The 70 Best Movies of 2023/2024
The Oscars are often clueless to the world's greatest movies. Give me your eyes as we journey from the USA to Japan, art to action, from indies to blockbuster.
'Past Lives' takes the top spot, with strong competition from 'The Eight Mountains' and ‘The Teacher’s Lounge’. ‘The Artifice Girl’ is the thought-provocative indie of the year, a nose-snubbing to ‘John Wick 4’ and his boring teen friends.
9 of the top 10 movies on this list have collectively won 228 international awards (and will add more). None are from the USA. None called ‘Barbie’.
Although I make a point regarding the Hollywood tripe/hype political machine, the caveat is ‘Oppenheimer’. It may not be the big warning it could’ve been, but it’s a perfect biopic. Director Christopher Nolan has made 12 great movies consecutively, a record in my opinion.
Opposing my penchant for intellectual seriousness is ‘The Persian Version’, a rollicking family comedy that will make you feel good (and hopefully make you love Iranian Americans).
RANKING THE 70 BEST MOVIES OF 2023
Note that the links below take you to the trailers.
Past Lives (USA-Korean drama romance)
The Teachers' Lounge (Germany school drama)
The Taste of Things (France historical chef romance)
The Eight Mountains (Belgium set Italy friendship drama)
Next Sohee (Korea drama thriller)
Perfect Days (Germany set Japan slow & profound drama)
Close (Belgium school child friendship drama)
Trenque Lauquen (Argentina absurdist wanderlust art romance)
Housekeeping for Beginners (Macedonia-Australia family drama)
Inshallah a Boy (Jordan female oppression drama)
The Persian Version (USA-Iran immigrant family comedy)
The Zone of Interest (Germany set Poland)
Anatomy of a Fall (France family crime drama)
Oppenheimer (USA biopic)
The Artifice Girl (USA philosophical indie sci-fi drama)
Poor Things (My Fair Lady meets Frankenstein)
Fallen Leaves (Finland dramedy)
About Dry Grasses (Turkey teacher drama)
Return to Seoul (France set Korea identity drama)
Green Border (Poland immigrant drama thriller)
Bad Lands (Japan crime drama)
The Breaking Ice (Singapore set Korea romance ennui drama)
Upon Entry (Spain-USA immigration drama thriller)
A Thousand and One (USA family poverty drama)
Sanctuary (USA psychological dialogue drama)
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret? (USA tweenager comedy)
The Promised Land (Denmark historical drama)
Society of the Snow (Chile-Uruguay survival biopic)
Creation of the Gods I - Kingdom of Storms (China fantasy)
Linoleum (USA heartfelt family sci-fi)
The Worst Ones (France child drama)
Cairo Conspiracy (Sweden scene Egypt religious thriller)
The Five Devils (France fantasy drama)
Monster (Japan family school drama)
I Work at the Cemetery (Ukraine grief comedy)
The Crime is Mine (France classic crime comedy)
All Of Us Strangers (USA grief loneliness drama)
Monolith (USA indie dialogue sci-fi mystery)
I Saw The TV Glow (USA mindfuck identity fantasy drama)
May December (USA crime drama biopic)
The Holdovers (USA dramedy)
Small Body (Italy grief drama)
Radical (Mexico teacher/child poverty drama)
Asteroid City (USA whacky and intelligent dramedy)
Captain Volkonogov Escaped (Russia pre-WW2 drama thriller)
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (USA poetic memory drama)
Divinity (USA indie sci-fi thriller)
Partygate (UK covid biopic)
Molli and Max in the Future (US indie sci-fi romcom)
The Killer (USA action drama)
20,000 Species of Bees (Spain child drama 2023)
La Chimera (Italy adventure drama)
Pamfir (Ukraine Carpathian family crime corruption drama)
Cobweb a.k.a. Geomijip (Korea arthouse mystery drama)
The Monk and the Gun (Bhutan democracy dramedy)
Full River Red (China conspiracy dramedy)
Close Your Eyes (Spain art grief drama)
Bottoms (USA comedy)
The Alien Report (USA indie sci-fi thriller)
You Hurt My Feelings (USA couples dramedy)
The Old Oak (UK inequality and immigrant drama)
The Son (family depression art drama)
Femme (UK identity drama thriller)
Saltburn (UK mystery drama)
A Million Miles (USA-Mexico astronaut biopic)
Reality (USA biopic)
The Settlers (Chile colonialism Western drama)
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (fantasy depression drama)
I Like Movies (USA indie loser dramedy)
The Eternal Daughter (art drama)
WICKED MOVIE AWARDS
Best Movie: ‘Past Lives’
Best Action: ‘Bad Lands’
Best Comedy: ‘The Persian Version’
Best Crime: ‘Anatomy of a Fall’
Best Dialogue: ‘Upon Entry’
Best Family: ‘Radical’
Best Fantasy: ‘Creation of the Gods I - Kingdom of Storms’
Best Horror: ‘Divinity’
Best Indie: ‘The Artifice Girl’
Best Romance: ‘Past Lives’
Best Sci-Fi: ‘The Artifice Girl’
and
Most Inspiring: ‘A Million Miles Away’
Most Infuriating: ‘Partygate’
Most Interesting Character: Neri Hashioka in ‘Bad Lands’ (played by Japan’s Sakura Ando)
Most Frustrating Character: Samet in ‘About Dry Leaves’ (played by Deniz Celiloğlu)
Most Memorable Scene: The bathtub lick in ‘Saltburn’
and
Best Child Actor: Eden Dambrine (‘Close')
Best Child Actress: Abby Ryder Fortson (‘Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret?’)
