If you had told me at the start of this year that I would have been exhausted by a new John Wick film and cried three times at Barbie, I would have – to say the least – found it hard to believe.
And yet, here we are.
I saw over 100 new releases in 2023 and while there is always a solid batch of films that are here today and gone tomorrow, I was fortunate to largely avoid anything truly terrible (with the exception of David Fincher’s horrible The Killer).
A lot has changed in the time since I started publishing an annual list of my favourite films.
The theatrical window for films continues to shorten, franchises that were considered sure things have taken a major hit and streaming is well and truly here to stay.
Every time I write this list, I am struck by how often the films I loved the most were the ones that I saw with the least anticipation. It’s a joy to see something great, it’s a joy to be able to share and recommend it with others, it’s a joy that I can’t imagine my life without.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
Air, Anatomy of a Fall, Creed III, Dungeons & Dragons – Honor Among Thieves, Fast X, John Wick – Chapter 4, Killers of the Flower Moon, Master Gardener, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Oppenheimer, Quiz Lady, The Royal Hotel, Rustin, Savior Complex.
10. Flora and Son
John Carney has made the same movie about the ability of people to connect through music four times – and I’m completely comfortable with him continuing to do so into the future.
Playing similar notes to his previous films, Flora and Son is at times an odd combination of heart-warming and profane as a single mother takes online guitar lessons while trying to keep her teenage son out of trouble with the law.
On a personal note, when it felt as though the world was at one of its lowest points in 2023, watching Flora and Son was the joyful embrace I needed to smile again.
9. Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse
Building on the concept of a multiverse, first introduced to a mainstream cinematic audience with Into The Spider-Verse, the follow-up Across The Spider-Verse achieved a feat few sequels have been able to match in the four decades since The Empire Strike Back.
A visual assault (in the best way possible), the emotional turmoil weighing down on Miles and Gwen makes for the most compelling superhero film of the decade to date.
There have been a number of very good and even great Spider-Man films in the past – you could make a strong case that this is the best.
8. You Hurt My Feelings
Honesty is held up as a foundation for relationships that go the distance. So what happens when a wife overhears a truth from her husband that cuts to her personal and professional core?
The lies we all tell with the best of intentions – and the ‘truths’ we want reinforced back to us – are explored in You Hurt My Feelings, the latest film from writer/director Nicole Holofcener.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, working with Holofcener a decade on from the lovely Enough Said, shows a lesser-seen emotional vulnerability as she deals with the ripples of an unspoken but devastatingly relatable heartache.
7. M3GAN
M3GAN was the first new release I saw in 2023 and it carried through all year as one of my favourites.
It’s a film that understands its primary purpose to entertain and delivers with one of the best new characters – a creepy villain that you’ll be rooting for as she wreaks havoc – while also remembering to have human characters worthy of taking the monstrous creation down.
Like many great science-fiction films before it, M3GAN speaks to humanity with a satirical critique of how technology enables lazy parenting.
6. The Holdovers
A curmudgeonly teacher, grieving mother and alienated student are bonded together over the Christmas break by sadness, but the way it can be expressed is dependent on individual class and social status in the latest from Alexander Payne.
Paul Giamatti is wonderful in one of the best performances of the year, while the script from David Hemingson avoids cynically rebuking the joy associated with Christmas – The Holdovers is an acknowledgement of the sadness that is known by a lot of people during a time of year that is portrayed as the most wonderful.
5. How To Blow Up A Pipeline
If the crew from Ocean’s Eleven gave up robbing casinos to instead sabotage fossil fuel infrastructure, you’d get the provocative and tensely entertaining How To Blow Up A Pipeline.
A lesser version of this narrative film, adapted from Andreas Malm’s non-fiction book, could have merely been a left-wing polemic; instead the creative team led by Daniel Goldhaber give each of the characters distinct reasons for taking drastic action in pursuit of a shared goal.
In an ideal world Gavin Brivik would receive acclaim during award’s season for the best score of the year.
4. Telemarketers
If you’ve ever gotten mad at a telemarketer calling at an inopportune time, refocus your anger at the system built upon a seemingly endless stream of bullshit.
Sharing a lot in common with two of my favourite documentaries of the past five years, Telemarketers blends an unconventional investigation of rampant corruption (Collective) with the human drama of people often overlooked by filmmakers (Minding The Gap).
In a story about the worst impulses of humanity under capitalism, the friendship shared by Sam Lipman-Stern and Patrick J. Pespas culminates in the most hopeful final scene of the year.
3. Godzilla: Minus One
In a year which saw Oppenheimer present an American perspective on the creation of nuclear weapons, director Takashi Yamazaki showed the destruction inflicted upon Japan through the metaphorical guise of Godzilla.
The Godzilla presented here, in its 37th cinematic iteration, is genuinely terrifying every time it appears on-screen, while the human characters (which are so often treated as afterthoughts in similar films) are well defined in a way reminiscent of Star Wars at its best.
There is a simplicity to the storytelling in Godzilla: Minus One that makes for a rousing experience – this is a film that ought to be seen and heard through the full force of IMAX.
2. Barbie
I was moved to tears on three separate occasions while watching Barbie:
- The imperfect beauty of seeing the world for what it is for the first time.
- I laughed so hard I wept when Ken tried to impress Barbie with a dead-on song that I had not through about for years.
- Leaving Barbieland behind to choose to become human (the tipping point was the home videos showing all sides of life).
Greta Gerwig gets to have her cake and eat it with a film that simultaneously critiques the thing it is indulging in. It is remarkable to watch how far Margot Robbie has come over the past decade – from Neighbours to here!
1. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
There is a scene in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. that has stayed with me since the moment I saw it and will likely do so for years to come.
As Margaret (Abby Ryder Fortson) asks her mother about the absence of a relationship with her grandparents, the words delivered in response by Rachel McAdams may be broadly relatable, yet the emotion contained in her performance could not be truer to my own life.
It was a moment that embodied what makes films so powerful in expressing things about who we are in a way that we can struggle to convey otherwise.
It took more than five years for Kelly Fremon Craig to follow up the excellent The Edge of Seventeen, but with Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. she has gifted the world a film that is as emotionally devastating as it is filled with love and compassion.
Robert Crosby 