Best movies 2023: A great year for unconventional films; not for superheroes
Despite strikes and other setbacks, 2023 was a strong year for movies, with unconventional stories and characters -- and a doll -- leading the way.
Even as two contentious strikes – the Screen Actors Guild-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America – put a stopgap on numerous productions and tabled star-studded appearances, 2023 goes down as unexpectedly exceptional if somewhat weird year for movies.
Veteran filmmakers such as 81-year-old Martin Scorsese (“Killers of the Flower Moon”) and 86-year-old Ridley Scott (“Napoleon”) delivered massive, oft-discussed epics while first-time filmmakers such as Cord Jefferson (“American Fiction”) and Celine Song (“Past Lives”) astonished us and came out of the gate slugging out critical grand slams.
The year, though, wasn’t so kind to superhero chums with both Marvel (Disney) and DC (Warner Bros.) confronting their version of Kryptonite: Dwindling audiences for the once-golden genre. (“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” were exceptions.)
So what did audiences show up for? “Barbenheimer,” for one. That kooky cultural phenomenon brought the scorching heat back to the summer box office as audiences flocked to Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” which were released on the same weekend, delivering the kind . The odd-couple pairing delivered the kind of excitement and theater turnout not seen since COVID-19.
But let’s get to the juicy part: Here are my Top 10 films of 2023 along with some honorable mentions.
“The Zone of Interest”: Unconventional filmmaker Jonathan Glazer provides audience with a front-row seat to the everyday lives of a Nazi family — the real-life commandant daddy Rudolph Hoss (Christian Friedel) heading to work at Auschwitz next door where he can exterminate Jews, while his wife Hedwig (Sandra Huller) sorting through leftover dresses from doomed prisoners, and the children horsing around and playing with real teeth. “Zone” is unlike anything you’ve experienced in the theater — an auditory and visual nightmare that sounds a global alarm and serves as a historical account of the mundanity of evil and how we too can become complicit in atrocities to humankind. Where to see it: Opens Jan. 12 in Bay Area theaters.
“Origin”: Many have praised Christopher Nolan and Martin Scorsese for pulling off incredible feats this year with “Oppenheimer” and “Killers of the Flower Moon,” respectively. But give credit to director and screenwriter Ava DuVernay, who accomplished the impossible by taking a virtually unfilmable nonfiction book – Isabel Wilkerson’s thought-provoking but dense “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent” — and transforming it into a powerful drama about journalist/scholar/professor Wilkerson (Aunjanue Ellis) establishing a link between American society and the caste systems that are are oppressing so many on a global scale. That “Origin” connects both emotionally and intellectually is exciting and astonishing. This is an important, revelatory work. Where to see it: Opens in Bay Area theaters Jan. 17.
“American Fiction”: In his rousing adaptation of an acerbic novel, rising star Cord Jefferson presents us with an off-the-charts brilliant but highly dysfunctional Black modern family, and creates a modern masterpiece that touches on such hot-button topics as race, wokeness, sexuality, pomposity, even dementia. Jeffrey Wright is sensational as a grumpy author whose meant-to-be-outlandish-and-insulting tome full of Black stereotypes winds up being an acclaimed literary hit. “American Fiction” bristles with electricity and wisdom, and best of all never scolds us even as it points out how ridiculous Americans can be when it comes to matters of race, family, and even ourselves. Where to see it: Now in theaters.
“Past Lives”: Celine Song’s understated debut rips your heart out as it reunites two South Korean childhood friends (played by Greta Lee and Teo Yoo) in New York 24 years after then-12-year-old Nora (Lee) moved to America. Song’s confident, exquisitely rendered feature ignores average conventions of that kind of setup as well as any sentimental resolutions so she can tell a piercing love-triangle story that comments on the heartbreak of cultural sacrifices and the aching burden of confronting life’s what-ifs. It culminates in one of the most emotional scenes put on screen in decades. Where to see it: Available to multiple rental and streaming platforms.
