Well, that didn’t suck!

I’m a big believer that, one way or another, every year is a good year for movies. The studios might crank out a bunch of crap, the indies might produce the kind of thing that only the most annoying cineastes appreciate, yet there are always diamonds in the rough. Every year that movies are released we will get good movies, we might just have to look a little harder for them.

Some years, there is an embarrassment of riches. 1939. 1982. 1999. I feel comfortable adding 2023 to that list, because holy hell did we get some good stuff! Yes, the DC Extended Universe ended with a whimper, and while the Marvel Cinematic Universe might not be dead, it’s certainly undergoing palliative care right this minute. So be it. The nature of things is change and nowhere is that more true than in the world of movies. 

This feels like a good time to look in the rearview mirror at the exceptional films of 2023. A few things to mention…

  1. The list is in no particular order since my opinion of the best film of 2023 changes. For the moment, I think it’s Poor Things. 
  2. I missed a bunch of quality films in 2023. I admit it! I’m just one man trying to avoid a nervous breakdown!
  3. You might be tempted to say, “Hey, why didn’t The Movie I Really Like make your Top 10?” Well, because it didn’t! Go make your own list.

Now, on with the list!

  • Oppenheimer – J. Robert Oppenheimer was one of the most important human beings who ever lived thus far. Christopher Nolan understood that the man who helped win World War II may have planted the seeds of humanity’s doom. His biopic wrestles with big ideas and bigger moral concepts.*
  • Godzilla Minus One – A Godzilla film that treats the Big G as a force of nature, and takes the time to flesh out the people under his scaly foot. Smart, emotional, and genuinely scary. This would make for a pretty solid thematic double feature with Oppenheimer.
  • Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse – 2023 was…um…not a super good year for superhero movies! The second installment in the Spider-Verse trilogy dodged that curse like a certain wall-crawler dodging a bullet. The animation is breathtaking, the characters are fleshed out, and it pushes the multiverse concept in an interesting direction.
  • Barbie – A dumber and worse version would have stuck with just a #girlpower riff. Instead, we got a movie about an iconic toy that’s genuinely subversive. Margot Robbie, Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach, and possible Best Supporting Actor Ryan Gosling proved why their film was the biggest hit of the year. 
  • Poor Things – Audiences complain about a lack of originality in movies. Director Yorgos Lanthimos said, “Hold my Frankensteinian amniotic fluid!” with perhaps the best film of the year. The set design is dazzling, Lanthimos’ direction is thoughtful and creative, and Emma Stone’s performance as nu-woman Bella Baxter is utterly fearless. 
  • Killers of the Flower Moon – Scorsese might be the greatest living director walking the planet, and he’s made a late career masterpiece. He shows us the Osage’s astounding fortune and their immediate exploitation by whites. Come for Leonardo DiCaprio playing a malevolent idiot and Robert De Niro playing a smiling devil, stay for Lily Gladstone’s subtle and heartbreaking performance. 
  • Lola – Science fiction doesn’t have to paint on a massive canvas or cost eleventy gajillion dollars. I direct your attention to this little film about a pair of very clever sisters in 1938 who develop a machine that picks up broadcasts from the future. It shows an alternate timeline that goes from whimsical to nightmarish with breathtaking speed.
  • Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant – I know, I was surprised that a film from the perpetually arch Ritchie made it onto my list. But he’s made a genuine and thoughtful drama about one of the worst betrayals in American history. Know that whoever you’re planning to vote for this year were probably okay with us turning our backs on Afghan interpreters.
  • Aloners – One of the best examples of the “show, don’t tell” rule of screenwriting was released last year. Aloners is a quiet and observant South Korean drama about honjak, the concept of people who wish to be left alone. Is that possible in the twenty-first century? 
  • Polite Society – A fiery young student who yearns to be a stuntwoman. A depressed older sister. A budding brother in law who might be too good to be true. A possible mother in law who could be a supervillain. A wedding heist. When I talk about a film that’s insanely entertaining, I’m referring to this film.

Honorable Mentions: Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Creed III, M3gan, Napoleon, The Killer, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,** The Iron Claw, John Wick: Chapter 4, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One, Free Skate

Didn’t see: Blackberry, Past Lives, Anatomy of a Fall, May December, Ferrari, All Of Us Strangers, The Boy and the Heron, The Holdovers, Priscilla, Bottoms, The Blackening, You Hurt My Feelings, Maestro, Silent Night

 

*One of the recurring themes of 2023 was people being very bad at media literacy. We had people mad that Oppenheimer didn’t explicitly show the bombing of Hiroshima, people mad that Barbie was “sexist,” and people calling things “woke” without knowing what the term means. I genuinely think that, along with finance skills, high school students should have to take a media literacy class, since their parents and grandparents are embarrassing themselves with their ignorance.

**My son wants all of you to know that he thinks the better Wes Anderson film of 2023 is Asteroid City. Do with that information what you will.



Tim Brennan
Tim has been alarmingly enthusiastic about movies ever since childhood. He grew up in Boulder and, foolishly, left Colorado to study Communications in Washington State. Making matters worse, he moved to Connecticut after meeting his too-good-for-him wife. Drawn by the Rockies and a mild climate, he triumphantly returned and settled down back in Boulder County. He's written numerous screenplays, loves hiking, and embarrassed himself in front of Samuel L. Jackson. True story.  
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