Best of 2023

My top 25 films of 2023, with bonus categories as per tradition

Foreword

Happy New Year! One of the themes of my moviegoing in 2023 was giving a second chance to directors I historically haven’t liked. This paid off in the case of my number 1 pick, which secured its spot at the top of the list back in April and has stayed there basically unchallenged since, while the rest of the list has been in flux as I played catch-up on a lot of titles at the end of the year. Another theme was my concerted effort to watch more movies from South and Central America—you’ll see some of the results reflected in the list.

As usual, I’m indebted to the programming team at the AFI Silver Theatre for bringing so many advance screenings to my neighborhood. If you’ve been following my lists for years, you already know that I include as-yet-undistributed films on the list in addition to 2022 releases that didn’t play in DC until 2023. It’s my list and I get to make the rules!

One last note—as of press time, there are still two major releases that haven’t opened yet in DC: All of Us Strangers and The Zone of Interest. If I feel strongly enough about either of them (positively or negatively!), you’ll get a bonus newsletter in a few weeks with my thoughts.

My Favorite Films of 2023

If I already wrote about a film in this newsletter, I’ve included a link to that writeup (and a quote for those who don’t feel like clicking through).

Honorable Mentions: Dry Ground Burning and How to Blow Up a Pipeline

On the basis of its premise the docu-hybrid Dry Ground Burning should have been a runaway hit with me: a Brazilian motorcycle gang of formerly incarcerated Evangelical lesbians run their de facto leader for political office in opposition to the pro-Bolsonaro cop candidate, all while siphoning oil off of underground pipelines to resell, refined, as gasoline. While it has its strong moments, I thought it could have found a stronger way of combining fact and fiction.

On the other hand, How to Blow Up a Pipeline excels at heist-film thrills while undercooking its ecoterrorist politics. It’s a more consistently pleasurable movie, but when it trots out a battle of ideologies in the home stretch I found myself wishing that it had better woven that conflict into the rest of the movie up until that point.

25. Close Your Eyes

Close Your Eyes feels like a valedictory film because so much of it has to deal with old age, memory, regret—the whole nine yards. It’s also, despite some of its plot contrivances, a remarkably straightforward movie. This is a film without frenzied montage or camera trickery (aside from the format-swapping), where most scenes comprise medium shots or close ups of people simply talking to each other.

24. The Plains

At face value, The Plains is a document of tedium and how people cope with it […] It’s a lot like those Iranian movies where people drive around talking to each other the whole time, except the camera is placed so as to put the viewer at a bit of a remove from the subjects.

23. You Have to Come and See It

A delightful sketch of a movie by Jonás Trueba, about being in your thirties, seeing live music with your pals, and putting up with recitations at the dinner table from your one friend who’s going through a Peter Sloterdijk phase.

22. All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt

This will sound like faint praise, but I’m banking on Raven Jackson’s next feature to be incredible. Her debut, an elliptical scrapbook of Black life in Mississippi through several generations, earns the Malick comparisons while trying out truly novel filmmaking ideas (with mixed results). Though disability doesn’t exactly feature into the film, Jackson’s emphasis on hands as centers of feeling and knowing paired well with a bit of Helen Keller that I happened to read around the same time:

The hand is my feeler with which I reach through isolation and darkness and seize every pleasure, every activity that my fingers encounter. With the dropping of a little word from another’s hand into mine, a slight flutter of the fingers, began the intelligence, the joy, the fullness of my life. Like Job, I feel as if a hand had made me, fashioned me together round about and molded my very soul.

21. The Delinquents

A man robs the bank he works for, gives the money to a coworker for safekeeping, then turns himself in so he can serve out a prison sentence of (only!) three and a half years, recollect the money, and take an early retirement. At least that’s the plan in Rodrigo Moreno’s shaggy, three-hour farce, where work is a brownish purgatory worse than prison and all the main characters have names that are anagrams of each other’s.

