump in so I don't have to be the one to kick things off...

😂🙂...but you seriously should be the one to start since, honestly, you're the one who opened this thread!

Anyway, this is such a great topic, major props to 👍

cosmiclynx57 said:😂🙂...honestly, you should be the one kicking things off since, for crying out loud, you started the thread

and then you'd just have that one single post before the whole thread goes bye-bye,
that's just how things go, man ☕

Rush, Prisoners, Gravity 👍

OGF 👎

Hey everyone, here's the list:

01 The Wolf of Wall Street, Martin Scorsese
02 Gravity, Alfonso Cuarón
03 Blue Is the Warmest Color, Abdellatif Kechiche
04 Before Midnight, Richard Linklater
05 The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Ben Stiller
06 Frances Ha, Noah Baumbach
07 Rush, Ron Howard
08 Pacific Rim, Guillermo del Toro
09 The Best Offer, Giuseppe Tornatore
10 New World, Park Hoon-jung
11 Mud, Jeff Nichols
12 The Past, Asghar Farhadi
13 The Great Beauty, Paolo Sorrentino
14 The World's End, Edgar Wright
15 Saving Mr. Banks, John Lee Hancock
16 The Place Beyond the Pines, Derek Cianfrance
17 Blackfish, Gabriel Kowperthwaite
18 Disconnect, Henry Alex Rubin
19 Charlie Countryman, Charlie Countryman
20 The Hunt, Thomas Vinterberg

The absolute worst ones? Probably Only God Forgives, the latest Die Hard, that total trash Passion, and then The Bling Ring along with Spring Breakers.
I won't even count those dumb comedies as "the worst" since nobody actually expected anything from them—you know, stuff like Movie 43, Scary Movie, Haunted House, and whatever.

Just my own personal favorites

01. Spring Breakers
02. New World
03. Moebius
04. Upstream Color
05. Only God Forgives
06. Stranger by the Lake
07. The Act of Killing
08. Matterhorn
09. Drug War
10. Beyond the Hills
11. Lesson of the Evil
12. Dallas Buyers Club
13. Her
14. Cutie and the Boxer
15. Miss Violence

Best one I’ve seen: Rush.

Worst: Pacific Rim.

Worst: basically every single blockbuster this year

Best: The Conjuring, The Iceman

Surprisingly good: Pain & Gain (even though the critics absolutely tore it apart, I thought it was hilarious), Gangster Squad, Hummingbird, Snitch

Here is my personal list of favorites (though I haven't quite gotten around to watching Inside Llewyn Davis, Adaline, Nebraska, or Philomena from this Oscar-nominated group yet):

Gravity
I was thinking about Her today, and I find myself returning to it quite often. It’s one of those films that stays with you, much more than a typical sci-fi flick might. There is something so deeply moving about the way it explores intimacy and connection in such a quiet, almost fragile way. I guess I’ve always been drawn to stories that look at the loneliness of modern life, even if they use a futuristic setting to do it. Maybe it's just the atmosphere of the film, but it feels incredibly human, despite the central premise being so unconventional.
12 Years a Slave
The Wolf of Wall Street
5. American Hustle
I suppose I’ve been thinking quite a bit about Rush lately, and how it lingers in the mind long after the credits roll. It’s one of those films that feels incredibly visceral, almost overwhelming in its intensity, yet it manages to maintain this sort of focused, driving momentum that keeps you hooked from start to finish. I guess there's just something about the way it captures that specific kind of obsession—that singular, almost self-destructive drive toward perfection—that really resonates, even if it's a bit uncomfortable to watch sometimes. Maybe that's why it stays with you.
I suppose I’ve been thinking quite a bit about *The Hunt* lately, and I find myself wondering how it sits within the broader landscape of modern cinema. It’s one of those films that stays with you, perhaps because of how it handles such heavy, uncomfortable themes, though I can't be entirely sure if it leans too heavily on its tension. I guess there is something inherently unsettling about the way it explores social paranoia, which makes me think it might resonate differently depending on what kind of viewer you are. Maybe it’s just my own perspective, but I feel like the film attempts to hold up a mirror to certain societal fractures, even if that reflection is somewhat distorted.
Captain Phillips
Before Midnight
Dallas Buyers Club
I was thinking about *The Great Beauty* today, and I find myself returning to it more often than I probably should. It’s one of those films that seems to linger in the back of your mind, much like a half-remembered dream from a long vacation. There is something incredibly profound about the way it captures that specific sense of melancholy that comes with aging and reflecting on a life lived amidst such overwhelming splendor. I guess you could say it’s a film about the search for meaning in a world that often feels hollow, even when it's draped in gold and marble. It’s quite beautiful, really, though perhaps a bit heavy if you aren't in the right headspace for it.
The Way Way Back
Fruitvale Station
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
The Counselor

Best:

1. Upstream Color
2. After the Deal
3. The Pass
4. New World
5. The Great Beauty
6. The World's End
7. Child's Position
8. Mud
9. The Best Offer
10. The Hunt

Worst:

Pacific Rim

My top three are:

1. Her
2. Blue Is the Warmest Color
3. Gravity

The rest of the movies fall somewhere between great and bad, I guess. But these three are my personal favorites. They offered something genuinely fresh to the industry, and I suspect they'll stick in people's minds for a long while.

To be perfectly honest, I can’t even begin to recall half of the films I’ve sat through over the years. Most of them just slip right through my mind without leaving a trace, don't they? As for Only God Forgives, I found it to be... alright, I suppose. Nothing to write home about, but certainly not a waste of time.

Been slammed all week, so I’m catching up tonight with Her, Inside Llewyn Davis, and August: Osage County before I finally put my list together. I've got high hopes for the first two, so let's see how they land...

As far as I can remember, these are my top three favorites from this year

1. The Hunt
2. Nymphomaniac
3. Elena

The absolute best? Hands down: Olympus Falls, the new Star Trek, and Thor.

5. Rush
4. The Hunt
3. The Wolf of Wall Street
2. Blue Is the Warmest Color
1. The Great Beauty

I’ll probably just stick to the movies I caught in theaters, since most of them came out back in 2013:

The best ones, I guess: "Let", "Race for Life", and "Django Unchained".

The worst, maybe: "Iron Man 3", "Gravity", and "Oblivion".

The Place Beyond The Pines, Her, Rush, Flight, 12 Years a Slave, The Wolf of Wall Street.

Jack Murphy5 said:The Place Beyond The Pines, Her, Rush, Flight, 12 Years a Slave, The Wolf of Wall Street.

Pretty sure Flight came out in 2012

The absolute best..
1. The runaway Isaac Newton
2. Isaac Newton

The total trash..
1. Riddick
2. After Earth