2013's Best Movies: 10 Years Later

where's Goodfellas?

Claire Denis directed it this year

My favorite film, Something in the Air, ain't here, alas.

My top ten that year:

1. Something in the Air
2. Stories We Tell
3. Museum Hours
4. Enough Said
5. Beyond The Hills
6. Frances Ha
7. The Spectacular Now
8. Like Someone in Love
9. Blue is the Warmest Color
10. The Bling Ring

(For real tho, an even bigger Scorsese discourse-bomb obviously lurks this time around)

By IMDB year, that Assayas would've been in last year's 2012 repoll

Just like The Wind Rises, Norte, A Touch of Sin, The Immigrant, and Stranger by the Lake (my favorite of 2014) all mostly got American distribution the following year.

A great year here btw:

01. Stranger by the Lake (Alain Guiraudie, France)
02. Computer Chess (Andrew Bujalski, USA)
03. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, USA)
04. Stray Dogs (Tsai Ming-Liang, Taiwan)
05. Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón, USA)
06. Manakamana (Stephanie Spray & Pacho Velez, Nepal)
07. Her (Spike Jonze, USA)
08. Upstream Color (Shane Carruth, USA)
09. Inside Llewyn Davis (Ethan & Joel Coen, USA)
10. Bastards (Claire Denis, France)
11. Before Midnight (Richard Linklater, USA)
12. The Strange Little Cat (Ramon Zürcher, Germany)

I can't stand Before Midnight for making me question my loyalty to the first two films.

It's def the least of the three but still among the four or five best Linklaters.

Stray Dogs and Manakamana are other titles I saw in 2014.

Voted Strangers by the Lake. Guiraudie's subsequent films have been mild disappointments.

Agreed, Stranger has my vote. (Bujalski is all the way down in the 7,000s according to TSPDT.)

Wolf of Wa -- j/k. Under the Skin.

hard for me to watch Upstream Color now, knowing what one knows about Shane Carruth w/r/t Amy Seimetz. hard to choose, I am a big fan of WOWS but it wouldn't be my pick. Glazer or Miyazaki i'm thinking.

Yeah, I haven't revised my list of favorites since seeing it ... but I probably won't be re-watching it either

A Touch of Sin for me

Also have a great amount of respect for these runners up:

The Missing Picture (Rithy Panh, Cambodia/France)
Closed Curtain (Jafar Panahi, Iran)
A Touch of Sin (Jia Zhangke, China)
The Past (Asghar Farhadi, France/Iran)
Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, USA)
Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, USA)
The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, Indonesia/Norway/Denmark/United Kingdom)
Viola (Matias Pineiro, Argentina)
Memphis (Tim Sutton, USA)

Would have voted The Act of Killing if it had made the top rankers, as it is I went for Hard To Be A God out of a sense of...something, not sure what. Achievement? Real answer is Princess Kaguya I suppose.

Gah, I guess Frances Ha, The Act of Killing and Viola are all IMDB 2012s.

The problem is IMDB. No way in hell Frances Ha got a domestic 2012 release.

IMDB has been drifting more toward first screening period. Nowadays, a Frances Ha would premiere at Telluride, and turn over a month or two later for an Oscar run

Under the Skin over Llewyn Davis, for me.

Inside Llewyn Davis #1, Wolf of Wall Street # worst.

Good list. Voted Hard to be a God, then saw Stray Dogs on the list and went 'D'oh'. But also Norte, still the best Diaz I've seen...

Going for that. Never went more into Diaz-land after this.

I saw Norte in a small screen, over a very hot evening. There was an interval which was a godsend. A really good film.

Llewyn Davis or Under the Skin. Loved Only Lovers Left Alive too (about to re-watch it since it popped up on HBO) but it's much dumber about music compared to ILD.

Norte was my second choice. Only Lovers Left Alive is one of the few Jarmusch things I enjoy.

so was FRANCES HA eligible for this poll? if so there a bunch of films in the 3000s that FRANCES HA (#2457) outranks

i struggled through llewyn at the time and im surprised anyone saw enough in it to remember so fondly a decade later tbh

i remember a cat

for me it is between A Touch of Sin, Stranger By the Lake, and Under the Skin, probably in that order

Ida was great and was beautifully photographed, but it was very literal

I hated Hard To Be a God, almost as much as The Wolf of Wall Street. Maybe even more when I think about it

I never saw Mati Diop's first feature film A Thousand Suns, but I loved her follow-up Atlantics

Only Lovers Left Alive was also a fantastic film. Jarmusch mostly has hit home runs imo

I've seen nine of these, all of which were at least good. Best is Bastards, a film where the most heart-breaking shot is of a pile of cheap, crummy shoes. Disqualified is Hard To Be a God, which, unusually for me, I didn't finish because I was hating it.

