The Best Films of 2013, According to the Awards Circuit

1. 12 YEARS A SLAVE (dir: Steve McQueen)
35 wins
-Academy Awards
-Golden Globe for Best Picture- Drama
-British Academy Film Awards
-African American Film Critics Association
-Alliance of Women Film Journalists EDA
-Boston Online Film Critics Association
-Boston Society of Film Critics
-Black Film Critics Circle
-Broadcast Film Critics Association
-Chicago Film Critics Association
-Dallas-Forth Worth Film Critics Association
-Florida Film Critics Circle
-Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association
-Houston Film Critics Society
-Independent Spirit Awards
-Indiana Film Journalists Association
-Iowa Film Critics Association
-Kansas City Film Critics Circle
-Las Vegas Film Critics Society
-London Critics' Circle
-New York Film Critics Online
-Nevada Film Critics Society
-North Carolina Film Critics Association
-Online Film Critics Society
-Phoenix Film Critics Society
-Producers Guild of America(tie)
-San Francisco Film Critics Circle
-Satellite Awards
-Southeastern Film Critics Association
-St. Louis Film Critics
-UK Regional Film Critics
-USC Scripter Awards
-Vancouver Film Critics Circle
-Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association
-Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay

2. GRAVITY (dir: Alfonso Cuaron)
10 wins
-Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts
-Central Ohio Film Critics Association Award for Best Picture
-Denver Film Critics Society Award for Best Picture
-Dublin Film Critics Circle
-Directors Guild of America Award for Best Director
-Empire Awards
-Los Angeles Film Critics Association (tie)
-North Texas Film Critics Association
-Producers Guild of America for Best Picture (tie)
-Utah Film Critics Association

3. HER (dir: Spike Jonze)
8 wins
-Austin Film Critics Association
-Detroit Film Critics Society
-Georgia Film Critics Association
-Los Angeles Film Critics Association (tie)
-National Board of Review
-Oklahoma Film Critics Circle
-San Diego Film Critics Society
-Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay

4(tie). AMERICAN HUSTLE (dir: David O'Russell)
3 wins
-Golden Globe for Best Picture- Comedy or Musical
-New York Film Critics Circle
-Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Ensemble

4(tie). INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS (dir: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen)
3 wins
-Gotham Independent Film Awards for Best Picture
-National Society of Film Critics
-Toronto Film Critics Association

6. IRON MAN 3 (dir: Shane Black)
1 win
-People's Choice Awards

So, not only was Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave the top film of the year according to this website's aggregate critics list, it was also the top film when it came to the awards circuit as well. This news comes with no surprise, to be honest. For starters, most of the awards circuit consisted of awards handed out by critics, so seeing the most beloved movie by critics also receiving the most hardware from critics was expected. Secondly, the film came out on top during most of the major awards, including at the Oscars and the Golden Globes.

What was pretty surprising was just how much 12 Years a Slave blew the rest of the competition away. In the end, I counted at least 35 major awards show giving McQueen's film their highest honor. The closest after that was the film that also placed runner-up in the aggregate critics list: Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity, at a mere 10 major awards. Overall, it makes you wonder why Gravity was considered a co-favorite to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards when 12 Years a Slave clearly came into the awards show with most of the major precursors, including the Golden Globe Award and the Producers Guild of America Award. Meanwhile, Spike Jonze's Her finished not far behind from Gravity, with 9 major awards, followed by a tie for fourth between American Hustle and Inside Llewyn Davis and Iron Man 3 bringing up the rear with the lone major award it received, which was the People's Choice Award for Favorite Film.

The Best Films of 2013, According to Critics: The Outliers

                          The Counselor

On Monday and Tuesday, I released an aggregated list of the top 85 most acclaimed films of 2013, based on their appearances on nearly 150 film critics' top-ten lists. Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave came out as the big winner of the list, placing #1 and nearly seventy points ahead of the runner-up film, Gravity. In case you missed any of the list, the links to the two-parter are here and here. But what about the rest? What about the films that made an appearance on a top-ten list at least once, yet never got enough total points to earn a spot into the Top 85?

Indeed, there were quite a few films that were counted yet just could not get the minimum 13 points that seemed to be required in order to appear on the list: 109, in fact. Like the top 85, many of them also included film that technically premiered before the year, yet were considered by some critics to be 2013 films based on the release dates in their respective countries. Here they are now, beginning with the eight closest runner-ups, followed by the rest in alphabetical order.

