For a while now, there’s been a narrative that all the great work was happening in TV not Film. In 2023, things swung back the other way. Outside of a few big shows, I definitely found more things to get excited about on the big screen. This year saw big franchises falter and a sense of fatigue set in around the robust superhero genre that has dominated the box office for the past 15 years. Audiences were ready for more original and challenging fare. There was a little something for everyone at the cinema this year… and a couple of great TV shows too. My picks for the best in film and TV from this past year below.
Television…
And now onto the Movies of 2023, with a list of Honorable Mentions…
Special Awards
Best Lead Performances: Emma Stone, Poor Things / Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
Best Supporting Performances: Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon / Patti LuPone, Beau is Afraid
Best Screenplay: The Holdovers
Best Cinematography: Saltburn
Best Editing: Oppenheimer
Best Production Design: Poor Things
Best Score: The Boy and The Heron
Best Visual Effects: The Creator
Best Scenes:
The Trinity Test, Oppenheimer
I’m Just Ken, Barbie
The Train, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
The Recording, Anatomy of a Fall
The Dress Shop, May December
Farewell & Home Again, Past Lives
10. Air
Dir. Ben Affleck
2023 definitely felt like the year of the “Product” movie from films like Tetris to BlackBerry and even a Beanie Babies movie. While these all had their charms, BlackBerry is especially good, it was Air that became one of the most entertaining movies of the year for me. This is the kind of old school adult entertainment filled with dependable movie star performances that rarely gets made anymore. Air represents a return to form for Ben Affleck as a director who hasn’t been behind the camera since 2016’s Live By Night. Affleck is a storyteller in the classical sense and crafts a highly entertaining movie that’s also one of the most rewatchable from this year. A good, easy time with an amazing cast giving wonderful performances gets it in the top 10.
9. Barbie
Dir. Greta Gerwig
This could have gone so many different ways, and the fact that a movie based on Barbie was not only good but this good, is a testament to both producer/star Margot Robbie and director/co-writer Greta Gerwig. At minimum Barbie represents the kind of big budget studio comedy that really hasn’t been made since the late 2000’s. But Gerwig and co-writer Noah Baumbach’s screenplay takes the Barbie concept to places no one could have predicted given its corporate and commercial origins. It’s not only an incisive exploration of feminism and gender dynamics, but is bursting with creativity as broad entertainment. Ryan Gosling rightfully gets plenty of praise for his show-stopping performance but Robbie gives the kind of effortless star turn that so often gets taken for granted and is equally impressive. And since my three-year-old daughter now demands to watch it every day, I can say it holds up to repeat viewings quite well.
8. Killers of the Flower Moon
Dir. Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese’s latest, which at many times feels like a culmination of all that he’s ever done, is one of the most impressive filmmaking feats of the year. The scale of the production is massive and it’s a treat to see such a showcase from so many talented craftspeople. Killers though is more than just technical brilliance on display, it’s also a stage for some of the best performances of the year. Scorsese finally pairs his two muses together: Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro… with the former giving one of his most nuanced turns as the despicable Ernest while De Niro does his best work in almost 20 years. The star of the show though is Lily Gladstone, who radiates confidence and grace and steals every scene that she’s in. There’s been plenty of not-unfair criticism thrown this film’s way from its long running time to its choice of where to focus the story, but Scorsese made the only film that he could make and delivers a rich and essential American epic.
7. Saltburn
Dir. Emerald Fennell
Here is a messy movie that I love dearly. Emerald Fennell follows up her award-winning Promising Young Woman with a wickedly devious comedic thriller about a troubled young man’s attempts at ingratiating himself amongst the upper-upper class. While the movie’s politics are a bit all over the place, its cultural references somewhat inaccurate, and it fumbles the ball a bit at the goal line, these bumps along the road don’t take from just how wildly entertaining the journey is. Skittish viewers may want to tread carefully in this gloves-off romp of sex, desire, and frivolity but those who are game to go along for the ride and join the party will find themselves lost in Saltburn and loving every demented minute of it. However, trigger warning for aging millennials who now find their youthful days represented as a period piece.
6. May December
Dir. Todd Haynes
Heavily inspired by the Mary Kay Letourneau story about a school teacher who falls in love and marries her underage student, May December finds Natalie Portman playing Elizabeth, an actress doing research as she’s about to play a Letourneau-like character in Julianne Moore’s Gracie. Like the previous entry on this list, director Todd Haynes’ latest is another devious melodramatic romp but one that comes with a lot more bite. It’s also an acting masterclass with perhaps the best trio of performances from this year. Both Portman and Moore are doing some of their best work as two merging yet dueling personalities, but it’s Charles Melton’s Joe, the man stuck in a boy’s body, who is the true revelation here. Is it a drama or is it a comedy? Is it campy or is it high brow? The answer is it manages to be all of these things at once while always being entertaining with performances that will leave you shaken and breathless.
