Best Movies of 2023 (Updated)

My annual list-in-progress.

Greg Mitchell, longtime executive editor at the legendary Crawdaddy, has written a dozen books and, since 2022, has directed three films for PBS. Four of his books are on sale this week for just $1.99: Atomic Cover-up, Memorial Day Massacre, Vonnegut & Me, and So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits and the President Failed on Iraq.

Photo by my friend Jim Hamilton

Every year at this time—for most of the past two decades—I have published at a site or blog my Best Movies of the Year list because, why not, everyone else is doing it. But, in late-December, I always add the caveat, that this is based only on films I have seen so far. I watch a lot of films, though more streaming than in theaters in these still-Covidish days, but so many allegedly worthy ones don’t get released until December, for award consideration, so my first list annually always has a bunch of spots that likely will be occupied when I do my final list about a month from now.

So my listings below are separated into several categories, for now. I hope that at least some of my final or even tentative tributes may get you to watch the trailers and check out these fine films. These are all dramas (with one mixed addition), as my Best Documentary list is yet to come (and I should mention a candidate that I directed for PBS, Memorial Day Massacre, watch here, 29 minutes). Don’t forget to subscribe to this newsletter, it is still free.

Certain to Make Ten Best When the Dust Settles (in no order):

Past Lives

Anatomy of a Fall

The Zone of Interest

Fallen Leaves

The Teacher’s Lounge

Revoir Paris

Four Daughters (an incredibly unusual and creative doc with key re-enactments)

American Fiction

Monster

Casta Brava, Lebanon

Not quite Top Ten but in any case worth seeing:

The Holdovers

Rose

Blackberry

The Quiet Girl

Chile ‘76

Scrapper

Flora and Son

How to Blow Up a Pipeline

El Conde

Reality

Fremont

Skies of Lebanon

Other People’s Children

Return to Seoul

Afire

Nyad

All of Us Strangers

Not Yet Seen But Likely or Possible for Top Ten in the end:

The Taste of Things

Disappointing But At Least Half-Good

Oppenheimer

Killers of the Flower Moon

Maestro

May December

Godland

All of Us Strangers

Surprisingly Fun:

Barbie

Dream Scenario

Terribly Overrated:

Showing Up

Asteroid City

You Hurt My Feelings

Priscilla

Royal Hotel

Not Yet Seen But Should Be Good

Passages

Tori & Lokita

Poor Things

Totem

The Boy and the Heron

The Blue Caftan

R.M.N.