2023, what a year it’s been. So much learned, so much loss, so much laughter, so much pain, so much overhyped (ahem Barbie) and yet a top ten list is one of the easiest things I can do from this last year, so here ya go! 

10. Totally Killer

Blumhouse movies are misses way more than hits and, surprisingly, this one is a hit. Not only is it really damn funny, but for a premise we have seen multiple times before (time travel) it blends a nice amount of humor with fun horror. Very rare win for the folks at Blumhouse with this one.

9. Air 

I hate sports, I hate sports with every ounce of my being and yet sports is on the back end of this movie about sports and the ultimate sports shoe. A movie that not only feels fresh and original but it hosts (in my humble opinion) Viola Davis’ best work on camera so far. 

8. No Hard Feelings

Jennifer Lawrence is a mega star, a mega star who once was over saturated for a solid 4 year run in the 2010s, but she is back with one of her best performances since her breakout in Winter’s Bone. An original comedy that has a heart, and plays even better on a rewatch. 

7. All of Us Strangers

I like men, I like sex with men, I like stories of men who have sex with men and I like stories of men who have sex with men and have their heart broken and mended by the power of love. A wonderful tear jerker of a movie. 

6. Maestro

I loved this movie, it’s a passion project that is beautifully shot and you can feel the love that Bradley Cooper brought to this project. It’s a nice biopic without “feeling” biopicky. 

5. Anatomy of a Fall

Not since 2016’s Elle with Isabelle Huppert have I adored a French movie so much. This is an edge of your seat court case drama with a stellar duo of performances from Sandra Hüller and Milo Machado-Graner, both of whom deserve to win the Academy Award for Actress and Supporting Actor this year. 

4. Bottoms

A really damn funny and over dramatic comedy from the team that brought us Shiva Baby. This movie takes you down roads you never see coming and at a beautifully paced 93 minutes is a fun breeze of a watch. 

3. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

As someone who went into this with zero expectations and with no knowledge of the game, this movie was not only the biggest surprise for me this past year but truly is a lot of fun as it balances comedy and fantasy action really really well. 

2. Saltburn

A delicious, dirty, and Silkwood-shower inducing movie. A big step up and redeemer from Emerald Fennell and her first movie from 2020, Promising Young Woman. This movie is so much fun and I’m so happy of the life it has found with the streaming platform this year. 

1. Oppenheimer

Seeing this movie three times in a theater this year was a highlight each time. It’s like a full body orgasm that continues to do its job post leg shaking. Christopher Nolan’s best film yet, from the score, to the cinematography, to the acting. It’s truly the best film of 2023. 

It’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times. But for movies, last year was superb. We got a blend of genres, a mesh of great performances, and some astounding surprises. I thoroughly enjoyed 2023 as a movie lover, and there were a lot of wonderful cinematic moments for me. The Barbienheimer phenomenon restored my faith in cinema, and there were a lot of surprise hits by the end of the year. There were many films directed by women, hopefully, many more this year, and various African Americans, Asians, and Native Americans in the lead roles. A great performance is a great performance, and in 2023, we had plenty.

Honorable mentions include Charles Melton in May December, Sandra Hüller in Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest, Taraji P. Henson, and Danielle Brooks in The Color Purple.

10. Barry Keoghan in Saltburn

I know, I know. Some people view Saltburn as the worst thing that happened to cinema, others are enjoying it in a non-serious way. The actors might have taken the promotional and press tours a bit too overtly, or in an unabashed way almost like fanbaiting with their hotness and sex appeal. These are two remarkable men in one of the most sexually charged films of the year 2023 (uhm, Passages, too?). Despite Saltburn heightening the feelings with Jacob Elordi –a star prepped to be the next Hollywood hotshot of the next era- as the iconic dreamboat, Barry Keoghan steals the scenes. Keoghan plays a doe-eyed sociopath, obsessed, dark, and aloof, with such grounded insanity that it brings to mind his earlier roles in The Green Knight and The Killing of a Sacred Deer.