5. The Holdovers
Dir. Alexander Payne
Apart from his 1999 classic, Election, Alexander Payne has never quite hit with me. Movies like Sideways or The Descendants end up being movies I appreciate more than I enjoy, but it’s hard to imagine loving The Holdovers any more than I do. Centered around three people who find themselves stuck together over the holidays at an all-boys boarding school in 1970’s New England, The Holdovers is a movie about human connection. It’s as funny as it is moving and features another tremendous trio of performances from Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and newcomer Dominic Sessa. Giamatti finds a character here that fits him perfectly and he gives arguably the best performance of his career. The Holdovers feels like a warm hug – a movie you just want to curl up with and never leave. It is deeply felt and wonderful, and is not only a new classic for Payne but also a new classic for the holidays.
4. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Dir. Christopher McQuarrie
After rescuing the box office with Top Gun: Maverick last year, Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie return to one of Hollywood’s greatest franchises, Mission: Impossible, for its 7th installment. When it comes to crafting big budget entertainment, Cruise and McQuarrie have no equal and Dead Reckoning is no exception. The onslaught of tremendously crafted action sequences on display in the latest Mission is nothing short of staggering. It’s impossible to pick out just one, though the finale is perhaps the greatest sequence with a train ever put to film. Dead Reckoning takes some big swings with its story, particularly the introduction of an evil artificial intelligence as the film’s villain, but what could end up feeling hokey ends up being so timely that it scared Joe Biden. While Cruise is his dependable self, the poster child for sacrificing your body for the play, it’s franchise newcomer Hayley Atwell who shines brightest. Free from the Marvel machine, Atwell is finally given an opportunity to show her star potential on a huge stage and she runs away with the movie at multiple points… no easy feat when the biggest movie star in the world is your scene partner. Dead Reckoning is one of the best Missions yet and the best piece of pure popcorn entertainment we had this year.
3. Poor Things
Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos
2023 was the year that movies brought sexy back. There’s been growing sentiment recently that all sex scenes are worthless and that sex, one of the most essential pieces of the human experience, has no place in movies. Well tell that to Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos, whose Poor Things posits that sex is not only essential but is the key to our personal evolution. Emma Stone’s Bella Baxter, a dead woman reanimated with the brain of her unborn child (yes, you read that correctly), embarks on one of the most astounding journeys of personal growth I’ve seen quite some time. Stone’s performance is simply incredible at every turn and is a marvel to behold. It’s the best work of her career and is a performance that dwarfs all others this year (or most any year). The world that Lanthimos creates here is both dark and wondrous and a feast for the eyes. It’s a place you want to inhabit and explore, much like Bella, having a whole new world opened up to you. Poor Things is an incredible cinematic achievement and it’s hard to imagine either Stone or Lanthimos ever topping this, though I can’t wait to see them try.
2. The Boy and the Heron
Dir. Hayao Miyazaki
The Master is back, and how lucky are we to get one final masterpiece from one of the greatest artists cinema has ever bestowed upon us. We all assumed that 2013’s The Wind Rises would be legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki’s swan song, but then came word he had one more left in him. For the longest time nobody knew what this movie was about and it took nearly a decade to complete. Famously known for creating some of the greatest heroines in cinema, Miyazaki alters course to give us a deeply personal, semi-autobiographical, fantastical adventure as the young boy Mahito journeys into a mystical realm to save his aunt. The Boy and the Heron is so jam-packed with big themes and ideas, that it almost overflows with them and Miyazaki openly admits that he doesn’t even have full grasp of the movie’s meaning. This is what makes the movie such an incredible piece of art – there is so much to revisit and explore that you could watch this movie 100 times and take something new from it each time. It’s one of the most gorgeously animated movies ever made and a breathtaking synthesis of all that Miyazaki has done before.
1. Oppenheimer
Dir. Christopher Nolan
A three-hour historical drama about the creation of the atom bomb that’s half in black and white? This only sounds like a billion dollar blockbuster if you’re Christopher Nolan. In a time where all that seems to drive audiences to theaters is recognizable IP, it’s truly remarkable that audiences will show up for the sheer power of someone’s filmmaking talent. This used to be something only Steven Spielberg could accomplish, but Christopher Nolan has been the king of star directors ever since 2008’s The Dark Knight. The fact that he’s also able to assemble one of the most impressive ensembles of actors we’ve ever seen doesn’t hurt either. This a movie littered with terrific performances, but the movie rests squarely on the shoulders of Cillian Murphy, playing Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer. The way Murphy is able to portray the complicated and conflicted interiority of Oppenheimer is extraordinary. What’s most impressive though is the way Nolan is able to use filmmaking tendencies, split narratives and propulsive editing, to weave this foundational piece of history together. Oppenheimer moves like a freight train thanks to superb editing and an incredible score, and is never not exciting whether it be setting off a bomb or someone getting grilled during a security clearance hearing. It’s absolutely riveting from start to finish and is already a landmark achievement in American cinema.
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