Top 10 Films of 2023

Greetings, Movie Fans!

All of the lead up has finally come to an end, and now it's time for the List of Champions! 

The best way I can describe this list every year is that these are the 10 films that were the most deeply engrained in my mind after seeing them. To be clear, these are not necessary films of technical prestige, though they are certainly not lacking in that department in any way. I'll leave that (begrudgingly) up to the Academy. 

I feel that 2023 had an awesome range of different surprises from different genres, and I can only hope that 2024 will be anywhere in the ballpark. In my opinion, it's been a special year!

Alright, without any further delay, here are my Top 10 Films of 2023!

10. "AIR"

When it comes to Ben Affleck as a director, I've been a fan since the word "GO". "Gone Baby Gone" back in 2007 did sneak up on me as a film I was interested in, but didn't really know he had directed it until I had started watching it. Clearly taking some inspiration from the likes of Martin Scorsese, "Gone Baby Gone" was a gritty thriller that left you feeling dirty by the end. Of course, his follow-ups with the "The Town" (2010) and "Argo" (2012) need no introductions, and while "Live by Night" in 2017 had production troubles and some apparent off-set issues in Affleck's personal life, it still was a serviceable drama even if it didn't reach the heights of the previous two. 

While all of those films are good-to-excellent, I believe "AIR" might be his most impressive feat to date. Think about it - it's a film about the creation of the Air Jordan basketball shoe that Nike went all in on back in the 1980s, or face collapse under the weight of the Adidas empire. I don't think you even have to be a basketball fan in this day and age to know exactly how this movie ends, and yet it was still fucking awesome. There's part of me that can't help but think that should be impossible, but Affleck has stricken again. He also is one of the stars of the film, but this time takes a bit of a secondary role behind Matt Damon and Jason Bateman, whom bring their reliable balance of humor and drama as seamlessly as always. It's an excellent film that deserves to be recognized as one of the year's best.

9. "Polite Society"

Speaking of pleasant surprises, I don't think I even knew that "Polite Society" existed until I stumbled across its trailer on YouTube by accident. Thank goodness for that, because in a world where the action comedy genre has been stumbling and bumbling in its own mediocrity for roughly the last decade with few exceptions, "Polite Society" waltzes confidently into the room behind the direction of Nida Manzoor (her first full-length feature), and completely blows the roof off the joint in spectacular fashion. 

I know this is speaking in broad terms, but to me, disliking a movie like "Polite Society" must be in service of also disliking fun. Priya Kansara as Ria "The Fury" Khan, and her sister Lena (Ritu Arya) are so damn infectiously good that I couldn't stop smiling even during the more serious bits of the plot. On that subject, the story strikes a balance between familiar and fresh as Ria, a teenager aspiring to be a professional stunt double, has to do battle with both her disapproving parents and her own sister whom is willingly walking into an arranged relationship against her better nature with a man Ria sees as shady. As implied previously, without getting into spoilers, action and hilarity ensues. 

"Polite Society" feels like lightning in a bottle given all the new talent at hand, and whether this crew ends up working together again or not, I'll definitely be following them from here to see what else they have in store!

8. "The Holdovers"

Seriously, this surge of great Christmas movies is starting to get a little scary. "The Holdovers" in 2023, "Violent Night" in 2022, "A Boy Called Christmas" in 2021, "Klaus" a few years before that, and it goes on from there. Christmas was supposed to be the time I get to make fun of movies, what the actual Hell is happening??

In all seriousness, though, this is one example of many of why Alexander Payne is a great director and Paul Giamatti is a brilliant, yet somehow still underrated actor. Payne has consistent sensibilities, sure, but I'm pretty sure someone could throw a dart at a dartboard with different roles on it, tell Giamatti to "Go do that!", and he'd blow everybody off their feet. In "The Holdovers", Giamatti plays Paul Hunham, a cranky boarding school teacher charged with caring for students who can't go home over Christmas break, and is frankly fine with that because he has a sadistic sense of humor when it comes to underperforming students, and he couldn't care less about the holidays. Dominic Sessa as Angus is the student needing to be looked after and whom makes it a point to make Hunham's life miserable, and Da'Vine Joy Randolph is Mary Lamb, the cafeteria manager who also is there during the ride and gets sucked into the antics of the other two. 

If you've seen a Payne movie before, or a holiday movie before for that matter, it won't take long for you to figure out where things are likely going to from there, and the whole experience was simply wonderful. Everybody in front of and behind the camera brings their A-game and makes it look so easy that the 133 minute runtime just evaporates. I know I plan to buy this one and make it a staple each each December. It's really that good.

