Favorited: My Favorite Movies of 2013 - The Ones The Didn't Make The Cut

Welcome back, everyone! So I meant to publish my list of favorite movies of 2013 a lot sooner, but I had a few last movies to watch before compiling my list... then I got a temporary job that kept me busy for most of the past week. Things will get busy all over again when grad school begins in two days, so I'm finally sitting down and getting this list done.

Like 2012, 2013 was a packed with great movies. Unlike 2012, though, this time I have forced myself to narrow down my list to only 10 favorite movies (although as you'll see, I did kind of cheat again, this time with the definition of "favorite").

Today I'd like to present my list of runners-up, the movies I felt need to be mentioned but which I couldn't include in my absolute top ten. Even in this list, I need to divide it into smaller lists.

First off, here is a short list of 2013 movies that I did not see but may have had a shot at making my list if I'd seen them:

20 Feet From Stardom
After Tiller
Beyond The Hills
Blue Is The Warmest Color
Concussion
Kill Your Darlings
Let The Fire Burn

Next, here's an unreasonably long list of movies that I saw and liked very much— seriously, I would give most of these movies 3 1/2 out of 4 stars— but didn't even make it into my top 20!

42

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints

All Is Lost

Blackfish

Blue Jasmine

The Conjuring

The Counselor

Cutie And The Boxer

Drinking Buddies

Enough Said

Fast And Furious 6

Fruitvale Station

The Grandmaster

The Great Gatsby

A Hijacking

The Hunt

I’m So Excited

Iron Man Three

Monsters University

Much Ado About Nothing

Pacific Rim

The Past

Philomena

The Place Beyond The Pines

Prince Avalanche

Prisoners

Saving Mr. Banks

Sightseers

Spring Breakers

The Square

Stoker

This Is The End

Tim’s Vermeer

To The Wonder

The Way, Way Back

The Wind Rises

The Wolverine

You’re Next

And now, here's the meat of this blog entry:

My favorite movies of 2013, numbers 11-20 (in alphabetical order):

I only ranked my top ten, so I am presenting the 10 runners-up in alphabetical order.

American Hustle

I adore David O. Russell, and I adore this movie, but Devin Faraci wrote an essay for Badass Digest a few weeks ago that unfortunately expresses exactly how I feel: American Hustle will suffer an undeserved backlash if it wins the Best Picture Oscar because it's nowhere near the best movie of the year. Like Argo, The Artist, and The King's Speech, American Hustle is an excellent film that I enjoyed greatly, but it's nowhere near my favorite movie of the year.

Dallas Buyers Club

As I've said over and over again last year... if you told me 5 years ago that Matthew McConaughey would be the most exciting and daring actor working today, I would've thought you were insane. And after C.R.A.Z.Y and the vastly underrated The Young Victoria, I eagerly await any film that director Jean-Marc Vallée chooses to make.

Frances Ha

Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig's sublime, lovely, and very funny ode to adrift twenty-somethings trying to find security and a place in the world is also beautiful to watch. The final scene/punchline, where we learn the meaning of the film's title, is absolutely perfect. It's also streaming on Netflix, so you have no excuse for not watching it.

Frozen

I kind of pains me to admit that I liked Frozen more than Hayao Miyazaki's gorgeous The Wind Rises, but Frozen really stirred my soul with its spectacular animation and fabulous songs by the husband-and-wife team of Robert Lopez (Avenue Q and The Book Of Mormon) and Kristen Anderson-Lopez. Again, just watch THIS:

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

To be honest, I liked the first Hunger Games movie, but I felt it was missing a sense of excitement and grandeur that was in the books. Catching Fire, on the other hand, improves on the first movie in almost every way. Packed with excitement, suspense, menace, and spectacle, it's two-and-a-half hours of pure entertainment, capped off with a nasty cliffhanger of a final scene that's like a punch to the gut.

Mud

Again, Matthew McConaughey, FTW and WTF? After Shotgun Stories and Take Shelter, this makes three winners in a row for writer-director Jeff Nichols, who this time spins a modern-day Mark Twain tale of childhood, revenge, humanity, and violence.

Rush

Perhaps the most under-appreciated high-profile film of the year. Rush is the most thrillingly-directed film of Ron Howard's career. Chris Hemsworth probably gives what will be the best performance he will ever give. And Daniel Brühl is a revelation in the first of two 2013 movies in which he was billed as a supporting actor but was actually the lead (the other being The Fifth Estate). 

Short Term 12

Destin Cretton's portrait of the staff of a foster care facility for troubled teens is a real as it gets, full of drama, heartbreak, humor, tragedy, and eventually a wonderful sense that everything will be okay. It's a great big hug of a film, anchored by an unbelievably great performance by Brie Larson.

The Spectacular Now

Like Short Term 12, The Spectacular Now is a lovely, delicate low-budget work of art. Directed by James Ponsoldt (Smashed) from a screenplay by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber ((500) Days Of Summer), it's a simple high school romance between the smart good girl and the lovable popular guy... who also happens to be an alcoholic.

Upstream Color

Shane Carruth's long-awaited follow-up to his confounding 2004 time-travel drama Primer is even denser and more intellectually-challenging. It's also probably the most downright gorgeous movie of 2013, so don't even try to decode it; just watch it and soak it all in. It's also available to stream on Netflix.

Up next, my top 10 favorite movies of 2013!