I didn’t really touch on this in my top ten albums or TV shows lists, but it didn’t feel like a particularly special year for either of those mediums. I would not say the same for movies, even if it was sometimes hard to tell where the state of film was heading, especially after actors and writers went on strike and we had that weirdly long gap of notable movies coming out in the wake of Barbenheimer. Though, once November rolled around, I felt like we got a bunch of really great, prestige-y movies, and it seems we’re still getting a bunch coming out in time for the Oscars.
This feels a bit like the way things used to be, and I could complain about this familiar feeling of having to cram in watching a bunch of movies in December and January in preparation for this list, but I won’t. Mainly because movies are in such a weird, uncertain state that I’m just glad talented filmmakers are able to get their work out at all, and if that comes with the price of seeing the best films of the year all at the same time, that’s the price I’m willing to pay. This is all a long-winded way of saying that I thought this turned out to be a pretty good year for movies, and hopefully one that saw Hollywood reflecting on how to reinvent itself instead of churning out the same old garbage.
Honorable Mentions:
Bottoms
Oppenheimer
Rye Lane
Priscilla
Poor Things
Return To Seoul could be considered a 2022 movie, since it was submitted for Best International Feature at the 2022 Oscars. But, it didn’t get a limited theatrical release in the U.S. until February, so I’m counting it as a 2023 movie. Also, it just left a mark that has lingered with me despite having seen it so long ago. Stories about parents being reunited with their estranged kids have the potential to be a little treacly or oversimplified, but Return To Seoul takes a much pricklier approach. The blank stare lead actress Ji-Min Park gives each person trying to help her with this unification conveys years of complicated feelings, and has just really haunted me, as has the way this movie sneaks in just a little bit of warmth into its rough exterior.
Glad to see Todd Haynes is back to making hard-to-categorize movies with Julianne Moore. It’s just insane how engaging and watchable this movie is, especially when you start actually reading about the facts of the Mary Kay Letourneau case (which the movie is loosely based on) and you start to become sick to your stomach.
Moore, Natalie Portman, and Charles Melton are uniformly great at embracing these characters that all have extremely strange relationships, though the film and the actors are more than willing to embrace them with a dash of campy melodrama. I probably could have ranked May December higher, but I probably need to see it again to fully understand how it pulls off such a tricky tone and how it does it so effortlessly.
Kelly Reichardt’s latest has gotten a bit forgotten in the end-of-year conversations, and perhaps that’s because it came out way back in April, but it could also be because the film isn’t a huge stylistic step forward for this ardently indie filmmaker. Which I suppose is fair, but it’s not like she’s made all that many movies about directionless artist-types, even though it is a fairly crowded genre. Still, there’s a kind of open-heartedness to the way Reichardt captures these characters, both showing why they care about their work as well as showing what types of eccentric personalities would put so much work into art that lives comfortably on the fringes of popular taste.
There are a lot of slow, uninterrupted shots of Michelle Williams working on her sculptures, and it’s that kind of meticulous attention to detail that exhibit what makes Reichardt such a special filmmaker but also why her movies will probably never be action-packed enough to gain a wide audience. And in this era of talented directors being plucked from the indie world to make faceless blockbusters, that’s probably for the best.
This one was a little harder to figure out where to place on my list, since I just saw it last night. However, it’s not nearly as much of a mind-bender as Jonathan Glazer’s last film Under The Skin, and in fact, everything happening in it is conversely very surface-level, to the point where the mundanity of it all is infuriating. Holocaust movies of course are always going to make you feel a lot of emotions, but this movie dares to show you the lack of emotion that went into performing such an unspeakable operation. It feels like ever since Kubrick died, no one has really picked up his torch of weighty examinations of the coldness of human nature, but Glazer sure seems up for the task. And much like Kubrick, he seems to only be able to put out a movie every 10 years or so.
