Home Featured Content

Jonathan R. Lack’s 20 Next-Best Films Of 2013

As I said in my Top 10 Films of 2013 article, 2013 was more than just a great year for films – it was a year filled with movies that were themselves filled with countless cinematic riches, a year made deep by both the number of quality titles, and the boundless depth of the titles themselves. Narrowing the best of the best down to just 10 was no easy task – though it resulted in a Top 10 comprised solely of masterpieces, I feel – and in making the list, I was left with a large number of leftovers I knew merited discussion.

Screen Shot 2013-12-22 at 8.57.29 PM

Recommended Videos

As I said in my Top 10 Films of 2013 article, 2013 was more than just a great year for films – it was a year filled with movies that were themselves filled with countless cinematic riches, a year made deep by both the number of quality titles, and the boundless depth of the titles themselves. Narrowing the best of the best down to just 10 was no easy task – though it resulted in a Top 10 comprised solely of masterpieces, I feel – and in making the list, I was left with a large number of leftovers I knew merited discussion.

So here we are with another list, this time chronicling the 20 Next-Best Films of 2013. These are the 20 movies that were in contention for my Top 10 list and did not make the cut, but I still feel are deserving of mention as some of the best 2013 had to offer. Many of these movies are ones that I know, in a less packed year, would have made my Top 10. Hell – I could have made a Top 10 based only on titles from this list, and it still would have been one of the best Top 10’s I had ever compiled. These are 20 terrific movies, and as with the main 10 list, I cannot recommend any of them highly enough.

Because ranking the Top 10 list was hard enough, and because ranking art in general is a silly and reductive task, I have elected to leave this list unranked, sorting the titles alphabetically. There are movies on here I like better than others, but overall, I feel the same affection for all these films, and that is reflected in the alphabetical organization.

Without further ado, here are the 20 Next-Best Films of 2013…

Begin reading on the next page…