The UNDISPUTED Top 10 Movies of 2023 UPDATED

 

People of the scattering and dwindling internet! This is my indisputable and immutable list of the top ten movies of 2023. It shall be etched on a giant granite block and planted high atop Bunker Hill so generations in the future can admire and wonder... and DESPAIR 

• 1a. Oppenheimer: This Christopher Nolan joint features a lot of people in rooms talking philosophically about physics but still manages to be absolutely riveting. But it's also an unbelievably high stakes drama where the consequences could be the literal destruction of mankind. But it's ALSO a practical effects masterpiece where you can feel the weight of (SPOILER ALERT) nuclear explosions  and their repercussions. It features great performances from the entire cast, including the best performance by Robert Downey Jr since... Two Girls and a Guy? "But it's soooo looong" the whingers say. Shut up, whingers! It went by in the blink of an eye, (SPOILER ALERT) just like humanity most likely will, according to Oppenheimer. 

• 1b. Killers of the Flower Moon: Somehow, 80 year old Martin Scorsese hasn't lost a step. 30 year old, coked up Martin Scorsese probably wouldn't have been wise enough to rework a "Birth of the FBI" thriller into this focussed period piece on the specific crimes white supremacists inflicted on the Osage people, but no one else in the 1970's would've either so lets not blame coked up 30 year old Martin Scorsese too much (anyway, Taxi Driver was also pretty good). It's an infuriating, sad, beautifully designed and filmed movie that's somehow also very funny. Everyone finally gets to see Lily Gladstone, who last year was in the best scene in the best TV show of the last ten years (Reservation Dogs). The cast, again, is about perfect. Robert DeNiro's best work since... Midnight Run? The final scenes are unexpected and unexpectedly powerful. But "it's soooo looong" the whingers say. Shut up, whingers! It went by in the blink of an eye. I walked out of the theatre feeling like I got hit by a sledgehammer.

• 3. May/ December: Todd Haynes' much lighter, but still caustic take on Our Dumb Society, and especially the entertainment industry. This movie succeeds in creating a human portrait of everyone involved in a despicable sexual abuse case where the 13 year old victim eventually ends up marrying his abuser. Julianne Moore delivers a believable, but not at all sympathetic performance as the lead Humbert Humbert, based on a real case the tabloids jumped all over in the 90's. Natalie Portmann also does an excellent job as the smart but cynical actress, functioning as an avatar for a pitiless, extractive industry.

• 4. Past Lives: I just saw this movie last night, so there could be some recency bias here, but recent me thought brand spanking new director Celine Song's movie portrays with great skill the idea that people's lives don't have to be defined solely by where you end up (and who you may or may not end up with). It's a quiet, loverly movie with a strong sense of humor about a Korean immigrant who's happily married to a very American guy, but reconnects with an old friend/crush when he comes to visit her in NYC from a "past life" in Seoul. I watched this in a very full Brattle theater that weirdly reacted with very vocal enthusiasm to the picture.

• 5. Barbie: Probably one of the best joke delivery movies since Airplane? Besides being smart and funny as hell, it mostly manages to turn an expensive marketing ploy into a hilarious take down of the patriarchy. Hey, even if one or two of the speeches are obvious to some of us, it doesn't mean they shouldn't be said and heard by an audience that might not ever hear them elsewhere. Also, I bet it sells a sh*t ton of barbies.

• 6. Dungeons and Dragons: Another surprisingly hilarious top-notch movie whose theme is... fat dragons are funny? The first Monty Python-esque movie since Monty Python that manages to actually hit the mark.

 

• 7. Asteroid City: Wes Anderson has somehow honed his vision to a more and more uniquely Wes Andersony place with each successive movie. How far you're willing to follow him will probably translate to how much you like his latest work, but I personally found this multi-layered meta-meta-meta story to be his most affecting and emotional since The Royal Tenenbaums. It deals with loss and grief and the way art can express and maybe mitigate those feelings, but with typical deadpan Andersonian performances by typical Andersonian actors like Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody and Tilda Swinton, mixed in with great new players like Scarlett Johansson.   

• 8. Anatomy of a Fall: I think this movie is close to perfect. I guess the reason I didn't put it higher is because it's not very, yknow, fun. A French movie about a questionable suicide/murder in a small family that works as a legal thriller by construct, but utlimately comes off as an examination of how people understand and deal with personal guilt. The center-piece squabble between husband and wife is one of the best filmed and most believable marital arguments since, well, "A Marriage Story"? Also features a very charismatic dog (#thedogdoesnotdie) and a strong performance by the child-actor (Milo Machado Graner) playing the blind son who ends up having to carrying the weight of judgment for his parents' actions.

• 9. Poor Things: Emma Stone is impressive as the "monster" in this Frankenstein-esque steam-punk film by Yorgos Lanthimos. I enjoyed it and especially all the various Lanthimosian touches in this film such as Willem Dafoe burping giant glass balls and Mark Ruffalo playing an absolute cad. It's probably Lanthimos' most "mainstream" movie, but not quite as biting and weird as some of his past greats like "Dog Tooth" or "The Killing of the Sacred Deer." Hell, I still thought it was good and weird and fun, but I want more depth from this director

• 10. American Fiction A funny, biting, sometimes too overt political satire about the commodification of Black lives for the commercial consumption of white liberals by the writer/director Cord Jefferson, who is responsible for writing some of the great episodes in "The Watchmen". The movie is a take-down of the literary world on par with something Boots Riley might do, but still gives its cast of characters fully human lives with all the attendant dramas. Jeffrey Wright carries this movie as an intellectual writer who tosses off a hacky novel about a stereotypical "ghetto" drug dealer as a prank, but the book meets with success beyond his wildest expectations. I doubt you could find another actor who could carry the role with half the power. Sterling K. Brown and Keith David are great, as always. Also, it's set in the Boston. Coolidge Corner! Fort Point! Scituate? 

LATE ADD TO LIST

• Zone of Interest (3a or 4a) A horrifying movie visualizing Arendt's comment about the "banality of evil". It's just a series of scenes of average looking Germans with nazi haircuts going about their day in the literal shadow of Auschwitz. They garden, go boating, have dinner parties, complain about office politics, try on fur coats from murdered jews... you know, normal stuff. The sound design of distant gunshots, shouting and screams is expertly done, barely registering on the periphery until you realize what you're hearing. This movie is especially infuriating in the context of the rise of literal fascism and the willing collaboration of countless "normal" Americans here in 2024.

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Honourable Mentiouns:

Ferrari

Boy and the Heron

The Killer

Godland

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Haven't seen but want to at some point:

Beau is Afraid

1001

The Holdovers

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Best Actor: Hmmm... Hell, Cillian Murphy? I love watching Jeffrey Wright in anything, too.

Best Actress: Emma Stone? Sandra Hüller is also very good in Anatomy of a Fall. 

Best Weirdly Effective Director Cameo: Martin Scorsese

Best Weirdly Effective Adam Driver Performance as an Eye-tal-yan: Adam Driver, Ferrari

Best Weirdly Effective Casting of Random Americana Musicians: Killers of the Flower Moon (Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, Jack White, Pete Yorn!)