The Ten Best Movies of 2023

2023 is a year of missed potential. The writer’s and actor’s strikes that took place this year overwhelmed most of its relevant film releases. It would appear that the risk of greed in the industry has overridden the pursuit of innovative works and created a dangerous precedent for the future of cinema. That being said, there were still a few standout projects that were released this year in the United States that deserve their flowers. This list will highlight ten of them, in order of their U.S. (theatrical or limited) release dates with a dozen or so honorable mentions below.

Honorable Mentions:

• “Infinity Pool” (Brandon Cronenberg)
• “Tori and Lokita” (Luc Dardenne, Jean-Pierre Dardenne)
• “Smoking Causes Coughing” (Quentin Dupieux)
• “Bait” / “Enys Men” (Mark Jenkin)
• “Evil Dead Rise” (Lee Cronin)
• “Master Gardener” (Paul Schrader)
• “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” (Joaquim Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson, Kemp Powers)
• “Past Lives” (Celine Song)
• “Godland” (Hlynur Pálmason)
• “Oppenheimer” (Christopher Nolan)
• “The Beasts” (Rodrigo Sorogoyen)
• “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Martin Scorsese)
• “Anatomy of a Fall” (Justine Triet)
• “The Taste of Things” (Tran Anh Hung)
• “The Killer” (David Fincher)
• “Monster” (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
• “In Our Day” (Hong Sang-soo)
• “Poor Things” (Yorgos Lanthimos)

“Skinamarink” (Kyle Edward Ball)

January 13, 2023

The beginning of 2023 marked a weird start for horror movies. No, not just because of “M3GAN,” the movie about a TikTok-dancing killer doll, but because of Kyle Edward Ball’s directorial debut “Skinamarink:” the first horror movie to hit theaters with as low of a budget as “Paranormal Activity” since, well, “Paranormal Activity.” However, its reason for existing within the mainstream stratosphere is a little harder to comprehend. For one, “Paranormal Activity” was a safe bet because it was being made during the profitable “found footage” era of horror movies which “The Blair Witch Project” had launched all the way back in 1999. “Skinamarink,” on the other hand, is a slow-paced, low-fidelity, experimental horror movie that’s almost exclusively composed of strictly still shots of the inside of a house and the people living in it.

It’s amazing that “Skinamarink” even exists, but it’s more amazing that Shudder took the risk to have such an “acquired taste” passion project showcased across the country’s most popular theater chains instead of sending it straight to VOD. That said, the experience of seeing this in an audience of people forced to endure a level of patience higher than your usual horror flick feels like the genesis of a new horror genre for years to come. Just like how people loathed “The Blair Witch Project” when it first came out only for it to later become a cult classic, “Skinamarink” might have as much of a fighting chance to eventually gain a similar following of fans so noticeable that it encourages other studios and filmmakers to join in on the bandwagon. Sorry “M3GAN.” You might not have the upper hand in terms of longevity compared to this one.

Not to mention, that sequence involving the parents is maybe the scariest moment I’ve seen in a horror film so far this decade.

“Return to Seoul” (Davy Chou)

February 17, 2023

“Return to Seoul” is the best cinematic character study of the year, elevated even further by Park Ji-min’s enthralling performance debut as Freddie – a French woman in her mid-20s who visits the country she was born in (South Korea) to track down her biological parents. The film spans an entire decade as we see her visit Seoul only to then get permanently trapped there by her own will or, at least, a piece of it. 

What makes “Return to Seoul” especially effective is how believable the flaws of Freddie are fleshed out to be, and how they all connect back to a sort of childhood trauma that’s being gradually dug up. She goes through a diverse multitude of careers and lifestyles, only to continuously be slung back by one consistent factor that seems to keep leaving her abandoned and segregated from having the intimate relationships she might need to become a more fulfilled person. The powerful depiction here is of someone imprisoned in an unavoidable, life-defining path that she was born with, and can therefore never completely escape no matter the impressive lengths she goes to divert it. 

The ending is also perhaps the most heartbreaking conclusion of 2023. It’s sheer daggers to the heart. Definitely watch out for what up-and-coming director Davy Chou does next.

