Favorite Discoveries and Rewatches of 2023

Zodiac (2007)

dir. David Fincher Rewatched October 8

"Just because you can't prove it doesn't mean it's not true."

This breezes by far quicker than just about any movie of this length. It's really not until you account for its narrative breadth that you realize how hulking it is, practically packing two films into one. The first is a cold, methodical police procedural. The second is about a vigilante detective's need for answers.

The crux of the movie lies in the fact that all of the actual killing occurs in the clinical half while Graysmith's portion, set years after the murders, is what's psychological, paranoid, and propulsive. Fincher doesn't care about a killer nearly as much as he cares about the toll taken on the people trying to find him. As a notoriously rigorous and obsessive filmmaker it's easy to see how a lot of this could be autobiographical.

In a movie of this skill and depth there are endless things to appreciate, but this time I found myself really marveling at the casting, which is some of my favorite top to bottom––not an actor out of place. This is probably my favorite RDJ performance, and I couldn't help but think about how, if this movie came out even just six or seven years later, Gyllenhaal would be in his role instead of playing the boy scout he does here. He pivoted (marvelously) from charming underdog to tortured weirdo not long after this.

2046 (2004)

dir. Wong Kar-wai Watched February 12

“When I think back, the whole thing was like a dream.”

Maybe the wonkiest sequel to a classic I’ve ever seen. It’s Wong Kar-wai’s grandest statement, and while it may not be his masterpiece, I think it’s Christopher Doyle’s. It's impossibly gorgeous and doing it all: the classic WKW looks, the intensely formal compositions (the black and white car scenes!), and some completely off-kilter sci-fi. It’s miraculous. Completely new are those greens but returning are those unmissable reds, remnants of an old dream.

Like In The Mood For Love, this is primarily staged around Nat King Cole. This time it’s “The Christmas Song,” which is, for my money, the greatest holiday song. WKW understands its beguiling power as something both intensely romantic and also achingly sorrowful. Nailed it.

M (1931)

dir. Fritz Lang Watched May 27

“This will not bring our children back to life, people should take better care of their children.”

Serial Killer Crime is perhaps my favorite film subgenre. It's hard not to watch this and feel like everything since is iterating from it. From here, in pre-war Germany, to San Francisco in Zodiac, to Japan in Cure, to Korea in Memories of Murder, to the Netherlands in The Vanishing.

Creed (2015)

dir. Ryan Coogler Rewatched February 28

“Time, you know, takes everybody out. It's undefeated.”

I saw this in theaters in 2015 and was completely blown away that a franchise reboot could be so good. But I think eight years later, and in the wake of Top Gun: Maverick, I have a renewed appreciation for this stuff. Coogler and Kosinski have made the rare kinds of films that are able to reaffirm convention and still stand as milestones. With the right performers and the right craftspeople, I can still be set ablaze by play-the-hits traditionalism.

I'll always have a soft spot for films with extra dynamics or nostalgic seasoning, like Moneyball or Sandlot. But as far as pure sports movies go, I'm not sure it's possible to make 'em much better than this.

We desperately need Coogler back to this place.

Possessor (2020)

dir. Brandon Cronenberg Watched April 23

Unironically gorgeous and inarguably disgusting. Like an Inception for sickos. Kind of a modern classic right out of the gate?

For as much as one could compare Brandon with his father, the former's movies have a certain (relative!) palatability that I've yet to find in David's body of work. Possessor and Infinity Pool are still provocative, challenging, and precise, but they also feel built for distribution. This is a level of perversion and tomfoolery I can get my head around.

Christopher Abbott continues to fulfill his Girls promise. He may not catch Adam Driver, but he might honestly be more intruiging to follow at this point.

[Watched the Uncut edition.]

The Age of Innocence (1993)

dir. Martin Scorsese Watched September 11

"The taste of the usual was like cinders in his mouth."

