If you could impart one last message onto the world, what would it be?
Is it possible to distill the lessons learned from a life on earth down to a sentence? And how would you ensure the intended audience receives your final missive - that you’ll be remembered as you hope to be?
This is an era when many artists who have dedicated their entire lives to filmmaking are wrapping up - delivering final artistic statements. Scorsese, Miyazaki, Michael Mann, and Ridley Scott are all over 80, and any given film could be their last.
COVID also clearly gave some impetus for even younger filmmakers to make their next work really count. As a result, the films released this year feel more urgent - the result of intense reflection and isolation. Wes Anderson released a treatise on what it means to make art in an era of commerce. Greta Gerwig made a blockbuster about what it means to be a woman of any age. Christopher Nolan reminded us of humanity’s capacity to destroy ourselves. And so on…
If not career-best, many auteurs made films that could be considered definitional. In doing so, they revived director-driven cinema in a year of dying franchises and befuddled CEOs. They easily made 2023 the most memorable year for cinema since the pandemic.
When looking on the pile-up of masterworks released this year, it is almost impossible for all to get their due simultaneously. For me, any top 10 of the year list is destined to be filled with regrets and worthy runners-up. And yet…
Here are my top ten films for the year 2023…
1. POOR THINGS
Yorgos Lanthimos has a vision for the world, and it is one where misfits and “experiments” are given the compassion they’re owed. It is a world where broken people can find each other, and transcend their tragic backstories. In Poor Things, Lanthimos turns the story of one woman’s self-actualization into an epic odyssey. As Bella Baxter (a reanimated body with a child’s brain) discovers the world, we experience the joyous highs and seedy lows of living entirely through her eyes.
Emma Stone plays each stage of Bella’s evolution from infant to independent woman, laying the foundation then building a house atop it. By the time we see the fully-formed human emerge, it is clear that Bella is the most memorable character of Stone’s career.
Lanthimos has crafted a film that is all-encompassing in its scope and themes. The film starts in a similar place to Lanthimos’ Greek-language breakout Dogtooth (a twisted tale of children confined by their parents who create a world of their own) but expands the tapestry once Bella leaves the mansion of her mad scientist “father” Godwin (played by Willem Dafoe). Lanthimos’ production design, a streampunk Victorian era created almost entirely on soundstages, helps us understand Bella’s awe at experiencing the world at large.
As Bella stumbles outside, Poor Things becomes not just a story about adolescence - it concerns womanhood, parenthood sexuality, morality, and inherited trauma. Yet by selecting the transformative moments in Bella’s journey, the film does not feel overstuffed. The dry humor and unexpected violence that defines Lanthimos’ work is still there, and there is no shortage of uncomfortable sex. However, the cynicism that defined his last film The Favourite is replaced by hope.
Seeing Bella’s journey, from a corpse to the master of her own fate, is a reminder that even a life discarded can become the start of a “happy tale,” and we each have the capacity to create our own worlds.
The final shot of the film is one of satisfaction - offering hope that despite all the forces of the world trying to influence us, we can create peace for ourselves.
2. KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON
It is an incredible feat that Scorsese has never settled into comfort and stability in his filmmaking, even at 81 years old. While most filmmakers (and people) retreat into habit and complacency in their old age, Marty has continued to push his artistic boundaries. If he lives to be a century old (and we should be so lucky), there’s no doubt he would continue to seek personal growth - and still search for answers to the same questions that plagued him as a Catholic child considering the priesthood.
The question of “who gets to tell whose story?” is not likely something that past generations of directors like John Ford ever had to ask themselves. Scorsese finds himself in a more evolved and inclusive Hollywood than the one he began his career in 50 years ago, as one of many white male directors afforded opportunities in the ‘70s. However, rather than refusing to change his way of telling stories, Scorsese has opened up both as a producer (see: the films he’s produced from Joanna Hogg and Danielle Lessovitz) and a filmmaker.
In flipping the perspective of David Grann’s nonfiction book “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Scorsese places the Osage Nation at the foreground rather than the newly-formed Federal Intelligence Bureau, which investigated the systematic killings that occurred against the nation in 1920s Oklahoma.
I recently watched Ken Burns documentary “The American Buffalo,” which provides ample evidence that the near-extinction of the buffalo was sponsored by the American government as part of the campaign to eradicate the American Indian population. As one of the talking heads in the film, activist George Horse Capture wonders aloud of the men who colonized America, “Why do we think we have to destroy the things that we love?”
