The 10 Best Movies of 2023 – We’re Back!!!
We are so back!
During the COVID lockdown, it was a common refrain that, “at least we’ll get some good art out of this.” While that’s a recurring sentiment during times of strife, it was probably a fallacy to think about a time when no one could go outside their home for over a year. Did we get anything great directly from COVID besides Bo Burnham’s Inside?
What COVID did provide was a backlog of ideas and scripts, ideas and scripts that had time to ruminate and develop into a wave that finally crashed down in 2023. This is the best year in movies since 2007. This year has a roster so deep I (a person who goes to the movies at least once a week) haven’t been able to see everything I’d like. At the top of this list, I’ll provide context for what I haven’t seen yet and some honorable mentions.
2023 was a year in which we had master directors returning, breakout filmmakers emerging, and the streaming system behind the last ten years of Hollywood collapsing. If the development time on the films this year did anything, it led to creators considering what stories deserve to be told and how they should be told in the first place. Killers of the Flower Moon started as a direct adaptation of its novel. A simple police procedural turned into a 3-hour reckoning with America’s dark past. May December asks directly whether you can genuinely understand someone deeply in 2 hours and whether it’s worth trying in the first place. Jack Black sang a song with so much sexual innuendo in Super Mario Bros, I’m shocked it made it past the censors. So, without further ado, here are my ten favorite films of 2023.
Best Movies of 2023 - Have Not Seen (Yet):
Wonka – Hideo Kojima Wonka-pilled me. We live in a timeline where the creator of Metal Gear Solid is writing article-length tweets extolling the virtues of Timothee Chalamet’s musical rebootquel Wonka. Excellent.
Saw "Wonka" in IMAX. This was the second time I saw this movie after the premier screening. In this dark age of pandemics, wars, and abnormal weather, this film offers the sweet hope of a "dream". Although it is a classic musical, it is directed by Paul King of "Paddington" fame.… pic.twitter.com/7hiCg1D0gU
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) December 10, 2023
Ferrari – The two objects that cannot occupy two points in space simultaneously are me and an early screening of this film.
All of Us Strangers – I’ll never understand slow festival rollouts for indies like this. Just let me watch the movie.
Boy and the Heron – I’ll admit I’ve never been a massive Ghibli person as much as I appreciate the aesthetic. No excuses though. I just haven’t had time.
The Zone of Interest/The Taste of Things/Anatomy of a Fall – I didn’t get to go to any festivals this year, and I live in America, so I won’t get to see any of these until they’re on VOD or nominated for an Oscar.
Best Movies of 2023 - Honorable Mentions:
Every one of these movies would have been in my top 10 last year.
Past Lives – I wish the first hour were as entertaining as the last 45 minutes, but I think it falls into the indie-cinema slow-pace trap.
Eileen – An interesting little film I wrote about for the site already!
Infinity Pool – This movie rips and also slaps. Slow-paced nonsense sci-fi dystopia thriller starring Mia Goth full sending it? Yes, please. It’s held back by the fact that I have no idea what it means.
The Iron Claw – This is the hardest one to cut from the list. For one thing, it’s really good. For another, Zac Efron can now break me in half.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One – If you cut out the first 15 minutes and start at the government meeting scene, this film makes my top 10.
Reality – A weird little movie on Max that I found very entertaining. Knowing that FBI agents spent an entire 20 minutes dealing with this woman’s dog is fascinating.
Top-10 Movies of 2023
10. Barbie
What do you want me to say about this movie? Is there anything unique to add? This is the most fun I had in a theater besides my number 1 movie. The branded content gives me the ick, but everything else still holds true. Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie are great. Greta Gerwig snagged the belt for the director whose next movie I’m most excited to see. The Will Ferrell stuff isn’t funny and drags this movie down to number 10.
