Best of 2023
It’s been a year, Schlubs. I was laid off, moved twice, turned thirty, and hit the job hunt all year. I came out as trans and worked through the end of a relationship. I say this all not to hold a pity party, but to provide context for this list.1
I’d love to say that movies were an escape—but often they just passed me by. Which sucks! There was a bounty of great movies this year now that the production halts of COVID have entered Hollywood’s short memory. I’m excited to take my time and watch the many films I missed this year (American Fiction, Poor Things, Priscilla, The Iron Claw, nearly any documentary or foreign film), and rewatch some on this list. Obviously, you should always take my essays as the gospel truth, but don’t be surprised if things shift around on my Letterboxd in the coming months. That said, I’m confident that all ten of these movies are examples of the best that 2023 offered.
Thanks again for reading—your support, as always, means the world to me.
Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. See you for Schlub Madness in March!
Note: this list is based on American release dates.
Honorable Mention: An exuberant and bombastic biopic of composer Leonard Bernstein, Maestro is Bradley Cooper's return to the directing chair after his remake of A Star is Born. From the moment young Leonard throws open the drapes of his Manhattan apartment and plays his lover’s buttcheeks like a bongo, Cooper’s enthusiasm becomes contagious. Complaints about this being just another stuffy biopic confound me, as this isn’t just some regurgitated Wikipedia entry. Maestro’s reality is mutable—characters open doors into different decades, weaving through time like notes on a page. An impromptu dance number turns a conversation about art into art. Bizarre blocking frays the audience’s nerves only to implode into a hilarious bit of visual comedy. It’s a film that explores the insane artifice of celebrity by using the artifice of the film medium. And if a success like that doesn’t cement Cooper as a director to watch—he gives us Leonard Bernstein in the club dancing to Tears for Fears.
For my full 2023 list, you can find my Letterboxd account here.
10. Pennies From Heaven
In my essay on Something Wild, I lamented the loss of movies that looked like Pee Wee’s Playhouse: gonzo, colorful, off-the-wall silly. Luckily, director and writer Sandy Honig is here to carry the torch of looney-tunes-ass art. While Pennies From Heaven isn’t a feature film (Hey buddy it’s my list! Sue me!), it’s easily the film I watched the most this year. Cowritten by and starring twin comedians/trickster demons Annabel and Sabina Meschke, Pennies From Heaven follows two twin convenience store workers who find a truckload of pennies. Coming in just under eleven minutes, Honig and the Meschkes’ short packs in more jokes than the average modern comedy, while somehow not sacrificing its big goopy heart. Sure, it’s not fair to compare comedic pacing between eleven minutes and ninety minutes, but it’s been too long since I’ve seen something that was first and foremost concerned with being funny. With a perfectly balanced mix of highbrow (“Five dollar egg situation”) and lowbrow (“That’s not his dick…that’s his ass”), Honig relies on the infectious chemistry between the Meschke sisters to provide the film’s stakes. This might just be a short film, but it feels like a massive stepping stone toward a can’t-miss feature film.
Pennies From Heaven is streaming for free on Vimeo.
9. BlackBerry
Last year, my friend asked me about the influx of “product” movies. I’ve written previously about this in my Slapshot essay, but Hollywood has turned its malevolent eye toward the making of stories for products like Flaming Hot Cheetos and Air Jordans. Not to mention the thousands of lifeless rags-to-riches-to-rags streamers like WeCrashed (WeWork) and Super Pumped (Uber). So among this rush, BlackBerry seemed like just another cash grab. Then I learned who made it. For those in the know, director, co-writer, and costar Matt Johnson is one half of Nirvana the Band the Show—a brilliant, heartfelt, and unabashedly silly Canadian TV series. BlackBerry is Johnson’s third film and he brings that same heightened reality to one of the largest tech failures of a generation. The film focuses on the rise and fall of the BlackBerry corporation—in particular the symbiotic relationship between co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) and Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton). Much has been said about Howerton’s performance—but whether he’s scowling watching hockey or screaming like a demon, it’s the performance of the year. Johnson strips decades worth of story to its most elemental beats. Improvisational without being bloated, supported by dozens of veteran character actors, and propelled by an excellent score from Jay McCarol (the other half of NTBTS), this is movie-making at its most “user-friendly.”
BlackBerry is available to rent on Amazon Prime and other streaming services.
