Variety calls the feature where its three chief critics, Justin Chang, Peter Debruge and Scott Foundas, weigh in on the same film “The Threeview,” so perhaps we’ll call ending up on all three of their Top 10 lists The Trifecta. It’s a feat that only two films — Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis and Spike Jonze’s Her — managed this year, although there are plenty of two-time overlaps and more when you get into the honorable mention. Debruge’s is the most distinctive, with the hitherto uncited Our Children, Neighboring Sounds and Mr. Nobody, the last of which he calls a “paradoxically messy and meticulous sci-fi undertaking.” As ever, what they picked is less interesting than why: Chang calls The World’s End “nothing less than a rebel yell on behalf of our proud, foolish and inglorious species,” while Foundas says “judging a movie like Gravity on its story is a bit like judging a Playboy by the value of its articles.”
Justin Chang’s Best Films of 2013
1. Before Midnight
2. Gravity
3. Stories We Tell
4. Blue Is the Warmest Color
5. The World’s End
6. Inside Llewyn Davis
7. The Grandmaster
8. American Hustle
9. Her
10. The Conjuring
Scott Foundas’ Best Films of 2013
1. Her
2. The Wind Rises
3. American Hustle
4. Blue Is the Warmest Color
5. Inside Llewyn Davis
6. At Berkeley
7. Nebraska
8. 12 Years a Slave
9. Gravity
10. The Counselor
Peter Debruge’s Best Films of 2013
1. Inside Llewyn Davis
2. 12 Years a Slave
3. Stories We Tell
4. Wadjda
5. Her
6. Our Children
7. Short Term 12
8. Dallas Buyers Club
9. Neighboring Sounds
10. Mr. Nobody
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