The Ten

Best Movies

of 2023

By Jonah Naplan

January 1, 2024

What a wonderful year for movies this has been! In 2023, I expanded my cinematic taste to horizons I hadn’t yet explored, despite being interested in film for the majority of my life. I absorbed hundreds of new movies from the realms of action, animation, comedy, fantasy, sci-fi, drama, and horror, some of which were long, short, emotional, exciting, or even in a foreign language. I adventured through some classics I’d never seen before, watching movies at home, on airplanes, and, of course, in the movie theater, my favorite place in the world, aside from New York City and my great aunt’s house—the latter of which being where I watched Ingmar Berman’s “Persona” for the first time on a late night this past March.

This year I finally launched a website for my movie reviews, a project I’d only talked about doing with family and friends for months, and actually went through with this past January. Since then, I’ve amassed a sort of following amidst friends and fellow schoolmates who’ve discovered my website via Instagram or through the school newspaper, Red Cape News, to which I submit reviews monthly. The positive feedback I’ve received from teachers and other students is completely unwarranted but always appreciated; the motivation I need to continue writing each week. Occasionally I’ll get a DM from someone I’ve never spoken to before, but who has been treasuring my advice on what to and what not to see at the theater for a little while and has now decided to reach out. Those little thoughtful comments and messages mean the most to me, and confirm that I’m not only doing this for myself but for anyone who cares enough about what I have to say to continue reading.

My discussion of film continues further to the Time Warp Cinema podcast, available on all listening platforms, in which I and my fellow podcasters talk about a retro film from the 80s and 90s (roughly) every month. I also made an appearance this year on TWC’s sibling podcast, The Hardcover Hideout, which usually talks about comic books and graphic novels, but brought me on as a special guest on their bonus episode discussing “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” this past August.

In between conversations about movies, I continue to pursue my love for acting and theater (I was recently cast in my high school’s production of Noises Off which will perform in April!), which helps me to better constructively criticize actors and actresses in a film. Through these experiences, I’ve met so many amazing people who share the same interests as I do, and are willing to sit with me for hours listening to my blabber about Spielberg, the MCU, underrated gems and overrated pretensions. Those new perspectives helped me to see film in a different way this year, building upon my appreciation for the sacred medium that remains unrestrained.

These are the pictures that stuck with me the most this year. These are the films that affected me on a deeper, more personal level, incomparable to anything else. These are the cinematic experiences that I cannot help but recommend to others so that they may, too, be struck by their greatness. These are my ten favorite movies of 2023.

Rewatching Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City” recently, a movie I thoroughly enjoyed in the theater but one that I felt I hadn’t fully grasped onto, was to observe a master filmmaker dabbling in his craft as a reflection upon his entire career. Of course, Anderson’s work divides and alienates cinephiles who seek a more direct reckoning with the characters and messages on-screen, which makes each of his movies intriguing to talk about and dissect with others. This one in particular is so ambiguous in plot and concept that it prompted my mother to assert simply, “I don’t get it,” after we finished the movie. Absorbing “Asteroid City” again, I realize that there really isn’t much to “get”; at least not concrete details anyway. Anderson’s movies, as this one is, are physical experiences that you either understand and emotionally resonate with, or do not. Whether that’s its purpose for being, or what it’s trying to say, there’s always something to reflect upon and discuss, and your opinion will manifest unexpectedly. Mine is that “Asteroid City” is one of the most stylish and thought-provoking movies of the year. You might disagree. My own mother would be with you.

Who didn’t love “Air”? Despite following a knowingly clichéd formula, “Air” somehow managed to convince us that Nike and Michael Jordan were underdogs. It’s buoyed by a brilliant script from (first-time screenwriter!) Alex Convery, as well as terrific performances all-around from Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, and, perhaps the movie’s biggest stand-out, Viola Davis. Yes, “Air” is a winking crowd-pleaser that reaches for the lowest hanging fruit. But it does so with a certain amount of wit, charm, and emotion, that made us feel as if we, too, could fly.

Easily the best animated movie of the year, both technically and in tone, “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” not only made me pumped about its sequel (the finale to the trilogy), but it made me further appreciate just how great the first one is too. I could watch the adventures of Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy all day long, so long as they’re this well composed and entertaining to watch. “Across the Spider-Verse” proves that animation doesn’t have to be defined by any singular age group, nor should it really be considered its own “genre.” The movie will entertain anybody who allows themself to be swept away by this world and these characters, and it’s a stable cocktail of so many different genres; notably action/adventure, comedy, thriller, and drama. It’s just as emotionally impactful as something like “Killers of the Flower Moon” and as visually spectacular as “Oppenheimer.” But it will surely be overlooked this awards season because, well, it’s a “kid’s movie.” No it’s not. It’s an “everyone” movie, for all ages, in every universe.

