Pablo Torroella has been part of the Boston Hassle & Boston Compass film section FILM FLAM since Day 1. You seeing his writing here on the Hassle (Film Flam, click above) and in the Compass every week and every month. Beyond that he has been a great help to the Hassle, volunteering his time beyond just writing on a regular basis. This man knows his film!

10. Trance

While it’s a caper film that’s often times too complex for its own good, director Danny Boyle’s energy and kinetic visual style will leave you enthralled.

9. Captain Phillips

Yes, we know what happens at the end. But, the suspense, tension and Hanks’ performance is so damn captivating, I just might forgive him for producing Forest Gump.

8. Stoker

A sordid, Gothic family mystery from a master Korean director, almost every frame is shot beautifully and thoughtfully. Even if the melodrama goes overboard at times, the final result is never boring.

7. Rust and Bone

Marion Cotillard takes a break from Hollywood blockbusters and returns to her native tongue, the result being a low-key romance which draws out empathy for seriously flawed protagonists.

6. The World’s End

Whenever Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright get together, bet on it being good. They don’t disappoint, The World’s End was the most entertaining, hysterical and all around best time I had at the movies this summer.

5. Inside Llewyn Davis

An immaculately made period piece about what the aspiring artist in all of us will likely go through.

4. The Hunt

Mads Mikkelson delivers in spades as a kindergarten teacher wrongfully accused of pedophilia in this intense drama from Denmark. Depicting mass hysteria from the victim’s side, the film does an excellent job of revealing how we ourselves would likely be the ones throwing stones.

3. Dallas Buyers Club

In one of the most unfathomable career twists of all time, Matthew McConaughey, the star of Sufer, Dude, along with Jared Leto, demonstrates the best acting of 2013 as a macho, homophobic AIDS ridden cowboy befriending the very people he despises in the name of business.

2. 12 Years a Slave

Believe the hype and see the movie. Director Steve McQueen nails it yet again in his grim depiction of the antebellum South that ends with a humanistic finale that dares you not to get choked up.

1. Amour

No other movie this year, or the past few for that matter, had me leaving the theater unable to speak. And it’s about two old people living in an apartment.