Best Actors: Joaquinn Phoenix (‘Beau is Afraid’) and Leonardo DiCaprio (‘Killers of the Flower Moon’)
Best Actresses: Leonie Benesch ('The Teachers' Lounge') & Kim Si-Eun I (‘Next Sohee’) & Tilda Swinton (‘The Eternal Daughter’)
WICKED WORDS
So many good movies with some of the best being (thankfully) uncomfortable and thus more exclusive. It was hard choosing my #1 but-
'Past Lives' sucker-punched me into the feeling the pain of long-ago loves that I thought had healed. For a movie to be so elegant and simultaneously a knife requires great direction, so it's exceptional that it's Celine Song's directorial debut. Testimony to an unfair industry is that Greta Lee, the 40-year-old lead, now has a chance at stardom. She may appear in 'The Morning Show' and 'Russian Doll' TV series but her only other movie lead was in 'Fits and Starts'(2017) which I'm now eager to view. She'll co-star with Jared Leto in 'Tron: Ares' but that's only scheduled for release in 2025.
'The Eight Mountains' is one of the best friendship movies that mixes growing pains and the challenges of adulthood. That a cabin atop a mountain is central to the story means great cinematography taking the movie to greater heights. Belgian director Felix Groeningen has now made two exceptional movies in a row, the other being 'Broken Circle Breakdown'. He becomes one of the few directors I'd call "Master".
'The Teachers' Lounge' is topical. It offers lessons in how hard it is to be an educator, and the sociology of a school's 'adults'. Leonie Benesch is the star, and she jumps between concern, frustration, and paranoia with remarkable skill. And the character she plays is my dream teacher. The movie ranks with the best in the setting, from Canada's 'Monsieur Lazhar' (2011) to Belgium's 'Playground' (2021) and ‘Close’ (2023).
As ‘Teacher’s’ is important, warning of a societal problem endemic to our generation, so is ‘Next Sohee’ which exposes modern day slavery in the corporate culture that rules South Korea. And those movies gave me my favourite actresses of the year.
"Money doesn't make you happy but it's still better to cry in a car than in a subway." I'd understand someone choosing 'Anatomy of a Fall' as their movie of the year because it's impressive, more than a court room drama. Superb acting from the lead actress and her prosecutor as they unravel the breakdown of a marriage.
‘Next Sohee’ is about being a teenager with dreams that are crushed by your school and your government working for corporations. Corporatised society is a global problem, and Korea, like Japan, is a forerunner into hell. Considering the power its challenging, this is a brave movie.
Director Agnieszka Holland has done for immigrants what she did for Jews hiding from the Nazi's in her award-winning 'In Darkness' (2011). 'Green Border' expresses the hell of being a pawn in a political game between Polish and Belarusian border guards. It's topical, tragic and powerful.
The above movies won many awards because the world is thankfully not the Oscars nor the Golden Globes. But that doesn't mean that we should forget those with small budgets and big story lines. 'The Artifice Girl' is that beautiful creature, the most pertinent to our tech era, and my favourite indie.
Comedy is often dumb or predictable so this year’s a pleasant exception for originality. 'The Persian Version’, 'Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret?' and 'Bottoms' are hilarious and heartwarming. If you prefer your humour dry, there's the quirky 'I Work at the Cemetery (Ukraine grief comedy), the excellently acted 'The Holdovers', and intellectual story-within-a-story 'Asteroid City'. It's fascinating to watch how they built the set for the latter.
Talking of actresses, my favourite from Hong Kong is Dongyu Zhou (most well known for the school bully drama ‘Better Days’). She teamed up for my favourite Singaporean director, Anthony Chen (‘Ilo Ilo’), and they shot ‘The Breaking Ice’ in Korea. It’s art house, but painfully close for those of us who sometimes suffer from ennui, the French word for “a feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or boredom, also known as pathos le petit mort.
