A Touch of Sin:
Operating independently of the state run Chinese production company, Still Life director  Zia Zhangke hammers home the mood of anger and disillusionment in Chinese society through the loosely connected stories of a rural man (Jiang), a high end prostitute (Li), a man returning home to the city of Chongqing  and a labourer working a grim production line. They’re all at their wits end and act accordingly. Shot with marvellous scale, A Touch of Sin is violent, blaring with conviction and strikingly subversive.

12 Years a Slave:
Having navigated a mist of eye watering hype, Steve McQueen has emphatically delivered with his long awaited slavery drama. Based on Solomon Northup’s book of the same name, his film is about as marvellous, gruelling and brutal an exercise in cinema as you are likely to see.

We follow Northup’s (Ejiofor) odyssey from respected musician living with wife and children in Saratoga to his kidnapping in Washington and subsequent decent into slavery. We meet his first master, a somewhat decent man named William Ford (Cumberbatch), and then his second, a cruel maniac called Edward Epps (Fassbender). Northup is told constantly to keep his head down and survive but the free man inside strives to “live” again.

So would this British video art director be marginalised by such sweeping moves on Hollywood? It would seem not. Hans Zimmer might know when to kick in the string section but the brutish composer is just a deft with the drill and Sean Bobbitt’s photography has lost none of its poetic hostility. Indeed, McQueen may have his sights on LA but his eyelashes have yet to flutter and with 12 Years he shows us the fear and hatred which governed these peoples’ lives in a way few American film makers have been able to muster.

Unknown Pleasures Festival:
Oscar hopefuls and kickstarter darlings will once again be rubbing elbows for this year’s Unknown Pleasures fest as the American independent showcase with the Mancunian album name reaches its sixth year. Opening night hosts the Berlin premiere of James Gray’s sepia drenched Ellis Island fable The Immigrant; concerning a Polish woman, delicately played by Marion Cotillard, who is forced into prostitution upon arrival in New York. Gray’s film premiered at Cannes last May alongside one of this year’s more light-hearted offerings, Alexander Payne’s Nebraska, in which Bruce Dern offers a fine reminder of his talents as an ailing man on a cross state mission to cash in a dubious sweepstakes letter. Robert Redford gives a similarly late flourish as he faces the elements on board a doomed sailboat in J.C. Chandor’s one man show All Is Lost. Redford’s Sundance film festival is represented here of course with two of last year’s best received films: I used to be Darker is Matthew Porterfields story of an Irish runaway and the crumbling Baltimore relatives with whom she takes refuge and Brie Larson stars as a foster care worker in Destin Daniel Crettin’s Short term 12. This year’s Special Program will focus on socialist documentary maker Travis Wilkerson- including An Injury to One; his study of Frank Little, a union agitator who was lynched by the capitalist leaders of Butte Montana. A town whose factories provided 10% of the world’s copper – as well as a number of restored films including Thom Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself, a video essay on the city of Angels comprised entirely of clips from the movies. Sounds swell.

Spoiler alert?

A few points to note before this all important ranking: These movies are picked from what I saw over the last 12 months so while Django Unchained, Stories We Tell, Spring Breakers and Paradise: Faith would certainly have crashed the party, I saw them a little before that. On the other hand this list contains a couple of titles which are yet to see the light of day in many territories but hey, it’s my list, so whatever. It’s also important to say that while I saw a great deal of films, I have obviously missed many more. This unfortunate list includes Blancanieves, The Wind Rises, No!, The Hunt, Pacific Rim, In A World..., Short Term 12, Wadjda, Rush, All Is Lost, The Great Beauty, The Selfish Giant and Hirokazu Kore-Eda's I Wish (although I did catch another of that directors films...). I blame many on the lack of English subs in Berlin. They could very well all be masterpieces.

Anyway, forget all that. This is nothing definitive, merely what pushed my buttons in 2013.

10 honourable mentions, in no particular order:

Star Trek: Into Darkness : J.J. Abrams gave hope for 2015 with this well executed sequel. Ubiquitous Cumberbatch at his Shakespearian best.

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom: Idris Elba showed us not the saint nor the sinner but a human being like us. Mandela died as the premier screened in Leicester square.

Blue Jasmine: Woody went back to the states and got back on form. Blanchet is brilliantly manic as the dishevelled lead.

