Despite my best efforts, I've been unable to generate this post until today, the day after the Academy Awards. But it's never too late to talk about fabulous films! I now present to you my ten favorite films from 2023, along with several honorable mentions that also count as personal favorites (each hyperlinked film was close in running for my list!). I'll note here that I have not yet been able to watch The Zone of Interest, Eileen, or Godzilla Minus One, though I hope to soon.
Special Mention: Skinamarink
Not a single day has passed since I saw this film -- a full year ago -- and not thought about it. Regardless of what you think of its lo-fi presentation, its obscure plot (if there is a plot), its interpretive challenges, Skinamarink is an arthouse endurance test, an interminable nightmare that seeps out of the screen and into your consciousness. Insidiously implicating itself into your memories, it's one of the scariest and most provocative movies I've ever seen. The Outwaters, too, stole my attention this year, though its found-footage format and clear sci-fi elements make it less accessible or haunting to most of us.
Not a single day has passed since I saw this film -- a full year ago -- and not thought about it. Regardless of what you think of its lo-fi presentation, its obscure plot (if there is a plot), its interpretive challenges, Skinamarink is an arthouse endurance test, an interminable nightmare that seeps out of the screen and into your consciousness. Insidiously implicating itself into your memories, it's one of the scariest and most provocative movies I've ever seen. The Outwaters, too, stole my attention this year, though its found-footage format and clear sci-fi elements make it less accessible or haunting to most of us.
10. John Wick: Chapter 4
The most thrilling and satisfying conclusion (maybe) to the series, the fourth installment goes back to basics, simplifying the story and streamlining unnecessary characters to focus on the hero's Sisyphean journey of revenge and freedom. Even for someone who only marginally tolerates action movies, this series consistently offers aesthetic pleasures and joie de vivre to rival any other, even with its rather nihilistic penchant for destroying Keanu Reeves's stoic body. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was also a memorable and heart-wrenching sendoff to that subset of the MCU, and I've never cried so hard at Florence & the Machine's "Dog Days are Over."
The most thrilling and satisfying conclusion (maybe) to the series, the fourth installment goes back to basics, simplifying the story and streamlining unnecessary characters to focus on the hero's Sisyphean journey of revenge and freedom. Even for someone who only marginally tolerates action movies, this series consistently offers aesthetic pleasures and joie de vivre to rival any other, even with its rather nihilistic penchant for destroying Keanu Reeves's stoic body. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was also a memorable and heart-wrenching sendoff to that subset of the MCU, and I've never cried so hard at Florence & the Machine's "Dog Days are Over."
9. Leave the World Behind
A consistent theme in films this year was that of insiders and outsiders clashing, the haves and have-nots trying to work together but usually failing to do so without bloodshed or trauma. Perhaps the most blatant version of that central conflict comes in this arresting adaptation of Rumaan Alam's riveting novel about identity and cooperation when society fails. Uncomfortably, outrageously funny when it isn't terrifying, beautiful and sublime when it isn't shining a mirror on our nastiest instincts. And what a dream team, both on and off camera! I also really loved The Blackening and No One Will Save You, each also funny and clever and deeply unsettling portrayals of what happens when civility and civilization are left behind in the face of unspeakable horrors.
A consistent theme in films this year was that of insiders and outsiders clashing, the haves and have-nots trying to work together but usually failing to do so without bloodshed or trauma. Perhaps the most blatant version of that central conflict comes in this arresting adaptation of Rumaan Alam's riveting novel about identity and cooperation when society fails. Uncomfortably, outrageously funny when it isn't terrifying, beautiful and sublime when it isn't shining a mirror on our nastiest instincts. And what a dream team, both on and off camera! I also really loved The Blackening and No One Will Save You, each also funny and clever and deeply unsettling portrayals of what happens when civility and civilization are left behind in the face of unspeakable horrors.
8. Maestro
Offscreen drama aside, this biopic of Leonard Bernstein is educational and beautifully moving, a testament not only to the tortured soul of an artist but to those who love the artist. To some's chagrin, we don't get much insight into the genius musical process, but we do get a profoundly human glimpse into his personal and social life, the sordid excesses of which are somewhat simplified into poignant dramatic beats that shape a film as lyrical as anything the composer wrote or conducted. Cooper may occasionally be a mess, but he's a damn great director when he wants.