I haven't seen any of Mati Diop's films but I did see her introduce her uncle's Touki Bouki.

Re the Wolf of Wall Street hatred, I can see it being hate-worthy depending on how it hits you. I thought it was funny, but I can imagine it just being grating. I don't really know why it works for me, partly good use of Leo's natural smarm, but also Scorsese makes it a romp. I don't think he is in any glamorizing these putzes, but he is making it a comedy rather than a tragedy or horror movie.

I almost never write about movies, but I wrote about Hard to Be a God (and Sorcerer, which came out on Blu-Ray about the same time). I haven't seen most of the rest.

I can't stand Before Midnight for making me question my loyalty to the first two films.

― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, September 11, 2023 11:55 AM

Agree that it's the least of the three, but a second watch made me at least appreciate it on some level. (My first watch was thoroughly dispiriting.)

I am choosing to remain in the happy ignorance of only knowing the first two. I like the way Before Sunset ends, I don't need more.

That's what I should've done. It was a perfect ending.

Re the Wolf of Wall Street hatred, I can see it being hate-worthy depending on how it hits you. I thought it was funny, but I can imagine it just being grating. I don't really know why it works for me, partly good use of Leo's natural smarm, but also Scorsese makes it a romp. I don't think he is in any glamorizing these putzes, but he is making it a comedy rather than a tragedy or horror movie.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, September 11, 2023

I think he is expecting us to see it as a comedy with a comeuppance, but he makes it into some kind of hagiography of bad behavior, like with Goodfellas. We are lead to revel in the traders’ excesses and laugh at their toxic alpha male behavior, but he is absolutely adoring them at the same time, regardless of the ending.

All told I guess I am just repulsed by any film showing Wall Street rapiers making a killing in a favorable light, especially a film like that by a director I respect

so...we haven't changed your mind, you'll just keep repeating last week's points

:) um, no

he makes it into some kind of hagiography of bad behavior, like with Goodfellas

not this again

if anything, he leaves it up to the audience and we are given an ideal moral touchstone characterif we absolutely must have one in our morality studies (dear lord must we tho?) but he is imo letting us know how he thinks america treats each one perhaps

Scorsese should put a 'THESE GUYS ARE BAD' disclaimer at the beginning, middle, and end of his crime films.

sorry about the derail, I know you all don't feel the way I do. darraghmac I'm not sure I understand that post

anyway, I can't decide between A Touch of Sin and Stranger By the Lake

we are given our moral and upstanding policeman to stand for what's right

scorsese shows us the fun and the reward in doing what's not right and i dont think he demands anything more from us in terms of revelrly or adoration or favourable light, in fact i think its a wilful decision to watch the movie and take that from it

what depiction of wall st excess and consequences of same would be acceptably trite, is essentially what id wonder

if we strip scorsese back to jesus getting the pitch from satan in the desert (we usually can if we're just gonna go for it here) scorsese just reports the pitch honestly

thats what makes the pitch and the decision interesting

don't understand any of that

Guiraudie's film after Stranger By the Lake, Staying Vertical, was a total mindfuck but I thought it was really interesting

ive no idea now if im having my leg pulled or not tbh, these posts are perfectly straightforward

Wolf actually strikes me as more tonally complex from moment to moment than Goodfellas. Those intrusive melancholic beats right in the midst of the hedonism, and even the straightforwardly funny stuff just has an angry desperate edge to it. It’s quite clear the characters don’t just end up in hell but start there in some ways.

the consequence is where they will forever be

Scorsese could have reinforced that by selling Goodfellas DVDs where, after you watch it once, you can only watch the scene of Henry Hill in his bathrobe on subsequent screenings.

Casino is practically a religious horror movie at the end - Ace ends up in purgatory and Nicky ends up in hell.

...and Ginger somewhere even worse.

Great post Omar. You’re right, it is fire and brimstome, reaping what you sow, the wrath of God being the natural consequences of an immoral lifestyle and how one reckons with that.

