Best Films of 2013.

"There’s a vast difference between simply making a movie and taking the time to develop a new idea to make a movie about. It’s the difference between franchises releasing a new sequel every year, and the work of Spike Jonze. What starts as a boy-meets-computer love story evolves to question the nature of humanity and a person’s capacity for emotion, and whether an artificial intelligence can have those traits. Such thoughts are brought to light with the kind of levity and originality we’ve come to expect from Jonze; they never feel preachy or obvious. The film always feels natural, sweet and relatable"

"How to sum it up? You have to make synapse-spark connections, interpret events to your own satisfaction, pick up visual cues (a long stretch of the film is dialogue-free) and be happy with not knowing all the answers - you know, like in life, but not in most motion pictures. A perfectly judged, strikingly beautiful film, but also a lunatic enterprise which invites - even welcomes - befuddlement as much as wonder. A true original."

"McQueen has made a film comparable to “Schindler's List” - art that may be hard to watch, but which is an essential look at man's inhumanity to man. It is wrenching, but 12 Years a Slave earns its tears in a way few films ever do."

"Inside Llewyn Davis isn't about someone trying to make it big, but someone just trying to make it, and the Coens celebrate the hard road that can inspire great art."

"Blanchett in Blue Jasmine is beyond brilliant, beyond analysis. This is jaw-dropping work, what we go to the movies hoping to see, and we do. Every few years."

"Sensational entertainment. This $100 million extravaganza is - let's face it - rampantly over the top. Hell, it's by Martin Scorsese, who is always over the top. "

"The music, the cinematography, the acting choices, the daring plot leaps - not a single element is timid or safe...The Place Beyond the Pines earns every second of its 140-minute running time. "

"Dallas Buyers Club represents the best of what independent film on a limited budget can achieve - powerful, enlightening and not to be missed. "

"During its 86-minute run time, Frances Ha flips the flaws of this world upside down, revealing the amazements and joys of life. They just don’t make movies like this one anymore."

"Mikkelsen, who is not given to sympathetic roles, has never been better. This is cinema that sinks its claws into your back."

"A powerful and thoughtful film, it is also not what it at first seems, which is part of the point Polley appears to be interested in making. Can the truth ever actually be known about anything? "

"Fruitvale is outstanding, a telling portrait and testament to the life of one man and the complicated relationships to race and class that still exist within America today. "

"It's one of the best movies of the year and one of the truest portrayals I've ever seen about troubled teens and the people who dedicate their lives to trying to help them. "

"Enough Said is another tremendously well crafted, intelligent dramedy about people, with complicated lives, who make bad decisions trying to do the right thing. "

"Don Jon is nominally a love triangle between a woman, a man and his laptop, but the movie is much more thoughtful and substantial than that, and it takes a compassionate and humane approach to all of its characters, even when they’re at their most despicable. "