82. A Little Prayer

dir. Angus MacLachlan Watched January 24

It's fun to take a random swing on something at Sundance! Unfortunately, I did not like this at all.

It spends about 80 minutes ambling through achingly dry melodrama before tripping and finding itself in the scene the entire movie should've been structured around. I have no idea why it took so long to arrive at what's clearly the point. Kudos to Strathairn and Levy for mustering up enough juice in that moment to make it work in itself, but every other aspect of this movie is a no for me.

I kept thinking, "This is something my parents would like," and given the character this movie is centered around, I think my parents are probably the target demographic. It's possible I'd have connected emotionally if I had grown children with adult problems.

81. Fool’s Paradise

dir. Charlie Day Watched May 11

I think this is supposed to be like Being There meets Babylon, but unfortunately, it’s not sharp enough to work as a satire and not funny enough to work as a comedy. I can’t remember the last time a movie was this terminally dull. That’s a shame!

The score is great, though. God bless Jon Brion.

80. Soft & Quiet

dir. Beth de Araújo Watched May 9

So many movies let viewers off the hook easy, so I always give credit when filmmakers can elicit a reaction. Yet this film doesn't seem interested in anything besides triggering discomfort, and its preaching-to-the-choir POV won't find a new audience to compel towards acceptance. I genuinely don't know what the point of this is; it's not scary, thrilling, or even narratively interesting. Soft & Quiet is just an unrealistic hate crime that, for some reason, has been captured in a single shot.

79. Bama Rush

dir. Rachel Fleit Watched May 24

In many ways, this functions as a female counterpart to 2020's Boys State, one of my favorite movies of that year. The success of that film felt largely reliant on its central characters and their ability to guide viewers into a larger examination of their environments. I don't know how much of the casting on that film was determination, planning, or just sheer luck, but Bama Rush settles its focus on less engaging girls whose stories don't take us as close to the belly of the beast.

It's a drive-by, (overly) self-aware tour, which is disappointing considering everything on the table here.

78. Murder Mystery 2

dir. Jeremy Garelick Watched April 7

Lends further credence to my established theory that Sandler movies where he plays a character with at least one foot in reality are, at worst, passable. There is vanishingly little on the bone here, but this is also like the 10th Sandler-Netflix film, so you know what you're getting by now.

77. Your Place or Mine

dir. Aline Brosh McKenna Watched August 11

This feels generated by a streaming data algorithm and is remarkably devoid of comedy for something pitching itself as a romcom, but... I've had much worse times watching a Netflix Original. It's rickety but gets the job done for a specific mood.

76. The Royal Hotel

dir. Kitty Green Watched October 24

I really liked Kitty Green's The Assistant, a very similar film to this. She's cornered a very specific and effective type of movie: Ones that create tension I find more upsetting than most horror films because of their true-to-life dramatic stakes. The Assistant had something incisive to say about the shadows of Hollywood and dead-end, entry-level corporate work.

So it brings me no pleasure to report that The Royal Hotel is a misfire, if for no other reason than that its successful tension is backed up by something less intelligent than her previous work––a weird case of a filmmaker maturing backward. The last shot here is pretty much a perfect summation of what didn't work for me. The director beat me to my own criticism.

(Though, as someone who's a Hanna frequently surrounded by Livs, I found that dynamic incredibly effective in an agitating way.)

75. Fair Play

dir. Chloe Domont Watched October 13

Clunky and poorly acted (and cast?) but with commendable effectiveness in conferring anxiety and discomfort. And then, good grief, that third act hits. Very dumb! It plays like it was constructed to be re-shared in bite-size form on social media, which is especially disappointing considering the film had gotten its mind around a relatively fresh and nuanced conceit in its first hour.

74. Elemental

dir. Peter Sohn Watched November 13

It's better than I feared it would be, but––as a child-targeted rom-com––I'm still not sure who this is for. It's a pretty narrow audience that can understand the nuances of this relationship yet still feel moved by its simplistic portrayal. It's a bizarre choice all around!

I loved Luca and thought Soul was pretty good, but it still feels like Pixar's only real top-shelf entry in the last decade is Coco. I don't think that 2000s magic is ever coming back.

73. Skinamarink

dir. Kyle Edward Ball Watched January 14

One misconception people have always had about The Blair Witch Project is that it's about nothing more than teenagers being lost in the woods. I'm not saying Skinamarink director Kyle Edward Ball believes this, but he's got a movie that seems clearly aiming for that film's roadmap and doing so with disappointingly little on the bone.

This is nothing more than an anxiety factory, producing the most primal childhood fears. It's awfully effective in its best moments. (There's a scene that takes place near a bed that had me on pins and needles.) But every time I thought we might round the corner into something of material, it melted away. At 100 minutes, it's a long film for its genre, but its lack of direction turns a fun endurance test into a chore by its conclusion.

72. 65

dir. Scott Beck & Bryan Woods Watched March 27

It's worth the 90 minutes for fans of Adam Driver, lovers of A-list actors in competent little genre movies, and people on airplanes.

It's weirdly devoid of stakes for something attempting to be thriller-adjacent, but there is enough here in its performances, setting, and efficiency that I have to give it a nod of approval.

71. Sharper

dir. Benjamin Caron Watched February 19

We used to build things in this country. (Movies like this. Frequently.)

Hokey dramas made for adults should make a comeback, because I enjoyed this despite how unbelievably stupid it is. It's so reliant on twists that––by the time it comes time for the film's biggest––you've been predicting the turns for an hour. I cannot imagine being shocked and awed by the finale (which demands it) because of how clearly the film establishes that the surprises are coming.

