The 23 Best Movies of 2023 -Part Two

Yesterday I counted down thirteen of the absolute best movies from last year. Now let’s finish things. Here are the the Top Ten Movies of 2023:

10. Passages -written by Ira Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias, directed by Ira Sachs

One of the most daring queer films in recent memory, Ira Sachs’s beguiling drama about how a man’s self-serving desperation for sexual validation destroys his two relationships gave us one of the great anti-heroes in cinema this year. Franz Rogowski’s emotionally manipulative, toxically co-dependent, and sexually addicted Tomas was the perfect character you love to hate, and yet he was also such a deeply human and pitiable figure, whom Rogowski brought to life with magnificent verve and passion. There’s a lot of passion in Passages, the best argument this year in favour of the importance of sex scenes in movies, as each of his sexual encounters, whether with Ben Whishaw’s tender husband Martin or Adele Exarchopoulos’s excitingly sensual Agathe, builds out the weight of Tomas’s desire superseding any real affection for the people he claims to love. Sachs shoots such scenes, and the movie itself, graciously, stressing the intricate connections that bind each of these three people, entertaining the meaning behind why both Martin and Agathe continue to be drawn to Tomas in spite of his betrayals and shortcomings. And I think it is Sachs’s sympathy, for all but especially for Tomas, that makes the movie resonate so strongly. It’s an entrancingly complex and provocative piece, and a thrilling showcase for all involved.

Passages is streaming on MUBI and available to rent digitally.

9. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse -written by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and David Callaham, directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson

Across the Spider-Verse may only be one-half of a movie, with a structurally unnatural teaser at the end to set up the next part, but it’s still one hell of an astonishing triumph of animation! Meeting and in some areas surpassing the beautifully eclectic work done on the first film, it diversifies its palette of styles in interesting, even breathtaking new ways. To see it in a theatre was one of the most enrapturing experiences of the year. And once again it is a movie that comments starkly and potently on the modern superhero genre, specifically with regards to intense fealty to canon. Across the Spider-Verse may In fact be the first ever anti-canon superhero movie, as it completely rejects the limitations of adhering to arbitrary rule-sets, and promotes the notion of breaking those rules, “doing his own thing” as Miles puts it. Miles Morales remains a distinctly compelling on-screen iteration of Spider-Man, with his feelings and relationships outside of his superhero work, remaining the most important values in his life. The movie’s also funny as all hell, impressively clever, and features a sweet soundtrack. Still an exception to the superhero genre’s multiverse fixation (in that it is smart more than cynical), Across the Spider-Verse is like its predecessor, the comic book movie as it ought to be.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is streaming on Crave and available to rent digitally.

8. May December -written by Samy Burch, directed by Todd Haynes

Todd Haynes is known for his bold stories of complex women, and May December delivers perhaps the two most complex and challenging women of his career. In the middle-aged sex offender who has infantilized herself as a way of justifying her crime and the actress determined to play her with honesty and too much fascination, Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman respectively are given a pair of impeccably rich and difficult characters who draw on and subconsciously mirror one another for validation. Both are magnificent, turning out a couple of the best performances of their respective careers; and yet Charles Melton as the gaslit victim-turned-husband may be the most compelling to watch as he gradually comes to understand the reality of his circumstance for the last twenty years. A movie that cogently dances between the grim disturbing details of its story and satire directed at the Hollywood capitalization on such a thing, it tackles acutely the severity of sexual grooming and rewriting of narratives, the ethical quandaries of true-life performance, and the psychological ramifications, both public and personal, of hideous scandal. Undoubtedly one of Haynes's best movies, May December is a searingly provocative, relevant drama, matching sympathy with a certain degree of scorn; and features three of the great performances of 2023 working off each other in deeply interesting ways.

May December is streaming on Netflix.

7. Asteroid City -written and directed by Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson's covert tribute to existential perseverance in times of crisis is yet another effortlessly brilliant work of art by one of American cinema's most singular visionaries. More than the atmosphere, the look and general charms that Anderson brings to all of his films though, what makes Asteroid City particularly special are its resonating themes of uncertainty and dismay, and its profound assertion of purpose in the midst of these. In this, a script Anderson wrote while in quarantine, a sense of real anxiety is tangible -both in the narrative of a lock-down at a Junior Stargazer's Convention, and in the throughline external to that reality of the figures involved in its staging. Both are concerned with a poorly suppressed longing for meaning within circumstances beyond any grasp of control -something its director himself was surely also reckoning with in the context he originated the movie in. For its melancholic musings though Asteroid City is an achingly optimistic movie in this regard -reassuring in its own unassuming yet stupendously powerful way; and it is as delightfully eccentric and funny as any Andersonian venture. With gorgeously evocative, pastel-coated retro-futurist in parallel to classic TV aesthetics, and a cast of strong Anderson regulars led by Jason Schwartzman and Scarlett Johansson, it is a movie of marvellously inspired artistry and deeply affecting soulfulness.

