It’s strange to think of, but many of my favorite movies of 2023 were revivals or anniversary showings. This year I had the most fun just being with people who wanted to be there. They weren’t obsessively scrolling their phones, but looking at the screen with rapt attention, letting the outside world melt away from the opening studio logos and vanity cards to the closing credits.
So many of these screenings gave me the joy of film that the new releases couldn’t. This year, I often found myself in sparsely populated theaters, or even on three occasions as the sole viewer of that showing. As much as I often groan at the foibles of my fellow moviegoers, I suddenly missed their presence as my laughter or my sniffles of sadness echoed in the empty darkness.
For one fateful weekend, though, I got a taste of what it used to be to see a new release. The crush of humanity as we sat through and shared the experience that was Barbenheimer. It was annoying, smelly, hot, and riveting to know we were all experiencing something truly extraordinary for the first time. Our collective gasps, laughs, and tears at the screens in front of us gave me hope that something else is out there beyond the sequels, reboots, nostalgia, and endless parade of formulaic IP.
The films that I will take with me beyond this year have that kind of spark. They came off the screen in a way that makes me hope for the future, that I’ll be at a future screening for them and I can find the same kind of weirdos as me, who braved the silence of an apathetic audience and found something special on screen.
These are my favorite films released this year.
10. Asteroid City
It’s fitting that in the year I took on my passion project of writing about grief in Wes Anderson films, Anderson gave us a film that overtly describes and shows grief in wondrous ways. In many facets of it, Asteroid City is a bit overwhelming in its interlocking layers, but like all of Anderson’s works, it comes together in ways that transcend form. There’s a strange beauty in this film and it’s one I will have to revisit many times to see all that needs seeing about it.
9. Fremont
Fremont snuck up on me. It was only playing for a week in my city and a friend invited me on a whim. It didn’t take long for it to suck me in with its meditations on loneliness, companionship, and mental health. It’s beautifully shot in black and white and it’s a terrifically tender film that’s also laugh out loud funny in many unexpected ways. A surprise and delight from start to finish.
8. Saltburn
I love a devious queer character. I know I’m supposed to be mad because queer characters have historically been coded as villains, but there’s something deliciously intoxicating about it. Saltburn is so twisted and malevolent. It’s sexy and disturbing. I never want to look at another nude male body unless it’s from the camera of Emerald Fennell. More movies should have nude male dancing.
7. The Holdovers
The Holdovers has a perfect balance. Each of the main characters is full and fleshed out. Their stories interweave and balance in perfect ways. There’s no real schmaltz or false sentiment between the characters, but there comes a respect as these three people let each other in. It’s a story beautifully told and superbly acted.
6. Oppenheimer
There’s something truly invigorating about a film that’s a technical marvel as well as an intimate character study. Christopher Nolan is a dense, detailed filmmaker and it shows in his craftsmanship. He builds layers and worlds into his films that seem unfathomable and intangible as well as immediate and close. Oppenheimer is epic in every sense of the word.
5. Priscilla
I found beauty in Sofia Coppola’s treatment of her caged bird. The way that Priscilla evolves from someone who is grateful because everyone tells her to be to a woman who recognizes her own power is remarkable. The cast is perfect, the images are sublime, but it’s the texture of the film that lingers on your skin and makes your hair stand on end with a static you don’t want to go away.
4. Theater Camp
Theater kids are never not entertaining to watch. Grown up theater kids who refuse to let their dreams die are even better. It’s a mockumentary that doesn’t wholly rely on tired mockumentary tropes. It’s a funny movie about dreamers and the reality of chasing a career in the arts. The cast is perfect and the film is sublime.
3. Bottoms
I loved every single minute of Bottoms, then there was a dialogue free sequence set to Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated.” I began to cry because a movie filled with such satire and goofiness somehow actually uses the song in the perfect context. So many of us grew up with that song being a punchline, but here it’s used with the feelings it was always meant to evoke. It’s brilliant. This queer, horny, funny movie hits every single button I need it to. Just incredible.
2. Past Lives
I realized quickly that these characters are exactly my age now. In that moment, Past Lives took on another level for me. I began to see my own past lives as I lived through these characters. There was no doubt I was going to cry throughout the film, but it hit so much harder and so much more achingly in the right spots when I saw myself through someone else’s eyes. There’s a majesty in moments of silence and Past Lives is a master class in this incredible art.
1.Barbie
There’s a moment in Barbie when the goofiness, hilarity, and comedic existential crisis all slow down. Barbie sits on a bench and she just listens. She hears the gamut of human emotion and interaction. She sees happiness, sadness, stillness, and the sheer beauty of all that it is to be human. When she turns to the woman next to her, she tells the woman she’s beautiful to which the woman replies that she knows. It’s then that I knew Greta Gerwig saw an opportunity not for just another corporate IP piece of “content,” but for a film that actually says something about being human and what it means to want to experience all that means. It’s also incredibly funny and strange, which is exactly my wheelhouse.