70. Glitch: The Rise & Fall of HQ Trivia

dir. Salima Koroma Watched August 6

This is a good story because it's not just about a beloved fad, it's also about startup culture, capitalism, virality, the internet, and America. You could map all of this onto thousands of other stories.

I feel like I should shout out Alyssa Bereznak's podcast for The Ringer, which did a lot of this reporting already in 2020.

69. The Super Mario Bros. Movie

dir. Michael Jelenic & Aaron Horvath Watched April 12

It's not good... but it's good enough to become the kind of thing you don't mind being manipulated and nostalgia-baited by. I felt similarly about Ready Player One years ago. (Though this is very much not directed by Spielberg.)

While it looks pretty, I can't vouch for any of the other filmmaking here. And yet, I'll admit I had fun! I can hear a thundering herd of game-to-film adaptations coming. We're going to end up with a Sims movie or something.

68. Dumb Money

dir. Craig Gillespie Watched November 14

I'm surprised how much of this is derivative of The Social Network, even after the Blank Check guys sort of predicted/hinted at it in their episode. What's remarkable about the former is the short window in which it was able to digest and process culture as it happened. It was a time capsule of the present and a prediction of the future. In contrast, this feels like the time capsule part, which isn't all bad. What it lacks in sweeping statements about how these events impacted the world, it makes up for by freezing this in time––a kind of star-studded reenactment of a strange moment in history that was just a few years ago but, in some sense, feels a lifetime away.

67. M3GAN

dir. Gerard Johnstone Watched January 6

There are very light grace notes here about the dangers of A.I. and technology's impedance with normal human experiences like grief. But that's, of course, not why anyone is watching this movie. They're watching it because the doll is funny, and they get what they pay for. This one runs a tight ship with a few laughs and a couple of jumps. All you want from this strain of Blumhouse movie.

66. Magic Mike’s Last Dance

dir. Steven Soderbergh Watched February 14

For something with so much chemistry and a compelling (albeit very silly) plot, it’s kind of impressive how much of this is a clunker. Needed way more Tatum and Hayek in the center.

Something great was in the cards here but Soderbergh fumbled the bag. Doesn’t happen often.

65. Untold: Johnny Football

dir. Ryan Duffy Watched August 8

Once again, the Untold format of 70-minute documentaries is exceptionally bizarre. It's enough time to hit all the beats but not enough time to explore them. It's remained true of every entry in this series.

Regardless, some of the best sports documentaries cover events you remember and sprinkle in details you never knew, and this delivers there. I'm never a fan of documentary subjects being this involved in the filmmaking process, but Johnny cracked the lid here because he either doesn't realize or (more likely) doesn't care how he's perceived. Again, it just makes me wish this were 30 minutes longer.

As someone whose team's hopes rode on the guy's shoulders when he was drafted, I don't have a lot of room in my heart for sympathy for him and how he handled his career. Still, it's hard not to watch this and at least understand the crushing weight of the national spotlight and his frustration around the NCAA's reductive policies.

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

dir. Paul Briganti Watched November 19

This feels like a throwback to the kinds of braindead, stoner-type comedies that littered MTV or Comedy Central in the wee hours of the morning 15-20 years ago. I've got a real soft spot for that stuff. However, in the light of day, it's about what you'd expect from a Peacock original from some TikTok-turned-SNL guys: Often hilarious, occasionally pretty bad, brief glances with comedic genius, destined for a cult following. I'll take more!

63. River Wild

dir. Ben Ketai Watched September 1 💎

Genre movies have a difficult balance to strike between character and plot, and this one is too indebted to the former. It's important to know who these characters are, but let's be honest: I'm here to see something crazy. I'll give it credit; when it decides to move decisively, it's pretty unsparing and delivers a handful of genuinely jarring, "jeeeeeez" kinda moments. There's a lot of nasty business going on here!

The bar is on the floor when it comes to direct-to-Netflix films, but this does manage to channel the energy of cheap thrillers of bygone days, even if it does nothing to elevate them.

62. Theater Camp

dir. Molly Gordon & Nick Lieberman Watched September 17

Just a wisp of a movie. I'd love to see this shooting script because so much of this just feels like empty space where its stars are given room to riff. That's not a bad thing with this cast, but when combined with some intertitles doing heavy narrative lifting and a half-hearted "documentary" framing device, it starts to feel thin in a hurry––like they stitched this thing together in post-production.

But not everything needs to be a masterpiece. Sometimes, it can just be a pleasant time with a handful of great performers and a sturdy emotional core.

61. You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah

dir. Sammi Cohen Watched August 26

Cute movie in which Sarah Sherman completely steals the show. Otherwise, I am filing a cease and desist on behalf of Judy Blume.

60. Joy Ride

dir. Adele Lim Watched July 30

A funny and extremely raunchy sex comedy and also a beautiful story of the search for identity and belonging. Both halves work, but their need to meet in the same movie is super clunky and undoes a lot of the success here. I've got whiplash.

59. Saltburn

dir. Emerald Fennell Watched November 26 🍿

A movie built on hollow gestures and not a single moment of subtlety. It's a perplexing statement that I enjoyed from the first minute.

As someone interested in authoring microgenres, this occupies one: Movies that aren't great but are fun, pretty, and original enough to get by anyway. (Don't Worry Darling found this zone last year.) Through two films, I don't think Emerald Fennell has proven enough to be called a good director, and yet there's a place for these kinds of films. It's cranked to 11 in every scene, harnessing its star power, and not quite like anything else we're getting in theaters. It's not a bad thing for a pretty bad movie to be.

