It has been a ridiculously brilliant year for film and this list made all the more difficult by trips to FrightFest and LFF but I have stuck (as best I can) to 2013 releases. My favourite film of 2014, so far, is The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears (dir. Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani) and I implore all to see it when it is out in March. Anyway, I digress, in reverse order the films I have enjoyed most this year.
#13 After Lucia (2012, dir. Michel Franco)
#12 Lore (2012, dir. Cate Shortland)
#11 Laurence Anyways (2012, dir. Xavier Dolan)
#10 Stoker (2013, dir. Park Chan-wook)
#9 Wadjda (2012, dir. Haifaa al-Mansour)
#8 Simon Killer (2012, dir. Antonio Campos)
#7 Beyond the Hills (2012, dir. Cristian Mungiu)
#6 Bullhead (2012, dir. Michaël R. Roskam)
#5 Frances Ha (2012, dir. Noah Baumbach)
#4 Blancanieves (2012, dir. Pablo Berger)
#3 Before Midnight (2013, dir. Richard Linklater)
#2 Big Bad Wolves (2013, dir. Aharon Keshales & Narot Papushado)
#1 La Grande Bellezza (2013, dir. Paolo Sorrentino)
Special mentions:
- Django Unchained (2013, dir. Quentin Tarantino)
- Spider Baby (1968, dir. Jack Hill)
- Grabbers (2012, dir. Jon Wright)
- I Wish (2011, dir. Koreeda Hirokazu)
- Forbidden Games (1952, dir. René Clément)
- The Hunt (2012, dir. Thomas Vinterberg)
- Only God Forgives (2013, dir. Nicolas Winding-Refn)
- A Field in England (2013, dir. Ben Wheatley)
- Lake Mungo (2008, dir, Joel Anderson)
- The Act of Killing (2013, dir. Joshua Oppenheimer)
- Mud (2012, dir. Jeff Nichols)
- Oslo, 31 August (2011, dir. Joachim Trier)
- Where Do We Go Now? (2011, dir. Nadine Labaki)
- Holy Motors (2012, dir. Leos Carax)
- Blonde Venus (1932, dir. Josef von Sternberg)
- McCullin (2012, dir. David and Jacqui Morris)
- What Richard Did (2012, dir. Lenny Abrahamson)
- The Kings of Summer (2013, dir. Jordan Vogt-Roberts)
- Head On (2004, dir. Fatih Akin)
- Bal (2010, dir. Semih Kaplanoğlu)
‘Twas also the year I ‘discovered’ Abbas Kiarostami. The man is, for want of a better word, a genius. I would highly recommend the following:
- Taste of Cherry (1997)
- The Wind Will Carry Us (1999)
- Like Someone in Love (2012)
- Ten (2002)
- Close Up (1990)
- A Certified Copy (2010)
- Shirin (2008)
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