Normally this is the part where I talk about what I felt about 2023 in film; but you all have waited long enough for my best list that I’m just going to keep it short and sweet. 2023 is one of the best film years of recent memory. Mostly due to the fact that it truly feels like we are out of the pandemic film era. But the next year or two is going to be rough since we are now in the writers and actors strike affected the film industry era. Not necessarily a bad thing since the writers and actors deserved and got what they earned and fuck the studios. But it just made me appreciate 2023 all the more knowing that this will feel like one of the years where we got plenty of good to great films to make up for years of starving for normalcy.
So let’s not waste any more time, we are counting down!
THE TOP TEN BEST FILMS OF 2023
One of my biggest tiring points of this year was “The Death of the MCU” or “The MCU is in Serious Trouble”. I really hate being the MCU apologist amongst all my friend groups. Because I so badly want to tell you all to shut up and it’s not the end of the world.
I agree in a sense that the MCU is in a decline period quality wise and for sure quantity wise. Those many shows and four movies a year became too much MCU for me. And yeah it became an absolute chore for me to keep up with whatever continuing story they are so badly trying to tell in the Kang…errr I mean Secret Wars…or multiverse…seriously pick a fucking lane and stick to it Feige; you egocentric maniac you.
I think superhero fatigue is finally kicking in more than anything else. Not everything needs to be a connected universe. Not everything needs to be rebooted like five times until we get a working storyline that gets us good box office and critical praise. Hell as much as I love the superhero team ups to make the nerds mark out, we don’t need those either. We just need to be less oversaturated and go back to the basics as to why A and B worked and not C and D.
And let me also be the first to admit that I called all of this MCU fatigue like five years ago when I called Endgame one of the best blockbuster moments in cinema history. Back then I compared it to “Goodbye Michael” of The Office knowing damn well the MCU was going to continue; just like The Office did without Steve Carell to mixed results.
But let me be abundantly clear with my “MCU apologist” role; I feel like I’m wearing a badge of honor. It really is not because I’m so sick of it. Y’all think the MCU is doom and gloom? They are still in a better standing than wherever the fuck so many other IPs are. I’d put more fear in Star Wars if I were Disney than Marvel, which is still okay even after a dropoff quality wise. Hell DC and Sony are dumpster fires right now. Hell I’ll go a step further and say that I have more faith in the MCU moving forward than I do of any WBD IP.
So all of these MCU proclamations can just be put to rest. I don’t think it is what it once was and peak MCU was truly special. But it’s fine for what it is. Does it need improvement? Of course it does. But does it need to be saved or is it dying. Of course not. I swear all you extremists make me hate being a nerd.
Speaking of being a nerd, all of this buildup was for a MCU film to show up on my best list.
10. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Let me be perfectly clear that this movie has a lot of flaws. Hell when I first saw it, I thought it was a strong 6/light 7 out of 10.
But surprisingly I came back to this movie more and more throughout the year. I guess being the only good superhero movie in 2023 does that to people. And the more I was forgiving of its many flaws because of the emotional core that was this story. The character exploration and the true sense of finality really stuck to me. I guess it is fitting that James Gunn wanted to end his tenure with Marvel on an incredibly high note; especially after that stupid heat he had due to his past tweets had him briefly canned.
Is it better than volumes one or two? No. But in a year where I truly missed when blockbuster superhero movies felt like a sense of escapism, we at least had one that did it right. The MCU will continue to move on and hopefully rebound, but at least James Gunn time ended the way it started. Moving on to bigger and better things….oh who am I kidding, his DCU will also be screwed over by studio executives. Seriously calling it now. Next.
No amounts of over explaining is really going to justify placing this next movie on my best movies of the year, but I’ll certainly try.
9. Cocaine Bear
So we’ve been getting a lot of 80s nostalgia in pop culture for the last twenty or so years now. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that, but seriously, it’s been overkill for awhile now. It has been getting to the point that I’ve been wondering when we are going to get true genre films from that decade and not just using the 80s as a plot device to hold the films up like a crutch.
Well say no more America. This is a true blue 80s-sploitation comedy horror film through and through. This movie was so batshit bonkers hilarious that I loved it to bits and pieces. Even my wife had a ball laughing at it and she normally shrugs off movies like these.
The casting is on point with a bunch of character actors and actresses like Margo Martindale, Ray Liotta (RIP), Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr, to name a few. The direction….we need to start putting some respect on Elizabeth Banks name y’all. I admit that at first, it was a rocky start with how mid the Pitch Perfect sequels and Charlie’s Angels reboot were. But her direction here was actually really damn good. Maybe there is something to her new career as a director after all?
5.9 on IMDB. Y’all are dead wrong.
