Favorite Films 2023
2023 was a good year for cinema
I love movies. I go my local theater once a week. Sometimes I see great films and sometimes I see terrible ones. It can be a bit of a gamble, but all in all, I can’t stay away from the popcorn.
I’ve decided to make a list of some of my favorite films of 2023. Keep in mind that I am not a professional movie critic. I’m just listing my personal favorites. Given that I live in Japan, many of the films listed are Japanese. It also takes a long time for foreign films to come to Japan (sometimes up to three years), so if there’s a foreign film I haven’t listed, it likely hasn’t come to my corner of Japan yet. There will also be some minor spoilers scattered throughout.
Now, without any further ado, onto the list:
Honorable Mentions
Shin Kamen Rider is last of the tokusatsu reboot films by Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi. Their first outing was the sublime and thoughtful Shin Gojira (2014). Their second was Shin Ultraman, which lacked the depth of Shin Gojira, but was still a fun superhero flick. I feel much the same about Shin Kamen Rider, which is an entertaining reboot that faithfully follows the TV show and manga. What bothers me about Shin Kamen Rider is how CG heavy it is, especially since most of the CG isn’t very good. The appeal of the tokusatsu genre is the practical effects and it’s a pity that this reboot lacked that. I had more fun watching Anno’s Ultraman fan film.
Kingdom III: The Flame of Destiny is the latest live-action installment of Yasuhisa Hara’s epic Kingdom manga. Live-action manga adaptations have a rocky history, but Kingdom takes a proud seat along Rurouni Kenshin and Lone Wolf and Cub, as one of the better ones. The first half of the film follows the young Emperor Ying Zheng’s past, while the second half follows Li Xin onto the battlefield. As a result, the films feels more disjointed than the previous two, but both halves have excellent battle scenes worth the price of admission.
The Dark, Sad Life of Boogie2988 is a fascinating documentary by Mike Clum about the decline of gaming YouTuber Boogie2988. I was never a Boogie fan, but the fall of the gamer who was called the “Mr. Rogers of the Internet” into a slob of laziness, self-pity, and entitlement is as interesting as it is bizarre. As disgusting as I found Boogie’s views on women, I was utterly fascinated by his self-destructive life. The film also works as a black comedy. The scene where Boogie sabotages a mock job interview is funnier than most modern SNL skits.
Never Been Chris’d is standard Hallmark comfort viewing. Set at Christmastime, it follows two childhood best friends, Naomi (Janel Parrish) and Liz (Samantha Kendrick) who are now successful entrepreneurs. Upon returning to their small town, they reunite with their old crush, Chris Silver (Tyler Hines), and a rivalry ignites between the two of them. Hines is handsome and charismatic as Chris, Parrish is irresistibly cute as Naomi (I mainly saw the film for her), and Kendrick is delightfully funny as Liz. The film has some genuine laughs, particularly the scene where they reunite with their high school buddies at the bar. The melodrama towards the third act was a bit much, but overall, Never Been Chris’d was wholesome fun.
Creed III proves that the character of Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) can stand on his own without Rocky Balboa. While Creed III lacks the emotional force of the first two films, the tragic friendship and rivalry between Creed and Damian (Jonathan Majors) keep it grounded. The boxing action was a delight, and almost felt like a live-action anime. Speaking of which, the true highlight of this film was the post-credits anime teaser for Creed Shinjidai, which is set in the future on Mars, where boxers now have special shonen powers. Sign me up for that!
M3GAN works better as a satire than it does as a horror film. In the news, we see more and more stories of students attacking teachers over their cell phones. This confirms my fears about giving tablets to toddlers as if they’re pacifiers. After Cady’s (Violet McGraw) parents die, her aunt Gemma (Allison Williams) gives her a new robot doll named “M3GAN” to help her cope. The robot, (voiced by Jenna Davis and portrayed by Amie Donald), is a little too uncanny and she’ll do whatever it takes to keep Cady happy. Allison Williams is turning into a horror staple as the girl next door with an unsettling secret (e.g. Get Out, The Perfection). While some may see M3GAN as a villain, I saw her as a hero for most of the film, bringing needed justice to bullies, bad neighbors, and rabid dogs. If there is any horror in M3GAN, is that it perfectly represents the world we live in. A world where from the cradle to grave, we are bred to be addicted to tech which promises to solve all our problems, but often ends up creating more.
