The 10 Best Films of 2023
Better late than never.
By: Josh McCormack
Happy belated New Year! 2023 was a great year for film, full of great movies that just missed being on this list (Barbie; Poor Things; Skinamarink) and a few well-received flicks that I regrettably haven't seen yet (I'm looking at you, Anatomy of a Fall). However, based on the 56 films released in 2023 that I got around to seeing, I was able to finally whittle it down to a solid top ten that I feel quite proud of.
10. THE HOLDOVERS (dir. Alexander Payne)
Whenever Alexander Payne blesses us with a new film, praise is most often thrown to the written word or the incredible actors that populate his stories. While The Holdovers is no less a masterclass in strong dialogue or tremendous performances as any of his other films, I want to take my time with The Holdovers drawing attention to its visual craftsmanship.
While there’s no doubt that Payne is a wonderful storyteller, The Holdovers’ narrative about a cranky history teacher befriending a troubled student while they are forced to stay together during the Christmas season doesn’t seem necessarily original when taken at face value. But what makes The Holdovers so unique is the way it grounds what could have been another cliche indie drama in such a specific aesthetic style. Set during the Holiday season of 1970 in Massachusetts, the film captures the often gorgeous and frequently isolating snow-covered Catholic school campus filtered through old school film grain and warm lighting that immersed me in its world in a way few films did this year. Populating this world are perfect 1970s needle drops and three of the best performances of the year from Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and newcomer Dominic Sessa.
A somber, yet cozy seasonal delight.
9. HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE (dir. Daniel Goldhaber)
An cinematic call-to-action that opts for thrilling urgency over impersonal preachiness. Director Daniel Goldhaber’s follow-up to his equally wonderful (and sadly underseen) horror thriller, Cam, is a film that presents environmental justice with the ferocity of Michael Mann’s Heat or William Friedkin’s Sorcerer. The sustained tension is unbelievable here, with the main cast of characters’ often flawed plan to disrupt an oil pipeline showcased in agonizing detail. My initial screening garnered a continuous stream of shocked gasps from the audience throughout the 100 minute runtime.
Goldhaber’s screenplay, which was written alongside Duke University film scholar Jordan Sjol, is also one of 2023's best, particularly when it comes to developing really complex characters. As the events of the film unfold, more is revealed about the diverse motley crew of environmental activists and their personal vendetta against the oil companies. One character, Dwayne (It Follows’ Jake Weary), is a southern rancher who lost family land to the pipeline and is starting to see his young son developing sickness as a result of the oil pollution nearby. While at first glance, Dwayne might not be a character we could see fighting alongside one’s usual perception of an activist, we soon start to see that his personal stake in this makes him perhaps one of the most impassioned members of the crew and it’s complex, undefinable character work like this that makes audiences question their biases and brilliantly showcases the futility of trying to politicize environmental devastation. It’s also another example of why How to Blow Up a Pipeline is one of 2023’s most underrated films.
8. THE GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 (dir. James Gunn)
The Guardians of the Galaxy movies–for this writer, at least–have always existed in a realm of quality much higher than that of the broader Marvel Cinematic Universe. While James Gunn’s crew of intergalactic a-holes certainly have the silly banter and penchant for collateral damage that fits in line with some of the Avengers crew, the writer/director has been one of the only creative minds that has been able to infuse these characters with a real personal voice. As a result, Gunn has created one of the most effortlessly enduring cast of characters in modern blockbusters and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 really made me realize just how much I loved spending time with this merry band of misfits over the series’ almost decade-long run.
Where most superhero sequels try to raise the stakes by going much bigger (blue beams in the sky and all the other Kevin Feige mandated junk), Gunn brilliantly realizes that the stakes need to be raised on a more personal level. While the first film is about saving the citizens of Xandar. The second film is about saving Peter Quill from the lies of an abusive father. And now the third and presumably (hopefully) final chapter is about all of the Guardians risking life and limb to show their furry friend, Rocket Raccoon, that he is loved and deserving of such love. As joyful as its two prior entries, but with a welcome sense of dread and danger, Guardians 3 sticks out amongst the dregs of other recent MCU material by inviting the audience to engage with darker themes, if only to make the sequences of light prevailing over dark feel all the more satisfying. Gunn is one of the few directors working in this blockbuster space who can somehow manage to take the goofiest comedic set piece and have it work in tandem with genuine emotion. I have no doubt he will do well in his new role for DC.
