In case you missed, here's Part 1 of the list from yesterday, which revealed films #80-#31 as well as the explanation for how our rankings were established. Now, without further ado, here are the top thirty films most mentioned (and adored) by film critics in the year 2013:
30. AT BERKELEY (dir: Frederick Wiseman)
45 points
Much like in some of his other more recent films, Frederick Wiseman takes his time to explore a specific world, which in this case is the University of California at Berkeley campus. Over the course of the movie, Wiseman shows various aspects of the school, from the social life to the work committed by its administrative office.
29. THE WIND RISES (dir: Hayao Miyazaki)
47 points
The final film in the long, fifty year career of beloved Japanese animator, Hayao Miyazaki, The Wind Rises takes a look into the life of World War II designer of planes for the Japanese army.
28. THE SPECTACULAR NOW (dir: James Ponsoldt)
64.5 points
A tale of a high school relationship between the hard-drinking, unambitious Sutter (Miles Teller) and the nice and helpful Aimee (The Descendant's Shailene Woodley).
27. ENOUGH SAID (dir: Nicole Holofcener)
69.5 points
In what will most be remembered by people as one of the final film roles of the great James Gandolfini (who tragically passed away from a heart attack at age 51), Enough Said finds a masseuse, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who gets into a relationship with Gandolfini's character and decides to keep it secret from one of her newfound friends (Catherine Keener), his ex-wife.
26. THE WORLD'S END (dir: Edgar Wright)
75 points
Edgar Wright teams up again with actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in this comedy about five friends who attempt to complete a barcrawl at their hometown, which is now being controlled by aliens. The film marks the official end to the loosely-connected "Cornetto" trilogy, shared alongside Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.
24(tie). MUD (dir: Jeff Nichols)
77.5 points
2013 has been a great year for Matthew McConaughey, with starring roles in three different films ranked in this year's top twenty-five. This first one, from the director of Take Shelter, features McConaughey as a fugitive from the law hiding in a small island in the Mississippi River, while receiving regular help from two Arkansas teenagers (Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland). Reese Witherspoon and Michael Shannon also star in this film.
24(tie). A TOUCH OF SIN (dir: Zhangke Jia)
77.5 points
Set in contemporary China, the movie tells four different stories, each only tangentially related and containing random acts of violence. With just short of 80 points, A Touch of Sin is the highest-rated Asian-produced film on the list.
23. COMPUTER CHESS (dir: Andrew Bujalski)
81 points
Set in the 1980's, a few years before the rise of the Internet, and shot almost entirely on outdated black-and-white video cameras, Computer Chess takes its viewers inside a weekend-long chess tournament between computers and their software programmers.
22. LEVIATHAN (dir: Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Verena Paravel)
82.5 points
One of the year's most experimental films, documentary or otherwise, Leviathan shows the daily life of commercial fisherman as they set out to fish in the North Atlantic. The film is notable for its lack of narration and talking heads, as well as it's many interesting choices of positioning for its waterproof cameras.
21. SPRING BREAKERS (dir: Harmony Korine)
85.5 points
A quad of young actresses (lead by Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens) star as a group of young women who travel to Florida for spring breaker and end-up working bank robberies under the direction of local rapper Alien (James Franco). In 2013, there were very few films as polarizing as Spring Breakers, with very little middle ground. Those who loved it, however, really loved it (as you can see by its placement on the countdown).
20. DALLAS BUYERS CLUB (dir: Jean-Marc Vallee)
89.5 points
Released in the U.S. seven months after Mud, Matthew McConaughey returned to the big screen again in a performance that earned him even more acclaim (and awards). This time, he stars in the telling of the real-life story of Ron Woodroof, a homophobic Texan who is diagnosed with AIDS and ends up creating a system for other local AIDS patients (alongside a duo played by Jennifer Garner and Jared Leto) to receive alternative treatment medication from foreign countries.
19. THE GREAT BEAUTY (dir: Paolo Sorrentino)
103.5 points
Toni Servillo stars as Jep Gambardella, a famous author still mooching off the success of his most famous work nearly forty years later, who has grown tired of his living as a Roman socialite and decides to spend a night walking around town. This Italian film has since been compared to several works of other notable Italian directors, including Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita.
