What better way to begin this new blog on New Year’s Day than with a rundown of all the new films I watched over the past year! These are all the movies released in 2013 that I had a chance to see.*
I’ll announce my Top 10 in a separate post tomorrow. For now, I present #11-20. I divided the rest into 3 categories and listed them alphabetically.
This was an incredibly strong year for great movies. Even some of those I listed under “Very Good” could have made it into the Top 10 of another year with less competition. On top of that, this list leaves out several films I’ve heard great things about and still look forward to seeing, such as Her, Frances Ha, Stories We Tell, Blue is the Warmest Color, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and a bunch of others.
One final note: Every year someone will ask me why my list skews so far toward the positive. Surely there must be far more bad movies out there than good; everybody knows the average quality of Hollywood’s output has been on a steady decline for decades, right? Every year my answer is the same: Research. Read reviews. Read this blog. Read ANYTHING, but read a lot. Save yourself from having to sit through dreck like Oz the Great and Powerful. Sure a few stinkers still slip through, but as expensive as movie tickets are, you owe it to yourself to do everything you can to spend your money wisely. That’s what I do.
Enjoy my list! It’s by no means definitive. If you disagree with any of my rankings, let me know in the comments!
TOP 11-20
11. This Is the End
12. Blackfish
13. Out of the Furnace
14. Much Ado About Nothing
15. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
16. Inside Llewyn Davis
17. Ernest & Celestine
18. Frozen
19. The Conjuring
20. Blue Jasmine
VERY GOOD
All Is Lost
American Hustle
Elysium
The Fifth Estate
Fruitvale Station
Kon-Tiki
Monsters University
Pacific Rim
Side Effects
Star Trek Into Darkness
Warm Bodies
The Way Way Back
White House Down
World War Z
The World’s End
OK
42
The Butler
The Croods
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Iron Man 3
John Dies at the End
Mama
Saving Mr. Banks
Spring Breakers
Thor: The Dark World
The Wolverine
BAD
Carrie
G.I. Joe: Retaliation
The Great Gatsby
The Lone Ranger
Man of Steel
Now You See Me
Oblivion
Oz the Great and Powerful
*Kon-Tiki made last years Oscars for Best Foreign Film, but didn’t open here in St Louis until this past spring.
The Screen Life 
Of the ones that I saw I agree, except I would have placed Iron Man 3 in Very Good and Much Ado would have probably made my Top 10 if not Top 5.
We really enjoyed Walter Mitty – I thought it was a very well crafted movie (combination of soundtrack/cinematography/hero’s journey) and it would probably be amongst my favorites for 2013.