I’m sad to see these characters go, but I’m so glad they got such a glorious send-off in what has become my favorite MCU movie.
7. GODZILLA: MINUS ONE (dir. Takashi Yamazaki)
Filmmakers who have tackled the Godzilla franchise over the last 70 years often struggle with how to implement genuine human drama in the midst of the kaiju carnage. There have been some who have managed to make the ground-level drama work in tandem with the big lizard’s antics (i.e. the original Gojira, 2001’s Godzilla Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack and 2016’s Shin Godzilla) but most of these movies–especially the U.S. interpretations of the character–can often be rousing entertainment when the monsters are on screen, but turn into slogs when shifting focus to the humans.
This is what makes Godzilla: Minus One so refreshing. Not since the original 1954 film has one of these movies done such a good job of filtering the chaos inflicted by Godzilla through the eyes of a sympathetic human cast. Nor has a Godzilla film so expertly used the creature as a perfect metaphor since the character’s inception. If Godzilla originally stomped onto screen as a walking reminder of the destructive force of nuclear power that Japan had faced a decade prior, then director Takashi Yamazaki (Lupin III: The First) takes that one step further by turning the King of the Monsters into an oversized representation of post-war guilt. Set just after the events of World War II, the film focuses on a kamikaze pilot who not only failed to carry out his sacrificial duties, but also couldn’t find the strength to kill Godzilla in the film’s opening sequence. The consequences of this failure are, of course, Godzilla committing even more collateral damage to a country still reeling from a tragic defeat.
The connection between the main character and the titular foe is what makes Minus One work so well. The drama of the human and the monster are so intrinsically tied to one another that you don’t get that effect of feeling like there’s two separate movies happening, which is often a problem with most Godzilla films. It all comes together in an incredibly emotional story of redemption and resilience in the face of failure. Pair that with stunning cinematography, a powerful score and some pretty impressive CGI for what was (reportedly) a shoestring budget and you have not only one of 2023’s best movies, but the most accomplished Godzilla film ever made.
6. PAST LIVES (dir. Celine Song)
An exciting new writer/director has entered the pantheon of great filmmakers with Celine Song making her feature film debut. I have no doubt that Past Lives will go on to be one of those great romantic dramas by which so many others are judged. Like Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love or John Carney’s Once, it’s not a romance that has us waiting for a first kiss or for the scene when the characters finally spend the night together, it instead focuses on the chances not taken. While Song’s dialogue is beautiful, it’s the moments where what’s left unsaid can tend to be the most devastating. It’s those longing glances between our two leads (Greta Lee and Teo Yoo) that tell us everything we need to know about these characters’ feelings for one another, despite the reality that they can never be together as they once thought they would be.
Song’s premise of a married woman’s childhood friend coming all the way from Korea to see her one last time in New York and the time they spend together is one that seems so rife to pillage for some easy drama. In fact, when the film starts to build up to a meeting between our lead character’s husband (played brilliantly by John Magaro) and her childhood boyfriend, I almost expected some sort of volatile sequence between these two as we have seen in so many lesser films. But Song’s sensitivity and penchant for displaying honest emotions doesn’t allow this to happen and the ensuing final act is one of the most tender and life-affirming portions to a film I’ve seen in the past year.
Quietly devastating, but ultimately life-affirming.
5. KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON (dir. Martin Scorsese)
Martin Scorsese is no stranger to depicting the darker side of humanity. From Taxi Driver to Goodfellas to The Wolf of Wall Street, the iconic filmmaker has put audiences in the shoes of some truly morally repugnant characters. As a result, many filmgoers over the years often question if this unwillingness to shy away from the evil onscreen is actually meant to represent some sort of glorification of depravity on Scorsese’s part. While Killers of the Flower Moon is a masterwork in its own right, I couldn’t help but find even more to get from it when keeping that mistaken criticism of its writer/director in mind.
At the opening of the film, we witness a meeting between Leonardo DiCaprio’s Ernest Burkhart and his uncle William K. Hale, played by Robert De Niro. It’s a classic Scorsese movie moment, where the young, inexperienced fool gets roped into a world of evil by a compelling but devilish older father figure. The dialogue is snappy and invites the audience to feel as if they themself are being pulled into this world of greed at the expense of the Osage’s wellbeing. And just at the emotional height of this sequence–when Ernest and Hale are laughing at the possibility of striking it rich–the movie cuts to an Osage male, foaming at the mouth and convulsing in pain on the floor .
