2023 was a great year for film. These were the 10 best movies. Plus, where to stream them
I hate making top 10 lists.
I love making top 10 lists.
I love it because it forces you to take a cold, critical look — pun intended — at all the films you’ve seen in the past year.
I hate it because it forces you to take a cold, critical look at all the films you’ve seen in the past year.As you can see I’m of two minds. … But this was a great year for movies, so much so that picking 10 is a fool’s errand.
Thus, while I’m dead certain about the top half of my list, the bottom half consists of really good films engaged in a desperate battle to be included, climbing all over top of each other just to get a mention.
OK, this battle takes place only inside my head and the reward isn’t much, but it’s still fierce. And it will change three times by the time you finish this sentence. But after much hemming and hawing, these are the 10 best movies of 2023, and where to watch them. Best according to me, anyway. What’s on your list?
10. ‘Asteroid City’
As Wes Anderson films go, this may be the most Wes Anderson-iest. There’s a play-within-a-TV show, both of which are inside the actual movie. Black and white, oversaturated color, a science convention, actual aliens and an out-of-this-world cast: Let’s start with Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Bryan Cranston, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Jeffery Wright, Edward Norton, Steve Carell and Margot Robbie. It has to do with isolation, making art and being human. What else is there?
How to watch: Streaming on Prime Video.
9. ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’
I know. I’m surprised, too. But director Kelly Fremon Craig nails everything about Judy Blume’s classic novel perfectly. Abby Ryder Fortson is outstanding as Margaret, an 11-year-old girl going through all kinds of changes in 1970. But Rachel McAdams is just as awards-worthy as her mom, trying to help Margaret navigate the choppy seas of pre-puberty even as she must figure out her own life. This film is an unexpected joy.
How to watch: Streaming on Starz.
8. ‘Barbie’
Maybe you’ve heard of this one. It saved movies! Until it didn’t. Whatever the case, Greta Gerwig’s film was exactly what it needed to be just when we needed it. In that regard it reminded me of “Black Panther” — exactly what I hoped it would be, only better. Margot Robbie plays the title character, a Mattel doll who takes on toxic masculinity as she discovers a world outside her own. Ryan Gosling is Ken, who gets a taste of the patriarchy and likes it; he’s hilarious. Dismiss it as silly fluff at your peril.
How to watch: Available to rent or by on Prime Video.
7. ‘The Holdovers’
Old-school moviemaking from an unexpected source: Alexander Payne. Paul Giamatti is great as a crusty old crank of a classics teacher stuck at a boys’ boarding school over the Christmas holidays in 1970. Circumstances leave only one student (Dominic Sessa, in a stunning debut), a ne’er-do-well broken in his own way. They’re joined by the cook (Da’Vine Joy Randolph, also outstanding) for a broken-hearted holiday that goes deeper. Heartbreaking and heartwarming, like a holiday movie ought to be.
How to watch: Available to rent or buy on Apple TV+ and Prime Video.
6. ‘Monster’
Kore-eda Hirokazu’s film uses different perspectives to get to one truth. And it’s amazing. Sure, there are “Rashomon” vibes — that isn’t a bad thing. A boy (Soya Kurokawa) suggests that a teacher has struck him and bullied him. His mother (Sakura Ando) presses for answers. They are not easy to find. Ando is outstanding, as is Hinata Hiiragi as the boy’s odd little friend. The ending will either uplift or devastate you, depending on how you read it.
How to watch: In theaters. Not yet streaming.
5. ‘The Zone of Interest’
Director Jonathan Glazer studies the banality of evil in this powerful film, based loosely on the Martin Amis novel. We follow the lives of Rudolf H?ss (Christian Friedel), the commandant of Auschwitz, his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) and their family in their house and grounds just on the other side of the wall of the concentration camp. Hedwig tends to her garden, ignoring the gunshots and screams that have become white noise. No one mentions the smoke rising from the massive chimneys. And Rudolf orders crematoriums like he is buying a lawn mower. It is a brutal warning of just going along, pretending things are normal when they are not.
How to watch: Opening in theaters in Arizona in January.
4. ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’
Martin Scorsese’s epic exploration of white American greed is suitably brutal, and reliably beautifully made. Leonardo DiCaprio plays a dolt back from the war who arrives in Oklahoma and is enlisted by his robber-baron uncle — Robert De Niro, making this a Scorsese all-star team — to help steal oil rights from the Osage Nation. DiCaprio marries an Osage woman (Lily Gladstone, in the performance of 2023) and discovers that he loves her, though not enough to stop him from carrying out his plan for years. It’s based on the David Grann book, and if you’re asking whether this is really Scorsese’s story to tell, he evidently wonders, too, as the remarkable ending attests.
How to watch: Available to rent or buy on Apple TV+ and Prime Video.
3. ‘Poor Things’
Emma Stone is transcendent in Yorgos Lanthimos’ film about a woman who, when we meet her, is infantile, but quickly grows more intelligent and curious — and voracious in her appetites for everything, including sex. Mark Ruffalo is also excellent as the dim-bulb lawyer who tries to take advantage of her, which, good luck with that. Lanthimos pulls out all the stops with his filmmaking. Maybe it’s showing off. Who cares? It’s a lot of movie, and you’ll never be bored.
How to watch: In theaters.
2. ‘Oppenheimer’
Half of the cultural phenomenon that was Barbenheimer is actually the better movie (though luckily both were outstanding). Christopher Nolan goes big in telling the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, played with nervy brilliance by Cillian Murphy, as he assembles his team that will develop the atomic bomb. It’s an explosive morality play, literally, and it is expertly directed, with a huge cast that does not disappoint. Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt and Matt Damon are especially good. What a movie.
How to watch: Available to rent or buy on Apple TV+ and Prime Video.
1. ‘Past Lives’
Celine Song’s beautiful film is as small as “Oppenheimer” is big, but it’s just as powerful. Greta Lee is so, so good as Nora, a woman who spends her childhood in Seoul, then leaves for Canada with her family, leaving behind the boy she figured she might marry someday. They grow up and lose touch, she moves to New York and is now happily married. And then he arrives for a visit. Tee Yoo plays the old friend, John Magaro the husband. Everything about their relationships with Nora feels perfect, genuine in every detail. “Do you find him attractive?” Nora’s husband asks. He’s doubtless looking for a “no,” but gets honesty instead. “I don’t think so,” she replies, pensively. If you don’t leave the theater in tears, you must have missed something.
How to watch: Available to rent or buy on Apple TV+ and Prime Video.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: The 10 best movies of 2023 and where to stream them
