2013 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED VI]

The Top 10 of the Year

1. 12 Years a Slave - Steve McQueen + Best American Movie of the Year

2.  Like Father, Like Son/そして父になる (Soshite Chichi ni Naru) - Hirokazu Koreeda + Best Drama of the Year + Best Japanese Movie of the Year

3. Only God Forgives - Nicolas Winding Refn + Best Danish Movie of the Year

4. Philomena - Stephen Frears + Best True-Story Movie of the Year + Best English Movie of the Year

5. Finding Vivian Maier, documentary - John Maloof, Charlie Siskel

6. Inside Llewyn Davis - Ethan and Joel Coen + Best Music Film of the Year

7. Let the Fire Burn, documentary - Jason Osder + Most Undeserved Flop of the Year + Best Philadelphia Movie of the Year

8. Blue Is the Warmest Colour/La Vie d'Adèle - Chapitres 1 & 2 - Abdellatif Kechiche + Best French Movie of the Year

9. The Great Beauty/La Grande Bellezza - Paolo Sorrentino + Best Rome Movie of the Year + Best Italian Movie of the Year

 10. The Past/Le Passé - Asghar Farhadi + Most Under-Appreciated Movie of the Year

Other masterpiece of 2013:

Blue Jasmine - Woody Allen - Woody Allen + Best San Francisco Movie of the Year

Other great movies and TV-series of 2013 (in alphabetical order)

20 Feet from Stardom, documentary - Morgan Neville

All Is Lost - J.C. Chandor + Best Survival Movie of the Year

August: Osage County - John Wells + Best Ensemble of the Year: Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor, Benedict Cumberbatch, Margo Martindale, Juliette Lewis, Chris Cooper, Misty Upham, Abigail Breslin, Dermot Mulroney, Julianne Nicholson, Sam Shepard

Bad Hair/Pelo Malo - Mariana Rondón + Best Venezuelan Movie of the Year + Best LGBT Movie of the Year

Begin Again/Can a Song Save Your Life? - John Carney + Best New York Movie of the Year

Behind the Candelabra - Steven Soderbergh

The Butler/Lee Daniels' The Butler - Lee Daniels + Best Political Movie of the Year

The Conjuring - James Wan + Best Horror Movie of the Year

Despicable Me 2 - Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud

Don Jon - Joseph Gordon-Levitt + Best Debut Movie of the Year

Enough Said - Nicole Holofcener + Best Los Angeles Movie of the Year

Frozen - Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee + Best Family Movie of the Year + Best Mega-hit Movie of the Year + Best Musical of the Year + Most Profitable Movie of the Year: 362.32 mil. $ range

 

Hannibal - season 1 - Bryan Fuller + Best Cannibal Title of the Year + Best Crime Thriller of the Year + Best New TV-series of the Year + Best Psychological Horror of the Year

The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared/Hundraåringen Som Klev Ut Genom Fönstret och Försvann - Felix Herngren + Best Swedish Movie of the Year

Ida - Pawel Pawlikowski + Best Polish Movie of the Year

 
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone - Don Scardino + Best Las Vegas Movie of the Year

Monsters University - Dan Scanlon

Nebraska - Alexander Payne + Best Alaska Movie of the Year + Best B/W Movie of the Year

Saving Mr. Banks - John Lee Hancock + Best Period Movie of the Year + Best Dramedy of the Year

Side Effects - Steven Soderbergh + Best Thriller of the Year

We're the Millers - Rawson Marshall Thurber + Best Comedy of the Year + Best Road Movie of the Year

Recommendable, good movies and TV-series of 2013 (in alphabetical order)

Anchorman: The Legend Continues - Adam McKay

Dallas Buyers Club - Jean-Marc Vallée

Evil Dead - Fede Alvarez

Fading Gigolo - John Turturro

Fruitvale Station - Ryan Coogler

 

The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden, documentary - Daniel Geller, Dayna Goldfine

Girls - season 2 - Lena Dunham + Best Returning TV-series + Best Youth Title of the Year

The Grandmaster/一代宗師/一代宗师/Yīdài Zōngshī/Jat1 Doi6 Zung1 Si1 - Wong Kar-Wai + Best Hong Kong Movie of the Year + Best Kung Fu Movie of the Year

Gravity - Alfonso Cuarón + Best Science Fiction Movie of the Year + Best Poster of the Year

The Great Gatsby - Baz Luhrmann + Shooting Star Actor of the Year: Joel Edgerton

The Last Stand - Kim Jee-Woon + Best Comeback of the Year: Arnold Schwarzenegger

 Lone Survivor - Peter Berg + Best War Movie of the Year

Mama - Andrés Muschietti

Northwest/Nordvest - Michael Noer

Nymphomaniac - Lars Von Trier + Best Sex Drama of the Year

One Chance - David Frankel + Best Feel-Good Movie of the Year + Best Huge Flop Movie of the Year