9. The Holdovers
It’s a warm blanket of a movie. I don’t think Alexander Payne’s 11th feature breaks any new ground, but it’s well-worn for a reason. It’s a 2-hour excuse to let Paul Giamatti cook. Da’Vine Joy Randolph should be the frontrunner for Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars. Dominic Sessa is the only real breakout star of the year (unless you count Greta Lee in Past Lives).
Payne exactingly recreates every aspect of 70s cinema, proving that digital can replicate film if you try hard enough. The script is strong, and the pacing is great. It’s the best holiday movie you can put on for a picky crowd.
8. Oppenheimer
I know. I’m surprised it’s this low, too. Coming out of the theater, I didn’t think anything would knock it off the top of my year-end list. Little did I know that there would both be a better biopic AND a better-adapted screenplay coming that would eat Oppie’s lunch. I’m not the biggest Christopher Nolan fan in the world. My generation’s obsession with Interstellar, a visually stunning but flawed film, continually baffles me. But Oppie is his most interesting work since The Prestige. His movies are finely wound and crafted like a watch, or an atomic bomb in this case, but often leave me feeling emotionally flat.
I caught this one at home for the first time outside a packed theater, and it left me tepid in a way it didn’t as I left the theater this summer. I know it’s unfair to judge this movie on its home viewing experience when Nolan’s whole thesis is that his films are meant to be seen in theaters, but I often find that watching something at home shows staying power. Some experiences transcend a perfect theater experience and work regardless of circumstance, like the movies higher on this list. Spoiler for a spot later on, but it confuses me when people rip on Bradley Cooper for making Maestro, calling it overly sincere Oscar bait, when Nolan is doing the same thing here.
7. May December
This is a weird one. The debate online has been about whether this is melodrama or comedy. Why not both? I’m not a true media studies student, so I’m unsure. All I know is that it tickles me when there’s a dramatic zoom-in on Julianne Moore, only for her to dramatically exclaim they’re out of hot dogs, followed by a cut to a grill LOADED with hot dogs. This film takes on my least favorite genre, true crime. The film’s thesis seems to be that sensationalizing stories for profit minimizes the trauma of those involved. This is also why I hate true crime, a genre that has poisoned an entire generation into thinking they’re amateur detectives. This is a divisive movie I enjoyed quite a bit. Give it a shot if you think you’d enjoy the oddness.
6. American Fiction
On the surface, American Fiction is a tight little dramedy starring some of the best character actors in the business. But there’s more going on underneath the surface. It’s a movie that WANTS you to think it’s just a funny movie about white audiences and their relationship with black stories. Once what it’s really doing is revealed, the conversation can start.
I’ll be honest. I didn’t get what it was doing even after I finished the movie. I certainly got one perspective: this isn’t the only movie this year questioning its audience (see May December, The Killer, Killers of the Flower Moon). But I didn’t get the full perspective until I talked to my friend, who gladly spelled out what this movie was about. Shout out to my podcast co-host O’neil Henry for filling in my ignorant ass about what was going on here. If you didn’t get it either, he and I are working on something for the site to help.
5. Maestro
“Who left this Snoopy in the vestibule?!” Is my single favorite line reading of 2023. I’m not normally the type to excuse a lackluster screenplay for other filmmaking qualities, but who knew Bradley Cooper is a live-wire filmmaker on the level of Spielberg? This movie is electric. Carey Mulligan and Bradley Cooper are in the conversation for best-living actors. The Cinematography puts Mathew Libatique in the conversation for the best working DP.
For those reasons, I can forgive that a movie that starts with a Bernstein quote stating that art should be posing questions doesn’t pose any questions. Each scene is so finely crafted that it’s disappointing it doesn’t work as a whole.
4. How to Blow Up a Pipeline
In the face of climate collapse, is industrial sabotage a worthwhile answer? Now that’s a goddamn premise for a movie. How to Blow Up a Pipeline is transgressive in the best way. It raises the question and gives both sides. The eco-terrorists at the center of the movie question whether what they’re doing is a good thing. Each of them has reasons for wanting to destroy the natural gas infrastructure, but they understand the cost. They know people will be hurt because of their actions. They aren’t naive. But faced with the trolley problem where the lever is a homemade pipe bomb, and the track they’re avoiding is the entire world? They’ve chosen to pull the lever.