After seeing this movie, I spent a lot of time reconciling the elements of this that are so clearly well done with the elements that are almost unbelievably bad. I wonder if the answer is as simple as Fennell being a good director and a horrible writer. I desperately want to see her bring this kind of vision and detail to a solid script because her first two films are not that.

58. Anyone But You

dir. Gene Stupnitsky Watched June 22

Even by studio rom-com standards, this script is a clunker, resulting in a pair of pretty capable performers trying to land some awkward beats. But you know what you're signing up for with these, and the check clears. If you're hoping for something surprisingly crisp, you're unfortunately in the wrong spot. But if you're looking for Netflix-grade entertainment souped up with some attractive stars, this'll get the job done. It's exceptionally okay, helped along by some vacation movie vibes. I will probably watch it again on an airplane.

57. No Hard Feelings

dir. Gene Stupnitsky

Watched June 22

I was basking in the warm glow of this dumb and shoddily constructed R-rated comedy held together by a movie star! I wish I had rented this at Blockbuster and watched it at a sleepover at my friend's house! Normalize making movies designed to be watched in a room that smells like Papa John's and farts!

56. Infinity Pool

dir. Brandon Cronenberg Watched January 26

It's hard not to feel like we've seen this same theme tackled a million times before, and often more dynamically than this. It's a nightmare of excess and hedonism, but it's only got one note. (That one note is occasionally really good, though.)

My big takeaway is that Mia Goth is officially a tractor beam on screen. It's wild to think that I couldn't have picked her out of a lineup a year ago. Now, with X, Pearl, and Infinity Pool, she's become a must-see for me.

55. Maestro

dir. Bradley Cooper Watched December 20

I hold two perhaps contradictory opinions on this:

1) This is truly impressive and worthy of Best Picture and Best Director nominations. It's gorgeously constructed and brilliantly composed––pun intended. Bradley Cooper amazes me in his transition to the director's chair.

2) This is just a zero for me emotionally, which I'm willing to accept is a personal issue. I think I get one of these every year, which is fine, though a bit disappointing given my admiration for everyone involved here. Oh well! I hope everyone else loves it!

54. Plane

dir. Jean-François Richet Watched January 13

Simple January pleasures. It's completely bonkers and occasionally makes unexplained narrative leaps (something I've signed up for in this case), but frustratingly, it feels one trick up its sleeve shy of reaching B-movie nirvana.

53. Broker

dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda Watched January 14

It goes precisely where you think it's going, charting a road trip and exploring chosen family, sacrifice, empathy, and grief, but doing it in a surprisingly tender and achingly bittersweet way. I didn't find that this rewrote the book, but it can still be successful. There's a scene on a Ferris wheel that's particularly strong.

But it's also fatty. You could do without the entire subplot with the detectives, which didn't serve any great function to me aside from weaving in an acknowledgment of Aimee Mann's work in Magnolia.

52. The Deepest Breath

dir. Laura McGann Watched July 19

Almost unbearably tense. This documentary plays out unlike a horror movie, where each breezy aside is merely a countdown to the next scare. However sickening and occasionally manipulated, those thrills are enough to carry the way.

Unfortunately, the film lacks the inner life that the best documentaries have. I can’t help but feel like there’s more to be said here that wasn’t captured in the short exit ramp we got. It’s a film that will grab your attention from the jump and hold it throughout its runtime, but I’m not sure it dug (or swam) much deeper than a token 60 Minutes story would.

51. The League

dir. Sam Pollard Watched August 12

The League ends by talking about some of the great Negro League players who faded before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier and, therefore, never played Major League Baseball or got the same kind of mainstreaming that Negro League mainstays like Satchel Paige did.

I can't help but see the obvious parallels to the recent efforts to incorporate Negro League history into the history of white baseball as we know it. In 2020, the MLB moved to officially recognize the statistics of seven of these leagues, which is a net positive and a step in the right direction. But, like those early 20th-century players whose legacies remain in the shadows of white history, I can't help but feel like we've waited so long that countless stories have been lost to time––not recognized early enough to have first-hand accounts admitted into the historical record.

Nearly everything I know about the Negro Leagues is from Ken Burns' Baseball. That film does a great job highlighting the truths of baseball in the first half of the 20th century, but it's also a 19-hour PBS docuseries released nearly 30 years ago––not exactly the kind of thing someone will stumble across on Netflix and binge. If we attempt to work backward and weave these two parallel histories together, we'll need a lot more stuff like The League.

50. Inside

dir. Vasilis Katsoupis Watched April 9

Definitely one for the Dafoe heads.

Inside is steeped in pretension and shrugs off obvious drama in favor of obtuse symbolism, but it also centers on a tenured character actor and contains some images with sticking power, so it's (as much as I hate to say it) a movie kind of made for me.

I wish we got this kind of performance more often from actors with nothing left to prove. With Dafoe pushing 70, who knows how much more he has left in the tank. One day, when I look back and take stock of his whole career, this is an oddball I'll remember fondly.

49. BS High

dir. Martin Desmond Roe & Travon Free Watched August 24

I've said before that some of the most entertaining documentary subjects are the ones who unwittingly dig their own grave throughout the film. Roy Johnson perhaps pushes the limits of that theory because, despite making himself look like a complete sociopath, his appearance here has careened far beyond entertaining and into infuriating.

