The Best (and Worst) Movies of 2013... and Introducing: The Ghostie!

Happy New Year's Eve, everybody! Today it's time for one of the blogs I look forward to writing all year long: my personal wrap-up of the best and worst movies of the year. Of course, try as hard as I can, I don't see every movie, so it's not a totally comprehensive list (glaring omissions right now are The Wolf of Wall Street, Her, and August: Osage County; I might revise the list once I get to see them). Once again as in past installments, I won't be reviewing the movies, there will just be a brief word or two here and there and a link to a past blog post if I had given them a full review in the past. As always, this list is possible in large part due to the existence of the Flickster app on Facebook, on which I do mini-reviews of every movie I see all year long. So let's get the list rolling!

The Worst
Normally I just list the worst movies of the year, which I'm still going to do, but this year there's a new addition: The Ghostie Award! Last year, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance was my worst movie of the year, but more than that, I really think it's the worst movie I've ever seen. In honor of that, from now on the absolute worst movie of the year will get The Ghostie Award in recognition of its sheer sucktitude. And now, the list:

Spring Breakers
The Counselor
The Reluctant Fundamentalist
World War Z
A Good Day to Die Hard
Gangster Squad

And The Ghostie goes to...
Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

The award consists solely of Ghost Rider pissing fire on the movie.

Now, with that unpleasant business out of the way, the rest of the list!

The Great
Thor: The Dark World (comic book adaption of the year, in my opinion. Friggin' Loki...)
Gravity
Prisoners
Kick-Ass 2
The Wolverine
You're Next (the best horror movie I saw this year, even though my favorite was Insidious Chapter 2)
Pacific Rim
Much Ado About Nothing
This is the End (easily the funniest movie of the year)
Man of Steel
Star Trek Into Darkness
Iron Man 3

The Best
The Way Way Back
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
12 Years a Slave (frontrunner for Best Picture Oscar, methinks)
American Hustle (what a cast!)

The Best of the Best
Usually this is the category where you'll find my five-star movies of the year, from which I'll pick my personal best movie of the year, a tradition I've had since 2007 (that initial movie in 07 was Dan in Real Life; subsequent years' winners were: Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, 500 Days of Summer, Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, Warrior, and Silver Linings Playbook last year). This year I only gave one movie five stars; I'm not sure why, maybe I was pickier this year. Or crankier? Who knows. Anyway, that makes this movie without a doubt the next entry in my personal best of the year:

The Spectacular Now

I'm not at all sure why I never wrote a review of this movie as soon as I saw it, because I loved it instantly. I loved the story. I loved the main character's emotional arc, a lot of which resonated very deeply with me personally. I loved the acting, Shailene Woodley in particular. Easily my favorite movie of the year. I am, in fact, eagerly looking forward to seeing it for the second time over the next day or two when I watch it with my girlfriend.

So that's my list. What's yours?