Perhaps the biggest surprise of 2013 was the notoriously high quality and quantity of the films on release, which has pushed out of our Top 50 countdown recent works by such acclaimed directors as Baz Luhrmann, whose flamboyant take on The Great Gatsby opened Cannes to critical approval and audience acclaim; Carlos Reygadas, adopting full experimental mode in the challenging Post Tenebras Lux; Matteo Garrone, who followed up his acclaimed ‘Gomorrah’ with a satirical study of our obsession with celebrity in Reality; Andrzej Wajda’s epic account of the life of influential Polish Union leader Lech Walesa; Abas Kiarostami re-enacting the rules of romance in the witty Like Someone In Love or the mix of social realism with over the top goth in Basque genre master Alex De La Iglesia’s latest, Witching & Bitching.