60. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Punishingly loud and nauseatingly frenzied, James Gunn’s long-awaited trilogy capper is emblematic of Marvel Studios’ mounting struggles of late. Rather than celebrating its motley crew of beloved heroes, Vol. 3 shouts and sprints through its every movement, completely sidelining the quirky characters it’s ostensibly designed to champion.

59. Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie

Movies geared towards audiences aged seven and younger don’t often get the big screen treatment, which makes grading The Mighty Movie against everything else from the year a fool’s gambit, but did this have to be so craven? Toy commercials needn’t be 90 minutes long.

58. The Little Mermaid

Overlong and dim in every sense of the word, Disney’s latest live-action remake of an animated classic fails once again to make an argument for its own existence. Plundering the original for all its best songs and moments, it lives in an ugly liminal space wherein commerce insincerely cosplays as art.

57. Skinamarink

Smug and snoozy in equal measure, Kyle Edward Ball’s micro-budgeted directorial debut seeks to frighten with eerie atmosphere and endless anticipation, but the realization that nothing tangible is coming arrives far too early in the runtime. Less can be more, but nothing can’t be something.

56. Cocaine Bear

Why, exactly, Cocaine Bear is so determined to resemble a real movie is one of the year’s greatest cinematic mysteries. Complete with character arches, plot reversals, and a dedication to the late Ray Liotta, director Elizabeth Banks undercuts the flick’s Bad Movie Night potential by making it just good enough to realize how truly terrible it is.

55. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

A half-decent 100 minute movie gets the two-and-a-half-hour treatment, dedicating a third act entirely to the development of characters that are all but impossible to invest in. Viola Davis’ wild vamping can be fun, but also clarifies the movie’s cash-grab existence.

54. American Fiction

A character study without fully-drawn characters and a satire that copy-pastes real life without further comment, American Fiction arrived in theaters at least 10 years after any of its commentary was less than obvious, and probably closer to 20. Jeffery Wright is great as always, but this one feels aimed directly at an audience that will tacitly agree with its observations and then immediately move on.

53. Wish

The first movie to cross the Mendoza line of quality on this list, Wish isn’t bad so much as glaringly underbaked. The songs are great, and the animation has moments of true brilliance, but there’s not nearly enough story to anchor a feature film, and attempting to wend together Disney’s entire stable of classics, MCU-style, is misguided at best.

52. Oppenheimer

It’s certainly ungenerous to have such a lavishly mounted production this low on the list, but I can only speak my truth. Aaron Sorkin karaoke has been done better, female characters have seldom been done worse, and Nolan’s obvious self-identification with J. Robert Oppenheimer as a misunderstood genius is egomaniacal. Thousands upon thousands of people died; how are we spending the last hour on this guy’s security clearance?!?

51. Sick

Cynically exploiting a sense of quasi-nostalgia for the early days of Covid, Director John Hyams nonetheless gets to show off some real technical chops in the slasher genre, even if his work with actors leaves something to be desired. The twist is clever enough, but here’s hoping he gets a better screenplay next time.

50. M3GAN

Casting a game Allison Williams as the world’s most brilliant engineer might not be funny enough to be worth an entire feature film, but it’ll get you through the first hour. Pair that with a slew of silly thrills and kills from a demonic robot doll, and you’ve got some tasty cinematic junk food. It just loses steam in the home stretch.

49. You Hurt My Feelings

One of the year’s greatest elevator pitches (an author spirals after overhearing her husband’s blistering review of the novel she’s working on) has some winsome performances and strong laugh lines, but is undercut by the omnipresent feeling of punching down. It’s hard to invest in characters when the movie itself seems so dismissive of their struggles.

48. Knock at the Cabin

Perhaps M. Night Shyamalan’s most exquisitely molded film in over a decade, there’s no doubting Knock as a piece of craft and tension, but you’d be forgiven for wishing there was a little more ‘why’ to go along with all that ‘how.’ Its mean spirit can be exhilarating, but there’s precious little to hold on to in the end.