RUNNER-UPS:
THE COUNSELOR (dir: Ridley Scott)
12.5 points
THE CONJURING (dir: James Wan)
12 points
FILL THE VOID (dir: Rama Burshtein)
12 points
THE GREAT GATSBY (dir: Baz Luhrmann)
12 points
AMOUR (dir: Michael Haneke)
11 points
THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG (dir: Peter Jackson)
11 points
LINCOLN (dir: Steven Spielberg)
11 points
OUR CHILDREN (dir: Joachim Lafosse)
11 points

THE REST
42 (dir: Brian Helgeland)
A HIJACKING (dir: Tobias Lindholm)
ABOUT TIME (dir: Richard Curtis)
AFTER LUCIA (dir: Michel Franco)
ALAN PARTRIDGE: ALPHA PAPA (dir: Declan Lowney)
AN OVERSIMPLIFICATION OF HER BEAUTY (dir: Terence Nance)
AT ANY PRICE (dir: Ramin Bahrani)
AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY (dir: John Wells)
BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO (dir: Peter Strickland)
BLUE CAPRICE (dir: Alexandre Moors)
BLUE RUIN (dir: Jeremy Saulnier)
BYZANTIUM (dir: Neil Jordan)
CALL ME KUCHU (dir: Katherine Fairfax Wright, Malika Zouhali-Worrall)
CHEAP THRILLS (dir: E.L. Katz)
CHILD'S POSE (dir: Calin Peter Netzer)
CONSUMING SPIRITS (dir: Chris Sullivan)
CRYSTAL FAIRY (dir: Sebastian Silva)
CUTIE AND THE BOXER (dir: Zachary Heinzerling)
DECEPTIVE PRACTICE: THE MYSTERIES AND MENTORS OF RICKY JAY (dir: Molly Bernstein)
DESPICABLE ME 2 (dir: Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud)
DIRTY WARS (dir: Richard Rowley)
DISCONNECT (dir: Henry Alex Rubin)
DRINKING BUDDIES (dir: Joe Swanberg)
ERNEST AND CELESTINE (dir: Stephane Aubier, Vincent Patar, Benjamin Renner)
EVOCATEUR: THE MORTON DOWNEY JR. MOVIE (dir: Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller, Jeremy Newberger)
FAST & FURIOUS 6 (dir: Justin Lin)
FILTH (dir: John S. Baird)
FIRST COUSIN ONCE REMOVED (dir: Alan Berliner)
FOR ELLEN (dir: So Yong Kim)
GIMME THE LOOT (dir: Adam Leon)
GINGER AND ROSA (dir: Sally Potter)
GLORIA (dir: Sebastian Lelio)
GOLDEN SLUMBERS (dir: Davy Chou)
I WISH (dir: Hirokazu Koreeda)
IDA (dir: Pawel Pawlikowski)
I'M SO EXCITED (dir: Pedro Almodovar)
IN NO GREAT HURRY: 13 LESSONS IN LIFE WITH SAUL LEITER (dir: Tomas Leach)
INEQUALITY FOR ALL (dir: Jacob Kornbluth)
IN THE FOG (dir: Sergei Loznitsa)
IN THE HOUSE (dir: Francois Lozon)
IT'S SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DAY (dir: Don Hertzfeldt)
KILL YOUR DARLINGS (dir: John Krokidas)
LA BATAILLE DE SOLFERINO (dir: Justine Triet)
