A gem from director Destin Cretton, featuring one of the best performances of the year by Brie Larson.

4. The Wolf of Wall Street

Fast, funny, and remarkably filthy, Scorsese’s new film is an irresistible display of cinematic technique, Goodfellas retold as farce.

5. Captain Phillips

Paul Greengrass’s gripping account of the taking of a container ship by Somali pirates benefits from exceptional turns by old (Tom Hanks) and new (Barkhad Abdi) alike.

6. Gravity

Alfonso Cuaron’s exercise in spatial geometry is the first film since Titanic that has seemed to me a genuine evolutionary leap in filmmaking technology (sorry, Avatar). Had the script been sharper, it would have been at or near the very top of the list.

7. All Is Lost

Writer/director J. C. Chandor (whose first feature, Margin Call, was among the best films of 2011) offers an object lesson in the virtue of understatement in this one-character drama featuring Robert Redford. If only Chandor had penned Gravity …

8. Dallas Buyers Club

Where has this Matthew McConaughey been hiding all these years, and what finally brought him to the surface? The erstwhile naked bongo drummer comes out of nowhere with one of the best—arguably the best—performance of the year.

9. American Hustle

How can a movie be so good, yet nonetheless be mildly disappointing? David O. Russell’s cast shines in this delirious chronicle of the Abscam scandal, but the director occasionally loses his grip on the narrative thread.

10. Rush

Yet another of the year’s mid-budget wonders: Ron Howard’s direction dispenses with the usual blockbuster bells and whistles, and actor Daniel Bruehl (Inglourious Basterds) delivers a revelatory performance.

11. Enough Said

For all her Emmys and her decades of cultural ubiquity, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss is only now coming fully into her own. Under Nicole Holofcener’s direction, she and James Gandolfini—playing a character truer to his real self than perhaps any other of his career—deliver the most touching romantic comedy of the year.

12. Inside Llewyn Davis

How is it that this film—a superior Coens project, if not quite an at-their-peak Coens project—is so low on the list? Can we put a few of this year’s movies in the bank for next year? Also: Welcome to the big time, Oscar Isaac. You’ve earned it.

13. The Way, Way Back

Bold, innovative, unexpected? No, no, and no. But I couldn’t leave this mid-summer charmer off the list. Come for Sam Rockwell, stay for Allison Janney, Steve Carell, Maya Rudolph …

Fox Searchlight

Honorable Mentions: Before Midnight, Frozen, Fruitvale Station, Mud, Nebraska, Philomena, The Place Beyond the Pines, Prisoners, Saving Mr. Banks, Side Effects, Stories We Tell, We Are What We Are, The World’s End

And the rest...

Best Performance by a Voice With No Body: Scarlett Johansson, Her

Best Performance by a Body With (Almost) No Voice: Robert Redford, All Is Lost