I might be remembering wrong Ryan, but I thought Wolf sets up Jordan as this innocent kid who walks into a deformed environment and becomes that deformed environment. It’s no loss of innocence, catcher in the rye type movie….. but Scorsese is clearly making a point that Wall Street will corrupt anyone who walks into it, saint or sinner.

the consequence is where they will forever be

--Donald LaFontaine

What's with not being able to post? Anyway, Bastards was shocking and was very interesting but I don't think it was close to being Denis' best film

The heightened emotions of Blue Is the Warmest Color really affected me. I know there was controversy surrounding it but I still think it was a great achievement

Like Father, Like Son is a lovely film, but my favorite Kore-eda is still Nobody Knows

I watched Under the Skin with my sister and niece and they were both horrified by it from the beginning. The scene on the beach with the toddler crying and left alone was extremely upsetting to them

The alien character's gradual understanding of and empathy for humanity kind of made the film for me. The scene where she's examining a piece of cake was iconic I thought

Reviewing my Netflix history I watched Stray Dogs 5 years ago. I don't remember it that well now. I will watch it again

Gravity was beautiful to look at but I couldn't get past the ridiculous characters and storyline

The Great Beauty was a really nice film that I want to see again

Pretty sure The Great Beauty was the last new release I saw projected on film.

"silence" was almost a bigger piece of shit than "wolf"

the only good scorsese film is "after hours" and that's because he stole most of it

Darraghmac: Scorsese is just presenting fact and consequence

Dan S.: yeah, but isn’t the presentation of these gross facts and consequences as entertainment an implicit endorsement of their value?

How’d i do?

― H.P, Tuesday, September 19, 2023 7:21 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

from a moral perspective this more or less matches my feelings tbh, although i think it's a minor point in light of the fact that it sucks as a film and, as Eric says, isn't funny

Silence/After Hours/Kind of Comedy all great. Wolf a definite dud for reasons already stated, though Omar’s post has made me a little more sympathetic to it

im gonna let it be i dont need another top gun 2 thread on my blotter

I've seen, I think, 17 of these movies and Wolf of Wall Street is the only one I've watched more than once. There's 2 or 3 others I definitely would or have been meaning to, but in a world where innumerable things are competing for my interest WoWS is the only one where i actually pulled the trigger. And so far it's the main film on this list people here want to talk about. That probably says something.

I don't want to sound like an uncritical Scorsese booster -- he had over a decade's run before Wolf where nothing he did worked for me -- but he captured the Trump era before it happened. He just did. When someone like Adam McKay tries to cover territory like this it's like a pale imitation and it fucking sucks shit. When just about every mainstream satirist or comedian tried to respond to the last few years as it happened they also failed (the works of Tim Heidecker and Danny McBride/Jody Hill -- who are willing to get their hair mussed and get on the necessary wavelength -- excepted). He gets it as much as he figured out the tough guys he used to watch from his window growing up. The ending just gets better too; dozens of hopeful people in a room looking to someone who achieved great wealth for the answers he must surely have. That also captures our times; an American spell that seems like it's only finally beginning to break.

It's a very funny movie. One edit I love is when they cut from the flustered FBI agent to the yacht where they're doing the fucking Hip Hop Hooray dance. Pretty funny for a filmmaker in his 70s at the time. He gets how silly these guys are, basically doing wrestling promos whenever they have to speak in public. You'd think he actually grew up in the 1990s the way he portrays it. I fully realize and get that not everyone is going to approach this stuff from the same cultural perspective and it's not going to be appealing -- Scorsese makes art films as much as anyone on this list, even if you find his pedigree beneath you, so that's always been broadly true. But the moral handwringing... come on. You're not going to get in trouble for watching it, nor will you win anything for being above it all.

Scorsese may be outsourcing at this point

autsourcing

Don't worry, in a few years you'll get to see American cinema no doubt flourish without him.

My pal who has a very very small role in his new one said he was pretty amazed by his energy, so he might be sticking around for awhile longer. Also said he's a really decent dude, and he actually came up to him directly a couple times to compliment him on his roles in some minor indies he'd taken some time to watch while on location in Oklahoma. I guess he really does just watch movies all the damn time.

i'd argue that the loveability and menschness of Marty might mean he escapes critical evaluation sometimes especially around stuff like the funding story Roz linked upthread

IIRC there was some pushback against his fairly dull opinions about Marvel Movies? And he doesn't come out unscathed of things like Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. But he's clearly done a lot to preserve cinema as a physical and cultural object, prob more than any other director.

I didn't know about the financing of WOWS, so thanks for alterting me to that, Roz. There does seem an inevitable irony in a film about financial corruption being corruptly financed, although obv Scorsese is at least suggesting/exploring (in the film) similarities between Hollywood and Wall Street.

