All right, I can delay it no longer, it's time to get some ranking done. As usual, there are many movies I still want to see, perhaps most notably Poor Things, but I live in Japan and it doesn't come out here until the end of January. I suppose I'll plug it into the appropriate spot at some point.
I'm doing something a little different this year. Usually I rank all the movies I saw in one big list, from worst to best. That's how I've been doing it for about ten years or so. Before that, I made more traditional top ten lists. This year, I think I'll try going back to that format. I've made a Ten Worst and a Ten Best list. In between, I've put runners up and movies I've decided don't warrant a ranking for various reasons.
Bear in mind, for the Ten Worst list, I haven't seen The Marvels because I heard it was terrible, and I hated Captain Marvel and was indifferent to Monica Rambeaux.
Ten Worst Movies of 2023
10. Ant-Man and the Wasp in Quantumania(Wikipedia entry, my review)
You know, Michelle Pfeiffer was really good in this movie. I liked Bill Murray's cameo and some of the monster designs were cool. It's a shame about the terrible screenplay and the even worse studio tampering.
9. Napoleon(Wikipedia entry, my review)
Ridley Scott made a movie about how a man became emperor on his charming personality alone and he hired Joaquin Phoenix to play him like he played the off-putting and creepy Arthur Fleck. Oops.
8. Leave the World Behind(Wikipedia entry, my review)
Few things are quite so dumb as a dumb movie that thinks its brilliant. Leave the World Behind demonstrates how easy it is to manufacture conflict among characters who are all stereotypes. Maybe this is the new commedia dell'arte.
7. They Cloned Tyrone(Wikipedia entry, my review)
Here's another movie that thought it was being brilliantly progressive, but this was an even lazier, more egregious indulgence in stereotypes.
6. Elemental(Wikipedia entry, my review)
Zootopia sure made it look easy but it turns out you do need more than a high concept to make a good movie.
5. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny(Wikipedia entry, my review)
The director of Kate and Leopold saw Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and evidently thought, "This franchise needs more cgi. Also, a belligerent woman needs to physically abuse an elderly Indiana Jones because he's too stupid to know what's good for him."
4. M3GAN(Wikipedia entry, my review) If you've seen the original Child's Play, you've seen a superior version of M3GAN, and Child's Play is by no means a masterpiece.
3. Wonka(Wikipedia entry, my review)
I truly believe an AI was involved in writing this soulless dollop of crap. Maybe the screenwriter ran it through a programme on the sly, I don't know. I just prefer to believe no human being would be responsible for something this devoid of emotion.
2. Barbie(Wikipedia entry, my review)
Pink is the colour of Pepto Bismol and you might need some after choking down this hackneyed chunk of simplistic, corporate memo feminism.
1. Haunted Mansion(Wikipedia entry, my review)
I am a sucker for haunted house movies but not that much of a sucker. Here we have ghosts without menace, editing without instinct, and characters without souls. So I guess they don't have to worry about the afterlife.
Unranked Additional Movies I Saw This Year
二十歳に還りたい (web site)
No Hard Feelings (Wikipedia entry, my review)
Godzilla Minus One (Wikipedia entry, my review)
Evil Dead Rise (Wikipedia entry, my review)
Boston Strangler (Wikipedia entry, my review)
The Flash (Wikipedia entry, my review)
Ballerina (Wikipedia entry, my review)
Runners Up
14. The Super Mario Brothers Movie (Wikipedia entry, my review)
13. Hypnotic (Wikipedia entry, my review)
12. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Wikipedia entry, my review)
11. John Wick: Chapter 4 (Wikipedia entry)
Ten Best Movies of 2023
10. Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Among Thieves (Wikipedia entry, my review)
I still wish they'd make a Dragonlance movie and something less meta, but this one felt like it had genuine heart. The characters have problems you care about and they're played with real charm and integrity, particularly by Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, and Hugh Grant. Praise the gods for small favours.
9. Asteroid City (Wikipedia entry, my review)
It's not one of Wes Anderson's most impressive or meaningful films but it has a wonderful aesthetic and it's always nice to visit Anderson's deadpan, sincere retro universe.
8. Thanksgiving (Wikipedia entry, my review)
This was a satisfying meal with some real holiday cheer in the form of dark, bloody humour and a genuinely engaging mystery.
7. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (Wikipedia entry, my review)
It's yet another iteration/reboot of the Ninja Turtles franchise but this time someone had the bright idea to make it like a real movie. The teenagers are written like the screenwriters actually thought about what it was like to be a teenager, the animation is terrific, and everyone feels alive in a way characters don't tend to in franchise fare these days.
6. Master Gardener (Wikipedia entry, my review)
Paul Schrader's throwback to the revenge, Searchers inspired movies of the '70s is a fascinating continuation of that particular conversation about human nature. What is the value of human life, what is the value of violence? Also, Sigourney Weaver has jellyfish wallpaper.
5. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (Wikipedia entry, my review)
James Gunn's cocktail of space weirdness and a found family helping each other get through a life of brutal trauma is at its most potent in the third volume of his Guardians of the Galaxy films. He's definitely leaving on a high note and delivered the best Marvel movie in years (I know, there's not much competition, but still).
4. Killers of the Flower Moon (Wikipedia entry, my review)
Scorsese delivered a fascinating rumination on human frailty and human corruption with this masterfully crafted film. Just like Henry Hill in Goodfellas laid out the appeal of the mafia lifestyle, Scorsese with Flower Moon shows just how insidiously corruption can take root in a community.
3. Perfect Days (Wikipedia entry, my review)
Wim Wenders' latest film is both an admiring portrait of zen-like acceptance as well as a criticism of it. Altogether, it's an excellent modern example of mono no aware and an incredibly poetic exhibition of how the human heart will always need more than it can get in life.
2. Oppenheimer (Wikipedia entry, my review)
Christopher Nolan has made an ingenious sequence of cinema with this movie, this three hour movie that goes down smooth as finely aged whiskey. Every link in the chain of this non-linear narrative flows smoothly into the next; purely as an example of technical expertise it's a wonder to behold. The story, too, is brilliant: the story about how the unpredictable, or all too predictable, interweaving of human interests--of love, jealousy, ambition, and patriotism--can have consequences equal to the highest levels of achievement and the lowest depths of human dread.
1. The Boy and the Heron (君たちはどう生きるか) (Wikipedia entry, my review)
The courage director Miyazaki Hayao had in making this movie is manifold. It took courage to make this kind of statement in Japan's current political climate, and it took courage to make an intellectually and aesthetically challenging movie in a Japanese film industry that mostly clings to producing empty fluff. It takes guts now just to make something this beautifully weird.
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