The Top 10 Films of 2023

Accomplished filmmakers took big swings, whether it was a sexy riff on Frankenstein, a three-hour opus about Jewish guilt, or films on the Manhattan Project and the Osage murders. Overall, a pretty strong year for movies.

1. Poor Things. Yorgos Lanthimos puts everything together, with Emma Stone as a Frankenstein’s monster figure who, over the course of the film, becomes smarter and more self-aware. Stone is at her best, as are Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo in supporting roles.
2. Beau is Afraid. Ari Aster presents a three-hour examination of anxiety and overbearing Jewish mothers. Its first act, showing Joaquin Phoenix’s Beau in an urban hell out of Fox News’ worst nightmares, is the best sequence in any film this year, and in a year of delightfully weird sex scenes, the one in this film must be seen (and heard) to be believed.
3. Oppenheimer. An in-depth examination, from Christopher Nolan, of the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, shuffling among three time periods and featuring a cast of great actors that runs about 40 deep. Reminiscent of the historical movies Oliver Stone used to make in the 1990s.
4. Saltburn. Emerald Fennell’s sophomore film is audacious, but also functions as a sharp satire about peccadillos of the very rich. It’s a beautiful film, from the sets to the people.
5. Killers of the Flower Moon. Martin Scorsese, adapting David Grann’s book, finally teams Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, in his examination of the horrific Osage murders in the 1920s. But it’s Lily Gladstone who walks away with the picture.
6. Past Lives. A small story with big emotional stakes, Celine Song’s film looks at three vignettes from the long story of a woman (Greta Lee) and the young man she knew as a child back in Korea.
7. All of Us Strangers. Andrew Haigh’s latest film is like an indie Field of Dreams: A man (Andrew Scott), just as he’s getting into a new relationship, discovers the ability to revisit his long-dead parents and posthumously resolve his issues with them. The ending is divisive, but it worked.
8. The Iron Claw. An A24 movie about the Von Erichs, a family of Texas professional wrestlers who suffered a long stretch of tragedies. The attention to detail is impeccable, and it manages to conclude on a note of hope.
9. Maestro. Bradley Cooper’s biopic of Leonard Bernstein may have been constructed with the goal of winning Oscars, but it’s still a strong telling of Bernstein’s story, and its scene of Cooper conducting Mahler at Ely Cathedral is one of the year’s best.
10. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Nearly flawless adaptation of Judy Blume’s novel, with Abby Ryder Fortson a true find as Margaret and Rachel McAdams doing some of her best work as her mother.

Honorable mention: The Color Purple, Robot Dreams, Hit Man, The People’s Joker, American Fiction, Asteroid City, John Wick Chapter 4, Mission: Impossible- Dead Reckoning Part I, Godzilla Minus One, BlackBerry, Bottoms, 20 Days in Mariupol, Anatomy of a Fall, May December, The Zone of Interest.

The 10 Worst:

1. Strays
2. The Fall of Minneapolis
3. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey
4. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
5. Old Dads
6. When You Finish Saving the World
7. About My Father
8. Buddy Games: Spring Awakening
9. Bama Rush
10. Shazam! Fury of the Gods