Gallery: From Pacific Rim to The World's End, Here Are Our Favorite Movies of 2013
01Pacific Rim
When the history of cinema is writ large on the hearts of popcorn-hoisting genre-lovers, everywhere 2013 will go down as the Year of the Non-Sucky Sequel. *The Hunger Games: Catching Fire* totally ruled. *Thor: The Dark World*? More like *Thor: The Rocking of Your Face*. *The World's End* put a wonderful cherry on the top of the Three Flavors Cornetto trilogy. Even *The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug* upped its game from its first installment, [though only minimally](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/underwire/2013/12/hobbit-desolation-of-smaug-review/). *Carrie* didn't get a sequel this year, but it did get a reboot that made it relevant for a new generation. There were also great original movies too, like Guillermo del Toro's *Pacific Rim* and Alfonso Cuarón's *Gravity*, which made hitting the old IMAX theater feel like traveling to a different world. And, now that Oscar season is upon us, there are great indies and prestige flicks like *Dallas Buyers Club* and *12 Years a Slave* hitting theaters too. All in all, even though 2013 had a few misses – *After Earth*, *The Lone Ranger* – it was also a year full of win. Above: *Pacific Rim* -------------------- Guillermo del Toro's *Pacific Rim* was like a breath of fresh air. Fresh air that came infused with kaiju and giant robots. It also had physics-defying fights between the two that made people – ok, us – cheer from their theater seats. It was refreshing because it wasn't yet another adaptation or sequel (even if it did borrow heavily from kaiju movies and anime). And it was awesome because, well, see the aforementioned monsters and mechas. *Pacific Rim* wasn't a perfect film – it didn't belabor character development and belief had to be seriously suspended for anyone to believe face-punching robots would be the world's last line of defense – but yet it was a near-perfect *movie*. Of anything commanding folks' popcorn-munching time this summer, *Pacific Rim* was the most fun. It had great VFX, quirky scientists, and a rousing speech from Idris Elba (as Stacker Pentecost). And it all came in a fully-imagined world unlike anything we'd ever seen before. What wasn't to like? Moreover, del Toro managed to make a movie that actually had a sense of wonder to it. Like the *Back to the Future*s or, say, *Ghostbusters* before it, no one going into the multiplex to see his new movie had any idea what to expect – and what he delivered took every opportunity to dazzle them with white-knuckle fights and just a little bit of cheeky humor (thanks, Charlie Day). Even if it was "[the most awesome dumb movie ever]( http://stag-komodo.wired.com/underwire/2013/10/pacific-rim-honest-trailer/)," it was still epic. Sadly, a lot of the chatter about *Pacific Rim* ended up being about how successful it *wasn't*. Despite the fact that it ended up making more than [$400 million worldwide](http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=pacificrim.htm), it didn't have a $100-million-plus opening weekend in the U.S., and somehow in the world of summer tentpoles that's considered lackluster. That's OK; it was success for geeks. It was a success for letting del Toro go for full-on fan-pleasing glee. And for reminding us all what it felt like to be kids at a theater again. —*Angela Watercutter*
02Thor The Dark World
*Thor: The Dark World* ---------------------- Sure, there are a lot of Avengers and only a few that have their own movie franchise, but of those Thor's always seem to be the most fun. Why? Because even when he's fighting solo he still brings friends along. Jane Foster, Sif, Darcy, Heimdall, Erik Selvig – they're all there and they're all folks you'd totally want to down a lager with (or eat cereal or get a shawarma or whatever). And when they're all in the same movie – like, for example, *Thor: The Dark World* – it's just a hell of a good time. Not that the other guys don't have good co-stars. Iron Man has Pepper Potts and Col. Rhodes, and Captain America now has some S.H.I.E.L.D. friends that should be joining him for *The Winter Soldier*. But really, nobody rolls deeper than Thor (Chris Hemsworth). And, let's get real, nobody else has Loki, who thanks to Tom Hiddleston's devilishly adorable performance in *The Avengers* and both Thor movies has become everyone's favorite Marvel movie villain. Luckily someone got that memo and made Loki a huge part of *The Dark World* and Thor's battle with the Malekith and the Dark Elves. Flipping the script to make Loki a villain-then-hero-then-villain-again proved one of the more fun twists in an already twisty movie that was deliciously fun to watch (it also made room for Natalie Portman's Jane to get in a great Loki face-punch). But perhaps the best friend Thor brought along for *The Dark World* wasn't on the screen: Alan Taylor. The director came to the second *Thor* movie after a stint as director and producer on *Game of Thrones*, where he learned a thing or two about making fantasy worlds like Asgard feel real and not at all antithetical to a place like Earth. So even though *Thor* director Kenneth Branagh did did some pretty great world-building the first time around, Taylor's King's-Landing-with-a-Bifrost vibe for Asgard was awesome and melded well with *The Dark World'*s many worlds. So, yeah, *Thor: The Dark World* was crazy, gorgeous superhero super-friends fun. Oh, and did we mention [Loki's hair](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/underwire/2013/04/first-thor-the-dark-world-teaser/)? —*Angela Watercutter*