47. Talk to Me

Despite some solid filmmaking from the Philippou brothers, there’s an unmistakable feeling in the year’s big horror darling that we’ve seen this all before. From the nature of the jump scares to the over-reliance on familial trauma, there’s hardly an original bone in its embalmed hand.

46. El Conde

Pablo Larraín has never been interested in either subtlety or subtext, and while authoritarian cruelty isn’t really an issue that demands either, El Conde feels a bit cramped after making its initial arguments. Reenvisioning Augusto Pinochet as a deathless vampire is certainly inspired, and the 1930’s monster movie cinematography is gorgeous, but there’s not much to consider beyond simple agreement.

45. No Hard Feelings

Cozy as it is to be reunited with a genre that’s largely gone dormant, this sex rom com is neither raunchy nor funny enough to leave much of an impression. The sturdy performances from both Jennifer Lawrence and newcomer Andrew Barth Feldman deserved a script with a little more bravery or juice.

44. Ferrari

Cars go fast, and it is good, though Michael Mann’s first film in about a decade feels a bit listless when it’s not on the racetrack, suffering from some truly bizarre miscasting. For a movie whose action sequences and closing act cause such a stir, it’s curiously inert for long stretches.

43. Huesera: The Bone Woman

This Spanish frightener about a young woman whose pregnancy isn’t exactly going to plan cooks up plenty of intrigue and dread in its first hour, but feels oddly unresolved by the time the credits roll. It’s wise to leave a horror audience with something to chew on (as well as a twisted feeling in the stomach), but the dots here are difficult to connect.

42. Maestro

What otherwise plays as a by-the-numbers biopic of a great man gets a shot in the arm thanks to metatextual wonderings about what, exactly, is going on with Bradley Cooper. He’s certainly got chops behind the camera, and is quickly emerging as one of the most delightful over-actors of his generation, but the constant strain for greatness can be annoying as often as it’s enveloping.

41. Mission-Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1

The year’s most hilariously elongated title gets the bloated runtime it deserves, and while Tom Cruise’s mugging is always enjoyable, there’s no mistaking Reckoning for anything other than a subpar entry by Mission standards. This series is always judged by its action sequences, and while several still pop, just as many are forgettable.

40. Rye Lane

A walk-and-talk romance that’s earned easy comparisons to Before Sunrise, Raine Allen-Miller’s directorial debut is a modest delight that never transcends its own pleasantness. The welcoming setting and charismatic stars ensure a good time, but you won’t remember a single topic of conversation the moment the lights go up. 

39. Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

A self-consciously goofy blockbuster, it’s hard not to pine for a version of this flick that’s a little zanier, and less indebted to its studio’s bottom line. Chris Pine and the rest of the cast charm while a small handful of gags really sing, but a lower-budget, less-watered-down iteration can’t stop haunting this one at its margins. 

38. Elemental

The feeling that you’re watching lesser Pixar never fully dissipates, and the specifics of the flick’s kumbaya racial equality messaging are more than a little bit murky, but Elemental is nonetheless a real heartwarmer. Its defects never overwhelm the ravishing animation, lovable characters, or the enveloping world they inhabit.

37. Saltburn

An objectively bad movie that proves too brazenly naughty and wrong-headedly subversive to fully resist. Emerald Fennell is a true trash stylist, and while none of her provocations seem to have any meaning whatsoever, her movie is never less than entertaining, and listening to viewers twist themselves into knots trying to attach thematic weight to a flick without any was one of 2023’s most enjoyable film culture subplots.

36. Dumb Money

Perhaps better viewed as an early Covid time capsule than the reawakening of Frank Capra humanist, anti-capitalist cinema, Dumb Money is morally simplistic and eminently watchable in equal measure. Paul Dano has seldom been so easy to root for, and director Craig Gillespie’s pop filmmaking is once again in fine form, serving as a cooling balm when the movie crumbles under the lightest of interrogation.

35. Fallen Leaves

A bone-dry romantic comedy set in a purgatorial modern-day Helsinki, Fallen Leaves sports a drab hilarity that finds myriad pockets of humor in its bloodless human interactions. You wouldn’t accuse writer/director Aki Kaurismäki’s latest of being overly sentimental, but air starts to leak out of the movie when conventionality seeps into the climactic half hour. 