I think his criticism of superhero movies and treating movies as content looks increasingly spot-on. At worst, he gently challenged those movies' fans to think a little differently about cinema and some of them have had a vendetta against him ever since.

his opinions were pretty otm, as much as i thought the marvel films were pretty solid, and several of them were pretty great. we checked out halfway thru Ant Man 3 though and we're not going back.

it's probably a stretch to suggest he was involved in some actual criminal malfeasance w/the WOWS funding, we can dislike the film without implying he himself is corrupt. i doubt he has much interest in the intricacies of the financing, just getting the job done. now if his attempts to make his passion project Gangs of NY had failed until a mystery production company called Cosa Nostra Camorra Productions had come up with $100 million all of sudden and Harvey Weinstein had been suddenly afraid to enter the edit bay and chop off an hour plus of footage, maybe i'd be suspicious.

would watch

The only recent criticism that did seem to stick was the whole “Anna Paquin doesn’t even get to say anything in The Irishman” moment.

I’m perpetually happy and grateful for Scorsese’s position as an ambassador for cinephilia and a servant for film preservation. If it takes the occasional existence of a Wolf of Wall Street to keep him in that position, so be it.

Scorsese, Scorsese, Scorsese -- what are you two? Lovers?!

i saw the irishman and anna paquin said some stuff in it but im almost certain much of it was written for her perhaps that in itself is also a criticism

I voted for what I’m sure is the least loved of these movies. (Really thought about going with “The Great Beauty”, though.)

Frozen?

No! (Though I saw Frozen! With my son, who was young then.)

Ugh, I know I am out of step with the ilx hivemind but I genuinely did not enjoy Frances Ha or Lllllewyn Davis. Fruitvale Station was important documentation but doesn't exactly qualify as entertainment. I have no interest in the midnight series.

Wolf, um, okay, entertaining but not profound. Voting Blue.

What didn't you enjoy about Frances Ha? It's what Annie Hall should've been.

also felt llewellyn davies was a mopey drag tbh

The problem is IMDB. No way in hell Frances Ha got a domestic 2012 release.
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, September 11, 2023

I don’t think the problem is with IMDB at all. They clearly state when the film premiers at a film festival and when it is shown to general audiences and in which countries by dates

The problem seems to be having a uniform definition of a ‘release date’. Is it when the film is first shown at a film festival, or when it has an international release outside of the US, or when it has a US release for general audiences?

I think Morbs argued for the last option. By that definition both The Act of Killing and Frances Ha were 2013

I’m always looking at TSPDT, which seems to go with when the film is first shown in a festival (I’m not sure about this), but I don’t care at all

I respect The Squid and the Whale, but Frances Ha is my favorite Baumbach film.

That said, I wouldn't put it on a par with Annie Hall.

Cohen humour rids them of the “mopey drag” claim even when they are being mopey drags imo.

Llewellyn infinitely funnier than WOWS. Really distinct as the funniest, while simultaneously the mopiest Cohen flick

My beef with Frances Ha was how many people thought that Bowie sequence was their idea rather than an homage to Leos Carax.

I still haven't watched seen Carax's Mauvais Sang (1986) which I think you're referring to, I've only seen his Holy Motors (2012) and Annette (2021), both of which were total mindfucks.

Oh.

Watched WOWS last night on Netflix. It was a lot less funny and a lot more repellent than I remembered (saw it in a theater the first time). It felt very labored. And I was left wondering about the feelings of the fairly recognizable actors who were either standing around making bug-eyed faces at DiCaprio's antics, or engaging in silent debauchery during montages, or getting maybe one line despite being onscreen for cumulatively maybe a half hour.

The problem seems to be having a uniform definition of a ‘release date’. Is it when the film is first shown at a film festival, or when it has an international release outside of the US, or when it has a US release for general audiences?

I think Morbs argued for the last option. By that definition both The Act of Killing and Frances Ha were 2013

By that definition, Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story is 1972.

definitely a year I wasn't seeing many films for whatever reason... Loved Under the Skin, liked The Wind Rises (mostly for the Thomas Mann cameo), enjoyed Her, that's about it, I'm out 2013!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Voted Inside Llewywn. Hard to believe some of these are ten years old already

Not even close for me: Norte, The End of History

I thought it was a pretty soft year - those are all generally good films, but Norte is the one towering masterpiece in the bunch.

Diaz apparently teaches in the U.S. - I think he was a visiting professor at Harvard in 2016 when MoMA in NYC invited him to appear at several screenings of a complete retrospective. Wonderful speaker, this was 2017, soon after Trump took power, and his work and what he also had to say were one of the few things happening in the art world that gave me genuine hope for what lay ahead. Having lived through Ferdinand Marcos, he understood.

* at Harvard in 2016 and/or 2017

actually a handful of the above I don't care for, but otherwise not a bad group of films

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Sure why not

I voted for Norte (which I saw in November '14, first run) or Stranger By the Lake.