2023 Year in Review: Films
My annual top 25 countdown, along with some liner notes and honorable mentions.
Kicking off my annual salvo of year-in-review newsletters with the video countdown this year, dropping a bit earlier for the subscribers! I’ve still got my albums, performances, and film discoveries round-ups to come, along with a broader year-end reflection for those who like that sort of thing. If you’re interested in getting any and/or all of that in your inbox as soon as it’s out, hit that subscribe button below.
In the four years I’ve been doing these video countdowns, this is the one I had the hardest time with. Aside from a tumultuous second half of the year that forced me to get started on this far later than I generally do, I also wanted to try and push myself a bit in terms of conceptualizing the intro and some of the transitions. I’ll get into all of that in a bit more detail later in this post (which I hope you only read after you’ve seen the video), but suffice it to say that this was a hard-won video that maddened me at times but ultimately ended up in a place where I could be proud of it.
(And before anyone gets on my case about them, I wasn’t able to see The Boy and the Heron, The Iron Claw, and The Zone of Interest before the year was out due to the perennially angst-inducing nature of Philippine theatrical releases. I imagine some or all of those might’ve found a place on my list, but such is the nature of being a global cinephile.)
Without further ado, enjoy!
Artwork by my very talented friend Justin Nava. Check out his Artstagram here.
Honorable Mentions
If those 25 aren’t enough for you, here are 25 more films I thought were worth checking out from the year. I didn’t see nearly as much as I would have liked due to a plethora of reasons, but I still managed to see plenty I liked.
Piaffe
The Holdovers
All of Us Strangers
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.
John Wick 4
Perfect Days
Fallen Leaves
Waiting for the Light to Change
Falcon Lake
Gitling (Hyphen)
Passengers of the Night
Rookie
You Hurt My Feelings
Suzume
Scrapper
M3GAN
Polite Society
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Chile ‘76
Blackberry
Joy Ride
As If It’s True
Shortcomings
When This is All Over
The Eight Mountains
Loved one of these movies too? Want to yell at me for an egregious omission? Drop a line!