“Pacifiction” (Albert Serra)

February 17, 2023

Out of all the great movies you’ll see on this list, “Pacifiction,” however, is effortlessly the #1 must-see of 2023. Director Albert Serra proposes age-old questions: what if politicians are just the facade of a region’s leadership? What if they’ve been indoctrinated by a cult, believing that they’ll make them gods among men by the bribe of excess, submerged permanently in its lush abyss of resources purloined from their oppressive colonialist methods? A bit hyperspecific, for sure, but through masterful execution, you need look no further, for Serra deviously proves to you that they are (likely) nothing more than doped-up puppets gyrating in a nightclub. How embarrassing would that be, for all of us really?

I’d best describe “Pacifiction” as a three-hour limbo, near hypnosis that forces you into a gradually swelling turmoil of having to accept this cold-hard reality that’s insinuated from the beginning but never submitted to until many confrontations later, despite the fact that nothing is ever 100% confirmed. Sometimes less is more for us though; we want the gnawing mystery to end sooner by means of physical and mental surrender. Watch as Serra steadily turns the beautiful, exotic Polynesian island of Tahiti into another pipe-dream facade enhanced by plausible corruption. Like what happens to our lead protagonist, and hopefully you by the end of it, the experience really does become depressing when you acknowledge more and more that you have no control over it. All you can do is stand by till the truth comes tumbling forth like a freight train.

The global politics of the film are rational and simple, yet alarming, coming off as an effective warning regarding the capabilities of intellectual maneuver from your government. How they might get a secondary party to do their dirty work, so they can control without consequences, perhaps freely wage war even…

“Rimini” (Ulrich Seidl)

March 15, 2023

Hey! Do you like Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler?” Well boy, do I have the film for you!

“Rimini” (the first of perhaps another trilogy from director Ulrich Seidl) is like a love child between cinéma-vérité and the usual formal qualities you’d find in an indie comedy. It can be excruciating to watch just based on how real it appears, but the intentional dry humor brings a charm to it that allows you to not feel too bad about the circumstances that have fallen upon a character named Richie Bravo (Michael Thomas) who’s very much deserved everything coming to him. He’s the classic washed-out, micro-celebrity womanizer who becomes desperate to reconnect with a family member he’s left behind due to his unhealthy indulgence in this ever-so-dying glitzy career. His narrative, however, has a distinct and relevant political context (Muslim immigration in Italy) and a contemplative generational background to boot, one where the failures of predecessors upon their successors make them compromisers of their lineage, almost required to eradicate it with fresh identity, submitting entirely to their kin, and pathetically so.

The movie is extremely Freudian as well, kicking off with the death of the ex-icon’s mother. Let’s just say, it makes for some *groundbreakingly* uncomfortable sex scenes to endure.

“John Wick: Chapter 4” (Chad Stahelski)

March 24, 2023

This is probably the closest cinema has ever gotten to conceiving an ideal, seemingly perpetuatal action movie purgatory for closeted sadists, which doesn’t nearly rival what they get out of all those video games that inspired this, but you still get the picture. The fourth and supposedly final entry in the “John Wick” franchise may essentially be another recap of the themes that the last three movies have been about, but this is otherwise an absolute triumph for the “style > substance” believers. It’s always a pleasure seeing an action movie in theaters that clearly sought out to not waste a single penny of its massive budget.

“Beau is Afraid” (Ari Aster)

April 21, 2023

Why “Beau is Afraid” and Ari Aster’s prior feature “Midsommar” work slightly more than his textbook-familiar debut is because, at their core, they’re just him venting about fragments of his personal life through a methodically abstract, sort of self-psychoanalyzing metafiction, much in the same manner as say someone like David Lynch did with his early work. How deeply personal this is beams to a point where you can’t help but get wrapped up in his self-indulgence, considering people’s use of imagination in order for them to try understanding themselves and their lives is just generally interesting to read from an outsider point-of-view. Especially when it’s expressed this vividly, which Aster has only gotten better and better at doing.

It’s his funniest flick too, which helps, and Mommy Mona is by far Aster’s most iconic character to date.

“Asteroid City” (Wes Anderson)

June 23, 2023

Sometimes I question if every new Wes Anderson movie is just him attempting to make something even more quotable than the last, but perhaps that’s just a natural byproduct of his ever-swelling existential crisis that he continues to channel through his seemingly perpetual talking heads, each functioning as one vignette-esc example after the other of the oh-so-silly performances we find ourselves habituating to in hopes of manifesting a grip over our insubordinate lives.

In other words: this is what making too many movies will do to a mofo.