7. "Barbie"

I don't think there's really anything more I can possibly say about "Barbie" and the film culture landmark it just left in its wake that has been left unsaid. This type of film really needed to be a perfect storm, and Greta Gerwig, Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrara, and a bright cast of supporting characters were that Perfect Storm. I am still frankly in awe of all the ways a project like this could have been a complete and utter disaster, and yet they managed to stick a impressive landing on the first try! The performances, the set pieces, the nostalgia, the humor, the self-awareness, the cinematography, the direction - all of it just worked so damn well. 

I would like to take a moment to give the extra props to Gerwig. She has proven herself a true artist as a director, and considering that a stack of her previous films have hit the awards circuit time after time, it's no wonder that "Barbie" looked like a cake walk when all was said and done. I honestly can't say enough good things about it.

6. "Nimona"

Yep! Of all the outstanding animated films that came out in 2023, I had to put emphasis on "Nimona". Even if I hadn't loved it to this level, I think I would have been trumpeting it somewhere with just how close it became to be unforgivably scrapped by a bunch of idiot studios who couldn't be bothered to see it for what it was. Scoff at me if you want, but thank you, Netflix! Now, give us a bluray, please.

Honestly, "Nimona" appeals to so many of my own preferences, I don't think I could try to count them all. Between being futuristic but also a bit medieval, a creative animation palette courtesy of Blue Sky initially, a high-energy, metal and chaos-loving lead played flawlessly by Chloe Grace Moretz, the yin to her yang, Ballister Boldheart, played also flawlessly by Riz Ahmed, and while I shouldn't need to bring this up at all because it shouldn't fucking matter in the slightest - yes - it also features a nice LGBT romance that most major animation studios don't have the balls to stand behind. What a shock. 

One could say that the story is a little too easy to pick up on since part of is a mystery, but considering what all happens after the mystery is solved makes said mystery hardly the focal point of what's actually happening in the movie and what is has to say. Nick Bruno and Troy Quane directed a Hell of a feature here, and I hope it gets the audience it deserves over time. 

5. "When Evil Lurks"

I don't know what this says about me as a person, but when a film is sold as "off-putting" or "disturbing", I don't take that as much as a lure as I do as a challenge. I haven't seen all the horror movies of the dark underground, probably not even close, but I've seen enough to not be easily shifted by gore, demons, or gore as a result of demons. This isn't a spoiler, but within the first five minutes of the film, a body and its entrails are scattered across the ground, and my thought was "Cool." I guess what I'm saying is that it takes a lot to get me to squirm, and "When Evil Lurks" didn't really make me squirm either, but it did have pretty much everything else that I could possibly want in a horror film! 

Director Demian Rugna has crafted a superbly balanced, possession-ish, infection-ish, occult-ish project about how average people would handle an apocalypse at the hands of Hell. I think what I enjoyed the most about "When Evil Lurks" outside the impressive visuals, costume and makeup design, and gradually increasing dark atmosphere, is just how normal the characters were. We've all seen it before in many a horror movie where the leads are either way too good at escaping dire situations, or entirely too dumb. Pedro and Jaime in "Lurks" are a bit of both. They have faith, determination, and courage, but are also quick to make mistakes under pressure that make their situation far worse than it needed to be. Tempting as it would be to shout at them through the screen, part of you realizes that it has to be that way. 

I don't want to go much deeper in fear of spoilers, because "When Evil Lurks" truly is a fully immersive experience with near-perfect pacing. I saw some great horror films last year, and this one truly stood tall.

4. "Missing"

A spiritual sequel to 2018's "Searching" (my #1 film from that year), "Missing" is directed by Will Merrick and Nick Johnson, who served as editors to the aforementioned "Searching", and once again continue to show how a film like this that would often be considered a gimmick has some true storytelling power. I admit I was a bit skeptical when I had first learned of this film being released, because so often when a new idea comes along and is successful, a cheaper, more direct-to-DVD sequel is soon to follow. Seeing that Aneesh Chaganty did not return to direct (though he did share producing duties), and a whole new cast of mostly unknowns, I was worried it fall well short of the graces of "Searching". 

Thankfully, those fears were completely unsound as "Missing" was another fantastic dramatic thriller. Wow, I cannot even imagine the level of skill and patience it takes to make a film around this type of visual storytelling, but for the second time now, it dug its hooks into me and never let me go once. Particular applause needs to go to Storm Reid  as June Allen, because she carries the bulk of this film on her back, and she did such an impeccable job. She has to emote not only through various video apps, but also through typing, and twist after twist after twist. Needless to say, she had me eating out of her palm the entire time. I love films that make me grip the cushions of my couch and even quicken my pulse, and "Missing" accomplished that and then some. Whether it's this one or both, make sure to check these two movies out. You won't be sorry!