Oz the Great and Powerful - Sam Raimi

Pacific Rim - Guillermo Del Toro

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty - Ben Stiller

Sorrow and Joy/Sorg og Glæde - Nils Malmros

Stranger by the Lake/L'Inconnu du Lac - Alain Guiraudie

This Is the End - Evan Goldberg, Set Rogen

Tom at the Farm/Tom à la Ferme - Xavier Dolan + Best Canadian Movie of the Year

White House Down - Roland Emmerich + Most Expensive Flop of the Year: 67.88 mil. $ range

The Wolf of Wall Street - Martin Scorsese

The Bottom 10 of the Year

1. Now You See Me - Louis Leterrier + Most Undeserved Hit of the Year

2. Black Nativity - Kasi Lemmons + Most Deserved Flop of the Year

3. Oblivion - Joseph Kosinski

4. Elysium - Neill Blomkamp

5. A Good Day to Die Hard - John Moore + Worst Poster of the Year + Stupidest Movie of the Year

6. Charlie Countryman/The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman - Fredrik Bond + Career-Killer of the Year: Shia LaBeouf

7. World War Z - Marc Forster

 

8. Only Lovers Left Alive - Jim Jarmusch + Most Overrated Movie of the Year 

9. Stoker - Chan-wook Park

10. Waltz for Monica/Monica Z - Per Fly

Other failed, poor or mediocre 2013 movies (in alphabetic order)

A Field in England - Ben Wheatley

Admission - Paul Weitz
Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas - Arnaud de Pallières 

The Bling Ring - Sofia Coppola
Blue Ruin - Jeremy Saulnier
Escape from Tomorrow - Randy Moore + Best Low-Budget Movie of the Year
Gangster Squad - Ruben Fleischer
The Green Inferno - Eli Roth 

The Heat - Paul Feig

Keeper of Lost Causes/Kvinden i Buret - Mikkel Nørgaard
The Kings of Summer/Toy's House - Jordan Vogt-Roberts

The Last Exorcism Part 2 - Ed Gass-Donnelly
The Lunchbox - Ritesh Batra
Man of Steel - Zack Snyder 

Movie 43 - Elizabeth Banks, Steven Brill, Steve Carr, Rusty Cundieff, James Duffy, Griffin Dunne, Peter Farrelly, Patrik Forsberg, Will Graham, James Gunn, Brett Ratner, Jonathan van Tulleken, Bob Odenkirk 

Odd Thomas - Stephen Sommers

Of Horses and Men/Hross í oss - Benedikt Erlingsson 

Olympus Has Fallen - Antoine Fuqua 

Omar - Hany Abu-Assad

Sharknado, TV movie - Anthony C. Ferrante
Star Trek Into Darkness - J.J. Abrams
Under the Skin - Jonathan Glazer + Strangest Movie of the Year
Warm Bodies - Jonathan Levine
The Wind Rises/風立ちぬ [Kaze Tachinu] - Hayao Miyazaki
The Wolverine - James Mangold + Best Superhero Movie of the Year

[92 titles in total]

Notes

The 6th edition of updated 2013 lists adds 18 titles to the mix. None of them mix up the Top 10, which is left as it was, but in the Bottom 10 there are no less than 5 new turkeys trotting into the town square for a good show. Or a poor show, rather.

2013 has given a generous 10 masterpieces (so far). The Top 10 is reigned supreme by Steve McQueen's amazing, multi-Oscar-winning 12 Year a Slave, followed by family-themed drama Like Father, Like Son by Japanese master filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda, Nicolas Winding Refn's singular, Bangkok-set neo-western Only God Forgives. The rest of the list are Stephen Frears' fantastic drama Philomena; Charlie Siskel and John Maloof's slightly overlooked, incredible documentary Finding Vivian Maier; Joel and Ethan Coen's music drama pearl, Inside Llewyn Davis; debuting Jason Osder's devastating race documentary Let the Fire Burn; Abdellatif Kechiche's incredible French love story Blue Is the Warmest Colour; Paolo Sorrentino's colorful ode to Rome, The Great Beauty; and finally Asghar Farhadi's stern, brilliant drama The Past.

Other great titles this year include Woody Allen's priceless Blue Jasmine, J. C. Chandor's amazing lost-at-sea drama All Is Lost, James Wan's phenomenal horror The Conjuring, Lee Daniels' terrific political drama The Butler, Alexander Payne's irresistible Alaskan dramedy Nebraska, Bryan Fuller's first season of his gory serial killer TV-series Hannibal and Mariana Rondón's lustrous Bad Hair.

Among the year's noteworthy good titles are Lars Von Trier's elaborate sex drama Nymphomaniac, Alfonso Cuarón's awe-inspiring sci-fi actioner Gravity, Baz Luhrmann's glittery The Great Gatsby, Martin Scorsese's true-crime drama The Wolf of Wall Street and Guillermo del Toro's infectiously enthusiastic Pacific Rim.

