5. “Anatomy Of A Fall”
The winner of Cannes’ Palme d’Or prize earlier this year, French filmmaker Justine Triet’s courtroom drama thriller is worthy of the hype and praise. The film centers on a woman (German actress Sandra Hüller; phenomenal in the movie) suspected of her husband’s murder when falls to his death in their home in the French mountains under mysterious circumstances. Evolving into a courtroom drama when the case goes to trial, their blind son (Milo Machado-Graner) faces a moral dilemma as the main witness (Swann Arlaud is also excellent, co-starring as Hüller’s attorney). Without spoilers, whether Hüller’s character is guilty or not is beside the point. “Anatomy Of A Fall” is both a gripping and provocative legal procedural but also a heartrending and complex look at broken relationships, families, secrets, lies, the mysteries between people in a relationship you’ll never truly understand unless you’re part of them, and the bruising aches of children at the center of martial wreckage. [our review] – RP
4. “Past Lives”
Like a modern-day “Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotlight Mind” (a film it references early on), stripped of all its tricks and laid bare with just all the emotional vulnerability, Celine Song’s “Past Lives” is not only one of the best, most heartbreaking films of the year, but it’s easily the most stunning directorial debut of the year. Based vaguely on elements of Song’s life, the film centers on two South Korean childhood friends separated when one of their parents decides to emigrate to North America, and the film spans a reconnection over 24 years of their lives. Greta Lee and Teo Yoo star as the two adult friends who reconnect, fall in love over Zoom remotely, disconnect regretfully from each other’s lives, and then relink one more time years later when Nora (Lee), is now married (her husband played by John Magaro). So sensitively rendered and observant, so nuanced about the complexities of love, loneliness, and friendship, “Past Lives” is an intimate, deeply wistful, and melancholy portrait of destiny, love, and connected souls that missed their moment but will never forget what they mean to one another. Its final moments will make your heart ache, but the overall effect is magically woozy. [our review]– RP
3. “Oppenheimer”
Two atomic bombs are detonated in Christopher Nolan’s masterful “Oppenheimer” (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) drama, but the only ones that are shown and depict true devastation are the ones of brutal remorse, guilt, and reproach that annihilate the soul of J. Robert Oppenheimer (a flawless Cillian Murphy). Nolan’s film, a sprawling cinematic symphony of magnetic drama, is a thriller about the race against time against the Nazis in WWII to create an atomic weapon, but it’s also a moral thriller about regret and the deadly nature of what brilliant minds can wrought. Told in two modes, the use of color for subjectivity, Oppenheimer’s point of view, and black and white to recall the more objective nature of the past, Nolan crafts an immensely captivating film that’s part biopic, part court-room drama, part thriller, and part moral and human reckoning. Featuring an insane supporting cast, Robert Downey Jr. as the stunningly nuanced standout, but also featuring excellent turns by Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, and Florence Pugh, Nolan proves he can take a human story and turn it into a summer blockbuster of epic emotional scale, just by the sheer will of the supernova of his ambition [our review]. – RP
2. “Poor Things”
Often described as a feminist reimagining of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” while that does fit the bill, it surely cannot encompass all that is Yorgos Lanthimos’ delightfully bizarre, “Poor Things.” Like the warped notes of its score, the Greek “weird wave” filmmaker seemingly detunes and f*cks with the pitch of fairy tale sensibilities. Featuring an outstanding ensemble cast, the perverse black comedy fable is about the fantastical journey of a young woman (an outrageously good Emma Stone) brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist (Willem Dafoe, hilarious) and essentially tracks her evolution from a baby-like imbecile that’s exploited at every turn, by men of course, to her growing sense of autonomy and understanding of the world. Various men purport to have her best interest at heart (Ramy Youssef, Christopher Abbott, and a hysterical Mark Ruffalo), from parental figures to allies and lovers, but one by one, they reveal their true selves and, moreover, seem violently bitter and angry, like petulant children when they realize they cannot control this innocent creature. Along the way, there is much horniness, hilarity, and off-color jokes about sex, control, manipulation, and the self that will make you laugh out loud with spit-takes. “Poor Things” not only has much on its existentialist mind about the self, identity, and who we truly are, but it’s also incredibly audacious at every turn, plus stunning to look at, the cinematography, music, costumes, and other creative aspects worthy of their own soliloquies and sonnets. “Poor Things” is bold, deliciously funny, and takes some really poignant and dark turns, too. Like no other film this year, it’s as enchanting, hilarious, and sobering a picture as you’ll ever see within the confines of one two-hour-and-21-minute utterly brilliantly twisted fairy tale. [our review]. – RP
1. “The Zone of Interest”
Ten years since his last film, British filmmaker Jonathan Glazer (“Under The Skin”), at this point in his career, basically only gives us a film once every decade, but every single one of them proves to be something of a stunning modern masterpiece his exacting deliberate pace is forgiven. His latest is once again of this mold, a towering, chilling statement about human cruelty, complicity, obliviousness, compartmentalization, and denial. His most austere and stripped-down film, the spare drama centers on the commandant of Auschwitz (Christian Friedel) and his wife (Sandra Hüller) striving to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the concentration camp. Never once going into the camp, if Glazer ever editorializes at all, it’s just with sound. The audio of the film is occasionally punctuated by the abstract sounds of composer Mica Levi, but the true soundtrack is really the haunting (but subtle) sounds of the grinding day-to-day industry of Auschwitz; the shouting of Nazi officers, muffled gunshots, occasional distant screams, the hum of the hellscape furnace we’re all too aware ground bodies into dust. “The Zone Of Interest” almost never pushes any of these horrors into the face of the viewer, but it’s the process of imagination and the absence of direct violence that makes the indifference of the nearby families all the more unsettling. Apathy is cold and distant, and Glazer’s film won’t be for all viewers, but it’s truly an evocatively nuanced work that will chill your blood and take your breath away. [our review]. – RP
Honorable Mention
Other films we considered include Bradley Cooper’s formidable “Maestro,” Michael Mann’s “Ferrari,” two more excellent debut films in Raven Jackson’s “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,” and Savanah Leaf‘s “Earth Mama,” Ava DuVernay’s “Origin,” “You Hurt My Feelings” from filmmaker Nicole Holofcener, Pablo Larraín’s vampire drama, “El Conde,” “The Eight Mountains,” Cord Jefferson’s “American Fiction,” “Flora and Son,” “Fair Play,” “How To Blow Up A Pipeline,” “The Royal Hotel,” “Blackberry,” and “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.” All of these films are terrific and worthy of your time. And so for more, you could check out our Best Films Of 2023… So Far list to get a fuller picture of what we loved this year.
We hope you managed to survive this year and had a good one. As always, we appreciate your continued patronage of our site. Here’s to the New Year.
