Maybe it's not surprising that in an era when there are more ways than ever to consume cinema privately, there's a theme of isolation running through so many notable movies. Some of this year's most epic film experiences featured casts not in the thousands, but in the single digits, most drastically in the Odyssean triumvirate of "All Is Lost," "Gravity," and "Captain Phillips."

Humans, alone in an extreme, dangerous environment, engaged in solo struggles to ward off oblivion — it's about as basic as storytelling gets, and it's a credit to filmmakers such as J.C. Chandor, Alfonso Cuarón, and Paul Greengrass that their films feel both timeless and fresh.

Even in the middle of crowds, some of 2013's most memorable characters were irredeemably alone: Cate Blanchett in "Blue Jasmine," Oscar Isaac in "Inside Llewyn Davis," Leonardo DiCaprio in "The Wolf of Wall Street" and Matthew McConaughey in "Dallas Buyers Club" all play people trying (to some degree, at least) to connect with those around them, and generally failing. All this existential separation might be a symbol of our socially fractured, disconnected modern age, but it's also something that people have been wrestling with for millennia. It's one reason to take comfort in the fact that, despite formidable competition, movie theaters aren't going the way of vaudeville just yet. In their darkness, absorbed in their images, we can still be alone together.

What follows is a list of the 10 best films I saw in 2013, as it seemed in late December (A few award-season hopefuls, including "August: Osage County," "Lone Survivor," "Her," and "Labor Day," are coming our way in January.) This was my first full year focused full-time as a film critic, which only made the winnowing process that much more difficult (far fewer "didn't see it" excuses). But it reinforced, even more than usual, my impatience with those who complain there's nothing good out there. Sometimes, maybe most times, you've got to look past the TV ads and glossy covers to find the greatness, but with an Internet's worth of information and opinion to guide you, there's really no reason to complain.

Of course, there are oceans of dreck, which always makes the prospect of a "Year's Worst" list seem pointless to me. No matter how many "Lone Ranger"s or "Pain and Gain"s crop up, there's always something more inept out there (trust me on this: I used to own a video store.). I'd rather light a candle than curse your darkness, so:
10. "A Hijacking" There were two films this year about Somali pirates holding a cargo ship for ransom, both almost equally excellent. But you already know about "Captain Phillips," so this spot goes to the Danish film from some of the folks behind the excellent TV series "Borgen." It's a more subdued treatment, focusing on the negotiations between the shipping company and the pirates as much as the intense on-board survival drama.

9. "The Kings of Summer" This was a great year for coming-of-age films, in which movies like "The Way Way Back" and "The Spectacular Now" took unique, intelligent perspectives on growing up. In "Kings," three teen boys run away from home and build a place to live in a nearby forest. They live, they laugh, they learn — it all sounds trite until you watch the movie and get caught up in the marvelous performances and spot-on recreation of the last wistful days of youth.

8. "Blue Jasmine" Cate Blanchett might as well clear some mantle space now, as she delivers one of the great performances of this or any other year in Woody Allen's insightful, acerbic chronicle of a woman whose psyche has fallen and can't quite get up. Jasmine, bereft of her wealthy New York life, shows up on her working-class sister's San Francisco doorstep, setting in motion a series of events that involve a typically great supporting cast: Sally Hawkins, Alec Baldwin, and, astonishingly, Andrew Dice Clay.

7. "The Wolf of Wall Street" Martin Scorsese tackles a different sort of organized crime in this epic joyride through the cocaine-fueled rise and fall of a crooked stockbroker (Leonardo DiCaprio) in the 1980s and '90s. An appropriately excessive movie about inappropriate excesses, it's Scorsese's most energetic (and raunchiest) film in years, and features fine supporting work from Jonah Hill, who continues to surprise and impress.

6. "Wadjda" It's astonishing that this film even exists. Who could have predicted that the first feature film to come out of Saudi Arabia, a theocracy where women have only recently had the right to drive cars, would be a female-directed tale of fierce girl power? 10-year-old Wadjda (Waad Mohammed) wants to buy a bicycle so she can beat the annoying neighbor kid in a race. On that simple tale hangs a film that should be seen by anyone who is or has a daughter.

5. "All Is Lost" A man, a boat, the sea. Stir well, add a healthy dose of existential struggle, and you've got this spectacular, almost dialogue free tale of a nameless sailor (77-year-old Robert Redford, in his best performance in years) doing his darnedest to survive one mishap after another in the Indian Ocean. Director J.C. Chandor, with only his second feature, establishes himself as a filmmaking force.

4. "Gravity" With twice the cast of "All Is Lost" (thrice if you count Ed Harris' disembodied voice), Alfonso Cuaron's eye-popping film has two astronauts (George Clooney and Sandra Bullock) fighting for their lives in orbit when their spacecraft is destroyed by debris. Stunningly realized in 3-D, and relentless in its vertiginous terror, "Gravity" is this year's big-screen must-see. (Pro tip: It'll be showing at OMSI's new Empirical Theater beginning Dec. 26. I know I'll be there.)

3. "Upstream Color" It had been nine years since writer-director Shane Carruth's "Primer" blew minds with its low-budget time-travel tale, and his belated follow-up did not disappoint. With a bizarre story that's part puzzle and part poem that begins with a woman (Amy Seimetz) being kidnapped and implanted with a parasite, and ends in a pigsty-set rapture of sorts, "Upstream Color" isn't for all tastes, but for those willing to jump into the deep end of cinematic mysticism, it doesn't get much better.

2. "The Act of Killing" The year's best documentary is also the hardest to believe. Director Joshua Oppenheimer managed to convince several admitted perpetrators from Indonesia's 1965 politically-motivated genocide to re-enact their crimes in a variety of movie genres. The result is a horrific, surprisingly human, and undeniably important film about how history is written and how imagination can help or hinder coming to terms with guilt. It's astonishing.

1. "Inside Llewyn Davis" Joel and Ethan Coen are the most consistently great filmmakers in the world today, and their latest is one of their greatest. Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) is a folk singer in 1961 New York, and kind of a jerk. Whether that's intrinsic to his personality, or because of the circumstances behind his recent musical breakup, who can say? But as he couch-surfs around Manhattan, treating everyone he meets with contempt, the Coens (and Isaac) let us see Davis' Sisyphean quest for perfection in an imperfect world, one to which all true artists can relate.

Honorable mentions: "Before Midnight," "Berberian Sound Studio," "Blackfish," "Captain Phillips," "Computer Chess," "The Dallas Buyers Club," "The Gatekeepers," "Museum Hours," "Philomena," "Side Effects," "The Spectacular Now," "Spring Breakers," "Star Trek Into Darkness," "Stories We Tell," "This Is the End"