The cinematic landscape of 2023 was all about past lives--and I'm not just talking about the movie Past Lives, although its tale of a unique connection between two characters in childhood that reasserts itself in adulthood makes it perfectly emblematic of a year in movies that was all about looking backwards in time to better understand the present. This trend is most clearly evident in the perceptive, relevant historical dramas Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, and The Zone of Interest. But practically every genre incorporated this theme in 2023, from baroque fantasy (in Poor Things, Emma Stone's Bella Baxter ultimately had to reckon with who she once was to complete her journey of self-discovery) to the sports movie (the wrestling-world tragedy The Iron Claw is all about what's passed on from one generation to the next), to franchise action films (Keanu Reeves' John Wick and Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt both attempted to outrun the past in their respective sequels). So in that spirit, let's travel to the very recent past as I celebrate the best films of 2023:
1. Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan). This staggering portrait of the mastermind behind the atomic bomb (hauntingly played by Cillian Murphy) showcases everything that makes Nolan a top-tier director, including his flair for IMAX-sized spectacle (the Trinity Test is staged with awe-inspiring magnitude and force) and his inventiveness with non-chronological storytelling. Even more impressively, it finds him trying new things and succeeding brilliantly at them, like finding a cinematic analogue for the buzzing visions in Oppenheimer's head and upping his game as a dialogue writer. The torrent of morally and politically probing talk provocatively explores bureaucratic, agenda-driven scapegoating and how Oppenheimer's creation may ultimately be our undoing.
2. Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese). Now in his 80s, Scorsese remains a vital, towering American filmmaker who delivers a masterpiece nearly every time out. He does it again here, with a gorgeously cinematic, powerfully corrosive look at how murderous white Americans seduced and killed their way to oil profits belonging to the Osage Nation in 1920s Oklahoma. While it's true that this setting makes the film Scorsese's first Western, it's also, at its core, another of his enveloping, sometimes darkly comic crime epics. There's an allegorically rich complexity in the two-faced strain of American evil represented by Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro's characterizations (both frequent Scorsese collaborators are in top form), while Lily Gladstone, with her singularly expressive eyes and commanding stillness, provides the movie its piercing soul.
3. John Wick: Chapter 4 (Chad Stahelski). The John Wick series has consistently delivered balletic action, minimalist movie-star badassery from Keanu Reeves, and an intoxicatingly baroque visual style from former stuntman Stahelski. It's a sign of what a born filmmaker Stahelski is that when given the biggest budget of the series to date, he's crafted a peak achievement not just for the franchise but for the action genre in general. This is essentially the B-movie equivalent of Leone's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly--a three-character-centered epic where the jaw-dropping, intricately choreographed action and colorful, maximalist style legitimately merit comparison to Leone's lyricism. As the Lee Van Cleef of the central trio, Donnie Yen gives an instantly iconic performance that deserved much more awards attention.
4. The Holdovers (Alexander Payne). A lot of movies and shows set during the holidays tend to be broad in pushing viewers' emotional buttons, which makes the quietly piercing melancholy of this story of a curmudgeonly prep school teacher (Paul Giamatti), a troubled student (Dominic Sessa), and the school's grieving cook (Da'Vine Joy Randolph) bonding over Christmas break all the more bracing and emotionally potent. And yet, in classic Payne style, this is also a supremely witty comedy. The central trio of actors couldn't be better in balancing the humor and the heartbreak, creating unforgettable characters who will be a joy to revisit every December.
5. All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh). There's a profound empathy and insight with which this subtly supernatural love story grapples with emotional extremes--the crushing isolation of loneliness, the euphoric bliss of connecting with someone you're attracted to, the difficulty of letting go of the baggage of the past in order to move forward--that reaffirms Haigh as an extraordinarily perceptive humanist. His precise, expressive filmmaking captures a limbo state between reality and subjective fantasy, while his script is casually wise and lightened with disarming humor. And as a gay screenwriter who seeks closure with the spirits of his long-dead parents, Andrew Scott gives a performance of such remarkable emotional nuance that it should be a crime that he didn't receive a Best Actor Oscar nomination.
6. Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos). A warped feminist fairy tale for adults, this one-of-a-kind epic follows the Frankenstein's Monster-like Bella Baxter (Emma Stone, flawlessly charting the maturation and awkward development of someone growing into personhood) as she ventures into the world to discover all of its inequalities and absurdities. Lanthimos' wildly imaginative world-building makes this his most ambitious investigation into what makes human beings tick yet, and he's found an invaluable collaborator in screenwriter Tony McNamara (who previously worked with him on the great The Favourite), who makes every line of dialogue hilariously bawdy and clever.
7. Past Lives (Celine Song). The year's most remarkably assured debut infuses the premise of reuniting with "the one that got away" with a rare depth and delicacy, and it offers an emotionally devastating conclusion guaranteed to linger with fans of romantic movies. Song's compositions symbolically combine signifiers of the modern world with reminders of the eternal natural world, and as a writer, she possesses the richness and humanity to make the third wheel in the romantic triangle (affectingly played by John Magaro) complex and sympathetic in his own right. This is a movie that understands that love is too complicated to be a matter of clear-cut heroes and villains and objectively right or wrong choices.
8. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (Christopher McQuarrie). While this isn't the best film in its respective series the way that John Wick: Chapter 4 is--that title still belongs to McQuarrie's insanely rewatchable Mission: Impossible - Fallout--it's still more than great enough to maintain the series' status as the most simultaneously spectacular and sophisticated action franchise around. McQuarrie spins an intricate narrative web focused on the very real, topical threat of artificial intelligence, brings in vivid new characters (Hayley Atwell's cunning and ultimately heroic thief and Esai Morales' dapper villain among them), and stages enjoyably massive action set pieces (the train-set climax is a real humdinger) that demand to be seen on a big screen.
9. The Taste of Things (Tran Anh Hung). With its array of immaculately prepared, delicious-looking meals and desserts, this is naturally grade-A food porn. But it's also immensely rewarding on many other levels. The painterly beauty of Tran's compositions and graceful flow of his camera movements make it as much of a showcase for film art as it is for culinary art. And the effortless chemistry between stars Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel provides an essential layer of moving, bewitching, refreshingly grown-up romance. Thematically, the film is as rich as any of the dishes we see onscreen, acting as a testament to the pursuit of that which we love in life, even if they're irreplaceable, ephemeral pleasures.
10. Asteroid City (Wes Anderson). Detractors of Anderson's meticulously controlled, whimsically designed worlds accuse his aggressive style of cutting off authentic feeling. But with this film's ingeniously meta structure and story of a grieving family (with Rushmore collaborator Jason Schwartzman giving one of his most layered performances as the paterfamilias) witnessing an extraterrestrial visitation, Anderson makes an achingly personal, persuasive argument for the power of not just art in general but his divisive art to make sense of the scary unknowns of existence, from death to the possibility that we aren't alone in the universe.
And because I'm including a rare tie in the #20 spot, here are my next 11 runners-up, instead of the usual 10:
11. Beau Is Afraid (Ari Aster). Because this darkly comic picaresque felt even more bold and audacious on a second viewing, I have a feeling that it'll age beautifully among cinephiles fond of auteurs making big swings. Aster took a risk crafting the most proudly juvenile and neurotic three-hour odyssey ever, but underneath the immaturity is a formally brilliant portrayal of how extreme anxiety makes the craziness of the modern world feel even crazier.
12. The Eight Mountains (Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch). This decades-spanning tale of how the friendship between two men (wonderfully played by Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi) who first met as children and their connection to the Italian Alps, where they first met, evolve over time possesses the vast scope and rich thematic resonance of a big, great novel. But considering how stunningly van Groeningen and Vandermeersch visually capture the mountainous setting, there's ultimately no question what medium this belongs to.
13. BlackBerry (Matthew Johnson). There's been a surprising deluge of cinematic origin stories of corporate products lately, and the clear standout among them is this comedy about the genesis of the early smartphone model. It boasts the sharpest wit and is the most keenly perceptive about the corruption of corporate power. It's a fully satisfying rise-and-fall narrative, whereas its competitors are only interested in the rise. Plus, as a fan of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, it's hugely gratifying to see Glenn Howerton give a riveting, squirmingly funny performance as a profane, shark-like investor.
