1. Before MidnightBefore Sunset has a PERFECT ending. When Before Midnight was announced I was both thrilled and terrified. What if they messed it up? I should have had more faith. Director Richard Linklater and his cohorts Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy have created something truly remarkable. We've watched these two fall in love, find each other and now it's time to get down and dirty with what that love actually means. We meet up with Jesse and Celine nine years after Jesse missed his flight in Before Sunset. The partners (they never got married) are vacationing in Greece with their twin daughters. A date night intended as a gift starts them on their usual walk-and-talk and turns into something we haven't seen before from these two — a fight and a doozy of one. Was it hard to watch two characters I've rooted for over 18 years throw vitriol at each other? God, yes. But it was so wonderfully written, both funny and heartbreaking, real and raw that it made me fall for them all over again. While the fight in the hotel room has gotten most of the attention, it's the final scene that really is the key to the film. Both actors so fully inhabit their characters at this point that it almost seems moot to praise them but watch them both closely in that scene. It starts with charming Jesse trying to warm up an icy Celine. And you watch him grow more and more frustrated with her stubbornness, so much so that he is ready to give up. Then there's a moment during a loaded silence where you see her choose. She chooses him again, after everything. And isn’t that what long-term relationships are all about? Choosing each other over and over again? It's so beautifully done that it's honestly hard to even write about. Some say this film is too hard to watch, but on repeat viewings I've chosen to marvel. Jesse and Celine are fighting because they have something worth fighting for, and I can't think of anything more romantic than that.
2. HerClearly I'm a sucker for a love story, but I wasn’t expecting Her to be so much more than that. It’s a love story that can actually surprise and provoke questions about the fundamentals of what's at the root of two people's connection. And based on sheer ambition the film deserves all the praise it can muster. Spike Jonze has created a film so lovely, so heart-breaking and yet so weird that it's tough to imagine any other director who could master all the parts of a story like this. Everything from the delicate music to the fashion (I’m on board with the high-waisted pants gentlemen) to the Instagram filter-like haze emboldens his vision of the future as a place that is familiar and yet still slightly out of our grasp. The film leaves you full of questions and lets you decide the answers for yourself. Phoenix's lovelorn Theodore's journey to connect with his Scarlett Johansson-voiced OS works on so many levels that it's almost exhausting to think about it, but I don't think anyone who has seen it will be able to stop.
This is where ranking based on re-watchability gets tricky. I've never seen a movie like 12 Years a Slave and I'm not sure how soon I'm ready to see it again. I want to see many parts of it again. There is a scene that still haunts me where the incredible Chiwetel Ejiofor has a moment of silence for what he's just witnessed, and for just a second he looks right in the camera. There's just so much greatness like that amid all the stuff that's just so hard to watch. And it should be hard, shouldn't it? But just because it's difficult to sit through doesn't make it any less beautiful. Steve McQueen, whose movie Shame I found similarly difficult to watch for completely different reasons, has created the movie about slavery that we didn't know we were missing. Finally, we see slavery from the point of view of not only unspeakably evil white characters who aren't just stock villains, but also fully developed African-American characters that show slavery in several different stages. From Alfre Woodward's slave mistress turned wife to Lupita Nyong'o's devastating "chosen one," the film feels well-rounded with characters we haven't seen before. I'm confident in saying I have never felt so emotionally drained after seeing a film. Its greatness lies in the fact that as time has passed and I remember all its brilliance, I'm willing to put myself through it again.
Gravity is the closest I think I'll get to what people must have felt like when they saw the original Star Wars in 1977 — dumbstruck with awe at the images and sounds on the screen. But to say that Gravity is just a special effects showcase would be unfair. Sandra Bullock deserves all the accolades she's received for completely holding the screen, usually all on her own, in a movie that knew that it didn't have to be three hours to be mesmerizing. There's also been plenty said about how the dialogue is clunky and no one cares about Bullock's character's back story, and at first I was inclined to agree. But I think the movie wouldn't have been as affecting without it. Yes, the fetal position emergence from the space suit made my eyes roll, but that didn't mean it wasn't a beautiful image. The tears floating toward me in 3D were a gimmick, but that didn't mean I didn't feel for Bullock's character as she cried them. The dichotomy of the film's message of "Don't Let Go" in the physical space against how Bullock's character must let go of her past is an interesting one that I don't think can (or should) be so easily dismissed in the face of such stunning visuals.
