This year has been nothing short of delightful with the diversity of films that we saw this year. Comedy, horror, action, romance, drama (LOTS of drama) — 2023 had it all.
And while this year’s movies might be impossible to rank, here’s my 20 favorites:
Disclaimer: As I do every year, here are some films that I have yet to see that would potentially make the list: The Zone of Interest, The Iron Claw, Anatomy of a Fall, When Evil Lurks, The Boy and the Heron
21. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles: Mutant Mayhem
Teeming with life and energy in every single frame, Mutant Mayhem proves what some of us have always known — sometimes animated is just better than live action.
This iteration of the Turtles feel like actual teenagers, using modern slang and smartphones, but the film knows how to touch on what every teenager is looking for — belonging, wanting to fit in.
The cast is excellent, the animation continues the trend we saw with films like Into the Spider-Verse and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, and it has an energy about it that feels fresher than a piping hot ‘za.
20. Evil Dead Rise
I was totally into everything that Evil Dead Rise is doing.
The film does a lot of the same things as Fede Alvarez’s 2013 remake, but in a slightly different way. Both films tackle the tough task of fitting into this franchise but do it by taking the spirit and lore of the original films and using that to craft something that feels fresh but still respectful of what came before.
Here, Evil Dead Rise is a blast that takes a ton of liberties but never feels like it strays too far from the root of Evil Dead. It’s insanely gory and occasionally very funny with a cast of likable characters and a devilishly good performance from Alyssa Sutherland.
Sign me up for the next one.
18. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Dungeons & Dungeons feels like a trap to adapt — on the one hand, you have an open world that is really designed for injectable storytelling. But on the other, you have a pretty rigid existing lore that you have to play within.
Whatever the challenges, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein nailed it with Honor Among Thieves. Not only did they deliver a movie that is as entertaining for D&D fans as it is for newcomers, but it perfectly captures the feeling of a real tabletop game party.
There’s the overconfident one, the one who has the skills but can’t seem to ever roll well, and then the rest of the party carrying.
A fantastic time at the movies.
17. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning: Part 1
With Dead Reckoning: Part One, it’s starting to feel as if the Mission: Impossible franchise is starting to pull into the station (no pun intended).
Dead Reckoning has the impossible task of following up the best action movie of the last 10 years in Fallout, but Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie deliver another entertaining thrill-ride that fits right alongside the franchise’s best.
Ethan Hunt might be my favorite superhero, but here it’s the ladies that steal the show.
16. Barbie
Seeing Barbie opening weekend with a packed theater might be one of my favorite movie-going experiences in my lifetime.
Barbie is such a vibrant, (mostly) joyous movie that blew me away with its style and some of the most perfect casting in recent memory. Margot Robbie is the perfect stereotypical Barbie and Ryan Gosling steals every moment he’s on screen with his Ken.
Greta Gerwig is so talented behind the camera. Goodness gracious.
15. Skinamarink
Horror is subjective.
I want to make that clear before I follow it up with this statement — Skinamarink might be the most scared I’ve been watching a movie since I was a child.
Certainly the grip this film has entirely depends on the setting; I watched Skinamarink in the pitch black, on my TV, no phone, nothing. And I found it to be incredibly immersive and unnerving.
It doesn’t work for everyone, and I acknowledge that, but it certainly worked on me.
14. Beau is Afraid
Beau is Afraid is a story about helpless adult sons, generational trauma caused by generational disappointment, masculinity and fragility, the fear of living up to our fathers’ manhood and the fear of maternal replacement — all told in that very Ari Aster kind of way.
But at the end of it all, the question is ours to decide: is Beau a good son? The film may offer its own verdict, but it literally gives us a front row seat to that trial to make that decision for ourselves.
13. Wonka
I haven’t smiled this much in a movie since the last Paul King confection.
Wonka is a pure delight from start to finish. Chalamet is wildly charming as Wonka and never feels like he’s doing an impression of Gene Wilder, but rather grabs onto the whimsy of King’s world and uses that to guide his performance.
I love how King embraces the cold parts of life to make the great parts that much sweeter (pun intended) and how everyone’s small little throwaway talents have a place to make the world a better place.
12. Blackberry
Was the excellent movie about your dad’s favorite phone in the 2000’s the biggest surprise of 2023?
I’m a sucker for the corporate biopic — I don’t care how embellished it is. But when it’s done as well as Blackberry it’s a real treat.
Jay Baruchel and Glenn Howerton are very both good, even if their wig prosthetics aren’t.
11. John Wick: Chapter 4
I am incapable of understanding how this franchise not only still continues to find exciting ways to continue and build its ever-ridiculous world of assassins, but to do it in a way where the fourth installment is the best one.
John Wick: Chapter 4 isn’t just an incredible action movie or sequel, it’s full over homage and respect to the tapestry of great cinema that it is itself a part of.
10. May December
Perhaps there is no other movie that requires its audience to “get it” more than May December. And the ones that do, love it.
May December, based on a true story of a former teacher married to her student, follows an actress meeting with Julianne Moore’s former teacher as she prepares to play her in a movie.
