10.  Derek Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond the Pines

It was a hell of a 2013 for Face, who played a cop and an FBI agent and pushed Ryan Gosling out of a window for making fun of Hangover III.

 

9.  Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers

There is something about Korine’s films; the further away you get he more your appreciate them.

 

8.  Jeff Nichols’ Mud

Jeff Nichols creates a hypnotic gyre that has lasted me since April.  Hell of a thing, hell of a thing.

 

7.  Matteo Garrone’s Reality

The one movie this year America desperately needed.  Made in Naples.

 

6.  James Wan’s The Conjuring

Pure genre, done perfectly.

 

5.  David O. Russell’s American Hustle

Give me David O. Russel and Christian Bale over Marty and Leo any day.

 

4.  Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity

Sandra Bullock learns to pray.

 

3.  David Lowery’s Ain’t Them Bodies Saints

Mallick graduate David Lowery pulls off the impossible; he gets Ben Foster to underact.

 

2.  Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners

Hugh Jackman punches everyone in the face.  Punches the audience in the gut.

 

1.  Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color

Two pigs fall in love after one is pignapped and drugged.  There is much framing.