3. "Society of the Snow"

Talk about getting into the running in the last possible minute. I watched "Society of the Snow" only a week ago on Netflix and was so transfixed by it that, not only did I need to get it on my Top 10, but I needed to place it highly. I mentioned how this list of films are here because they're going to be engrained in my mind for a long time, and I still haven't stopped thinking about "Society of the Snow". 

This isn't the first film adaptation about the true events surrounding a rugby team and various others whose plane crashed in the Andes Mountains back in 1972, though it is the first one that I've seen. I shouldn't be surprised by the film's high quality given that it's directed by J.A. Bayona. He's had some misses here and there, but I've known his work since his debut back in 2007 with "The Orphanage", and that's a horror film I still adore to this day. I would also love to see some behind the scenes of how he made "Snow". Obviously there was some special effects going on, especially during the crash and some of the action scenes, but the rest looked so authentic that it made me feel cold. Keep in mind, this crash happened during the roughest months of the year up in the Andes. There's blizzards, avalanches, subzero temperatures - it was brutal, and this film captured all of it magnificently. 

As much of a curmudgeon that I am sometimes, especially towards humanity, "Snow" really filled me with that sense of compassion and wanting to cheer these people on. It'll make you laugh, it'll make you cry, and it will take take your breath completely away at times. This is absolutely a must see!

2. "Oppenheimer"

Much like "Barbie", there isn't a whole lot I can say about "Oppenheimer" that hasn't been said already, and I don't have any deviations or hot takes that are going to go against the grain here. This is (to date) Christopher Nolan's masterpiece. I've seen him do some pretty cool shit through "The Dark Knight" trilogy, "The Prestige", "Inception", and "Dunkirk" - and those just feel like a warm up now to his true potential that was on full display in "Oppenheimer". The screenplay, the editing, the practical effects, the astonishingly enormous cast whom all left a memorable fingerprint on the film whether they were in it for 5 minutes or 150 minutes, the score, the direction, and so on and so on. 

2023 was a great year for stories we pretty much know a bulk about, like "Oppenheimer" and "AIR", and still managed to be completed entranced by them. That is the work of true artists and visionaries, and like I mentioned before in previous lists, it's movies like "Oppenheimer" that make me love movies as deeply as I do. 

And now, the moment this has all been leading up to! Next is the film that hit just about every emotion I have in me, and made both my adult self and inner child shed tears of joy:

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1. "Godzilla Minus One"

It's taking every fiber of my being not to turn this into one long love letter to Godzilla, Toho Studios, and the rest, but that will have to wait for another time. It's hard for me to ever relent to the idea of calling a movie perfect or near-perfect, but I think I'm going to have to let go of those inner inhibitions, because by my estimation, "Godzilla Minus One" is as close to a perfect movie as I'm likely going to see, and I do mean any movie, not just monster movies. Director Takashi Yamazaki should be so proud of this tremendous feature he has made. 

I've been one of the lucky ones who was exposed to Godzilla early in life, and I was the kid who loved monsters and dinosaurs, so it was an easy win. There are still so many Godzilla movies I have yet to see from Japan, and I'm hoping to fix that during 2024 and 2025 so I can get a better appreciation of Toho's evolution over the years that led them to making what may be considered their crowning achievement in "Minus One", outside say maybe the 1950s original. I do love the American versions as well. I'm still a defender of the 1998 Emmerich version, and the three (almost 4) that have come out from Legendary the past decade are goofy to be sure, but they are a good balance to the more serious faire that comes from Japan. 

What has set "Minus One" apart from any other Godzilla film that I've seen to date is that not only was Godzilla's design the most impressive adaptation that I've seen yet by a long shot, but I've never been this enveloped in the human story before. Honestly, the whole cast brings something individually the table that sticks with me and are so vital to the progression of the plot that one misstep might have undone everything. It's a pretty odd and special feeling to be super amped when Godzilla comes on screen, but also have an inner voice go "Could you not?? My boy Koichi over here is just trying to get his life together. Leave him alone!" There were also some (potentially) new twists to Godzilla that I didn't see coming and hadn't seen previously that were both terrifying and exciting. I hope to see more of that in the future!

I knew as soon as I saw "Godzilla Minus One" that it was going to be my favorite of the year. I sat in silence after it was over. Those around me at the theater sat in silence after it was over. Once a minute or two passed, applause broke out. That isn't just a movie, it's an experience, and I'll never forget it.

Thank you for reading and checking out ALL of my 2023 film lists this year! Cheers to 2024!