Father of the Galactic Railroad is a biographical film that looks at the relationship between writer Kenji Miyazawa and his father, Masajiro. Miyazawa is beloved in Japan for his magnum opus, Night on the Galactic Railroad, which was published posthumously in 1935. The cinematography has a raw, documentary style which is used to great effect during scenes of tension, like Kenji’s outbursts with his family. Masajiro swears to be a new kind of father, but Kenji’s aimless shifting between his passions tests this commitment. When Kenji gains a passion in storytelling, Masajiro is understandably skeptical, but when he sees the joy that it brings to his younger sister, he comes to appreciate it. The best scene in the film comes toward the end, Masajiro recites Kenji’s poem, “Be Not Defeated By The Rain” as his son lays dying.
The Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 is the exciting final chapter of a fabulous science-fiction trilogy. I have to admit that was not in the mood for another MCU film. Post-Endgame, Marvel has been meandering and mediocre. Not just the films, but also the bland Disney Plus content-fillers. That said, The Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was a pleasant surprise. James Gunn closes out his trilogy on an emotional and satisfying note. Gunn even pushes the limits of the PG-13 rating with the animal cruelty scenes, but they never felt exploitative. The emotional beats in The Guardians films always bring me close to crying. Gunn is a master of making us feel for bizarre characters of all shapes and sizes. The special effects are also been done with more care than the latest MCU fare. Just when I thought I was getting bored with CG fights in superhero movies, Gunn thankfully proves me wrong. What a great send-off to the quirky adventures of Peter Quill and his buddies.
Elemental, along with Guardians Vol. 3, was a glittering gem for Disney amidst a year of blah. Elemental may not be up to par with Pixar’s best, but it is still a sweet romantic comedy. The anchor of this film is the inter-elemental romance between Wade and Ember. The film, though, really belongs to Ember, who is a child of immigrants that built a shop which she is to inherit. Ember bears the weight of her parent’s expectations, and has to decide whether pleasing them is more important than following her heart. The animation, per usual, is very pretty. The designs of Ember and Wade seem to reflect the styles of 2D and 3D animation. The date under the water makes for one of the most beautiful scenes in Pixar. Elemental only has two major flaws. The pacing at the start of the film feels a little rushed and the Earth and Air elements aren’t as fleshed out and could’ve been excised. That said, this is the first Pixar film that feels more aimed at adults than kids, particularly those adults who are still finding their footing. I came away from the film moved and inspired.
Don’t Call It A Mystery is based on the Japanese manga about Kuno Totono, an eccentric detective with curly hair who has to solve a strange murder in a competitive family. The film had a good mix of tension, humor, and emotional depth. There are great twists and turns and I hope they make more.
Talk To Me is another winner in a line of A24 horror flicks. Like Picnic At Hanging Rock and The Babadook, it is a welcome addition to Australia’s horror canon. The film was expertly directed by YouTubers Danny and Michael Philippou, proving that YouTube may be a viable pipeline into cinema. The film forces us to confront the personal horrors of grief, addiction, and sexual jealousy. Talk To Me understands that some of the most effective horror films are intimate dramas that tap into our private neuroses. The mysterious embalmed hand that allows temporary demonic possession may soon be as iconic as Leatherface’s chainsaw or Jack Torrance’s axe. The performances of Talk To Me are gut-wrenching, particularly that of Sophie Wilde, who manages to be both hateful and pitiful at the same time. Some things are set up in Talk To Me that don’t completely follow through, such as the underutilized social media aspect. The third act did also feel kind of flat and unsatisfying for me. Given the themes of grief and family, I expected a more emotional finale, like The Sixth Sense or The Exorcist. Instead, it just kind of ends.
