Top 10 Best Movies
10. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug9. 12 Years a Slave
Southern whites of the pre-Civil War plantation aristocracy believed themselves God’s chosen, and their slaves inhuman. As shown in this searing film document — an anti-Gone With the Wind — the masters were the madmen, inferior but in charge. The first two feature films of Anglo-African director Steve McQueen, whose first two features, Hunger and Shame, proved him a picture poet of physical degradation. Here, working from John Ridley’s script based on the 1853 memoir of Solomon Northup, a free black New Yorker abducted into servitude, McQueen immerses viewers in the magnolia-scented hell to which Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) was exiled. You will recoil at every punishment, feel each slur, with an immediacy that makes the long-ago, “peculiar institution” of slavery sting like a whiplash. To this hot content, McQueen applies cool imagery. The movie has the eerie impact of a museum exhibit; it is a diorama of atrocity, populated by varying forms of monstrosity (Michael Fassbender and Benedict Cumberbatch as the main slave-owners) and benevolence (Brad Pitt as a Canadian abolitionist), and humanized by the smoldering restraint of Ejiofor’s performance.
8. The Act of Killing
7. Frozen
6. Furious 6
Planes, trains and automobiles collide spectacularly in the fourth Fast & Furious movie to be directed by Justin Lin and written by Chris Morgan. In a reunion of Vin Diesel, the late Paul Walker, their gang and girlfriends and DEA agent Dwayne Johnson, Furious 6 vrooms from Tenerife to Moscow to London, with astounding stunts in each location, and hitches a ride on a military cargo plane for the final brawl. Where Fast Five heralded the New Hollywood’s exaltation of sensational action over subtle character, Furious 6 revs everything up, purifies and improves it to a level even cooler and more aerodynamically delirious than its predecessor, if such a thing is even mathematically possible. This adrenaline-stoking series is addictive, for its chases, crashes, crushes — and for its poetic limning of the closest camaraderie many men can ever know: with their cars. Owning one, some auto-holic says, is like a marriage. “Yeah,” another guy replies, “but when you break up they don’t take half your shit.”
5. The Grandmaster
4. her
3. American Hustle
2. The Great Beauty / La grande bellezza
1. Gravity
The top-searched news stories of 2013: Trials, bombings, Obamacare
After a blistering election, 2013 should've been a return to calm. Instead, hot-button issues roiled online, from health care to privacy, race relations to gun control. Overseas, hostilities demanded attention but two newcomers brought welcome distractions. Despite deep divisions among Americans, a domestic bombing brought unity. Scroll down to No. 1. (David L. Ryan/Boston Globe/Getty Images)
11. Aaron Hernandez arrest
New England Patriots' tight end Aaron Hernandez traded in his No. 81 jersey for handcuffs and shackles as inmate No. 174954. Hernandez had a storied high school and college career and looked set to continue that in the NFL until his arrest in the death of friend Odin Lloyd. Accusations of gun-running and drug use might emerge in the trial, set for 2015. (George Rizer/Boston Globe/Getty)
10. Paula Deen lawsuit
Paula Deen's jovial Southern charm earned the celebrity chef a following that was tested by revelations in a racial discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a former employee against Deen and her brother. They settled in August, but not before the Food Network dropped Deen, after a deposition revealed she implicitly condoned racially charged language.
9. Papal transition
Mario Jorge Bergoglio, a former papal candidate, found himself in the Holy See when Pope Benedict opted for a centuries-first retirement package. His homage to St. Francis of Assisi and humility endeared Pope Francis to millions. He won over more liberal spectators with his urgings to relieve poverty rather than decry homosexuality, premarital sex and abortion. (Osservatore Romano/Reuters)
8. North Korea missile threats
Nearly half of North Korea's population lives in poverty. Its former leader ill-treated his own people and blustered plenty to outsiders, but the country's wretched backwardness seemed unlikely to produce any weaponry — until this year. Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea defied sanctions to launch nuclear tests, missiles and threats of war. (Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)
7. Syria civil war
Fueled by the Arab Spring, Syrian protests have devolved into a brutal civil war with more than 2 million refugees and 120,000 others killed in a country of 21.1 million. The use of sarin, whose prohibition Syria had agreed to in 1993, nearly brought direct U.S. action. Peace talks have been scheduled for January 2014. (Khalil Ashawi/Reuters)
6. George Zimmerman trial {Personally I would have put this as # 1 or 2}
The July 13 acquittal of neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, charged with second-degree murder in the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, did little to resolve America's hot-button issues. The trial inflamed issues that run magma-deep in the nation's foundation, among them race, crime, territorial defense and justice. (John Minchillo/AP)
5. Royal baby birth
Britain topped a 30-year high in births in 2012. The Duchess of Cambridge did her part to maintain the momentum this year: Her pregnancy injected an estimated $347 million to an otherwise sluggish economy and taught impatient royalists that babies come when they come. The wee babe carries a big title: His Royal Highness Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge. (John Stillwell/Pool/Getty Images)
4. Boston Marathon bombing
On Patriots' Day, as more than 23,000 runners wended through historic Boston, two brothers allegedly set off a homemade bomb near the finish line, killing three and injuring 264. They picked the wrong city. Within days, police tracked down the Tsarnaev brothers, one of whom died in the chaos. The survivor, in solitary confinement, faces trial in 2014. (David L. Ryan/Boston Globe/Getty)
3. Obamacare (Affordable Care Act)
Americans pay more for health care than other industrialized countries, yet they are afforded less care because of costs. Millions also lack health insurance. Obamacare, though, has been a lightning rod since the president signed the executive order in 2010. The ACA survived a Supreme Court challenge and a presidential election, but it buckled under technical glitches. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
2.Three Women Freed After Decade Captivity
Three women missing for a decade are freed from a Cleveland house where they had been held captive. Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus escaped from the house May 6 when Berry pushed out a door and called for help. Their captor, Ariel Castro, was arrested, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. A month into his sentence, he hanged himself in his cell. The three women have announced they are working on book projects.
1. Jodi Arias trial
Unlike the George Zimmerman trial, the criminal case of Jodi Arias was more “classic” courtroom drama — albeit played out on social media and live-streamed. The gory stock and trade of HLN, the trial focused on Arias as a possible sociopath who killed her boyfriend in a jealous rage or an abused woman with a tenuous hold on reality. (Rob Schumacher/Arizona Republic/Reuters)
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