5. Sandra Bullock's Impeccable Performance
I'm not one to root for Sandra Bullock. I always thought of her as nothing more than glorified chick-flick material. I just wasn't impressed by her track record, even though I consider her a fine actress. And with 2013's The Heat, I was convinced that she was all but great. But it's the fourth quarter of 2013 that turned everything around; her lead role as Dr. Ryan Stone in Gravity is something that will be talked about for months, and possibly years, to come. Her stellar performance as a six month graduate in the space training program literally feels legit throughout the whole film; the way she sells us on her character's humanity and knowledge of the situation, despite her basically being a rookie, honestly feels like method acting. Her interactions with Clooney's character, Matt Kowalski, feel like genuine emotions of someone fighting to stay alive side by side with the only person that could help you get out of a situation as dire as theirs. And when the bad moments happen (and they are in no short supply), Bullock nails that feeling of panic and dread flawlessly. We feel her pain as she resonates all of that emotion unto us as the audience, and it works at such a high level that only very few actors of a certain caliber would be able to pull off. It's in the humanity and mortality of Dr. Ryan Stone where we see Sandra Bullock shine the most. When reflecting on her dead daughter, or discussing memories of driving to Kowalski, we see she's someone who is not only surviving the gravity of space, but the gravity of her own moral dilemmas (more on that later). Gravity proved Bullock's salt to me; she proved that she's not only the best choice for roles such as these, but an actress that can pull that acting sleeper hit and really deliver something that connects deep inside us, wanting nothing more than to see her survive and live on.