SPY×FAMILY: Project White is the first SPY×FAMILY film and it did not disappoint. In a fictional setting inspired by Cold War Berlin, SPY×FAMILY explores the comedic dynamic between Loid, the world’s greatest secret agent, Yor, the world’s greatest assassin, and Anya, a child telepath obsessed with spy dramas. To maintain their covers, Loid and Yor agree to pretend to be a couple and adopt Anya, though no one, except Anya, knows of the other’s secrets. This leads to many tense and funny scenes throughout the series. Project White sees Loid sending his family on a travel vacation to the snowy north. He has a mission to find a microfilm which is hidden inside of a pastry. A pastry which Anya mistakenly eats and puts her into danger. Yor also has suspicions that Loid may be having an affair. As expected the movie is very funny, though it goes pretty far into scatological humor (the fantasy sequence with Anya meeting the toilet god is surprisingly well-animated.) Loid and Yor also have some badass fight scenes. Project White was everything I expected from a SPYxFAMILY film.
Poor Things is easily the most bizarre film I’ve seen in years. A sexy new take on Frankenstein, where Emma Stone plays Bella, a pregnant woman in Victorian England who has killed herself, but is revived by the mad scientist Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), who uses the brain of the unborn fetus to revive her. As such, Bella may have the body of a woman, but she also has the mind of an infant. The starts off behaving a lot like a baby, but she learns quick, and since she was not indoctrinated by Victorian prejudices, she can comment frankly on the customs of the day. For instance, after Bella discovers masturbation and sex, she humorously wonders why humans don’t do this sort of thing all the time. In fact, she feels no shame about working as a prostitute in Paris, but only requests that she be permitted to reject her patrons. The film is ultimately about liberation from societal constraints, of which sex is only a part. Watching Bella transform from a disruptive idiot to a curious intellectual is a delight, as is watching Duncan (Mark Ruffalo) hopelessly pine after her. The music and the visuals of the film are as rich as they are surreal. They all add to a dream world that drifts between Universal Horror, German Expressionism, and 80 Days Around The World.
Asteroid City shows that Wes Anderson has reached the point in his career where he can afford to be unapologetically himself, audiences be damned. This is because he has acquired a dedicated fanbase who will watch any of his films no matter what they are about. I am one of those fans. Asteroid City is a story within a story. The meat of the plot is a stage play set in the 1950s, where a science fair is held in the American Southwest. The cast is a delight, with many of the Anderson usuals: Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Scarlett Johansson, Adrian Brody, and Edward Norton. There are also some fun performances from Tom Hanks (at his meanest), Bryan Cranston, and Margot Robbie. We also go back and forth to the actors portraying these characters for the Asteroid City drama. There’s a little playfulness in the boundary between what’s real and what’s fictional. There’s also a suggestion that two are interconnected. As is stated at one point in the movie: You can’t wake up if you don’t fall asleep.
The Concierge put me on the verge of tears. Though the anime film is barely over an hour, it packed an emotional wallop. The Concierge is set entirely at a high-class department store serving unique animals. The concierges are the humans who serve them. One such person is Akino, who despite her goofiness is eager to make the customers happy. There are some heart-warming vignettes, such as the the dog wanting to make the perfect proposal to his fiance, or the mastodon artist recalling his lost love. Though it romanticizes service work a little more than necessary, it is a very relaxing anime.
10. Killers of the Flower Moon
Killers of the Flower Moon may be Martin Scorsese’s best film since Silence. Both of which were inspired by the horrors of history. Set in the 1920s, the film follows the murders of the Osage Indians in Oklahoma. The Osage were unusually wealthy because they had the good fortune of living on lands abundant with oil. Their murders are part of a scheme by white men who marry into their families and kill any relatives who stand in the way of the inheritance. The mastermind of these killings was William King Hale, played to a terrifying degree by Robert De Niro. Leonardo DiCaprio is his son, Ernest Burkhart, one of the more pathetic characters he’s ever played. Lily Gladstone is his wife, Mollie Burkhart, who gives an emotionally wrenching performance as more and more of her family members die. Ernest seems to genuinely love Mollie, but is nevertheless shamelessly complicit in the killings of her people.
The film reminded me a lot of Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood. Both Daniel Plainview and the Burkharts have a hunger for oil, and will do anything to get it. The film also served as an inversion of the “white man falls in love with Native woman and adopts their ways” trope that we’ve seen in Dances With Wolves, Pocahontas, and Avatar. In Killers of the Flower Moon, instead of interracial love leading to a desire to help the beleaguered indigenous peoples, it leads to a more insidious exploitation.