Watching the film and analyzing how it might have come together, I have to wonder if the insanity of Johnson's contributions hurt the movie as a whole. There's little outside the lines when your primary subject is willing to light themselves on fire for as long as you're willing to train a camera on them. This is not much more than an interview with one man, supplemented by some game film and secondary voices.

What an insane story––one that highlights the worst of America's fetishization of football. Essentially everyone who appears here shoulders some of the blame, and so do we.

48. No One Will Save You

dir. Brian Duffield Watched September 25 💎

It's an exciting little sci-fi thriller because of how much it's trying to do within its meager confines. Dever is an actress that's very easy to like, and here she's operating in a mode I didn't know she had while being shot like a legitimate movie star. This camera is obsessed with her face and how she occupies the screen. Certainly, a lot of this is because of the no-dialogue gimmick, which I didn't even notice was happening until fairly deep into the movie because of how engrossed I was.

Beyond what's happening on the screen, this reminds me of my experience with Prey last year. They both strike a good balance between a made-for-streaming budget and some of the trappings that come with larger popcorn fare. The consensus with both of these films is that they should've been screened in theaters, and to the extent that all good films deserve to be seen on the big screen, I agree. But they're also two movies I frankly would not have made time to see at AMC but was happy to embrace from my couch. (I have a hunch that the same is true for a lot of viewers.) Direct-to-streaming films are not going anywhere, so it's interesting that Hulu has (at least by accident) seemed to have found a formula with these two. They feel like what the best version of streaming exclusives should be: Fun showcases for young filmmakers and stars.

47. Influencer

dir. Kurtis David Harder Watched June 4 💎

This is dumb streaming trash, but it's the good version of that. These movies win by keeping things on the rails, but this is shot on location, sturdy from a technical standpoint, and confident in its screenplay. It's so rare this kind of film connects on each of its narrative twists.

I've never seen a Kurtis David Harder film, but the guy clearly knows what he's doing. He even drops the opening credits at the end of the first act. Good stuff!

46. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

dir. Jeff Rowe Watched September 3

The first 45 minutes of this is some of the most delightful stuff I've seen all year, and yet I can pinpoint the exact instant it flips from a fun and inventive take on a high school comedy into an overstuffed action mess I've seen 100 times.

We gotta come up with a name for this phenomenon. I don't even know that this film is the worst offender. To a certain extent, it would be unfair to expect a TMNT movie to end in anything other than a big action set piece. But there seems to be a significant number of movies recently that can't think of anything else to do with a climax aside from going as big as possible, substituting creativity for sheer scale. Most bafflingly, this occurs in films like this one, which succeeds in the first half because of its restraint. Recently, I've seen some pretty good movies where the climax is the least engaging part! Not great! You can resolve narrative and thematic arcs in other ways!

I'm glad this exists, and I think it's worth everyone's time. I just wish such a fresh and funny movie didn't end up being so indicative of an annoying trend I'm starting to notice.

45. The Artifice Girl

dir. Franklin Ritch Watched May 8 💎

The budget makes this bare bones, and the theme makes it didactic. For a while, that doesn't matter. It's what keeps the movie humming. But eventually, this rigidity catches up, and the whole show starts to feel pretty stiff. By the time the film breaks free from its machinations for its final moments, it's too late to save it.

I've seen this compared to 2019's The Vast of Night, which is spot-on. It feels less like a fully formed idea than it does a proof of concept––a kind of beta version of a director's career. I don't mean that as a bad thing, though I doubt it's what any filmmaker wants to hear. I do find this stuff exciting. Regardless of your thoughts on this film in particular, if you watch a lot of movies, I think it's impossible to watch this and not get a rush over some of the stuff Franklin Ritch is doing.

44. Leave The World Behind

dir. Sam Esmail Watched December 8

Black Mirror by way of Knock at the Cabin. The thing that sets apart Shyamalan movies––even the ones that aren't great––is that their themes are more existential and less like episodes of The Twilight Zone. That's not to say this stuff is fruitless, even if it frequently veers into TV-guy-makes-a-movie territory and even if it’s seemingly engineered to be shared on TikTok in creepy 30-second clips. The truth is, a lot of this is effective. I may question his movie chops but Esmail can stage doom and chaos with the best of them. But I think societal thrillers have to be really good to avoid being preachy or stoner-brained, and this ultimately falls into some of those traps.

Joins Saltburn in the category of movies that aren't good but are kind of scaled, star-powered, and original enough to be worth the time regardless. This movie isn't great, but I enjoyed it and would recommend it to just about anyone. I appreciate those.

(The Obamas executive producing this is beyond parody.)

43. Rye Lane

dir. Raine Allen-Miller Watched April 14 🍿💎

This is one of the most exciting movies of the year. It feels more like a debut feature than a masterpiece, but it's the kind of debut feature that promises a masterpiece. Distinctive, inventive, and endlessly charming. I'm immediately on board for anything Raine Allen-Miller does going forward.

42. Missing

dir. Nicholas D. Johnson & Will Merrick

Watched January 21 🍿💎

I may be overrating this a bit, but I have a soft spot for the ingenuity of these movies, and I like this even more than the first. It has that film's twisty tension and page-turner anxiety but also brings a meta-critique on true crime and cold case culture.

John Cho anchored Searching, so it would've been easy for this film to have a natural hole where a star should be, but Storm Reid is excellent. (And an honorable mention goes to Joaquim de Almeida, whose character's story arc has the warmth and resolution the film needs.)

It's all the fun of true crime without any gross stuff!

41. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

dir. James Mangold Watched July 7 🍿💎

First, we have two incredible Indiana Jones films that are two hours long, so anyone coming in with a 2.5-hour epic has immediately misunderstood something. If Raiders of the Lost Ark is 115 minutes, I refuse to believe that the fifth film, released 42 years later, warrants 154. You can feel the runtime, too. It has moments across the first 90 minutes but still takes a near-terminal wandering route to its destination.

HOWEVER. With a heavy heart, I must report that the last hour of this movie goes hard on some Magic Tree House stuff. This film contains one of the most audacious climaxes I've ever seen, and I'm shocked it wasn't spoiled for me. In my opinion, it's the bold swerve that still operates within the integrity of the franchise in the same way Matrix Resurrections did. I was similarly charmed by that film and in the minority for being so.

I'm not saying this is a great movie. It suffers from Crystal Skull's plasticky action sequences, rote plot machinations, and stale dialogue. But it ultimately won me over by the end. It feels like the thing that's bound for later reclamation or at least a cult following.

40. Just. One. Mile.

dir. Duane Codrington & Ed Coughlin Watched September 3 🍿💎

Near the beginning of this, someone comments that the race is a lunatic test, and that's exactly right. All of these people are lunatics trying to out-lunatic each other.

Not to take anything away from the filmmakers, but this kind of documentary has such a great hook and a dynamic cast of characters that all you need to do is roll tape and let it happen. I'm glad someone was there to do it justice, though. It appears to be a truly bootstrapped type of doc, and it might be the best I've seen in that category. I hope people discover it.

39. They Cloned Tyrone

dir. Juel Taylor Watched September 4 😱💎

All directorial debuts are proof of concept exercises, though some––like this––are more than others. It's not all there; few debuts are. But it hints at quite a skillset. This is notably out of place as a Netflix Original, unceremoniously dumped into a place where a clear audience exists for something like a singularity forming between Get Out and Stranger Things.

The most obvious cinematic comparison here is Sorry To Bother You. It's a good movie, but this one is better, more buttoned up, and more enjoyable. It's got movie stars and executes on a strong, expansive creative vision. Taylor will make even bigger and better stuff in the future, but as it stands, this is still one of the best sleepers of 2023.

38. Dream Scenario

dir. Kristoffer Borgli Watched December 6 😱

I'm not sure this fully meets what it's driving towards in its parable of internet fame, parasocial relationships, cancel culture, etc. Yet the performances are fantastic, and it grooves into a powerful emotional resonance amid a rocky third act.

For whatever it lacks, it's awfully exciting to experience something so wholly original that it becomes unpredictable. That's rare. Here, it yields one of my favorite scenes of the year in the middle––something equally scary, exciting, and hilarious.

37. Wonka

dir. Paul King Watched December 17

This seemed like an absolute nightmare when it was announced, like a movie born from a lesser SNL sketch idea. Yet, given those involved, it figured to at least be something worth gawking at. I'll admit it wasn't until days before release that I considered it could be good.

I should've trusted King more. This doesn't match the not-so-secret genius of his Paddington films, but he managed to pull something off that can operate in the shadow of a Hollywood classic and still find wrinkles for fun and imagination. Most of the third act is a chore, but King sticks the landing with the help of a real movie-star presence from Chalamet. A good time at the movies! See it on a big screen.

36. Napoleon

dir. Ridley Scott Watched December 4

Napoleon feels less like a theatrical cut of the promised 4-hour movie than it does the world's longest teaser for it. This begs for even more of Scott's majestic staging, Phoenix's sharp comedic streak, and Kirby's quiet power.

I'm not quite clamoring to watch 240 minutes of this story, though I feel confident saying it'll be a much better version of this film. While inspired and even masterful in stretches, it's uncommon for a 158-minute movie to feel this harried.

35. Poor Things

dir. Yorgos Lanthimos Watched December 28

Certainly an achievement, and god bless Emma Stone for being a megastar still game for anything, but this becomes awfully strained at a certain point. Great as a gorgeous romp but eventually kind of tired as a commentary.

34. You Hurt My Feelings

dir. Nicole Holofcener Watched May 27 🍿💎

Perfect date night movie! It's hilarious, emotionally intelligent, and deceptive in its simplicity. This is a well-built film disguised as something lightweight and relaxed.

33. Sanctuary

dir. Zachary Wigon Watched June 2

This is a sweaty chamber piece that's silly, pretentious, and overindulgent but also kind of crushing it. The thing is, the film is aware of itself in this sense and manages to blend that serious precision and fun shagginess tastefully. If you want meme-y horndog moments, you're covered. If you want pretty cinematography that draws attention to itself, you're covered. But if you also want perfect casting matched with solid performances, you're covered there, too.

I can tell Zachary Wigon is a fan of HBO's Girls because he's tapped the same Christopher Abbott artery Lena Dunham's show did years ago, finding himself a perfect bro who is equally affable, dopey, and toxic. But driving the bus is Margaret Qualley in a performance that's the best of a young career I already love a whole lot. She might be the chosen one. I want her to make a movie like this or Stars at Noon every year, forever and ever.

32. Air

dir. Ben Affleck Watched April 10 🍿

Moneyball is probably my favorite sports movie, and if I think about why, a lot of it has to do with a purity that gets at what we all love about sports. Nobody is selling you anything besides a great story and passion for baseball. The movie ends with someone who, despite a certain degree of success and legacy, fails at what he set out to do and turns down his big payday.