34. Earth Mama

An exceedingly well made movie that suffers greatly from over-familiarity, Savanah Leaf’s drama about a struggling young mother’s efforts to regain her children from the foster system remains effective despite telegraphing its every move. Star Tia Nomore gives the movie its steely strength, which resonates even if you can guess every event just by watching the trailer.

33. Napoleon

A textbook example of a movie being less than the sum of its parts, Napoleon isn’t a bad flick so much as a pair of good ones forced into uneasy coexistence. The psychosexual farce of watching Joaquin Phoenix’s title character have his vitality and virility challenged by Vanessa Kirby’s Lady Josephine is constantly undercut by Ridley Scott’s inclination towards a more traditional historical epic, and while both work on their own terms, they can’t help but damage each other in the process.

32. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret

A welcome throwback to the tenderly constructed family dramedies of yore, Margaret realizes its every ambition with an ease that’s gone missing from modern entertainment. There’s hardly a false note in Kelly Fremon Craig’s adaptation of Judy Bloom’s YA classic, it’s just modest to the point of disappearing in the wind.

31. Dream Scenario

One of the most purely enjoyable first hours of any 2023 movie, Dream Scenario takes maximal advantage of its surreal logline (an English professor starts showing up in the dreams of people across the globe), both lightly biting and frequently funny. The final act, wherein its underdeveloped darker undercurrents take center stage, doesn’t work half as well, but the joy of watching Nicolas Cage return to Adaptation-style high concept comedy is undeniable.

30. The Iron Claw

A grand tragedy that’s gracefully devoid of winking irony, Sean Durkin’s wrestling drama is a true-blue weepy with immersive production and impressive performances. It also lacks a second gear, robbing the devastating proceedings of deeper impact by never straying from its steady descent into misery. Zac Efron has never been better, and the end result of a movie has never been less in doubt.

29. Asteroid City

A strange hedge to have this one ranked somewhere in the middle, but only time will tell if this shoots up to the top of Wes Anderson’s esteemed filmography or plummets near the bottom. Asteroid City is just that inscrutable, a movie about the inability to emotionally connect that fulfills its own prophecy. The layers of scaffolding around the story can be off-putting, but might just be the price of building something to last.

28. BlackBerry

Every single gesture and revelation in BlackBerry has been done before and done better, but while Matt Johnson’s film is no Social Network, that movie didn’t have Glenn Howerton. The Always Sunny mainstay breathes fire as the demon at the end of capitalism’s wayward rainbow, explosively hilarious and palpably damaged in equal measure. His performance, and the writing behind his character, are worth the price of admission.

27. Society of the Snow

A survivalist drama whose frozen tundras and broken bones prove visceral from start to finish, Snow is the rare flick that manages to both upset and uplift, often within the same scene. Director J.A. Bayona has a gift for communicating physicality, and while this story of an Uruguayan rugby team stranded in the Andes mountains isn’t for the faint of heart, its tenacity is never less than stirring.

26. Past Lives

It’s hard not to feel cheated out of the grand-standing romance that Past Lives’ elevated reputation seemed to promise, but what the movie lacks in flesh-and-blood characters with interests and wants, it more than makes up for in an intellectual register. As a filmic essay on self-identification and the weight of the paths not taken, it’s a powerful little jewel box and a ready-made conversation starter.

25. Afire

A feature-length rebuke to the lovable loser archetype that’s populated our stories for generations, Afire suggests that maybe having a friend that’s a total buzzkill isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Thomas Schubert plays Leon with enough pretension and anxiety to deaden any room, though even he can’t suck the life out of Christain Petzold’s latest, a story of a floundering writer that explores themes from sexuality to subjectivity, and classism to classics. His mysterious little contraptions make you smarter as you watch them.

24. Showing Up

In a year of faux-autobiographical flicks from many of our most celebrated auteurs, none feel as considered or earned as Showing Up. After decades of glowing reviews and middling box office receipts, Kelly Reichardt seems to turn the camera inward with the story of Lizzy, a sculpturist earning a middle class living in the Pacific Northwest. A rare insight into the life of an artist who’s neither thriving nor struggling to survive, Showing Up finds celebration in small moments of triumph, bitterness in daily minutiae, and a symbolic pigeon for the ages.

