It’s hard to imagine a movie will look into this heart of American darkness with more meticulous an eye anytime soon, McQueen latching onto Northup’s story refusing to allow it to lapse into melodrama or treacle. His filmmaking acumen is beyond reproach, the technical aspects never overshadowing the human story every piece augmenting the next allowing the story to bloom and blossom as it likely wouldn’t have otherwise.

All is Lost is a triumph, no more, and certainly no less, and my gut feeling is that viewers who take up the challenge to see it in a theatre will likely feel the same.

Captain Phillips doesn’t present new ideas so much as it puts a mirror to the best and the worst of human nature, allowing the viewer to make of that glimpse what they will, the resultant life lessons striking in their universality.

Cretton understands his story and his characters in ways that are inspiring, never once belittling them or taking them for granted. The final moments of Short Term 12 are as refreshingly invigorating as any I could have dreamt of, and as such the filmmaker’s latest effort is cause for complete and total celebration.

Before Midnight, like its predecessors, is a masterpiece, and I have a feeling I’ll be holding it near and dear to my heart for the rest of my life.

It’s ebullient and joyous but still laced without the proper amount of pain and pathos, everything working in incandescent tandem with its various pieces in order to make the movie come alive to its own free-flowing beat. Make no mistake, Frances Ha is a stunning achievement, an exercise in pure cinema that’s as rare as it is spectacular.

In the House is an incredible work of art that remembers the greatest stories start from the most blasé of scenarios, and that even when the ending to the tale borders on perfection the ultimate destination a masterpiece is headed for is for future generations to determine its value and worth for themselves.

Side Effects is the first great movie of 2013.

By the time the attack commenced my pulse was racing to such a degree I was worried I might be having a heart attack. Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty is a triumph. See it at once.