Movie Review: The 7 Best Movies I Saw This Year
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- January 6, 2024
2023 has been a wild year for the movies. Who would’ve thought this year would’ve seen the resurgence of concert movies, underperforming Marvel films, a rise in original properties, and the massive theatrical experience that was Barbenheimer? Even with the strikes, 2023 managed to put out an absurd number of great films throughout the year, from gigantic blockbusters that did worse than usual to compelling original projects that became surprise successes. With the long shadow of the pandemic in retreat, cinema came back in all its infinite variety, filling theatres to such an extent that the term Barbenheimer was coined to describe the two summer movies that opened on the same day and shattered box-office records. Few had much hope for Barbie, a film about a doll, or Oppenheimer, an epic about nuclear doomsday. But look at them now, heading into the Oscar race with dollar signs attached to their rave reviews. But it’s not surprising how many excellent films we got throughout 2023, and as the year ends, it’s hard to even narrow down the list of the year’s best to just seven films. From auteurs like Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, Sofia Coppola, and Wes Anderson, to hit feature film debuts from YouTubers The Philippou Brothers, it gets difficult to narrow this great movie year to just seven films, but I’ll do my best.
Oppenheimer
Like many cinephiles, I am an admirer of Christopher Nolan’s work as a filmmaker. Oppenheimer is his greatest achievement. Never has Nolan’s direction felt this confident. It’s ambitious, like all of his movies, but this is one of those rare moments where all that momentum and experimentation pays off beautifully. Considering
all the events going on in our world, Oppenheimer is Nolan’s most timely and politically charged movie to date. Seeing the Trinity Test sequence in IMAX was a pulse-pounding and unforgettable experience. This is what going to the movies is all about. Cillian Murphy, who has been criminally underrated for years, gives a career-defining performance as J. Robert Oppenheimer, alongside a stellar supporting cast including A-listers like Robert Downey Jr giving their best performances to date, to a wide array of “that guy” actors like Josh Hartnett and Alden Ehrenreich, who also turn in stellar work. Oppenheimer is, without a doubt, the best movie I saw in 2023. But I’ll also admit that this film wouldn’t have been nearly the pop culture sensation that it was without Barbie. Just saying.
Killers of The Flower Moon
Martin Scorsese has never shied away from making movies about the worst people in American society and how they’re microcosms of larger institutional rot. With Killers of the Flower Moon, Scorsese takes this concept into an especially searing direction as he shows the gradual slaughter of the indigenous Osage people of Oklahoma at the
hands of White people. Scorsese doesn’t hold back in depicting the relentless cruelty white people from all walks of society got away with, but not while sacrificing
the humanity of the film’s Osage characters.
Performers like Lily Gladstone and Cara Jade Myers turn in some of the year’s most richly detailed performances as Mollie Kyle and Anna Brown, respectively. Gladstone especially excels in a turn that sees her outshining Leonardo DiCaprio in their many scenes together and grabbing every ounce of the audience’s attention with just the way she moves her eyes or twitches her throat. Many Scorsese films have been about distinctly American corruption. But the raw human consequences of all that corruption have rarely been more vividly represented in this man’s filmography than in Gladstone’s unforgettable Killers of the Flower Moon performance.
Talk To Me
Remakes, sequels, reboots, and reimaginings; the horror genre knows where it gets its bread buttered and that is sadly not with original titles. It’s become rare to see a title from an up-and-coming horror auteur like Hereditary or The Witch come on the scene and blow all the IP out of the water. But 2023 was treated to one such film, Danny and Michael Phillippou’s (also known as RackaRacka on YouTube) Talk to Me.
When Mia (Sophie Wilde) and her gang of friends continuously play with a mysterious artefact in the shape of a hand that allows spirits to enter the body seemingly without any long-term effects as long as it does not exceed 90 seconds, it’s treated as the new recreational drug. Videos are posted on social media as each kid feels the rush of adrenaline when they let a spirit in. However, when Mia’s best friend’s younger brother gets a go and ends up possessed by Mia’s dead mother, the teens learn that they are very much playing a game of life or death. To go further would be to ruin it. Driven home by an outstanding lead performance from Wilde, Talk to Me is undoubtedly the best horror title of 2023.
