Sandra Hüller and Swann Arlaud in Anatomy of a Fall
Either 2023 was a particularly outstanding year for movies or my standards are getting lower – though I suppose both could be true. Yet when scanning my list of the 160-or-so films I caught either at theaters or on streaming services over the past 12 months, I was surprised to discover that I enjoyed roughly two-thirds of them, when one-third is usually the norm. They weren't all great works; some of them, such as Five Night's at Freddy's, I enjoyed more for what they gave their target demographic than for anything they gave me. But there always seemed to be something worthwhile to talk up – and what was inspiring last year was how so many of them seemed to be entertainments that audiences didn't need any marketing or critical help in finding.
The Barbenheimer phenomenon, of course, was the year's biggest movie-related story, and what I love about its success is that it wasn't a preordained, studio-designed success. Greta Gerwig's Barbie was a Warner Bros. release, and Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer was distributed by Universal, so the idea of the studios partnering up to sell their features as a two-fer would make about as much sense as Macy's aligning with Gimbels. It was regular, ticket-buying folks, prior to the films' debuts, who initiated the idea of seeing both movies as a double feature, and consequently turned that notion into the summer's most meme-able must-see event. (And we're familiar with Miracle on 34th Street – we all know how that Macys v. Gimbels feud worked out.)
Yet this sense of independent discovery neither started nor ended with The Blond and The Bomb. A number of pricey, aggressively hyped superhero movies stumbled at the box office for the simple reason that audiences didn't like them. Disney/Pixar's Elemental was initially deemed a dud by the press until it kept sticking around thanks to crowds who really did like it. Sound of Freedom, from the micro-distributor Angel Studios, made a quarter of a billion globally through little more than word-of-mouth (and a canny pay-it-forward ticketing campaign). Taylor Swift broke all kinds of box-office records by choosing to release the filmed version of her “Eras” tour without studio interference. And based on the chatter I'm hearing online and among friends, viewers seem to have very strong opinions about May December (streaming on Netflix after a brief, cursory release in big cities) and Saltburn (streaming on Prime after a blink-and-you'll-miss-it theatrical run), so much so that enjoying or not enjoying the films is almost irrelevant. Feeling the need to form their own opinions, people just want to see them.
This is all cause for celebration – so without further ado, let's start my personal celebrating!
Though we're still awaiting the area arrivals of a number of titles that could factor into future awards conversation – I'm principally looking forward to The Zone of Interest, American Fiction, All of Us Strangers, Origin, Memory, and The Taste of Things – I'm colossally happy with my 10 Favorites assemblage. It features some drama, some comedy, some thrills, some chills, some shorts, some epics … and neither part of Barbenheimer included. (Well, they're included; you just have to keep scrolling beyond the top 10.) There's also some international flavor, as for the first time since I've been doing this, a foreign-language work tops my year-end rankings. No need to point out that half of it's in English. I'm trying to appear continental here.
1) Anatomy of a Fall. Their fight starts out mundane, even benign. It's a sunny day in the French Alps, and married writers Sandra (Sandra Hüller) and Samuel (Samuel Theis) are enjoying wine and crudités in the kitchen of their remote chalet when something Sandra says rubs Samuel the wrong way. He counters with a mildly snippy report, but Sandra appears determined to keep the conversation light, and brushes off the comment. Soon, however, the pair is arguing – not loudly, but forcefully – about evidently long-held resentments: who has more free time to themselves; who makes more sacrifices for the family; who pays more attention to their partially blind 11-year-old son Daniel (the wondrous Milo Machado Graner). The quarrel builds and builds until Sandra and Samuel are finally screaming at one another. And then we hear what sounds like a physical altercation. The following day, Samuel is lying dead in the snow as the result of a three-story fall … or, conceivably, a fall after a push.
What's important to note about that marital dispute, which is perhaps the most wrenching sequence in the whole of director Justine Triet's remarkable Anatomy of a Fall, is that we get to see almost all of it. Landing roughly a half-hour before the closing credits, it's presented as a flashback, allowing us (and only us) visual context to an audio recording of the fight being listened to in a courtroom, where Sandra is on trial for murder. Yet Triet concludes the flashback just before any blows hit, and although Sandra is asked about the physical confrontation and claims Samuel was merely hitting himself, can we be sure about that? She has already neglected to adequately explain the nasty bruise on her arm and somehow forgot to mention her deceased husband's suicide attempt that reportedly took place months earlier – an attempt that not even the man's therapist was aware of. How much of Sandra's testimony can be trusted? If we're not present as witnesses, how much can we ever truly know about anything?