On top of those questions, it’s a tight heist thriller. There’s something satisfying about watching a group of ordinary people accomplish such a grandiose task. I place this so high because it deserves to be seen. And even if you disagree, the question needs to be asked.
3. The Killer
I’ve gotta be me. Not to be overly cliche, but David Fincher is my favorite director. Gone Girl and The Social Network were formative films for me wanting to become a filmmaker. I was one of probably three people who got to see this in theaters, which I wouldn’t have had I not moved to Los Angeles in September.
The Killer may not be Fincher’s greatest work, but it’s his most topical work. A self-parody of his maniacal type-A directing style that turns Hitman, a historically interesting job reserved for movies, into a gig employee exploited by an indifferent capitalist system. It’s the anti-John Wick. Fincher is deep in his bag with this movie, and I can’t help it if I eat it up.
2. Killers of the Flower Moon
This movie is the anti-Oppenheimer. The farther I get from my first viewing of this film, the greater it grows in my mind. I left it feeling like it was less than the sum of its parts and more of a message than a movie. After a rewatch, I can see it’s so much more than that. This is one of the great American filmmakers reckoning with America’s past. This movie is a towering masterpiece. Within 20 minutes, Scorsese pulls away the veil that he will make an entertaining mystery/thriller and tells you who the killers are. He makes you stew in the reveal, forcing the audience to recognize the evil of the past truly. It’s easy just to know, yes, white people committed atrocities in the past. It’s another to watch an entire culture be destroyed with little to no repercussions.
Spoilers ahead. The scene that stands out to me is the aftermath of the killings. When her mother dies, we get a spectacular sequence where her ancestors guide her to the afterlife. Her daughters don’t get that. They’ve been westernized and get burials befitting their white husbands. They’re being destroyed spiritually.
Leonardo DiCaprio plays the stupidest meathead ever put on screen. A character so stupid he doesn’t understand how evil he is. De Niro plays a character so evil he watches a newsreel of the Tulsa massacre and makes a note questioning whether he can get away with it. It also has the funniest cut of the year when a character asks a lawyer if he adopts kids and they die if he gets their money. The lawyer says that implies that he wants to kill them, AND IT CUTS TO THE KIDS WITH THE GUY. Fun fact, he did try to kill those kids in real life but was so incompetent it resulted in him being killed in a shootout with the cops.
1. Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse
As a long-time comic book reader, the multiverse thing has always sucked. It’s always been a bland excuse to smash action figures together, with few exceptions. So next time you start typing out a tweet saying superhero multiverse stuff is confusing and bad, just know that realistic comic fans always knew this was coming.
THAT BEING SAID. This is total cinema Bay-Bee. I was dissociating from reality in the theater. This movie is so good. It’s simultaneously the most visually creative and stimulating film I’ve ever seen and should be a frontrunner for best screenplay. The themes and visuals connect seamlessly. Truly a gesamtkunstwerk (thank you to my art-historian wife, Claire, for that term). Every second of this movie is brimming with life and electricity. It’s as if Maestro actually asked questions. It’s as if Oppenheimer had any sense of humanity and warmth. It’s the modern-day Empire Strikes Back.
I don’t think any movie has as much hype going into it as Spiderverse 3. If it sticks the landing, we’re looking at the greatest trilogy of the 21st century. This is the ultimate ending to the rapidly decomposing superhero cinema era. Watch it. It’s on Netflix. Stop reading my top 10. What more do you need me to say?
Tyler Carcara is a filmmaker living in Los Angeles. He makes a weekly podcast where he, and his two cohosts, pitch podcasts! Trust me you’ll want to give it a listen. You can find it on Spotify here or by searching “The Podcast Podcast Podcast”.