23. Godzilla Minus One

Turns out a little earnestness and some technical ingenuity is all we needed to rescue the king of the monsters. The best Godzilla movie in ages foregrounds lovable characters in 1940s war-torn Japan, dispensing with the winking irony of most American blockbusters for tried-and-true melodrama, further benefiting from a modest budget that never allows the action to get cluttered and chaotic. An event movie with scale and heart.

22. John Wick Chapter 4

At this point they hardly even give the guy any lines of dialogue, and why would they? John Wick 4 is a tactile action extravaganza that never pretends to be anything it’s not, setting our dog loving hero on another war path that unfolds over 3 hours of more-is-more showmanship. You won’t remember a single plot beat, but at least five sequences have the power to burrow into your brain forever more.

21. Perfect Days

Ravishing and meditative, Wim Wanders’ latest, concerning the day-to-day life of a bathroom attendant in Tokyo, feels like a cinematic spa day. It certainly won’t get your blood pumping, but its observational powers have a way of seeping into the way you see the world, and the joys of a perfect song or an involving book have never been so persuasively depicted.

20. They Cloned Tyrone

A mashup of 70s Blaxploitation cinema and high concept sci-fi allegory, Juel Taylor’s directorial debut unveils its zany tale of hustlers, conspiracies, and fried chicken recipes with blustering gusto and style to spare. Where similar ‘big idea’ flicks prove more determined to spell out their metaphors, Tyrone never loses the vibe in search of the message, with John Boyega, Jamie Foxx, and Teyonah Parris all burning holes into the screen.  

19. Poor Things

No Oscar darling suffered more for being singled out as one of the ‘Movies of the Year’ than Poor Things, a cockeyed coming-of-age movie that plays like gangbusters if you can ignore the noise. Emma Stone’s sex-crazed take on Frankenstein’s monster gives a good name to doing the most, and the futuristic steampunk world she traverses is goofy fun of a very high order. The whole enterprise might not be as transgressive or thought-provoking as its creators obviously think it is, but that’s no reason to dismiss a rollicking time at the flicks.  

18. Pricilla

Sophia Coppola’s powers of observation remain among American cinema’s finest treasures, and while there’s certainly nothing novel about her charting another historically misunderstood woman and the gilded cage she inhabits, her eye and craft cannot be denied. The tale of Elvis Presley’s marginalized paramour is a tone poem of stolen glances and tactile surroundings; it might not rise to the level of Lost in Translation or Marie Antoinette, but remains masterful in its hyper-specific lane.

17. Nimona

Most kid flicks come prepackaged with a family-friendly moral that’s innocuous enough to get everyone on board, but directors Nick Bruno and Troy Quane aren’t here for the platitudes. Set in a futuristic metropolis that splits the difference between steampunk and medieval times, Nimona tells the story of a disgraced knight (voiced by Riz Ahmed) and his titular, shapeshifting sidekick (Chloë Grace Moretz) through eye-popping colors, kinetic action, and swagger to spare. Quite the pied piper, the movie couches its pleas for acceptance of queer and non-binary communities inside appealing naughtiness and revelry, forming an entertainment that crosses age gaps and paradigms with rebellious glee.

16. Killers of the Flower Moon

If movies were judged solely on their best moments, Killers would probably be the film of the year. Its sterling heights are just that powerful, though it’s also fair to hold the flick accountable for a few glaring missteps. Clocking in at 200+ minutes of nearly unmitigated misery, Martin Scorsese’s latest magnum opus can’t escape accusations of wallowing in another culture’s tragedy, and Leonardo DiCaprio is woefully miscast. But the final hour, along with sporadic moments beforehand, will stay with you until your dying breath. 

15. Leave the World Behind

A potboiler designed for minimal draft and maximum efficacy, Sam Esmail’s return to feature filmmaking is a certified corker. While wholly capable of dispensing social commentary in a manner as fleeting as it is biting, this end times thriller wisely focuses on event over rumination. With a stacked cast and style to spare, World is a two hour race to the finish line, with one of the best endings in recent memory.

