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Best of 2013: Entertainment and culture

In this time when news is disseminated ever more quickly, we asked our critics to list the best of culture in 2013 in tweet form. Explore the lists here and click through for their tweets, as well as their more in-depth essays.

Movies: Turan | Sharkey | Olsen | TV: McNamara | Lloyd | Music: Roberts | Barton | Swed | Dance: Bleiberg | Art: Knight | Theater: McNulty | Architecture: Hawthorne | Video Games: Martens | Books: Ulin
Scene from
  1. "Captain Phillips"
  2. "American Hustle"
  3. "Frances Ha"
  4. "Fruitvale Station"
  5. "Gravity"
  6. "Her"
  7. "Inside Llewyn Davis"
  8. "The Invisible Woman"
  9. "Nebraska"
  10. "Short Term 12"
  11. "12 Years a Slave"
Scene from
  1. "Gravity"
  2. "American Hustle"
  3. "12 Years a Slave," "The Butler," "Fruitvale Station"
  4. "Her"
  5. "Blue is the Warmest Color"
  6. "Inside Llewyn Davis"
  7. "Nebraska," "Mud"
  8. "Saving Mr. Banks," "Philomena"
  9. "The Armstrong Lie," "Inequality for All," "The Unknown Known"
  10. "Frozen," "The Way Way Back"
Scene from
  1. "Spring Breakers"
  2. "Upstream Color"
  3. "Computer Chess"
  4. "Frances Ha"
  5. "Her"
  6. "Post Tenebras Lux"
  7. "After Tiller"
  8. "The Bling Ring"
  9. "Ain't Them Bodies Saints"
  10. "A Touch of Sin"
Scene from
  1. "Game of Thrones"
  2. "Orange is the New Black"
  3. "Breaking Bad"
  4. "The Good Wife"
  5. "Parks and Recreation"
  6. "Rectify"
  7. "Enlightened"
  8. "Borgen"
  9. "Last Tango in Halifax"
  10. "Homeland"
  11. "Foyle's War"
Scene from
  1. "The Returned"
  2. "Inside Amy Schumer"
  3. "Drunk History"
  4. "Top of the Lake"
  5. "Moone Boy," "Family Tree"
  6. "MasterChef Junior"
  7. "The Hollow Crown"
  8. "Incredible Crew"
  9. "Only the Young"
  10. "Please Like Me," "The Fosters"
A photo of Daft Punk.
  1. "Random Access Memories," Daft Punk
  2. "Spring Breakers" soundtrack
  3. "Doris," Earl Sweatshirt
  4. "Reflektor," Arcade Fire
  5. "12 Stories," Brandy Clark
  6. "Like Clockwork," Queens of the Stone Age
  7. "Once I Was an Eagle," Laura Marling
  8. "Acid Rap," Chance the Rapper
  9. "World Boogie Is Coming," North Mississippi All-Stars
  10. "Yeezus," Kanye West
A photo of Vijay Iver and Mike Ladd.
  1. "Holding It Down: The Veterans' Dreams Project," Vijay Iyer, Mike Ladd
  2. "Hagar's Song," Charles Lloyd, Jason Moran
  3. "Coin Coin Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile," Matana Roberts
  4. "Tootie's Tempo," Albert Heath
  5. "Chants," Craig Taborn Trio
  6. "Dysomnia," Dawn of Midi
  7. "Moment & the Message," Jonathan Finlayson
  8. "Womanchild," Cécile McLorin Salvant
  9. "Four Directions," Marc Cary Focus Trio
  10. "Unfold Ordinary Mind," Ben Goldberg
A photo of the Kronos Quartet.
  1. Kronos Quartet's 40th anniversary
  2. Walt Disney Concert Hall turns 10
  3. "The Perfect American," Phillip Glass
  4. Bavarian Opera stages Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle
  5. LA Phil's Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles go to London
  6. Esa-Pekka Salonen's L.A. reprise
  7. "Written on Skin," Royal Opera House
  8. "Stones in her Mouth," Lemi Ponifasio
  9. "Invisible Cities," Christopher Cerrone
  10. Christian Gerhaher
The Barak Ballet.
  1. The Barak Ballet's inaugural performance
  2. Mark Morris Dance Group at CSUN
  3. "Kollide"
  4. "Rite of Spring"
  5. "Chamber"
  6. "Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty"
  7. "Azimuth"
  8. "Stardust"
  9. "La Sonnambula"
  10. Festival Ballet Theatre gala
A photo of Charles Reiffel's
  1. Charles Reiffel
  2. "Sicily: Art and Invention Between Greece and Rome"
  3. Laura Owens and Lari Pittman
  4. James Turrell
  5. "War/Photography: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath"
  6. "Painting in Place"
  7. "Face to Face to Face: Flanders, Florence and Renaissance Painting"
  8. Forrest Bess
  9. "John Divola: As Far as I Could Get"
  10. Richard Diebenkorn: The Berkeley Years, 1953-1966
A scene from
  1. "American Buffalo"
  2. "Dying City"
  3. "Joe Turner's Come and Gone"
  4. "The Nether"
  5. "Prometheus Bound"
  6. "Pygmalion"
  7. "R II"
  8. "Rodney King"
  9. "Shun-kin"
  10. "Side Show"
  11. "The Whale"
A photo of the cover of
  1. "Building Seagram"
  2. Citibike
  3. Cornfield Arroyo Seco Specific Plan
  4. "Everything Loose Will Land"
  5. 4 World Trade Center
  6. "Her"
  7. "Invisible Cities"
  8. "Never Built Los Angeles"
  9. "Steve McQueen at Schaulager"
  10. Women in Design
A scene from
  1. "Gone Home"
  2. "Papers, Please"
  3. "Super Mario 3D World"
  4. "The Stanley Parable"
  5. "Fire Emblem: Awakening"
  6. "The Last of Us"
  7. "The Cave"
  8. "Tearaway"
  9. "Device 6"
  10. "Gunpoint"
A photo of author Jim Harrison, split with the cover of
  1. "Brown Dog: Novellas," Jim Harrison
  2. "Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography," Richard Rodriguez
  3. "The Faraway Nearby," Rebecca Solnit
  4. "The Flamethrowers," Rachel Kushner
  5. "The Great War," Joe Sacco
  6. "Harvest," Jim Crace
  7. "Never Built Los Angeles," Greg Goldin & Sam Lubell
  8. "A Tale for the Time Being," Ruth Ozeki
  9. "Tenth of December," George Saunders
  10. "White Girls," Hilton Als

