Top 20 Films Of 2023

 

My Favourite
Films Of 2023

Okay then... the usual caveats apply to this pretty subjective list. Firstly, some of the films I’ve included, which I saw in cinemas as parts of festivals, probably won’t go on general release until next year, if ever. But I saw them this year so, that more than qualifies them for me. Similarly, films I saw at the cinema in 2022 but didn’t get released widely until 2023 are not on the list if I already included them in 2022. So, stuff like Mad Heidi and Argento’s Dark Glasses were already included by me in last year’s list (which you can look at here if you so desire).

There are a couple of mainstream superhero movies on here, surprisingly. They are fairly low down on the list but I wouldn’t have included them if I thought they weren’t worth it. At least one of them was universally panned but, I have no idea why and I have come to suspect that, the worse a superhero movie does at the box office, the better it actually is as a piece of art. I’ll be testing that theory some more over the coming year, I think... although I believe superhero movies are going to be slim pickings in 2024, with most of the franchises taking a kind of ‘year out’ break, if my information is correct and mostly just the pseudo-Marvel movies getting some air. Looking forward to seeing what they do with Deadpool 3 though.

Lastly, you won’t find Barbie or Oppenheimer on this list. Purely because neither of them appealed to me and so I just haven’t bothered with them. I usually like Greta Gerwig but I get bad vibes off this one... and I rarely like Christopher Nolan’s films so, why subject myself (he made two decent Batman movies, after a terrible first film in that trilogy, as far as I’m concerned... and that’s it). And there are a fair few other movies that I really wanted to see but never got the time to, so my apologies for any obvious absentees from the list. I’m sure half the reviews of 2023 movies I’ll post next year will have the old “I wish I saw this last year so I could have included it in my end of year list” comments in them.

So, yeah, this list in ascending order from least to best and won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, for sure. If you want to read my reviews of the titles in question, just click on the title and it should take you to the review... and as always, thanks for reading.

20. Cocaine Bear
USA
A film which does exactly what it says on the tin so, really, if you are expecting anything other than a cocaine fuelled bear on the rampage comedy, then you came to the wrong party.

19. Blue Beetle
USA/Mexico
This film had one of the worst trailers I’ve ever seen and the only reason I managed to drag myself to the cinema to see this was because it was part of an all encompassing franchise (which has just been foolishly jettisoned by the studio, by the way... the new Aquaman movie being the last part of this DC experiment which had finally been gaining some traction in recent years). Fear not, the trailer was nothing like the movie, which was way better than anyone had the right to expect. Really pleased I caught this one at the cinema, to be honest.

18. The Nun II
UK/USA
The latest installment in The Conjuring franchise was a blast... again, it was much better than I’d been told and I’m looking forward to seeing where they go from here with it.

17. Shazam - Fury Of The Gods
USA
Again, another superhero movie which positively shines. The first movie was absolutely brilliant and this one is an absolute corker too. Bonus points for bringing back Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman in a very meaningful and life affirming way... not to mention a really great and comical way of putting in product placement (which I usually hate in any movie but those bloodthirsty unicorns were something else).

16. The Creator
USA
A nicely made piece of sci-fi world building, I’ve forgotten almost everything about it other than I loved it... so I guess I’ll be picking up the Blu Ray at some point then.

15. Monolith
Australia
This character study of a formerly disgraced journalist working from the home of her parents to make a podcast about strange, black bricks which are turning up in people’s lives is hands down the best thing I saw at Fright Fest this year. The ending is a bit obvious but getting there is fun.

14. Enter The Clones Of Bruce
USA
This great documentary piece about the various actors who were asked to fill the void in the market left after the death of Bruce Lee is, in equal parts, informative and hilariously entertaining. It’s directed by one of the heads of Severin Films so I’m expecting it to be a key disc in an up and coming Brucesploitation boxed set in 2024.

13. Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny
USA
While it’s true this latest Indiana Jones adventure is the ‘least’ of the movies, it’s still nice to watch in a nostalgic way. It’s kinda long and the second half maybe drags a little but it ticks all the boxes and it has a really nice ending.

12. Meg 2 - The Trench
USA
So this is what happens when you let great British modern folk horror auteur Ben Wheatley direct a schlocky B movie with a big budget... someone who, against all odds and negative vibes (not least from the majority of critics) manages to understand just what people wanted from the first movie and deliver a completely ridiculous product that is far superior in every way. Fun with a bite.

11. The Marvels
USA
I have no idea why this movie was received so negatively by pretty much everyone else on the planet. It’s easily the best Marvel movie in a fair few years and it has a planet where the inhabitants have to communicate through song. And it even has a montage scene needle dropped with Barbra Streisand’s cover version of Memory from Cats. What’s not to like? Plus, Iman Vellani needs to be in everything now, please.

10. Dream Scenario
USA
Nice, low key fantasy drama about a man who inadvertently finds himself turning up in people’s dreams. A quirky movie with Nicolas Cage which isn’t over the top in its outrageousness... in terms of the way the characters are portrayed, at least.

9. Pearl
USA/Canada/New Zealand
Nice looking prequel to X from the year before, showcasing Mia Goth’s brilliant acting in a much more interesting way than the somewhat drab Infinity Pool (which didn’t even make this list).

8. Reality
USA
This docudrama starring Sydney Sweeney as real life person Reality Winner is scripted verbatim... including redactions, which are handled in a very interesting manner... from an FBI recording of those events, in real time. A very interesting watch, for sure.

7. Scala!!! Or, The Incredibly Strange Rise And Fall Of The World's Wildest Cinema And How It Influenced A Mixed-Up Generation Of Weirdos And Misfits 
UK
Beautiful documentary about the rise and fall of the Scala cinema in London. Even if you’ve never been there, if you are of a certain age and lived in London in the 1980s, this one will probably pique your interest. I believe this is getting a limited cinema run here in the UK a few days after this Top Twenty is published on the blog.

6. The Three Musketeers - D’artagnan
France/Germany/Spain/Belgium  
As unlike the original Dumas novels as the majority (if not all) film adaptations are, this one manages to look both gritty and beautiful at the same time and has Eva Green playing Milady. Plus it has a nice ‘one take’ style of capturing the fights in complicated sets of camera movements which must have taken a lot of rehearsals, I would guess.

5. The Three Musketeers - Milady
France/Germany/Spain/Belgium
Mor of the above but, perhaps even a little better.

4. Godzilla Minus One
Japan
Wow... this unbelievably heartfelt period drama with added Godzilla goodness is easily as good as, if not better than, the 1954 original. This is how you do a Godzilla movie and it stomps all over the recent American attempts to do something with the character.

3. Daaaaaali!
France
This wonderfully comical movie which is inspired by Salvador Dali and which has a few actors playing Dali over the course of the film, in and out of the role, comes from the wonderful French surrealist Quentin Dupieux, who gave the world Rubber, among other things. This one is yet to open in the UK but I hope it gets a general release soon... the audience I saw it with absolutely loved it too.

2. Asteroid City
USA
This is Wes Anderson doing what he does best... being Wes Anderson. It’s another nice slice of off kilter, quirky and statistically saturated comedy... giving you exactly what you’d expect from this director... and there’s nothing wrong with that.

1. Lola
Ireland/UK
Wonderful looking sci-fi-on-a-budget British movie which deals with two ladies who change the course of the Second World War when one of them invents a time machine which picks up transmitted broadcasts from the future... and how they then try to change things back. Not for everyone but I really liked this one a lot.