The world might be falling apart by almost any metric you can imagine, but one thing (maybe the only thing?) that gave me solace this year was the amazing slate of films that 2023 provided. To my mind, 2023 was the best year in cinema since 2007, another banner movie year with an incredibly rich set of releases.
In 2007, we got David Fincher’s Zodiac; the Coen Brothers’ masterpiece No Country for Old Men; the delicately elegiac The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford; Hot Fuzz, Edgar Wright’s hilarious twist on the buddy cop subgenre; Ratatouille – which, if for no other reason, should be gratefully acknowledged for giving us Raccacoonie – the indie hit Juno; 300; and Superbad.
And of course, 2007 also gave us what is perhaps the best movie of the 21st century so far: Paul Thomas Anderson’s incredible There Will Be Blood. Our movie riches in 2007 continued to overflow with titles like Atonement, Michael Clayton, Into the Wild and Eastern Promises.
Whew!
As you’ll see below, 2023 offered up a similarly seemingly bottomless well of great cinema. This will be the fifth year I’ve expanded my “Top 10” to effectively make it a top twenty-five. My long list this year was ridiculously long. It has over sixty titles on it. As I write this, I still have to do the (very painful) work of cleaving my top ten out of the possible contenders.
Luckily, I don’t have to perform the even more excruciating task of ranking those ten into a “best to least” format. Like last year, and going forward, I’m listing my top films of the year in the order in which I saw them. That allows me to curate an overview of my movie year. If you want my longer (and perhaps pretentious?) explanation for why I’m doing this, you can find it here.
I was able to achieve some wonderful cinema goals this year, my nineth as a critic. In 2023, I logged over 365 movies screened. Part of the reason for that is because I discovered the Merrie Melodies/Looney Tunes collection available on Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming service Max.
I dove in, watching (and faithfully logging on Letterboxd!) six or seven of the animated short films once a week off-and-on over the course of the year. Combining those with the several dozen contemporary shorts I saw at festivals this year helped to pad my total number.
On the subject of film festivals, I was able to cover a total of four last year! South by Southwest, the Dallas International Film Festival, and, of course, my beloved Fantastic Fest provided me with moving, thrilling, and downright bonkers cinema experiences throughout the year. I was also able to cover the inaugural of a brand-new fest. The It Came from Texas Film Festival was a delight. You can find all my festival coverage here.
I was also overjoyed to participate in the Barbenheimer phenomenon of late summer. Seeing those two films back-to-back in an absolutely packed and buzzing movie theater — with my wife and many of my closest friends — did my heart good.
As cinematically good as 2023 was, the other events of the year put the greatest strain on my mental health that I’ve ever experienced. I wrote about this briefly in the review round-up I published in mid-December.
As I’m sure you’re aware, 2024 will likely be much worse. Our planet is on fire, thanks to human-caused climate change that is getting closer and closer to the tipping point of spiraling out of control. Last year was the hottest year ever recorded. Because we refuse to take seriously our destruction of the only home we have, I will likely be able to type that last sentence every year for the rest of my life.
There is currently a genocide happening on the other side of the world that the leaders of my own country are helping to perpetrate in their unquestioning support of the government of Israel. (Please note that I am NOT placing the blame on the entire Israeli population, but on the Israeli government.)
My own federal government is so dysfunctional – because of the MAGA pestilence that’s spread throughout the country – that it won’t even help an ally, Ukraine, that’s been under attack for two years from the power-mad authoritarian Vladimir Putin.
Depending on the outcome of the upcoming election here in the States, my own democracy is in peril of being destroyed by the fascist, racist, misogynistic Donald Trump, should he be elected for a second term. Make no mistake: if Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election, he will never leave office and elections as we know them will be terminated.
Meanwhile, Trump’s overwhelmingly white, Christian nationalist following – including the ethically devoid hard rightwing members of the US Supreme Court – are doing everything they can to weaken and erode the pluralistic, inclusive, liberal democracy that’s taken almost two-and-half-centuries to build.
Our union was far from perfect when it was created, it’s not perfect now, and we have to do everything we can to make sure the marginalized and historically oppressed minorities in our society are treated with basic human dignity and respect. We should strive always to become the “more perfect union” envisioned in our founding documents.
The now-fascistic Republican party, headed by the irredeemably corrupt and venal Trump and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson – who wishes to use Trump to turn America into his own version of Gilead from The Handmaid’s Tale, in order to subject us all to his beliefs in his version of the Magic Invisible Sky Wizard – are openly calling for an end to democracy.
That’s how enraged this minority group of (mostly) white, evangelical Christians are at the prospect of losing power. They’re so enraged that they have turned women in much of the country into broodmares for the state; They’re so enraged that they’ve stopped just short of staging book burnings; They’re so enraged that they’ve deemed anyone who doesn’t look, sound, act, and believe as they do as a mortal enemy who must be annihilated.
So, yeah, I’ve been a bit depressed.
Most days I want to either scream until my throat bleeds or cry until I pass out from dehydration. Because of this emotional and mental malaise, my writing dropped off precipitously in the last half of last year. I have struggled to care about anything since Roe v. Wade was overturned, but after the horrendous violence by Hamas on October 7, and the equally horrendous response from the government of Israel since, I’ve been practically despondent.
I haven’t even mentioned how the morbidly rich of the world – particularly those in the tech-bro space (ahem, Elon Musk) – are doing everything they can to suck up every last resource for themselves while leaving the rest of us with virtually nothing.