Okay now that I got the two untraditional best list choices for the year out of the way, time to start hitting up the usual suspects you've probably seen on other people’s write ups. Starting with…
8. American Fiction
So I’ll be honest in saying that when it came to my annual best picture nominee binge, I really did not know what to expect when I saw the trailers for this one. Because at first glance, I thought this was a giant troll comedy about how African-American writers were to be perceived by white people and this one guy was going to play in to said white people tropes to write a faux best seller because white people are so easily gullible. Which they are. I even told my wife after the movie that she sounds exactly like the gullible white people in this movie when she tried explaining her interpretation of it.
What I did not expect was the amounts of depth this movie had. Jeffrey Wright reminded me just how talented he truly was as Monk; a man who was at a crossroads in his life between sticking to what he knows and learning a little about himself and who he is as a person. Sterling K Brown really is continuing to elevate his own career as Monk’s brother Clifford, who recently discovered he is gay. Both actors absolutely deserved their noms this awards season. I am a little disappointed that Leslie Uggams didn’t get any sort of consideration as Monk’s mom, Agnes; as her character was incredibly relatable to me personally who has two grandparents dealing with bouts of dementia.
And the twist ending, I absolutely did not expect the amounts of meta commentary and Hollywood-esque cliched endings. Let’s just say that it’s telling that the director of this movie was one of the guys behind The Good Place as that was very Good Place-esque. Nice surprise this movie was.
7. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Might as well throw 6 in here too.
6. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
What a year for animated films, my god. These were two of the best reviewed mainstream movies of the year and rightfully so. I was floored coming out of both of these movies. Not just regarding how wildly impressive the animation was, but as to how they are breathing new lives into IP’s that have been beaten to the ground in terms of reboots and oversaturation in Spidey’s case (Spider-Verse movies withstanding because the first and the second are absolutely wildly different in a good way).
Let’s start with Across the Spider-Verse. A movie sequel that is so wildly imaginative. So artistically stunning and creative. With a story so deep and magnificent…that it has to be split into two parts. Yeah that trope that I am really starting to get fucking sick of; especially with how it ended at such an in opportune ending spot AND all of the news that has come out afterwards about how the animation team was treated while making this beautiful to look at sequel is part of what made me rank it below the TMNT film. But make no mistake, I absolutely get why it is going to sweep all the animated film awards…except the Oscars. Lord and Miller probably aren’t too happy about that.
I expected Across the Spider-Verse to be as good as it was. So this is me just bluntly putting it out there, but where the hell did Mutant Mayhem come from and WHY was it so fucking great?? Honestly, my admiration of this movie is very similar to one of my favorite movies of 2011, The Muppets. You can tell watching that movie that it was made by someone who had deep love and knowledge of the property, Jason Segel. Well something very much the same just happened with Mutant Mayhem, who was made by lifelong TMNT fan, Seth Rogen. What Seth Rogen did with executive producing this movie is simply make the best TMNT film ever. And yes I just went there when I know how beloved in hindsight the 90s TMNT film was. Yes that film was hilarious then and now, but this movie is just so beautifully constructed and so unapologetically teenage; which is something that none of the movies ever were.
And the animation here is almost as beautiful as Across the Spider-Verse. So yeah, I guess chalk Spider-Verse one point over Mutant Mayhem for that. The Spider-Verse animation style is the wave of the future between these two films and to an extent, Puss in Boots 2. And I seriously hope that not many other animated movies try to replicate that style because it will lose its novelty very fast. But all of the movies listed that have utilized it feel like there was love and craft into every single frame and for the movies that have tied it too. So we’ll see how I feel about it if say Illumination decides to start making movies like this or Sony Animation. But the fact that two of the best movies of this year were both animated mainstream kids films with actual depth speaks volumes as to how adult animation can be.
If you haven’t become a Yorgos Lanthimos stan six years after I told you to, that is on you.
5. Poor Things
I just love this man’s absurdist approach to every single genre film that he makes. And here he is doing it again with this odyssey tale of a woman who is brought back to life and discovers herself along the way.
First and foremost, I was fully on board with Emma Stone being the best actress winner this year. Her performance in this is absolutely wonderful. It’s almost lunar in a sense in its perfect oddness. This movie basically rests on her performance and she knocks it right out of the fucking park. The rest of the actors from Mark Ruffalo to Willem Dafoe are all good as well, but the acting in this movie lives and dies off of Emma Stone’s performance and Emma slays, plain and simple.
I can’t stress this enough, we just need more original material in this day and age. Yorgos Lanthimos is one of the most original directors working today. Not a single film is like the next. And the way he directs just makes me love how his films are always going to be visually stunning. His costume and set designs here were rewarded and rightfully so. How he plays with colors is expressive and how he implies foreshadowing as to what is to come is just a film fanatic like me’s catnip.