0312 Years a Slave
*12 Years a Slave* ------------------ In all likelihood, the majority of moviegoers who went to see Steve McQueen's epic slave narrative this year got a more powerful experience than they might have expected, especially if they didn't read too many reviews beforehand. The film's telling of the story of free black musician Solomon Northup – abducted in 1841 by circus promoters from the North, sold to slavers and forced to work various Southern plantations until his unlikely vindication and return to his family in 1853 – is not only unflinching, it is unmerciful in its realities: Much of its acclaim stems from McQueen's (and Northup's, the autobiography of whom is the basis for the movie) refusal to pander to a white audience for the kind of feel-good, guilt-soothing, white-savior redemption story many slavery films have evoked thus far. Almost every single white character, including those who might have been portrayed as kindly and helpful in other films (like the sympathetic but spineless Ford, played by Benedict Cumberbatch), is ultimately complicit, bearing the stain of the atrocities committed against each and every slave on their hands. However, some have doubted whether a movie even as powerful as *12 Years a Slave* could hope to change how we talk about race today, more than 150 years after Northup was finally freed. (The movie, as [Wesley Morris writes at Grantland](www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9870721/the-cultural-crater-12-years-slave), drew powerful parallels between Northup's tale and the present.) Despite its unrelentingly truthful telling of the barbarism of American slavery and racism in general, some critics, like [*New York* magazine's Frank Rich](http://nymag.com/news/frank-rich/liberal-feel-bad-movies-2013-11/), wondered whether audiences watching the movie – all $35 million of them – would really be those for whom it might be revelatory in some way, or whether, instead, it was a movie that confirmed what educated liberals already knew (or believe they knew) and remained invisible to those who didn't wish to confront its ugly realities. Some even called out its very existence as ["torture porn,"](http://www.nyfcc.com/2013/10/3450/) a film whose bloodcurdling violence was little more than a continuation of ["a fetish for depicting the mortification of black flesh to better expose the suffering and subjucation."](http://www.vulture.com/2013/11/12-years-a-slave-black-oscar-bait-essay.html) It's possible, even likely, that a movie like this was not powerful enough to influence the race conversation. Nevertheless, it should not be said that the film McQueen (and his cast and crew) has made *isn't* one of the best of the year, even if it were just standing on its horrifically gorgeous cinematography and superb acting alone. (Isn't that what the Oscars are all about anyway?) Nor can it be said that it won't stand as a turning point in, at the very least, the way that part of American history is portrayed in media, regardless of how often that happens. *12 Years a Slave* is anything but feel-good, in a way that even *Roots* could not touch; it is chilling and heartbreaking in ways that will force us (ideally, at least) to change how Americans memorialize the absolute worst institution of our history and the terrible repercussions it's left us. While Brad Pitt's character still ultimately gets to swoop in and save the day (Pitt, Hollywood's perennial White Savior, is also one of the film's producers), that unsavory moment did not go unnoticed. (C'mon, Brad, seriously?) If nothing else, *12 Years a Slave* stirred thoughtful rhetoric that rarely (if ever? If it exists, it's hard to find) dissolved into sensationalism or internet spats; for a film about one of the most easily dissolvable topics – racism – that is a triumph in itself. Its beautifully crafted existence and the likewise beautifully crafted responses to it set an important precedent, one that hopefully, eventually, convinces a studio to buy a blockbuster about Nat Turner ([a "real scary slave...no matter how popular the actor"](http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/12-years-a-slave-a-great-movie-on-a-difficult-subject-for-america/2013/10/22/8238522e-3b68-11e3-b7ba-503fb5822c3e_story.html)) or an Oscar-baiting drama [about non-suffering black people](http://www.vulture.com/2013/11/12-years-a-slave-black-oscar-bait-essay.html). —*Devon Maloney*
04The World's End
