I know we’re four months into 2024 now, but in my opinion, it’s never too late to do a top-ten movie list! Some of these films only recently hit streaming, so it’s a perfect time before the summer movie season to catch up on some of the best that 2023 had to offer. 

2023 was the year of strikes, streaming, and surprises, with superhero movies across the board flopping at the box office, and Barbie and Oppenheimer creating one of the biggest box office events we’ve seen in years. If my top ten list were to have a theme, though, it would be that of mid-range movies (and foreign films) showing they still have a place in a crowded, blockbuster-centric media market. 

I have not seen: The Iron Claw, Ferrari, Napoleon, Poor Things, Beau is Afraid, Origin, Alice Darling, Saltburn, Polite Society, All of Us Strangers, The Creator, and Flora and Son

10. The Zone of Interest

As I wrote in my analysis of the film’s Oscar chances, The Zone of Interest is one of the most brilliant historical films I’ve ever seen, telling a story about the Holocaust that is unrelenting in its brutality without ever showing any violence on screen. It is confrontational to modern audiences and applicable to modern tragedies as much as it is an examination of the past. It sticks to its guns and is directed with clarity and precision by Jonathan Glazer. 

It’s a testament to this craftsmanship that one of the most powerful moments of the film happens after the movie ends, with the ending credits containing the most disturbing piece of music I’ve ever heard. Listening to it, I felt suffocated, unable to move in my seat as the lights began to rise. It felt like the musical equivalent of a panic attack, “the acoustics of hell”. I have never had that kind of an experience in a movie theater before, and the film completely earned it. The Zone of Interest is a must-see, and I hope its legacy spans far past this year.

9.  Reality

This film, which was only released on Max, tells the true story of Reality Winner (Sydney Sweeney), an NSA translator who was arrested and sentenced in 2017 for leaking intelligence regarding Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. All of the film’s dialogue is verbatim from the FBI interrogation transcripts, and it shows in real-time the arrest of Winner. 

The film’s greatest strength is its acting. Josh Hamilton, who I’ve loved since his role in Eighth Grade, is a scene-stealer as one of the FBI agents. Sydney Sweeney, who has gained a lot of momentum with several other recent projects like Anyone But You, is very impressive here, balancing the ambiguity of Reality’s motivations with the seemingly naive, innocent way she presents herself. What’s most striking about the film is just how… well, real it is. Movies about spies, espionage, political intrigue, and law enforcement are often predictable, overly quippy, and full of tropes. Here, the characters act like real people- awkward attempts to be polite, asking about things like taking care of pets and using the bathroom, and making jokes to ease the tension. And because it is a verbatim transcript, the film also lets the politics speak for itself, in a way that is gripping, refreshing, and unsettling to watch.

8. Priscilla

Sofia Coopola’s sensitive, thoughtful story of Priscilla Presley is a beautiful contrast and companion piece to Baz Lurhamn’s 2022 Elvis biopic (which I also loved). The two could not be more different stylistically, and that’s what makes them a glorious double-feature. 

Some have found Priscilla frustrating, saying it does not help us understand the real-life Priscilla Presley very well. The movie ends, fairly abruptly, once she leaves Elvis. If you are hoping for a true biography of the full life of Priscilla Presley, Coppola does not deliver. But I think Coppola was drawn to this story because of the way Priscilla’s experiences with Elvis touch on so many themes in Coppola’s work: rich women trapped by their wealth, young women coming of age, complicated relationships with older men, the loneliness of all of these things. The Priscilla here is archetypal, even though my experiences are nothing like hers, I saw glimpses of myself, my own life, in hers. Because of this, in another year saturated with biopics, Priscilla stood apart. 

7. Killers of the Flower Moon

As someone from Oklahoma, I am always thrilled to see Oklahoma represented in media, and in the past few years, a few high-profile projects (Reservation Dogs, Tulsa King, the upcoming Twisters) have begun to bring more attention to the state. Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon tells one of the darkest chapters of the state’s (and country’s) history, in this sprawling epic, based on the book by David Grann. 

When I first saw the film, my conclusion was that it was well-made, well-acted, and compelling, but suffered from a lack of focus. The book focuses more on the FBI, and it is structured so that the tragedy unfolds slowly, with the sheer number of murders piling on and on, suffocating the reader and building momentum so it is a big shift and relief when the FBI shows up and the conspiracy begins to be discovered. The movie suffers from not building momentum in this way, leading to a leisurely pace that doesn’t convey the overwhelming nature of this conspiracy to the audience. The film centers on Ernest and Mollie Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone), but drifts away from Mollie about halfway through and struggles to make us connect deeply with any of the other Osage characters. 

I think all of those problems still remain. But as time has passed, the film has lingered with me. I remember the gut-wrenching moments of betrayal between Earnest and Mollie. I think about Martin Scorsese, showing up at the end of the film, indicting both himself and the audience for consuming tragedy for entertainment. I think of the beautiful Oklahoma plains, lovingly filmed, and the depiction of Osage culture that I had never been exposed to before. It has stayed with me in a way some of the other big award films of the year have not. 

It might not be remembered as one of Scorcese’s best, but I do think everyone should (if you have the endurance) see it. 

6. Godzilla Minus One

While Oppenheimer may have been the bigger movie about WWII nuclear warfare and survivor’s guilt, Godzilla Minus One is my personal favorite of the two. This Japanese production gets back to the basics of Godzilla’s origins with a story about a Japanese WWII kamikaze pilot who deserts his mission and survives the war. When Godzilla begins terrorizing Japanese shores, the pilot sees this as his chance to atone for his guilt. 