That same question is inherent to Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Ernest Burkhart, and his uncle played by Robert DeNiro. Ernest is a white man who finds love with an Osage woman Mollie Kyle (played by Lily Gladstone in the film’s best performance). Yet he is an accomplice to the genocide of her people. Ernest is a walking contradiction, joining a long line of Scorsese characters who commit heinous acts in their cognitive dissonance.
The film never unravels the riddle of Ernest’s motivations, and is better for it. His character is a case study in how men can become complicit to horrors, even at the expense of the things they hold dear.
The ending of Killers is an act of humility (spoilers for those who are waiting for the Apple TV+ release). By appearing onscreen as an actor to read the final epigraph in a reconstruction of a 1930s radio program, Scorsese acknowledges that his perspective as a white filmmaker cannot capture the whole truth. In fact, he posits that any filmic retelling of history - any repackaging of true events as entertainment - is doomed to failure. Yet - the film Killers of the Flower Moon exists for us to watch, standing as a reminder that these events did happen. The film itself is a contradiction,
Scorsese knows innately that filmmaking is a Sisyphean struggle - that he will never fully answer the questions that he keeps asking. Yet he will continue to ask them.
3. OPPENHEIMER
In Oppenheimer, the most damning image is actually a transition.
We watch the first atomic bomb explode spectacularly in the Trinity test, nuclear power unleashed for the first time in human history by the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (played by a haunting and haunted Cillian Murphy).
Then we cut.
The very next scene, the bomb is being loaded onto a truck to begin its journey to Japan, where it will kill tens of thousands. This is the speed at which the world moves in wartime.
For the previous two hours, Christopher Nolan has been breathlessly sprinting toward that moment of detonation. Oppenheimer is caught up in a wave - not of jingoism, but of a desire to chart scientific frontiers. It’s like a drug that carries him from his days at Cambridge through World War II. After the high of the Trinity Test, Oppenheimer and his fellow scientists are faced with the crash - a grim realization of what they’ve done. That same sense of dread sits with the audience, and does not abate even after the credits roll.
Oppenheimer recognizes a world in which the only way to move the needle on human progress is to become part of the war machine - a world in which men in lab coats and in lecture halls are aides to worldwide destruction. This remains the world we live in today, where our technological breakthroughs are still funded based on a calculus of death.
If Christopher Nolan is the master craftsman of cinema, Oppenheimer is his pinnacle. The strength of the film is due to the team he has assembled over the years. The aforementioned transition and the narrative momentum of the film? That’s a credit to editor Jennifer Lame (Tenet). The strings and harps that score Oppenheimer’s scientific discoveries? That’s music by Ludwig Göransson (Black Panther). The images in Nolan’s head are realized by cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, who captures the processes of Oppenheimer’s mind as whirring electrons.
The size of the cast is a tribute to the desire of every actor in Hollywood to steal a scene in a Nolan movie. Murphy, Downey, Damon, Blunt, and Pugh are the only ones with top billing, but the mix of character actors (David Krumholtz, Benny Safdie, Josh Hartnett) and award winners (Rami Malek, Casey Affleck, Gary Oldman) in the credits is just as astonishing as any practical effect.
Oppenheimer is a massive achievement, an unlikely nearly billion-dollar grosser, and very likely will be the first film to earn Nolan his (well-deserved) accolades at the Academy Awards this year.
4. MAESTRO
Bradley Cooper thinks and feels so deeply through his films. A Star is Born was one of the best pieces of popular entertainment of the last ten years - a romantic drama remake powered just as much by earnestness as it is by a central Lady Gaga performance. Cooper has already succeeded in appealing the masses, but Maestro proves he is capable of more intimate filmmaking - interested in more complicated human relationships. It’s no wonder the film - a biopic of composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein - has been far more divisive than A Star is Born.
We’re introduced to Bernstein as he is performing - playing piano for a film crew in the aftermath of his wife’s passing. The scene foreshadow the film’s central conflict. Bernstein’s marriage to a woman (Felicia Montealegre, embodied by Carey Mulligan with both dignity and melancholy) was somewhat performative - denying the part of himself that was a gay man. And yet, there is love sustained in their long marriage. As Bernstein says in a post-coital moment, he’s jealous of the air his wife breathes - as if she is an instrument and the source of the music in his life.
Cooper clearly feels a connection to Bernstein’s difficulty balancing making art with his relationships, and the filmmaking itself evokes the parallels between the men. The first half (in black & white) you are simply gobsmacked by Cooper’s directorial talent. Like the film’s producer Steven Spielberg, Cooper has a gift for camera placement and framing. He fully leans into expressionist filmmaking, and transitions that rely on dream logic. The second half of the film - in color, but somehow less vivid - deconstructs what it means to be preternaturally gifted. The camera is more still and earthbound, as in a scene where Bernstein dismisses “the rumors” (the truth about his sexuality) to his daughter.
