Top 10 Favorite Films of 2023
The past year in film has been, at once, a continued preaching of the death of cinema and a celebratory declaration of its endurance — from the WGA strike to the Barbenheimer phenomenon to the departure of A.O. Scott as the head film critic of the New York Times (who, notably, didn’t retire but would just rather write about novels).
Similarly to last year, my list is reflective of the diverse platforms in which I’ve seen films in 2023. I attended the Toronto International Film Festival (and my first actual festival as press!) as well as the New York Film Festival for the first time. Just as importantly, I’m a newly minted AMC A-Lister which has resulted in a record number of trips to the movies for me. And, of course, I still have Netflix.
Without getting too ahead of myself, I wanted to give some honorable mentions. If you caught me the moment after seeing Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, I would have said something close to how it was a perfect film. And yet, it lacks the staying power I expected and falls just short of this list. Despite its many triumphs, you won’t find Poor Things — Yorgos Lanthimos’ film of squandered potential — on this list either. The zippy pop-culture thriller comedies Dream Scenario and Saltburn (a batshit crazy double feature) and Tarsem’s haunting and heartfelt Dear Jassi round out a group of films that despite not being my favorites, are definitely worthy of discussion.
Okay, now to the fun stuff.
10. Barbie
Barbie is a big budget IP-driven adventure “chick-flick” and yet its references to 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Matrix, The Godfather, and Singin’ in the Rain are clear evidence of the film’s greater reach. Not to say that Barbie is revolutionary, but for such a low-brow concept that could have simply aspired to The Lego Movie heights, Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie squeezed the Mattel property for all of its cinematic worth. I’m always curious to see what Margot Robbie does next; however, not just as an actor. With the making of Barbie and Saltburn this year, she’s becoming one of the most formidable producers in the biz.
9. American Fiction
There are Oscar bait films and there are Ria bait films… and American Fiction happens to be both. At its best, Cord Jefferson’s debut film is a biting racial satire about Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffery Wright!), a highly-educated, Boston-born Black author who could fit right into a Lydia R. Diamond play. In a similar vein as Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, Monk gives into Black-American stereotypes to gain commercial success. The more success he achieves, the more outlandish his charade becomes — including an absurdist phone conversation with a book publisher that emulates yet another Spike film: BlackKklansman. While the film inevitably falls victim to its own criticism — it is never scathing enough to lose laughs from a white audience — it still manages to capture the ridiculousness of the Black experience in an “anti-racist” world.
8. Oppenheimer
If Interstellar solidified the director Christopher Nolan and Dunkirk solidified the writer Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer is the first to solidify Nolan’s hyphenate status as a once in a generation writer-director. Oppenheimer is a film of incomparable scale that embodies the same grandeur as its protagonist. The 1940s bio-pic drama is one that not only demands its large format IMAX screens but almost can’t function without it. The result is a spectacle of visual artistry that, on its own, is worthy of praise. And yet, Oppenheimer is also Nolan’s most layered, technically sophisticated, and deeply human film to date. Cillian Murphy, paired with a motley crew cast of award-winners and “that guy”’s, succeeds in bringing the story of the atomic bomb to life (with a degree of realism that often lacks in Nolan’s work). While the guy could still learn how to write female characters, for now, I find myself pretty satisfied.
7. May December
From its subject matter to its atonal score, Todd Haynes’ May December was an incredibly difficult watch. I found myself questioning whether it was deep or directionless before finally landing on the former. I don’t doubt that this conflict was Haynes’ intention. The film’s story unfolds through a litany of opposing forces: reality vs. fiction, replicated vs. inspired art, innocence vs. guilt, adulthood vs. maturity. For many, they are two sides of the same coin — a metaphor brought to life most viscerally in a dual-mirror shot of Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) and Gracie (Julianne Moore) in a clothing store. Like many of the films on this list, May December isn’t interested in the moral accusal, trial, and conviction of its characters. Instead, we are an observer, only given a snippet of an unfolding story and encouraged to embrace the cavernous failings and grand emotions of its characters. Perhaps the only unadulterated sympathy lies with Gracie’s husband, Joe (Charles Melton, my undisputed pick for Best Supporting Actor). The guy from Riverdale acting circles around Portman and Moore was not on my 2023 bingo card, but those who know know he was one of the best things to come out of the CW.
6. Past Lives
Perhaps if Jane Austen were alive today her romances would look something like Celine Song’s Past Lives — a star-crossed pairing that could fittingly be described as soulmates (to John Magaro’s dismay) with intimacy that manifests through words and the most subtle actions. Two hands touching is so much more than hands, a simple “hello” might as well be a declaration of love. However, unlike Austen, below this decades-spanning romance is a story of immigration, cultural assimilation, and the uniqueness of language. Nora (Greta Lee), having lived in the United States for most of her life, relinquished parts of her Korean heritage. This loss only emboldens her reconnection with her childhood friend, Hae Sung (Teo Yoo). The energy that pushes and pulls between the trio — Nora, Nora’s husband Arthur, and Hae Sung — never eases. They all speak on their relationship to one another with surprising candor. It is as if they are fully aware of the depth of their connection or even believe it to be cosmically fated. While that could be pretentious garbage in a worse storyteller’s hands, in Celine Song’s it is poetry.