2013 also had some painstaking duds. The year's worst were Louis Leterrier's head-scratching hit magician idiocracy Now You See Me (new entry); Kasi Lemmons' truly horrendous musical Black Nativity takes silver, and Joseph Kosinski's hollow sci-fi exploration Oblivion (new entry) bronze. The list goes on with Neill Blomkamp's preposterous sci-fi bore Elysium, John Moore's awful Die Hard 5, A Good Day to Die Hard, Fredrik Bond's pretentious, artsy Charlie Countryman (new entry), great filmmaker Marc Forster's zombie nonsense World War Z, Jim Jarmusch's vampire bore Only Lovers Let Alive (new entry), Chan-wook Park's pretentious, boring and unpleasant Stoker; with Per Fly's clichéd music biopic Waltz for Monica (new entry) rounding off the list. Leaving the Bottom 10 at this juncture are the dubious, befittingly titled The Last Exorcism Part 2, Danish crime adaptation The Keeper of Lost Causes by great filmmaker Mikkel Nørgaard, Anthony C. Ferrante's TV movie sensation Sharknado, great British filmmaker Ben Wheatley's psych-out, gross, borderline pretentious A Field in England and Stephen Sommers' jumbled Odd Thomas adaptation.

2013 was characterized by a jump towards almost uncompromising realism in some of the year's most interesting films, from the biggest winner (12 Years a Slave) to the more arthouse-bound European films like Nymphomaniac, Stranger by the Lake and Blue Is the Warmest Colour, all of which feature explicit sex scenes galore. Film Excess warmly welcomes this new trend, which only heightens already good films, (but will hardly save films that are already shabby.)
Of great filmmakers that put out somewhat disappointing films in the year can be mentioned Paul Weitz with Admission, J.J. Abrams with Star Trek Into Darkness, James Mangold with The Wolverine, Sofie Coppola with The Bling Ring, Eli Roth with The Green Inferno, Zack Snyder with Man of Steel, Antoine Fuqua with Olympus Has Fallen, Paul Feig with The Heat and Hayao Miyazaki with The Wind Rises.

On the 2014 Oscars:

The academy favored 12 Years a Slave and Gravity, and, to a lesser extent, Dallas Buyers Club:
12 Years a Slave won 3 awards, for Best Film, Best Supporting Actress (Lupita Nyong'o in her startling break-out performance) and Best Adapted Screenplay (John Ridley). Dallas Buyers Club won 3 awards, for Best Actor (Matthew McConaughey), Best Supporting Actor (Jared Leto), and Best Makeup and Hairstyling. The night's biggest winner was Gravity with 7 awards, for Best Director (Alfonso Cuarón), Best Cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki), Editing, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Visual Effects and Score (Stephen Prince).
Cate Blanchett won Best Actress for Blue Jasmine; Spike Jonze won Best Original Screenplay for Her; Disney's Frozen won Best Song (Let It Go) and Best Animated Feature; Baz Luhrman's The Great Gatsby won Best Costumes and Best Production Design.
Mr Hublot won Best Animated Short; The Lady in No. 6: Music Saved My Life won Best Documentary Short, Helium won Best Live-Action Short. Twenty Feet From Stardom won Best Documentary, and Paolo Sorrentino's The Great Beauty won Best Foreign Film, ahead of The Broken Circle Breakdown, The Hunt, The Missing Picture and Omar.
Honorary awards went to Piero Tosi, Steve Martin, Angela Lansdale, Charles 'Tad' Marburg and Angelina Jolie.

IMDb's user-generated Top 10 most popular 2013 titles:

1. Frozen
2. The Wolf of Wall Street
3. The Lone Ranger
4. The Great Gatsby
5. Prisoners
6. We're the Millers
7. Her
8. Now You See Me
9. Fast & Furious 6
10. Nymphomaniac: Vol. 1

On the 2013 Cannes Film Festival:

Steven Spielberg was the year's jury president, and The Great Gatsby opened the fest. The year's official festival poster featured Paul Newman lying down face to face with wife Joanne Woodward.
Blue Is the Warmest Colour won the Palme d'Or, which also won its main actresses a special honorary Palme d'Or. Rithy Panh's The Missing Picture won the Un Certain Regard section; Anahita Ghazvinizadeh's Needle won the Cinéfondation award; Moon Byoung-gon's Safe won the short film award. Other main prizes went to Bérénice Bejo (best actress, The Past), Bruce Dern (best actor, Nebraska), Like Father, Like Son (jury prize), A Touch of Sin (best screenplay), Amat Escalante (best director, Heli) and Inside Llewyn Davis (Grand Prix).
A full list of the main competition films of the year:
Behind the Candelabra, Blue Is the Warmest Colour, Borgman, A Castle in Italy, The Great Beauty, Grigris, Heli, The Immigrant, Inside Llewyn Davis, Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian, Like Father, Like Son, Michael Kohlhaas, Nebraska, Only God Forgives, Only Lovers Left Alive, The Past, Shield of Straw, A Touch of Sin, Venus in Fur, Young & Beautiful 