My only criticism of the film was its indulgent 3.5 hour runtime. It’s rather hypocritical for directors to demand that we see their movies in the theaters, while making lengthy epics that incentivize us to wait until they hit a streaming service. People still have bladders, Hollywood.
9. The Super Mario Bros Movie
I saw this film twice just to prove that my initial enthusiasm wasn’t blinded by fanservice and nostalgia. To my surprise, I liked The Super Mario Bros Movie even more the second time than I did the first. There are little details in the animation that I appreciated, like Luigi trying to get food at the dinner table or the coin that falls by a Koopa’s foot. There could have been more in the way of character development, sure, but The Super Mario Bros Movie perfectly captures the delight of a video game as well as the slapstick energy of Saturday morning cartoons.
8. Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One
The Mission Impossible series may be the best film franchise of all time due to how consistently good it is. While Star Wars, Jurassic Park, and Terminator have all had stinkers, I can’t call any of the Mission Impossible films bad. Yes, I even love the second one. Only Rocky and John Wick come close in terms of consistent quality, and even then, Mission Impossible has Tom Cruise into his 60s still leading as an action star with death-defying stunts. From the third film onward, the Mission Impossible films seemed to improve with each entry, with Fallout being the best in the series since the first. This trend continues here, with Dead Reckoning Part One surpassing Fallout.
Like M3GAN, the film perfectly captures the zeitgeist of our anxieties around AI. The Mission Impossible villains have been a mixed bag, and while the “evil robot” trope is one we’ve seen many times, this version manages to feel fresh. There were also aspects of the film that paid tribute to the earlier MI films. Agent Kittridge from the first film is back, and like the second film, Ethan is entangled with a flirtatious thief. My favorite character from Rogue Nation, Ilysa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), returns as the perfect foil for Ethan. While Pom Klementieff plays a crazed assassin and nearly steals the spotlight from Tom Cruise. The thrills are firing on all cylinders, from the shoot-out in the desert to the car chase in Rome to the high-speed train crash.
What more can I say? The action was great, the women were hot, the jokes landed, the music soared, the story had interesting ideas, and Tom Cruise rode a motorcycle off a cliff. A perfect summer movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat.
7. John Wick: Chapter 4
Keanu Reeves is a man of few words. Most of his dialogue in John Wick Chapter 4 is “Yeah.” Did this bother me? Nope. The John Wick films are purely kinetic, driven by over-the-top fights and this one delivers. We also have the welcome addition of Donnie Yen as the blind assassin Kane. Kane is not a one-dimensional character, either. Not only were he and John once friends, but if he doesn’t try to kill John, his daughter’s life will be at risk. The fight at an Osaka restaurant is a highlight, though the bullet-proof suits were a little silly. The most intense scene in the film for me was the high stakes Poker game. The film is on almost constant adrenaline, never letting poor John catch a break, though after three films he certainly deserves one. John Wick ended as strongly as it began, and I count myself grateful to have witnessed such an satisfying epic in action filmmaking.
6. Godzilla Minus One
The surprising brilliance of this film is that it is centered more on the humans than on Godzilla. Many times I forgot I was watching a Godzilla film and thought that I was in the midst of a war drama. Ordinarily this would be a detriment, but here, the humans are the emotional core of the film. The meat of the story reminded me a lot of Eternal Zero and Jaws. The special effects not only surpass Shin Godzilla, but they blow modern Hollywood out of the water. In terms of character and emotion, this may be the best Godzilla film ever made. It’s a beautiful story about rebuilding your life after war, facing your demons, and finding rebirth through family. Godzilla Minus One carries a universal message that feels painfully relevant for our troubled times.
5. Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse
Spider-Man is my favorite superhero because of how relatable he is. His powers often end up creating more problems for him than he needs, and tragedy always follows him, but Across The Spider Verse asks a provocative question: Does Spider-Man need to be tragic? Does telling a good Spider-Man story require that he be mired in endless tragedy? After all, many complained that the first two MCU Spider-Man films were missing this essential element. What is radical about this film is that Miles Morales challenges this premise, suggesting that Spider-Man deserves to be free from tragedy.