I’m writing this after seeing Warner Brother’s Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, the fifth film in the “MonsterVerse” franchise. I enjoyed the film- it is exactly the movie you think it is: loud, big, dumb, silly, unnecessary, and a really good time. In Godzilla X Kong, Godzilla is nothing more than an animal. A smart animal, and sometimes even nearly like a superhero. But there is no meaning to Godzilla or his presence- he’s just there to fight other kaiju and be a nuisance to the human world. Meanwhile, Godzilla Minus One tells an emotionally resonant story about its human characters, and is also able to 1) comment on Godzilla as an enduring cultural symbol, 2) make commentary on Japan post-WWII and 3) have a universal theme about choosing to live. It’s a genuinely moving movie that also has impressive action scenes and visual effects (that it won the Oscar for!) Even if you don’t usually enjoy monster/kaiju movies, I think there is something here for everyone. 

5. The Starling Girl

After peaking too early in the year, The Starling Girl lost any chance at awards momentum and has been overlooked by many this year. This is a shame, as it has really stuck with me and remained one of my favorite films of the year. I’ve already written about its thoughtful portrayal of a fundamentalist religious community and the way it captures young women stuck in purity culture. Something that has also come to mind is how, like Priscilla, this also explores questions of agency in an age-gap, imbalanced power-dynamic relationship, from the woman’s perspective, with a female director/writer. Two movies aren’t enough to signal a trend, and they certainly aren’t the first, but I am curious if films like these are connected to the fallout from the #MeToo Movement. Directly after the watershed moment of that movement in late 2017, we had multiple films come out that drew upon the themes of the movement and/or directly showed how it came about, such as Women Talking, She Said, The Invisible Man, Tar, The Assistant, and Bombshell, among others. But now we’re getting some other films which are exploring the grey zone of these dynamics and relationships, less concerned with clarity and condemnation and more with pondering how these relationships happen and what they feel like to the people in them. It’s fascinating to see, and I want to see more movies like The Starling Girl get made. 

4. The Teacher’s Lounge

In a less competitive year for international features, The Teacher’s Lounge would have won the Oscar. This German drama about a middle school teacher (an astounding Leonie Benesch) whose effort to solve the mystery of theft in her school blows up into a full-out war between students and faculty, is a parable about our current moment. Questions of surveillance, censorship, the media, cancel culture, and multiculturalism all play out in a 7th-grade classroom. The movie is tense, thought-provoking, and incredibly well-written, acted, and directed. I cannot recommend it highly enough. 

3. Master Gardener

This is one of the strangest films of the year. I don’t understand what writer/director Paul Schrader was thinking or going for here (although I sure did try!) and, unlike the two other films in his “Man in the Room” trilogy, I’m still not sure if it’s actually good. But I saw this film in July, and it’s remained compelling to me since. It’s provocatively weird and uncomfortably earnest, and I’ll always admire a film that goes for it, even if the “it” is a bit baffling. 

2. Past Lives

The directorial debut by Celine Song, Past Lives is a meditative drama about a Korean-Canadian woman who reconnects with her childhood crush, and wrestles between her desires about what could have been with him, and her marriage to an American man.

What’s remarkable about Past Lives, beyond its lush cinematography and excellent cast, is how it is able to tell a specific, unique story about Asian-Canadian/American immigration and being torn between cultures, and also a universal story about unmet desires, regrets, and layered, unexplainable relationships. I thought about dozens of people watching Past Lives: my childhood best friends, my what ifs, the people I’ve met recently who I wish I could have known as children, my family and the pain of being apart from them, and the feeling of being in a place where no one is from where you grew up, so they’ll never really know that part of you. This film elicited a deeply emotional response from me, and I can’t imagine it wouldn’t do the same to anyone else. 

There are other layers here that I love, well put in this review by Brett McCracken. While the film didn’t win either of its Oscar nominations, I hope the recognition it did get will ensure that we see more from Celine Song; she’s a talent to watch.

1. The Holdovers

It’s rare that I see a movie and immediately know the next time I’m going to rewatch it. But before I even finished The Holdovers, I knew I was going to watch it again the following holiday season, and hopefully, for many holiday seasons to come. Even beyond its retro ‘70s aesthetic, The Holdovers feels timeless, and I think that comes from its disarming sincerity. From the trailer, you know exactly what you’re getting: a Christmas tale about a group of curmudgeonly misfits bonding together. And for the most part, the movie tells that story completely straight, without a hint of irony, a dramatic twist, or any undercutting of the emotional beats. As I watched the film, I kept expecting the film to take a more cynical turn, or shy away from the more melodramatic moments. But it never did. The film is not at all boring or predictable to watch- there are many unexpected story points and the way the characters develop is nuanced and engrossing- but the movie doesn’t try to subvert expectations. But by telling its story so well, it somehow does that anyway. Next time you’re feeling a bit melancholy and need good company, give The Holdovers a shot.

Honorable Mentions:

Nyad, Theater Camp, Next Goal Wins, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse, Haunted Mansion (look, I liked it!!!), You Hurt My Feelings, May December, Anatomy of a Fall, The Color Purple, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margret, and The Deepest Breath

Worst movies of the year: Ant-Man: Quantumania, Foe, & My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3

The Real Winner of the Year: Music in movies. This year we got the likes of

• “I’m Just Ken,” from Barbie
• “Peaches” from Super Mario Bros Movie
• All the songs in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
• “Wild Uncharted Waters” from The Little Mermaid
• The musical adaptation of The Color Purple
• The musical planet in The Marvels
• “Camp Isn’t Home” from Theater Camp
• Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour and Renaissance: A Film by Beyonce in theaters 

Runner up: Fantastic new young actors! We had Dominic Sessa in The Holdovers, Abby Ryder Fortson in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Leonard Stettnisch in The Teacher’s Lounge, and Milo Machado Graner in Anatomy of a Fall. I hope to see all of them again soon.

– Madeleine D.