A volatile year for the entertainment industry (and… the world) is coming to a close. Two labor strikes, franchise fatigue, Barbenheimer, and too many (increasingly expensive) streaming services to keep track of. Yet despite shifting release calendars spurned by a vast work stoppage, 2023 gave us no shortage of viewing options in the end. So the SAGindie staff has combed through our watch histories to excavate our favorites of the year. And yes, even though we try to stay up on what’s fresh and new, we even made time for some non-2023 releases that we watched for the first time this year. Take a look at the titles that made our FAVORITE FILMS OF 2023.
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Darrien’s Favorites:
Favorite Movies of 2023:
- Origin
- Saltburn
- Barbie
- American Fiction
- Past Lives
- Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
- All of Us Strangers
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Eliza’s Favorites:
- All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
- Anatomy of a Fall
- Barbie
- Birth/Rebirth
- Bottoms
- Fallen Leaves
- How to Blow Up a Pipeline
- Kokomo City
- M3GAN
- Passages
- Past Lives
- Please Baby Please
- Talk to Me
- The Becomers
- The Starling Girl
- Theater Camp
- The Zone of Interest
New to Me!:
- All That Heaven Allows
- Crash
- Loves of a Blonde
- Millennium Mambo
- Oldboy
- The Cassandra Cat
- The Conformist
- Tokyo Drifter
Colin’s Favorites:
Favorite Movies of 2023:
- The Holdovers – Easy #1. An instant classic for me
- Past Lives
- Biosphere
- Bottoms
- Anatomy of a Fall
- A Thousand and One
- Theater Camp
- Passages
- Saltburn
- Oppenheimer / Barbie – These films are forever tied, so why split them up here?
Favorite Old-But-New-to-Me-in-2023 Movies:
Shefali’s Favorites:
Here are my top films of 2023!:
- Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani – One of my favorite Bollywood films since Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham!
- Polite Society – Breakout performance from Priya Kansara, but also society needs Nimra Bucha in every film.
- Past Lives – “You dream in a language I can’t understand.” Upset this film wasn’t longer.
- Rye Lane – Brilliant chemistry and I loved the cinematography and exploration of South London.
- Shortcomings – When I realized we’re supposed to hate Justin Min’s character I really enjoyed this film.
- Bottoms – Ayo’s monologue in the car.
- Talk to Me – Sophia Wilde’s performance alone kept me up at night.
- Best Underrated Film: It Lives Inside – Great modern retelling of a Pishacha folktale!
- Best Anarchist Film: How to Blow Up a Pipeline
- My Favorite Blockbusters: Barbie, The Little Mermaid, Elemental
- Most Avant Garde: Poor Things, Rotting in the Sun, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
- Favorite Animated Film: Nimona
- Most Inspiring Film: Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV
Old (but new to me!):
- Crimson Peak – I should’ve known the demons wouldn’t be the real villains in a Guillermo Del Toro film.
- The Others – I support women’s wrongs and delusions.
- Halloween: H20
Michael’s Favorites:
My absolute top favorites of 2023 (so far) are Barbie and The Zone of Interest. Both are impeccable instant classics and I’ll eventually buy them on (hopefully Criterion) BluRay and study them because “I’m a nerd, Harvey.”
Runners up (so far) are:
- Anatomy of a Fall
- El Conde
- Fallen Leaves
- Killers of the Flower Moon
- Maestro
- Oppenheimer
- Passages
- Poor Things
- Rotting in the Sun
- Showing Up
- The Teachers’ Lounge
Among the older movies I watched for the first time in 2023, my top favorites are:
- California Split (1974, Robert Altman)
- The Doom Generation (1995/2023 Director’s Cut, Gregg Araki)
- Men (2022, Alex Garland)
- Nasty Baby (2015, Sebastián Silva)
- Vampyr (1932, Carl Dreyer)
WHAT WERE YOUR FAVORITE MOVIES OF 2023?
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