The concept could have gone horribly wrong. The idea of a bunch of actor's playing versions of themselves could have quickly felt self-indulgent and relied too much on inside jokes. However, the brilliance of This is the End is that we're in on the joke. We've watched these actors in enough movies (and know enough about their public persona off screen) to be able to revel in all the pointed jabs and jokes they make at each other's expense. The plot is relatively thin — actors are stranded at James Franco's house after Judgment Day starts during his Hollywood party — but it gives the actors more room to create sequences that are worth watching as their own short films. From the Pineapple Express 2: Blood Red trailer to Jonah Hill's serious actor turned demon to the final glorious heavenly dance party, This is the End just keeps building to its ridiculous and awesome conclusion. Sure, it probably could have lost 20 minutes near the end, as most films of this ilk could, but that hasn't stopped me from rewatching it more times than any other film on this list.
The fact that this brash, brazen, madcap black comedy was made by 71-year-old Martin Scorsese is just one of the things to marvel at as you are sucked into the world of swindler Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio). Set in the decadent days of martini-and-cocaine-lunches, the film tells the story of how Belfort sold his lifestyle of drugs, sex and money to thousands of people, getting rich in the process. I don't know if DiCaprio has ever been this fun to watch. He's playing with a (who would have guessed it) equal in Jonah Hill as his bucktooth partner in crime. Does the film promote or indict the behavior on screen? Absolutely not, and anyone who says it is reveling in it must have forgotten the terrible scene where Belfort punches his wife and tries to flee with his daughter after doing enough coke to kill a normal man. How can anyone watching that scene think the film thinks this guy is great? Yes, we laugh at all the ridiculous things he and his cohorts get up to, but we still cringe every time they turn to drugs and whores over and over. The movie probably didn’t need to be three hours, but I believe that the what some have called monotony of watching Belfort and his cohorts keep making the same reckless decisions over and over again is kind of the point. These guys never learned to change, never thought about their victims or felt remorse even after stints in prison. Even at the end, Belfort is still selling, and unfortunately, America is still buying.
Since seeing the trailer I was obsessed with the soundtrack, so when the movie turned out to be just as lovely and considered as the music I rejoiced in a Cohen-induced euphoria. Llewyn Davis is a jerk. There's no reason we should care what happens to him, and yet Oscar Issac soulful eyes and completely enchanting voice make it too difficult to resist him. Though many complained the film had no plot, what feels like a casual check-in on a week in this man's life tells his story of failure and artistic disappointment much better than a traditional biopic might have done. Also, I plan to watch Adam Driver sing his part in "Please Mr. Kennedy" on repeat whenever I'm in need of a pick-me-up.
It's clear from some of the other choices on this list that I have no problem with films where nothing much happens. Just two characters talking is more than enough for me. So even though this small and lovely story about friends who work at a Chicago brewery may seem odd to include on a list with such IMPORTANT productions as The Wolf of Wall Street or 12 Years a Slave, I loved it just the same. Olivia Wilde and Jake Johnson as a pair of best friends have both never been better, and as the two friends move through their relationships with their respective significant others, Ron Livingston and Anna Kendrick, questions about their feelings for each other inevitably crop up. The naturalistic dialogue and camera work really makes you feel like you are encroaching on something intimate and real. So though the movie may feel small or even inconsequential to some, I found it to be one of the most rooted-in-real-life film experiences of my movie-going year.
I didn't LOVE the first Hunger Games as much as I wanted to. As a huge fan of the books, something just wasn't right the first time around. With Catching Fire, all is forgiven. Based on my favorite book of the trilogy, Catching Fire finds heroine Katniss Everdeen thrown back into the arena, but this time with a much more experienced group of killers. But the fun of this movie isn't just what is happening in the arena as much as what's happening outside it. Katniss has become a symbol of hope for the oppressed people of Panem and the scenes showing the growing unrest are some of the film's most powerful. All the shaky-cam annoyance from the first film is gone and the two-hour-plus run time sails buy without notice. Jennifer Lawrence may be getting more praise for American Hustle, but I think her Katniss is much more in her wheelhouse, and is actually the better performance. The last shot where every nuance of her face goes from devastation to sadness to resolve is nothing short of incredible.
The last scene. The. Last. Scene. It was at the moment where the movie turned from a Zero Dark Thirty on the sea to something infinitely more interesting. Has Tom Hanks ever been better than when all the tension of the past two hours is finally released? I think not. It's just so refreshing to see an actor actually react to all that has happened to his character over the course of a movie, especially after watching countless movies where the hero never even acknowledges all the trauma he's witnessed. Then there's the entire first part of the movie, which despite a real clunker of an opening scene between Phillips and his wife, is a nail-biting thriller with a hopefully star-making performance by Somali-born Barkhad Abdi. Director Paul Greengrass presents the pirates as fully-formed characters with motivations and desires all clearly communicated. While the journey is full of classic Hollywood storytelling, by the time Phillips is taken into that medical exam room, we're ready to authentically crumple right along with him.