What Triet and her co-screenwriter and life partner Arthur Harari consequently give us in their extraordinary achievement – the Palme d'Or winner at 2023's Cannes Film Festival – is a marital drama wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a procedural wrapped in a thriller, and no five hours of my movie-viewing time last year were better spent. (Triet's film is only two-and-a-half hours long, but I saw it twice.) A wholly enthralling, emotionally resonant work to keep your brain buzzing for days, the movie's subtle technical virtuosity is so assured that it almost disguises how much freaking fun Anatomy of a Fall is. And with the supremely relatable yet cagey Hüller providing the cinematic star turn of 2023, this international release – roughly equal parts French and English with a little German mixed in – boasts expert portrayals and sublimely incisive writing across the board. All this plus the year's most unbelievably strong performance by a dog, as I still can't fathom how the border collie Messi, who plays Daniel's pup Snoop, acted that scene in which he's lying nearly motionless on the living-room floor. That pooch deserves an Oscar. His movie deserves a bunch of 'em.
2) The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar; The Swan; The Rat Catcher; and Poison. Admittedly, this is something of a cheat, as writer/director Wes Anderson's Netflix quartet of Roald Dahl short stories – the first film running 40-ish minutes, the others roughly 15 – was never released as a single entity. Watch them as an entity, though, and in the order above, and you'll be treated to the finest feature-length Dahl yet crafted: a resplendently imaginative series of faithful adaptations that turns into an unexpectedly trenchant critique of the author himself. Few 2023 works delivered the storybook charm of these shorts' deliberately theatrical sets and low-rent “special effects.” (I'm still knocked out by the boxes painted to suggest a guru's levitation.) Yet as the astounding repertory ensemble of Ralph Fiennes, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley, Richard Ayoade, and MVP Rupert Friend converse and narrate with spellbinding speed, you sense the tone growing increasingly bitter as Sugar transforms into Poison. And while Anderson obviously has deep affinity for Dahl, he's keenly aware of how the writer's notorious personal beliefs may have bled into his fiction. While most of this four-fer – perhaps Anderson's greatest achievement to date – is a ticklish literary bear hug, it ends, bracingly, with a sharp slap to the face.
3) Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. It's no longer surprising when a sequel winds up significantly better than its predecessor. Yet I don't think anyone could have predicted just how extraordinary this followup by directors Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson would be; by the time the end credits rolled, I was aching for a beverage, because I had just spent 140 minutes sporting a delightedly dropped jaw. It would easily have been enough for this continuation to vastly expand its animated palette, which it effectively does with the arrival of numerous additional Spider-folk designed to resemble their hand-drawn comic-book forebears. (These heroes also bring with them a new crop of sensational vocal talent that includes Oscar Isaac, Issa Rae, and Daniel Kaluuya.) And if possible, this latest adventure for Miles Morales and company is funnier than the first, thanks mostly to Jason Schwartzman's hapless über-villain who's an utter hoot … until he suddenly isn't. For all of its genius visual flourishes and zippy dialogue, what makes Across the SpiderVerse so essential are its sky-high emotional stakes and breadth of thematic weight, making the film it most resembles not 2018's Into the Spider-Verse, but rather The Godfather; Part II. Yeah, it's that good.
4) May December. If there was any evident trend in 2023 movies beyond increasingly diminished returns on superhero outings, I'd suggest it was the considerable uptick in films where it was difficult to know whether what was on-screen was meant to be funny. I mean, I giggled throughout Napoleon and Saltburn and Infinity Pool … but was I supposed to? (When in doubt, I say it's always the right time for a laugh.) None of the year's releases, however, lived on the razor's edge between comedy and not more than director Todd Haynes' superb melodrama inspired by the Mary Kay Letourneau scandal, with Samy Burch's endlessly rich script following an actress' growing obsession with the subject of her next role: a middle-aged woman who seduced a 13-year-old and eventually married and had kids with him. This material could've been Icky with a capital “I,” but instead, it provides the basis for a rich, complex, divinely entertaining exploration of delusion, one that's as routinely hilarious as it is ultimately heartbreaking. Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore are mesmerizing, Riverdale hunk Charles Melton genuinely matches them, and thank goodness May December is streaming on Netflix, as my repeat viewings would've otherwise cost hundreds in cineplex dollars.
