I saw some movies this year and then made a list.

Greg Gottfried
19 min readDec 29, 2023

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We’re back. Here’s a ranking of every (new) movie I watched in 2023.

Something changed this year.

Perhaps it was Barbenheimer, a cultural phenomenon unlike any other, or maybe it was just that people were sick of watching mediocre stuff on their couches, but it honestly felt like a resurgence of sorts for movie theaters in 2023.

I watch a lot of movies—we all know this—but there’s something nice about not being stuck in my apartment on a Tuesday night. A few years into a pandemic that changed everything, I’ve found something soothing and rewarding in being in a public place with other people watching something together. It’s corny and also very true.

It’s just different from lounging on the sofa while futzing around with my phone as some prestige drama plays in the background.

With that said, let this year be a lesson to us all. May 2024 bring a return to courtesy starting with people putting their iPhones away when the movies start and not talking at full volume when there are other people around you. At least try to whisper, man.

I wasn’t able to see everything I wanted to this year—imagine that—but I think I did a pretty dang good job considering I had to squeeze these all in between work, running and seeing friends or whatever.

Anyway, it was a great year. As always, let’s start from the bottom and go from there. I’ve already got some tickets for movies in 2024.

91. Leave the World Behind

I like the first few seasons of Mr. Robot and enjoy Sam Esmail’s appearances on The Big Picture and The Watch, but this is contrived garbage from the over-the-top, contrived opening to the ridiculous music cues to the mystery box plot developments to the stilted dialogue to the laughable open-ended conclusion. This Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali and Ethan Hawke-led thriller(?) is this year’s Don’t Look Up, a paper-thin societal critique that has nothing to say other than, “Boy, things aren’t good.” I can’t believe how poorly this is written. A character who needs to watch the Friends finale says at one point, “I have incredible anxiety about how they’re going to wrap up the show.” It very easily could be written by an AI bot. We’ll never know.

90. You People

A remarkably unfunny movie that looks terrible. Somehow features Jonah Hill, Eddie Murphy, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Molly Gordon and doesn’t have a single laugh.

89. Showing Up

My friend and I both separately considered leaving this movie because we were so bored. Go watch Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow instead.

88. The Little Mermaid

Every one of these Disney retreads is worse than the one before it. These shouldn’t exist. Excited to continue to put these near the bottom of every list I make for the foreseeable future.

87. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

Ends with one of the more incomprehensible action setpieces in recent memory.

86. Scream VI

We need to take a break from franchises only being made because of lore and fond memories.

85. Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain

Please stop mentioning The Lonely Island when discussing Please Don’t Destroy. The Lonely Island is the best.

84. You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah

My bar-mitzvah theme was Rock the Vote due to it being during the 2008 election, so I will not be saying anything mean about this movie.

83. Five Nights at Freddy’s

Not a “good” movie but immensely watchable. Remarkably stupid, bland horror movie that relies on ridiculous twists and mediocre jump scares.

82. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

I skipped The Marvels and have no plans to see any future Marvel movies. I’m free! I’m finally free!

81. The Burial

Boilerplate legal thriller. Perfect movie to watch with parents over Christmas break while scrolling on your phone.

80. The Creator

I had big plans to write about this movie and then just kept on forgetting to. That sums it up.

79. Dicks: The Musical

Great night at the theater. Bad movie, but does that even matter?

78. Somebody I Used to Know

Every decision made by a character is the worst thing possible. I’m really excited for Alison Brie to be in some good movies someday. Sleeping with Other People is a gem.

77. Fair Play

One of my biggest disappointments this year. Has that real Netflix sheen when something looks good and then you’re 20 minutes in wishing for it to end.

76. Landscape with Invisible Hand

I would need days to describe how bizarre and off this movie is. Worthwhile idea with lackluster results.

75. Dream Scenario

Worth it for this Nicolas Cage image.

74. 65

Borderline miraculous that Hollywood could give us a boring Adam Driver fighting dinosaurs science-fiction movie.

73. Cocaine Bear

That bear did cocaine. You gotta hand it to that bear.

72. Anyone But You

A lot of chemistry but not much of anything else. Kind of wild how rarely the jokes work and how many of the bits fall flat. Glad that studios (and Glen Powell) are trying to revive the romcom, but this doesn’t do the genre many favors.

71. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

70. The Adults

A perplexing drama that has some incredible Michael Cera scenes. Doesn’t totally work but a valiant effort.

69. It Lives Inside

Made people jump. Which is sometimes all you want/need from a middling horror movie.

68. American Fiction

Shockingly cliché-laden script that doesn’t know what it wants to be. I’m kinda surprised this is as much of an awards play as it is since it’s fairly lazy with its jokes and never knows if it wants to be a true-blue satire or an off-kilter family drama. Jeffrey Wright is one of the best actors we have though, so it’s nice to see him get some shine. His best performance this year is easily in Asteroid City, which we’ll get to later.

67. A Haunting in Venice

I called who the killer was (and what happened) early on in the movie, so it made me feel smart. Thanks for that, Kenneth Branagh and Agatha Christie. Doesn’t have a mustache origin story, so points off for that.

66. The Sweet East

Not sure how I could possibly explain all that’s happening here but this Alice in Wonderland-esque journey through the U.S. is worth checking out and then eventually forgetting. Excited for Talia Ryder to become a star though, because that’s certainly going to happen at some point.

65. Pathaan

So many flashbacks. Kind of crazy how many flashbacks there were.

64. The Super Mario Bros. Movie

I sometimes like it when I’m treated like a toddler and given bright colors and dumb dialogue. It’s fine. Sue me.

63. Wonka

I liked it more than I thought I would? Cute and perfectly fine family movie that’s at its best when it’s raucous and fun. Perfect movie for Jews to watch on Christmas, especially since I’m already in the doghouse after irate reactions to previous choices like Licorice Pizza and Foxcatcher.

62. Leo

There was no need for this to be a musical, but it was pretty cute otherwise. Fun voicework from Adam Sandler and Bill Burr.

61. Saltburn

I have a lot of thoughts on this movie. 1. It’s not as abysmal as some critics are making it out to be. 2. It’s very, very stupid. 3. It features some fun performances from Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike and Alison Oliver. 5. It’s so fucking stupid. 6. I hope this inspires viewers to check out other (better) erotic thrillers. 7. Great gowns. Beautiful gowns.

60. Sick of Myself

The most body horror ever in a comedy?

59. Nimona

Perfectly whatever animated movie that has some solid politics (especially for a Netflix property), a fine script and a cute team featuring voicework from Chloë Grace Moretz and Riz Ahmed.

58. You Hurt My Feelings

Not the best movie year for Julia Louis-Dreyfus. This comedy starring JLD and Tobias Menzies is chockful of annoying characters—sometimes purposefully and other times accidentally—but has enough solid jokes to get a pass. Never need to watch again.

57. They Cloned Tyrone

Felt like an extended short story. Strong performances from John Boyega, Jamie Foxx and Teyonah Parris, but I don’t think it’s anything we haven’t seen before.

56. Dumb Money

Aptly named movie with fun performances from Paul Dano, Talia Ryder, Seth Rogen and Pete Davidson. Not sure why we needed to make this so close to the 2021 GameStop chaos.

55. Napoleon

A Wikipedia movie that has enough fun Ridley Scott flourishes to stay invested. The best stuff here is the fascinating relationship between Joaquin Phoenix’s Napoleon and Vanessa Kirby’s Josephine, but the movie just keeps going on and on (and on).

54. Knock at the Cabin

Better than Old. Low bar.

53. R.M.N.

Can’t say I fully understood everything that was happening here, but I was entranced the entire time and found myself wanting to read everything about it.

52. All of Us Strangers

A lot of interesting pieces and scenes, especially when Andrew Scott’s Adam character stays at his parents’ house, but doesn’t fully come together and has a real screenwriter trying their hardest ending that didn’t feel earned.

51. M3GAN

50. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Maybe a miracle that this movie doesn’t suck. Fun Chris Pine lead performance, pretty solid special effects and one of the best (and more surprising) cameos of the year.

49. Eileen

I would also ruin my life for Anne Hathaway.

48. Creed III

*punch punch punch punch*

That is my (positive) review. Crazy that Jonathan Majors was supposed to be in this movie but got replaced by Christopher Plummer at the last second.

47. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

This one was pretty good. Great raccoon acting. Goodbye, Marvel.

46. Rye Lane

A very sweet rom-com that features an Oscar-worthy performance from the city of London. London’s great. That’s my take.