8. The Boy and the Heron
Legendary director Hayao Miyazaki set out on his (maybe) final film with two goals. Toshio Suzuki, Studio Ghibli’s co-founder, and president, stated that The Boy and the Heron was Miyazaki’s way of telling his grandson, “Grandpa is moving on to the next world, but he’s leaving behind this film.” The second goal was to declare, “I hate birds.”
The second reason might be fake, but it’s an undeniably strange thread in Miyazaki’s latest film. From the titular Heron (a genuinely frightening performance from Robert Pattinson), a tragic flock of soul-eating pelicans, and an army of orc-like parrakeets, villainous birds are one of the countless threads unspooling from Miyazaki’s mind. A young boy in WWII-era Japan, Mahito (Luca Padovan), travels to his new stepmother’s estate after his mother is killed in a fire. It’s a beautifully sullen first half, planted firmly in the real world. Yet after a few run-ins with the Heron, Mahito becomes my new favorite Ghibli kid by swearing to kill the magical creature in his backyard. What follows in the second half may be Miyazaki’s least accessible film yet. Hellbent on finding his deceased mother, Mahito is led to a Wizard of Oz-like afterlife. It’s here that Miyazaki’s narrative threads threaten to strangle the audience. We meet a fisherwoman (Florence Pugh) who feeds the dead. Pelicans eat the souls of yet-to-be-born children. A real-world allegory to Miyazaki’s mentor laments the creation of his fantasy world, held together by childish blocks. It’s a gobsmacking amount to process, but the original Japanese title of the film provides us with a guiding light: “How do you live?” It’s a question that allows Mahito to live his life without his mother. It’s a question that allows the audience to sift through the film’s strange lore and heavy real-world legacy of Studio Ghibli’s founder. Any one of these threads could have been their own movie—yet braided together, they provide an arcane semi-farewell to the cranky titan of cinema.
The Boy and the Heron is only in theaters.
7. Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Dungeons and Dragons, a tactical game of make-believe, holds a different meaning for everyone who has played it in the fifty years since its inception. Players could be pulling a heist in a mythical Mediterranean, traipsing through a forest as humble animal warriors, or even dicking around in outer space. So, it’s a true testament to the success of Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves that it provides so richly to everyone who has sat at the table and rolled some dice. Honor Among Thieves avoids the trappings of other failed RPG adaptations by holding the lore at a respectful distance—instead, it focuses on delivering a hilarious caper full of magical action and character-focused stakes. Directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, who directed 2018’s Game Night, use their dynamic filmmaking to push Chris Pine’s motley crew of adventurers through a dungeon master’s dream of traps and treasures. It’s a much-needed reminder that nobody ever remembers the lore or plot of a D&D adventure—they remember the fun of trying to turn a fuck-up into a gold rush.2
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is streaming on Paramount+.
6. How to Blow Up a Pipeline
Shawn (Marcus Scribner), a disillusioned college student, scrolls through Twitter in his dorm. Nightmarish climate news mixed with posts like “we’re all going to die lol” churn across the screen. “No, Mom, I’m doing great,” he tells his Mom over the phone. Scenes like this happen every day for the terminally online—so it’s a blessing that Daniel Goldhaber’s How to Blow Up a Pipeline provides such a kinetic release for pent-up environmental rage. From the Thief-esque synth score to the heist storytelling, Pipeline not only radicalizes but fucking rips—all the more impressive given the source material is a collection of nonfiction essays. The cast of relative newcomers, along with the gritty production design and heavily researched step-by-step processes, invite the audience to imagine themselves participating in radical acts of self-defense against Big Oil.3 The film does the extraordinary by foregoing live-action doomscrolling and allowing us to have fun. It’s a call to arms via popcorn cinema. So have fun, hang out with friends, put your cellphones in the fridge, and [REDACTED].
How to Blow Up a Pipeline is streaming on Hulu.