20. Cette Maison

Without reading up on this one it might not make much sense, but the extra-cinematic context is key. Miryam Charles, a Haitian-Quebecois filmmaker, explores the death of her cousin by imagining a future for her with the aid of professional actors, a black box theater, and dreamy 16mm film; an inventive new entry for the It’s About Grief files.

19. The Boy and the Heron

One of the worries I brought into The Boy and the Heron was that it would just play like a greatest hits of Miyazaki’s work, which was especially formative in my youth; I cared about Miyazaki long before I cared about movies more generally, which in a way made the stakes for this one higher than for the average end-of-year release. Thankfully it avoids that trap by being a wholly original adventure, although this also poses challenges for its legibility.

18. Oppenheimer

For all the gesturing at science that goes on in the first two thirds of the film, Oppenheimer is a character study in the end. Yet it’s hard to imagine Nolan, who only occasionally dabbles in reality, ever making another biopic; who else’s story would let him play around with pyrotechnics on this scale again?

17. The Taste of Things

You just know that Juliette Binoche is making the best omelettes of her life after the training she went through to nail all the balletic cooking sequences in Tran Anh Hung’s unabashedly romantic tale of perfectionists in cuisine and love.

16. The Holdovers

As I said above, it always pays to give filmmakers you don’t like a chance, because sometimes they work with somebody else’s screenplay and produce a movie that wins you over for once. So it goes with Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, from a script by David Hemingson. I know hardly anything about the 70s movies this one is supposedly mimicking, so my enjoyment of it derives much less from the nostalgia factor and more from the magnetism of its three main performers as they learn to make space for each other’s wounds one dreary Christmas break. It also doesn’t hurt that there’s an extended sequence set in my hometown of Boston (though I hear the scene by a skating rink was actually filmed in Worcester—the magic of movies, folks).

15. Showing Up

Reichardt does two things in particular that I think are an immense credit to her and her film. First, nobody ever waxes philosophical about The Purpose of Art or even just the meaning of their work. There’s no grand statement about why art—why this art—matters. It’s simply given that people will, and should, make art. Second, all the art is just the right size for the movie.

14. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World

An utterly exhausting movie about how capitalism grinds gig economy workers into dust, or at least compels them to create vulgar rightwing alter-egos to mine dopamine from TikTok with. I made the mistake of learning too much about this film from podcasts before going into it, but even so I was still surprised by some of the turns this cerebral behemoth takes (Nina Hoss’s character introduction had me howling). I’m still evaluating how it stacks up against Radu Jude’s previous work—the final forty-five minutes play like an abridged and less hilarious cut of his debut film, The Happiest Girl in the World—but it wouldn’t be Tim Markatos’s Favorite Films List™ without some Romanian representation.

13. Rewind and Play

Don’t make the same mistake Thelonius Monk did! Never agree to be interviewed on French television.

12. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret

Everyone is having a great time in Kelly Fremon Craig’s adaptation of the Judy Blume classic, but no one as much as Kathy Bates, who doesn’t chew the scenery so much as feast on it.

11. Killers of the Flower Moon

There are interesting filmmaking choices throughout the film (including the use of a live owl for deathbead premonitions) but the one that feels truly original is the ending, a staged radio play set a decade or so into the future that summarizes what ends up happening to the film’s main players, replete with plenty of twee sound effects. I’m by no means a fan of true crime generally but it’s plainly the case that this stuff is an inescapable part of our media ecosystem (I, too, dutifully listened to the first season of Serial).

10. Fallen Leaves

At this point Aki Kaurismäki’s movies pretty much do what they say on the tin: wistful drifters find hope amid the ruins and petrochemically pastel colors of contemporary Europe. A comforting watch, despite all the radio broadcasts about the war in Ukraine.