45. The Boy and the Heron

Not my favorite Hayao Miyazaki script but one of the best-looking movies of the last few years. Worth it for the beautiful imagination and Robert Pattinson’s insane take on the heron character.

44. Air

Just guys being dudes selling sneakers to MJ. Immensely watchable biopic with a scene-stealing Viola Davis supporting role and Ben Affleck in Nike jogging shorts.

43. Reality

Sydney Sweeney is a good actress and this reenactment (of sorts) of an FBI interrogation transcript is proof.

42. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

It’s a really good year when something like this doesn’t make my Top 30, let alone where it ultimately landed. Very funny and sweet Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles story. I never watched TMNT growing up, but I’m still young at heart, I guess.

41. No Hard Feelings

I have completely changed course on Jennifer Lawrence, an actress who kind of bugged me for a while. Couldn’t stand Silver Linings Playbook and found her shtick grating. I’ve done a complete 180 here, as she’s delightful in this pretty good comedy and is going for it. Also, check out Causeway from the end of last year. JLaw’s back.

40. Priscilla

A horror movie. So much better and interestingly told than Elvis. Glad that this isn’t just another hagiography. Not my favorite Sofia Coppola movie but that’s quite a high bar since she’s made Lost in Translation, Somewhere and Marie Antoinette.

39. No One Will Save You

An out-of-nowhere entertaining hit centered on Kaitlyn Dever’s introverted homebody attempting to survive an alien invasion.

38. The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial

This happened to be William Friedkin’s last movie, and what a way to go out. The director who gave us The Exorcist kept it spare in this one, a court-trial talkie with strong monologues from Kiefer Sutherland and Jason Clarke.

37. Return to Seoul

Beautiful story about found family and connecting with our origins. Park Ji-min gives one of the better performances of the year. Saw at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and was the youngest there by a half-decade. Everyone was locked in.

36. Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One

I’m pretty mixed (to be nice) on the Mission: Impossible franchise, but I found myself enjoying this one. It’s less full of itself and features a bunch of great set-pieces including the one above. This one dropped around the same time as Barbenheimer, so it got kind of blown out of the water, but you should check it out if you didn’t get a chance to.

35. Beau is Afraid

lol. A mess that has some unbelievable stuff and is also an hour too long. Respect the effort.

34. The Zone of Interest

Not sure how I can recommend a movie about a Nazi commandant living outside of Auschwitz, but here we are. A deeply haunting movie that feels quite timely given *waves hand at the world*. The toughest of watches. I saw this one and then went to a speed-dating event not long after. I didn’t get any dates that night.

33. When Evil Lurks

A grotesque and brutal horror movie about a demon-infected man set to give birth to evil itself. I know it sounds bad if I say this is fun, but it’s very fun.

32. Theater Camp

We saw this comedy about an upstate New York theater camp at a theater near Lincoln Center. The audience treated this entire movie as if the Avengers were assembling every 25 seconds. Great time.

31. Skinamarink

30. How to Blow Up a Pipeline

An Ocean’s 11-esque team-up movie about blowing up an oil pipeline. Not sure how this got through the studio system, but I’m glad it did.

29. Blackberry

An (actually) interesting biopic about the rise and fall of Blackberry. Glenn Howerton is the best at playing unhinged.

28. The Iron Claw

SAD. Unbelievable cast but gotta give a shoutout to Troy Bo—Zac Efron and Holt McCallany.

27. Anatomy of a Fall

A murder mystery that is as much a character drama as a whodunnit. The French legal system seems to be as fucked up and abnormal as the one we have here in the United States. Quite an accomplishment.

26. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Not a joke. A sincerely captivating feature about death and friendship. A who’s who of voice actors from Antonio Banderas to John Mulaney to Florence Pugh to Da’Vine Joy Randolph to Salma Hayek to the haunting Wagner Moura. Takes some animation stylings from the Spider-Verse franchise.

25. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

Also not a joke. This is a very strong mid-budget blockbuster that feels like it has a purpose and sense for existing other than a corporation’s bottom line. Have always loved Rachel Zegler and she’s bolstered here by Tom Blyth, Peter Dinklage and Jason Schwartzman.

24. Passages

I was part of an early screening and Q&A with the audience for this one. Didn’t have that much to say other than it’s about a bunch of attractive people being attractive and nasty to one another. What else do you want out of movies?

23. The Taste of Things

Jesus Christ. The food in this movie.