5. The Killer
There isn’t a film this year that is more authentic to its maker than The Killer, David Fincher’s autobiographical (in philosophy, not in action) hitman revenge story. His composite-filled visuals coupled with another thrilling Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross score — that is, when the most hilarious needle drops from The Smiths aren’t playing — are home territory. The film opens with the hitman (Michael Fassbender) staking out an apartment (a la Rear Window) from a vacant WeWork. It is only the first reference to Fincher’s enduring fascination with modern consumerism. We understand the hitman almost entirely through monologue which tests the patience of even the biggest Fincher fan. And yet, clinging onto every line leads to incredible payoff — understanding a character who strives for unreachable perfection and complete emotional detachment only to succumb to his own humanity. Like how Babylon is to La La Land for Damien Chazelle, The Killer is to Fight Club. That is, a more refined and narratively ambitious second attempt at the same themes that captured an auteur’s interest years ago.
4. All of Us Strangers
Man, this one got me. Stories of parent-child relationships are the oldest thing in the book — I mean, even the Bible is riddled with family drama — so there is a high bar of excellence for such low-hanging fruit. Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers encompasses more than its premise. It is an exhilarating blossoming of the senses — classic 80s dance music, overlayed with imagery that I can only describe as a mix of both Antonioni and PTA. Having Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal in your film also helps. While Cillian Murphy already seems to be making space on his shelf for the Best Actor Oscar (and deservedly so), Andrew Scott’s leading performance is a worthy contender. Thoughts of last year’s Aftersun are inevitable considering Mescal’s role in both films. And yet, the comparison stretches further: they both center around memories (specifically those of our childhood) and how they distort and dissolve, perpetually coloring our perspective on the world. All of Us Strangers is a vibrant, surrealist examination of human connection that, if nothing else, marks the breakthrough of a filmmaker with a singularly unique voice.
3. Killers of the Flower Moon
Scorsese is still giving his A-game. It’s always interesting when he takes a step away from his bread and butter mafia crime films into (seemingly) unrelated territory. However, it must be said that all of his stylistic flares — sweeping tracking shots, slow-motion montage, and narrative voiceover — work just as well in Fairfax, Oklahoma as they do in the mafia-run streets of New York. Not to mention, man’s hypermasculine and blood-ridden obsession for power is perhaps even more of a Scorsesian theme than a mere Italian mob. As such, Ernest Burkheart (Leonardo diCaprio) isn’t too dissimilar from Goodfellas’ Henry Hill or The Wolf of Wall Street’s Jordan Belfort or Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle. The story of the Osage nation, primarily told through Mollie Burkheart (Lily Gladstone in THE scene-stealing performance of the year), is one that demands attention as quickly and ferociously as the film’s opening scene. To know their story is to face the trauma or guilt-ridden acknowledgement of a society’s culpability (reminiscent of the Tulsa Massacre reference in HBO’s Watchmen). Martin Scorsese knows his place in this story. With measured steps, he doesn’t dodge the blame that comes with being the mouthpiece for an indigenous story. Quite the opposite. Now, could the film have been shorter? Totally. Should it have been shorter? A film shouldn’t really have to be anything. And it’s Scorsese for God sake. Sorry you got more chocolate cake than you wanted for dessert.
2. The Zone of Interest
Even with a Top 10 list that includes characters who range from abusers to murderers, the Höss family are the most bone-chillingly evil characters that I’ve seen this year. The clinical examination of their lives (set only a wall apart from Auschwitz) goes further than exposing the banality of evil. It is a striking presentation of unseen (but not unfelt) horrors that loom over a tableau of the perceived mundane. The Höss’ house is a character in it’s own right— well-maintained, surrounded by colorful, blossoming flowers — and yet, none of Hedwig Höss’ (Sandra Hüller) primping and preening can drown out the atrocities that neighbor them. Even with a film of stunning visuals, what you hear is just as powerful as what you see. As such, the film’s effectiveness stems from sound designer Johnnie Burn as much as Jonathan Glazer. The Zone of Interest carries influences of Eisenstein montage (including a most impactful use of garden flowers), sprinkles of Malle’s Lacombe, Lucien (without any of the warmth), and even resembles Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman (if the housewife was the worst human on planet earth). However, it’s final minutes diverge from any possible comparison, except, perhaps, as a tasteful jab at Schindler’s List.
1. How To Have Sex
There’s a reason why horror movies that begin with “based on a true story” only worsen my fear. Films that not only tell a story but convince you that it actually happened inevitably birth a degree of personal investment. Put simply, if something happened in real life, there’s a possibility in which it can happen to me. While How to Have Sex (this year’s most deserving Un Certain Regard Prize winner) isn’t a horror movie or based on a true story (explicitly, at least), it achieves the thrilling verisimilitude of three British girls on a post-high school holiday. What starts as a fun teen Spring Breakers comedy sours into an uncomfortably raw coming-of-age film. Cinematographer turned writer-director Molly Manning Walker builds a story that could be documentary if not for the beautifully stylized, strobe-filled party montages. Mia McKenna-Bruce as Tara gives one of the most ground-breaking performances of the year as she embodies every layer of a teenage girl— from snarky to naïve to intensely loving. Out of everything I’ve seen this year, I understand this film like nothing else. The frenzied chaos of lipstick-smudged, high-heeled nights soundtracked by the most banger-filled Spotify pregame playlist. Quickly followed by the dark repercussions of seemingly harmless actions and vulnerable situations. Walker complicates a kind of story that too often relies on tropes and dares to question your own judgement. How to Have Sex is less of a manual than a hilarious, heartfelt, and unsparingly disturbing exposé of all the beauty (and ugliness) of womanhood.
