2023, like every year since 1896, was a great year in film. I watched 30 films that released this year, and these were some of my favorites in an order arbitrary to this moment.
1. Anatomy of a Fall
Yet another movie where the lead character is a language translator, and it matters.
“Poetry is untranslatable, like the whole of art” – Tarkovsky’s Nostalgia
Replace “poetry” with relationships and “art” with all of human experience. This satisfyingly exhaustive film explores on several levels (legal, interpersonal, guilt, trauma) how we translate our past phenomenology to the present, and what it could take to finally just say, screw it, and pick a side for the sake of pretending to understand, for getting along with the people you love.
2. May December
My mother enjoys a film significantly more knowing that it’s based on a true story. “Why didn’t you tell me this really happened? I remember it! I don’t know if you were born yet!” This film is the rare case where it’s elevated by the fact it’s a true story, because it’s partially ABOUT that fact. I love this film, and thank you to this film for getting me to rewatch Carol on Christmas night.
3. Poor Things
Wonderful. Lanthimos’s films have always, to me, explored the nature of matter-of-factness. His direction for stunted dialogue, which at times reads like “Wes Anderson characters on ketamine,” works perfectly in this context. These absurd characters and situations take on such a confidence, one prone to further subversion, when delivered so matter-of-factly. As its own film, Poor Things really captures feelings ranging from “autism spectrum world wanderer” to “person trying something new,” those of curious experience as provisional truths. Also very hot and very funny, got me laughing alone in a theater, which is a major feat!
4. Killers of the Flower Moon
Scorsese sure knows how to END a film. The endings of Wolf of Wall Street, Silence, The Irishman, and now this not only recontextualize the action you’ve seen before, but increasingly more and more his violent, anti-capitalist body of work as a whole. You really start to see Scorsese as an aging showman who wishes he can not only tell more and more stories, but tell them deeper, richer. And hell if this one doesn’t go deep enough.
5. Past Lives
Such complex, adult themes, intense emotions, explored with such maturity by each and every character. Unique in that sense. I’m not Korean so I don’t know what it’s like to be in love with two men at once.
6. Passages
This film slightly angers me because I know at least a few people could watch it and say, “Hey Jason, the Franz Rogowski character reminded me of you,” which is incorrect.
7. Oppenheimer
First time since Nolan’s Memento where the themes really resonated with me. Distortions of legacies and the lies we have to tell ourselves to survive.
8. When Evil Lurks
Very, very upsetting. Watch it. If you watch alone, be sure to cry that night before going to sleep. I would have done so anyway, so it’s fine.
9. How to Have Sex
Someone compared this to Aftersun, which was a sentiment that personally offended me and that I had to actively disavow during much of the runtime. Again, very upsetting, but unlike When Evil Lurks, there was no gory violence. No children and/or cows were shot in the head. It was upsetting through its naturalism. Watching a peppy teenage girl go from “whoo Spring Break!” to looking like Monica Vitti in any Antonioni film hits hard.
10. John Wick: Chapter 4
Ecstatic theater experience. That staircase scene nudges it into my top 10. I also like seeing violence occur in a string of European cities without having to take an 8-hour flight and pay for Tinder Gold.
Honorable Mentions:
– Bottoms
Not my “favorite” film of the year, but one I was anticipating for a while. It paid off with plenty of surprises, including the fact it’s directed like the spoof comedies I grew up on and loved (Not Another Teen Movie, for example). I laughed while watching a movie by myself!
– Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse
I mean come on, that ambition. Those color schemes and scene textures that change by the ~shot~ add a whole new layer to expressionism in time.
– Barbie
Halfway through I realized I had a grin on my face pretty consistently. I wore a purple shirt because that’s the closest I have to pink (and the only allowable color).
– The 10th Annual On Cinema Oscar Special
Not to sound like the Gregghead that I am, but this isn’t a movie. If it were, it would be #1 on my list. It’s incredible how they are still so artful in these. The ending is the most surreally fatalistic they’ve been since the 5th Annual special.
– Godzilla Minus One
I ALMOST put this in my top 10, but then I thought about the other films on the list and was like, okay, settle down. Very good movie though. I saw it in Regal 4DX, so it was basically a rollercoaster ride in a water park any time Godzilla was on screen.
The Holdovers, Dream Scenario, The Killer, liked them all very much too. These lists are difficult and I wouldn’t wish making them on my worst enemies, which is funny because most of my worst enemies are film critics.