5. Killers of the Flower Moon
Mild spoilers for Killers of the Flower Moon
David Grahn’s 2017 non-fiction epic Killers of the Flower Moon is a whodunnit in the most serious sense—the first half of the book follows a sickening amount of mysterious deaths among the oil-rich Osage peoples between 1910 and 1930. Potentially hundreds of Osage men, women, and children's deaths were explained away by unknown illnesses, suicide, disappearances, and even “accidental” explosions. In adapting Grahn’s work, director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Eric Roth dispatch with the mystery, instead focusing on the great banal evil of those committing this genocide. Textually, Scorsese views his role in this horror story as a curator, adapting the story of the Osage people through his interests in crime and religion. The scale of Flower Moon is boggling—from the grounded and busy streets filled with hundreds of extras to the sublime sphere of the unseen Osage afterlife. The film follows Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), a dullard with a taste for whiskey and “all kinds of women”, as he stumbles under the thumb of his uncle (Robert De Niro), the self-proclaimed “King of the Osage.” Under the order of his uncle, Ernest begins a relationship with Molly Kyle (Lily Gladstone) to secure her family’s oil headrights in the event of her unlikely passing. Scorsese wisely forgoes any attempt to embody the POV of the Osage people. Rather, he explores how Ernest can reconcile loving someone while also burning their world to ash. It’s a colossal tightrope walk, to tell a story that isn’t your own. Yet, in a staggering last few minutes, Scorsese himself admits that while he did his best, it will never be good enough.
The depths of depravity and malevolence on display are hard to comprehend—as every facet of power allowed the genocide to flourish. American cruelty tends to repeat itself in the worst of ways, as another US-sanctioned genocide continues right now in Gaza. You can find giving resources in the subscript below.4
Killers of the Flower Moon is streaming on AppleTV+.
4. Asteroid City
In the court of Gray's opinion, it’s been a tough few years for Wes Anderson. From the mixed bag of The French Dispatch to the, frankly, dogshit Isle of Dogs, Anderson hasn’t put out a movie I’ve fully enjoyed since 2012’s Moonrise Kingdom. So in a year that marked the return of so many totemic directors, I’m relieved to count Asteroid City among the best—not only of the year but of his filmography. Hidden under several levels of narrative devices (a broadcast of a fake play), Asteroid City manages to create Anderson’s strongest sense of place in over a decade. The titular city is gorgeous—a cross between a midcentury modern retirement resort and Woody’s imaginary desert from Toy Story. Anderson’s typically stacked cast roams the arid plains, sipping vending-machine cocktails as Cold War generals scan the purple skies for flying saucers.5 After said flying saucer interrupts a child science fair, bombshell actress Midge Campbell (Scarlett Johansson) asks war photographer Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman) if he feels any different after the encounter. He shrugs. They move the conversation to parenting. This idea of continuing on in the face of cataclysm irradiates every layer of the film. A school teacher (Maya Hawke) continues to teach her planned lesson on the solar system, despite the fact that “some of our information may no longer be completely accurate.” Atomic bomb tests dot the horizon while the Motel Manager (Steve Carell) sells plots of land. A widower father attends his child’s science fair in the wake of his wife's passing. Even the play actors of the overarching narrative structure view events like wars and pill overdoses as a background flavoring for their character’s more “important” conversations on parenting and careers. On first viewing, the maddening layers of mediums may seem like typical Anderson pomp, but they reveal themselves to be crucial in a final act 4th-wall break. The actor playing Augie Steenbeck leaves the play mid-scene to confront the closest thing he can find to god: the director (Adrien Brody). “Am I doing him right?” the actor asks. “You’re doing him just right,” the director assures. It’s a small moment within a tremendously big one. A small moment we should all remember for ourselves.
Asteroid City is streaming on Amazon Prime.
3. The Holdovers
After Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers was released, there was a mild debate online regarding its use of 70s aesthetics. Payne had gone into production with the mindset of creating something “grimy and banal as though we were making a low-budget film then, in 1970.” This choice not only influenced the production design (costumes, cars, etc.) but of how the film was shot and edited. The sound is a bit muddy. There are no long tracking shots. The camera zooms in.6 To some, this was a cheap imitation. Critic Adam Nayman called the experience “like being beaten to death by a Cat Stevens album.” Maybe that sounds like a good death to me, because The Holdovers achieved something I haven’t done in years. I watched it, waited a few hours, then watched it again. The film follows Angus Tully (newcomer Dominic Sessa), a boarding school student who has to stay at his school over the holiday break. Accompanying him is the school’s head cook, and recently bereaved mother, Mary Lamb (Da'Vine Joy Randolph), as well as his draconian professor Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti). Vibe-wise, the film feels tailor-made for Schlub Cinema, set within wood-paneled bars and gothic study halls. Outside, New England over Christmas has the look of dirty, roadside snow. It would be one thing if the 70s cinema influence stopped at the aesthetics, but Payne’s script is loose and melancholic in a way that reminds me of my favorite films of that decade.7 Characters drift from place to place. The story starts when it starts—the backstory is given through conversation instead of flashbacks. Most importantly, nobody truly gets a happy ending. Thank God for that, because more than anything, The Holdovers lets us engage with its characters for the universal Holiday tradition: commiserating.