Is it hubris that Cooper sees himself in one of the 20th century’s most famous Americans? Maybe so. But the Ely Cathedral sequence, in which Cooper-as-Bernstein conducts Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony, makes it clear where Cooper stands on his subject. Watching Cooper sweat through conducting a full orchestra, throwing his arms to the sky as if talking to God, will make you levitate. When Felicia tells her husband “there’s no hate in your heart,” the message of Cooper’s film clicks into place. To him, Bernstein’s talent was a blessing with collateral damage, but a blessing nonetheless.
It’s clear that Cooper believes that great art is worth the sacrifice.
5. PAST LIVES
As we go through our lives, are we just ourselves, or do we carry our potential selves with us?
This is the question at the center of Past Lives, the stunning debut from Celine Song. The film is the story of childhood friends in Korea who are separated when Na Young (later taking the Americanized name Nora Moon) moves to the United States. We follow their relationship to the present day, when Nora (played by Greta Lee) is now married to an American (played by John Magaro) in New York. Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) returns to Nora’s life during an impromptu visit to the US, not able to move on from the version of Na Young he knew so many years ago.
Past Lives is an examination of the forces that shape our lives, managing to be metaphysical without being heavy-handed. This is a film that remains tender - where most of the tension comes from subtle glances, and potential blow-up arguments are never ignited. Despite being a first-time filmmaker, Song is able to sidestep any clichés of the romance genre. For example, Nora and her husband Arthur maintain a healthy relationship as he gives her space to test out the what-if’s of her life.
Song constructs her film so that the last, wordless shot - a simple one-take of Nora on a New York City street - is filled with emotion. We understand Nora’s character so well that her internal struggle becomes ours, that her dilemma becomes a mirror to our own alternate life paths.
6. THE HOLDOVERS
I have never loved an Alexander Payne film prior to this one. For me, his domestic dramas were too chilly, his comedies too arch. I could respect The Descendants and Election, but I felt the distance. Whatever adjustments he made to his formula, he got the chemistry exactly right with The Holdovers.
The Holdovers has the bones of a crowdpleaser, with a heart of ‘70s convention. It uses the aesthetics of a Hal Ashby movie, complete with Cat Stevens needle-drops. Yet what it does with those familiar beats, and the trio of Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa, and Da’Vine Joy Randolph, creates magic.
Giamatti plays Paul Hunham, an eloquent grouch who is the history teacher at Barton Academy in New England. Along with head cook Mary Lamb (Randolph), he is responsible for oversight of “the holdovers” - the kids left behind at the academy over Christmas break. The heart of the film is the relationship between Hunham and holdover Angus Tully (Sessa - a miraculous newcomer) as they form what is at first a begrudging bond.
Payne is able to make you feel for every member of the core three - all outsiders, all in need of human connection. However, the film’s true emotional power sneaks up on you in the final act, when it’s clear how much the time spent together has changed all of their lives.
7. THE BOY AND THE HERON
Director Hayao Miyazaki has dedicated his life to his work. He sacrificed his family life (his son Goro, also a director, has openly called him an absent father) in order to give us one masterpiece after another (Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, and many more). One imagines that the only way Miyazaki truly knows how to communicate is through cinema. Therefore, it makes sense that his goodbye to the world would be projected onto a big screen.
Whether The Boy and the Heron is the master’s final work is another story (he is allegedly at work on a follow-up at age 82). But the film’s chief thematic concerns are what we leave behind, and what our descendants make of the shards of our lives. The film’s Japanese title, “How Do You Live?” has special meaning to Miyazaki, as it is a question that he hopes to answer for his grandchildren before his passing.
The film functions as a tour of the director’s familiar obsessions. He returns to the wartime Japan of his childhood (the setting of The Wind Rises) to tell the coming-of-age of Mahito, who begins a new life in the countryside with his father and new stepmom after his birth mother is killed in a hospital fire. The creative fever-dream that Mahito discovers in a tower built by his granduncle - full of warring giant parakeets and unborn human souls shaped like marshmallows - is reminiscent of the spirit world of Spirited Away. As usual for Studio Ghibli, the animation is so inventive you feel that Miyazaki must have some special access to a dimension beyond our own.
The Boy and the Heron ultimately has a more forward-thinking message rather than just offering nostalgia, as the next generation is called upon to destroy the past and decide their own future. However, the work that Miyazaki has done will continue to hold influence over the medium of animation even if the kingdom of Studio Ghibli were to crumble, and The Boy and the Heron is a worthy piece of his legacy.