9. Tótem

The adults in the film are coping with Sol’s father’s impending death with varying degrees of acceptance. Of particular note is the faith the whole family places in extramedical remedies. One of the aunts hires a woman to run around the house blindfolded chasing out evil spirits. Later, the immediate family gather around a metronome to practice “quantum therapy,” a slightly more formalized method of sending someone good vibes. I wouldn’t call the movie on the whole groundbreaking—not that it needs to be—but it ends with an emotional revelation.

8. Here

I nearly didn’t make it out to the theater for this one but I’m glad I did. What starts out seeming like standard Europudding deepens into a majestic yet small-scale tale of ships passing in the night: he, a migrant construction worker trying to clean out his fridge of soup before moving back home; she, a Chinese mycologist who teaches at the local university (I would like three more hours of student presentations on imaginary climate-resilient plants, please). Counts as an honorary Romanian movie for featuring Teodor Corban in one of his final roles.

7. The Practice

The Practice isn’t a movie of grand ambitions but neither is it phoned-in. Whether you feel for Gustavo or are rooting against him, it’s a very funny movie and owes its success to its director’s good judgement. Rejtman knows exactly how to cut a sequence to make jokes land, and he’s shot thoughtful coverage that ensures that scenes, which often repeat themselves with slight variations, flow with a pleasant rhythm—good practice for a filmmaker in general, but especially appropriate for a movie about yoga.

6. No Bears

It’s all fun and games for Jafar Panahi as he continues to make films under duress in Iran, until suddenly it isn’t. An eclectic mix of filming formats and some good old fashioned camera trickery make this Panahi’s most invigorating work in years, but it all leads him to the somber conclusion that playing in the cinematic sandbox isn’t as harmless an activity as it first seems.

5. Menus-Plaisirs: Les Troisgros

Frederick Wiseman gets his hands dirty exploring all the forms of labor that make a Michelin-starred dining experience possible. A somewhat gentler film from him than usual, not that I’m complaining that he’s still able to crank out four-hour-long movies in his 90s.

4. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

Wes Anderson’s four adaptations of Roald Dahl short stories for Netflix find him at his most creative, which is really saying something in a year that also included Asteroid City. Henry Sugar isn’t necessarily better than the others, but as the longest it gives us the most time to enjoy Anderson’s unique and breathless method of bringing page to screen.

3. May December

A truly nasty piece of work about the way adults play dress up for work and for pleasure—and, sometimes, without realizing they’re doing it at all. Samy Burch’s script is transmogrified by Todd Haynes and cinematographer Chris Blauvelt (Haynes regular Ed Lachman called out with a broken leg) into a Persona remix that only a semiotician like Haynes could have dreamed up. Charles Melton anchors the film, a doughy dad with arrested development, while Julianne Moore as a lisping queen Karen and Natalie Portman at her most herself respectively try to obscure and illuminate one woman’s motivations for child abuse.

2. Our Body

Near the end of Claire Simon’s documentary set in the gynecological ward of a Parisian hospital, a woman who is about to undergo surgery for cervical cancer turns from her operating room bed toward the camera and exclaims: “I love cinema! What a great idea.” This is the first time that anyone in the movie—which comprises dozens of consultations, diagnoses, surgeries, and childbirths—is shown acknowledging the camera. It’s funny, but it also makes us think more about the meaning of the camera’s presence in this particular location.

1. Pacifiction

Albert Serra’s hypnotically boring style reaches its apotheosis in this prismacolor, postcolonial thriller sans thrills. When a French bureaucrat in Tahiti suspects that his home country is set to resume nuclear testing offshore, he embarks on a meandering quest to prove his hunches. He never does, but along the way there are tidal waves, cockfights, and hazy nights at the club, all capped off with a sonically awesome finale that takes its place alongside the best of Antonioni and Lynch.

