My Top 10 films for 2023: From Hollywood and beyond

This was a banner year for movies and cinemas. Especially for the cinemas, as moviegoers did head back and enjoyed community watching for several film releases. This did help us feel the health crisis was truly over.

If there are things we learned or saw had changed this year, one would be the realization that superhero ‘pixie dust’ is not forever - as both Marvel and DC struggled to bring sustained box office revenues over their multiple releases. Did Martin Scorsese’s pronouncements in the past about the shallowness of superhero films finally reach enough sympathetic ears?

So here’s my personal Top 10 of films released globally. It covers those I’ve had the opportunity to watch, and I acknowledge that there are possibly other great films this year that I didn’t get to view. Plus, there are films locally produced that deserve our attention but aren’t included in this listing. Hopefully, I will have the chance to cover Philippine Cinema 2023 in another feature. 

So, in no particular order, here they are: 

Poor Things - Yorgos is the King! Once again, he’s come up with an instant modern classic that’s as visually sumptuous as it is filled with delightful narrative and impressive portrayals. I say in no particular order, but this one is my favorite. I viewed this when it opened this year’s QCinema, and I loved talking to Mayor Joy Belmonte the week after, when she made ‘kuwento’ how someone went up to her complaining that, with this film, she had allowed porn in the Festival. Think Frankenstein story, but what if the creature created was a woman, and she discovered sex - the roles society casts on women, who own their bodies? These themes all come into play in this brilliant black comedy. Emma Stone for Best Actress!

Killers of the Flower Moon - The name Scorsese reappears in this article, but this time, with his latest film release. This adaptation of David Grann's non-fiction book is an epic feat of story-telling. It’s a bitter history lesson from the early 20th century. It recounts how racism and fortune-hunting against Native American Indians evolved and persisted during this era - transforming into financial opportunity and outright larceny by a white population who thought themselves superior and above the law. I liked Leonardo DiCaprio acting against type, and I feel he should figure more prominently in the Best Actor conversation, and it shouldn’t just be about Gladstone and DeNiro. 

Barbie - It’s Greta Gerwig, it’s Baumbach co-writing, it’s full of color, it’s fun, and it still manages to say something serious about the role of women in society, and has a neat role reversal to propel the narrative. The fact that audiences flocked in droves to watch this film is the icing for a film that helped revive cinema-watching this year. And yes, if the studio smartly promotes Ryan Gosling for Best Supporting Actor, I can see deNiro as his main competition. Still, I predict more nods going to Gosling as the film awards season progresses. And yes, I’ll concede that the marketing and hype helped make this film go through the roof, so there was the inevitable backlash to the unmitigated success!

Oppenheimer - Christopher Nolan is back in form, and yes, we can now officially forgive him for Tenet. This was the biopic to set the new gold standard - and it is a shame that Ridley Scott’s Napoleon was released in the same year. There was much to admire in this film from a visual perspective and from a narrative standpoint. While it wasn’t a perfect film, and I felt we never got close enough to understand the animosity between Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) and Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey, Jr.), there was more than enough on the Manhattan Project, and his 1954 security hearing, to keep us glued to the screen, and appreciate the complexity of the man. 

Anatomy of A Fall - Winner of the Palme D’Or at Cannes this year, here’s a courtroom legal thriller that works as a psychodrama and makes full use of police procedures to heighten the tension and keep us guessing as to where the film would lead to. The premise is deceptively simple: a woman is suspected of the murder of her husband when he falls from the third-floor window of their winter home. Their visually impaired son is the sole witness and faces a moral dilemma in the course of giving testimony during the trial. Directed by Justine Triet from a screenplay she co-wrote, Sandra Hüller, the lead star, has been praised and earned awards for her exacting and layered portrayal of the wife and mother. 

Past Lives - The indie film and directing debut of Celine Song captivated audiences and turned a film with a small story about love into a big film about identity, emigration, and the ‘what could have been.’ The film follows two childhood friends from Korea and how, over 20 years, their lives intersect, separate, entwine, and unravel. Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, and John Magaro all give nuanced performances so that even if we’re talking of a love triangle, there are no villains, bad persons, or even heroes. It’s about regret, getting over it, and how a bittersweet and restrained film can make us, the audience, feel so much while watching it.

Talk To Me - I know that hardly any film critic will include this in their lists, but for the directing achieved by the Philippou brothers, in a genre that most would say most everything has already been done, I’ll give full credit - and include this effective horror film in my list. The premise of a group of friends discovering how to conjure spirits with an embalmed and severed hand may not hold much promise when set on paper to read or as a movie pitch, and that’s why I’ll offer high praise for how this film has been executed. One avid horror fan, a dear friend, said he couldn’t watch this alone! I'll call that extraordinary praise for someone who’s watched so many of these films.

The Holdovers - The Alexander Payne of Election and Sideways has been a strong favorite for years, his directing style and sly use of humor evident so early on in his film career. So I welcomed this throwback to 1970 with relish as it is Payne back in form and helping us forget Downsizing. Paul Giamatti has a welcome return in a Payne film as the curmudgeonly professor in an exclusive New Hampshire boy’s prep school. It’s a school of the rich and entitled, so watching Giamatti maneuver himself in such an environment is funny. The head cook and a wayward student are his wards over a Christmas holiday, and valuable lessons are to be learned by all… without exception. It was a bittersweet ending, with so much to take away.

May December - Todd Haynes directs, and Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman portray unsympathetic characters that we can’t take our eyes off. Moore is Gracie, now in her 50s, but who, when in her 30s, became tabloid fodder for having an affair with a 13-year-old 7th grader. Portman is Elizabeth, a Juilliard-trained indie actress who’s agreed to play Gracie in a film. Their encounter is premised on Elizabeth hanging around the house to get a better feel for her upcoming portrayal. Two narcissists in one frame, and the boy formerly seduced is now a man and husband to Gracie. Things get complicated quickly, and we’re happy ‘flies on the wall,’ watching personalities unravel.

Spider-Man: Across the SpiderVerse - How it expanded what had been done so well in the first installment and kept us hanging for a third with no effort! Magical! I loved how the mash-up of animation styles was upgraded and enhanced with no warning. The humor and silliness remain intact, even as the narrative becomes more serious and takes on darker tones. Not much more to say about this film, as you either saw it and I don’t need to sell it to you, or you haven’t seen it yet, and I don’t want to spoil the enjoyment of watching this for the first time. Comicbook SciFi fantasy doesn’t come much better than this, and we’re left smiling that there’s still more to come. 

And my Honorable Mentions would be the following: they made me smile and appreciate minor masterpieces! 

Asteroid City - Wes Anderson is back in form, and along with his Henry Sugar/Roald Dahl shorts for Netflix, this output is a great reminder of why he’s such a precious treasure to the cinema. With Asteroid, he works with a bigger palette, which works in his inimitable, idiosyncratic manner.

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret - Based on the best-selling book from multiple decades ago, you can’t help but be charmed by the treatment - and how a girl’s coming of age can be so engaging, humorous, and yet nuanced. All this while touching on the big and small issues of the era.

Air - I don’t usually gravitate to sports dramas or origin stories of retail brands, but I must confess that this film combined the two genres and came up with a winner. And I loved how they smartly kept the central figure offscreen, obliquely referred to, and without showing his face.

Happy viewing!