You’ve all been warned so go see his next film coming this year. I just started the hype train…..and if you are just saying fuck that, I just want to see Emma Stone have sex with practically everyone; I don’t blame you there either. As a major Emma Stone fan and my personal celebrity crush; yes. Just yes.
So you guys know by now of my Academy binge, well here is my front runner for who SHOULD win best picture of the year.
4. The Holdovers
You finally got me Alexander Payne. About damn time to because year in and year out, his best picture nominees I have felt were mostly overrated. Truly I have not loved a film of his since Election and that was twenty five years ago. Every film of his since from About Schmidt to Sideways to The Descendants to Nebraska has felt VERY by the numbers for him.
What The Holdovers did to truly deliver over the edge to me is something that I never really felt in his other films. Genuine human connection. Paul Giamatti may have won his acting awards for Sideways, I far more felt a connection and relatability factor with his role here as an alcoholic teacher with a lazy eye who wants to push his students into being their best selves and not cost off of their rich parents. Da’Vine Joy Randolph was great as a grieving mother who has not fully come to terms with her son’s depth. And this kid Dominic Sessa; who this role was his first acting role ever…my god; get this kid some more work. He delivers as the kid who doesn’t want to end up like his father and fears that he will become him with his own quirks and mannerisms.
Yeah I wish we saw more of the other kids in this movie which kind of turns The Holdovers plural into The Holdover (spoiler); but this movie was never really about them. It was about the bond between the three leads, most importantly teacher and pupil. And as a lifelong fan of coming of age movies…that also played a huge part into me liking this. It’s like a modern day version of The Dead Poets Society…in all the best ways possible.
Also if you don’t cry in those last fifteen minutes, you are heartless I tell ya. Heartless.
……
3. Barbenheimer
….let me explain. Multiple things. Because wait a minute, didn’t I just say that The Holdovers is the (should be) best picture winner and here I have two nominees not just ranked above it, but TIED?
First of all, this is my best list. I can make up whatever nonsensical rules I want. Second, this list is fluent. I could say one thing today and then it can change a month to a year from now. Third, and this is the most important of them all and the main reason, this phenomenon was the best movie theater going experience since Endgame. And you guys know how much I value any chance to promote a movie theater experience in this day and age. It is fitting that these two were promoted together because the more I sat back and thought about it, these two are perfect complements to each other.
First, let’s start with discussing Barbie. Which if I’m being honest, if I didn’t do the tie, Barbie would probably be number nine or ten on my best list. This movie was absolutely not made for me, but who cares, I can see why it is important for the crowd this was made for. But even if I don’t get it, that’s fine. Movie analysis is subjective first and foremost. And I respect Barbie far more than I actually like it. Still, I liked this quite a bit.
It absolutely deserves to be the most financially successful movie of the year. In this day and age, where originality is a pretty barren well, I can’t believe it took this long for a live action Barbie movie. And the fact that we got one from a very talented writing and directing team with Greta Gerwig and company was just a bonus. The acting is also really damn good with Margot Robbie solidifying herself as a draw and one of the biggest actors alive and Ryan Gosling stealing every scene he’s in and America Ferrera coming from out of nowhere to show she can be a true scene stealer with her charisma.
Then there is best picture winner itself, Oppenheimer. The movie that Christopher Nolan was destined to make. Literally talking about this movie feels like a chore because it is so freaking perfect. Cillian Murphy proves once more that he is one of the most underrated actors….actually scratch that, not so underrated anymore. This movie just like Emma a few spots before, lives and dies off of his performance and he’s fucking perfect as Michael Oppenheimer. This was the role he was born to play and he believably does so from the looks down to his mannerisms. This film simply would not work without his performance. And in literally a who’s who of all these big names stars being in this movie, he’s by far the best.
But yes, the Barbenheimer phenomena was one of my favorite film moments of the last few years and it was such a brilliant cross promotion marketing move to get people into theaters that I seriously hope we get more like it. Saw Patrol may have failed, but maybe Furiosa-field might work Memorial Day 2024….dear god please there are better options than that. Also more original IPs please!
So as I’m writing this, we are getting very close to the release date of WB’s next entry in their Godzilla & Kong saga. The anticipation for the first one of these was off the hook for me because I’ve been longing for a cheesy good monster mash movie between the titans. Especially since there has never been a true good Godzilla movie in my lifetime. For the sequel? Nope. I mean it looks…fine. But we JUST got the best Godzilla film of my lifetime. We don’t need this.
2. Godzilla Minus One
Y’all remember how 2014 Godzilla had such great human interactions those first 30-45 minutes and made you feel for the humans in a Godzilla movie….only to completely drop the ball immediately afterwards with interchangeable humans and practically any Godzilla? Well let’s just say that Godzilla Minus One was those first 30-45 minutes of Godzilla turned into a feature length movie?