*The World's End* ----------------- It was the most bittersweet ending in cinema this year. After nine years, two previous film-nerd classics, and a wait that seemed to take forever, director Edgar Wright and writer/actor Simon Pegg finally finished the trilogy they never intended to make – the so-called Three Flavors Cornetto trilogy. And they did it with their most explosive movie yet: *The World's End*. It was sweet because it was a great movie in a trilogy named after ice cream cones, bitter because it was the finale of a great run by a bunch of guys who just really know how to make intelligent, funny films. And really, a flick about a pub crawl that ends in an alien apocalypse was pretty much the best way Wright and Pegg – and constant collaborator Nick Frost – could've gone out. When they started with the genre-flipping horror/comedy *Shaun of the Dead* in 2004 they just wanted to try their hands at making a zombie flick. When they got the chance to follow it up in 2007 with *Hot Fuzz*, they continued the theme of hiding relationship dramas in genre comedies – this time a buddy-cop movie – and hiding references to Cornetto ice cream treats. Then they realized fans expected them to complete the threesome. So they made *The World's End* – and this time camouflaged a story about finally growing up in the guise of an alien invasion movie. Thanks to brilliant performances by Pegg – the affable drunk trying to relive his glory years – and Frost – the sober gentleman trying to forget his – they managed to marry *The World's End*'s many themes into one cohesively hilarious unit. They also got a lot of help from Martin Freeman (Bilbo!), Pierce Brosnan, and Rosamund Pike along the way. There were great bar brawls *and* beer-belly-laughs and if this is where the world of Wright-Pegg-Frost films ends, that's fine with us. The trio all say they still want to work together in the future and even though this journey is over, they're all moving on to bright futures. Pegg is in Scotty in the latest run of *Star Trek* films and will likely be in the next *Mission: Impossible* if one is ever made. Frost is in the upcoming dance flick *Cuban Fury*. Wright? He's directing a little indie for Marvel: *Ant-Man*. —*Angela Watercutter*
05Carrie
*Carrie* -------- Most of the reasons Kimberly Peirce's remake of Stephen King's first published novel appears in this list have already been extolled in [our review of the film](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/underwire/2013/10/new-carrie-movie-review/), but it bears repeating now. The modernized tale, which stars Chloë Grace Moretz and Julianne Moore as daughter and mother as well as a cast of relative newcomers playing Carrie White's high school classmates, deftly reframed the vindictive horrors of its origin text – a story that is an important cultural milestone on its own – to evoke the very real horrors of the culture we're living in today: Carrie wasn't the inevitable monster in the *Boys Don't Cry* director's version of her own story, as she was – for the most part – in Brian De Palma's 1976 version. Instead, that role was played by her merciless, sadistic classmates, the teenagers who invited one of America's Most Quintessential Karma Story down upon their own heads. This new version, while paying nothing but a deferential respect to its predecessor, stands on its own, stripping away the membranous corniness that, for a younger, more cynical generation, dilutes an aging classic and infused it with fresh, conversation-worthy life – maybe not radically so, but it was enough to administer a shot of adrenaline into the important fable, thereby giving it legs for at least a generation to come. Still, there's the fact that, since its release, *Carrie* has received the very definition of mixed reviews: either critics and audiences loved it, or they absolutely hated it. But while that kind of polarity – the kind that gives a film [almost](http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/carrie/) [exactly](http://www.metacritic.com/movie/carrie) 50% overall ratings – might be kryptonite to an original film, it also doubles as a mark of a great remake. —*Devon Maloney*
06American Hustle
*American Hustle* ----------------- *American Hustle* is the latest movie from David O. Russell. *American Hustle* is also what your favorite heroes have been doing with their free time. The Dark Knight (Christian Bale), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Katniss/Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), the future voice of Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper), and Lois Lane (Amy Adams) – they're all there. And they're all doing very, very anti-hero things. That's largely because this crew are Russell's Avengers – this is the team he's collected from his past two films *The Fighter* (Bale and Adams) and *Silver Linings Playbook* (Cooper and Lawrence) and like *The Avengers* everyone brought their A-game and came ready to out-awesome each other. *American Hustle* is ostensibly a hyper-real dramatization of how the FBI sting operation known as Abscam took down a few politicians – hence the "some of this actually happened" disclaimer – but really its plot is secondary. It's more a collection of scenes that escalate in attempts to one-up each other until they work themselves into a gloriously energetic froth. Think Bale and Adams' dynamic duo con-artist team of Irving and Sydney pulling off small-time art swindles is a hoot? Wait until they get busted by FBI schmuck Richie DiMaso (Cooper) and are forced to go after a New Jersey mayor (Renner) to stay out of the clink. Think Irving's wife Rosalyn (Lawrence) flirting with the Mob is bad? Wait until she confronts Sydney about sleeping with her husband by kissing her in a ladies room and laugh-crying "sometimes in life all you have are fucked up poisonous choices." And that's just its side-hustle. Russell's film has sizzle and steak — way more than I can fit in here. In *American Hustle* everyone is scamming everyone else and the folks that go down for it are the least culpable of the bunch. It's about the lies we tell ourselves about the people we think we are and think we can become. It's as comical as it is riotous and heartbreaking. But its true long-con is exposing *American Hustle* as the American dream. —*Angela Watercutter*
