Playground Picks: The Best Movies of 2013

Here's what stuck with our critics.

Top Five Movies - Rima Sabina Aouf, Editor-in-Chief

Silver Linings Playbook Forget American Hustle; this January release was David O'Russell's big 2013 success. Not only is it funny and moving, it's a sensitive, generous portrayal of mental illness that means a lot to many people.

The Act of Killing Your jaw just drops further and further with every minute of this documentary about the 1965-66 Indonesian genocide and the ongoing exaltation of its perpetrators.

Upstream Color There is no filmmaker quite like Shane Carruth, and there is no forgetting the experience of watching Upstream Color, wondering what the fuck is happening and then letting go and running with it.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire It kicks so much arse.

Short Term 12 The best Boxing Day release you've probably never heard of, Short Term 12 will make you feel all the feelings.

Top Five Movies - Tom Glasson, Writer

We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks A surprisingly sensitive inquiry into Wikileaks and the two men responsible for its overnight infamy. Complex and impressively even-handed, it's also far more compelling than last month's The Fifth Estate.

Zero Dark Thirty People often forget (or simply don't realise) that Kathryn Bigelow directed Point Break. Fact is, she's arguably the best director of action right now, and Zero Dark Thirty was a sublime example, combining heart-pumping combat with deeply personal drama.

Red Obsession Rightly described as a 'wine thriller', this documentary offered an enthralling, passionate and consistently amusing perspective on the extraordinary price boom of 2011, followed by its equally dramatic crash and China's growing obsession for the iconic Bordeaux reds.

Moonrise Kingdom Perhaps the darkest of the Wes Anderson oeuvre, Moonrise Kingdom is also somehow his most romantic. Quirky, whimsical and wickedly funny, it's a delightful tale of young, forbidden love.

The Gatekeepers Like the Shin Bet agents it scrutinised, this gripping documentary grabbed you by the throat from the opening scene and never let go. A remarkable and candid examination of one of the world's most secretive organisations.

Top Five Movies - Lauren Carroll Harris, Writer

Mystery Road Both bleakly beautiful and staunchly optimistic, and with an Indigenous cultural perspective that's rarely represented in the mainstream, I'm convinced that we'll look back on it as something important in Australian cinema.

The Great Gatsby Luhrmann’s 21st-century bastard iteration of the sham-American-dream classic made me cry like a small child. I don't care how uncool it is to admit — this was the first version that made me feel the true tragedy of Gatsby (a perfect, shiny-eyed Leo DiCaprio) and Daisy's predicament.

Behind the Candelabra Steven Soderbergh went beyond the cliches of both a 'gay film' and a biopic to deliver touching, if typically unsentimental, twin portraits: one, a dysfunctional, tragic relationship, and the other, a destructive American addiction to consumerism and celebrity.

The Act of Killing A film that changed the documentary genre and terrified and transfixed audiences more than any fiction could. If it helps the victims of Indonesian war crimes achieve justice, it may even be one of the most effective documentaries.

Top of the Lake Challenging, gorgeously shot, with difficult characters and deft observations of crimes against women and the relationship between childhood and adulthood — it had everything I expect from great film. It counts.

*Tom and Rima would like to go on record with the actual no.1 film they've seen this year, Spike Jonze's Her. Unfortunately, it's not out till January 16. Look for it then, and on our 2014 lists.