This kind of purity does not exist in Air. To be clear, I did not expect it to. The film is very forward about its nature. You enter knowing the climax will be one guy signing an endorsement contract. It's the responsibility of the viewer to go along for the ride and accept its natural obligations to a large corporation and a superstar who has become one in his own right.

For the majority of its runtime, I was able to do just that. This movie has big movie stars, fun needle drops, captivating scenes, and great laughs. It's well-made and expertly paced. Air is a blockbuster that goes down incredibly smoothly until it doesn't.

At some point near the end, the veneer slips, and you find yourself in a commercial, interrupting the emotional payoff and preventing the plane from landing.

I acknowledge that this is a dull kind of discourse, but it's inescapable with a film like this. The devil works hard, but the propaganda division of Nike/Jordan works harder.

31. Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed

dir. Sam Jones Watched April 8

I'm certainly aware of Jason Isbell, and I respect his music, though I wouldn't classify myself as a fan of his. Luckily, this is not the music documentary you'd expect.

In place of the making-an-album doc or career-spanning retrospective Sam Jones has made before (I Am Trying To Break Your Heart and Tony Hawk: Until The Wheels Fall Off, respectively) stands a story not of a musician, but a man recovering from addiction and trying to reconcile and heal from that darkness within the context of his roles as an artist, a husband, and a father.

This may not necessarily make me a fan of Isbell's music. But in an era where so many documentaries are sanitized into nothing, I admire that it isn't even trying to.

30. Knock at the Cabin

dir. M. Night Shyamalan Watched February 4 😱📈

I believe you can never truly wrap your brain around a Shyamalan movie until you've seen it twice, so I'll save my thoughts.

Having said that, I think this very may well supplant Signs (a similar movie!!) as my favorite of his. I'm obsessed with this current phase of his career. What a king.

29. Bottoms

dir. Emma Seligman Watched September 4

Incredibly funny, though more crucially, it continues to shore up the trajectory of each Seligman, Sennott, and Edebiri. I could not possibly be more invested in the careers of those three. I continue to be all the way in.

The best high school comedy since 21 Jump Street.

28. Showing Up

dir. Kelly Reichardt Watched May 7

One thing I love about Kelly Reichardt's movies is how lived-in they feel. "World-building" isn't the right word when talking about Old Joy or First Cow, but all of these films contain the kind of detail that provides a sturdy foundation for Reichardt's soft yet assured storytelling style. These are small stories that contain worlds.

The other thing I love about Reichardt's films is their ability to depict relationships. This is where Showing Up strays in her filmography by being a pretty lonely movie. This is a stacked ensemble cast, but barriers exist between these characters and Michelle Williams' Lizzy.

In this way, a detailed story of creative isolation and the price we pay––internally and externally––for our art, Showing Up provides an interesting counterbalance to TÁR. The two exist at opposite ends of the spectrum. The latter is about power, ego, and doing whatever it takes to protect the two, while the former is about powerlessness and the things we do to get by and create within our ordinary, everyday lives.

This is not my favorite Reichardt (a really high bar), but still one of the year's best.

27. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

dir. Joaquim Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson & Kemp Powers Watched June 1

The opening passage alone is worth the theater ticket, pushing back against the visual language of film in a way I haven't seen since the Wachowskis' Speed Racer. The action sequences in this movie are stunning. Not to write off any of the other craftspeople involved in this, but the legacy of this series will always be that style. It continues to deliver. See it on the best screen you can find.

This film deserves better than some of the rote, modern superhero conventions (cameos, easter eggs, cliffhangers) that feel forced upon it, but I had a great time nonetheless. It's one of those cases where it's good enough that the flaws are more aggravating.

26. John Wick: Chapter 4

dir. Chad Stahelski Watched November 12 🍿

I can't say my heart is still in this series some nine hours deep, but this eventually won me over with a final hour that sees the franchise's ethos played out at its grandest scale. Anyone fortunate enough to have visited Paris (a spectacular city!) will have a hard time denying its success as a backdrop, culminating in a beautifully preposterous sequence on the steps up Montmartre Hill.

The idea of a John Wick 5 seems ridiculous to me after what's a fitting bow on the series, but I've fallen out of the demographic at this point anyway.

25. A Thousand and One

dir. A.V. Rockwell Watched December 15 💭💎

A debut feature containing this many titanic performances from generally inexperienced actors is exceedingly rare and feels like getting a glimpse of Haley's Comet. Teyana Taylor––who, to this point, I've known as "being on a few very good Kanye songs" and "being married to Cavs legend Iman Shumpert"––will get all the credit here, and for good reason. It's her movie. But it bears emphasizing that William Catlett and especially Josiah Cross were completely gripping in each scene. My goodness, man.

If this film has a weakness, it's how it becomes a room full of competing ideas (not uncommon for a debut feature). It's a film about motherhood, poverty, New York, and gentrification. But what eventually starts to bloom––and what resonated most strongly with me––is this idea of trying to find our identity and place of belonging amidst an inherently impermanent and slippery existence. One of my favorite movies of all time is The Last Black Man in San Francisco, and these two films would be a perfect (and beautiful and devastating) double feature for those themes.

The Oscars are not built to reward films like this, and I mostly don't care. I'd love it if we could all devalue them a little bit. Yet every year, one or two films stick out as exceedingly deserving of some formal recognition, and this is one of those. Give A.V. Rockwell her flowers, or at least let her keep making movies.

24. Anatomy of a Fall

dir. Justine Triet Watched November 11 💭

This is a decidedly measured adult movie. It's just some real formal "procedural prestige" stuff (anchored by a terrific performance) that I can't help but be enamored by. I love these movies because you could tell me this came out in 1982, and I'd buy it. This stuff doesn't age.