07Gravity
*Gravity* --------- Admittedly, I was skeptical of *Gravity*. Not because I didn't like director Alfonso Cuarón – quite the opposite, *Children of Men* and *Y Tu Mamá También* are two of my favorites. I also like movies set in space (duh). However, something about someone being adrift in space seemed kind of, well, boring. How could this be anything more than a lot of floating around in a movie that felt like a field trip to the planetarium? I was so wrong. *Gravity* is the very opposite of boring. It's actually the closest the film-watching experience has gotten to feeling like actually being in space. Each movement, shot, and picturesque view is a constant reminder of just how wondrous the universe is. And also how terrifying. When Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is set adrift after her shuttle mission is hit with space debris, the audience feels every minute of emptiness, claustrophobia, and terror she feels. It's breathtaking on every possible level. A lot of this wonder is courtesy of Cuarón's careful director's eye and the techniques he had to invent whole cloth to bring the film to life. But the rest comes courtesy of Bullock, who pretty much has to act out two-thirds of the movie while playing against herself and her own environs. It's an incredible thing to watch and she never misses a beat, even when the language is a bit clunky. Few performances this year required so much of one lead and she pulled it off fantastically. There is only one downfall to *Gravity*: It has to be seen in a theater; in IMAX, if possible. When I think about the staying power of *Gravity* – it's continued re-watch-ability – I wonder how much its grandiosity will play a factor, how much its brilliance will fade when we can no longer see it in theaters. Great films are those that beg to be seen again and again, and for *Gravity* that has to happen on the big screen, where it can't stay forever. No matter how fly your flatscreen, it will still struggle to do it justice. However, as one of 2013's great movie-going experiences, *Gravity* was second-to-none. —*Angela Watercutter*
08Blackfish
*Blackfish* ----------- *Blackfish* made it impossible to ever think of SeaWorld the same again. Gabriela Cowperthwaite's documentary, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, follows the deadly behavior of Tilikum, an orca that killed several people while being scuttled between various aquatic parks. Through interviews with trainers, friends and marine life experts, *Blackfish* pieces together a horrific picture of life in captivity for animals that were born for much larger bodies of water. And it's an unflinching look. Images of killer whales bleeding from being "raked" by other orcas' teeth and video of a trainer being dragged under water again and again by a whale create a haunting picture of marine park life that's hard to shake. But that's not the worst of it – the documentary's scenes of a young calf being taken from her pod is just as gruesome. Pulled all together, the footage paints a very unflattering picture of life at marine parks – and ultimately questions whether they're a good idea at all. (Answer: Probably not.) *Blackfish* has an agenda, to be sure, but it doesn't get so caught up in it that comes off as preachy. SeaWorld has called some of the film [into question](http://www.indiewire.com/article/seaworld-unleashes-8-assertions-about-blackfish-and-filmmakers-respond), but he-said-she-said aside, even if only a tenth of the film were true it would still make nearly anyone think twice about ever going to another dancing whale show. —*Angela Watercutter*
09The Hunger Games - Catching Fire
*The Hunger Games: Catching Fire* --------------------------------- *The Hunger Games: Catching Fire* is 146 minutes long and I've seen it three times (as of this writing). That means I've spent nearly eight hours – an entire work day – watching Francis Lawrence's adaptation of the second novel in Suzanne Collins' young adult trilogy. That time could've been spent talking to family, learning a new skill or even starting a Katniss-ready revolution. But, in the words of internet commenters everywhere, I regret nothing. *Catching Fire* was just simply had a lot of what makes movies – and movie-going – thrilling. It had a heroine with cheering for in Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence, bringing her [Tumblr Queen](http://yearinreview.tumblr.com/post/68826266354/most-reblogged-in-2013-actresses-jennifer) likability to a tough