14. The Holdovers

It’s hard to think of a single demerit in The Holdovers, a modest throwback comedy that takes a small bite and chews it to perfection. Paul Giamatti adds another surly teddy bear to his rogue’s gallery as a boarding school teacher forming unlikely bonds over Christmas break. The period details are immaculate, nearly all the jokes land, and director Alexander Payne plays your heart strings like a fiddle. If you can accept The Holdovers’ scaled-back ambition, you’ll be eating out of its hand.

13. All of Us Strangers

A tear-jerker with a metaphysical bend, All of Us Strangers finds writer/director Andrew Haigh at his stirring, ruminative best, unfurling a tale about queer identity and familial scars with grace and wonder. While it’s best experienced without knowing the specifics of its construction, the movie affords Andrew Scott one of the year’s finest showcases, and he doesn’t miss a single opportunity to level the audience with his wounded vulnerability. Meditative and emotional, without either taking away from the other.

12. Infinity Pool

The most obvious way to view Brandon Cronenberg’s latest is as a gruesome, psychedelic journey to hell; I prefer to see it as a comedy about why white people shouldn’t do ayahuasca. Infinity Pool is bold and confrontational enough to support both readings, two hours of nightmare fuel powered by vacation anxiety and a cruel grin. As the year’s most perverse film twice-over, this one isn’t for the faint of heart, but the craftsmanship is awe-inspiring, and Mia Goth proves once again that she’s the demon we deserve. 

11. The Boy and the Heron 

Existing on the furthest end of the Hayao Miyazaki dream logic spectrum, The Boy and the Heron star-gazing oddity is either off-putting or enrapturing, with little space for nuance in between. I happen to be among the latter half of this dichotomy, overjoyed to follow the Japanese master down the rabbit hole as his latest portal opens to a world of floating spirits, murderous parakeets, and long-lost mothers. Sometimes it’s less important to understand than feel, and no one can communicate that better than the Studio Ghibli legend.

10. Bottoms

A friendly reminder that comedies are much harder to make than dramas, Bottoms holds the esteemed distinction of coaxing more guffaws than any other 2023 release. The familiar set-up of high schoolers trying to get some action is turned on its head in Emma Seligman’s tale of two queer friends who start an all-girls fight club to chaotic results. More John Waters than Judd Apatow, the movie benefits as much from its surreal trappings as the sparkling chemistry between leads Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri. The fact that it doesn’t ace the women’s empowerment test is a feature, not a bug; Bottoms has too much fun being naughty to play nice.

9. The Killer

Wildly mislabeled as a genre exercise from an elite filmmaker, The Killer feels as personal to David Fincher as anything he’s ever put on screen. Charting the movements of a magnetic Michael Fassbender as his titular assassin embarks on a bloody trail of revenge, the auteur’s latest is a sneaky satire of our modern gig economy masquerading as an action thriller. Even if its black-hearted humor and cultural criticisms escape your glance, it’s one of the most electrifyingly mounted flicks in recent memory, with a first person perspective that’s persuasive enough to temporarily warp your interactions with the world around you. 

8. A Thousand and One

Gentrification and its myriad deleterious effects is one of modern cinema’s most consistent areas of focus, but it’s the way scope and expanse interact with specificity and individuality that make A Thousand and One so hard to shake. Teyana Taylor’s ferocity and vitality as a single mother protecting and providing for her son in 1990s Chicago are marvelous to behold, their story unspooling far past its expected end point, morphing from slice-of-life to epic journey right before your eyes. Many movies since 2016 have garnered comparisons to Moonlight; this might be the first to earn them.

7. The Zone of Interest

More of an art installation than a proper feature film, The Zone of Interest plays out like a slice of life from the worst place imaginable. Or rather from just outside of that location; the story of a Nazi commandant and his family slowly moving through their daily doldrums directly on the outside of Auschwitz is determined to keep the horrors just outside of reach, where they only gain power through going unseen. A sickening testament to humanity’s nauseating ability to compartmentalize, Zone implicates us all for our easy distractibility when evil comes for action, with a final gesture that hits like a punch to the sternum. 