That said, all this pedigree makes some of the framing feel weird, both in the the film's marketing and in its in-theater presentation. The screening I saw opened with "didshedoit.com," which feels small but communicates that the film will be unresolved and that a game is occurring online to determine guilt. It took me out of the movie! A sturdy 2.5 hours is a long time to hunt for clues like it's Knives Out. I'd have much rather existed within the film and trusted that I'd find my way to a conclusion I felt happy with. I think this film is a lot better than the paperback whodunnit it's being sold as.

23. Ferrari

dir. Michael Mann Watched December 25 📈

I owe this one a rewatch that doesn’t take place at a 10 p.m. showing at the culmination of a crazy holiday season when my brain is fried, but safe to say I like it a lot, particularly the types of things in this story that Mann is interested in. It’s one of those movies that takes about 90 seconds before you think, “Oh yeah, we’re doing this.”

Driver and Cruz are just crushing this. It’s been such a good year for acting.

22. Creed III

dir. Michael B. Jordan Watched November 15 🍿

Uhh, this rocks? It feels silly to call the third film in a franchise one of the best surprises of the year, but given the disappointment of Creed II and the questions about Michael B. Jordan taking over the director's chair, this caught me off guard. It's not Coogler's 2015 masterpiece (what is?), but this script is kind of miraculous, and the fight scenes carry a distinct visual language that completely wowed me. Sports movies (especially ones in the Rocky universe) are supposed to be a little cheesy and hamfisted, and this even nailed the correct dose of that. Awesome stuff.

21. The Iron Claw

dir. Sean Durkin Watched December 27

This is the first Durkin film I've seen, and I'm pretty amazed by what he's rendered here. I'm not even a little bit of a wrestling guy, but I found myself nostalgic for an era in which I never lived and a community in which I have no interest, which is a sure mark of a film that's crafted something full. All of the Sportatorium stuff is beautiful.

In between these big operatic, theatrical moments, Durkin takes some emotional swings that often pay off (one towards the end of the film is particularly ballsy, and it worked for me). A pretty remarkable Efron showing helps him along. Efron's an easy guy to root for, and this role feels like it's been a long time coming. He sunk his teeth into it like he'd been ready and waiting.

Yet, there are still the dramatic biopic pitfalls that I kept bumping into. In its shoddiest moments, Durkin's film can't steer clear of melodrama, and what results kind of oscillates somewhere between awkward emotional prodding and the hallmarks of the genre that have been lampooned in films like Walk Hard. I may be less soured on this stuff when I inevitably return for the good stuff, but for now, I found it unwilling to let me completely wrap my arms around it like I wanted to.

20. Kelce

dir. Don Argott Watched September 12 🍿

I don't know that there's anyone outside of the Kelce family itself less positioned to view this objectively than I am, but even trying to account for my own biases, I thought this was excellent. It's an incredibly well-told (and well-timed) story of football, family, and what it means to dedicate your life to the things and people you love.

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

dir. Kelly Fremon Craig Watched April 30 🥰🍿

Sort of the absolute best this kind of movie can be? I may not have been a girl in the ‘70s, but there’s a universal language here that captures the way childhood feels. I’ve got no notes. It was one of the most delightful theater trips I’ve had in years. I would give my life for Rachel McAdams.

Kelly Fremon Craig has, through two films, carved out a reputation as a director adept at getting the absolute most out of adolescent stories. Young people deserve, though rarely receive, these kinds of movies crafted this carefully. This makes Craig a vitally important filmmaker.

18. Afire

dir. Christian Petzold Watched December 18 💭

This scratched a part of my brain I didn't know existed, which is impressive for something relatively brisk and light. This is, regrettably, the first Petzold film I've seen. Still, I can tell he's worth the hype just by admiring his ability to take 100 minutes and traverse comedy and tragedy, groundedness and existentialism within them. There's a read on this that's kind of a dark coming-of-age romcom and a concurrent thread that's pretty staggering in its commentary on the modern condition and our unwillingness to connect amidst the ashes of a quickly crumbling existence.

Maturity is seeing a completely insufferable loser depicted on screen and realizing, "Ah, well. This guy seems a lot like me."

17. Beau Is Afraid

dir. Ari Aster Watched April 20 😱

Being that Midsommar is probably one of my 25 favorite movies of all time, this one had a billing that was impossible to live up to. But given that Ari Aster is one of my favorite young directors, and this is his Going For It film, this also pre-qualified as one of my favorites of the year.

The early reviews of this practically became a meme in the variety of adjectives and number of outlandish films referenced as comparisons. Yet somehow, I didn't see anyone point out that this feels in step with Hereditary. I would pay one million dollars to interview Ari Aster's mother.

Anyway, this begs a few days of digestion, reading 100 reviews, and eventually a rewatch before I can confidently assess my feelings.

16. Barbie

dir. Greta Gerwig Watched July 21 🍿

Occasionally, it runs into problems when it grazes against its inherent commercial nature (just like Air) or gets a bit too inside its head. Still, you can’t discount the fact that I saw this in a theater full of people who were absolutely losing their minds for most of the screening. I’m uneasy that this is where blockbuster filmmaking is headed, and I’m uneasy that this is where Greta Gerwig is headed, but I also think it could be a lot worse than something this pretty, star-powered, and freewheeling. It’s a blast.

