The 10 Best Movies I Watched in 2023

As always, this is a list of the best ten movies I watched for the first time this year, whether they came out in 2023 or not.

First Cow. A decidedly unconventional Western story (welcome to the multicultural 19th-century Oregon Territory!), an anti-capitalist story, a story of simple survival and small pleasures. I would have liked the film to have slightly more momentum, but the score and the scenery, as the the movie's quiet and small--but for all that, emotionally enormous--tragedy unfolds, was frequently captivating nonetheless. I love that so much was left to the viewer, and not just in the ending; even without having read the book, you can tell this is a deeply literate adaption, not allowing the story-telling tricks of the cinema to tell more of a story than is on the page.

 

Godzilla: Minus One. Is it an apology for World War II? A revisionist history? A what-if fantasy? Whatever it was, the way this superb, hammy, utterly melodramatic movie leaned hard into updating and re-imagining the trauma and guilt and horror of WWII for the Japanese people, with token narrative throw-aways to somehow contextualize the whole thing as taking place in the midst of MacArthur's occupation of Japan and the beginnings of the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, was simply marvelous. Put yourself in mind of the 1954 original, with its sadness and earnestness, and the desperate, romantic hopefulness of this version will seem well-earned. Godzilla always was, and always will be, best when considered incomprehensible enormity, something that makes no sense on its own terms but something that human science and human sacrifice can succeed against, so long as all the usual bastards don't get in the way. 

He Got Game. Another near-brilliant Spike Lee movie, with deeply persuasive performances and an Aaron Copland + Chuck D score than goes from sweepingly pastoral to intensely personal to back again. Denzel is simply a marvel, with so many great scenes that communicate the struggles and choices of a confused, angry, caring, limited, gifted, haunted man. Practically everyone else in the movie is a stereotype or a mixture of stereotypes of one sort or another, and as usual with Lee movies, some of that borderline racist/sexist/classist stuff edges right up to being discomforting outrageous or overripe. But all together? A wild cinematic ride, from one of the great directors of the past 30 years.

 

In the Mood for Love. Just brilliant, emotionally and stylistically. If I've seen a better, more captivating film about marriage and pain and desire and love and loss than this one, I can't remember it right now. Tightly contained throughout most of its running time, but I never felt that movie was claustrophobic; also, a succinct, briskly cut movie, and yet I never felt rushed through the story. Simply the best constructed, most emotionally powerful film I watched in all of 2023, hands down.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi. A beautiful and intimidating portrait of a serene and enormously talented monster of a human being. This film needs to stand as a text alongside every other study of virtue: we talk about practice making perfect, we talk about dedication to one's craft, we talk about the deep humility and wisdom that comes from embracing the constraints of a particular art and submitting oneself entirely to them, but in the end, what does any of that look like? This documentary of sushi master Jiro Ono is one answer. I love in particular the fact that his tremendous achievement is partly dependent upon many other people--fish and rice merchants, in particular--who in their own, presumably less monstrously dedicated, but nonetheless impressive ways, reflect that same devotion to their vocation. A lovely, haunting film.

 

Killers of the Flower Moon. A tremendous movie, one that, in my opinion, makes entirely justified use of its massive running time; with only one partial exception (the long burn scene at the Hale ranch), I don't think I was aware of the passage of time all the way through. Scorsese's direction of the film is brilliant; completely aside from visually arresting costuming, set design, and cinematography, he oversaw the creation of a film that is not structured like, and doesn't play out like, a horror film, and yet for a good two hours of its running time, between its musical cues and staging, it absolutely felt like a horror film, even while also being captivating Western and tragic study of evil, endurance, and plain gross capitalist stupidity. A friend and I spent 40 minutes talking about the movie afterwards in an empty, post-midnight parking lot, deconstructing it all (including the audacious, but in retrospect I think defensible, ending), and we could have stayed longer. I was a big fan of The Irishman, Scorsese's other recent 3+ hour movie, but this is an even greater accomplishment in almost every way.

 

Mother. A brilliant, creepy, surprisingly mix of horror, police procedural, and family drama. Compelling acted all the way through, and narratively tight as a drum; no loose ends whatsoeever. Like he did in Memories of Murder--which this movie really made me want to rewatch--Bong Joon-ho just triggers me endlessly with his visuals of the quotidian details of the poorer side of South Korean life: the tiny shops, the make-shift apartments, the trash collectors, the sleazy drinking parties, the slovenly yet somehow orderly routines of the police, the ridiculous bus tours, etc. It's not like I knew any of this intimately, but I lived in the midst of it for long enough that Bong sends me back to Seoul or Suwon, scene after scene.

 

RRR. 110% CINEMA!!! Singing, dancing, ultra-violence, chaste hand-holding--what more could anyone want?! ("Can I see a man punch a tiger in the face?" Yes, you definitely can. "Can I see a phantasamogorical alternate-history critique of British colonialism and also a man punching a tiger in the face?" Yes, you can get that too.)

 

 

 

 

Sound of Metal. An engrossing, fascinating, completely believable story of a musician losing his hearing. The final sequence of the movie, after our main character leaves the home for the deaf and attempts to reunite with his girlfriend, seemed slightly less organic, slightly more rushed to hit all the required story-telling beats than everything that came before, in which every step both logically followed what came before and yet was a surprise--kind of like life! But overall, the whole thing was quite wonderful, deeply honest and, as a matter of sound editing, brilliantly creative in its depiction of the world of the deaf. A must see. 

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Tremendous comic-book story-telling, and simply peerless comic-book animation. But I have to say: Mayday Parker is cute and hilarious and all, but making her directly part of the adventure--and lying to Mary Jane about it!--is just bad parenting, and I think more highly of Peter B. Parker, redeemed hero, the Spider-Man all us middle-aged White guys with a paunch should aspire to grow up to be, to accept that he would actually do such a thing. Boo!