The Extras

Best Director

Wes Anderson, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
Todd Haynes, May December
Jafar Panahi, No Bears
Albert Serra, Pacifiction
Claire Simon, Our Body

Best Actor

Esteban Bigliardi, The Practice / The Delinquents
Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
Benoît Magimel, Pacifiction / The Taste of Things
Franz Rogowski, Passages
Manolo Solo, Close Your Eyes

Best Actress

Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall
Park Ji-min, Return to Seoul
Naíma Sentíes, Tótem
Teyana Taylor, A Thousand and One

Best Supporting Actor

Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
Ryan Gosling, Barbie
Charles Melton, May December
Dominic Sessa, The Holdovers
Ben Whishaw, Passages

Best Supporting Actress

Nina Hoss, Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
Scarlett Johansson, Asteroid City
Rachel McAdams, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
Julianne Moore, May December
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers

Best Ensemble

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
The Holdovers
How to Blow Up a Pipeline
Oppenheimer
Showing Up

Best Editing

Kirk Baxter, The Killer
Jennifer Lame, Oppenheimer
Federico Rotstein, The Practice
Albert Serra, Ariadna Ribas, and Artur Tort, Pacifiction
Frederick Wiseman, Menus-Plaisirs: Les Troisgros

Best Original Screenplay

Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola, Asteroid City
Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik, May December
David Hemingson, The Holdovers
Aki Kaurismäki, Fallen Leaves
Kelly Reichardt and Jonathan Raymond, Showing Up

Best Adapted Screenplay

Ariela Barer, Jordan Sjol, and Daniel Goldhaber, How to Blow Up a Pipeline
Kelly Fremon Craig, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch, The Eight Mountains
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon

Best Cinematography

Hoyte van Hoytema, Oppenheimer
Amin Jafari, No Bears
Philippe Le Sourd, Priscilla
Matthew Libatique, Maestro
Artur Tort, Pacifiction

The “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Kodak” Award for Film Emulation

Josée Deshaies, Passages

Best Original Score

The Delinquents¹
Joe Hisaishi, The Boy and the Heron
Gary Gunn, A Thousand and One
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, The Killer
Marcelo Zarvos, May December

Best Adapted Score

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
The Holdovers
The Killer
Maestro
Priscilla

Best Sound

Here
The Killer
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Pacifiction

Best Hair and Makeup

Barbie
Maestro
Poor Things
Priscilla
Return to Seoul

Best Costume Design

Jacqueline Durran, Barbie
Kasia Walicka Maimone, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
Holly Waddington, Poor Things
Jacqueline West, Killers of the Flower Moon
Khadija Zeggaï, Passages

Best Production Design

Toma Baqueni, The Taste of Things
Anthony Gasparro, Showing Up
Sarah Greenwood, Barbie
Ruth de Jong, Oppenheimer
Adam Stockhausen, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

Queer Palme (In Memoriam)

Kokomo City

Just months after D. Smith’s documentary about Black trans women premiered at Sundance, one of its stars, Koko Da Doll, was murdered in Atlanta—a tragic reminder of how filmmaking that empowers trans people to reclaim the narratives about their lives, while necessary, is on its own insufficient to secure the material protection they so often need.

Best Animal

Injured pigeon, Showing Up
Pet dog, Anatomy of a Fall
Premonition owl, Killers of the Flower Moon
Parakeet King, The Boy and the Heron
The nonhuman cast of It Is Night in America

Best Theatrical Experience

The Taste of Things
(Runner-up: Barbie)

Best Mirror Shot

May December
(Runner-up: The Delinquents)

The Unintentional Camp Award

The smash zoom into the judge’s face after we’ve just heard an audio recording of a domestic fight in Anatomy of a Fall

The Intentional Camp Award

Natalie Portman’s face wash commercial in May December

Best Endings

Close Your Eyes
Killers of the Flower Moon
May December
Pacifiction
Tótem

Scenes of the Year

Trinity test, Oppenheimer
Mahler in the cathedral, Maestro
First cooking scene, The Taste of Things
Highway graves, Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
Wedding singing, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt

1. I couldn’t actually figure out if this is an original score or not, but I’m putting it here to round out the category.