Philomena: Judi Dench does a great Irish mammy and manages to loosen our tear ducts without breaking a sweat.

Nebraska: Bruce Dern gives a fine late performance in Alexander Payne’s surprisingly unsentimental road movie.

Mud: Jeff Nichol's great southern gothic saw McCaughnehey kick his remarkable comeback into gear.

Upstream Colour: Almost a decade after Primer, Shane Carruth returned to twist our collective melon.

A Field in England: Ben Wheatley sends us on a macabre civil war trip. No substances required.

Frances Ha: Greta Gerwig danced and despaired in this hip slice of melancholic monochrome.

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints: David Lowery’s film might dip in the second half but this was almost the Terrance Mallick film we had all been waiting for.

  

10. 

Inside Llewyn Davis

Joel & Ethan Coen

The Coens made it five in a row with this melancholic ode to early 60s folk New York. Newcomer Oscar Isaac boasts timbre and timing as the titular lead.

9.

Beyond the Hills

Cristian Mungiu

After five years waiting, Cristian Mungiu followed up his jarring Palme d'Or winning debut with this uncompromising look at forbidden love in an orthodox monastery. Subversive realism bubbles under Mungiu’s sensational plot.

Check out a slightly longer review here.

8.

Blue is the Warmest Colour

Abdellatif Kechiche

Kechiche used dance, sex and uncompromising close-ups to immerse us in all the terrifying ecstasy of that first great love.  Maturing her character throughout, Adele Exarchopolous gives the performance of the year.

7.

The Act of Killing

Joshua Oppenheimer

There’s been plenty written about Joshua Oppenheimer’s exploitation document on the re-enacting murderers of Indonesia so let’s just say it already looks a classic in the genre. Whatever genre that may be.

6.

Museum Hours

Jem Cohen

 A woman visiting her dying relative spends a few short days with a Museum attendant. Cohen takes the most tender of love stories and overlaps it with a video essay on Vienna for the year's most quietly beautiful film. Seek it out.

5.

Gravity

Alfonso Cuaran

Sandra Bullock and George Clooney go space station hopping in Earth’s orbit after a rogue fleet of satellites wreck the place. The script was clunky; the plotline superfluous; but Alfonso Cuaron and his production team, in the most sophisticated ways imaginable, allowed us to feel, for the briefest of moments, like we were up there too.

Check out a slightly longer review here.

4.

Before Midnight

Richard Linklater

Celine and Jesse close out their ineffable 14 year saga with another day of long shot conversations under the European sun. The question is no longer “will it happen?”, but “will it last?” as our lovers deal with life and mortality on the Greek Peloponnese. I hope we meet again in 7 years time.

3.

Prisoners

Denis Villeneuve

All this talk of zero-G and flying satellites might lead you to believe that Gravity was the year’s best thrill ride but one could argue that this terrific film left us with even less fingernails. It’s interesting to note that the films boasted two of America’s most prestigious cinematographers and while Emmanuel Lubezki’s earthly vistas offered us the year’s most memorable imagery, Roger Deakins found a far stranger, more malevolent beauty in the trees and waters of Pennsylvania. Its star, Jake Gyllenhall, is a blinking powerhouse as a determined detective on the hunt for two lost girls. We hold our breath till the very. Last. Second.

 

2.

12 Years a Slave

Steve McQueen

Steve McQueen managed to storm Hollywood, LA and the mainstream while staying true to his stern video art style. This brutal, wonderfully acted, slavery epic wasn't afraid to point the finger and could yet make McQueen the first black winner of Best Director at the Academy awards.

Check out a slightly longer review here.

1.

Like Father Like Son

Hirokazu Kore-Eda

As Cuaron, Oppenheimer and McQueen were busy creating there cinematic milestones, a director with a far more traditional ethos calmly delivered his masterpiece. His heart wrenching examination of nature vs. nurture had all the markings of a master. Kore-Eda has honed a purity of style and much like his spiritual father Yasijiro Ozu, patiently rakes the sands of family life to find a transcendental beauty within.  Astonishingly, his best might be yet to come.

So what did 2013 at the movies really feel like?

