With the Robert De Niro/Michelle Pfeiffer mob comedy The Family set to debut, what better time would there be to take stock of the year in cinematic families? Who was making it happen? Whose dysfunction shone through?
Best Family to Ride With: Dom Torrettos criminal organization has been called a "family" ever since the first Fast and the Furious movie. With Fast 6 as the best film of the series, that family has expanded to include all corners of the Fast franchise, and weve spent enough time with them that their interpersonal concerns (Lettys alive?!?! Han and Gisele want to retire to Tokyo?) are just as compelling as the car chases now.
Worst Family to Brunch With: The family featured in The Heat would probably give you a fist to the throat for even using the word "brunch," actually. Its breakfast, and breakfast is an Eggo waffle and brown-and-serve sausages, and if youre suddenly too good for Eggos and brown-and-serve waffles, Miss Federal Bureau of A Stick Up Your Ass, you can get you can get the hell out.
Best Family to Play Name That Tune With: If youve seen 20 Feet From Stardom, youre probably already in love with the Waters family, who spend their time in the movie, sitting around the dining room table, singing hooks at each other like its a game they play even when the cameras arent on. Which it very may well be.
Worst Family Prescription Drug Plan: The Adderall-popping Moore family in The Bling Ring features mom Laurie, who keeps the family on a strict regimen of The Secret affirmations, and daughters Nicki and Sam, whose boring lives of auditions and planning to be President one day are easily left behind in favor of super fun crime sprees.
Most Expensive Family Squabbles: Dont let anyone tell you that the Duchannes family of witches in Beautiful Creatures doesnt know how to argue in style. A simple tiff between cousins Lena and Ridley often devolves into a table-spinning, wine-spilling, mortals-scarring affair, and thats just for a regular weeknight dinner.
Worst Family Support System: The sisters played by Lake Bell and Michaela Watkins in In a World... are actually pretty great. Theyre supportive, they really seem to enjoy spending time with one another, and theyll go out of their way to help each other. Too bad their dad, played by Fred Melamed, is such an egotistical, insensitive, often actively malicious monster.
Best Family Reunion to Attend: Sarah Polleys family in Stories We Tell her brothers and sisters and father, not to mention new family discovered through the films revelations all add up to a family who sound like theyre a lot of fun to be around. Good storytellers, willing to give each other crap, smart and worldly and movie fans. Watching each of them interact with Sarah through her camera is one of the films chief delights.
Worst Family Boundaries: The Stokers in Stoker are just all kinds of inappropriate. Its bad enough when Nicole Kidman starts getting frisky with her brother-in-law Matthew Goode. But when Goode starts making eyes at his own niece (Mia Wasikowska)? Park Chan-wooks English-language debut is creepy in a dozen different ways, but no more so than when he deals with family.
Best Family of 2013: When we visit Masons (John Gallagher Jr.) family in Short Term 12, we dont yet know what drew him to work at the foster care center. Once we join him and Grace (Brie Larson) back at home we get to see it, Mason as part of a sprawling, loving family of foster kids brought together by his parents. Its a lovely note in a film full of them, telling us so much about Mason and Grace and the lives theyve carved out for themselves.
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With the Robert De Niro/Michelle Pfeiffer mob comedy The Family set to debut, what better time would there be to take stock of the year in cinematic families? Who was making it happen? Whose dysfunction shone through? 
