Top Films of 2023
*Note* Despite my best efforts, I did not see every single film released in 2023, so there may indeed be some omissions. When it comes to determining the “year of release”, I generally used the “wider release” date, unless I was able to catch it early on the festival circuit this year. Of course, this is my personal list of the top films of 2023, but I will continue to defend my #1 selection… Enjoy!
23. Asteroid City
Set in a fictional American desert town circa 1955, the itinerary of a Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention (organized to bring together students and parents from across the country for fellowship and scholarly competition) is spectacularly disrupted by world-changing events.
22. Sisu
Deep in the wilderness of Lapland, Aatami Korpi is searching for gold but after he stumbles upon Nazi patrol, a breathtaking and gold-hungry chase through the destroyed and mined Lapland wilderness begins.
21. Fallen Leaves
The film tells the story of Ansa, a supermarket shelf-stocker on a zero-hour contract, later a recyclable plastic sorter, and Holappa, a sandblaster, an alcoholic, later an ex-alcoholic, whose paths have accidentally crossed and who, despite adversity and misunderstandings, try to build some kind of relationship on the harsher side of the welfare state.
20. Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse
After reuniting with Gwen Stacy, Brooklyn’s full-time, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is catapulted across the Multiverse, where he encounters the Spider Society, a team of Spider-People charged with protecting the Multiverse’s very existence. But when the heroes clash on how to handle a new threat, Miles finds himself pitted against the other Spiders and must set out on his own to save those he loves most.
19. Beau is Afraid
A paranoid man embarks on an epic odyssey to get home to his mother.
18. Falcon Lake
A shy teenager on a summer vacation experiences the joy and pain of young adulthood when he forges an unlikely bond with an older girl.
17. Evil Does Not Exist
Takumi and his daughter Hana live in Mizubiki Village, close to Tokyo. One day, the village inhabitants become aware of a plan to build a camping site near Takumi’s house offering city residents a comfortable “escape” to nature.
16. Seven Veils
Jeanine, an earnest theatre director, has been given the task of remounting her former mentor’s most famous work, the opera Salome. Haunted by dark and disturbing memories from her past, she allows her repressed trauma to color the present as she re-enters the opera world after so many years away.
15. Rustin
Activist Bayard Rustin faces racism and homophobia as he helps change the course of Civil Rights history by orchestrating the 1963 March on Washington.
14. Riceboy Sleeps
Set in the 90s, a Korean single mother raises her young son in the suburbs of Canada determined to provide a better life for him than the one she left behind.
13. A Thousand and One
Struggling but unapologetically living on her own terms, Inez is moving from shelter to shelter in mid-1990s New York City. With her 6-year-old son Terry in foster care and unable to leave him again, she kidnaps him so they can build their life together. As the years go by, their family grows and Terry becomes a smart yet quiet teenager, but the secret that has defined their lives threatens to destroy the home they have so improbably built.
12. Barbie
Barbie and Ken are having the time of their lives in the colorful and seemingly perfect world of Barbie Land. However, when they get a chance to go to the real world, they soon discover the joys and perils of living among humans.
11. Anatomy of a Fall
A woman is suspected of her husband’s murder, and their blind son faces a moral dilemma as the sole witness.
10. Past Lives
Nora and Hae Sung, two deeply connected childhood friends, are wrest apart after Nora’s family emigrates from South Korea. 20 years later, they are reunited for one fateful week as they confront notions of love and destiny.
9. Killers of the Flower Moon
When oil is discovered in 1920s Oklahoma under Osage Nation land, the Osage people are murdered one by one—until the FBI steps in to unravel the mystery.
Full Video Review: On YouTube
8. Monster
When her young son Minato starts to behave strangely, his mother feels that there is something wrong. Discovering that a teacher is responsible, she storms into the school demanding to know what’s going on. But as the story unfolds through the eyes of mother, teacher and child, the truth gradually emerges.
7. May December
Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, a married couple buckles under the pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about their past.
Full Video Review: On YouTube
6. The Iron Claw
The true story of the inseparable Von Erich brothers, who made history in the intensely competitive world of professional wrestling in the early 1980s. Through tragedy and triumph, under the shadow of their domineering father and coach, the brothers seek larger-than-life immortality on the biggest stage in sports.
Full Video Review: On YouTube
5. Oppenheimer
The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.
4. The Holdovers
A curmudgeonly instructor at a New England prep school is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually, he forms an unlikely bond with one of them — a damaged, brainy troublemaker — and with the school’s head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam.
Full Video Review: On YouTube
3. Poor Things
Brought back to life by an unorthodox scientist, a young woman runs off with a lawyer on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, she grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation.
Full Video Review: On YouTube
2. Perfect Days
Hirayama seems utterly content with his simple life as a cleaner of toilets in Tokyo. Outside of his very structured everyday routine he enjoys his passion for music and for books. And he loves trees and takes photos of them. A series of unexpected encounters gradually reveal more of his past.
1. Maestro
A portrait of Leonard Bernstein’s singular charisma and passion for music as he rose to fame as America’s first native born, world-renowned conductor, all along following his ambition to compose both symphonic and popular Broadway works.
Full Video Review: On YouTube
Top Films of 2023
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