Never really heard anyone talk about this, which is a shame because it goes insanely hard. I guess Scorsese just has too many masterpieces for the zeitgeist to hold the weight of something outside of his wheelhouse released 30 years ago, but this is stunning. The colors, the lighting, the costume design, the way the camera moves. Even the most blatantly artificial elements of its photography manage to circle right back around to a kind of bizarrely gorgeous and painterly kind of beauty. It's the type of world I just want to step into.

Maybe it's just the Daniel Day-Lewis connection helping me get there, but it reminds me a lot of another favorite in Phantom Thread. They're worlds at a great remove from mine but written and performed so assuredly that they have me on the edge of my seat far more than I'd have imagined––just as salacious and gripping as any story set in the present day, if not more so.

Whenever I watch Titanic (a movie I love), I feel like the best part of the film is all the pre-iceberg period drama and romance. This is pretty much just 130 minutes of that and it's completely intoxicating.

The Wages of Fear (1953)

dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot Watched August 29

"Just takes a few months to get to be a hundred, if you're in the right place at the right time."

Just an absolute anxiety factory.

The thing about watching Sorcerer––probably one of my ten favorite movies ever made––before this is that you're prepared for the major beats but perhaps even more stressed because you never know what Friedkin might have changed. Sure enough, I was blindsided by the entire oil pool set piece. Just brutalizing stuff.

I'll still take Friedkin's (something about his take on the inherent nihilism of this is more blunting, and his bridge scene is untouchable) but it's still pretty remarkable we've gotten essentially identical stories in two different forms and they're both unforgettable. I think it's the only such case I can think of. A masterpiece begetting a even greater masterpiece.

The Prestige (2006)

dir. Christopher Nolan Rewatched August 12

"Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled."

On a revisit this is just far more seamless and intelligent than I originally realized. Nolan certainly has more bombastic movies, so if you come looking for the grand visual spectacles of those you're going to leave slightly disappointed like I was when I first saw it. But among Nolan's many tricks is writing that strange disappointment directly into the film. We want to be fooled, and this is a filmmaker who's built a career on mazes and rug pulls. This is, in many ways, a response to the success of Memento and its grand reveal, but I think it's also a film that holds greater power in the light of all he's done since. Nolan is a trickster, for better or worse, and the greatest trick he pulls here is tipping his hand out of the gate and revealing later that we've known all along that there is no trick.

Even Nolan's best movies have a tendency to be kind of breathless and mechanical, grasping too hard for narrative complexity to worry about the vibrance of storytelling you'll find here. There's a beating, tortured heart in The Prestige. Casting Bowie in this role is the kind of inspired move I don't think he's matched anywhere else in his filmography.

This is also, like so many of his films, about the weight men must carry on their quest for greatness. In that sense it's a movie making movies––another Nolan autobiography. "Obsession is a young man's game."

A Few Good Men (1992)

dir. Rob Reiner Watched January 4

“You don't need to wear a patch on your arm to have honor.”

One of the more glaring gaps in my watch history. One of those movies I can't believe it took me so long to watch. One of those movies that I feel stupid for not watching earlier.

You could nitpick the politics, a misplaced performance (sorry Wolfgang Bodison), or perhaps a dollop of cheese just a tad too big, but otherwise this is a perfect movie in its genre. Sorkin dialogue, when it has its proper foundation and its proper performers, is like drugs to me. I have a personal preference for Sorkin's Social Network script, as well as a personal preference for Tom Cruise's work in big-top action movies, but this is clearly the film of destiny for each of them.

Just when you think it's peaked, when everything is humming in perfect unison, and you're prepared for the climactic scene, Nicholson comes in and starts setting off nukes. It's even better than the high standard the first two hours of the film has set. It feels like watching Jordan trade buckets with LeBron.

And on top of all this objective precision is the more intangible stuff that 5-star movies need like incredible line readings, sizzling romantic chemistry that's left unexplored, and Tom Cruise carrying around a baseball bat.

The Apartment (1960)

dir. Billy Wilder Watched May 25

"Shut up and deal."

My kinda movie. Funny, intermittently depressing, and almost embarrassingly romantic. I wasn't particularly gobsmacked by this until the final 15 minutes or so, which are just museum-quality romcom writing.

