(This article is part of our Best of 2023 series).
2023 was a bit of a peculiar year for movies. We saw guaranteed properties and brands fumble in quality and falter massively at the box office. We saw auteurs take up center stage in the zeitgeist and swoop in to salvage some of that failing box office. We saw stinkers and we saw some pleasers. Ultimately, I saw a mixed bag of movies with no clear film or films to point to that stood head and shoulders above the rest of the competition.
I will state one movie I have yet to see, though, and that might help explain why that is and why you won’t see it on this list: Killers of the Flower Moon. (Sorry, Marty, I am not paying to watch a nearly 4-hour movie I know will be streaming a mere months after its release.)
Anyway, here’s some junk I gladly consumed — The Killer, Beau Is Afraid, Sisu, Shin Masked Rider, Extraction 2 — and here’s some junk worthy of some words:
5. Oppenheimer
You can find the hypocrisy in my seeing a 3-hour movie in theaters but not a nearly 4-hour one. Sure, sue me. But I will turn around and blaspheme and say Christopher Nolan demands a theater experience in ways that Martin Scorsese no longer does. And this possibly overlong movie was definitely worth the IMAX experience even if the showpiece didn’t live up to the hype. A biopic, in IMAX. No need to let that sink in. It shouldn’t work. And in some ways, it doesn’t. But Nolan has such a gift for dramatizing anything, what with sweeping scores (sometimes drowning out the emotion of the actors themselves) and deft visuals, it was no real leap of faith to think the director could pull off such a questionable move.
The film tackles a lofty subject and does so respectably and respectfully despite the glamorized format that has come to define Nolan’s career. A great Cillian Murphy imbues the titular character with an understandably haunted spirit that is all the more enhanced by the 70mm frame—and, by the third act when an equally great Robert Downey Jr, playing Lewis Strauss, fully enters the story and attempts to put the screw to the character for his life and his deeds, we’re given a cathartic payoff the Trinity test was never meant to supply.
4. The Iron Claw
I’m still pretty fresh from seeing this one as I write up this list. And raw. The movie, following the tragically legendary Von Erich wrestling family, plays like a newspaper clipping. Characters aren’t given the same treatment normal biopics do. Director/writer Sean Durkin does not oversell things, despite it being a professional wrestling flick on the surface, or attempt to delve deeper into the Von Erich brothers beyond Zac Efron’s Kevin. Everything is very matter-of-fact, dry, drab even—and I still can’t decide if that’s what the film needed or if it helped sell the grand drama that is on display. I just know that Effron did a hell of a job bearing the story on his massive shoulders. I was along for the journey in that equally quiet theater, and I’m not too proud to admit I felt a good deal of sorrow leaving it.
3. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
With all the catastrophic brand failure from Disney and other studios, it was a pleasant surprise to find a nugget of gold in all that crud. More surprising is that Disney seemed to actually let the talent behind the camera make use of that talent. From a story pumped to the cybernetic gills with emotion and heart to an arguably visual treat that does not fit the generic MCU pre-vis/committee assembly, we get one fine superhero flick during the genre’s twilight hour. Performances all around are at their best. Characters, too. They are so well established and somehow still compelling after all this time; and they give the audience plenty to remember them by. And, hell, Marvel finally gets a villain. A real one! One with personality and dimension! The real beauty, though, is that you don’t need to sit through the slop to enjoy or even make sense of the film—because, finally, after four or five years of factory churn, Marvel/Disney decided to put out a real, genuine film.
2. Godzilla Minus One
I won’t dance around it: I like Godzilla. Be it Toho or Legendary, I’m on board. While Legendary has put out fun popcorn fare (and some of it not great), I was pleasantly surprised when Toho announced a return with Godzilla Minus One. And, boy, did they deliver. The film is stripped down both in budget and scope, and that was just what the King of the Monsters needed to score a hit with critics and audiences alike.
Finally, we’re given a reason to care about the weakest element in any of these movies: the humans. Godzilla is at his best when he’s the metaphorical force of destruction. Here, he’s practically relegated to the background (but don’t mistake that for the godlike behemoth having no impact on the story or protagonists) and instead we’re given characters with real definition and edge, people to root and care for.
Legendary might have the budget, but they don’t always have the craft or care to sell what makes Godzilla so iconic. Here, with barely a budget of $15 million, we somehow are given some of the year’s most thrilling set pieces (a piece that is a worthy homage to Jaws, for instance). The CG is where it needs to be, mostly. When it works, it really works. And when it doesn’t work—well, it almost doesn’t really matter because there is such boutique craftsmanship to what we’re seeing that one can’t help but appreciate it. Here’s hoping for more from this little crew sooner rather than later.
1. John Wick: Chapter 4
What better way to close out any list than with the closing of one of modern cinema’s best action sagas? A series with tremendous highs and some debatable lows (that really aren’t all that low in my estimation) brings it all home with a nearly 3-hour (sue me more) action extravaganza. The set pieces are gratuitous in this one, bordering on pornographic, and I wouldn’t have it any other way when everyone behind and in front of the camera are leaving nothing in the gas tank. You want something specific out of an action piece, this movie more than likely has it: Sword fights? Got it. Car fights? Check. Not one but TWO video game pieces? Done. A James Bond-ian poker scene that might as well be action? Of course.
The story is as convoluted as it gets and, somehow, ties it all together by the end. We got our new antagonist in Bill Skarsgård, a solid one at that, and a pair of new quasi-antagonists in Donnie Yen and Shamier Anderson, both exceptional additions and both with some great payoffs—but, really, it’s always been Keanu. Bad as an actor as he can be, one can’t help but like the guy. And, to be honest, he has put in good performances (A Scanner Darkly, The Gift, Parenthood), but it’s the man’s sheer determination to give life to John Wick that has put him over the top. And it’s that achievement, guided by Chad Stahelski’s expert action filmmaking, that has lifted this franchise, and this movie, toward the top of the heap.
What are your thoughts on the movies that made my top five? Share them down below!