The animation is revolutionary. I never thought that the mixture of 2D and 3D in the original Spider-Verse could be surpassed, but lo and behold, it was. My eyes ate up every frame. Whether it’s the quiet scenes of Gwen and Miles or the battle of a hundred Spider-Men with a hundred different animation styles, the level of detail and care never lets up. We’re also introduced to exciting new Spider-Men, like Spider-Man 2099, Spider-Punk, Spider-Man India, Ben Reilly, and a pregnant Spider-Woman. The new villain, Spot, manages to goofy and threatening at the same time. My only problem with the movie is that it feels too short, and ends right when it gets into very interesting territory.
4. Barbie
Barbie is a far better film than it has any right to be. It made me think of the 2000 Disney Channel film Life-Size, which I saw when it premiered. Life-Size follows a young Lindsay Lohan who accidentally brings her Eve doll to life. “Eve” being an obvious parody of Barbie, and played by real-life model Tyra Banks. As much as I liked seeing Eve interact awkwardly with the real world, I was always disappointed that we never saw the doll’s world. Barbie fixes this, allowing our eyes to eat up Barbieland, where everything and everyone is perfect, plastic, and pink.
Barbieland is a matriarchy where the Barbies have achieved complete equality and can realize any dreams they wish. They believe that their success is mirrored with women in the real world. The Kens, on the other hand, exist mainly to serve the Barbies and are marginalized. Things change when Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Ken (Ryan Gosling) go into the real world and see these gender relations flipped. This will change their lives forever.
Barbie has several positives. The first is that the filmmakers have successfully replicated the allure of playing with Barbie dolls. From the plastic paradise of Barbieland itself to Barbie taking a pretend shower without water. The movie is also hilarious, with all the Barbies saying “Hello” to each other, the Kens climactic toy battle on the beach, the “Depression Barbie” commercial, or Hanna-Barbera-style escape from Mattel. There are also numerous sexual innuendos (“beach-off”) and several references to various Barbie media, both well-known and obscure. The music is also a blast, from Dua Lipa’s disco-inspired “Dance The Night Away” to Billie’s Eilish’s moving “What Was I Made For?”
Barbie could’ve easily been a two hour feminist rant complaining about Barbie dolls, or a surface level celebration of Barbie that ignores the controversies. The film doesn’t do either. Instead, it tries to have a conversation about how a single doll has become representative of modern womanhood. Barbie is a symbol of all that girls are told that they can be, but also a symbol of all the standards that they fail to meet. Though even the perfect Barbie can be broken down by the demands of patriarchy. Barbie also permits women to be complicated, telling them that they can enjoy their plastic dolls and fight for equality at the same time.
Many on the reactionary right view Barbie as misandrist, but in fact, Barbie has a very positive message for men: Your value is not dependent on having a girlfriend. There is a lot of pressure on men to have sex, and men who are single or still virgins late-in-life can feel like failures. “I’m Just Ken” is a silly song, but is speaks deeply to the frustration of men to fail to meet this unfair standard. Through Ken, Gerwig wants us to sympathize with men who may be drawn to the patriarchy, but also tells them that they don’t need it to find personal value.
Like Titanic and The Truman Show, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is a beautiful humanist film. It says that embracing the real world, without clinging to false gender standards, can make life richer. It might not always be perfect, but it can certainly be beautiful.
3. The Color Purple
As a fan of Steven Spielberg’s 1985 adaptation of The Color Purple and the 1982 novel by Alice Walker, I questioned if this retelling needed to exist. Those questions were quickly put to rest after the opening song “Huckleberry Pie.” The cinematography and rich visuals allow for a scope which is both epic and intimate. The story of Celie (Phylicia Pearl Mpasi/Fantasia Barrino) and her devotion to her best friend Nettie (Halle Bailey/Ciara). After being separated at a young age, Celie must endure constant abuse at the hands of her husband Mister (a frightening Colman Domingo). Though Celie learns quite a lot from the other strong women in her life, like Sofia (Danielle Brooks), who has the great song “Hell No!”, and Shug (Taraji P. Henson), who has the show-stopping “Push Da Button.” My favorite scene in the film is the Sapphic “What About Love?” which perfectly recreates the look of black-and-white musicals from Golden Age Hollywood. “Miss Celie’s Blues” from the original film also makes a comeback. Celie’s journey of self-discovery and self-empowerment is as satisfying in this version as it was in the original, and its depiction of Christian love is nothing short of inspiring.