 

 

National Board of Review's 2013 awards:

Best Actor: Bruce Dern, Nebraska; Actress Emma Thompson, Saving Mr. Banks; Adapted Screenplay Terence Winter for The Wolf of Wall Street; Animated Feature The Wind Rises; Director Spike Jonze for Her; Directorial Debut Ryan Coogler for Fruitvale Station; Documentary Stories We Tell; Ensemble Prisoners; Best Film Her; Foreign Language Film The Past; Original Screenplay Inside Llewyn Davis by Ethan and Joel Coen; Supporting Actor Will Forte Nebraska, Actress Octavia Spencer Fruitvale Station; Breakthrough Actor Michael B. Jordan Fruitvale Station, Actress Adèle Exarchopoulos Blue Is the Warmest Colour

Biggest flops of the year:

[The loss is based solely on the cost and box office earnings for the films. Marketing costs and additional revenue (home video, TV rights and other auxiliary profits) are not taken into account]  

1. White House Down - 67.88 mil. $ range
2. Odd Thomas - 26.12 mil. $ range
3. Pacific Rim - 25.6 mil. $ range
4. Fading Gigolo - 24.68 mil. $ range
5. The Incredible Burt Wonderstone - 19.08 mil. $ range
6. Gangster Squad - 17.92 mil. $ range
7. Oz the Great and Powerful - 17.68 mil. $ range
8. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty - 14.6 mil. $ range
9. Black Nativity - 14.54 mil. $ range
10. The Last Stand - 10.8 mil. $ range

 
= Combined losses: 238.9 mil. $

Biggest hits of the year:

[The gain is based solely on the cost and box office earnings for the films. Marketing costs and additional revenue (home video, TV rights and other auxiliary profits) are not taken into account] 

1. Frozen - 362.32 mil. $ range NEW ENTRY

2. Despicable Me 2 - 288.72 mil. $ range
3. Gravity - 186.52 mil. $ range
4. Monsters University - 97.04 mil. $ range
5. The Conjuring - 77.56 mil. $ range
6. We're the Millers - 70.96 mil. $ range
7. Now You See Me - 65.68 mil. $ range NEW ENTRY

8. 12 Years a Slave - 57.08 mil. $ range
9. The Wolf of Wall Street - 55.84 mil. $ range
10. The Heat - 48.72 mil. $ range

= Combined profits: 1,310.44 mil. $
 

2013 titles currently on the watch-list:

 

Not Today,  The Last of Robin Hood, Grudge Match, 12-12-12, Gimme Shelter, Adult World, The Sacrament, Jodorowsky's Dune, Mistaken for Strangers, The Last Match, Visitors, American Hustle, Ender's Game, Mom (TV-series), Enemy, Prisoners, Salomé, Antarctica: A Year on Ice, Escape Plan, The World's End, Monster Pies, G.B.F., Upstream Colour, Helium, Iron Man 3, Cutie and the Boxer, Dirty Wars, The Square, The Phone Call, The Tale of Princess Kaguya, Living on One Dollar, Crystal Fairy and the Magical Cactus, Magic Magic, Gerontophilia, Man of Steel, Horns, Tracks, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2,  Venus in Fur, Big Bad Wolves, Boy & the World, Living Is Easy with Eyes Closed, Needle, The Missing Picture, Safe, A Touch of Sin, Heli, Kick-Ass 2, Young & Beautiful, Shield of Straw, Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian, The Immigrant, Grigris, A Castle in Italy, Winter Journey, Snowpiercer, Phil Spector
 

Previous annual lists: 

    
2021 in films - according to Film Excess 

2020 in films - according to Film Excess 

2019 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

2019 in films - according to Film Excess 
2018 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2018 in films - according to Film Excess  
2017 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2017 in films - according to Film Excess
2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
2016 in films - according to Film Excess

2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV] 
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess  
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2014 in films - according to Film Excess
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
2013 in films - according to Film Excess    
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V] 
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2012 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2012 in films - according to Film Excess
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2011 in films - according to Film Excess
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess  
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess   

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 
2008 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess
2007 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2007 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2007 in films - according to Film Excess

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 
2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess   

2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess  

2004 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
2004 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 
2002 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 
2001 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

2000 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

1999 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess  

1998 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

1997 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

1996 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

1995 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
 

What do you think of Film Excess' 2013 lists?

What films would comprise your personal lists? 
Anything essential missing on the watch-list in your opinion?