My top 10 films of 2023

In 2023 I watched 281 films, which is a new record for me, surpassing the 262 I watched in both 2021 and 2022. I saw 245 of those for the first time, and 28 of the total were 2023 cinematic releases. (I've vowed to see more recent releases in 2024!).

This year's crop of directors includes a trio with five films each. I saw veteran director John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo, The African Queen, Beat The Devil, and The Misfits, all for the first time. The African Queen was a highlight as this year's final Film Society film of the year in the Embassy Grand. Wes Anderson put out a clutch of four shorts on Netflix this year, the best of which was perhaps the Benedict Cumberbatch-starring Poison, and we also enjoyed seeing Anderson's Asteroid City at the Film Festival. One of the cinematic highlights of the year was of course Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, which we saw at the Queensgate IMAX, and at home I also watched his three Batman films and rewatched Interstellar. 

Three further directors contributed four films each to my 2023 film diary. My favourite Japanese director, Hirokazu Kore-eda gave us Monster in the Festival, which encouraged a much-deserved rewatch at home of my Blu-rays of his wonderful I Wish, Like Father Like Son, and the peerless Our Little Sister. I experienced four films by David Cronenberg for the first time, two with the same name but different plots: the experimental Crimes of the Future (1970) and the body-horror Crimes of the Future (2022), his strikingly inventive Crash plus his first directorial effort Stereo (Tile 3B of a CAEE Educational Mosaic) from 1969. And Mubi's collection of James Ivory films allowed me to see Autobiography of a Princess, Quartet, Heat & Dust and Henry James' The Bostonians for the first time.    

In terms of the actors I saw most of this year, Cary Grant was an effortlessly charming front-runner, with nine films on the list, with only his 1946 classic with Hitchcock and Ingrid Bergman, Notorious, being a rewatch. My favourite of the other eight was possibly the 1938 comedy Holiday with Katharine Hepburn, and I also enjoyed People Will Talk, Kiss Them For Me, Born To Be Bad, Gunga Din, Monkey Business, and The Bachelor & the Bobby-Soxer. Only 1932's Sinners in the Sun was a dud, through no fault of Archie's. In 2023 I made a concerted effort to fill in my gaps in Humphrey Bogart's filmography, knowing that the Film Society year finale of The African Queen was steaming my way. Apart from that classic, I also saw for the first time Bogart's The Caine Mutiny, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo, Deadline USA and Beat the Devil. Michael Caine appears thanks to his three appearances in Nolan's Batman films, plus Nolan's Interstellar and his committed performance as Scrooge in The Muppet Christmas Carol. I enjoyed Florence Pugh in The Wonder, Midsommar and of course Oppenheimer (although her small role was rather thankless - while I love his films, Nolan could do with improving his female characters). She was also decent in Olivia Wilde's flawed Don't Worry Darling. And I broke a habit of a lifetime and watched some Tom "world's nicest actor" Hanks films for the first time - apart from Asteroid City, I also saw Catch Me If You Can, Cast Away and Saving Private Ryan. Not sure if I've acquired sufficient tolerance to see him in Forrest Gump, though. 

And here's my top 10 films of 2023 - this year they're all releases from the calendar year, as opposed to 2022 films I happened to see here in New Zealand in 2023. Contains not one but two Wim Wenders films - a prolific year for a 78-year old! 

1. Perfect Days (dir. Wim Wenders, Germany/Japan, 2023)


The cinematic equivalent of a delightful warm bath, in Perfect Days veteran German director Wim Wenders melds his long-established affinity for Japanese life with expert storytelling and unimpeachable casting to illustrate the simple yet touchingly honest tale of Mr Hirayama, a distinguished man in his sixties who spends his days cleaning Tokyo's myriad public toilets. While the film is a highly effective depiction of the dignity afforded by honest labour taken seriously by its practitioners, through the poetic resonances of Hirayama's orderly existence and his daily rituals the viewers are also entwined in the quiet, simple dramas of ordinary life - the delights of long-loved songs, the pleasure of admiring a noble tree each lunchtime, the friendly welcome of regular cafe owners and angelic-voiced bar hosts, the discovery of new-found literary morsels in second-hand bookshops, chance encounters with kind strangers, and unexpected visits from relatives long unseen. Throughout, lead actor Koji Yakusho is riveting and utterly endearing as the noble Hirayama, a quiet man with a passion for doing his job well, and a Japanese everyman's gentle sense of humour. Yakusho's final scene of the film is performed so tremendously skilfully and is so genuinely moving that it's hard to watch without immediately thinking of awards nominations. Perfect Days is a film that deserves a wide audience amongst those who appreciate honest story-telling, wonderful writing (by Wenders collaborator Takuma Takasaki) and acting of the highest possible calibre.

2. Monster (dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan, 2023)

Another expertly-realised observation of modern Japanese society by one of its two greatest directors. Hirokazu Kore-eda displays his traditional virtuosity with child actors and augments it with an ambitious yet wholly successful plot structure involving interwoven storylines to illustrate an increasingly nuanced and ultimately deeply satisfying and humanistic examination of family life, the power of gossip and innuendo, the Japanese passion for ritualised apology, and how one boy's schoolyard friendship has ramifications for all around him. The director's hallmark typhoon motif returns, as seen most pivotally in 2016's After The Storm, as the catalyst for a deeply engaging and rewarding conclusion. As always, the cast is perfectly selected and performs admirably, and there is a skilful blend of wry humour amongst the drama. Just one glimpse of the delightful grimace of a gossip-mongering mum, relishing passing on her tale of scandalous misbehaviour, sold this charming film to me in an instant.

3. Oppenheimer (dir. Christopher Nolan, US/UK, 2023)


Oppenheimer is a sumptuous film achievement best experienced in its native IMAX setting, which benefits from Christopher Nolan's most restrained directorial performance in years. The 'timey-wimey' experiments of Tenet, Dunkirk and Inception are barely present here in the wholly intelligible narrative, with the added bonus of the clear delineation of one key timeline (the Strauss hearing) being in black and white to aid viewer comprehension.

As a film experience Nolan could have delivered an entirely satisfying package by simply focusing on his thrilling Los Alamos - Trinity A-bomb test sequence, which is exemplary science filmmaking. But instead he expands the film's palate much wider, delving into Oppenheimer's reputation and the post-war battles over his legacy and loyalties amidst the climate of the Red Scare witch-hunts and blacklists that plagued American democracy in the 1940s and 50s.

The versatile and gifted Cillian Murphy and, in particular, Robert Downey Jr are likely and deserved Oscar nominations for their roles, and Emily Blunt is a possible nominee too, for her supporting role as the embattled Mrs O. Florence Pugh is as excellent as ever, but isn't given as much to work with in this very male story. The much-loved Tom Conti may also be an outside chance for an acting nomination for his role as Albert Einstein.

Visually the film is a delight, with muted colour palettes echoing faded 1940s photography, and much of the success of the picture also derives from the virtuosity and visceral impact of the score by Ludwig Göransson, who also scored Tenet.

My only slight criticisms are of one misjudged, but fortunately brief, sex scene involving Murphy and Pugh, which was superfluous to the plot and must have been unpleasant for Pugh to shoot, and the amount of screentime devoted to both hearings (the security clearance panel and the Cabinet confirmation). Some of the time devoted to the latter could easily have been sacrificed for a slightly shorter runtime without diminishing the narrative impact. But then I suppose that would have provided less opportunity for Downey's screen-filling Oscar grab, and in a film this good one has be open-minded!

4. Anatomy of a Fall (dir. Justine Triet, France, 2023)

An expertly-realised, highly nuanced examination of a contested death, in which the French inquisitorial court system tries to establish the truth in the case of a husband who either fell in a suicide gambit, or was bludgeoned and pushed by his wife. The cross-examination of the wife Sandra, played with customary verve by the burgeoning star, Sandra Hüller, and the testimony of their 11-year-old, partially sighted son, played by the excellent Milo Machado-Graner, are fascinating multi-faceted, and the audience is never railroaded into obvious conclusions regarding Sandra's guilt or otherwise. With a bevy of subtly dramatic twists and a frigidly beautiful alpine setting in the French Alps near Grenoble, Justine Triet's film is a worthy Palme d'Or winner, and one that certainly merits awards for Hüller's central performance as the complex, challenging character that shares her first name. And there's already been a special Palm Dog Award award for supporting canine actor Messi, a handsome fellow who steals scenes from his human colleagues with consummate ease.

5. Past Lives (dir. Celine Song, S.Korea/US, 2023)

A remarkable effort for a first feature, benefiting from soulful performances from its leads and successfully channeling the wistful but never self-pitying gentle mournfulness of Wong Kar-wai's best works. The film contains welcome dashes of gentle humour throughout, and a seamless evocation of the passage of a quarter-century in the blink of an eye. Celine Song's next works will be watched with great interest after this highly proficient debut.

6. Killers of the Flower Moon (dir. Martin Scorsese, US, 2023)


It takes a major commitment to bring such a harsh and gruelling story to the screen in such an impressive package, but Scorsese excelled himself with Killers of the Flower Moon. Leonardo DiCaprio is to be commended for playing such a thoroughly reprehensible lead character, but equally many of the plaudits should also go to sure-to-be-Oscar-nominated Lily Gladstone for her portrayal of the indefatigable Mollie Kyle. A tough watch, but one of the few modern film that thoroughly justifies its extended (206-minute) intermission-less runtime. 

7. Anselm (dir. Wim Wenders, France/Germany, 2023)

Wim Wenders returns with his first feature documentary in five years, and also returns to the 3D approach for the first time since The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez in 2016. His methodical survey of the career of post-war German conceptual artist Anselm Kiefer makes wonderful use of the medium, and Anselm's art lends itself to this documentary form, as it is often essayed at a grand scale and his atelier have for decades been situated in disused factories and warehouses on a literal industrial scale. There is next to no biographical detail on offer, with a laser-like focus on his artistic process and the way Kiefer addresses German society and culture in the aftermath of the devastating war that ended just as he was born. Several skilful reenactments bridge the decades effectively, using Kiefer's own son and (presumably) a Wenders grandchild to depict the artist as a young man and child, respectively. Anselm is a sensitively-handled celebration of an artist's lengthy career - imagine the verve with which Wenders might have tackled a Friedrich Hundertwasser biopic - and his single-minded artistic vision. It also presumably evokes considerable envy amongst other artists viewing the documentary - all that space to work in; all those industrial quantities of art supplies!

8. Barbie (dir. Greta Gerwig, US, 2023)

A subversive delight, with a note-perfect comedic performance by Margot Robbie and a hilarious supporting turn from Ryan Gosling, in a surprisingly iconoclastic and at the same time hugely entertaining slice of popular entertainment. Replete with highly quotable lines and an impressive barrage of dagger-sharp wit, Barbie manages the rare sleight of hand of making the ridiculousness of modern gender stereotypes wickedly amusing and critiquing the hypocrisies of patriarchal injustice and toxic masculinity without verging into dull preachiness. And for those of us who grew up without sisters in the household, it also opens up a window into the truly freaky world of the Barbieverse so many of you ladies grew up with. No wonder we're all messed up! Also, the French poster's translation was somewhat racy, and what a killer final line.

9. The Boy & the Heron, dir. Hayao Miyazaki, Japan, 2023)

Another delightfully off-kilter fairytale outing from the mind of Hayao Miyazaki, exposing young and old alike to his odd mind and the enduring strangeness of his magical, metaphorical kingdoms of the mind. Finally someone brave enough to stick it to those parakeets, who've had things their own way for far too long! [/s] And what a stark contrast with the Disney film trailer that appeared beforehand, illustrating another identical production-line commodity seemingly written by algorithm.

10. Fallen Leaves (dir. Aki Kaurismäki, Finland, 2023)

Another deadpan Finnish working-class romance from the acknowledged expert, Fallen Leaves offers the traditional Aki Kaurismäki pleasures - stone-faced inarticulate bruisers, wistful disappointed women, seedy bars full of morose patrons drinking to forget their failed relationships, and heartless employers ready to cast our heroes into poverty at the blink of an eye. The obstacles to romance between the doughty Ansa and alcoholic Holappa are intentionally contrived, with the main pleasures being derived from the dry wit expressed throughout, with Kaurismäki giving many supporting characters wonderfully bleak lines that cumulatively build a sense of inspired silliness, heavily battened-down by the abiding rationale of the filmmaker's worldview, in which modernism and optimism are false prophets, and the simple pleasures of awkward romance always win through. Special mention must also go to scene-stealer Alma, the stray dog who pops up near the end and moves in with the heroine, and who should be put in as many movies as possible, Finnish or not.

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Honourable mentions should also go to: The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar, The Creator, Mars Express and Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves. And I look forward to seeing if Ridley Scott is right about his four-hour cut of the rushed Napoleon being a superior beast.

See also:
Blog: My top 10 films of 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010