9. Lily Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon

There’s acting and there’s existing in a realm as a performer. Lily Gladstone exists in Killers of the Flower Moon as Mollie Burkhart, she downplays the act, she breathes through the character, patiently waits, exerts power, and navigates a hostile world that sneakily and coyly tries to rob her of power, agency, and ownership. Her performance as a woman defies categorization, steering away from Hollywood Queen Bees wearing prosthetic noses or blonde beauties playing sacrificial mothers, size zero women pretending to be housewives tired of a redundant life with redundant husbands, or the cherry on top of a gangster-heavy film. Mollie is wary of the racism, but she’s also comfortable in the power she exerts over a White man she deems beneath her, even if he –sadly- uses that particular flaw in character to fuel his sinister plan of destroying her.

8. Paul Mescal in All of Us Strangers

There’s something about Mescal in every role he plays. He’s not the most handsome of the current flood of young Hollywood actors on the scene; Chalamet, Dickinson, Elordi, Keoghan, Gatwa, etc. But there’s a degree of truth to his acting that might not be present in most of his peers. In All of Us Strangers, Mescal plays a seductive object of affection for Adam, the main protagonist. While basking in the glory of such a desirable character, he delivers a melancholy performance, with subtlety and dignity, engulfed by the film’s haunting atmosphere. What Paul Mescal gets served, he delivers. He might miss in one instance or another, but when on call, he transcends expectations and draws great sympathy from the audience.

7. Emma Stone in Poor Things

There are not a lot of times where both actor and audience are having fun with a performance. Emma Stone was having the time of her life with Bella Baxter, where else could a gal spit, grunt, masturbate, make crazy faces, and learn to use her arms and feet (punching people along the way) except in cinema? Yorgos Lanthimos is no stranger to the bizarre and unhinged, and here, he has solidified Stone as a long-term collaborator and muse, liberating her from the confinement of being an American actress to reach a level of libertine only found in European movies. Bella is both funny and wacko, but also bestial and ravenous, and Stone perfectly encapsulates that man-child/man-monster hybrid energy.

6. Greta Lee in Past Lives

Celine Song’s Past Lives calls out to tired souls. It’s a beautifully made anti-fairytale movie, where the prince and the princess meet at the wrong place and time, where the much-anticipated climax stirs nothing in the course of events. Nora is an ambitious immigrant woman, her choices are never easy. To move on with her life, she had to bury the past, to let go of the silly, hopeless romanticism of a land left behind, a world no longer her own. But to meet Hae Sung again is to allow all those buried desires, dreams, and lust to resurface. Greta Lee nails the role of Nora, caught in between two worlds; the way she watches Teo Yoo’s sad innocent face, the way heartbreak slowly forms on her composed features, is the work of a veteran actress in command of all her tools.

5. Penélope Cruz in Ferrari

Everybody wants a feisty woman to claw her way through a performance. Penélope Cruz is not the kind of woman to be dismissed at any chance. She’s there with her fire and her raw pain, she’s not one to hold back, but she has not been that intense since Vicky Cristina Barcelona. The greatest directors are the ones who don’t let her tone down her energy but raise the bar higher so that her performance reaches a crescendo, deservedly so. As Laura Ferrari she eats the scenes, almost wiping out Adam Driver’s existence entirely from every scene they acted opposite each other. It’s great to see the various manifestations of grief on the screen so that people from the audience who went through similar experiences could feel less alone, and luckily for us in 2023 we had two amazing interpretations of a mother losing a child, Cruz was one of them and she nailed it.

4. Zac Efron in Iron Claw

At the beginning of the year, the idea of Zac Efron making my Best Actors of the Year list would have made me roll my eyes.  I always associated Efron with the fluff of the Disney Channel productions era; the music, the dances, the weird actresses with squeaky voices, the schmaltz, it was all too much for me. But when I had a career retrospective, Efron worked so hard to reinvent himself beyond the poster boy for Disney’s reputation. From The Paperboy to 17 Again, and from Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile to Hairspray, Efron has been trying to build status in a tough business that rarely handled former Disney or YA stars with kindness or enthusiasm. In The Iron Claw, Efron is a monster. He ruptures the screen, he breaks hearts as Kevin Von Erich, and commands the movie, like the whole family revolves around him, even when his brothers are on their own. His work here is grounded-actor material and that’s surprising and deserving of award recognition.