May December is doing so much but perhaps my favorite part is that Haynes directs this as if it is a Lifetime movie but with all the skill of a prestige drama. And while some may not get on that wavelength, the final moments of this film were such an enormous payoff in that regard that my face hurt from grinning.
9. Asteroid City
Asteroid City is Wes Anderson’s best work since The Grand Budapest Hotel. It is incredible filmmaking that appears random and aimless on the surface, but of course Wes Anderson, master of control, wouldn’t give us anything aimless.
Everything has its purpose, everything has its reason — even if those purposes and reasons are difficult for these characters to find in Asteroid City.
This is one of those movies where it feels like you are holding a bunch of pieces and trying to figure them all out. That is until Margot Robbie shows up and the entire preceding 90 minutes makes all the sense in the world.
8. Bottoms
I love this movie. Bottoms, the story of two lesbians who form a fight club at their school in order to get close to the two popular girls they want to hook up with, is a destined cult classic that is just going to get more and more popular every year.
There’s been a lot of conversation in recent years about how comedies have “gone woke” and that’s why they aren’t as successful. While that’s obviously just not true, Bottoms proves it by being not only the funniest movie of the year but probably the best comedy of the decade so far.
7. Godzilla Minus One
Godzilla Minus One is an astounding piece of work. Takashi Yamazaki elevates this to enormous heights by rooting the metaphor of Godzilla in grief — grief of the film’s protagonist, Shikishima, grief of those around him, and grief of a nation as a whole in the fallout of its involvement in WWII.
But here, that grief is not focused on what external forces did to the Japanese people, but by how their government treated them — as expendable pieces to be thrown at the enemy, where death is the only honor.
Here in Minus One, the greatest honor is to face death and choose to live.
6. Poor Things
Poor Things is far and away the winner of Horniest Movie of the Year but it nails every single thing it goes for — that nothing is more threatening to an insecure man than a woman who is confident and uncontrollable in her optimism, sexuality and confidence.
Dazzlingly gorgeous and easily one of the funniest movies of the year. Emma Stone is perfect from start to finish and I don’t think Mark Ruffalo has ever been better.
I love that Yorgos Lanthimos is able to deliver a film like this with a very specific stylistic vision, aggressively committed to telling its story.
5. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Of the many praiseworthy things in Into the Spider-Verse, I, like many, championed the fact that it made a point to forge its own path artistically. It incorporated its own art style in order to make it feel unique amongst its contemporaries.
And here comes Across the Spider-Verse to not only take that torch and run with it, but to run in a million different directions. Visually this is one of the most astounding animated films I have ever seen — challenging convention at every single turn.
What a see fewer people talking about is how this film is commenting on the comic book fandom’s need for “comic book accuracy” with its “canon event” work. Really excellent stuff.
4. Past Lives
I love when a film allows its main character to be conflicted without imposing some cheap sense of villainy to those difficult emotions. Past Lives cares about each of its characters enough to make you conflicted right along with Nora.
Everyone here turns in a great performance, but John Magaro’s silent moments were the standout for me. A lesser film would have made him an obstacle in the way of Nora and Hae Sung, but while there is frustration and fear, there is also a real sense of patience and understanding.
3. The Holdovers
Absolutely delightful. One of the coziest movies I’ve seen in years.
The Holdovers deserves its 70s aesthetic and never leans into it in ways that make it feel like it’s trying to play on that aesthetic in any other way than to set a time and place. It’s one of those films that is more about the performances carrying a simple story that is never overly wrought.
It never feels overly sentimental — it hits just that right note as these characters spend enough time with each other to open up just enough to let one another in.
Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and Dominic Sessa give three of the flat-out best performances of the year. Each of them brings their own unique flavor that makes it all work so wonderfully.
2. Killers of the Flower Moon
In love with it. I thank the heavens that Marty is still doing this and somehow, doing it this good.
Killers of the Flower Moon has never a moment where I felt bored or disinterested. It is full of momentum, always moving in its intended direction to maximum effect.
Somehow in a movie that features possibly the best actors of their two respective generations, Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio are outmatched by Lily Gladstone whose quiet composure delivered my favorite performance of the year.
Full of grace and power, every look conveyed perfectly every single emotion of Molly’s. And her final scene, after an entire film of home runs, she delivers a grand slam that proves what TikTok doesn’t understand — that the best acting isn’t always the massive burst of emotion. It’s conveying everything necessary through the performance and with hardly a word she delivered a massive moment. Blown away.
1. Oppenheimer
Oppenheimer, much like the creation of its namesake, is tightly orchestrated in nearly every facet.
The editing is almost as big a star as the performances, making a 3 hour film feel like a tightly-wound 100-minute dramatic thriller. Hoyte van Hoytema’s cinematography is brilliant with both color and black and white sequences being gorgeous to look at.
And then there is the cast — throw a dart and you have a potential Oscar-nominated performance. Cillian Murphy is wondrous as Oppenheimer and Robert Downey, Jr. is giving the performance of a lifetime (his small snort in one scene had me pointing to the screen thinking “That’s an Oscar”).
Christopher Nolan just delivered my favorite of his films to date. Where it will go next, who knows. But for my money, it’s the best of 2023.
Brandon Toks Movies 
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