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I’ve begun the process of looking back at the year of film in five-year increments. Now, I am a decade into the past. The year is 2013. Movies are thriving. Streaming services haven’t overtaken things, and the pandemic was years away. Of course, we were still in a similar universe of film, in terms of sequels and comic book movies and such. Let’s see exactly how 2013 played out in the world of movies.
The box office is indeed rife with sequels. The films that rank two through seven are all sequels, movies like Iron Man 3 and Monsters University. At 10, there is Thor: The Dark World. Among the non-sequels there is Man of Steel, which is of course a Superman movie, and thus was trading on that.
Two movies do stand out, though. One is the top movie of the year in the worldwide box office, and that’s Frozen. Now, technically that is an adaptation, but not of a story that anybody really knows. We can count that as an original. It really struck a chord with audiences, especially kids. Disney is a brand, in and of itself, which helped Frozen become a hit I’m sure. Plus, “Let It Go,” one of the all-time Disney songs now.
Then, there’s Gravity. This is a standout film in the modern movie landscape. It was a huge hit and a critical darling. The film is also an original story entirely. However, it did owe some of its success, box office wise, to the rise of 3D. Gravity was built for 3D.
Alfonso Cuaron won basically every directing award out there for Gravity, and fairly so. It was an incredible tour de force. The movie didn’t win Best Picture, though. That went to 12 Years a Slave. It hasn’t really stood the test of time. Nobody really talks about it as a great movie. Even at the time, it felt like a lot of people were reticent to criticize a film about something so grim, and a true story at that. I remember hearing a lot of talk about how unpleasant people found it to watch, but they would still figure out ways to say nice things about it. If they were to redo this vote, my guess is Gravity would win Best Picture. Also, I wonder If Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto would win for Dallas Buyer’s Club again. Probably not.
The other notable critical darling movie of 2013 is The Wolf of Wall Street, which was polarizing at the time, but people have come to appreciate it more with some distance. What really stood out to me, though, was how many movies got 3D re-releases in 2013. We’re talking Jurassic Park, Mortal Kombat, and even The Wizard of Oz. That really makes 2013 feel like a moment in time. A moment of cash grabbing through hasty 3D reconfigurations.