THOSE THAT ALMOST MADE IT
I’ve a teddy bear soft spot for movies that don’t get enough advertising, especially indies. Those that likely won’t get much attention BUT SHOULD BE SEEN include ‘Brooklyn 45’ (USA dialogue mystery thriller), ‘ghosts Molli and Max in the Future (indie sci-fi romcom 2023 - debut Dir Michael Lukk Litwak)‘Eileen’ (USA drama thriller), ‘Jules’ (light-hearted sci-fi drama), ‘Susie Searches’ (quirky murder mystery), Earth Mama (USA poverty motherhood drama) and ‘Moon Garden’, (surreal toddler fantasy). For a feel good vibe, you can’t go wrong with ‘Self Reliance’ (comedy).
Some of my favourite low-cost productions had a sci-connection, showed a lot of initiative, and kept my brain spinning. The black cream of the pack was Eddie Alcazar's 'Divinity' which he wrote and directed. It's an erotic art horror that began with my confusion but ended with the birth of my tentacled enlightenment. Other notables were 'The Alien Report' and 'Holes In The Sky - The Sean Miller Story'. 'The Outwaters', a low budget found footage horror revived the genre, and was slow, then mysterious, and eventually horrifying. Off the beaten path, ‘Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls’ was hilariously screwball. ‘When Evil Lurks’, from Argentina, was chilling. ‘Suitable Flesh’ gave a new spin on bodysnatching.
An excellent genre trope was ‘Talk to Me’, and the mysterious ‘Knock at the Cabin’ was mysterious until the end. More thrilling than scary, but well worth seeing, is the apocalyptic drama, ‘Leave the World Behind’. They’d make a great triple-billing for a weekend sleepover.
'No One Will Save You' may seem to be formulaic - human fights alien - but the ending is weirdly special, and retains me as an admirer of Brian Duffield who gave us ‘Spontaneous’ and 'Monsters' (both classics, and better than his fame with the Star Wars series). Plus Kaitlyn Dever is a great actress (‘Unbelievable’ and ‘Booksmart’).
For those seeking brain rabbit holes, there's 'Beau is Afraid', and 'Fuzzyhead'. They're for the art crowd but feature amazing acting by, respectively, Joaquinn Phoenix and Wendy McColm. McColm was a wonderful discovery, and I spent an afternoon enjoying the short movies she's directed (and often acted in) in the long build-up to her feature.
‘Boston Stranglers’, a serial killer biopic, was underrated, probably because it focused on the drama instead of screaming women. The protest drama ’How to Blow Up a Pipeline’ was smartly understated for the reality affect. ‘The Iron Claw’ wrestling family biopic had a great ensemble cast that went to the extreme to make their roles realistic. ‘The Royal Hotel’ did a good job in the misogynist Australia outback.
I excluded Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning (Part 1), ‘Guardians of the Galaxy 3’, and ‘Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Amongst Thieves’ even though they were excellent in the moment. The problem is that, months later, I don’t remember them emotionally and wouldn’t be able to tell you the plot. Sure, I’ve forgotten story lines of good movies too, but not the mood, or the desire to rewatch a decade later. Emotionally, most modern action movies don’t bond with me. They’re not ‘Die Hard’, 'Leon the Professional', or 'V is for Vendetta'. None are as thought provocative as 'Inception', 'Interstellar' and 'Natural Born Killers', or made me cheer for the lead as I did in 'Gladiator', 'Braveheart' and 'Pitch Black'.
Worse are franchises like ‘John Wick’. It makes me think that boys have grown into men who are still boys. This is the gaming generation stuck in a franchise loop, expecting quick fixes instead of building cultural memory. And those profiting off them aim to keep them immature.
That doesn’t mean that there aren’t notables that should be pointed out if only for being beneath the radar. For bombs, bullets, stabs and kicks, the best revenge movie this year is 'Sisu'. It doesn't pretend to be anything else yet it’s artistically mesmerising. In the Western genre, ‘Terror on the Prairie’ was a solid shoot-‘em-up, so don’t stereotype its title.
I’m more gentle in my opinion of foreign action movies because they don’t have Hollywood budgets. 'Mira' was the sci-fi blockbuster for Russia. It's Chinese counterpart is 'The Wandering Earth II'. Although they're not top dogs, they were fun, and it was fascinating to see how much their industries have developed.
At least David Fincher’s ‘Killer’ was stylish, more a drama, and I loved the monologue. Consequently, it made my list. It may not be as memorable as his previous masterpieces - 'Se7en', and 'The Game' - but Fincher has never let me down.
Biopic wise, extra mention to the crowdpleasing ‘Nyad'. It may have missed my list but deserves mention as the leads are the always lovely Jodie Foster and Annette Bening, two greats we rarely see.
CAVEAT
I’m never going to be in the mood for a sing-along with ‘Wonka’ and the oompa loompas!
Catch the Best Documentaries of 2023/2024.
