These three films were the only 5-star movies of 2023. Here's what made them so great

There is one simple criterion for a 5-star movie.

It has to be great.

Ah, but making that determination is anything but simple. It is, in fact, one of the toughest things about reviewing movies, because of the inordinate amount of attention people pay to the number of stars a critic gives a film.

It shouldn’t be that way — exploring why a movie is good, or isn’t, and expressing that in an informative and entertaining way is far more important. But that’s not the first thing people look at.

“How many stars did you give it?” That’s the first question I hear whenever I say I’ve seen the latest big movie. And the answer is almost never, “Five.”

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In 2023, however, I gave three movies five stars. That’s somewhat unusual for me. I think movies have to really earn a five-star rating. Of course it’s all subjective to begin with. And I don’t carry a handy rubric around with me, checking off boxes for dialogue, cinematography or whatever. All of those things are important, and any really good movie needs to succeed on most elements.

But a 5-star movie has something else. What that something is, I can’t tell you, exactly. It’s more of a feeling — the best way I can describe it is that it feels important. I don’t mean in a big historical epic, “Lawrence of Arabia” kind of way. (“Napoleon,” for instance, didn’t feel important at all.)

It’s more of an emotional importance. Did it move me in some way? Succeeding on all of the basic technical levels is a given at the level of movie we’re talking about here. But did the movie give me something more?

These three did.

'Poor Things’

Certainly on the filmmaking front, Yorgos Lanthimos’ freak-out of a film about a woman growing into herself in several ways succeeds wildly. As in, it’s wild, while also being incredibly accomplished. The Victorian steampunk look of London, the black-and-white scenes that echo “Frankenstein,” the fisheye lenses that make you feel like you could be watching creatures in a bizarre zoo — it’s all spot-on. But what gives the film its heart are the performances. Mark Ruffalo brings a touch of sadness to his depiction of an idiot lawyer who tries to take advantage of Bella (Emma Stone), but proves not to be up to the task. But it’s Stone who really shines, in a performance that could have gone wrong about 20 different ways. It doesn’t. She’s brilliant.

'Oppenheimer’

We were talking about big historical epics, right? This is Christopher Nolan’s take on the historical biopic, in this case how J. Robert Oppenheimer came to build the atomic bomb, and what it cost him. The filmmaking is superb — anyone who can make physics this interesting deserves all the praise they can get. Take special note of the use of sound, and silence. We know what happens (spoiler alert: the world doesn’t blow up, at least not yet) and it’s still edge-of-your-seat nerve-racking. Robert Downey Jr. is going to win an Oscar for playing the bad guy, and Cillian Murphy probably ought to for managing to make Oppenheimer cold and calculating, but human at the same time.

‘Past Lives’

While my other 5-star movie picks this year were big, bold swings, Celine Strong goes the other direction with an intimate movie about love and loss, yet her film has the same power as the other two. Greta Lee is unforgettable as a woman who must confront her past and her present when an old friend comes to visit. There aren’t any high-volume arguments, nothing blows up and the movie is still absolutely devastating. What do our choices mean? What effect do they have on us — and will they have on us? Heady stuff, expertly portrayed.

If there’s one thing linking all of these films, and I’m not saying there is, it’s probably this: When you leave the theater or hit the off button on your remote, you feel like, man, that was a movie. And these three really were.

Reach Goodykoontz at [email protected]. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: All the 5-star movies of 2023: From blockbuster to under-the-radar