22. Polite Society

A heartwarming and lovable movie that never got its shine. About two sisters who both love and hate each other, just like siblings often do and some really good action centering on a wedding heist.

21. Talk To Me

I had to look away from the screen a few times. Just good old-fashioned screwed-up horror. I personally wouldn’t touch the embalmed hand that conjures up evil spirits, but that might just be me.

20. Maestro

I’ve seen the social media sphere lose its shit that Maestro isn’t a cradle-to-grave biopic, but I think that’s why I enjoyed it so much. It’s a series of vignettes adding up to a complicated Leonard Bernstein. I think the emphasis on Carey Mulligan’s Felicia Montealegre is a bit confusing at times, but there are some incredible scenes/performances in this one. Bradley Cooper knows how to direct. I’d honestly love to see him direct something without him in it, just to see what happens.

19. Ferrari

Another “Great Man” movie but this time from Michael Mann. This is a biopic of sorts focused on Enzo Ferrari, however, it’s very clearly in the Mann register of male protagonists dealing with a changing world, held back by their own foibles. Features some tremendous racing scenes and phenomenal Adam Driver and Penélope Cruz performances.

18. Barbie

I’ve written about this one a good deal ever since the Barbenheimer phenomenon, and I think I’ve settled on a “very good movie with a kind of dead middle act.” It has two critical (and hysterical) performances in Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, a lot of mediocre Mattel content and a car commercial that may have snuck past Greta Gerwig’s camera. It’s tough to top Lady Bird or Little Women, and she didn’t and that’s fine. For what it is, a billion-dollar blockbuster about a toy, it’s miraculous. It’s not one of the best of the year, but it has a remarkable ending, a few Hall-of-Fame jokes and Gosling being Gosling.

17. Evil Dead Rise

Probably the most pure fun I had during a horror movie this year. A gory, tense slasher that ratchets up the blood and vicious kills. Definitely NOT one for the whole family but one for the idiots in your life that love horror movies. The plot’s whatever, but no one’s coming to these for the plots.

16. John Wick: Chapter 4

There are like five action sequences in here that are better than nearly anything else made this year. A beautiful (and kind of emotional) closure to a John Wick arc. Routinely entertaining franchise with a stellar Keanu performance and a who’s who of international scumbaggery.

15. Godzilla Minus One

What’s better than this? Just guys being dudes.

14. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Docking a few points because there’s no closure to the story, but what an experience. This series looks better than almost any other animated movie right now and features stories that put the rest of the comic-book landscape to shame.

13. Infinity Pool

You know it’s gonna be a good movie when these guys show up.

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

How do we get Rachel McAdams into this year’s Oscars race? How is she not a front-runner? This reinterpretation of the beloved book is a delightful adaptation that expands the mother’s story while still emphasizing the titular Margaret character. Sometimes you just need a warm hug of a movie.

11. The Holdovers

Every movie should have Paul Giamatti. Name a movie. It’s better with Paul Giamatti. Star Wars? Yes. Borat? Yes. The Shining? Of course. The Holdovers is a new Christmas classic starring Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and newcomer Dominic Sessa. It’s funny, sweet and very Boston.

10. Amanda

Probably the least-seen movie out of my Top 10, Amanda is a bizarre, off-kilter dark comedy centered on a flawed female protagonist who is sick of the world. The titular character decides that she’s going to befriend her childhood best friend in order to be happy again, and things go off the rails from there. What a weird Italian movie. The NYT called it a mash-up of Lady Bird and Wes Anderson, so of course it’s going to be very high on my list.

9. Sanctuary

A two-hander that is taut, sexy and haunting, Sanctuary centers on a dominatrix and her client over a single night. It has two of my favorite performances of the year in the brash Margaret Qualley and the breakable Christopher Abbott. It’s funny, looks great and is a perfect 96 minutes. Just a tremendous watch that gets more and more eerie as it goes on and on.

8. May December

It’s funny. May December is beloved by critics (and me), but it hasn’t seemed to click with friends of mine. It’s centered on as prickly a subject as there can be, and director Todd Haynes walks the line of comedy, satire and drama with such deftness. Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore are phenomenal, but none of this works without Riverdale’s very own Charles Melton as the youthful but exhausted husband. I don’t want to get too deep into the plot, but I can’t believe Haynes was able to make this all work. It pokes fun at the true crime genre, our obsession with celebrity, how weird actors are, while also telling a truly sad tale about a man reckoning with his past.