Might as well keep things going with another movie starring Sandra Hüller, who I was not familiar with until about a month ago, but who apparently is great at playing characters who are inscrutable in a very German kind of way. The cold preciseness of this movie matches the snowbound setting of this film nicely, but what really struck me about this mostly courtroom drama is how it revealed the messy human emotions beneath any crime. Sure, any lawyer can try to put together a case in a tidy, straightforward manner, but especially when you’re getting into the specifics of a marriage or family, the many conflicting feelings can muddy things in a way where you could easily doubt someone even if you’re on their side. Also, just some incredible dog acting.
In a year where my list ended up being a little heavy (sorry), All of Us Strangers wins the title of being the saddest movie I saw all year. Yet, it’s one of those instances where I think about Roger Ebert’s adage that no great movie can truly be depressing. And that’s kind of what I came out of All of Us Strangers feeling, since it takes such a delightfully fresh approach to a lot of well-worn topics.
The movie dives pretty deeply into grief, as we see an adult Andrew Scott essentially going back in time to communicate with his dead parents, while in between these visits, a mysterious fellow tenant in his apartment building (Paul Pascale) strikes up a romance with him. It feels too simple to call All of Us Strangers a time travel movie or a ghost movie, but that is what it is at the end of the day, and it uses these tropes in a way that’s so much more emotionally impactful than I would’ve ever thought possible.
Ah Marty, will you ever make a movie of reasonable length again? Killers of the Flower Moon was not a movie I came out of totally sure that I loved, probably because my butt hurt from sitting in a theater for almost four hours, but also because its contents are just so upsetting. However, it has sat with me well, as its various flaws have become easy to accept in the grand scheme of some extremely ambitious filmmaking that gets at the heart of what makes this country’s history so littered with greed and bloodshed.
Going into Killers of the Flower Moon, I wasn’t sure how well it would fit into Scorsese’s oeuvre. But the crime operation at the heart of it doesn’t feel too far removed from the slimy opportunists in Casino or The Wolf of Wall Street, which makes it that much more potent when it’s connected to the massive amounts of atrocities that were wrought on Native Americans.
For all the bummer movies on my list, I still couldn’t resist the appeal of the phenomenon that was Barbie. It’s no stretch to say I was looking forward to this one, considering both Little Women and Lady Bird were very high on my previous top ten lists, not to mention the fact that the latter has become one of my favorite films of all time. So clearly I’m a Greta Gerwig stan, and while I’m not sure I believe she should strictly be making big-budget blockbusters based on beloved toys, I’m glad she got to show us how you can make something unique within what you’d think would be creativity-killing confines. I don’t think we’re going to all of a sudden start getting big-budget movies that are this visually alive, hilarious, and thematically adventurous, but considering Barbie was such a landmark moment in the year in film, one can still dream.
One of those movies that accomplishes such a wonderful vibe so effortlessly that I’m not even really sure what to say about it. It’s the kind of story that feels expansive and intimate at the same time, spanning multiple decades and continents, and yet is just about the simple connection that happens when two people stare each other in the face and everything just feels… right. Not only does the movie do a great job of evoking this feeling between childhood friends who can’t help but have a lifelong bond, but it also nicely navigates the complications of when one of these people is already in a committed relationship with someone else. The trio of Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, and John Magaro make this dynamic compelling without anybody feeling like the hero or the villain, and more just like people who are trying the best they can to navigate their own happiness.
Quite simply a film that has my number, since it features a lot of characteristics that many of my favorite films have. I’m just a sucker for a comedy that has a lot of great lines and funny set pieces, but also has a sweet underlying sadness. Clearly, I feel about the same way about The Holdovers that John did, as I also couldn’t resist its immaculate vibe — the wintery coziness, the hangout movie dynamic, the ‘70s Christmas chic, and the way it captures New England at a very specific point in time. I could’ve gone with a movie that challenged me more for my number #1 pick, but also like John, I can’t deny that it’s a film I could see myself watching over and over again, especially at Christmas time. Also, these lists are all about personal taste, and The Holdovers just felt like a movie I’ve been wanting to come along for a long time.