Asteroid City is streaming on Amazon Prime and available to rent digitally.

6. Monster -written by Yuji Sakamoto, directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda

Discovering the unexpected, unravelling layers to Monster was one of the great movie delights of the year for me. A story that seemed set down a dark or depressing path became one of exquisite heart and affirmation. Yuji Sakamoto's Rashomon-twisting script is one of the finest of the year, and in the hands of the modern master of tender drama, Hirokazu Kore-eda it becomes a truly beautiful movie experience -one brimming with pathos, renewal, and hope. The story of a troubled kid and the varying perspectives of a mother and teacher on what is causing his rash behaviour -accusations lobbed at the teacher in particular- it speaks with immense power to notions of subjective truth and empathetic understanding. And the social need for children to have their secrets. Sakura Ando and Eita Nagayama are fantastic, but perhaps not enough credit is delegated to the young Soya Kurokawa, quietly embodying so much soul, so much unspoken pain. All the while the 'Monster' of the title evolves in the sad harshness of its meaning. Its ending however is a pure expression of joy unlike any other this year, with subtle vibrations emanating off of the last movie score composed by the late Ryuichi Sakamoto. Kore-eda movies, in spite of their conventions, rarely miss an opportunity to surprise -even still, Monster took me aback in its viscerally forceful emotional urgency.

Monster is currently playing in limited theatres and available to rent from iTunes.

5. All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt -written and directed by Raven Jackson

A late addition to rank so highly, but one that I instantly knew was special enough to do so. Raven Jackson's breathtakingly poignant debut film, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is poetic cinema at its finest. Told through sense and imagery more than through words, it is the simple yet grandiose story of a black woman's loves and losses over a lifetime, and through it all of her relationship to her home and heritage in rural Mississippi. Fixating on visual motifs of hands and nature, Jackson draws deep connections that hang over and inform her central narrative and themes in unbelievably beautiful ways. Her lingering attention to detail creates sublime moments, evocative implications; and her graceful editing connects emblems of birth and death and love with subtle precision. The spare dialogue is often deeply meaningful -coloured in its own gentle reams of discerning metaphor; the sparer music glorious. It is a movie in love with a broad human experience, and yet in its specificities speaks to the singular power of black American feeling and tradition. It posits a cyclical pattern to life and further a sense of comfort in that. A movie of finite scale yet infinite scope, that demands to be seen and felt on its own terms (wholly accessible for its experimentations); a bold expression from Jackson that could not fit more traditional parameters. Transcendent art that must be encouraged.

All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is available to rent digitally.

4. Killers of the Flower Moon -written by Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese, directed by Martin Scorsese

The greatest criticism of Killers of the Flower Moon may too be its greatest asset. It is a movie about the Osage tragedy made largely for white audiences. But it is made for those audiences by Martin Scorsese, who does so with the express purpose of forcing them to confront not only an ugly act of cultural genocide but the subtle ways in which such a thing is more broadly carried out and permeates across history. He indicts himself as much as anyone in this, as he depicts the casual horror of a few white men systemically subverting and killing the Osage women who stand in the way of immense wealth for themselves -all the while hiding behind beneficent personalities and hollow acts of support. Killers of the Flower Moon is a three and a half hour portrait of white greed; and yet it pays sincere homage to the Osage people -heavily involved in consultation on the film- and specifically Mollie Burkhart, who experiences so much loss and gaslighting at the hands of those who supposedly care for her. Lily Gladstone is a pillar of fortitude though, with a commanding presence even in her most vulnerable scenes -stealing attention away from a pathetic Leonardo DiCaprio and a two-faced Robert De Niro. An excruciating though necessary movie, and Scorsese’s brilliant choice of closure ensures you don’t forget its message for a long while after the credits role.

Killers of the Flower Moon is streaming on AppleTV+ and available to rent digitally.