8. ARE YOU THERE, GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET
This is one of the better coming-of-age stories in years - funny and charming yet free of irony, respectful of the trials of young adults without being pandering. And whether or not you’re a parent, it is guaranteed to make you cry. It’s a real shame the film didn’t get more attention upon its release in April. In an America where book banning in schools by conservative activists is unfortunately becoming more common, this is a necessary work suffused in kindness.
Kelly Fremon Craig, a protege of James L. Brooks and the director of Hailee Steinfeld vehicle The Edge of Seventeen, effortlessly adapts the Judy Blume classic. Her film is a ‘70s period piece, but the story of Margaret Simon (Abby Ryder Fortson) grappling with questions of religion (and when she’ll get her first period) translates easily to any era. Craig captures the awkwardness and the hormones with a delicate touch, a sense of humor that doesn’t demean the problems of the middle school characters.
A parent herself, Craig makes some positive alterations to the original work by seeing adults as fully-formed characters. A key plotline involves Margaret’s mother Barbara (Rachel McAdams) struggling to reconcile her own ambitions with expectations of parenthood. While Barbara is shown as often flustered and emotional, Margaret’s dad (Benny Safdie) is never harsh or prone to reprimanding. It’s nice to see good mothers and fathers represented with affection in a YA movie.
Speaking of McAdams - she is one of my favorite actresses who as of late has carefully chosen her projects (Game Night and Eurovision Song Contest were two recent winning comedies). She has all but given up on being a “movie star,” but Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret is an example of how easily she can exude charm and empathy. I hope that a last-minute push for a Best Supporting Actress nomination is in the cards for her.
9. HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE
We desperately need more explicitly political filmmaking - cinema that refuses to cut corners or dilute its perspective for the sake of its audience. Of course, no major studio today would ever fund incendiary filmmaking today, as they did as a hail-mary to the industry in the 70s. That would be too “risky” (see: Bob Iger blaming conservative backlash for Disney’s 2023 slate underperforming).
Leave it to specialty outlet NEON to quietly drop How to Blow Up a Pipeline in theaters back in April - where it made little noise at the box office but still sparked intense conversation.
The plot is simple, as is the execution - a group of activists plot to destroy an oil pipeline that is contributing to environmental destruction. The framework is that of a heist movie, as director Daniel Goldhaber and his co-writer Ariela Barer set up the disparate motives that bring the team together, then follow them through the building of a bomb.
I loved Goldhaber’s CAM (see my 2018 list), and here he finds a great collaborator in Barer (who also stars). They’ve crafted a film that is searingly relevant, scarily plausible, and never once wavers from its stances.
10. BARBIE
If Barbie was simply the funniest film of the year (and it is), that would be enough. But the film, directed by Greta Gerwig and co-written by Noah Baumbach, also functions as an introduction to the basic ideas of feminism for a mass audience. Its broadness and accessibility are not bugs but features, and require an immensely talented filmmaker to make the tightrope walk work.
This is Gerwig’s biggest budget yet - and her streak of thoughtfulness and craft continues (Little Women has just grown in my estimation as a holiday classic, and Lady Bird somehow becomes more perfect with each rewatch).
It’s easy to laud the brilliance of casting Ryan Gosling as Ken, or the pink and plastic set design of Barbieland, or the soundtrack of ready-made Mark Ronson pop hits. However, it’s the details - the Gene Kelly-inspired dance interlude to “I’m Just Ken,” the way actress/producer Margot Robbie can shed a tear, the audacity of the final punchline - that give the film a sugar high.
Honorable Mentions (Movies I Loved)
Showing Up, John Wick Chapter 4, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Beau is Afraid, Asteroid City, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part 1, Bottoms, Priscilla, Napoleon, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, The Iron Claw, All of Us Strangers, Godzilla Minus One, The Zone of Interest
Movies I Liked
M3GAN, Knock at the Cabin, Creed III, Air, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, No Hard Feelings, Talk to Me, Fair Play, Passages, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, Flora and Son, Theater Camp, Albert Brooks: Defending My Life, Master Gardener, The Killer, May December, Anatomy of a Fall, American Fiction, BlackBerry, You Hurt My Feelings, Ferrari
Could Have Been Better
Magic Mike’s Last Dance, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Scream VI, A Good Person, The Little Mermaid, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Cocaine Bear, Strays, Saltburn, The Color Purple (2023)
Movies I Missed (& Plan to See)
Fallen Leaves, The Taste of Things, A Thousand and One, Wonka, Anyone But You, Skinamarink, Dream Scenario