Every year in which an unlikely summer double bill became a global cinematic event – with one film edging toward $1.5 billion in global box office and the other nearing $1 billion – can't be viewed as bad news for Hollywood become. But aside from the Barbenheimer phenomenon, bad news plagued the film industry for much of 2023.
The writers' and actors' guild strikes shut down production for five long months, causing major titles like Dune 2 to be pushed back to 2024, leaving fall festival red carpets sparsely populated, and disrupting the release pipeline in ways that will certainly have repercussions for the next one or two years.
Box office revenue remained uneven, struggling to regain pre-pandemic momentum for most genres except horror (hail the new scream queen M3GAN; a big hand for “Talk to Me”), and itself the once-reliable cash cow of the superhero blockbuster sputtered more often than not.
The Marvels was a huge flop for the MCU, as was The Flash for DC, and while many of us found Blue Beetle to be an unexpected delight that overcame our weariness of people in spandex and capes, the film's considerable charm carried over Films are not reflected in good ticket sales.
Nobody knows what's a sure thing at the box office anymore.
Still, the annual task of getting the year's releases into the top 10 has never been more demanding. As always, the best of them were festival discoveries. Sundance premieres fill out my list, with titles from Cannes, Venice and Telluride taking up every spot in between.
This was a year that celebrated promising debuts from female filmmakers whose mastery of the medium was matched by thematic maturity and the ability to elicit compelling performances from their female leads. In addition to “Past Lives” by Celine Song and “Earth Mama” by Savanah Leaf, both of which are on my list, this also includes “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” by Raven Jackson, “Blue Jean” by Georgia Oakley, “A Thousand and One” by AV Rockwell and “Reality” by Tina Satter.
Elsewhere, proven female directors consolidated their reputation. Alice Rohrwacher's La Chimera continued her uniquely magical fusion of history and present; Nicole Holofcener reunited with her Enough Said co-star Julia Louis-Dreyfus for You Hurt My Feelings, a biting ensemble comedy about honesty in relationships; Ava DuVernay's boldly ambitious adaptation of a work of science, Origin, delivered moments of breathtaking emotional transcendence; and Kelly Fremon Craig followed “Edge of Seventeen” with a successful adaptation of Judy Blume’s middle grade classic Are You There God? It is I, Margaret, who perceives the problems of adults as acutely as the growing pains of early adolescence.
The documentary section provided too many highlights to list, but the non-fiction films that stuck with me included Wim Wenders' visually seductive Anselm; D. Smith's intimate portrait of black trans sex workers, Kokomo City; Maite Alberdi's harrowing look into a couple's life together, The Eternal Memory; and Jesse Shortbull and Laura Tomaselli's searing indictment of the theft of sacred land from its indigenous owners, Lakota Nation vs. United States.
Two music documentaries were among my most exciting viewing experiences this year – Lisa Cortes' fast-paced biography of a unique rock pioneer, Little Richard: I Am Everything; and Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's You're There account of a sui generis marathon concert by one of our most original performers, Taylor Mac's 24-Decade History of Popular Music.
Finally, veteran documentarian Roger Ross Williams shifted gears to narrative with the uplifting Cassandro, giving Gael García Bernal his best role in years as the groundbreaking queer lucha libre wrestler.
Read on for my top 10, plus 10 honorable mentions, followed by those of my brilliant comrades in the THR critic trenches, Jon Frosch, Lovia Gyarkye, and Sheri Linden. I know I speak for all of us when I say that 2023 was such a banner year for films that our lists could easily have been twice as long. –DAVID ROONEY
1. Past lives
Based on her personal experience, playwright Celine Song's profound debut follows a writer very much like her, played by Greta Lee with an unfailing balance of careful self-control and emotional transparency, as her childhood love from Korea (Teo Yoo) in her new York resurfaces, raising questions about her choices and raising fears for her empathetic husband (John Magaro). This is an exquisite film that is as poised as it is insightful, delving deeply into relationships, fate, paths not taken, and the phantoms of parallel existences. Both the script and all three performances elegantly bypass all the conventions of the romantic triangle drama.
2. Poor things
Yorgos Lanthimos has irreverently challenged genre restrictions since his breakthrough with “Dogtooth” on Greek Weird Wave. But nothing in his unique filmography can compare to the fantastic flights of this inspired version of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Led by a spectacular tightrope act of physical comedy, intellectual curiosity and gleeful self-indulgence from a never-better Emma Stone, this adventurous adaptation of cult Scottish author Alasdair Gray's novel is part absurd comedy, part picaresque feminist Candide and 100 percent breathtaking original. There's not a weak link in a supporting cast that includes Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Kathryn Hunter and Christopher Abbott.
3. We are all strangers
This year there was no tighter ensemble than Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Jamie Bell and Claire Foy in Andrew Haigh's dreamy metaphysical ghost story. While the new film is a companion piece of sorts to the British writer-director's 2011 breakthrough, the queer classic Weekend, it reflects his examination of romantic love with an equally thoughtful examination of familial love. In this imaginative adaptation of a Japanese novel, this emotional depth storm explores the complex relationships between gay men and their parents with uncommon compassion while reflecting on the scars of a generation that came of age during the AIDS crisis.
4. Flower Moon Killer
Martin Scorsese's gripping account of the ruthless destruction of wealthy Osage landowners in early 1920s Oklahoma is a late masterpiece from a revered filmmaker who, at 81, is still boldly expanding his legacy. It's an American history lesson as a sobering horror story. Robert De Niro has probably never been so monstrous. He plays an apparent pillar of the community, respecting the culture of his indigenous neighbors but systematically plotting to exterminate them and appropriate their oil-rich lands, while Leonardo DiCaprio deftly displays his gullible character's casual charm against despicable spinelessness. But the dominant center of the epic drama is Lily Gladstone, magnificent as the cruelly wronged woman who registers every brutality committed against her people, her family and herself with a quiet sadness that stings.