LA JALOUSIE (dir: Philippe Garrel)
LAURENCE ANYWAYS (dir: Xavier Dolan)
LENNY COOKE (dir: Ben Safdie, Joshua Safdie)
LIKE A ROLLING STONE (a music video) (dir: Vania Heymann)
LORE (dir: Cate Shortland)
MANAKAMANA (dir: Stephanie Spray, Pacho Velez)
MONSTER'S UNIVERSITY (dir: Dan Scanlon)
MOTHER OF GEORGE (dir: Andrew Dosunmu)
MR. NOBODY (dir: Jaco Van Dormael)
MUSCLE SCHOALS (dir: Greg 'Freddy' Camalier)
NOBODY'S DAUGHTER HAEWON (dir: Hong Sang-soo)
NORTE, THE END OF HISTORY (dir: Lav Diaz)
ONLY GOD FORGIVES (dir: Nicolas Winding Refn)
ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE (dir: Jim Harmusch)
PACIFIC RIM (dir: Guillermo del Toro)
PARADISE: HOPE (dir: Ulrich Seidl)
PRINCE AVALANCHE (dir: David Gordon Green)
REDEMPTION (dir: Steven Knight)
SIDE EFFECTS (dir: Steven Soderbergh)
SIGHTSEERS dir: Ben Wheatley)
SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK (dir: David O. Russell)
SNOWPIERCER (dir: Joon-ho Bong)
STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS (dir: J.J. Abrams)
STRAY DOGS (dir: Tsai Ming-liang)
SUN DON'T SHINE (dir: Amy Seimetz)
TABU (dir: Miguel Gomes)
TERRAFIRMA (dir: Emanuele Crialese)
THE ARMSTRONG LIE (dir: Alex Gibney)
THE ATTACK (dir: Ziad Doueiri)
THE BOOK THIEF (dir: Brian Percival)
THE BROKEN CIRCLE BREAKDOWN (dir: Felix Van Groeningen)
THE GATEKEEPERS (dir: Dror Moreh)
THE EAST (dir: Zal Batmanglij)
THE HEAT (dir: Paul Feig)
THE IMMIGRANT (dir: James Gray)
THE INTERNSHIP (dir: Shawn Levy)
THE KINGS OF SUMMER (dir: Jordan Vogt-Roberts)
THE LAST OF THE UNJUST (dir: Claude Lanzmann)
THE LORDS OF SALEM (dir: Rob Zombie)
THE MISSING PICTURE (dir: Rithy Panh)
THE PUNK SINGER (dir: Sini Anderson)
THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY (dir: Ben Stiller)
THE SELFISH GIANT (dir: Clio Barnard)
THE SQUARE (dir: Jehane Noujaim)
THE TO DO LIST (dir: Maggie Carey)
THE UNKNOWN KNOWN (dir: Errol Morris)
THE WAITING GAME (dir: Timothy David Mitchell)
THE WOLVERINE (dir: James Mangold)
THESE BIRDS WALK (dir: Omar Mullick, Bassam Tariq)
THIS IS MARTIN BONNER (dir: Chad Hartigan)
TOM AT THE FARM (dir: Xavier Dolan)
TOUCHY FEELY (dir: Lynn Shelton)
WAR WITCH (dir: Kim Nguyen)
WARM BODIES (dir: Jonathan Levine)
WE STEAL SECRETS: THE STORY OF WIKILEAKS (dir: Alex Gibney)
WORLD WAR Z (dir: Marc Forster)
YOU AND THE NIGHT (dir: Yann Gonzalez)
YOU'RE NEXT (dir: Adam Wingard)

