We’ve had personal roundups of the best films of 2013, but what of the popular vote? Every year, and 2013 was no exception, posters on the MostlyFilm talkboard  vote for their favourite films of that year. 2012’s list is here. 2013’s list is sitting just below the jump. Can you resist clicking for more? We can only hope not!

Some quotes in this piece come from the talkboards, and usernames (not real names) are shown in bold. Some quotes are taken from MostlyFilm, and the names (usually real names) are shown in italics.

10 Blancanieves

Snow White and the Bullfighting Dwarves. Yeah, of course. Why not?

“Its visual wit and imaginativeness prettily handily showed The Artist up for the flaccid, amateurish tripe it was.”

– MaxFischer

“perfectly pitched, creating a fantastical, and emotional, experience” – Donna Swabey

“Silent movie fans are in for a treat” – Veteran quote whore Matthew Turner

9 Blue Is The Warmest Colour

We’ve had a few articles at the very least talking around this, and one full review, so I’ll leave it to Ron Swanson to say it all.

8 Behind the Candelabra

Soderbergh’s Liberace biopic is maybe his swansong. Maybe. We’ll see, eh, Steve?

“Douglas’s performance is crucial, in that he captures in the way he delivers his lines how sincerity and kitschy glitz… well, it’s not exactly that they mix, more that the sincerity shines through the glitz and vice-versa – and that’s also the line the film walks, both in it’s take on what Liberace had, and how it chooses to depict that.” –BunnyLake

“I really never knew how much fun a scene of Matt Damon power-fucking Michael Douglas while Douglas frantically does poppers could be. Answer: a LOT of fun.” –JohnCooperClarke

7 I Wish

Finally released in the UK last year, this was a quick favourite or an old friend, depending on how many film festivals you attended in 2011…

“It confirms Kore-eda as the finest director of children currently working, and as a superb essayist of ostensibly small lives. He’s as comfortable with the internal desires as the external pressures. It’s a glorious film, an achingly modern Stand by Me, only far more accomplished.” –Ron Swanson

“Kore-eda is a master of tone, and this is one of his subtler, sweeter films, like Still Walking; it doesn’t have the deep, intense sadness of, say, Nobody Knows. That isn’t a criticism; the film is note-perfect all the way through. The emotional content is lighter and more delicate, but it’s honest and says something true about growing up, without being sentimental” Yasmeen Khan

“Wonderfully upbeat little charmer” –SpankTM (on his own, tangentially affiliated, blog)

6 Upstream Colour

Generally, this divisive film left our posters baffled. Maybe intrigued? Most of the thread was spent puzzling out the what the hell was going on.

“It’s not fucking Inception, it doesn’t call out to be solved. It’s a very interesting journey to go on, however.” –JohnCooperClarke

“The first half is jaw-droppingly, breathtakingly great […] it almost feels like he didn’t quite have the faith in his own mad genius to go the whole nine yards. I dunno.” –MaxFischer

“The first twenty minutes made me want to throw up.” –Woodscolt

5 Django Unchained

If we had run this list in conventional Tarantino style, this may have been number one (but later we would work out that it’s number five when you put it in order).

“Huzzah! A QT film I really liked. Plenty of good stuff here – some superb dialogue, a compelling story, beautiful cinematography, great soundtrack and good performances from that German dude, Bruce Dern, Goggins, De Caprio etc. Samuel L. Jackson seems to be doing an impression of Biff Tannen” –Fogger

“Great apart from QT stinking up the screen with his acting. Loved Fritz the horse.” –kittykarate

“Nobody else is making radical pop entertainment like this.” –Indy Datta

4 Frances Ha

Those who were “got” by Noah Baumbach’s valentine to mumblecore siren Greta Gerwig really took to it. Those who didn’t were left cold, but it’s the positive votes that count…

“This felt very complete. I liked the pacey editing, I thought the black and white photography very attractive – it was in black and white, wasn’t it?” – Simon44

“I think I’d actually forgotten the very specific moment in life this skewers, that point somewhere in your twenties when you realise that you have neither the talent nor the cash to afford the life you assumed would follow graduation, and that you have to accept the life you can afford (the obvious reference point here is Generation X, and this has something of the sexless helpless vibe of early Coupland, but with more heart). It also helps that Greta Gerwig is just luminous.” –Jim5et

3 Before Midnight

Again, we have been here before – Gareth Negus gives you all the reasons it was voted number three…

2 The Act of Killing

Bit depressing.

“One of the sources of its power is not having an omniscient voice contextualising everything for the audience. It spits you out thinking, God, have I fundamentally misunderstood things about justice & law & history? And yes, you probably have.”
– JohnCooperClarke

“Fucking hell seems about the best response.”
–MarvMarsh

1 Gravity

Yeah, we’ve covered this too – Alfonso Cuaron’s unstoppable offbeat blockbuster won the vote by being both popular and well-liked. Now I am glad I didn’t go to school with Gravity.

“I stopped biting my nails halfway through & just chewed my fingers off.” –JohnCooperClarke

“I think it was bloody brilliant and I think [Cuaron’s] grasp of the magical world within a narrative – whether it’s fantasy, dystopian sci-fi, literal sci-fi or the here and now – is always stunningly realised and can paper over the cracks of a weaker/pared down narrative very well indeed.” –MrsMills

“This was stupendous to look at, and Bullock was brilliant.” –BiGi

“ISN’T THIS JUST VOYAGER SEASON 4 EPISODE 3 DAY OF HONOUR?! I couldn’t stop myself typing that in caps, sorry. IT IS! IT IS!” –petebondurant

“This is not my sort of film, and I was not very tense or nervous for most of it – Back to the Future has a lot more suspense and tension for me. But I thought the mawkish cheap daughter story pulled it all together and I found it profoundly moving, profoundly!, and as a result of this, also rather thrilling by the end.” –veal

“I enjoyed the shit out of this.” –Hankinshaw

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