Best of 2013

Really, the only good thing about putting together one of these end-of-the-year lists is if you're lucky enough to have seen all the major releases by early December, and can thus be one of the first to put one out. Then it's exciting and fresh, whereas now, when countless top 10 lists have been put out, and everyone has already decided that the likes of Her and Llewyn Davis are among the year's best, it hardly matters (not that top-10 lists, regardless of the prestige of who's putting it together, aren't illusionary in their importance). Still, because I skipped out on a list last year, and because I'm just so excited about so many of the things I saw this year, I feel obliged to, if for nothing else but as a personal ode to this amazing year for film.

Because I love movies, I always try to convince myself that by the end of the year, it was a great year for the medium. Sure, there are always going to be really good films, but the best years are when those films provide a buzz, a feeling of intense excitement. The movie contagion then occurs, and you simply want to watch more and more movies and rejoice in their existence. 2007 was one of those years. 2013 was another. 

Here's my (predictable) list in pictures:

Other personal goodies from the year: Frances Ha, Much Ado About Nothing (four fantastic black & white movies this yeas),  American Hustle, Drug War, Berberian Sound Studio, 12 Years a Slave, Caesar Must Die, Gravity, Fruitvale Station, Prince Avalanche. 

Have not caught yet, but eagerly anticipate seeing: Blue Caprice, Short Term 12, The Past (hasn't opened in Dallas yet) This is the End, Mother of George.