The year 2023 was fantastic in film. As is the case in recent years, I took the task to write a one-sentence thought for each of my top 20. This time around, I decided to let December 31st pass to get as many movies watched as possible. Some acclaimed titles will be missing, given I haven’t seen them, like The Zone of Interest, American Fiction, and All of Us Strangers.
Now, I present to you my top 20 films of 2023, each linked with their respective reviews I wrote on my Letterboxd account (click on the titles).
Honorable mentions:
Cocaine Bear, dir. Elizabeth Banks
M3GAN, dir. Gerard Johnstone
Boston Strangler, dir Matt Ruskin
The Creator, dir. Gareth Edwards
Godzilla Minus One, dir. Takashi Yamazaki
The Top 20:
20. Priscilla, dir. Sophia Coppola - This is the real story that was so conveniently missing from the Baz Luhrman Elvis (2022), rendering it less than stellar.
19. Érase una vez en el Caribe, dir. Ray Figueroa - There IS cinematic talent in Puerto Rico (my home country) and this Western-inspired picture is proof of it.
18. Theater Camp, dir. Molly Gordon/Nick Lieberman - I love how this portrays the quirks of being theater kids, yet it’s done with such love and care, that it’s nowhere near dismissive.
17. The Super Mario Bros. Movie, dir. Michael Jelenic/Aaron Horvath - It’s bright, colorful, filled with Easter eggs, and quite simply a ton of fun.
16. Knock at the Cabin, dir. M. Night Shyamalan - If I didn’t know any better, I’d say M. Night Shyamalan is building a “cursed vacation” cinematic universe here.
15. Bottoms, dir. Emma Seligman - This movie has some of the best satirical sequences I’ve seen in recent years, with pitch-perfect line deliveries from its leads Ayo Edebiri and Rachel Sennott.
14. The Killer, dir. David Fincher - Every movement seems synchronized to a T, as the flow of this movie goes by without breaking stride.
13. May December, dir. Todd Haynes - This felt like a newer iteration of what we saw in Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (1966).
12. Missing, dir. Nicholas D. Johnson/Will Merrick - This was the least talked about great movie of 2023.
11. Saltburn, dir. Emerald Fennell - I can’t stop thinking about the needle drop in the final scene.
10. Killers of the Flower Moon, dir. Martin Scorsese - This is Lily Gladstone’s world and we are just living in and being witnesses of it.
9. Barbie, dir. Greta Gerwig - Any comment sections in any app about this movie help weed out the crying manbabies who malign its message, thus proving the film’s point.
8. Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse, dir. Joaquim Dos Santos/Justin K. Thompson/Kemp Powers - This movie had to be so awesome and so riveting to watch, that its risky ending wouldn’t have worked if it wasn’t.
7. Air, dir. Ben Affleck - I think this one is the basketball equivalent to Moneyball (2011) and Draft Day (2014) that we needed to complete that particular sports movie trifecta.
6. The Holdovers, dir. Alexander Payne - Behold, a new holiday classic movie is upon us.
5. Anatomie d’une chute, dir. Justine Triet - I don’t know what you heard about her, but a guy can’t fall off the roof by himself, it may have been a freak accident, I bet you read this singing P.I.M.P.
4. The Iron Claw, dir. Sean Durkin - A reverse sports movie that scoffs at the usual tropes of the genre and treats its subject matter with sensitivity, emotion, and unabashed love.
3. Past Lives, dir. Celine Song - This isn’t necessarily a love story, but more like a story of real human experiences and how there is no such thing as a fairy tale love story.
2. Poor Things, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos - What a hoot it’d be to be born into an adult body and learn the world with a fast-growing brain and everything comes at you with a clean slate.
1. Oppenheimer, dir. Christopher Nolan - More so than many think, this movie doesn’t display the genius of its title character as a puff piece and it puts everything out there to ask out loud if he is this great figure of history, for us as viewers to answer.
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