18. FRUITVALE STATION (dir: Ryan Coogler)
114 points
Winner of both the Grandy Jury Prize and the Audience Award at February's Sundance Film Festival, the film recounts the last full day in the life of Oscar Grant III, who was fatally shot by Bay Area police on New Year's Day 2009. Fruitvale Station marked the debut feature for director Ryan Coogler and helped gain even greater notoriety to its star, Michael B. Jordan.
17. BLUE JASMINE (dir: Woody Allen)
144.5 points
The latest from the prolific director Woody Allen, about a New York socialite named Jasmine who tries to rebuild back her life in San Francisco after her husband was arrested for operating a Ponzi scheme. The film features Cate Blanchett's award-winning performance as Jasmine, and also features a cast which includes Sally Hawkins, Alec Baldwin, Louis C.K., Bobby Canavale, and Andrew Dice Clay.
16. SHORT TERM 12 (dir: Destin Cretton)
154 points
Brie Larson plays Grace, a supervising staff member in a foster care facility for at-risk teenagers. The film was based on a short film, also created by its director, Destin Cretton, who based the story off of his own experiences as a worker for a short-term home.
15. ALL IS LOST (dir: J.C. Chandor)
172 points
Taking place almost entirely in the Indian Ocean, All is Lost stars Robert Redford in an almost dialogue-less performance as a man who struggles to keep his boat afloat after it collides with a shipping container that rips its hull open. This film is director's J.C. Chandor's first film after the release of 2011's Margin Call.
14. UPSTREAM COLOR (dir: Shane Carruth)
184 points
Nine years after the mindfuck that was 2004's Primer, Shane Carruth debuted this low-budgeted follow-up of a man and woman connected through similar cases of theft and mind manipulation.
13. CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (dir: Paul Greengrass)
184.5 points
Based off the true story of the 2009 takeover of the Maersk Alabama by Somalian pirates, this latest from Paul Greengrass features Tom Hanks' portrayal of the ship's captain, Richard Phillips, and a breakout role from the man who played the lead Somalian Adbuwali Muse, Barkhad Abdi.
12. STORIES WE TELL (dir: Sarah Polley)
190.5 points
In this documentary aimed at exploring the difference between memory and reality, Canadian director Sarah Polley attempts to learn more about her upbringing and of the revelation that she was born out of an extramarital affair, with interviews from several members of her friends and family and through recreations shot out of a Super 8 camera.
11. FRANCES HA (dir: Noah Baumbach)
193 points
Frances Halladay (Greta Gerwig) is a dancer in her late twenties struggling to make end's meet. She's also struggling to find an apartment in New York City to stay after her friend, Sophie, decides to move in with her boyfriend, and struggling with setting a firm plan for the future. She is also the subject of this latest from The Squid and the Whale director Noah Baumbach, the highest rated film on the list that failed to cross the 200 point barrier.
10. NEBRASKA (dir: Alexander Payne)
216 points
After taking detours to California (Sideways)and Hawaii (The Descendants)in his previous two movies, director Alexander Payne returns to his home state with a movie about a Billings, Montana man (Bruce Dern) and his son (Will Forte) that travel to Lincoln to claim a million dollar prize that the man believes he has won. Along the way, they stop at the man's hometown of Hawthorne and reunite with old family members and friends.
9. BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR (dir: Abdellatif Kechiche)
235.5 points
A coming-of-age tale that also serves as a lesbian love story, based on the 2010 graphic novel of the same name. Since winning the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival (an honor which also features a rare sharing by the film's two main stars, Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux), Blue is the Warmest Color has received as much praise for its storytelling as it has received controversy for its graphic sex scenes and director Abdellatif Kechiche's reportedly limit-pushing treatment of its main actresses on set. It is the highest rated European film on this year's list.
8. THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (dir: Martin Scorsese)
243.5 points
Another movie which has sparked controversy since its release, The Wolf of Wall Street (the longest film in Martin Scorsese's career) stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort, a Wall Street stockbroker who engaged in several illegal activities during his time as leader of his company, Stratton Oakmont, in the late '80s and '90s. Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, Matthew McConaughey, and Kyle Chandler also star, with Boardwalk Empire creator Terence Winter as its script writer.
