We got off to a slow start for movies in 2023—but things definitely hit their stride in the last couple of months. The supposed superhero blockbusters (The Marvels, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom) were mostly duds, but some good directors made up for that with fine movies that were brain-friendly alternatives to franchise popcorn flicks.
The Best
1. Killers of the Flower Moon: Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio re-team for this excellent period drama—but Lily Gladstone’s work is the most memorable in this movie.
2. Poor Things: Emma Stone is hilarious in this comedic, crazed, Frankenstein-like story of a woman brought back to life, and her path to a new kind of self-awareness. Mark Ruffalo delivers career-best work.
3. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret: Judy Blume’s landmark novel finally gets a film adaptation—and it’s a real winner. Rachel McAdams and Abby Ryder Forston created 2023’s best mother-daughter team.
4. Barbie: No movie in 2023 provided more fun than Greta Gerwig’s hilarious fuck-you to corporate America and the patriarchy. Ryan Gosling is nothing short of a comedic god in this one, and Margot Robbie further cements herself as a national treasure.
5. The Color Purple: Fantasia Barrino takes the role made famous by Whoopi Goldberg 40 (yes, 40) years ago, and takes it next-level in this beautifully constructed musical.
6. Godzilla Minus One: One of the best monster movies you will see in any year. There’s more depth to this movie than the rest of the Godzilla movies combined.
7. John Wick: Chapter 4: Is this the last one? I hope so. It wraps up the saga of John Wick perfectly, and I honestly don’t know how they could top it. It has some of the best action/stunt work to ever appear on movie screens.
8. Dream Scenario: Nicolas Cage delivers one of the year’s best performances as a man suddenly showing up in everybody’s dreams.
9. All of Us Strangers: A real heartbreaker of a movie starring Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal as two lonely guys finding each other. This is the year’s best love story.
10. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour: One of the nicest times I had at a movie in 2023 was watching Taylor Swift wow audiences with a perfectly calibrated retrospective of her just-starting career.
Ten other films I really liked: Priscilla; Maestro; The Iron Claw; The Killer; Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse; The Zone of Interest; Anatomy of a Fall; When Evil Lurks; Beau Is Afraid; Bottoms.
The Worst
Here’s a combination of the very worst and most disappointing films of the year.
1. The Exorcist: Believer: David Gordon Green does for The Exorcist what he did for Halloween—except this time, he didn’t wait until the second film in a proposed trilogy to seriously screw things up. This one stinks out of the gate, and I highly doubt the other two are coming with Green as the director. If they do, we are all in for a lot of cinematic trouble.
2. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania: The joy of seeing a new Marvel movie in theaters took multiple hits this year, but none were worse than this absolute mess. How dare thee waste Paul Rudd’s time with garbage like this?
3. Fast X: I’m in a place where I really couldn’t hate these movies more. Perhaps I will navigate myself back to a more pleasant reactionary realm someday, but right now, the sound of Vin Diesel’s live-action voice makes me want to punch myself in the face. He’s OK as Groot, though.
4. Your Place or Mine: Reese Witherspoon is making romantic movies with Ashton Kutcher now? Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
5. Heart of Stone: With her Wonder Woman status up in the air, Gal Gadot tries to launch herself into a new action franchise. She fails. Horribly.
6. Saw X: This actually garnered something close to critical acclaim—but not from yours truly, because it had the same-old, same-old hackneyed storytelling.
7. A Haunting in Venice: I feel safe calling this the most boring film of 2023.
8. Five Nights at Freddy’s: I’ve never played the game, and I doubt I ever will after watching this stupid movie.
9. Haunted Mansion/The Little Mermaid: Disney, cut it out. No, really. Knock it off.
10. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: This wasn’t one of the worst movies of the year when it comes to quality—but it was a major disappointment after the long wait for Indy’s swan song. If you are going to make one of these without Spielberg, it better be great. This was very mediocre—the worst in the series.
Ten other films I didn’t like: Cocaine Bear; Creed III; Scream VI; Shazam! Fury of the Gods; Totally Killer; Renfield; Asteroid City; Transformers: Rise of the Beasts; Meg 2: The Trench; Saltburn.