The Holdovers is streaming on Peacock.
2. Oppenheimer
“Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. For this he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity”
Oppenheimer begins with this epigraph, setting the stakes to mythological heights before the movie even starts. Based on the tome-like biography, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, director Christopher Nolan gets as close as possible to those sublime heights with a three-hour epic whose beauty is matched by the almost supernatural dread that the atomic bomb conjures. One of the biggest names in the industry, Nolan uses Oppenheimer to make his grand statement on the “Great Man” myth. Much like how J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) became the defacto father of the atomic bomb thanks to a legion of forgotten collaborators, Nolan too has assembled a creative team to solve the impossible: make 180 minutes of men sitting in rooms talking feel like an action movie. Besides the biblical power on display during the recreation of the Trinity test, Oppenheimer’s true energy can be felt early on—as a young Oppenheimer travels mainland Europe studying theoretical physics. It’s an electric montage that explores the cityscape architecture of mankind’s past, the unseen world of nuclear physics, and the strange, thin man destined to combine the two. Thanks to the work of editor Jennifer Lame, cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, and composer Ludwig Göransson, Nolan’s film feels colossal in a way that few pieces of entertainment can. But after awards season settles, it’ll still be Nolan’s face alone on the cover of Time.8
Oppenheimer is available to rent on Amazon Prime and other streaming services.
1. Return to Seoul
Not enough people are talking about the Goth Girl to Arms Dealer pipeline. Luckily, Davy Chou’s Return to Seoul addresses this head-on. Chou’s film is a delirious timeline of French-Korean adoptee, Freddie (Park Ji-min), returning to Seoul again and again over a decade. Far from a sentimental return to her roots, Freddie’s initial trip and reunion with her biological father (Oh Kwang-rok) is hilariously a mistake—her flight to Tokyo was canceled. Unable to speak or understand Korean, Freddie chafes with a culture that lovingly claims her as its own. She survives a three-day stay with her biological father’s family with the enthusiasm of Dante from Clerks yelling “I’m not even supposed to be here today!” as her biological grandmother weeps into her hair and her alcoholic father drunk-texts her through the nights. Director Chou maintains pitch-black humor and crushing sadness in the same scenes—adding to the chaos that Freddie seems to welcome in place of stability. As the film jumps two and then five years into the future, Freddie returns with a different identity, sometimes an underground goth, and other times a vegan weapons dealer. It’s a chameleonic role that first-time actor Park Ji-min obliterates—so self-assured yet so nakedly not, given the panoramic view we get of her life. Chou’s gorgeous style matches Park’s talent, shifting from a fluorescent Safdie Brothers-inspired opening to the steady hand reminiscent of the classics of Asian cinema. Return to Seoul is a rare film that gets away with different genres and styles because it understands that people change too. Whether it’s day-to-day or decade-to-decade, we’re always changing our identities. And it’s either a blessing or a terrible tragedy who we get to share these identities with. If only our children could see us when we get sober. If only we didn’t have that boyfriend when we were put together. If only our mother was here when we were happy.
Just consider ourselves lucky that we get to share all of Freddie.
Return to Seoul is streaming on Amazon Prime.
Special thanks to Austin Smoldt-Sáenz, Elena Bruess, Joshua De Lanoit, and Max Seifert.
Okay, a little pity is always nice 🥺
A special shout out to the fantastic animatronics and puppets used to bring the Aarakocra, Tabaxi, and Dragonborn to life.
This diverse cast of characters (culturally, politically, and culturally) brings to attention how the climate crisis is everyone’s problem.
Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. Call your representatives. Thank you Good Hang for the information and links (read their newsletter!).
I’d give anything to drink a little martini with Liev Schreiber.
Youtuber Entertain the Elk has a great video on the technical aspects of this.
Specifically, The Last Detail.
A side note: Oppenheimer has the best ensemble of the year, but I wanted to shout out David Krumholtz especially. He’s the heart of this film.