14. The Iron Claw (Sean Durkin). Zac Efron has always possessed charisma and a flair for musical roles, but it wasn't clear how much dramatic range he had until his touchingly soulful performance as Kevin Von Erich, one of four brothers groomed for a wrestling career by a domineering father (the terrific Holt McCallany) in this fact-based weepie. Indie-film veteran Durkin makes a smooth transition into mainstream fare, preserving his moodiness and formal precision while revealing a newfound emotional sincerity that ensures the film earns the viewer's tears.
15. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein). It makes a strange sort of sense that Daley & Goldstein would make such a satisfyingly above-expectations adaptation of the enduring role-playing game--they previously directed the pricelessly funny board game-centered comedy Game Night. For this big-scale fantasy, they successfully transferred over Game Night's key strengths--snappy witticisms, visually fluid action sequences, an ensemble cast where every member is well-used--while upping the level of spectacle and adding a surprising, affecting amount of heart.
16. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer). It's typical of art films to use a static extreme wide shot to create a sense of detachment. What Glazer, who doesn't work often enough but always pushes the envelope cinematically when he does, brilliantly does here is craft a movie made up of those kind of shots that's also about detachment on a deep, chilling level. The images reflect the eerie compartmentalization of a family living right next door to Auschwitz during Hitler's reign, while the haunting, precise sound design captures the horrors that they choose to ignore.
17. Infinity Pool (Brandon Cronenberg). I love that Cronenberg is just as much of a sick puppy as filmmaker father David, and it's impressive that he's managed to forge his own artistic identity distinct from his old man's. While David's work is defined by a detached, surgical precision, Brandon's style is lush and dreamy in a Refn-esque way. Infinity Pool is a nightmarish trip that offers a scathing allegory on how they wealthy manage to evade accountability for their crimes, and Cronenberg gets career-best work from Alexander Skarsgaard and an unforgettably unhinged Mia Goth.
18. American Fiction (Cord Jefferson). As a satire of the narratives of Black lives that the marketplace typically responds to, Jefferson's auspicious debut is razor-sharp, full of dialogue that's simultaneously literate and laugh-out-loud funny. And as a family drama, it's heartfelt and remarkably lived-in, boosted by great performances from Jeffrey Wright and Sterling K. Brown. In conjoining these two strands, Jefferson has crafted a comedy whose bite is nicely balanced with a palpable warmth.
19. Showing Up (Kelly Reichardt). There's a gentle, leisurely sense of observation to Reichardt's films that always make them a pleasure to sink into, and with this newest work about a Portland-based sculptor (Michelle Williams, who is always at her most gracefully subtle when collaborating with Reichardt), the filmmaker provides a revealing window into the creation of art--and how life tends to both get in the way of it and inform it in ineffable ways. Even the flakiest, most pretentious members of the Portland art scene we meet here are embraced by Reichardt with open-hearted generosity.
20. TIE: The Convenant (Guy Ritchie) and Operation Fortune: Ruse De Guerre (Guy Ritchie). These two films couldn't be more tonally different--The Covenant is a solemnly gripping war drama about the bonds formed in combat, while Operation Fortune is a breezy, comedic spy caper--but they both find British veteran Ritchie working at the top of his game. The impeccable craft behind this duo include two great, enveloping scores from composer Christopher Benstead, so he's one collaborator that Ritchie definitely needs to keep on his Rolodex.
And here are 14 more standouts from the year in movies:
21. Still: A Michael J. Fox Story (Davis Guggenheim).
22. Godzilla Minus One (Takashi Yamazaki).
23. Perfect Days (Wim Wenders).
24. The Promised Land (Nikolaj Arcel).
25. Monster (Hirokazu Kore-eda).
26. Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet).
27. Anselm (Wim Wenders).
28. About Dry Grasses (Nuri Bilge Ceylan).
29. The Teachers' Lounge (Ilker Catak).
30. Jawan (Atlee).
31. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (Kelly Fremon Craig).
32. Godland (Hlynur Palmason).
33. De Humani Corporis Fabrica (Verena Paravel & Lucien Castaing-Taylor).
34. Magic Mike's Last Dance (Steven Soderbergh).
As Yet Unseen: Robot Dreams, La Chimera, Falcon Lake, Skinamarink, Menus-Plaisirs - Les Troisgros, the four Best Documentary Oscar nominees other than The Eternal Memory
