My Favorite Films of 2023
It’s been a year, which means stuff has happened. Among that stuff are movies. Last year I made a similar blog post of 5 films I found to be the best I’d seen from that year, and this year I will do the same… but different. Instead of 5, how about… 6? Yes, that sounds good. These aren’t meant to be full reviews, just a list of films with my overall thoughts on them. Also, an obligatory disclaimer to my list: it’s my opinion.
6: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
It looks like another Marvel movie is gracing the bottom of my list this year as well. This one I enjoyed for its focus on characters, mainly Rocket. It also features a genuinely dislikable (one may even say, perhaps, hate-worthy) villain. Just about everything about this was entertaining and I had no memorable gripes.
5: Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One
This lives up to its “Part One” mentioned in its title. Does that make it terrible? Nah. It’s not a standalone movie by any means, but it’s solid and remains engaging and fun despite that. The action you’d expect from a Tom Cruise movie is here, and it’s great. There are some rushed plot moments, but other plot elements more or less make up for them, namely the antagonist.
4: Talk to Me
A horror movie that doesn’t apparently break its own rules and builds on them uniquely is great, which is what Talk to Me does. It has some great performances, particularly Sophie Wilde, and it has a nice real-world parallel in the way of the effects of substance use. Another noteworthy thing is the single-take of the opening.
3: A Haunting in Venice
I’m a big fan of mystery. I’m also a big fan of original works—'original' being a relative term which here means not a reboot or remake. This can loosely be called a sequel, and it’s another adaptation of Agatha Christie’s books, but it works as a standalone. I very much enjoyed the weaving of supernatural, slight horror, and mystery in the tone. And Hercule Poirot is simply a character I always want to see.
2: Suzume
Here at the top 2 is where I’d draw the line between my general “top” movies and those I consider truly good films. Or, as the Martin Scorsese meme would say, “This is cinema.” This was a great movie. Its theme is given wonderfully through the metaphor of the fantasy elements. And the animation, as usual with a Makoto Shinkai film, is lovely. It may not have my favorite soundtrack out of what RADWIMPS has given in the past, but it’s RADWIMPS so it’s still a great soundtrack. Something I regret not knowing going into this movie was having the knowledge of events that had happened in Japan, particularly in the year 2011. If I had, this would have been an even larger emotional journey. Anyway, I also have a fondness for the title being relevant to the story’s theme.
1: Oppenheimer
This is an obvious choice, but I can’t argue that this film isn’t great. It is great. It’s what I’d call a masterpiece, even. Is it one I’d want to rewatch? A few times, yes. It’s long, yet when I watched it I didn’t feel like it was long. I didn’t understand while watching what the shifts in the color palette meant, but afterwards when I found out they signaled shifts in perspective it made sense and that was a cool feature. The only thing I can’t really say much about is the soundtrack—I think it worked well if not well enough, and what actually stuck out to me more was the use of silence. Aside from that, the acting was great, the cinematography was great, the story and pacing were great, and the ending, oh lawdy, the ending. There’s just something about a great ending that’s fantastique.
Well, here we are at the end of the list. Some honorable mentions are Across the Spiderverse and John Wick Chapter 4. It is with disappointment that I must acknowledge one dishonorable mention: The Boy and the Heron. I’ll be expanding on my thoughts on that film in another blog post. There are still some movies out there from this year I want to see like Wonka.