My random hot take is that "Auld Lang Syne" is low-key the song with the highest hit rate on screen.

Midnight Run (1988)

dir. Martin Brest Watched December 11

“You know why you have an ulcer? Because you've got two forms of expression: silence and rage.”

A hotel room movie, and maybe the best one I’ve ever seen.

Crooklyn (1994)

dir. Spike Lee Watched May 14

There's something really special about the way this is mostly very modest filmmaking––clearly drawn out from the recesses of Spike's mind––blended with an occasionally gobsmacking flourish to remind you that he's still a master. (Some of those gorgeous interior crane shots, the bodega scene, the upside down shot, the aspect ratio change, etc.) It's like watching someone's memories filtered through a Hollywood lens, made even more special by the fact that it maintains all of childhood's perspectives and distortions.

I've spent less than two hours with the three primary characters and yet I feel emotionally bonded.

Unassuming, dazzling brilliance. One of the most enchanting and charming movie watching experiences I've had in a while.

Little Women (2019)

dir. Greta Gerwig Rewatched April 11

An absolute masterpiece. In a 2019 loaded with tremendous movies (it’s the best release year since 2007), Little Women got overshadowed. There aren’t many movies where I can earnestly say they couldn’t possibly be any better, but this one qualifies. One of the best of its decade.

The Third Man (1949)

dir. Carol Reed Watched August 26

"Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Has that elusive, intangible quality that the best movies have: It feels like stepping into a world that's deep enough to drown in.

Synecdoche, New York (2008)

dir. Charlie Kaufman Rewatched November 1

"Knowing that you don't know is the first and most essential step to knowing, you know?”

I first watched this in high school and it completely cracked me in two. Fifteen years later it's still the rare kind of thing where that adolescent reaction feels completely justified. For better or worse, nobody else makes movies this way. It's a unicorn––a masterpiece regardless of the fact that it doesn't completely stay glued together. Each time I revisit I find something new.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

dir. Yorgos Lanthimos Rewatched February 25

"Do you understand? It's metaphorical."

Haven't seen this since 2017. I'd forgotten how absolutely insane it is and how overtly set in Cincinnati it is.

I suppose it's because Lanthimos isn't a horror director and this probably skews a tad too far towards thriller, but there's really no reason this shouldn't be classified in the Elevated Horror genre of the past decade. This is put together with precision and also features three actors I adore in the middle.

Halloween (1978)

dir. John Carpenter Watched October 14

"You can't kill the boogeyman!"

Watching this (for the first time) the night after watching Friday the 13th (for the first time) really calls into focus how Carpenter was just operating in a different stratosphere when it came to this stuff. It's got a modest budget, but his mastery shines through regardless. Pitch-perfect plotting, staging, framing, lighting––everything. Everyone else has been imitating this poorly.

Call Me By Your Name (2017)

dir. Luca Guadagnino Rewatched March 18

“We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to make yourself feel nothing so as not to feel anything… what a waste.”

There's a lot of deep, resonant stuff in here: coming of age, power in relationships, identity, vulnerability, suppression and indulgence. But––at the risk of minimizing how successful all that stuff is––it's also just a top-tier vibes movie. Guadagnino is very good at these. Bones and All also rocks! Complete the Chalamet '80s trilogy, Luca!

Call Me by Your Name is one of the rare recent films to earn a place alongside the romance genre's greats (In The Mood For Love, Before Sunset, et al), though I think it's worth pointing out that this is quite a bit longer than those. If this film has an Achilles heel it's a verbosity that doesn't always serve its narrative––a mistake Guadagnino repeats in his latest collaboration with Chalamet.

And it's a shame about Hammer being a weirdo/creep/criminal, because he's a very good actor.

Manhunter (1986)

dir. Michael Mann Watched May 4

"lt feels good because God has power. lf one does what God does enough times, one will become as God is."