A saga of tragic crime that relentlessly takes us to hell and back, Scorsese's latest epic forces us to experience history from the perspective of its villains, implicating us as it excoriates us. It's not abnormal material for the directing legend, but it is some of his most culturally sensitive and intentional work, manifest in glorious production design and casting that should have been standard for the last century. An oddly similar film, almost tied here, would be Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan's latest (and some are saying greatest) epic about the creators of the atomic bomb, an existential horror story that meanders a bit too much for my taste but nevertheless teaches as it tragically takes us on a free fall to hell.
Led by a trio of phenomenal female performances, this (by all accounts faithful) adaptation of Judy Blume's landmark book is the feel-good movie of the year. A rare title that should be seen by everyone everywhere at every age, it is a roller coaster of the best emotions and had me weeping and laughing in rapid succession. When adaptations stick the landing, you know it, and this is what family-friendly entertainment should be all about.
One of the best movie musicals I've ever seen. Its timeless source material combined with state-of-the-art cinematography and editing and production design renew the story for yet another generation. We don't deserve the Black queer feminism gloriously gifted to us, but we got it and it has deserved infinitely more popular and critical love than it has received. I can't imagine a more perfect adaptation or a more perfect revival of this material than in the spectacle of the largest screen and the best calibrated surround sound. This is why movies were created. Look what God has done!
4. TIE: Saltburn / American Fiction
The two literary cinematic marvels this year, respectively inspired by and directly adapted from source material, were primarily male-centered, exploring the depraved depths of humanity when Others invade circles of wealth, privilege, and influence. Both are hilarious in often cringey ways. Both are chilling when we recognize how realistic they are, despite heavy stylization. Both seek to relate us to social spheres with which we aren't familiar but are fundamentally part of. Each manages to balance substance with style -- rather, each manages to allow one to inform the other reciprocally -- in some of the most memorably verbose encounters we saw on screen this year.
The two literary cinematic marvels this year, respectively inspired by and directly adapted from source material, were primarily male-centered, exploring the depraved depths of humanity when Others invade circles of wealth, privilege, and influence. Both are hilarious in often cringey ways. Both are chilling when we recognize how realistic they are, despite heavy stylization. Both seek to relate us to social spheres with which we aren't familiar but are fundamentally part of. Each manages to balance substance with style -- rather, each manages to allow one to inform the other reciprocally -- in some of the most memorably verbose encounters we saw on screen this year.
The two visual cinematic marvels this year, interestingly enough, were female-centered, exploring the surreal escapism and sublimity found when women forge their own unique paths and eschew what is expected of them by men (who also want to control them). Extraordinary costumes, production design, writing, and performances make these two films oddly fascinating in a double feature kind of way, though only one of the two is suitable for younger audiences. Each is mobilized by a character whose childlike innocence ends, though in very different ways between the two, and each paradoxically teaches us about our own world, despite neither film really adhering to the laws of nature or physics.
There were a lot of surreal psychodramas this year, but nothing -- well, almost nothing -- compares to the punishing three-hour anxiety attack that is Ari Aster's latest masterpiece. From production design that had me drooling to surprise casting choices that had me grinding my teeth, from a story straight from hell to performances diabolically brilliant, this odyssey into the mind of a man (a culture, a way of life) in crisis is the Pilgrim's Progress of the 21st century. I'll never not want to watch this movie. I'll never be okay now that I've seen it.
1. May December
Psychodrama? Hold on, Ari Aster. Todd Haynes is taking the crown this year (well, and Tom Ford would too, but he makes so few films). Knowing almost nothing heading into this film served me well until it really didn't, and I still haven't brought myself to rewatch it. The most disturbing and haunting film I've seen in years, it bases itself on a true story but then flips the script by adding an original character who mirrors its subject perhaps too much, implicating us along the way as we all seek to consume that which we should not. Their vampiric monstrosity is accentuated by the film's keen -- and absolutely pure -- aesthetic of camp. Not shitty, kitschy camp all the rage these days, but true camp in its most deadly serious form, making what is ugly and disgusting fascinating and grotesque, even beautiful, until it destabilizes our understanding of everything -- everything -- this otherwise obvious story has to say. (Inasmuch as grooming is a thematic concern this year, I also think Priscilla was a shockingly timely and important film that won't get nearly as much attention as it deserves.) Led by performances that should have won every award available, helmed by a director at the top of his game, written like an organized nightmare that you care about deeply, May December is by far my favorite film of the year.
What do you think? What were your favorite films in 2023?
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