John Wick Chapter 4
Though 2019’s John Wick: Chapter3 certainly didn’t skimp on the epic shootouts or the martial-arts-laced throwdowns the series is known for, it did feel padded and narratively shaky in a way that made it fair to ask: Were we sure the Wick team still had gas left in the tank? Well, John Wick: Chapter 4 answered that question this year with a Dragon’s Breath shotgun blast to the face, taking everything fans loved about the series and blowing it out in ways that were staggering in their bravado.
Do you want a sword fight between Asian action legends Donnie Yen and Hiroyuki Sanada? You got it. Do you want a seemingly impossible car chase that just so happens to tear through the crowded roundabout at France’s Arc de Triomphe? You got that, too. How about B-movie brawler Scott Adkins, unrecognisable in facial prosthetics and a
fat suit, throwing roundhouse kicks as a German mob boss? Or villainous Bill Skarsgård finding ways to chew through scenery even though Ian McShane is standing right there next to him? Done and done!
And at the middle of it all remains Keanu Reeves’ stoic yet weary assassin, saying less but conveying more than he ever has before in a Wick film that’s nearly three hours long but still feels effectively streamlined. Chapter 4’s closing moments seem to indicate John may have finally found peace, and, if that holds true, it’s tough to imagine a more kinetically majestic sendoff. And if Reeves and director Chad Stahelski do decide Wick’s not done fighting yet … well, it’s probably wise if we just all agree to never doubt them again.
Spiderman: Across The Spider-Verse
There are as many artistic virtues in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse as there are alternate versions of Spidey across the multiverse. However, what’s especially impressive about this animated sequel is how deftly it wove jaw-dropping spectacle with such intimate displays of emotions. Even with so many characters and action
sequences to juggle, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’s filmmakers never lost sight of the internal plights of Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy. There was always such a beautiful human element to this stylised story that embraced all the wacky tomfoolery that could previously only happen in comic books. With this quality, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse transformed into as much of an emotional triumph as it was a groundbreaking visual experience. While many superhero films in 2023 lost sight of anything even remotely resembling a human touch, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse dazzled the heart and eyes with equal levels of mastery.
Mission: Impossible-Dead Reckoning Part 1
That name is still a mouthful. Former IMF director Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny) returns with a mission for veteran agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise).He informs him that a dangerous AI has gone rogue and that it can be activated by a key that has been split in two. Hunt must track down the halves of the key before they fall into the hands of the myriad of villains who would use the technology for evil. His quest takes him across the globe, from Washington, D.C., and Abu Dhabi to Venice and the Arabian Desert.
It’s an intriguing and topical premise, given the recent strides in AI and renewed concerns about where the technology might be headed. Writer-Director Christopher
McQuarrie fleshes the narrative out with a sprawling ensemble cast, including wonderful performers like Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, and Pom Klementieff. He also raises the stakes when it comes to the stunts, most notably with Hunt’s death-defying motorcycle ride off a cliff face. Dead Reckoning did not perform as well as hoped at the box office, but this was not due to any flaws with the film itself but rather stiff competition from Barbenheimer. It’s spectacle filmmaking done right; combining epic
scope with interesting characters.
Barbie:
From the very first images we received of Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling standing amidst the pink, plastic world of Barbie, it was clear writer-director Greta Gerwig knew exactly what she was doing. That clear vision permeated through the bits and pieces of the film that continued to be teased leading up to July. But when the movie finally premiered, it’s safe to say it surpassed almost anyone’s expectations, my own included. It would be easy to define Barbie by its success, especially pertaining to its box office — for a film that wasn’t a sequel, remake, or attached to any well-known superhero franchise, the audience response was unparalleled. It crossed the $1 billion milestone worldwide, and proved a career high for Gerwig in terms of broader recognition. But setting all numbers aside, the reason Barbie is inarguably
one of the best films of the year is because it’s an entirely joyful experience from start to finish, and sometimes, that’s all you need from a movie.
Boluwatife Adesina is a media writer and the helmer of the Downtown Review page. He’s probably in a cinema near you.