What proceeds is a montage of dead Osage, all with Lily Gladstone’s Mollie Burkhart reading the apparent “causes” of death and reciting their ages at which they met their demise. It’s a stark and brutal reminder in the film’s opening 15 minutes that the proceeding story is one of white greed leading to indigenous slaughter. It is a single edit that completely wakes us up to the true colors of Ernest Burkhart and William K Hale.
It is a single edit that reminds us this is not a story of success, but a story of genocide. It is a single edit that puts to rest any idea that Scorsese is celebrating true acts of evil. And it is a single edit that signals we are once again watching another masterpiece from one of cinema’s all-time greatest visionaries.
4. MAY DECEMBER (dir. Todd Haynes)
I lost sleep over May December. While not explicitly a horror film or even a thriller, the overall vibe and presentation of its dark subject matter was so uniquely dread-inducing that I could not stop trying to pick it apart for hours after I finished it with my wife. For those who aren’t aware of May December’s controversial narrative, I wouldn’t dare spoil it for you here. From my own personal experience, I can tell you that director Todd Haynes’ latest psychosexual drama works best when you go in knowing as little as possible.
What I will say is that May December tricks its audience into thinking it's some sort of campy, tabloid-based pastiche of nostalgic influences, before slowly revealing itself to be something far more emotionally devastating. This is in part due to one of the year’s best performances from Riverdale alum Charles Melton. Melton’s character of Joe Yoo starts the story as the trophy husband to Julianne Moore’s character in the background. For a while, he operates more as a plot device to Moore and Natalie Portman’s quietly combating egos. But as the film progresses, Melton takes center stage and even in his silences he gives one of the most heartbreaking performances of 2023. For reasons that become more apparent over the film’s two hour runtime, Joe almost seems like a teenage boy trapped in an older man’s body. Through some nervous tics and the way he carries himself, Melton conveys that awkward youthfulness that feels as though it’s too afraid to show itself in this fatherly facade. One wide shot of Charles Melton merely walking through an apartment complex to visit his dad as Joe is one of the best physical performances I’ve seen in years.
May December is a film you’ll want to discover for yourself. While some of you might not be able to latch onto the way it deals with particularly uncomfortable subject matter, others will hopefully find it a properly disturbing but beautifully thought-provoking experience. No movie I saw in 2023 felt quite as dangerous as this one.
3. JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4 (dir. Chad Stahelski)
I went into 2023 not quite sure if I wanted another John Wick film. In the four years since John Wick: Chapter 3 (which made my ranking of the best films of 2019), so many imitators came and went that I began to wonder if I could truly be entertained by the Baba Yaga’s murderous antics for a fourth time.
Having now seen the film three times, I can tell you that I had nothing to worry about. In fact, John Wick: Chapter 4 exceeded my expectations in just about every way and turned out to be a modern action classic.
At a whopping two hours and forty five minutes, director Chad Stahelski and the internet’s boyfriend, Keanu Reeves, deliver a dizzying tableau of nunchucks, fire breathing shotguns, and vehicular mayhem. In a time when so many American action films struggle to provide one truly memorable set piece, Chapter 4 keeps them coming back-to-back-to-back. Somehow, Stahelski keeps this perpetual action from getting stale thanks to a variety of different types of showdowns and an astounding variety of filmic techniques to show off John Wick in action in ways we’ve truly never seen before.
The film’s final act is the ultimate showcase of this as we see Reeves’ titular assassin turn the entire city of Paris into a battleground as he moves from one creative brawl to the next. A car chase around the Arc de Triomphe leads to a shootout amongst passing cars which then leads to an abandoned apartment in which the camera slowly transitions into a bird’s eye view of the entire building. The ensuing action is a balletic cacophony of destruction as we glide with the camera, viewing John Wick’s unrestrained vengeance from afar. And AS IF THAT WASN’T ENOUGH, the entire thing concludes with John Wick having to make it all the way up those damn stairs with nearly every step occupied by a deadly assassin. It’s a set piece that will go down in history and there was nothing quite like watching Keanu Reeves struggle up those steps with a wild opening weekend audience cheering him on.
On top of all this beautifully staged insanity is a colorful cast of new characters (Donnie Yen’s blind swordsman, Caine, being the highlight), a surprising sense of melancholy, and a touching final scene that I hope signals the end of John Wick’s story.
Honestly though, if everyone involved in these movies can continuously raise the bar with each entry, perhaps an announcement of a John Wick: Chapter 5 wouldn’t be all that bad.
