Here Are The 20 Greatest Films Of 2023 That You Can Watch Right Now:
As I finish this list near the conclusion of 2023, I’ll admit that it was hard for me to make broad statements regarding the year in movies. It could be because I’ve spent so much time in French courts, where convicts have made strong arguments against any idea of logical truth.
Or maybe 2023 has just been a year of stories that don’t match up. For example, Hollywood finally seems to be back to how it was before the plague this year, but it looks like 2023 will end alongside just over half as many movies as 2019.
It seemed like chaos was the only thing that didn’t change this year. Streamers kept changing the way movies were distributed in theaters, and help came from strange places.
It’s not like all the chaos as well as the feeling that affairs are still very much in the commercial phase stopped outstanding films from coming out. Both big companies and cooler, more DIY sellers hit home runs with critics and customers alike.
There were films that made you think of Hollywood’s heyday with its gothic feel and movies that showed that all you need was a phone, some players, and a dream to make something happen.
All of these are different, but they all make us think of how great it is to feel connected to the people who make movies and the people who watch them.
Oppenheimer:
Christopher Nolan’s huge movie about The Man Who was to become the Destroyer of Worlds has a great cast with every third actor having a SAG card, a great sound design that loves both dead quiet and booming booms, and a performance through Cillian Murphy that really pulls you in.
Still, a lot of it works due to how meticulously Nolan, who is one of the few filmmakers whose name is above the title, makes movies. It’s really exciting to see how the director of Inception tries to get inside of the brain of this huge, often hard to understand 20th-century leader, even when the different timelines as well as the pieces start to mix up.
It’s a movie that makes you think of the hard era-spanning epics of the past, like Reds and The Right Stuff. It was also made through adults for adults, but it has the grandiosity and scope that we usually associate with movies for kids and teens.
Therapy Dogs:
The senior year that Ethan Eng writes about within Therapy Dogs is not at all unusual. Eng and the other teens from his small Canadian town are careless, bored, awkward, and full of energy.
For fun, they break into lockers, hang from the tops of cars as they drift through parking lots, as well as climb up a tall water tower. Still, Eng quietly questions the growing manliness of his peers as well as paints a vivid, often thrilling picture of what it’s like to be young now, both in a way that is unique to this time and in a way that is the same as any other time.
Reality:
The play Is This a Room, adapted by Tina Satter, is a scary chamber thriller based on the record of NSA leak Reality Winner’s first questioning and arrest. It has a big idea that is carried out with great technical direction.
Sydney Sweeney leaves the over-the-top acting in Euphoria behind to give a calm, controlled performance that skillfully shows a young woman’s gradual understanding that her life was about to change in a terrible way and for good.
Satter adds some dramatic touches, but the movie stays serious and sad as it shows what happens when you tell the truth to powerful people. Even though truth is starkly shown and small, it feels big and bright, such as a light breaking via a dark complex web of lies and false information.
The Boy And The Heron:
Hayao Miyazaki’s latest and maybe last movie has strange images, creatures that range from cute to creepy, thrills, sadness, space, quiet, and deep emotional currents.
To put it another way, it’s a Miyazaki movie, but this one is especially full of knowledge, unlimited love, and grief. Mahito, a tween, goes to the country with his widowed father right after his mom dies within a hospital fire within Tokyo.
The boy meets a strange and sometimes mean heron who seems to be hiding something while he is still getting used to his new surroundings. You never know, it could just be the key to a secret world where Mahito may begin to deal with his pain.
One character tells our hero a deep truth that sums up not only this possible last movie but also Miyazaki’s whole career: “Creating a world without evil and full of beauty.” If this really is the end, the god of animation is leaving upon a high note.
Waiting For The Light To Change:
Linh Tran’s first movie, which earned the Grand Jury Prize at Slamdance this year, takes place at a lake house in Michigan. It’s winter, and five people in their 20s are on holiday for a week. Some of them are old friends.
The movie is quiet and made up of small stories that are important to those involved within them. Tran, who is very good at blocking, takes it all in with ease and patience, seeing beauty in the fog.