3. Milo Machado-Graner in Anatomy of a Fall

If there’s anything Justine Triet gifted to the world in 2023, then it’s Milo Machado-Graner as Daniel. Graner’s body tells stories that his hushed tone fails to express. His hunched back, bent shoulders, and head curled inward emphasize his vulnerability, in a crushing, adult world where he is both a pawn and a hapless victim. Daniel is plunged into misery and pain from an early age. The fact that his parents have an unhealthy relationship is worsening his isolation. His sensitivity makes the world a big puzzle that he tries to navigate with a melancholy acceptance associated with kids his age, those who have known suffering early. Graner captures that frustrating childhood perfectly, and I might argue that the scenes in which the camera zooms in on his frail body, shrinking as his parents are torn to shreds in the courtroom are far more impactful than the ones where he breaks down.

2. Da’Vine Joy Randolph in The Holdovers

Grief has many manifestations, and women grieve in various forms and attitudes, but hardworking, hardboiled women don’t have the luxury of leaving the world behind and being encapsulated in their mourning. That’s where Da’Vine Joy Randolph excels in living, breathing, and transmitting all those emotions of a silently-suffering, grieving mother. Mary Lamb is not the average, tender, loving Mama Bear, she’s seen a lot, and put up with a lot to put her son through a decent educational route, one she couldn’t achieve when she was his age, only to have all her dreams crushed when he dies in the war. Randolph takes the pain and the imminent grief that her character is feeling to the core, making her chain-smoking adaptation to the situation, while watching the game shows and interacting with the other characters all the more impactful. 

1. Paul Giamatti in The Holdovers

How can a scriptwriter make a smelly, sweaty, bizarre-looking character lovable? How can you create sympathy without evoking disgust or ridicule? Giamatti turns Paul “Walleye” Hunham into one of the most compelling, truthful characters ever to appear on screen. Hearts break for him as he struggles with being a kind and honest person but having a repulsive air around him, a factor of contemptibility to his name that drives people away from him, even as he tries to connect with his limited social skills and working around his aversion to people and his general air of hostility. Giamatti breathes life and understanding through the role, and he depicts disappointment and self-pity in some of the highest movie scenes with such command of his tools as an actor that he doesn’t need to move to make audience members connect with him on a deeper emotional level. This is my favorite performance of last year without a doubt.

2023, a real odd, but overall good, year for movies. It feels like every year, the theatrical experience is in a different kind of trouble.  This year, it was a horrific strike that limited even the ability to talk about movies publicly. Without the absolutely insane Barbenheimer event, who knows where we would be.  But this year also contained some legitimate classics of the form and I had a great time at the cinemas throughout the entire calendar. 

This list is, of course, limited to movies I could actually see (Apologies to Origin). 

Honorable mentions include: The Killer, The Holdovers, Barbie, May December, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse

10. Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani

Yeah, this one might seem out of left field. Or maybe you haven’t heard of it. I don’t consider myself an expert in Indian cinema.  But I am an expert in me having a good time. You like musicals? Romance? Comedy? Family drama and history? This movie has all of that and more. Ranveer Singh is a perfect, lovable, idiot.  He doesn’t know much, but his heart is in the right place. And Alia Bhatt? Perfection and I won’t hear any arguments. This is a long movie, but it never feels like it.  It’s a movie that makes me smile even when thinking about it. Do yourself a favor, find this movie and watch it. Thank me later.

9. Poor Things

I find it interesting that as Yorgos Lanthimos gets more freedom, he becomes more approachable (as long as you’re not a prude about sex). Poor Things being this low on the list just shows you what a great year we had in 2023. Emma Stone deserves all of the praise that she is getting, but I only hope that Mark Ruffalo gets the awards attention, too. He is on a special comedic level here. But also, visually, this is one of the stunners of the year. Lanthimos clearly does not care about realism and uses the fantastical to allow us to just join in on both the wildness and the journey of his characters.

8. Monica

I’m just going to be clear here. Trace Lysette gave the best performance of the year. That’s it. She is absolutely perfect. And as she has been discussing on social media, if a cisgender person gave this performance, it would be a guaranteed nomination, if not win. Barring a huge surprise, this will not happen for Ms. Lysette. But don’t let that dissuade you. Monica was one of my favorite theater experiences of the year. A silent discussion of depression, familial trauma, and small moments of healing. This is what watching independent film in particular, and cinema in general, is all about. I saw this movie early in the year and it has stuck with me, and even improved with time.

