The Top 10 Indie Films Of 2013

It's more than a bit difficult to complain about how much of a struggle picking out my top ten indie films of 2013 turned out to be. Digitization and the internet are the modern filmmaker's best friend - who needs a major studio backer any more? Cinema has always been for the people, but in a joyous quirk of the Internet Age, it's now finally by the people as well. The issue with such an embarrassment of riches is just how torturous it is narrowing down the cream of the crop. There are so many spectacular films that could so easily have been on this list (and likely will appear on many others) but have been tragically cut, and for that I apologise. But make a list we must, and it's been one hell of a year in indie cinema. So read on for our top 10 indie films of 2013. Hopefully you'll find some gems on here that you missed last year. 10. Upstream Color Many months on, I still have little-to-no idea as to what I was actually watching. Shane Carruth pretty much epitomizes the independent filmmaker. In the long awaited follow-up to the mind-bending Primer, the writer/director/actor/composer created a Lynchian feverdream of the bizarre and the beautiful. It's the kind of film that demands multiple viewings -a cinematic acid trip packed with jumps in time and space. Despite its deliberately impenetrable plot, it's a visually dazzling and suprisingly visceral experience featuring one of the year's most underrated performances from the brilliant Amy Seimetz. As fascinating as it is confusing, Upstream Color is - if nothing else - thoroughly unique. 9. Europa Report Just when you thought the found footage genre was dead in the water, its final death rattle went and produced something actually worth watching. An off-beatly intelligent, occasionally very creepy little sci-fi movie, Europa Report follows a group of astronauts searching for intelligent life on Jupiter's fourth largest moon - at which point everything inevitably goes completely wrong. Though measured in build-up, it grows into an all out bat-shit insane crescendo that you'd begrudge in a lesser film, but here feels warranted. With some brilliant visual touches belying its minimal funding, Europa Report is an encouraging reflection of just how far low-budget cinema has come. 8. Stoker Chan-wook Park made his English language debut in bombastic style with Stoker, a deliciously overcooked, Southern-fried slice of Gothicism. Anyone familiar with Park's earlier work doubtless expected the gorgeous cinematography and marvelously trashy plotline, but who would have thought the shift from East to West would have been so natural? An off-beat tale of murder, incest and insanity, Stoker is an absolute blast to watch. Packed with style and eerily perfect haircuts, there is never a dull moment. 7. Before Midnight Before Sunrise and Before Sunset provided so much wonderful dialogue and subtle character development, that it's now a privilege just to spend more time in Jesse and Celin's company. The fact that Before Midnight also proves to be an utterly heart-wrenching chapter in the lives of two of cinema's best-loved characters is an added bonus. You can tell that Richard Linklater and his cast make this out of complete affection for the characters and their story, it's a pure and honest kind of filmmaking that's almost never seen in such high-profile releases. 6. Blackfish Very rarely do documentaries leave me genuinely enraged. Upset sometimes, often annoyed, but rarely enraged. Yet Blackfish's showcasing of the despicable treatment of the killer whales at Sea World, as well as the appalling the risk nonchalantly placed upon the water park's staff, left me borderline apoplectic. This is documentary filmmaking at its leanest and meanest, passing on its message with efficiency while never detracting from the tragedies it addresses -tragedies that until now had passed so many of us by. 5. Nebraska Alexander Payne won over the typically snooty Cannes Film Festival with a black and white, middle-American road movie that both mourned and celebrated the glories and travails of old age. Bruce Dern is absolutely fantastic as Woody, a semi-senile old coot dragging his exasperated son on a futile pan-state quest to claim a million dollars. The film strikes a perfect balance of melancholy and humour - it never wallows in the gloom of Woody's declining years, but neither does it trivialize them. A familiar setup is elevated by an absolutely wonderful cast of characters, particularly a perfect turn from June Squibb as Woody's long-suffering and marvelously brash wife. Nebraska is a quiet film, but it's that dignified, affectionate kind of quiet that seems just right. 4. The Act of Killing Horror films? No problem. When you stare the killer in the face, it's just an actor coated in corn syrup. But what happens when it's not an actor any more? Documentaries often have the capacity to address the absolutely horrifying, but not until now has one left me genuinely terrified. To see men who gladly murdered thousands of people parade their bloody achievements (and often find themselves in positions of power) in the real world is infinitely scarier than anything Freddie Kruger or Michael Myers could ever throw at me. Josh Oppenheimer has taken confrontational documentary making to a new level with The Act of Killing. This is a work of the utmost importance and the final revelation will be remembered as one of the most significant moments in modern cinema. 3. Filth The title says it all. John Baird's adaptation of the Irvine Welsh novel is bawdy, disgusting and occasionally oddly poignant. James McAvoy is brilliant as Bruce Robertson, Edinburgh's response to the Bad Lieutenant, a man at once hilariously despicable and terrifyingly unstable. When tasked with attaining a promotion he sees as essentially his divine right, Bruce finds himself swiftly pulled into a sea of debauchery, drug abuse and photocopied penises. Any film that makes Jim Broadbent dress up as a giant tape worm is alright by me. 2. Her Wonderful. Beautiful. Loving. Miraculous. Spike Jonze's bare-bones sci-fi romance is at once bizarre, familiar and utterly perfect. The director has somehow managed to make the tale of a man dating a computer programme into a love story simultaneously defined by and independent of our modern age. Boasting a brilliant cast, loving cinematography and a trailer that brought numerous unsuspecting cinema punters to tears, it's the kind of film that you don't see very often. Cherish every second of it. 1. It's Such a Beautiful Day Earlier this year Don Hertzfeldt, a wonderfully weird animator from Austin, Texas quietly released one of the greatest animated films of all time. Weighing in at just over an hour, It's Such a Beautiful Day chronicles one man's mental collapse through crude yet bizarrely gorgeous stop-motion stick-figure animation. Touching upon everything from the universal fear of death to a guy eating a paper clip, it makes for one of the most understatedly poignant experiences ever committed to celluloid. Narrated alternately with deadpan hilarity and a quietly beautiful intelligence, it's the perfect example of film taking the viewer to a higher level and leaving them weeping buckets in the process. A mute, expressionless stickman named Bill swiftly becomes one of the most nuanced characters to grace modern fiction, not bad going for a guy who doesn't even have knees. Tell us, which indie films did you fall in love with in 2013? Let us know in the comments section below.