5) Godzilla Minus One. Without question, this is the first time a Godzilla flick has come within a mile of one of my annual 10-favorites lists ... unless it was at the bottom in the article's 10-least-favorites appendage. (Hell, Godilla vs. Kong wound up there just two years ago!) Yet I'm guessing that those who've also seen and loved writer/director Takashi Yamazaki's Japanese-language kaiju spectacle will totally get its placement here, because this thing is phenomenal, largely because it brings back the creature's inherent awe. Yamazaki cannily parcels out his Godzilla appearances so that when the destructive beast does show up, he's terrifying, and despite working with a fraction of the dough spent on big-budget Hollywood releases, the tactile visuals and ravishing sound effects are beyond belief. Best of all, Minus One has heart to match its considerable style; nearly everyone here is likable and empathetic, from the endearing makeshift family to the clan's helpful neighbor to the lead's fishing-boat allies. Usually in a Godzilla, there's no end of characters whom I'd be happy to see trampled or gobbled up as snacks. In this riveting, unexpectedly moving saga, and for maybe the first time, it was the titular figure who really needed to go.
6) Past Lives. Lord knows we don't need more trophies for movies. But has any organization yet awarded recognition for the year's best unbroken shot? Because I think we have 2023's champion: the aching walk from a curbside taxi to an apartment stoop, in writer/director Celine Song's extraordinary film debut, as Nora (the stupendous Greta Lee) makes a decision that was probably inevitable, but also devastatingly uncertain. In rough outline, Past Lives is a love triangle between Nora, her husband (a peerless John Magaro), and her best friend from South Korea (the affecting Teo Yoo) who has forever carried a torch for her. Yet in its small-scale way, Song's intimate relationship drama is almost epically grand, diving into matters of fate, chance, missed connections, and happy accidents with an enthralling precision that expands into universality, allowing us all to reflect on roads not taken and wishes not granted. This tender tale is realistic as can be yet laced with fairytale wonderment, and while Song's dialogue is marvelous, she also knows when her characters need to shut up and let the visuals tell their story for them. You'll be hearing about this A24 release a lot over the coming months, and for good reason.
7) Poor Things. There are competitors for the title: Ryan Gosling, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, and Michael Cera in Barbie; the unseen Robert Pattinson in the dubbed version of The Boy & the Heron; half the cast of Theater Camp. Yet if pressed for my favorite comedic film performance of 2023, I'd be torn between Emma Stone's deliciously inquisitive Bride of Frankenstein in director Yorgos Lanthimos' Victorian fable, and the same movie's Mark Ruffalo, whose every affacted gesture is fiendishly witty, and who shows no shame in going full Stanley Kowalski while delivering an anguished scream of “Bella-a-a-a-a!!!” Lanthimos' finest movies, among them Dogtooth, The Lobster, and The Favourite, always make you aware of what you didn't even know you were missing from your entertainment diet. And in the case of the gorgeously designed, unremittingly nutty, and bizarrely touching Poor Things, that includes Stone's re-animated Bella Baxter questioning literally every aspect of female subjugation; Ruffalo's divinely arch cad being taken down a notch or 50; a facially disfigured Willen Dafoe coughing grapefruit-sized bubbles; a growling, heavily tattooed Kathryn Hunter; a backyard full of amusingly upsetting beast/fowl hybrids; and Christopher Abbott voicelessly foraging for food. Hey, we're in Lanthimos Land. Just go with it.
8) John Wick: Chapter 4. “You arrogant asshole – he didn't shoot.” If there were six more thrilling words uttered in 2023 movies, I sure didn't hear them. More than nine months have passed since my first and thus-far-only viewing of director Chad Stahelski's astonishing franchise-extender (and maybe -completer?), and I can still hear Ian McShane's gravelly six-word adieu, just as I can still see Keanu Reeves tumbling down that long, long, long flight of stairs before summoning to will to climb them, and shoot legions of bad guys, all over again. Across the Spider-Verse excepted, our superhero flicks may have been underwhelming this past year. But Mr. Wick more than made up for their dullness, with Stahelski delivering some of the most stunningly well-executed action choreography in genre history and the diabolical richness of the criminal underworld feeling like something out of a 1,000-page novel you tear through with breathless excitement. As shot by cinematographer Dan Laustsen in a feverishly immersive color palette, John Wick 4 looks remarkable. It plays even better, with particular highlights including a riotously nervy poker game and another welcome reunion for Reeves and Laurence Fishburne. Forget red pills and blue pills – just give that dude a gun.
