Best of 2013: Movies

By rough count I watched around 55 movies and/or TV or web series in 2013.

In an attempt to select my “top five” movies of 2013, I decided to only consider movies (not TV or web series), and only movies that I watched for the first time in 2013. That brought the list of contenders to just under 50 movies.

Picking my “top five” movies from that list of 50 was not easy. I ended up with eight favorites and considered making this a “top eight” list instead. But, after careful consideration, I realized that three of these movies were not like the others. You see, sometimes I really enjoy things because they are cheesy, fun, feel-good movies. Other times I am blown away by a more serious or tense drama because of an excellent story and/or casting and filming.

When it came down to it, five movies stood out as the “best” movies I watched this year, and the other three were good, but I realized that I primarily liked them because they fell firmly in the feel-good camp. So, I dropped those three movies from the list (as painful as that was for me).

But, before I give you my “top five” list, I want to highlight the best TV and web series I watched this year…

I don’t watch actual TV. I don’t have time for it and I don’t have the patience to tune in every week to catch the next episode. I really only watched two TV series in 2013: Season 2 of Game of Thrones and Season 1 of House of Cards. As much as I like Game of Thrones, I’m going to have to give this year’s win for best TV series to House of Cards. (Season 2 comes out on 2/14/2014!)

The best (and only) web series I watched in 2013 was The LIzzie Bennet Diaries. This is a modern “video-blog” version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and the creators / actors just nailed it. Check it out if you haven’t already.

Now, what you’ve been waiting for… here are the “top five” movies I watched in 2013 (with the reviews I wrote in previous “By the Numbers” monthly update posts):

Argo — How did I miss this one when it came out? This movie was so good. I absolutely loved it. And now that I’m thinking about it, I want to watch it again.
Much Ado About Nothing — Just watch this. Shakespeare’s words in a modern day setting. It’s so good. And I’m not just saying that because Joss Whedon made this.
Winter’s Bone — resisted watching this for a while because I wasn’t sure I would like it, but boy was I wrong! This was a really good movie.
Star Trek Into Darkness — You have to see this if you like “Space, the final frontier.” It is a really good movie. And not just because brimming with hotties. I love space. The effects in this movie are so good. We saw it in 3D which made it even better.
Salvador — (for some reason I never posted about this movie and Hubby had to remind me of it… this was a mid-eighties movie that Hubby and I were too young to watch at the time it came out, so it was new to us…)

And, in case anyone is interested in the three movies that were left behind as close runners-up to my “top five” movies… they are: Galaxy Quest, Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Pitch Perfect. The funny thing is, even though the movies on my “top five” list were better movies than these three, I’ll probably end up re-watching these three movies more times than any on the top five list (except for Star Trek Into Darkness).