2. Oppenheimer
Oppenheimer is Christopher Nolan’s best film since The Dark Knight. Great biopics, like Lawrence of Arabia, The Last Emperor, and Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters, don’t simply retell the historical record, but use a person’s life to say something about the human condition. Lawrence of Arabia showed how “heroes” can fall short of their images. The Last Emperor was an inverse of the “Great Man” theory of history, showing how an emperor became little more than a pawn for other powers. Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters showed how an artist’s obsession with self-destruction can bleed into his own life. Oppenheimer is about the dark side of scientific genius and the consequences of its success.
Having read the first two hundred or so pages of Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s American Prometheus, I appreciated the attention to historical detail. Nolan manages to make complex physics and political board meetings intriguing as well as thrilling. Cillian Murphy does a great job bringing to life Oppenheimer’s intelligence and his almost naive sense of honor. Another good performance is Robert Downey Jr as the villainous government official, Lewis Strauss, who sought to ruin Oppenheimer through McCarthyite interrogations because of his concerns on atomic policy.
Oppenheimer is a wonder, shifting from various periods in the scientist’s life. This Nolanesque editing may seem unnecessarily confusing at first, but it accurately reflects how many of us go through life. At any given day, will we flash back and forth between the present and our past memories. The visuals are also rich, particularly the climactic atomic bomb test, which is both awe-inspiring and fearful.
Speaking of the bombs, as someone who is uncomfortably agnostic on the necessity of the atom bombs, I appreciate that the film didn’t take a clear stance one way or the other. We are given an understanding of why they felt it necessary to defeat the Nazis, but also the concerns of those who were opposed its hasty usage against the Japanese. Viewers who feel strongly in either direction may not like this attempt at neutrality, but if we want to understand history, we need to understand all the perspectives of those who were witness to it.
Many have understandably criticized the film for not showing the atomic bombings, or the effects that the radiation had on the civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Having seen the film, I find Nolan’s omission to be justified. The film is decidedly through Oppenheimer’s perspective. Cutting to other events would’ve been distracting to the narrative. The film doesn’t exactly leave you feeling comfortable about the decision, either. As it shouldn’t. Oppenheimer’s actions weigh heavy on us all long after the credits finish rolling.
1. Past Lives
Celine Song’s Past Lives reminded me a lot Makoto Shinkai’s anime masterwork Five Centimeters Per Second. Both are about the fleeting nature of love, people who come in and out of our lives, and the lost opportunities we failed to seize along the way.
As an aging Millennial, I appreciated a film about people in their 30s who still don’t have their love lives figured out. Our protagonists are Na Young (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), childhood friends in South Korea who are separated when Na Young immigrates to America and Anglicizes her name as Nora. They interact again in their 20s, through Facebook and Skype. Though they’re years and miles apart, the chemistry between them is just as strong as it was before. Their lives, however, lead them into different directions, causing a rift until they decide to meet again their 30s. By this point, Nora is already married to a white man, but when she meets with Hae Sung again, her old feelings all come bubbling back.
This is a very subtle film, to point where people have come out with wildly different interpretations. This is in part thanks to Greta Lee’s reserved, but layered performance. Some believe that Nora isn’t in love with Hae Sung. Others believe that Nora isn’t in love with her current husband. There are also questions of identity, and how moving to another country can change that. Hae Sung is still in love with the Na Young he met as a child. Nora finds in Hae Sung a part of herself that she lost in Korea. Nora’s husband Arthur (John Magaro), fears that no matter how much he may love his wife, there will always be a part of her that he can never truly know. Like Five Centimeters Per Second, Past Lives is a film that stings more for older viewers than for younger ones. It also similarly suggests that there’s more hope in moving on than in living in the past.
On a lighter note, I couldn’t help wondering how the film would have gone if either of the men in Nora’s life took a line from George Costanza and said, “I believe it’s pronounced: menage a trois?”