2. OPPENHEIMER (dir. Christopher Nolan)
A series of chain reactions. The chain reactions of Robert J. Oppenheimer’s infidelity. The chain reactions of Lewis Strauss’ bruised ego. And the ongoing chain reactions of dropping the atomic bomb.
Christopher Nolan’s latest epic begins with the ripples of rain drops hitting water and concludes with fire and brimstone rippling its way through the earth. Every impact reverberates through history and we see this initially on a micro-scale as Oppenheimer’s interactions with the broader scientific community, communist sympathizers, and romantic partners all come back to reward and haunt him in equal measure. As the film progresses though, it becomes clear that Oppenheimer's desire to quell his constantly motive mind (beautifully illustrated by atoms swirling in spaces around him and that pulsating Ludwig Gorannson score), leads him to make sporadic choices. Choices in which he does not understand the consequences until it is much too late. As Emily Blunt’s character says to him, “You don’t get to commit the sin, and then ask all of us to feel sorry for you when there are consequences.”
As thematically airtight as it is riveting to watch, Oppenheimer signifies Nolan’s artistic zenith. As someone who has always respected but not always loved the modern auteur’s work, Oppenheimer hits on every conceivable level that a great film should. The performances are top-notch, with Cillian Murphy’s titular role and Robert Downey Jr.’s icy turn as Lewis Strauss ranking as some of the best dramatic performances of the entire decade. At three hours long, this thing is paced like a bullet, with no scene overstaying its welcome. The majority of the film is people talking in boardrooms and filtered through Nolan’s directorial eye and the great editing of Jennifer Lame, it’s as enthralling to watch as any bombastic action sequence the duo has worked on.
Much has been spoken about Oppenheimer’s massive box office success, and I certainly won’t be adding anything new; but I still think it’s such a miracle that a film as talky and ultimately pessimistic as this one grossed three times the amount of something like The Marvels. It's quite comforting to know that most filmgoers are yearning for this level of filmmaking craftsmanship.
One can only hope the chain reaction this film’s success has on future studio films is a rewarding one.
1. THE ZONE OF INTEREST (dir. Jonathan Glazer)
No dramatized film can capture the real-life horrors of the Holocaust. Even though there have been masterful films made on the subject ranging from Spielberg’s Schindler’s List to the emotionally draining Son of Saul, no amount of research or historically accurate recreations can begin to simulate what it must be like to be the victim of such senseless carnage.
What makes Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest so revelatory is that it doesn’t even try to conceive what the world was like in the concentration camps, but instead focuses on the evil which lives just outside the camp’s concrete walls. Focusing almost exclusively on a real-life Nazi commandant, Rudolf Hoss (played here by Christian Friedel), and his family who live in their extravagant summer home on the fringes of Auschwitz, Glazer paints a quietly disturbing portrait of the banality of evil taking shape in this family’s day-to-day life. It isn’t just Rudolf who Glazer targets as the evil perpetrator in the family, either. His wife, Hedwig (Anatomy of a Fall’s Sandra Huller), isn’t just aware of the evil her husband commits to for a living; she luxuriates in the blood money. She’s more than willing to live amongst the soundscape of genocide if it means she can keep wearing her fur coats and hosting events in her massive flower garden. The marriage is not one of true love, but instead a cold, transactional union. As the film progresses, Glazer presents the personal family drama of the Hoss family with the same clinical and emotionless gaze as he does when the German officers are discussing the building specifications of gas chambers or crematoriums. The absence of humanity does not start and stop in the gates of Auschwitz, but follows them through every aspect of a fascistic foot soldier's life.
In the world of The Zone of Interest evil thrives in the day, but true acts of kindness can still be found in the darkness of night. Using black and white night vision photography, Glazer pivots the film’s focus at certain points to focus on a little girl sneaking around the camps, leaving behind apples to the unseen prisoners. While it’s never explicitly said if the girl is a Polish Jew in hiding or merely a dissenter of Hitler’s law, the depiction of how life-threatening it was to commit acts of goodness in times of great evil–all shown without words–was not only moving, but one of the film’s many displays of masterful filmmaking.
Glazer also deserves credit for The Zone of Interest’s knockout final scene. With its understated poignancy, it leaves the audience on a hopeful note that reminds us all that despite the atrocities committed by men like Rudolf Hoss, what’s left of his legacy will be nothing but shame. His work on the machinations of mass murder will never be dedicated to him, but are instead now memorials to the ongoing spirits of the victims he tried and failed to silence.
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