Expect to see short missives at the end of reviews in the upcoming year that shine a light on political issues that are important to me. Standing up for what’s right and calling out harmful behavior and intentions is the absolute least I can do in these dark times.
But for now, there is the incredible cinematic year that was. Please find below my top ten (ok, really, top 25) movies of 2023, in the order in which I saw them:
*Note: Each movie title above the picture is a link that will take you to my review of that movie, with three exceptions.
BlackBerry
I first screened BlackBerry at SXSW and immediately began to evangelize about it. Idiosyncratic director Matt Johnson’s often hilarious take on the true story of the meteoric rise and crushing fall of “the phone everyone had before they got an iPhone” is a gem of a movie. Outstanding comedic performances — with plenty of strategically deployed pathos — from stars Jay Baruchel, Glenn Howerton, and Johnson himself help to craft a movie that’s simply a good time, especially if shared with good friends. That’s why I subsequently saw BlackBerry twice more during the year, dragging everyone I knew to see it. Johnson’s unpretentious and funny Q&A after the SXSW screening made me mark him as a filmmaker to keep track of in the future.
Bottoms
After walking out of an absolutely rapturous screening of Bottoms at SXSW, I dashed off this quick description in an email: “…all time teen sex-comedy great. And it's a satire of Fight Club. And unapologetically queer. It's like Book Smart on steroids and giddily violent.” Yep, that about sums it up. If you get a chance to see it, please take note of the high school’s mascot. You can thank me later.
Deep Rising
This documentary — it has NOTHING to do with the identically named 1998 Treat Williams horror movie — floored me when I saw it at DIFF in late spring. Narrated by Jason Momoa, the film tracks the history of deep-sea mining and how profit became the only concern for those charged with protecting one of Earth’s most precious ecosystems. (Ronald Reagan, of course, helped in the effort.) I left the screening in an existential crisis. If the man at the center of the documentary — who fashions himself as a robber baron for the digital age — has his way, the last pristine ecosystem on the planet, which keeps the ocean currents in balance, will be forever destroyed in the pursuit of profits.
Asteroid City
I had to see Wes Anderson’s newest feature twice in order to properly appreciate it. The first time, at a press screening, I wasn’t able to connect with a single character. It felt like the first time that Anderson’s detractors were right about his style overwhelming the substance. I’m so glad I gave it another shot. On the second viewing, the movie blossomed for me and I saw it for the delicate story full of human emotion that it is. Far from being nothing but style over substance, Asteroid City gives us an examination of grief that is deeply poignant. The Murderers' Row of acting talent assembled for the tale is a thing of wonder. Do yourself a favor and also check out Anderson’s series of four shorts based on Roald Dahl stories that he released via Netflix in September.
Oppenheimer
I’ll keep it short and sweet: In Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan has made nothing less than the Lawrence of Arabia of the 21st century. His film is absolutely stunning from start to finish.
Barbie
Barbie made me feel as good about our current culture as Donald Trump makes me feel bad about our current political climate. Greta Gerwig’s hilarious, moving, infectious movie is not only a triumph in terms of theme and story, but it is a visual delight. I’ve seen it three times now, and it only gets better with each screening. I will cherish the Barbenheimer experience I had in summer 2023 for the rest of my days.
River
This micro-budget time-loop comedy from Japanese director Junta Yamaguchi wowed me at Fantastic Fest. It’s simply a delight of a movie. The predicaments that Yamaguchi’s characters find themselves in over the course of the movie are by turns hilarious and moving. Give it a shot when you’re in the mood for something silly with a lot of heart added in for good measure.
Killers of the Flower Moon
How many masterpieces can one filmmaker produce? Martin Scorsese seems determined to find out. His latest, Killers of the Flower Moon, is a majestic, sprawling epic that honors the indigenous peoples who were systematically murdered by a mob boss who would make any of Scorsese’s previous mafioso characters blush. Do not let the nearly 3.5 hour running time dissuade you from seeing it. If you can binge five hours of a TV show in one sitting, you have no excuse for missing out on an absolute triumph of modern filmmaking.
Anatomy of a Fall
Anatomy of a Fall is a movie that belongs in a category — one that I created in our MCU-dominated movie landscape — that I like to call “movies for grown ups.” No super powers. No city-wide battles with the fate of humanity at stake. This French legal drama is simply an examination of a troubled marriage that ends in tragedy. How that tragedy occurred is the razor-sharp focus of the movie’s two-and-a-half hours, and every minute is mesmerizing. That’s largely due to Sandra Hüller’s wonderful performance.
The Iron Claw
I won’t bullshit you: The Iron Claw is a tough sit. It wallows in a miserabilism that can feel at times overwhelming. But it’s for a purpose. Director Sean Durkin’s character study of one of the most successful families in professional wrestling history — the Von Erich clan — is a close examination of toxic masculinity and how it can destroy the lives of everyone it touches. I never got into wrestling, so it was a complete revelation to discover that most of the movie takes place in Denton, Texas, where I went to college. Durkin’s production design team recreates 1970s and ‘80s Texas with a stunning amount of fidelity.
The rest of the best:
Here’s the rest of my top 25 of the year. As above, I have listed them in the order in which I saw them. I’m not going to comment on them at all. I’ll simply link to my reviews, where available. If any of them grab your attention, check ‘em out: