MY FAVORITE FILMS OF THE YEAR
The Holdovers
Maestro
Killers of the Flower Moon
Nyad
Ferrari
Are you There, God? It’s Me, Margaret
Poor Things
Fallen Leaves
American Fiction
Origin
There is no objectivity in crafting “ten best” lists at the end of the year; it’s all a matter of opinion. I like to think that mine is an informed opinion, at least, but it still reflects just one person’s point of view.
These are the films that spoke to me this past year. I enjoyed both components of Barbenheimer but neither Greta Gerwig’s megahit nor Christopher Nolan’s (predictably) overlong docudrama meant that much to me.
But when I watched Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, I realized that I was witnessing a rare bird: a movie that was absolutely perfect. It held up to a second viewing when I welcomed its writer-director, Kelly Fremon Craig, to my class at USC. (That’s the only time I get to revisit a film I’ve already seen.) The same is true of Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, which grew deeper and more resonant the second time around, and Cord Jefferson’s funny, smart social satire American Fiction.
Several of the films on my list can be described as daring: Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things is a jaw-dropper, alternately wondrous and hilarious. Maestro is an audaciously ambitious endeavor that Bradley Cooper and company pull off deliciously well. And Ava DuVernay’s adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson’s Origin is a formidable achievement by any measure. (It played in theaters for one week to qualify for Oscars, which it deserves, but won’t be released until February of 2024.)
Killers of the Flower Moon may not be perfect, and is far too long, but it captures the essence of a long-untold American saga as seen through the eyes of a virtuoso, director Martin Scorsese. I’m also citing Auki Kurasmaki’s 81-minute gem Fallen Leaves, which left me grinning from ear to ear. The Finnish filmmaker and champion of the eccentric has become one of my favorites in the world of cinema.
Nyad is a compelling biopic that could have been bland, or didactic, or dull. Instead, in the hands of documentary filmmakers Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, with a smart script by Julia Cox, it soars. One of this year’s great pleasures was watching Annette Bening and Jodie Foster together, inhabiting their characters so completely that it didn’t seem like acting at all. I would also nominate Rhys Ifans for Best Supporting Actor.
Another film that doesn’t open until Christmas Day, Ferrari has yet to be judged by the public, but Michael Mann’s masterwork is incredibly gripping and superbly crafted. Adam Driver delivers a stunning performance in the leading role and Penelope Cruz is equally memorable as his miserable wife.
Some of my other favorites came along in the year-end crush that always leaves some films begging for attention. Fortunately, that isn’t the case for Hayao Miyazaki’s exquisite The Boy and the Heron, or the elegant French import The Taste of Things, which has already received the recognition it deserves. I would also recommend May December, Godzilla Minus One, Anatomy of a Fall, The Zone of Interest, 20 Days in Mariupol, Theater Camp, and Bottoms. My next column will focus on several sleepers from 2023 you don’t want to miss.