3. Poor Things -written by Tony McNamara, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos

No movie this year was more constantly exciting to watch than Yorgos Lanthimos’s mad take on a feminist Frankenstein! The odyssey of a reanimated woman discovering her personal freedom and sexual agency on a jaunt through a fun-house mirror version of nineteenth century Europe, subverting and dismantling patriarchal structures and assumptions along the way, Poor Things is singularly the most boisterous movie of the year. Wonderfully imaginative in its world, its script, and its style, it is visually transporting in every magical frame, as it draws from silent film and expressionist portraiture alike. Emma Stone proves herself the greatest vessel for Lanthimos and Tony McNamara’s whip-smart dialogue, as she goes to wild and challenging though inevitably cathartic places for a character, Bella, that is both the most fun and most complex performance of her career. Supported by an exhilarating Mark Ruffalo as the avatar for male entitlement and gendered control, she and Lanthimos are able to perfectly articulate the fundamental absurdity of so many social and gendered constructs we still take as a given. It is an intrepid movie, fierce in its thematic priorities and unabashedly sexual; and a treat to watch as Lanthimos delights in his particular whims of stylish fancy. Poor Things is a magnetizing movie, as funny and spontaneous as it is interesting and intellectually curious. Bizarre in the best of ways it is nothing short of a full creative triumph!

Poor Things is currently playing in some theatres.

2. Oppenheimer -written and directed by Christopher Nolan

It’s a film that rattles you to the core, both in its scale and monumental gravity. A movie that seemingly chronicles the first steps along a continuing road to apocalypse, Oppenheimer -director Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece, is an astutely crafted, brilliantly told story of the harrowing consequences of ambition and hubris, innovation without ethics -all in the periphery of an intense and captivating character study of J. Robert Oppenheimer, played to charismatic and egotistical perfection by Cillian Murphy. And it is a movie that smartly refuses to cast Oppenheimer as either a martyr or a villain, but rather as a man with complex motivations, able to apply wilful ignorance where it suits him -and in wherever his reputation may lead, as the instrumental figure in the creation of the nuclear age. Nolan isn’t afraid to challenge his audience on their perceptions, engage intelligently with both Oppenheimer’s character and the question of nuclear weapons -even as he is clear in his own bleak outlook in the film’s already iconic final beat. But the chilling and sobering qualities of the film are some of its greatest strengths, alongside its thrilling script and astounding supporting cast, led by a never better Robert Downey Jr. and Emily Blunt. Oppenheimer is a triumph of filmmaking grandeur, enormous in scope though intimately drawn. It’s technical prowess and sharp visual thematic choices are a thing of awe; which incidentally is how it expresses the Trinity test, famously rendered through practical effects as the most powerful suspenseful sequence of the year. Oppenheimer wants you to dwell on that moment and everything that came out of it, and on the man who made it possible, with just as much awe and dread, and feverish intoxication.

Oppenheimer is available to rent digitally.

1. Past Lives -written and directed by Celine Song

What is more special? The happily ever after or the moment of bliss frozen in time? This question is at the heart of one of the great movies made about destiny, about unresolved love stories and the pieces of oneself left behind across an evolving and multi-faceted life. Past Lives is the feature debut of Celine Song, yet there’s more deftness and wisdom interlaced within it than can be found in any number of movies by directors decades into successful careers. The story of two people, childhood sweethearts separated long ago, and their brief reunions across a period of thirty years may not sound so exciting, but in Song’s delicate strokes of emotion and atmosphere, as well as a profound conversation on love and fate that takes multiple compelling forms, it is one of the most beautiful and affecting romantic movie experiences since the Before trilogy -which it certainly feels indebted to. But Past Lives is uniquely coloured by its roots in the immigrant experience, and in the specifically Korean concept of In-yun, an idea of fate tied to the past rather than the future. An essential part of the movie considers the various what-ifs in the past for both Greta Lee’s Nora and Teo Yoo’s Hae Sung -who would they have been to each other had their lives proceeded along different paths, with or without each other. Song invites her audience to think about these things as well, the various connections that may not be so lost to us -as she demonstrates with the movie’s breathtaking and heart-wrenching final long take. Her long takes and match cuts are so mesmerizing here, punctuating her themes with a stunning potency. Lee delivers a performance of glorious subtlety, while Yoo and John Magaro (as Nora’s husband Arthur) find vivid emotional immediacy of their own. The bittersweet contours of Past Lives have such power, that merely thinking of them evokes raw emotion. 

I ended my review by calling it a movie that represents the very reason movies are worth going to see; and at the end of the year I echo that sentiment tenfold. For experiences such as Past Lives, let’s keep going to the movies in 2024!

Past Lives is available to rent digitally.

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