“May December”: The nation’s insatiable appetite for lurid, unsavory true-crime stories gets torched in one of Todd Haynes’ best films, working off a scathingly scripted satire by Sammy Burch that never loses its edge. Natalie Portman is pure dynamite as a calculating Method-acting actress preying on and excavating the scandalous lives of a woman (Julianne Moore) and her much-younger husband (Charles Melton, in one of the year’s best performances). It’s a bracing teardown of not our addiction to shocking stories and those who callously feed that beast for ridiculous profits. Where to see it: Available now on Netflix.
“Monster”: At first we assume Hirokazu Kore-eda’s miraculous cipher will tell a traditional tale about a protective but still grieving widow (Sakura Ando) standing up for her elementary-school son (Soya Kurokawa), whose strange behavior certainly warrants concern. Then something happens, a shift in perspective and narrative that reveals there’s so much more going on underneath what our focused eyes can and want to see. “Monster” turns into a transformative caterpillar-to-butterfly allegory on the liberation and power of becoming whole within our own tribe. It’s a gorgeous film. Where to see it: Now playing in select theaters, due out on premium streaming platforms Feb. 6.
“Poor Things”: In this sexy, joyously unhinged feminist take on the Frankenstein fable that doubles as a celebration of cinematic creators, provocative filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and producer/star Emma Stone get their freak on for a raunchy eye-poppin’ spectacle. The result is a fierce, unorthodox and, at times, unruly cracked fable about devious male monsters that prey on a childlike woman who’s brought back from the dead and develops a mind of her own. Daring and audacious, “Poor Things” was more alive than almost any other movie this year. Where to see it: Now playing in Bay Area theaters.
“Barbie”: All hail Greta Gerwig. She took an iconic Mattel doll and gave her an existential crisis for the ages. “Barbie” was innovative and unexpected in every way as it sent audiences on a girl-power journey that was fun, funny, feminist and oh-so smart. From the kitschy, pastel look and production design and on to the lead performances from a perky wide-eyed Margot Robbie as soul-searching Barbie to Ryan Gosling’s hilarious beach bro Ken, “Barbie” kicked up sand in the face of all its detractors who thought this thing would never work. Where to see it: Available for rental now.
“The Iron Claw”: Anchored by Zac Efron’s phenomenal, physically transformative performance (he’s a beast on screen), filmmaker Sean Durkin’s heartbreaker turns the true story about a cursed band of Texas wrestling brothers and their domineering dad/manager into a detailed and moving Shakespearean tragedy. Durkin captures the look, the feel, the styles of the late ‘70s and ‘80s with perfection: the guys’ untamed mops of hair, a soundtrack amped up on Rush/Blue Oyster Cult tunes, even the clothing (tighty-whities too). At a time when this year’s sports-themed movies either played it safe (“The Boys in the Boat,” “Creed III”) or went off the rails (“The Next Goal Wins”), “The Iron Claw” proved to be the heavyweight and ran rings over all of ‘em. Where to see it: In Bay Area theaters now.
“All of Us Strangers”: Loss and loneliness creep into every orifice of this beautiful ghost story about a London-based author (Andrew Scott, in a phenomenal performance) chatting with his dead parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell) and falling into an intoxicating relationship with a troubled neighbor (Paul Mescal) in his apartment building. Director Andrew Haigh also wrote the gem of a screenplay (based on a Japanese novel) that captures the isolation, otherness and often alienation that family outsiders and queer people experience daily, be it in a crowded room or in a barely inhabited apartment building. Where to see it: In Bay Area theaters)
Honorable Mentions: “Air,” “American Symphony,” “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.,” “Bottoms,” “The Boy and the Heron,” “The Color Purple,” “The Disappearance of Shere Hite,” “Earth Mama,” “The Eight Mountains,” “Fallen Leaves,” “Fremont,” “The Holdovers,” “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Leave the World Behind,” “Memory,” “The Night of the 12th,” “Oppenheimer,” “Passages,” “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” “The Taste of Things,” “The Teachers’ Lounge,” “When Evil Lurks.”
Contact Randy Myers at soitsrandy@gmail.com.