The 100 key films of 2013 - part 7

Mood Indigo: Michel Gondry (above) vacations on the bus routes of low income Bronxites. Now he’s back to the daily grind - to cloud cars and giant childrens’ toys and heroines fallen ill with lilies in their lungs. Based on French author Boris Vian’s 1947 book, Mood Indigo stars Audrey Tautou as the sickly maiden and Romain Duris as the man entrusted with surrounding her with flowers so that she can live. Meanwhile, Gondry stares wistfully at holiday snaps of NYC Metrocards. Photograph: Sarah Lee/Guardian Photograph: Maria Laura Antonelli / Rex Features/Maria Laura Antonelli / Rex Features

Movie 43: A billboard-busting ensemble comedy. Like Valentine’s Day or New Year’s Eve, except - judging by the trailer’s promises (“unexpected”, “unusual”, “uncensored”) not a giant, fat, dopey turkey with lazy movie star stuffing. Movie 43 is twelve short stories, each with a different director, each - if you buy the advance publicity - ruder, wilder, crazier than the last. Hmmmmmm we’ll see. “Unconvinced”. Photograph: PR

Mud: Ellis and Neckbone are on the roam - two bored Arkansas teens with nothing to do but wander the countryside for a summer. Then they meet Mud (Matthew McConaughey) - an escaped convict with dreams of reuniting with his childhood sweetheart, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon). The next unsettling love story of sorts from Jeff Nichols, director of the alluring apocalyptic drama Take Shelter. Photograph: PR

Nebraska: Sozzled Woody (Bruce Dern) and his estranged son David (Will Forte) have reunited to chase their fortune across America. Woody’s convinced he’s won a million bucks in a magazine sweepstake, David’s just there to stop the drinking sliding into anarchy. Shot in black-and-white on location across the tiny towns of the titular state, Nebraska appears a world away from the colour and flare of Alexander Payne’s Oscar-tease of last year, The Descendants (pictured). Photograph: PR

The Nymphomaniac: Here’s someone who knows how to make a splash. The Danish arch provocateur Lars von Trier is following his end-of-the-world epic Melancholia with a two-part study of female sexuality that, from the get-go, has been sold on the promise (or threat) of actual sex scenes. (And after The Idiots you know von Trier isn’t just messing around.) He’s renuited with Charlotte Gainsbourg – third von Trier in a row – and Stellen Skarsgard to tell this tale: Shia LaBeouf, Jamie Bell and Christian Slater all get a look in too. Photograph: Guillaume Horcajuelo/EPA

Oldboy: A Spike Lee remake of Park Chan-wook’s 80s Seoul-set revenge fantasy. A selfish businessman gets a ten-year lesson in humility via abduction, forced incarceration and live whole octopus-gobbling. Josh Brolin (pictured, in Men in Black 3) is lined up as the reluctant house guest, Elizabeth Olsen will play a young woman whom he befriends. No word yet on the octopus. Photograph: Imageworks/PR

Only God Forgives: A Thai-set boxing crime thriller; so far, so Van Damme. But this particular yarn has attracted the high octane talents of director Nicolas Winding Refn and actor Ryan Gosling, who set Hollywood by its ears with the ice cold Drive (above). One assumes it’l be very very very violent; and Refn even finds room for Kristin Scott Thomas as “"a merciless and terrifying mafia godmother”. Now that we’d pay to see. Photograph: Allstar/Filmdistrict/Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar

Only Lovers Left Alive: Jim Jarmusch is back, and he’s gone all Twilight. Well, that’s kinda sorta what it looks like, as the sturdy New York auteur takes on the vampire genre, merged and mashed up with the underground music scene. Tom Hiddleston is said muso, mournfully strumming through the centuries; Tilda Swinton his seemingly eternal and ageless lover. Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

Oz the Great and Powerful: One of those films you didn’t know you wanted. Sam Raimi is orchestrating this high-FX prequel to The Wizard of Oz, with James Franco the younger version of the magic man who had Judy Garland fooled (but not Toto). Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams provide witchy support. Apparently this was one of Walt Disney’s great dreams; it’s only materialising almost 50 years after his death. Photograph: PR

The Place Beyond the Pines: Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper play bad boy biker v crooked cop in Derek Cianfrance’s cross-generational drama about the legacy of crime. Watch out for: Eva Mendes as the single mom waitress trying not to fall for Gozzle’s gruff charm, Ben Mendelsohn’s neat turn as his mechanic side-kick and the stunning opening scene, a tracking shot winding through the lights of a shabby New Jersey carnival before barrelling into a motorbike cage of death. Photograph: PR