7. Oppenheimer

What to say that hasn’t been said. I am a lover of Christopher Nolan films, and this is his true epic. In scale, in story, in pure gall. And yet, unlike many epics, Oppenheimer is an actor’s dream. Obviously, Cillian Murphy is great, and this has been talked to death. But the gigantic cast, they are all just right and serve the movie in ways that supporting characters rarely do. Yet, despite this, Nolan also never loses sight of the bombast necessary to tell this particular story. He manages to do it all; character work, special effects, biopic, and a lesson movie without feeling preachy. Kind of a miracle now that I think of it!

6. Anatomy of a Fall

And here is the second best performance of the year. Sandra Hüller truly makes you forget that she is acting. You can literally pick any moment in the movie from her as her awards clip. And if you know me, you know that I do not appreciate most child performances. But Milo Machado-Graner is different. A truly moving, stunning performance and story. We can argue all day about whether she did it or not (She’s innocent!) but that may be the most uninteresting conversation in the whole film. Anatomy of a Fall is so good and intimate, it almost feels like you shouldn’t be seeing it.

5. Killers of the Flower Moon

I wrote a whole review of this on this site. Scorsese, incredibly, has not lost a step. This movie contains a performance so powerful that it makes you forget that she is acting against titans like DiCaprio and DeNiro. Lily Gladstone will likely be the first Native American person to win an Oscar, and good for her, she deserves it. Martin Scorsese really is a master, he finds a way to teach us both our part in tragedy, and our responsibility as those who devour this media. His choices in the final moments will stick with me for many, many years. 

4. Past Lives

I am an easy mark for this kind of movie. You want Dave to support your movie? Just make it about longing.  This has longing in spades. I am still in disbelief that this was director Celine Song’s first feature. It is assured, calm, and has more depth than many experienced filmmakers. Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, and John Magaro create relationships that seem like peering into both past and future. The possibilities, the way our lives fork, this movie says it all without spoon feeding and saying it out loud. Past Lives is a treasure and will continue to be for many years. 

3. All of Us Strangers

All of Us Strangers is heartbreaking. All of Us Strangers is heart healing. For those of us who have had to come out of the closet, it tells a truth rarely told. Most of the stories are all accepting or all rejecting. But often, life is not like this. The coming out story here is neither, it is performed by people, real humans with faults and struggles. But beyond this, All of Us Strangers is also a beautiful love story, kind of (watch it, you’ll get what I mean). Both Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal are a perfect fit for their roles and for each other. All of Us Strangers is a beautiful, important, painful watch, and worth every second.

2. The Taste of Things

Another film that I was lucky enough to review for InSession Film. Although it was surpassed in my list of best films, this is likely the one I will come back to most. If it’s not the best food movie ever, it is just behind the great Tampopo. Love is food. Food is love. Age and time don’t matter. Love will conquer everything, even if only for a short time. The Taste of Things lives in my heart and probably always will.

1. The Zone of Interest

I will admit, this could be recency bias. It also could be that Jonathan Glazer is exactly on my wavelength. Even more than most movies set during the Holocaust, The Zone of Interest, is truly difficult to watch. But the difficulties come for different reasons. There is almost no violence witnessed on screen, very little suffering besides the background sounds that we hear. Glazer spends the entire run time building to a daring moment in the third act. In this moment, you realized that the accusatory is not pointed solely at the evil Germans, but at humanity in general. This movie shook me to my core, and if you can move past the achingly slow pace, it will for you, too.

Anyone who says 2023 wasn’t a good year in film hasn’t seen enough of them. The 2020s have been an excellent decade so far, cinema-wise. Each year that passes, we get more surprises from directors on the rise, as well as those returning to filmmaking after a brief or lengthy hiatus. All of the projects in this list are directed by filmmakers whom I have held in high regard since I first saw one of their pictures, with the exception of one who has directed an astonishing debut. These directors are just unique in every sense of the word – crafting visionary and powerful pieces of work, some of which I believe will stand the test of time. From Laura Citarella’s Trenque Lauquen to Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest, I have compiled a list of films that not only were my favorites of the year but also that I consider some of the most creative and well-orchestrated pieces of cinema delivered to us this year. 