7. Bottoms

Bottoms is what happens when the smartest people you know make a dumb movie. It starts with jokes at a mile a minute, centers on an Avril Lavigne needle drop and concludes with a battle that rivals the Spartans taking on the Persian Empire. Rachel Sennott and Emma Seligman’s actor-director pairing is 2/2—go see Shiva Baby right now!—and the Ayo Edibiri addition almost makes too much sense. It’s the hardest I laughed at a movie all year and goes for it with every joke. Shoutout to Marshawn Lynch who comes in and puts on a performance for the ages.

6. Past Lives

Celine Song should be firmly in the Best Director race, even though this is her first feature film. I loved Past Lives on the initial viewing and the more I think about it and read about it, it’s hard not to see this as one of the best movies of the year. A love story for right now, Past Lives is a continent-spanning, time-jumping romantic love triangle in which everyone’s in the right. It also has a top-tier ending, which is quite difficult, as many of the movies above clearly show. Greta Lee, John Magaro, Teo Yoo. What a gorgeous, delicate story that deserves your full attention.

5. The Killer

The Killer is a B-movie directed by an A+ filmmaker. David Fincher turns a run-of-the-mill assassin story into a farce as the protagonist isn’t as good as his voiceover would make himself seem. Michael Fassbender is both chilling and silly as hell, which makes sense in a script that sees both sides of him. This is a series of scenes and sequences that make you wonder how they could’ve possibly filmed this and even thought of putting this all together. It also has maybe the best fight of 2023. Just wait and see.

4. Poor Things

Emma Stone becoming the muse for one of our more off-kilter, unpredictable directors is not what I expected from her career, but I’m so glad it’s happening. Yorgos Lanthimos directs this perfectly, but it’s the tour-de-force performance from Stone that makes this Frankenstein-esque Gothic feminist tale make sense. The movie is funny, creepy and features Mark Ruffalo chewing the scenery so hard that his jaw probably hurts. I love big swings and I love when Lanthimos accidentally makes his version of Barbie.

3. Asteroid City

Wes Anderson knows what you think about Wes Anderson. He’s seen the TikToks, social media put-downs and poorly-constructed reproductions. Asteroid City is simultaneously the most Wes Anderson a movie can get while also using his cuteness and symmetry to comment on how we get lost in our own little diorama worlds, so as to ignore what’s happening right in front of us. The cast is expansive, to say the least, but shoutouts are warranted for Jason Schwartzman, Jeffrey Wright and Margot Robbie. Wright and Robbie make great use of their minimal screen time. I’ve seen Asteroid City twice now and it gets better on rewatch as the story unfolds and the characters’ motivations and trauma come to the forefront. A kind of perfect story about quarantining without ever hitting you over the head with its resonance.

2. Killers of the Flower Moon

I’ve seen this 3.5-hour movie twice now. That’s seven hours. And you know what … it was worth it. This Martin Scorsese movie is a genre-hopping tragedy that starts with a “make it rich” enterprise and ends with a genocide. It shows what America truly is and what this country has been built on, while also commenting on Scorsese’s very own mafia pictures and why movies tell the stories they do. This cast is as good as it can be (Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Deniro, Jesse Plemons), but it’s all about Lily Gladstone’s Mollie Burkhart who does more with her eyes and a wry smile than most actors do in a lifetime.

1. Oppenheimer

I know it’s kind of lame to be like this unbelievably popular, awards favorite, Christopher Nolan film is the best movie of the year, but sometimes everything comes together. Nolan’s best movie (yup) is chockful of some of the best filmmaking of the year, editing that can make you gasp and performances that take your breath away. Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Matt Damon, the list goes on and on and on. I was never more focused, sitting forward and gripped than I was with Oppenheimer, a biopic in a sense, but more of a horror story centered on one of the more tenuous, frightening moments in American history. This movie takes all of Nolan’s quirks (time-jumping, quick-cutting, historical narratives) and combines them in a way that almost makes too much sense. Nothing looked as good as Oppenheimer this year. Nothing was as absorbing as Oppenheimer this year. Nothing was better than Oppenheimer this year. So my final review on Oppenheimer? Good movie.

2022’s List

2021’s List

2020’s List

2019’s List

2018’s List

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