I’m just going to get straight to the point with this one. Godzilla Minus One is about emotional trauma. And pretty damn accurate historic ones at that. This movie takes place shortly after the atomic bombings in Japan and connecting with the humans before Godzilla brings his reign of chaos onto the citizens of the country. And this is the part where I normally want Godzilla to kill all the dumb humans and what not. But not here. You resonate with the humans and when Godzilla ends up killing someone I like or damaging them in emotional or traumatic ways; I’m like…no I actually like that person. Stop that.
Sorry if that is too simplistic of a way of describing my feelings as to why I love this movie, but it is just so beautifully done. Also the fact that Godzilla looks far more threatening in a film that only cost a couple million dollars in comparison to the latest $200 or so million dollar big budget blockbuster is just continuously hilarious to me. Maybe someday America Godzilla will get it right.
But until then, this is a mighty achievement for such a long reigning franchise that won’t be topped any time soon. But Godzilla Minus One did minus one spot from the top of this best list. Find out what toppped it after a few honorable mentions.
Honorable Mentions:
Bottoms
My last cut from making the best list. What kind of schmuck would cut this list for a superhero movie that was full of flaws and….I’m the schmuck that can’t justify it.
Killers of the Flower Moon
Another painful cut but let me be perfectly honest on why. I don’t see myself sitting through this film a second time anytime in the not too distant future. And in one of the best film years in recent memory, that played a huge factor. Sorry Scorsese.
Saltburn
In weaker years, this would have made my best list for one performance alone. Barry Keoghan was that damn good. What a tour de fucking force he was. Now just stop casting him as high schoolers for the love of god he’s two years younger than me.
They Cloned Tyrone
Fucking hilariously good time. This one got lost amidst the Barbenheimer pandemonium last summer and for shame. This would have for sure stood out in a weaker year too.
Past Lives
God this year was so much better compared to last when it came to the best picture nominees. Can’t emphasize that enough. Seriously no complaints on most of the nominees winning…except for Maestro. Fuck that film.
Wonka
Honestly just copy and paste everything I said about my boy Yorgos since it applies here with Paul King. Proving once again that this director can just do no wrong with concepts that should not work but they do. Also that Timothee Chalamet is just killing it these days, huh?
John Wick Chapter 4
How do these sequels keep getting better and better? Maybe one of these days, one of these films will make my best list at this rate.
Elemental
I don’t normally ask for people to get fired. Especially in this day and age when AI can replace actual people. But I hope whoever marketed this movie got some sort of punishment because my god this movie was so much better than how it was marketed.
No Hard Feelings
Jennifer Lawrence fighting completely naked is one of the best scenes of the year. And not just because she was naked. Talk about empowering…I’ll stop.
The Boy and The Heron
The best Miyazaki movie in over twenty years and one of his best ever. Don’t @ me.
M3GAN
Y’all forgot that was this year, didn’t ya? This was technically a 2022 release, but that was in only like two theaters so that doesn’t count to me as 2022 when it was much more accessible in 2023 as a nationwide release. I love this fucking stupid movie so much more than you all realize.
…zero nominations? Really? I haven’t been this pissed off at the goose egg snub since Uncut Gems.
1. The Iron Claw
I’m going to avoid making the Uncut Gems comparison a hundred times and just keep this straight forward with this last statement. This movie did to Zac Efron what Uncut Gems did for Adam Sandler.
By that meaning, this was the best performance of Zac Efron’s career. And I always felt like Zac had more depth to him than we’ve ever seen from the actor. Felt like he always picking good roles, not great. Or felt like he was underachieving from his full potential. Even to this day since his latest film Ricky Stanicky feels like yet another movie where he should be doing so much better than that.
The Iron Claw always had such lofty expectations from me as most of y’all may know about me as a die hard wrestling fan. And the Von Erich brothers tale really does make for a full length feature film experience. But how Sean Durkin directs this tale is just simply a sight to behold. I absolutely loved every second of this movie and is now my personal front runner for best film of the 2020’s…yep I said it.
Zac Efron may be getting all my gushing, but Jeremy Allen White also deserves some hefty praise from me. Which lets face it, this guy already gets plenty of praise for The Bear; and rightfully so, that’s a damn good show. But I think Jeremy Allen White really proved with this movie too that he is a star on the come up and I will be watching his future with a microscope as well because he has so much potential.
This movie just did all the right things and I don’t think my description here really shows how much I love this movie. If my only complaint is that the guy who played Ric Flair sucked at being Ric Flair…then you know that is just the minorest of nitpicks. Now there’s an autobiography I would pay to see on the big screen. Woo!
…it probably wont be better than this.