9) A Thousand & One. Every year, at least one accessible, lauded, emotionally overwhelming release somehow falls through the cracks even when critics' groups and awards bodies start handing out prizes. In 2023, that was the fate of debuting writer/director A.V. Rockwell's magnificent character study that doubles as a stinging rebuke to gentrification – and it makes a sad kind of sense, considering her movie is about people who have also fallen through society's cracks. Its structure reminiscent of Moonlight's, this soul-shattering ode to maternal love follows Teyana Taylor's New Yorker Inez as she kidnaps her son out of foster care and discovers that … no one really cares. Rockwell's film subsequently details life for Inez and her son Terry (played successively, wonderfully, by Aaron Kingsley Adetola, Aven Courtney, and Josiah Cross) through significant changes in NYC through nearly two decades, all the while underscoring that actual day-to-day life, for the unfairly marginalized, barely changes at all. This might make A Thousand & One sound unbearably depressing, yet it's actually deeply inspiring, and in a just world, Taylor's portrayal would be mentioned in the same breath as Hüller's and Stone's. The film is currently streaming on Prime. There are about 1,001 reasons to watch it.
10) Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. In a second-series episode of Fleabag, Kristin Scott Thomas' businesswoman asks Phoebe Waller-Bridge's barista to name her all-time-favorite period film. Our heroine takes a mini-pause before answering, “Carrie.” I imagine there are plenty of non-viewers of Are You There God? who, knowing next-to-nothing about its Judy Blume source material, would also classify writer/director Kelly Fremon Craig's work as a “period film.” And it is. It's also so much more than that. One of the most magically humane coming-of-age comedies we're been treated to since … well, since Craig's The Edge of Seventeen in 2016, AYTGIMM paves a joyously bumpy road for our heroine (the sublime Abby Ryder Fortson) as she contends not only with impending menstruation, but a new school, peer pressure, boys, and her currently nonexistent religious beliefs. Though Craig's film is comforting, it isn't at all corny or sentimental, and it lets the luminous Rachel McAdams present the clearest distillation of her talents to date; she may be the only performer on the planet who can make me weepy through the mere act of smiling. Don't let anxiety over the P-word prevent you from seeing this, as it's as fine a YA-lit adaptation as we've ever had. Period.
Next in Line:
11) Napoleon. Ridley Scott's battle sequences are among the most staggering ever committed to film. It's the juicy annihilation of the Great Man Bio-Pic template, though, that makes his saga so satisfying, with Joaquin Phoenix's “Little Corporal” basically shown to be (arguably) history's most petulant crybaby. No wonder the French hate it.
12) You Hurt My Feelings. Writer/director Nicole Holefcener and Julia Louis-Dreyfus teamed up for 2013's marvelously astute comedy Enough Said, then reunited a decade later for this witheringly funny look at how little white lies can slowly decimate relationships. I'd suggest they make this an every-10-years event, but I'm getting old. How about every two?
13) Asteroid City. Before his Dahls debuted, Wes Anderson delivered this dazzlingly eccentric comedy that's essentially a movie within a play within another movie within a TV broadcast that provides memorable bits for nearly two-dozen name actors and is stolen by a cheekily self-promoting alien. Or, in Anderson terms, a “warm-up act.”
14) Barbie. Little else needs to be said about Greta Gerwig's subversively self-aware pop-culture behemoth. Beyond reiterating my adoration for Gerwig, co-screenwriter Noah Baumbach, Robbie, and Gosling, though, I'll add that just about everything involving Will Ferrell's Mattel boss sucks. I'm antsy for a longer Napoleon; can we get a shorter Barbie?
15) The Holdovers. Paul Giamatti can play lovably sardonic curmudgeons in his sleep. But he's happily wide awake in this Alexander Payne charmer (scripted by David Hemington) that gives our National Crank two first-rate sparring partners in Da'Vine Joy Randolph and the debuting Dominic Sessa. It's a minor work filled with major pleasures.
16) Air. Had you asked, pre-2023, how Michael Jordan's Nike-shoe line came to be, I would've replied, “I don't care.” Yet in director Ben Affleck's improbably enjoyable origin story, we did care thanks to Alex Convery's precisely detailed script and its sterling cast, with Chris Messina and Viola Davis sharing best-in-show honors.
17) Theater Camp. If you can make it through the “Camp Isn't Home” finale with dry eyes, you're absolutely not this comedy's demographic. The rest of us will repeatedly return to this largely improvised celebration of burgeoning-thespian fabulousness, if only to again relish Ayo Edeberi asking, with increasing desperation, “What is stage combat?!”
