Top movies of 2023: My runners-up

Don't call them 'lesser than'

Like I said last week, it was a good year for movies. My top 10 list is full of movies I deeply love. But, as always, it was not an easy 10 to pick. Several films that flirted with the top spot drifted down to the back half of the list as the year wrapped up, and there were several movies I fought to keep on the list that, due to the amount of great movies I saw, just had to be cut. 

But, one of the perks of having my own platform is that I don’t have to stop at 10. And so, here is my list of 10 runners up. And don’t mistake runners up to mean “lesser than.” Several of these films were entrenched in the top half of my top 10 list throughout the year, and it’s only the vagaries and silliness of sorting through and ranking art that kept them off. But all of them are movies I enjoy quite a bit. 

I’m going to have one more list this week, a best-of non-movie things releasing Friday. But enjoy this list of 10 films that just missed my top list for this year. 

May December 

Todd Haynes’ latest takes a bit of sensationalism and finds the complex people behind the tabloids. Julianne Moore and Charles Melton create a complex relationship dynamic as a husband and wife whose marriage began under illicit circumstances and whose lack of self-awareness and willingness to discuss the past has caused cracks to form. Natalie Portman gives one of her best performances in year as the actress who reveals those fissures under the guise of authenticity. Told through a filter of camp and containing some of the year’s best performances, this is one of the best composed films of 2023. 

You Hurt My Feelings

This was a very late cut from my top 10 list. I wanted to hold on to the new Nicole Holofcener comedy for as long as I could, perhaps to argue that a low-stakes, seemingly minor comedy should stand alongside the best of the year. While I eventually had to cut it, I feel no less strongly about this perceptive and funny film. Reuniting with her Enough Said star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Holofcener delivers a smart and insightful look at marriage, the truth and how we deal with failure. It’s low key, but it’s a charmer. 

BlackBerry

This was the year in which Hollywood seemed to run out of IP and said “well, why don’t we just tell stories about brands?” And some of them were quite good; Ben Affleck’s Air just missed my runners up list, but I think it’s a very enjoyable ensemble comedy. BlackBerry is the ideal approach to this material, paying homage to the technical and business acumen that helped create the pre-iPhone mobile device that once dominated our culture, as well as showing how the same compromises and stubbornness that made the company so successful also led to its downfall. Tense, smart and blisteringly funny, it features Glenn Howerton at his profane best in a supporting role and a solid Jay Baruchel in the lead. Another that I tried to hold onto on the main list for as long as possible. 

How to Blow Up a Pipeline

Probably the only title on this list in which Googling it could land you on an FBI watch list. Daniel Goldhaber’s film is a riveting, of-the-moment thriller focused on a group of ecoterrorists intent on destroying a West Texas oil pipeline. A caper infused with provocative questions about our responses to climate change and what type of action will really bring change, the film is suspenseful and masterfully constructed, with a cast of characters revealed to be deeper and more complex than you might imagine. Perhaps the best no-budget movie of the year. 

The Iron Claw 

If A24 puts some decent marketing muscle behind this, I could see it being a surprise moneymaker, because it’s easily the film people have asked me about the most in the past month. I knew nothing about the Von Erich family of wrestlers going into this movie, and found Sean Durkin’s drama to be a surprisingly emotional affair. Zac Efron will get the majority of the attention as the bulked-up focus of the movie – and he’s really good! But viewers shouldn’t overlook Holt McCallany as the patriarch whose resentments and frustrations put a burden on his children that leads to a cycle of family tragedy. It’s a heartbreaker of a movie, and wrestling fans will love the attention paid to the craft. I’ll have more to say closer to release. 

The Killer

As I said in the recent episode of We’re Watching Here, I was initially a bit cooler on David Fincher’s latest. I expected bombast and big statements. What I got, instead, was a pulpy look at an assassin (Michael Fassbender) trying to clean up his own messes. But The Killer has rattled around in my head for the better part of a month, and I really want to revisit it, as I think there’s depth I didn’t appreciate the first time around. Fincher’s wry, suspenseful thriller seems to be a self-examination of his own perfectionist tendencies, and the constant parade of real-life branding a commentary on a culture where everything is for sale and technology seems made to enable sociopaths. All told with Fincher’s perfect style, a lead performance and a scene-stealing cameo from Tilda Swinton. I have a feeling this one will rise in estimation with time. 

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

In 2018, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse rocketed to my #1 spot, and it was a film I eventually listed as among the 10 best of the last decade. Don’t mistake its sequel’s placement on a runners up list to imply disappointment or a dip in quality. If anything, Across the Spider-Verse is even more visually overwhelming and audacious than its predecessor, stretching the bounds of what’s possible in animation. And I love how it advances the story of both Miles and Gwen. These gems are pushing the tired superhero genre forward in ways their live-action counterparts seem unable to, and I think this one could rise even higher in my view if they stick the landing on the third. But these are special movies. 

American Fiction 

Cord Jefferson’s debut is a whip-smart and often blisteringly funny look at white liberal guilt, racism in the publishing industry, and the line between authenticity and exploitation. It’s also a warm and sometimes touching family drama, held down by Jeffrey Wright in the lead performance he’s deserved for a long time. It’s a film that made me laugh harder than most out-and-out comedies this year, and I think it has some potent ideas, even if it seems to lose the thread in its final 10 minutes and settle for a punchline instead of truth. But whatever its faults, it’s marked Jefferson as a director to keep our eyes on.  

The Mission

In Evangelical culture, few people are as highly revered as missionaries, and I grew up in a culture that told me the most noble life was one that threw American comforts to the wind and risked everything to tell others about Jesus. I still believe that, and I could identify with subject John Chau, who died at a young age trying to reach an off-limits tribe off the coast of India. But at nearly 45, I think I’m a bit more aware of the more problematic approaches to missionary work – including how it’s been used as a tool by colonizers and the temptation to turn a calling into a personal (and Instagram-ready) adventure. Was Chau well-intentioned, or self-absorbed and foolish? The film tries to wrap its arms around it but, given that he’s since passed, we can’t really make a determination. But I appreciate that it starts a conversation about the tension between Christian passion and Christian arrogance, and also allows National Geographic to address its own complicitness in romanticizing and othering different cultures. I’d really like to write a bit more on this one in the coming months; you can currently stream it on Disney+. 

Asteroid City 

Do I take Wes Anderson for granted? It seems like every time one of his films comes out, I yawn and think “been there, done that,” only to eventually get around to it and be reminded that he’s actually really, really good at this. His latest big ensemble piece is another of his nesting doll stories, and maybe his most elaborate, and it often feels like his most personal exploration of why he does what he does. It has maybe his finest cast yet and some of his most perfectly crafted moments, and just when it appears that maybe it doesn’t all make sense, he has Adrien Brody deliver the movie’s theme in a way that lands with maybe the biggest emotional wallop of his career. Few directors explore and deepen their style like Anderson; I’ll be sure not to underestimate him again.