READ THE TWEETS: Kenneth Turan explains his top picks

An unusually strong year with numerous candidates combined with a draconian ukase mandating that choices fit in Twitter format (O brave new world!) have led me to a number of extreme stratagems.

First, I am limiting my 10-best list to English-language films. Foreign-language standouts will be treated separately, and documentaries will be similarly served at a later date.

Second, my 10-best list will have 11 films on it. Everyone will just have to live with that. One personal tradition I am hewing to is that, with the exception of the No. 1 film, I will rank my choices alphabetically rather than by preference. This year my top choice is the Tom Hanks-starring "Captain Phillips," directed by Paul Greengrass.

Image credit: Hopper Stone / Columbia Pictures. Tweet Kenneth Turan at @KennethTuran

READ THE TWEETS: Betsy Sharkey explains her picks

Image credit: Warner Bros. Pictures. Tweet Betsy Sharkey at @BetsySharkey

READ THE TWEETS: Mark Olsen explains his picks

Image credit: Michael Muller / A24 Films. Tweet Mark Olsen at @IndieFocus

READ THE TWEETS: Mary McNamara explains her picks

Image credit: HBO. Tweet Mary McNamara at @marymacTV

READ THE TWEETS: Robert Lloyd explains his picks

Image credit: Jean Claude Lother / Sundance Channel. Tweet Robert Lloyd at @LATimesTVLloyd

READ THE TWEETS: Randall Roberts explains his picks

Image credit: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times. Tweet Randall Roberts at @LilEdit

READ THE TWEETS: Chris Barton explains his picks

Image credit: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times. Tweet Chris Barton at @chrisbarton

READ THE TWEETS: Mark Swed explains his picks

Image credit: Erik Kabik / Retna Digital. Tweet Mark Swed at @markswed

READ THE TWEETS: Laura Bleiberg explains her picks

2013 was a busy year in dance. It was difficult to catch everything. But of those performances I did see, these 10 made memories.

Image credit: Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times. Tweet Laura Bleiberg at @LauraBleiberg

READ THE TWEETS: Christopher Knight explains his picks

(Picks are in chronological order.)

Image credit: San Diego Museum of Art. Tweet Christopher Knight at @KnightLAT

READ THE TWEETS: Charles McNulty explains his picks

(Picks focus on Southern California performances.)

Image credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times. Tweet Charles McNulty at @CharlesMcNulty

READ THE TWEETS: Christopher Hawthorne explains his picks

Image credit: Yale University Press. Tweet Christopher Hawthorne at @HawthorneLAT

READ THE TWEETS: Todd Martens explains his picks

Image credit: The Full Bright Company. Tweet Todd Martens at @Toddmartens

READ THE TWEETS: David Ulin explains his picks

I've read so much in the last 12 months that shook me up, that moved me, it has been especially difficult to zero in on a set of favorites. And yet, that's the nature of a list such as this one. So here they are, alphabetically by title: my 10 favorite books of 2013.

Image credit: MCT / Wyatt McSpadden. Tweet David J. Ulin at @davidulin
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