Dislocation. When I consider the films that I loved the most in 2013, this is the word I think of. The theme of dislocation—uprootedness, geographical and emotional lostness, unstable notions of "home"'—was present in various forms in many films this year.

Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity is an awe-inspiring experience. With its never-seen-anything-like-this-before cinematography, its heart-pumping tension and its uncanny ability to convey the feeling of actually being in space, Gravity achieves something all too rare in cinema today: it utterly transports the audience. It draws us in so thoroughly (especially with the aid of 3D and IMAX screens) that for 90 minutes one truly does feel like they are floating and tumbling around in space. It's dizzying, intense, and wonderful.