The Best Films of 2023
(In alphabetical order, out of 371 movies viewed total)
ANATOMY OF A FALL: This movie has all the shorthand signs of mature European filmmaking, from the stunning performance of Sandra Huller to the complicated framework of the French legal system, yet the heartbreak of the movie hinges on a child’s impression of what he thinks the adult world looks like.
BARBIE: The tenacity of Margot Robbie in going after Greta Gerwig to craft this story may be the cinema development of 2023, proving that the Hollywood star machine can interlock with indie film sensibilities to deliver a gorgeous film with sinewy musculature under the pink, glossy surface.
BOTTOMS: We need comedy on these lists every year, and Emma Seligman and Rachel Sennott plussed their previous endeavor (“Shiva Baby”) by creating an anarchic and hilarious comedy with the secret weapon of Marshawn Lynch at its center.
GODZILLA MINUS ONE: I don’t know why director Takashi Yamazaki felt the need to make this, but this man alchemically mixed the best elements of kaiju filmmaking, post-war Japanese existential agony, and modern film grammar to show that spectacle movies can be made modestly without a single cut corner.
THE HOLDOVERS: The most loving homage to the films of Hal Ashby and Michael Ritchie (and perhaps even Mike Nichols) we might get to see in our lifetime, a strong flex by my favorite working director Alexander Payne and a new screenwriting collaborator David Hemingson — and of course Paul Giamatti, stamping another indelible impression on the craft of film acting.
INFINITY POOL: Brandon Cronenberg has enough gross and grim sensibilities to fill 500 movies, but the wisest decision he made was to cast Mia Goth as the femme fatale, riding her hot streak of wicked and unhinged performances to implant an engine of disturbing behavior into an inhumane scenario.
OCCUPIED CITY: The juxtaposition of Dutch life in Amsterdam from 2020’s corona lockdown through to 2022 with stories of the liquidation of Jews (and gays and Sinti) during occupation is a curious brew, but Steve McQueen made a mental photo album which perfectly describes the modern city I recently arrived in as an immigrant. The terror of Nazi occupation is what we live with just below the surface, as if Amsterdam holds vast reserves of grief in the air, soil, and walls of its buildings.
OPPENHEIMER: Christopher Nolan changes what he does and how he does it by focusing on character and performance rather than spectacle as his main driver — which isn’t to say that he’s ignored those facets in the past. But his direction of Cillian Murphy created the room for this Irish talent to finally show what kind of leading man he has become.
POOR THINGS: I see hours of acting exercises in clowning, movement, and instant response games in rehearsal, enabling Emma Stone to uncork what is certainly the performance of her career — but let’s not understate how weird it is to see something so Rabelaisian make it to the inhospitable 2023 marketplace.
ZONE OF INTEREST: This felt like a held breath for almost two hours: Jewish Jonathan Glazer makes this indictment so intimate and insane and painful that it nearly qualifies as a visit to the ruin of Auschwitz, accessing the desperate feeling of humanity’s utter failure.
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HONORABLE MENTIONS: Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese); All Of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh); Beau Is Afraid (Ari Aster); Past Lives (Celine Song); Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (James Gunn); Saltburn (Emerald Fennell); Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain (Paul Briganti); You Hurt My Feelings (Nicole Holofcener); The Boy And the Heron (Hayao Miyazaki); Albert Brooks: Defending My Life (Rob Reiner); Asteroid City (Wes Anderson)
WORST: Elemental (Dir. Peter Sohn); The Flash (Andy Muschetti); 65 (Scott Beck and Bryan Woods); Fair Play (Chloe Domont)
BEST LINE OF DIALOGUE: (TIE) “Life is like a henhouse ladder — short and shitty”/“He’s too dumb to pour piss out of a boot”/“I think I have the requisite experience and insight to aver that you are and always have been penis cancer in human form.” (The Holdovers)
KICKASS BREAKOUT TALENT: Director Takashi Yamazaki
LOOK IN THE MIRROR, TAKE ONE THING OFF: Bradley Cooper and Leonardo Di Caprio, both needing to slim down busy prosthetic performances featuring hats piled atop hats stacked upon yet more hats.
BIG YEAR: (TIE) Sandra Huller with her Teutonic golden touch, and Marshawn Lynch excelling beyond the Cena/Bautista School of Wrestler-Actors by becoming the first Footballer-Master Improviser