character to get right). It had a level of political heft that has been sorely missing from a lot of blockbusters and – despite going from the impoverished districts of the fictional Panem to the lush Capitol to a tropical Hunger Games arena it never really missed a beat or lost its tone. It was the rarest of things: a holiday action movie led by a female hero that was heart-wrenching, smart, occasionally funny and exciting all at once. And, frankly, it could've sucked. The odds weren't in its favor. With the built-in fanbase of book fans already established it could've been phoned in just a little bit. It had a new director in Lawrence, who took over from Gary Ross, and switching helmers mid-stream is always dangerous (remember when Brett Ratner tried to make an X-Men movie?). Also, it was a sequel – a hit-or-miss proposition – and it was a sequel to an original that was really good but not epic. Instead, *Catching Fire* found itself in the company of great cinematic sequels garnering comparisons to *Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back*, *Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan* and *The Dark Knight* – and it deserved every one of them. —*Angela Watercutter*
10Dallas Buyers Club
*Dallas Buyers Club* -------------------- In 1985, when AIDS was still the "gay plague" – that thing that Rock Hudson got – and was still largely a [joke in the White House](http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/times-the-reagan-white-house-press-briefing-erupted-with), finding the right treatment was nearly impossible. Drugs like AZT were out there but hard to get access to and other drugs were yet to be approved, even as people were dying. So electrician Ron Woodruff found a way to treat them anyway: the Dallas Buyers Club. Based on the life of the real Woodruff, who died in 1992 after being diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in the mid-1980s and given a bleak prognosis, *Dallas Buyers Club* is the kind of unsettling true story that punches you in the gut. You know how it has to end, but you hold your breath anyway, hoping that it doesn't. Woodruff and those he helped lived with AIDS much longer than they likely would have without his efforts to bring unapproved drugs to Dallas for their "buyers club" (members paid dues, drugs and treatments were then distributed to members), but as he and his business partner Rayon (a heart-breaking Jared Leto playing a transwoman who was an [amalgamation of people](http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/11/01/dallas_buyers_club_true_story_fact_and_fiction_in_the_matthew_mcconaughey.html) in Woodruff's life) deteriorate it's hard to ignore what's coming. By and large director Jean-Marc Vallée's film is a gut-wrencher about people fighting against and working outside of the system to stick together and stay alive. And it succeeds wildly telling that story. But beneath that there is also a great story about how the healthcare system – and the corporations and government agencies that control it – often worries more about treating problems than people. Rob Woodruff began his crusade nearly three decades ago, but it's just as relevant today. —*Angela Watercutter*
11Inside Llewyn Davis
*Inside Llewyn Davis* --------------------- Writer/directors Joel and Ethan Coen are masters of the anti-hero, and Llewyn Davis might be their most "anti-" (he's basically the most unlikeable person you can't stop watching) and least "hero" character to date. He's also one of their best. Set in the Greenwich Village folk scene in 1961, *Inside Llewyn Davis* – named after the solo album Llewyn (Oscar Isaac) made after his musical partner dies – is a character study of someone who doesn't want to compromise his art, but also seems incapable of making any compromises *for it* either – like, for example, attempting to be likable. People in his circle go out of their way to give him gigs to play and couches to sleep on, and he largely repays them by losing their cats and impregnating their girlfriends. It's a wonder he has friends at all – it might have something to do with the fact that he's genuinely incredibly talented – but yet it's easy to see why people are drawn to him. He's also masterfully played by Isaac, who imbues Llewyn's detached coldness with an odd amount of soul, and surrounded by a great band of supporting players, like a hilariously sardonic Carey Mulligan as the woman he knocked up and Justin Timberlake as her painfully earnest boyfriend (bless the Coen Brothers for finding the perfect cinematic use for Timberlake's mix of musical skills and good boy charm). Along with returning Coen favorite John Goodman as a mouthy musician with whom Llewyn travels on an ill-fated trip to Chicago, they round out an ensemble that paints a sepia-toned alternate reality of the emerging folk scene of New York in the early 1960s – complete with a killer T Bone Burnett soundtrack. This is the Coen Brothers at their dark/twisted/hilarious best. There's little in the way of plot, it's more of moment-in-time than a journey kind of tale, but it doesn't matter. No one who sees *Llewyn Davis* will want to befriend Llewyn Davis, but they will love being inside his world. —*Angela Watercutter*