7. THE ACT OF KILLING (dir: Joshua Oppenheimer, Anonymous co-director)
259.5 points
The highest rated documentary on the list, this film re-enacts the murdering of thousands of Indonesians in the 1960s through Northern Sumatran death squads, through the help and influence of actual members from those death squads.
6. AMERICAN HUSTLE (dir: David O. Russell)
328.5 points
Less than a year removed from the release of 2012's Silver Linings Playbook, David O. Russell released yet another film that appealed to the hearts and minds of critics with American Hustle. Starring a cast that includes Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, and Jeremy Renner, the film is about a couple of 1970's con artists who help an FBI agent catch a bunch of corrupt East Coast politicians in the act. The film is loosely inspired by the FBI's ABSCAM operation that occurred during the same period.
5. BEFORE MIDNIGHT (dir: Richard Linklater)
339.5 points
It can be very hard to make a movie that's considered great, like 1995's Before Sunrise. It can be even harder to make a sequel to that film nine years later that is also considered great, like 2004's Before Sunset. Yet it's probably even harder than that to make a third film continuing the story of those first two films and continue to earn a great amount of praise from critics. Yet that is exactly what Richard Linklater was able to do with Before Midnight, the third installment of the Before series. Once again starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy (who also contributed to the screenplay), the film tells the latest events in the life of couple Celine and Jesse, this time living together in Greece after starting a family. If Linklater decides to continue the story even further with another Before movie, it's safe to say that there will be some high expectations set upon it.
4. HER (dir: Spike Jonze)
512.5 points
Joaquin Phoenix stars as Theodore Twombly, a man living in Los Angeles in a not-too-distant future, who after divorcing from his ex-wife (Rooney Mara), falls in love with a highly-advanced operating system with the ability of both intuition and evolution named Sam, played by Scarlett Johansson in her third (and most praised) performance out of the films on this list. Amy Adams is also in this film, which combined with the release of American Hustle almost simultaneously alongside Her, made it a December to remember for her.
3. INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS (dir: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen)
553 points
With this new film, the Coen brothers explore the 1960s folk music scene through the perspective of Llewyn Davis, who without not spoiling too much doesn't have things going well for him. Oscar Isaac plays the titular New Yorker in a cast which also features John Goodman, Justin Timberlake, Adam Driver, Garrett Hedlund, and an against-type Carey Mulligan.
2. GRAVITY (dir: Alfonso Cuaron)
641 points
It's not very often that you see a film as beloved by critics as Gravity receive the same amount of adoration by the general movie-viewing public, but with a $650 million box office gross to go along with its 97% Rotten Tomatoes score and its 96 Metacritic score, that is exactly what happened this past fall with this latest film from 2006's Children of Men director Alfonso Cuaron. In it, Sandra Bullock and George Clooney star as two American astronauts who must find a way to get back to Earth after their space station is destroyed by high-speed debris. The film has often been credited with beautiful imagery, courtesy of cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, as well as with great personal touches from Cuaron, including the famous 18-minute tracking shot of the debris attack in the beginning. Time will tell how Gravity is embraced by future audiences (who will most likely not watch it in theaters), but for a large portion of those who did have a chance to see it on the big screen, Gravity delivered.
1. 12 YEARS A SLAVE (dir: Steve McQueen)
712.5 points
A film that was ranked #1 on the very first list I counted, and never seemed to let go of the spot. 12 Years a Slave, which has been repeatedly called the most honest and brutal portrayal of slavery in the United States on the silver screen, stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon Northup, a free man who was captured and taken to the Antebellum South where he served as a slave to various owners for the aforementioned twelve years. This film not only appeared in more top-ten lists than any other film released in 2013, it also narrowly beat Gravity for the most #1 rankings. Expect to see the adoration for this film continue all the way to the late winter, where it will probably be heavily rewarded by the Academy during the Oscar telecast.
Coming up Thursday: The Outliers-a list of all the films which received at least one top 10 appearance, yet did not receive enough points to make the top 85. I will also reveal the list of each critic whose list I counted for this project. Happy New Year!
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