Blue Beetle:
Let all superhero movies be as exciting and fun as Ángel Manuel Soto’s thrilling adventure if we have to have them. Blue Beetle makes a strong political point by seeing development to be a continuation of colonialism’s long and sneaky work.
However, the movie is also full of silly humor and real emotion. Xolo Maridueña is a smart and interesting main character, and Adriana Barraza steals the show as a kind grandmother with secret strength.
Blue Beetle was one of the few superhero movies that managed to combine action and a message well, but it didn’t do well at the box office because it wasn’t promoted well. It’s clear that some companies don’t know when they have something good.
Bottoms:
P.J. as well as Josie are at the bottom of the social order at their high school. Then, by accident, these best friends start an after-school fight club, partly for getting out of a jam as well as partly to meet hot dancers who wouldn’t talk to them otherwise.
Guess which senior is now the most well-liked on campus? Emma Seligman’s next movie is a wild, chaotic raunch comedy powered through overworked libidos, bloody knuckles, as well as pure chaos energy. It comes after her nerve-wracking character study Shiva Baby. It’s a great way to show off a new comic book team and gives Gen Z what they want: Heathers.
Hannah Ha Ha:
Hannah Ha Ha is the low-budget debut movie from Joshua Pikovsky as well as Jordan Tetewsky. Not much occurs in it. Hannah, who is 25 years old and has no plans, works upon the family farm, rides her bike around, and teaches kids how to play the guitar during the summer.
Her eager brother pays a visit and tells her she should aim for more. She is then free to decide what she wants to do with her life.
The film, which was shot through a hazy, artistic filter, makes you smell like a bonfire at night, makes you sweat from the thick New England air, as well as lets you hear the bright chirp of birds in the trees, giving you a very full sensory experience. It’s the kind of movie that stays with you like a personal memory.
Pretty Red Dress:
We’ve seen parts of Dionne Edwards’s film before: a marriage that’s having trouble because of hidden desires; people who try to reach impossible goals but fail. But Pretty Red Dress takes what some might call “clichés” and turns them into something completely new.
Natey Jones as well as former X Factor star Alexandra Burke give a rich performance as a married couple going through a turning point in their relationship. One is fresh out of prison, and the other wants to be an actress on the West End.
The movie Pretty Red Dress is a deep look at manhood and sexuality, but it’s also a very human movie. It lets its characters yearn and dream with all the contradictions and complexity of actual individuals in the real world. Edward’s first full-length movie was one of the year’s secret gems, just waiting to be found in all of its many layers.
You Hurt My Feelings:
In this Upper West Side spoof, directed by Nicole Holofcener and starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, an author overhears her husband complaining about her new book while she is working on it. It’s like Scorsese as well as De Niro, but with fewer deaths.
He’s been telling her lies to make her feel better, but she no longer trusts him. This is a great chance for JLD to show off her skills and for the original Sundance director to make funny, painful, and too funny movies about good people acting badly. I hope they make many more movies together.
Huesera: The Bone Woman:
In the past few years, there have been a lot of pregnancy tales based on Rosemary’s Baby. Some of them question common ideas about motherhood, while others change the story and show a guy with a baby bump.
And out of all of these movies, Huesera, The Bone Woman, the scary first movie by Mexican director Michelle Garza Cervera, might be the best.
Garza Cervera shows the horrible effects on the body and unfair treatment of men and women during pregnancy without being too preachy. Garza Cervera’s story is full of vivid images, strong surrealism, and gripping drama. It is based on Mexican folklore.
Sharper:
The twisty con game by Benjamin Caron is a literary pleasure. This is the kind of movie that doesn’t come out very often these days.
The actors, including Justice Smith, Briana Middleton, Sebastian Stan, as well as a spectacularly shady Julianne Moore, do a great job of balancing the sexy as well as the scary. They tear through the clever writing with style.
Caron is best known in the UK as a TV director. He has a great sense of rhythm as well as a knack for putting things together. Sharper is well-made and classy, yet it does not forget that it’s just a dirty little B-movie at its core.
That’s great! There should be more short, cool movies like this that tell a good story while appearing good, like a lot of streamer-original movies do. As time goes on, I hope that movies like Sharper will be shown in theaters properly again.