5. Fallen leaves
Six years after Finland's poet of the proletariat mumbled about retirement after his typically idiosyncratic Syrian refugee story “The Other Side of Hope,” Aki Kaurismäki returns with an expertly chiseled tale of romantic missteps that lead to leadership – with patience, playfulness and humor all at once expressionless and profound melancholy – to the jubilant possibility of love. Peppered with tongue-in-cheek cinephile nods to the director's auteur heroes, this deceptively modest film is both dour and droll, with each image finding beauty in a dingy milieu that seems frozen in time. As lonely souls looking for connection, Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen are delightfully attuned to Kaurismäki's wavelength, while his own dog plays a scene-stealing supporting role.
6. The zone of interest
Those of us who admire Jonathan Glazer's powerful, original work may wish he were more prolific, since he only made four features in nearly 25 years. But what distinctive films they are, from the upscale gangster thriller “Sexy Beast” to the reincarnation chiller “Birth” to the hypnotic science fiction film “Under the Skin”. The British director's return after ten years does not disappoint, effectively reinventing the Holocaust drama with this chilling snapshot of a Nazi family living in idyllic tranquility in the shadow of Auschwitz. In terms of unnerving sound design alone, this loose adaptation of Martin Amis's novel shows that what we hear can be even more shocking than what we see, and that horror is rarely far from our complacent reality.
7. Turn up
Kelly Reichardt's films have rarely featured comedy, but the director's recent collaboration with frequent muse Michelle Williams and Pacific Northwest author Jon Raymond has a low-key humor that often recalls the eccentric American microcosms of old Robert Altman. Set around the now-closed Oregon College of Art and Craft in Portland, the film follows Williams' tough-as-nails sculptor's frantic preparations for a solo gallery show while dealing with the headaches of her messy family and her fellow artist-landlord (a hilarious one Hong Chau). and a wounded pigeon. Rich in seemingly casual but insightful observations, the film is equal parts funny and touching; It may be Reichardt's most personal work as it depicts the challenges of creating art amidst chaos.
8th. Anatomy of a fall
The talented German actress Sandra Hülser gained international attention with her work in “Toni Erdmann” and “I'm Your Man”. But this year she came even more decisively to the fore with the dual role of a camp commander's icy wife in “The Zone of Interest” and an uncompromisingly fragile author accused of murdering her husband in French director Justine Triet's gripping character study. The film is a multi-layered, surgically controlled drama that functions as both a courtroom thriller and an examination of the mysterious corners of domestic life. The film is as cool as its French Alpine setting, but never distancing. It challenges us to invest in an inscrutable woman whose guilt or innocence remains an open question, and the robust legal process aimed at unraveling her.
9. Perfect days
A calm film for chaotic times, Wim Wenders' best narrative film in years returns to the Japanese capital, almost four decades after he followed in Ozu's footsteps in the documentary Tokyo-Ga. The great Kōji Yakusho plays a middle-aged man who lives a monastic life of austerity, gratefully greeting each new day in his morning routine and approaching his work of cleaning the toilets in the city's public parks with almost religious devotion. Gradually, hints of the more complicated former existence he has left behind are dropped as the rewarding drama becomes a poetic, unexpectedly moving account of one man's hard-won peace and contentment.
10. Passages
Another German actor like Hülser who has had a breakout year is Franz Rogowski, who plays the narcissistic film director at the center of Ira Sachs' painful Parisian drama. Rogowski's Tomas is an emotional wrecking ball who blithely enters into a relationship with Adèle Exarchopoulos' French teacher, unaware of the wedge it will drive into his marriage to Ben Whishaw's seemingly gentler English graphic artist. Bitingly amusing, sexy, sad and unflinchingly intense, this is an intimate study of the rise and collapse of a romantic triangle, played with an invigorating callousness by three actors giving it their all.
Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order): Afire, American Fiction, The Boy and the Heron, Earth Mama, Godland, Maestro, Oppenheimer, Priscilla, The Taste of Things, Totém
Jon Frosch's Top 10
1. Flower Moon Killer
2. Anatomy of a fall
3. Passages
4. On fire
May 5 December
6. Fallen leaves
7. Show up
8. The zone of interest
9. Kokomo City
10. We are all strangers
Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order): asteroid city; The Leftovers; Maestro; Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros; Oppenheimer; other people's children; Past Lives; Poor things; Totem; You hurt my feelings
Lovia Gyarkye's Top 10
1. Show up
2. All unpaved roads taste of salt
3. Earth Mom
4. Passages
5. Our body
6. Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros
7. Anatomy of a fall
8. Fallen leaves
9. Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret
10. Totem
Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order): The Boy and the Heron; Fair play; Killer of the Flower Moon; May December; Monster; Oppenheimer; Orlando, my political biography; Our father, the devil; A still, small voice; One thousand and one
Sheri Linden's Top 10
1. Show up
May 2 December
3. Anatomy of a fall
4. Flower Moon Killer
5. Past lives
6. Oppenheimer
7. Peace
8. Asteroid City
9. Passages
10. The disappearance of Shere Hite
Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order): The Boy and the Heron; A compassionate spy; The criminals; Maestro; occupied city; The farmers; Rodeo; The taste of things; The teachers' lounge; The unknown country