Still got Michael Mann's hokey dialogue. William Peterson does not have the chops. There's probably a dollop too much '80s cheese for my taste. None of that ultimately matters.

The Silence of the Lambs comparisons here are inescapable, but I'm delighted to discover that this holds its own in comparison to its cousin and even brings something unique to the table in its depiction of a detective hellbent on answers.

This is as visually distinctive as anything in Mann's dazzling filmography. My expectations slipped out of the gate but it builds steam and becomes pretty special by its climax. Just a boa constrictor of a film. Maybe my favorite Mann behind Heat??

Widows (2018)

dir. Steve McQueen Watched February 20

“What I've learned from men like my father, and Harry, is that you reap what you sow.”

Stacked to the gills with talent. Slick and occasionally sleazy, just like Fincher/Flynn’s Gone Girl. Often exciting but, importantly, never fun. How did it take me this long to watch this and why are we not talking about it constantly?

Broadcast News (1987)

dir. James L. Brooks Watched July 21

“If anything happens to me, you tell every woman I've ever gone out with I was talking about her at the end. That way they'll have to reevaluate me.”

One of those rare movies that just feels like a clean sweep. It’s almost hard to take it all in. You can appreciate the acting most easily, I suppose. Hunter, Hurt, and Brooks are not only wonderful but they’re unbelievably perfect for their roles. You can also admire the script, which is smart in the way it stages romantic competition between a neurotic reporter and a reluctantly successful himbo news anchor against the backdrop of the dilution of broadcast journalism. By throwing an already stressful workplace into industry-wide growing pains it elevates what would otherwise be a typical love triangle into something with a remarkable heft. (This is as much a film about broadcast news as it is about the meaning of professional success or the pains of finding a romantic partner through it all.) But I also caught myself swept up in so many less obvious elements: effective editing, brilliant bits of blocking, or slyly expert cinematography.

That this period of seemingly monumental consequence for the three principal characters proves to merely be a fleeting chapter in their larger stories only makes me love it more.

That it was nominated for seven Academy Awards is no surprise. That it didn’t win any is a crime. Some things never change.

Targets (1968)

dir. Peter Bogdanovich Watched July 22

“Gosh, what an ugly town this has become.”

Feels a bit like a skeleton key for everything from No Country For Old Men to Blow Out to Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. Of course it also ryhmes with Bogdanovich’s later work, particularly The Last Picture Show. The past always makes way for the filth to follow. They don’t make climaxes like this anymore.

The Virgin Suicides (1999)

dir. Sofia Coppola Watched November 26

"How much can you write about dead trees?"

Sleepy and ominous but beguiling in its nostalgia. It takes a good movie to get me to reflect warmly on this phase of my life, and I'm not sure I've seen one to pull it off with a film this dark and tortured. This is an incredibly nuanced and sure-handed debut––maybe one of the best ever.

A key discussion point here is how this story of the female experience is told from the perspective of boys. But for me (admittedly, a man) that's where the entire crux of the film lies. The need to view this story––the world-altering power of young desire––through a foggy window is what makes it so enchanting.

Pig (2021)

dir. Michael Sarnoski Rewatched June 10

"We don't get a lot of things to really care about."

I think this one got a little bit lost in the 2021 return-to-theaters shuffle, but I'm happy to say that it still stands as one of the best movies released post-COVID.

It's a film that's subversive in its warmth and tenderness. It's a celebration of passion, a defense of earnestness, and a plea for forgiveness. It may not cure what ails you, but it'll meet you in the mess.

We don't get a lot of films that attempt to do what this does, and even fewer still are able to do it without being sappy or maudlin. This one threads the needle.

The Searchers (1956)

dir. John Ford Watched March 28

"Some day this country's gonna be a fine, good place to be. Maybe it needs our bones in the ground before that time can come."

Set 155 years ago, shot 67 years ago, and still, for better and worse, feels deeply American.

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

dir. Frank Capra Rewatched December 26

"Remember the night we broke the windows in this old house? This is what I wished for."

First time I've watched this since I've been old enough to truly appreciate it. What a knockout.