Spielberg went to Cannes but the Palme stayed at home. Bertolucci went to Venice and saw the Gold Lion stay there too but a Romanian took the big prize in Berlin. Haneke met Arnie before heading to the Oscars (lol) where the race looked rich but the winner was poor. Hollywood continued to churn out the sequels and remakes to varying degrees of enjoyment as London shadowed Manhattan as the blockbuster capitol and Matthew McConaughey swung his career into a dramatic U-turn.

 An old master bored us with To the Wonder, a young apprentice tripped with At any Price, Cormac McCarthy wrote a sex scene with a car and Sophia Coppola slipped ever further away. Ulrich Seidl delighted and disgusted with his Paradise series while Thor, Iron Man and the Furious team offered strong entries in theirs. Zach Snyder’s Man of Steel did not.  With Monsters University, Pixar lost a little more sheen but Frozen’s gags and songs gave us a shock Disney treat. In documentaries, Joshua Oppenheimer went to Indonesia and changed the game while Sarah Polley stayed at home and broke our hearts. Soderbergh delivered two great films then threw in the towel. Philip French left the Observer after 35 years of service and Roger Ebert left our planet after 70 years of life. We also lost the young Paul Walker, the wonderful Joan Fontaine and the great Peter O’Toole. Richard Linklater closed (for now) his unique trilogy, Woody Allen returned to the States with a return to form as quietly out east, Hirokazu Kore-Eda laid claim to Ozu’s crown. J.J. Abrams gave new hope for 2015 and Alfonso Cuaron took us to space before Steve McQueen brought us all tumbling down.

Are we facing the death of cinema? Will 3D, digital or downloading wreck the place? On this evidence it would seem not. We all love it too much.  

It was also the first full calendar year in which this humble writer attempted to carve his route into that world so many thanks to anyone who had a quick read, it means a great deal. From a mouldy coffee at a 9am screening of G.I. Joe Retaliation to meeting Werner Herzog I’ve loved the lot.

My top 10 films will follow shortly.

Having navigated a mist of near eye-watering hype, Steve McQueen’s long awaited slavery drama finally, emphatically delivers. Based on Solomon Northup’s book of the same name, McQueen's film is about as marvellous, gruelling and brutal an exercise in cinema as you are likely to see.

We follow Northup’s 12 year odyssey from respected musician living with wife and children in Saratoga to his kidnapping in Washington and subsequent decent into slavery. We meet his first master, a somewhat decent man named William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch), and then his second, a cruel maniac called Edward Epps (Michael Fassbender) who harbours a frightening love for a slave called Patsey (Lupita Nyong'O). Northup is advised to keep his head down to survive but the free man locked inside strives to “live” again.

McQueen has assembled a terrific cast for this, his third feature. Chiwetel Ejiofor is finally given a role to chew on and digs in with relish; all downcast and dignified, stretching those rich vocals to grand effect. Opposite him Fassbender is menacing as the scripture quoting Epps. His indifferent bursts of hatred and violence are terrifying but the manner in which Fassbender represses his affections even more so. Patsey, the victim of those affections, is played with delicate finesse by newcomer Lupita Nyong'O. Indeed, all of the supporting players are strong; slimy Paul Dano is reliably slimy; Paul Giamatti shocks as a shrewd and heartless slave dealer and Brad Pitt- who produced the film under his Plan B production company- rather dubiously finds himself in the most sympathetic white role but, sure, we can let him away with that one.

As the news filtered in over the last couple of years it was clear few expected anything less than a masterpiece here, so it seems the only big question which remained was: would McQueen, a stern British video-art director, be marginalised by such sweeping moves on Hollywood? It would seem not. His film is a visceral assault from all angles. Sonically, Hans Zimmer knows when to kick in the string section but the brutish composer is just as deft with the drill and visually, Sean Bobitt’s photography has lost none of its poetic hostility. He shoots a slave cart from above like a tin of sardines; a tuning violin like a torture rack and the paddle wheel of a barge like a malevolent harvester. McQueen wants us to feel the relentless fear and hatred which constituted the majority of these peoples’ lives and in doing so opens that old wound much wider than many Americans (yes, even Tarantino) have been able to muster. In a daring close-up late on Ejiofor breaks the forth wall but he might as well be pointing a finger. It seems that while this young director might have his sights on LA, his eyelashes have yet to flutter.