All joking aside, “Asteroid City” is easily Anderson’s best since “The Grand Budapest Hotel.” Wouldn’t say I’ve felt this much of his iconic “collective melancholy” since “Moonrise Kingdom” too. In addition, he’s molded that feeling now with his so-called “self-indulgent”, so-called “new” hyper-specific and speedy filmmaking that people took qualms with in his previous feature “The French Dispatch.” But let’s be real here, what more do you expect from someone who has always been known to do those things? If he’s just going to keep doing it, why not keep pushing the limits of it?

“Evil Does Not Exist” (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)

November 4, 2023 (Screened at the 2023 San Diego Asian Film Festival)

My full thoughts on Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s latest feature-length are already up on this site, but here’s a brief summary of what I said.

“Evil Does Not Exist” isn’t concerned with showing you that evil does exist, but rather incentivizing you to think that it can. From the moment the film opens, with a worm’s-eye-view dolly capturing the tops of snowy trees and the endless bright blue sky, there is a permeating sense of innocence — suggested via a young girl’s perspective as she walks through these woods — paralleled with nature. This level of purity is, for the most part, preserved for the duration of the movie, in the sense that nothing is ever fully exposed to the point where the viewer can become desensitized to all the answers.

This movie is once again proof that Hamaguchi is steadily becoming a master at making his audience reconsider what they once knew in their own lives – which may now seem too calm to be true – via his relatable yet manufactured stories about characters realizing that there is always more to everything. He also reminds us once more that the death of innocence is often the draw of fictional movies and stories in general, usually at first mysterious yet eventually debunked. How? By choosing this time, despite these norms, to not completely kill it, but rather disrupt it a bit, especially during its unforgettable climax.

“May December” (Todd Haynes)

December 1, 2023

One of the main characters of “May December,” Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore), is Todd Hayne’s personification of someone who’s won at life by never allowing peers control over her delusional superiority complex. The most powerful people in the world are usually the ones who don’t give a single care about their actions, no matter how nefarious they may be.

In other words, she’s a celebrity, alright.

Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman), our other protagonist, acts as a secondary example (more of a bystander’s immersion) of this sinister desire to victimize people — like the unfortunate Joe Yoo (Charles Melton) — via developing the all-mighty self-serving personality and its hyperbolized justifications. Humanity suffers from their own attraction to anti-villains coming on top at the end of the day, “like Tony Soprano”. I suppose that search for nuance just feels comfortably real coming from us performers; it’s why we choose to play those kinds of parts, pretending like nothing is variable between each other whether we’re the predator or prey like we’re completely free because we’ve vindicated all our polarizing, cryptic instincts. 

“Love” isn’t just “love” like the leading heads of “May December” have convinced themselves it to be; it’s much more complicated than that. Oh, but the books, the plays… the movies! It’s as if they were tailor-made for us to incessantly express that kind of hogwash fabricating inside: the great human defense mechanism that presumes and theorizes in favor of you.

“The Zone of Interest” (Jonathan Glazer)

December 15, 2023

Introducing: Jonathan Glazer, at his most reserved. Even in hindsight, this is the coldest movie he’s directed yet. It’s essentially 105 minutes of brainwashing viewers to slowly turn a blind eye alongside the Nazi NPC’s at what’s unmistakably evil — opening them up to recontextualizing for its also familiar yet rather discreet, and more subtle appearances — till it all just homogenizes into the government’s formidably modern and up-and-coming tint of the nuclear family.

Ergo, this is a surefire innovative method of encouraging an audience to really unravel the conception of atrocities such as the Holocaust, despite how disappointing the frankly anemic (or worse: ordinary, as if they were even *gasp* relatable) answers may make them feel about something so seemingly unreasonable that we’re still processing it to this day.

The toughest pill to swallow here is acknowledging that our humanity more often than not, chooses to oppress for the beneficiaries of their personal lives given what the political environment demands of its citizens, no matter how big or small the feet of getting there may entail. The happiness in contemporary *capitalistic* life has become drawing a veil (like in the form of a backyard garden or a towering enclosure wall) over the pain we inaugurate onto others. It’s hard to imagine Nazism going on for longer than it did, and yet, the nerve-racking effect in “The Zone of Interest” is that it makes you do so effortlessly. Perhaps it’s even enough of a mind game to wake some consumers up about our species’s continuing primary aim at the problematic material world. Go ahead. Give it a good listen for a change…