2013 provided an unusually deep roster of excellent movies, including a shattering lesbian romance, a portrait of a 1960s folk singer, a drama about slavery, and a visual poem about love and faith. FRANCE 24’s film critic offers his picks.


This year, we were spoiled.

Terrific movies started hitting theatres* early on, and kept coming -- one after the other, and sometimes in daunting clusters -- for the next 11 months.

For those who regularly decry the state of cinema, or compare it unfavourably to television, it’s worth repeating: 2013 offered an embarrassment of riches on the big screen – so many that I’ve included not just a breakdown of my 10 favourites, but also a list of another sixteen titles I wish I could find room for in the top tier.

If some of the strongest living directors (Wong Kar-wai, Steven Soderbergh, Sofia Coppola, Alexander Payne and David O. Russell) filed films that were good rather than great, there were major new works from established auteurs such as Abdellatif Kechiche, the Coen brothers, Terrence Malick, Jia Zhangke, Woody Allen and Frederick Wiseman. Meanwhile, less tested talents like Steve McQueen and Xavier Dolan proved, dazzlingly, what they were capable of, and two of America’s finest “indie” filmmakers, Noah Baumbach and Nicole Holofcener, spun invigorating variations on old obsessions.

Many of the movies I loved in 2013 were grand in scale and almost brazen in their ambition, tackling thorny subjects, wrestling with big ideas or spanning years (and often lengthy running times). Others pushed buttons and boundaries, both stylistic and thematic. Some were just fun.

There were triumphs in all genres and registers, from existential comedy (“Inside Llewyn Davis”, “The Great Beauty”) to naturalistic drama (“Fruitvale Station”, “Our Children”, “I Used To Be Darker”), historical epic (“12 Years a Slave”) to character study (“Blue Jasmine”, “Frances Ha”, “Afternoon Delight”), documentary (“At Berkeley”, “Stories We Tell”) to neo-noir (“Bastards”), politically charged rumination (“A Touch of Sin”) to road movie (“Crystal Fairy”) to survival tale (“All is Lost”). There were also films that were blissfully unclassifiable (“Spring Breakers”, “Computer Chess”).

Above all, it was a superlative year for love stories. “Blue is the Warmest Colour”, “To the Wonder”, “Laurence Anyways”, “Enough Said”, “Before Midnight”, “Cutie and the Boxer”, “Drinking Buddies”, “The Spectacular Now” and “Her”, though wildly different in form and narrative approach, shared an uncommon feel for, and curiosity about, the joys, cruelties and complexities of romantic entanglement.

France24