As 2013 winds down, most cinephiles are scrambling to get their hands on the titles that may have slipped under the radar or simply gone unseen. With the advent on various video-on-demand services, it’s thankfully easier than ever to play catch-up and to assist with the process, we’re bringing you a rundown of the best titles of the year.
Curated from Best Films of 2013 So Far list we published for the first eight months of the year, it also includes films we’ve enjoyed the past few months and some we’ve recently caught up on. This is far from a be-all and end-all list (that will come at the end of the year), but rather, something that will hopefully be a helpful tool for readers to have a chance to seek out notable, perhaps underseen, titles from the year.
Note that we’re going by U.S. theatrical releases and the streaming services are limited to solely to the territory as well. Happy streaming and if you want to stay up-to-date with new titles being made available, check out our weekly column — in the meantime, see our rundown below, which will be updated as new titles hit streaming services, so make sure to bookmark. One can also click titles to see our official reviews.
20 Feet From Stardom (Morgan Neville)// Amazon – iTunes – Google
Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (David Lowery) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
The Angels’ Share (Ken Loach) // Netflix – iTunes – Google
At Any Price (Ramin Bahrani) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
The Attack (Ziad Doueiri) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Bastards (Claire Denis) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Before Midnight (Richard Linklater) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Behind the Candelabra (Steven Soderbergh) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Blackfish (Gabriela Cowperthwaite) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
The Bling Ring (Sofia Coppola) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Blue Caprice (Alexandre Moors) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Call Me Kuchu (Zouhali-Worrall, Wright) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
Computer Chess (Andrew Bujalski) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
Cutie And The Boxer (Zachary Heinzerling) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Drinking Buddies (Joe Swanberg) // Amazon – iTunes
Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
Gimme The Loot (Adam Leon) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
The Grandmaster (Wong Kar-wai) // iTunes – Google
The Great Gatsby (Baz Luhrmann) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Hannah Arendt (Margarethe von Trotta) // Amazon – iTunes
A Hijacking (Tobias Lindholm) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
The Hunt (Thomas Vinterberg) // Google
The Kings of Summer (Jordan Vogt-Roberts) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Kon-Tiki (Joachim Rønning, Espen Sandberg) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Verena Paravel) // iTunes
Lore (Cate Shortland) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
Mr. Nobody (Jaco Van Dormael) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Mud (Jeff Nichols) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Muscle Shoals (Greg Camalier) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Museum Hours (Jem Cohen) // iTunes
No (Pablo Larraín) // Amazon – Google
Only God Forgives (Nicolas Winding Refn) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
Pain & Gain (Michael Bay) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Passion (Brian De Palma) // Amazon – Google
The Place Beyond the Pines (Derek Cianfrance) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Post Tenebras Lux (Carlos Reygadas) // Netflix – Amazon – Google
Prince Avalanche (David Gordon Green) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Prisoners (Denis Villeneuve) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Room 237 (Rodney Ascher) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
This is the End (Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Side Effects (Steven Soderbergh) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
Sightseers (Ben Wheatley) // Amazon – iTunes
Simon Killer (Antonio Campos) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
Something in the Air (Olivier Assayas) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
The Spectacular Now (James Ponsoldt) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Stoker (Park Chan-wook) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
This Is Martin Bonner (Chad Hartigan) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
To the Wonder (Terrence Malick) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
The World’s End (Edgar Wright) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Upstream Color (Shane Carruth) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
Una Noche (Lucy Mulloy) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
We Steal Secrets (Alex Gibney) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
What Richard Did (Lenny Abrahamson) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
The Way Way Back (Nat Faxon, Jim Rash) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet (Alain Resnais) // Netflix
Have any suggestions? Comment below or tweet @TheFilmStage to submit titles for consideration.