So, let’s get things rolling; here are my top 10 films this year (without including some of the festival hits that haven’t been formally released). Some honorable mentions: Showing Up, May December, Totem, Asteroid City, and R.M.N. 

10. Infinity Pool (Dir. by Brandon Cronenberg)

Starting things off, the number ten spot goes to Brandon Cronenberg’s madhouse of depraved and campy delights, Infinity Pool – a great companion piece to his previous feature, Possessor, and the latest project to take down the privileged class in a satirical manner, accompanying The White Lotus and Triangle of Sadness, but with a horror-induced twist. Its panoply of sadism, fixation, dominance, and sex conjures several provocative scenarios where desires run amok in ways that Alexander Skarsgård’s character doesn’t expect. Brandon Cronenberg has made sure to follow his old man’s steps (David Cronenberg – my favorite director of all time) while still pursuing his style. It is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea, as this luscious madhouse is all for the sickos. However, Infinity Pool is as creative and ingenious as it gets when it comes to modern horror filmmaking. Brandon Cronenberg is slowly becoming one of those directors that genre fans can rely on to deliver unique, bizarro experiences.

9. De Humani Corporis Fabrica (Dir. by Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna Paravel)

Arriving with the tagline “the human body as you have never seen it before”, Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel deliver one of the most fascinating and extraordinary showcases of the intertwining beauty and horror inside the human body with De Humani Corporis Fabrica. In the past, Castaing-Taylor and Paravel have received plenty of comments regarding their “provocative” images in their various documentaries, particularly Caniba. But their latest one will take you even more off guard as it shows the fragility of our bodies – going from x-rays to the operating table – by having the camera close to the overworked doctors and nurses doing their life-saving duties. So, for those who are easily provoked or don’t like graphic stuff like C-sections and dissected breasts to open-back surgeries, this isn’t going to be for you. This type of film makes everyone question the limits of what a documentary can be. 

8. Afire (Dir. by Christian Petzold)

Christian Petzold, one of Germany’s best current directors, has crafted a sentimental and occasionally hilarious tragicomedy in Afire (Roter Himmel) – a film that can be considered a modernized version of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s masterpiece, Theorem, including the ash that comes falling from the skies as a sign of psychological underpinnings taking place in the narrative. Misfortune and hopefulness are all over Petzold’s grand picture, where two characters – opposite of each other – reflect on the impact a specific person can have on your life for better or worse. It’s pretty simple stylistically, yet metaphorical in its touching dialogue sequences, specifically its final one. It took me a while to actually love this film altogether. But after watching three times throughout 2023, I found some relatable factors within the characters that actually moved me the more I watched. 

7. Fallen Leaves (Dir. by Aki Kaurismäki)

I absolutely love Aki Kaurismäki. The Finnish filmmaker holds a special place in my heart because of how his pictures make me feel. He is the curator of some of the most humility-filled and charming cinema in the past couple of decades, maybe even in history. He often makes the same movie with a different twist in the character dynamics and interactions. But, in his latest one, Fallen Leaves, Kaurismäki offers his most heartwarming and emotional pairing yet, lifted by the performances of Jussi Vatanen and Alma Pöysti. The late addition to the director’s Proletariat Trilogy (alongside Shadows in Paradise, Ariel, and The Match Factory Girl) is lifted by the feeling of finding that particular person who brightens your day even in the bleakest emotional status. And many of us went through that sort of situation during the transition period between the pandemic and now. 

6. Past Lives (Dir. by Celine Song) 

One of the best directorial debuts of our generation and a heartbreaking portrayal of modern love and isolation is Celine Song’s intimate and delicate Past Lives. Spanning three decades and two countries, Song’s film resembles Richard Linklater’s Before Trilogy. However, unlike the aforementioned series of films, it subverts people’s romantic fantasies in exchange for a more honest view of why people choose to live in a constant state of “what if”. It explores the irreversibility of time, a pet topic for the post-pandemic era, through piercing conversations that feel so authentic that it makes you feel like the director went through similar scenarios. The experience of watching this in a theater full of people sobbing their eyes out was one to remember – everybody being moved to tears by the power of cinema. In terms of emotion, no other film beats Celine Song’s. 