Expect to see a few of these movies, like The Immigrant and Only Lovers Left Alive, re-appear in various 2014 lists as they become released to more countries like the United States. Now, a link to each top ten list counted, all 146 in total:

INDIVIDUAL CRITICS' LISTS
Simon Abrams (Village Voice)
Sam Adams (The A.V. Club)
Michael Atkinson (Sundance Now)
Rick Bentley (Fresno Bee)
James Berardinelli (Reelviews)
Richard Brody (The New Yorker)
Tom Brook (BBC)
Ty Burr (Boston Globe)
Justin Chang (Variety)
David Chen (Slashfilm)
Adam Chitwood (Collider)
Susan G. Cole (NOW Magazine-Toronto)
Richard Corliss (TIME Magazine)
Jake Coyle (Associated Press)
Justin Craig (FOX News)
Mike D'Angelo (The A.V. Club)
Manohla Dargis (The New York Times)
Peter Debruge (Variety)
David Denby (The New Yorker)
Dennis Dermody (Paper)
A.A. Dowd (The A.V. Club)
Marc Doyle (Metacritic)
Duane Dudek (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
David Edelstein (Vulture)
David Ehrlich (Film.com)
Gregory Ellwood (HitFix)
Scott Feinberg (The Hollywood Reporter)
Bob Fischbach (Omaha World-Herald)
Scott Foundas (Variety)
Owen Gleiberman (Entertainment Weekly)
Bill Goodykoontz (Arizona Republic)
Tim Grierson (Deadspin)
Rafer Guzman (Newsday)
Angie Han (Slashfilm)
Britt Hayes (Badass Digest)
Mark Hinson (Tallahassee Democrat)
Stephen Holden (The New York Times)
Ann Hornaday (The Washington Post)
Robert Horton (Seattle Weekly)
Brian D. Johnson (Maclean's)
Ben Kenigsberg (The A.V. Club)
Lisa Kennedy (Denver Post)
Glenn Kenny (Some Came Running)
Eric Kohn (Indiewire)
Genevieve Koski (The Dissolve)
Mick LaSalle (San Francisco Chronicle)
Richard Lawson (Vanity Fair)
Kevin B. Lee (Keyframe)
Will Leitch (Deadspin)
Guy Lodge (HitFix)
Lou Lumenick (New York Post)
Germain Lussier (Slashfilm)
Oliver Lyttelton (Indiewire)
Scott MacDonald (The A.V. Club)
Todd McCarthy (The Hollywood Reporter)
Drew McWeeny (HitFix)
Sean P. Means (The Salt Lake Tribune)
Carla Meyer (Sacramento Bee)
Brian Miller (Seattle Weekly)
Bruce R. Miller (Sioux City Journal)
Marc Mohan (The Oregonian)
Roger Moore (Tacoma News-Tribune)
Joe Morgenstern (The Wall Street Journal)
Wesley Morris (Grantland)
Noel Murray (The Dissolve)
Randy Myers (San Jose Mercury News)
Chris Nashawaty (Entertainment Weekly)
Joe Neumaier (New York Daily News)
Amy Nicholson (Village Voice)
Clint O'Connor (Cleveland Plain-Dealer)
Connie Ogle (Miami Herald)
Andrew O'Hehir (Salon)
Mark Olsen (Los Angeles Times)
Christopher Orr (The Atlantic)
Steve Persall (Tampa Bay Times)
Michael Phillips (Chicago Tribune)
Keith Phipps (The Dissolve)
Claudia Puig (USA Today)
Nathan Rabin (The Dissolve)
Peter Rainer (The Christian Science Monitor)
Steven Rea (Philadelphia Enquirer)
Rex Reed (The New York Observer)
Joe Reid (The Atlantic Wire)
Mara Reinstein (Us Weekly)
Katey Rich (Vanity Fair)
Carrie Rickey (CarrieRickey.com)
Tasha Robinson (The Dissolve)
James Rocchi (Cinephiled)
Rene Rodriguez (Miami Herald)
Richard Roeper (Chicago Sun-Times)
Neil Rosen (NY1)
Jonathan Rosenbaum (JonathanRosenbaum.net) 
Joshua Rothkopf (Time Out New York)
Ben Sachs (Chicago Reader)
Stephen Schaefer (Boston Herald)
Nick Schager (The A.V. Club)
Alan Scherstuhl (Village Voice)
A.O. Scott (The New York Times)
Mike Scott (New Orleans Times-Picayune)
David Sexton (Evening Standard)
Betsy Sharkey (Los Angeles Times)
Matt Singer (The Dissolve)
Kyle Smith (New York Post)
Janice Somosot (International Business Times)
Michael Smith (Tulsa World)
Marlow Stern (The Daily Beast)
Dana Stevens (Slate)
Sasha Stone (Awards Daily)
Glenn Sumi (NOW Magazine-Toronto)
Kristopher Tapley (HitFix)
Anne Thompson (Indiewire)
Scott Tobias (The Dissolve)
Gabe Toro (Indiewire)
Christian Toto (Breitbart)
Peter Travers (Rolling Stone)
Kenneth Turan (Los Angeles Times)
Keith Uhlich (Time Out New York)
Genevieve Valentine (Philadelphia Weekly)
Barbara Vancheri (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
James Verniere (Boston Herald)
Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (The A.V. Club)
Chris Vognar (Dallas Morning News)
Katie Walsh (Indiewire)
Elizabeth Weitzman (New York Daily News)
Joe Williams (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
Norman Wilner (NOW Magazine-Toronto)
Calvin Wilson (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
Stephen Whitty (The Star-Ledger)
Stephanie Zacharek (Village Voice)

STAFF LISTS
Cahiers du Cinema
Den of Geek
Empire
Film.com
Film School Rejects
MTV News
Paste
Reverse Shot
Sight & Sound
Slant Magazine
The Guardian
The Huffington Post
The L Magazine
Time Out London
Total Film
TV Guide
Yahoo! Movies

Now that you which films were considered the most essential viewings from 2013, I hope that you can participate in what is ultimately the best part of year-end list: actually watching the recommended movies!