18) Beau Is Afraid. For three hours, inside Ari Aster's head proves a scary place to be. (Aaaaaa! The penis monster!) It's also a weird, hysterical, unforgettable place to be, and in this tragicomic thriller-cum-panic attack, we thankfully get to be there with Amy Ryan, Nathan Lane, Parker Posey, and a fire-breathing Patti LuPone.
19) Somewhere in Queens. Am I including writer/director/star Ray Romano's big-screen sitcom here merely because it allows my favorite female actor Laurie Metcalf to be awesome in her first movie role since Lady Bird and probably the largest film role she's ever had? Yes. Also because it's absolutely delightful. But mostly 'cuz of Laurie.
20) Saltburn. When Emerald Fennell's pitch-black eat-the-rich treatise is bad, it's really bad. When it's good, which is about 75 percent of the time, it's spectacular, particularly whenever Jacob Elordi and Rosamund Pike are around. Viewers will argue about which scene is the queasiest for years. Gotta go with the bathwater there.
10 Runners-Up to the Top 20: BlackBerry; The Creator; Creed III; Dumb Money; Eileen; A Good Person; A Haunting in Venice; Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One; Oppenheimer; Polite Society.
10 Runners-Up to Those Runners-Up: Albert Brooks: Defending My Life; Being Mary Tyler Moore; Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves; Flora & Son; The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes; Indiana Jones & the Dial of Destiny; Infinity Pool; Killers of the Flower Moon; Priscilla; Scream VI.
10 Unexpected Pleasures: 80 for Brady; Anyone but You; Cocaine Bear; The Equalizer 3; Evil Dead Rise; MEG3N; Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem; What Happens Later; Wonka.
10 Unexpected Disappointments: Bottoms; The Boy & the Heron; Dream Scenario; Ferrari; Fingernails; The Iron Claw; The Killer; Maestro; Moving On; Next Goal Wins.
10 Great Performances in Decent-to-Meh Movies: Danielle Brooks in The Color Purple; Jodie Foster in Nyad; Jamie Foxx in The Burial; Gael García Bernal in Cassandro; Thom Green in Of an Age; Sally Hawkins in The Lost King; Jonathan Majors (yeah, I know) and Michelle Pfeiffer in Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania; Helen Mirren in Golda; Sigourney Weaver in Master Gardener.
10 Blah-or-Worse Sequels: Aquaman & the Lost Kingdom; The Exorcist: Believer; Fast X; Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3; Insidious: The Red Door; Magic Mike's Last Dance; Meg 2: The Trench; My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3; The Nun II; Shazam! Fury of the Gods.
10 That Could Easily Have Been My Least-Favorites of the Year: The Baker; Blue Beetle; Chevalier; Cobweb; Consecration; The Flash; Mafia Mamma; Red, White, & Royal Blue; Silent Night; The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
But My Actual Least-Favorites:
10) Sisu. Ninety minutes of Nazis being executed in increasingly gory fashion. How the filmmakers managed to make this activity boring is beyond me.
9) Retribution. I really don't understand concerns about AI potentially taking over the screenwriting business. As suggested by this ludicrously prototypical Liam Neeson vehicle, it already has.
8) Zombie Town. So cluelessly amateurish that citing this R.L. Stine adaptation feels kinda mean. But included in the cast are Saturday Night Live co-stars Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase, and The Kids in the Hall co-stars Bruce McCullough and Scott Thompson, and at no point do any of them physically interact. Now that's mean.
7) Your Place or Mine. Given the relentlessly synthetic awfulness of this Reese Witherspoon/Ashton Kutcher rom-com, I have an answer for the title's non-question-marked question: How about neither?
6) Leave the World Behind. If it means wasting less time viewing star-studded Netflix debuts whose very existence means they're probably not good enough for theatrical runs, by all means – bring on that Apocalypse.
5) The Hill. Dennis Quaid in a baseball drama. Like The Rookie, but mind-bogglingly wretched.
4) The Boys in the Boat. Hey! Did you know that while Jesse Owens was breaking records and demolishing racial stereotypes at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, a bunch of interchangeably bland white guys did good stuff, too?
3) Love Again. This abysmal rom-dram was the most mean-spirited fun I had at a terrible movie all year, but only because my best friend was there to share MST3K-style wisecracks with me. Otherwise this thing is just pathetic – and good luck trying to get my pal to see it again.
2) Expend4bles. St4llone's fr4nchise continu4tion e4ts 4ss.
1) Wish. A centennial-anniversary animated musical that's just like Disney's 100-year march toward planetary dominance: depressing as hell.