6. How to Blow Up a Pipeline

An overtly political flick that somehow manages to play like a sweaty, dusty reimagining of Ocean’s Eleven, Daniel Goldhaber’s sophomore feature is a powder keg of tension and rage that only releases its grip when the credits finally roll. Featuring an ensemble cast of largely unknowns, Pipeline follows a group of environmental activists who descend on Texas with the goal of enacting the titular suggestion, and while the stakes and motivations at hand are treated with breathless sincerity, the movie never skimps on the thrills, and builds to a final pivot that clarifies some curious earlier decisions with the might of a thunder clap. Prepare to have your fists clenched.

5. Anatomy of a Fall

Though Anatomy of a Fall is ostensibly a courtroom drama concerning the innocence or guilt of a woman in the sudden death of her husband, the simplicity of its trappings allow the movie to run the gamut of modern political hobby horses without overtly naming them one by one. Societal expectations of women, straight skepticism of queer culture, omnipresent violation of privacy, ghoulish public rubbernecking, and the limits of autofiction take turns under writer/director Justine Trier’s microscope without ever losing sight of the elemental thrills of a proper whodunit. It’s text as subtext, exactingly arranged and expertly executed.

4. May December

Provocation has all but left the building in our current movie landscape, a fact that makes May December’s naughty, knotty delights that much more titillating. Working from Samy Burch’s absolute diamond of a screenplay, director Todd Haynes returns to his signature form of elevated camp to tell the story of an actress researching a role that gleefully crosses almost every line that good taste has carefully drawn. Using the real life Mary Kay Letourneau scandal as scaffolding for farce and melodrama is ethically dubious at best, and Haynes, along with the livewire acting trio of Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, and Charles Melton, know just how to needle our modern sensibilities without ever descending into pointless shock value. It spins your head and turns your stomach, and you’ll probably need a shower afterwards.

3. Barbie

Regardless of whether you find America Ferrera’s much-discussed monologue moving or cloying, there’s no doubting its powers of prophecy. Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster romp became so load-bearing that the discourse around its potential short-comings threatened to drown out its remarkable achievements. As a visually dazzling, blisteringly funny, and genuinely heartfelt piece of pop art (based on a damn toy doll, no less), Barbie managed to breath life back into the monoculture by following its own truth, proving that mainstream audiences still like oddity and audacity when filtered through a singular vision. A true-blue movie event of the highest order.

2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

If the dead or dying superhero flick had an autopsy, it would likely read ‘laziness’ or ‘contentment,’ but where other Marvel and DC offerings have slipped into a form of autopilot, the Spider-Verse saga is working overtime to satisfy. The second installment in the Miles Morales trilogy is a whirling dervish of stupefying animation, breezy comedic genius, and deeply endearing characters, 140 minutes of premium grade electricity and excitement. The density and ambition of the image-making is somehow matched by its beauty, dazzlingly realized comic book panels giving way to gorgeous digital paintings that stop you in your tracks. Other 2023 movies were more thought-provoking or heartbreaking, but film is a visual medium, and nothing comes even close to matching the thrill of letting Across simply wash over your eyes.

1. Beau is Afraid

Playing out like a dare between Ari Aster and himself, Beau is Afraid was so divisive that conversation around the movie blew out almost right after hitting overdrive. The three hour epic of mommy issues and Jewish guilt feels built for rediscovery, but those who aren’t immediately turned away by its alienation effects will find one of the strangest, grandest, and funniest movies in recent memory. The journey of Joaquin Phoenix’s titular Beau is a haunting picaresque with anxiety tattooed across its forehead, and if that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, it probably isn’t. Still, the ambition on display, narratively, visually, and perhaps even spiritually, is impossible to shake, a bitter pill administered with laughter and fright. Aster’s Hereditary and Midsommer might seem accessible by comparison, but they also feel small. Beau is massive, fitted with pockets of intrigue and lingering images that ensure its box office failure will be an afterthought in the years to come. This one is made to last.