My most recent pick on this list, “American Fiction” is a hilarious commentary on the state of the media that incites laughter without coming off as pretentious or acting like it’s smarter than the viewer. It’s a movie that begs to be seen by a large audience, not only so that they can collectively unpack all its important themes, but so they can share the experience of watching all its hilarious moments together. This is perhaps the funniest movie of the year, even if some wouldn’t categorize it as a comedy. But it’s also one of the most thoughtful and certainly among the most important, as it examines racial stereotypes, the impact of Black voices, and how they can be manipulated to disguise what’s really going on behind the scenes. It’s all synced with humor which gives it a light and inconsequential tone, but you won’t be able to stop thinking about its messages after you’ve left the theater.

Much in the same vein as Ben Affleck’s “Air,” “The Holdovers” is a crowd-pleaser with a plot so familiar that you could directly name movies it’s emulating. Even still, there’s so many good ideas that you haven’t seen before, which is the result of an aged but timely script from David Hemingson that earns every single one of its jokes, emotional beats, and unique character choices. Paul Giamatti is sure to receive awards acclaim for his hilarious and heartbreaking portrayal of a curmudgeonly professor who learns to grow and change because of a free-spirited young man—played by Dominic Sessa, another stand-out—and I suspect that the film as a whole will become a sort of comfort watch for cinephiles and casual moviegoers everywhere within the next year.

This did a lot for me on a rewatch. Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” is not a perfect movie. I still think it’s too long, and could be easily shaved down around the edges. I think some characters are poorly developed, and shuffled around so much that we lose track of them all. And, yes, I think Brendan Fraser is overacting. (But luckily, he’s not actually in the movie that much). However, “Killers of the Flower Moon” affects us as much as it does because we know these events actually happened, and they’re brought to life in excruciating detail by a master filmmaker who knows how to intrigue an audience. This is an epic movie that spans a multi-year saga, and by the time you’ve finished it, you feel as though a disturbing sector of history has just revealed itself to you. DiCaprio and De Niro turn in career best performances here, but the biggest standout remains Lily Gladstone, who’s quietly revelatory in a role so understated and massive at the same time. You notice so many extra things on a second watch, pointillistic elements that point towards the larger, vile, and beautiful picture.

I didn’t review “Anatomy of a Fall” because I didn’t end up watching it until Christmas Eve, which, of course, is deep into the holiday movie season, and I was already swamped with writing new movie reviews. Regardless, it riveted me more than the vast majority of the films I did review this year, and I suspect that if I even tried to sit down and write a piece on Justine Triet’s masterpiece, I’d fail to capture just how brilliantly composed it really is. Discussing even the basics of the movie’s plot feels like a spoiler, and it’s best to go in completely blind if you can—as I did, for the most part. Spectacular performances all around, some of the best writing I’ve seen in a long time. You could say I’ve fallen for “Anatomy of a Fall.”

Probably the least complex entry on this list, “John Wick: Chapter 4” remains not only one of my favorite movies of the entire year, but one of my favorite action movies of all time. You may deem it the “black sheep” of my top 10, especially if you haven’t seen it yet, but I promise you it’s just as exciting (if not, even more so) and spectacular as any other movie that deserves their place on this list. The film never stops, running all throughout its ambitious 169 minutes, a runtime you never feel even for a second. “Chapter 4” takes the strongest parts of all the other “John Wick” outings and compiles them into a singular epic, which culminates in one of the best finales I’ve seen this decade. If you’re not already a fan of action movies, this will not be the one to win you over. But if you are a fan, this will be the best movie of the year.

“Past Lives” has stuck with me rent-free since I first saw it back in June, and rewatching it at home recently only solidified everything I love about it. Two things surprised me on the second viewing; the first is that despite knowing how it would end, it was like watching the movie for the very first time again, and it was even better than I remembered; the second is that even though the whole point of the movie is to ruminate about what could have been between Nora and Hae Sung, I was so moved by the unlikely relationship between Nora and Arthur, a bond that had to have transcended all circumstances to actually happen. That’s the magic of Celine Song’s marvelous directorial debut—we’re engrossed in the action of center-stage, but also deeply riveted by the foreground.

In a year chock-full of terrific films, I’m surprised I managed to find such a clear winner. Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” has not left my mind since July and has become the movie to which all others I saw this year were compared. Every single theatrical aspect of this film is the best possible version of it that it could be: the performances are exceptional, the visuals are stunning, the script is brilliant, the pacing is point-perfect. In fairness, we always knew “Oppenheimer” was going to be great, but if you had told me at the end of last year that a three-hour biopic about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, would not only end up being the best film of 2023, but the most emotionally dense and psychologically poignant, I would not have believed you. But, five months later, here we are. Oppenheimer moved the Earth. “Oppenheimer” moved us.