5. Priscilla (Dir. by Sofia Coppola)

Sofia Coppola takes some of the atmospheric elements from her previous films, such as Marie Antoinette and The Virgin Suicides, to adapt Priscilla Presley’s autobiography, Priscilla. Coppola creates a twisted fairytale that explores the innocence, love, and melancholy a young woman experiences in and out of the spotlight of the King of Rock n’ Roll’s stature. Like most of her filmography, it contains a dreamy and enchanting look that’s alluring. But unlike them, there’s more darkness prevalent in the fairytale box set in which Priscilla, played by an astonishing Cailee Spaeny (my favorite performance of the year), inhabits. Combined with the excellent attention to detail in its techs (costumes, production design, and makeup), these elements wash over you at different lapses and raise many emotions. In my opinion, Priscilla is one of Coppola’s most polished works and possibly her best one to date. 

4. Trenque Lauquen (Dir. by Laura Citarella)

One of the most overlooked films of the year is Laura Citarella’s new project, Trenque Lauquen. The film, divided into twelve chapters and two movies, takes a visualized novel approach to unravel its existential questions like a matryoshka doll. It makes us question our place in the world – the missing pieces in our lives. Citarella fills her film with equal amounts of sympathy and melancholy, making each story beat flourish. This is one of the most controlled and orchestrated narrative-focused projects of the decade so far. Trenque Lauquen might unfold in a way that causes some viewers to lose patience with them. Still, those interested in being rewarded with a puzzle-like experience of contemplation will be hooked by Citarella and Laura Peredes’ surprising feat. 

3. Godland (Dir. by Hlynur Pálmason)

With a directorial hand fueled by atmospheric dread and the simmering active volcano in the background of the Icelandic setting, Hlynur Pálmason delivers a demanding and utterly fascinating grim story about a colonizer’s toxic vanity in Godland. Since its festival run last year, I have been talking about this film and its poetic exploration of religion, sacrifice, and apostasy. His style is similar to that of Werner Herzog and Theodor Dreyer, where Pálmason inclines on using the abrasiveness of the film’s pacing and location to his favor. It feels muscular yet elegiac – ravishing the viewer as one beautiful composition transitions to another, captured by the best cinematographer working today, Maria von Hausswolff. It requires plenty of patience as it goes through its motions in a slow and brutal manner. But those willing to take time to bask in it will be treated with a magnificently crafted feature from one of the most interesting new directors on the rise. 

2. Pacifiction (Dir. by Albert Serra)

Albert Serra gives us his most accessible film with Pacifiction, but, on the other hand, it has his self-stylized, pretentious demeanor that fans of his work love. This is a Twin Peaks episode, but instead of having a detective story about a murder in the middle of it, a man is descending into madness because of military conspiracies. It is ridiculous and occasionally baffling, but I absolutely loved it. The characters have conversations about philosophy and politics, as well as how the two intertwine with one another in a manner that seems entirely odd. You can’t pinpoint their responses’ mood or tone, which puts the viewer in a constant wave of emotions. Pacifiction is the strangest experience you might have this year because of how Serra orchestrates it all with a dreamy and melancholic haze covering the beautiful landscapes, mesmerizingly shot by cinematographer Artur Tort. If you want to see the most intentionally absurd project of 2023, watch this one immediately. 

1. The Zone of Interest (Dir. by Jonathan Glazer) 

I don’t know what else can be said about Jonathan Glazer’s bone-chilling and distressing masterpiece, The Zone of Interest. The master’s vision is in his most distinctive and experimental version, breaking the mold of what we’d expect from war films and presenting us with something so horrifyingly original that just leaves you in complete awe by the craft and horrified by putting us face to face with the banality of evil. Every aspect – the haunting sound, Mica Levi’s ambient score, the Łukasz Żal’s astonishing cinematography, just to name a few – is detailed and adds to the experience. There’s not a single beat missed by everyone involved. Once you watch it, you won’t stop thinking about it. And that is a fact.