15. BlackBerry

dir. Matt Johnson Watched May 12 🍿💎

On the ingenuity of man and the folly of capitalism.

I walked out of this in May knowing it would end the year as my #1 most underrated, and I think it did. It’s a shame more people haven’t seen this, because I think it’s the best comedy of the year, and has tons of appeal.

14. The Creator

dir. Gareth Edwards Watched October 7 💎

Flawed sci-fi epics with fantastic world-building, gorgeous cinematography, and sappy emotional stakes are a pleasure of mine (see Cloud Atlas), so it's weird I had such low expectations here. Despite getting a kick out of Rogue One, I don't hold Gareth Edwards in tremendously high regard. And I've seen John David Washington in a handful of roles, and (to be completely honest) I've always felt he stinks, bringing a fun taste in movie choices but frequently being the least compelling part of them.

But The Creator feels like career-best work for all involved. Edwards' film is expansive but remarkably well-realized. Gritty, tactile sci-fi is a pretty established aesthetic in 2023, but it feels fresh and exciting here. Around every corner exists a captivating piece of architecture, cool weapon, or fascinating vehicle. Meanwhile, Washington finally finds himself enmeshed in a film rather than awkwardly sitting outside it. His performance is visceral, helping pave the way for a fantastic showing from young Madeleine Yuna Voyles, who nails the emotional beats in a storyline that some might find trite or manipulative but ultimately won me over. There's a pretty straightforward narrative in the middle of this, but it's a proven formula that works well when it's supported by everything else this is doing. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop––for the story to lose me and wind up being pretty but fruitless––instead, it just kept rolling straight through to the finish. What a thing.

It feels like I end up being the lone person planting my flag on a movie mountain once a year. Here’s 2023's edition.

I think this has too much going for it to avoid eventually experiencing a cult following, if not a complete critical reclamation. So I'll skip past the part where we pretend this wasn't awesome and say it's one of my favorites of the year and a genuine surprise in the best way.

13. How to Blow Up a Pipeline

dir. Daniel Goldhaber Watched April 24 😱

One of the first things you'll notice about How to Blow Up a Pipeline is how propulsive it is. Viewers are dropped into a story running at a sprint, soundtracked by a throbbing, jittery score that feels like a Tenet B-side. But one of the next things you'll notice is that, for a story this airtight, enrapturing, and fun, it's incredibly transgressive, considering I saw it at an AMC that was also screening The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

Goldhaber has this thing running like a top and doesn't waste a single second of these 100 minutes. For every clever smash cut or scintillating musical moment, there's also an intelligent undergirding. Narrative precision and intersectional motivations. Environmental extremism staged like a Soderbergh movie. This is exciting and sticky enough that I'd say it could make Oscar inroads if it weren't for the fact that it's about destroying infrastructure with fertilizer bombs.

The storytelling methods here are pretty meat and potatoes, and even the setting feels distinctly traditional, which is intentional by Goldhaber. But balancing out the recipe are characters, fears, and anxieties that feel distinctly modern. It makes this feel new while still conversing directly with the past 100 years of American filmmaking.

12. Master Gardener

dir. Paul Schrader Watched May 19 🥰

I love a director who spends decades rehashing the same themes, refining his process, and mining new gems out of old caves. Schrader is that kind of director, and his material of choice is so marvelously radioactive that it makes each return visit exciting. This is not a movie I'd even recommend, but it's right in my wheelhouse because it takes those same themes and flips them on their head in exciting ways that speak to and argue against his earlier work.

11. Priscilla

dir. Sofia Coppola Watched November 5

My favorite thing about this is the production design. Copolla has always been a good filmmaker, but this is on another level from a craftsmanship standpoint. It just looks gorgeous and is filled with so many incredible little details that serve a purpose.

But my second favorite thing here is the tone Sofia has chosen. Elvis is a larger-than-life character and someone we've seen portrayed that way as recently as in Luhrmann's film last year. But here, she's chosen to represent his off-stage life as entirely banal. You can see where another filmmaker would've made this blunt and didactic, but her Elvis' sins are depicted in such a marvelously dull way. He's not a superstar; he's just a run-of-the-mill, controlling, paranoid, and pathetic man like so many are. By the time we glimpse his on-stage persona near the film's end, he looks like a clown. It's masterful.

10. Godzilla Minus One

dir. Takashi Yamazaki Watched December 13 🍿

Most of the performances in this are not for me, but fortunately, that's a minor hurdle when everything else is precisely honed. I was just bathing in the resplendent majesty of this monster movie.

Beyond being emotionally devastating and beyond being a technical achievement, this film's superpower is its mastery of tone. I haven't seen many Godzilla movies, but I know a certain level of corniness is baked in, and here the filmmakers strike an absolutely perfect balance of "oh my god" mayhem and "lol there's Godzilla" fun. This kind of thing isn't something I've personally seen done this well before, so experiencing it on a big screen in a loud theater was mesmerizing.

And hearing the Godzilla theme in context is life-altering. More where this came from, please.

09. The Boy and the Heron

dir. Hayao Miyazaki Watched December 10 📈

This is the first Ghibli I've seen in a theater, and I have a feeling they're all like this, but chalk this up as one of the most transportive theater experiences I've ever had. Genuinely dreamlike.

The best career-cappers, in my eyes, are the ones that are conscious of their finality. The Boy and the Heron is a movie by an 82-year-old master about making peace with the world, unburdening yourself, and accepting life’s pain because of the joy that comes with it. It’s incredible.

08. The Holdovers

dir. Alexander Payne Watched November 9 🥰🍿

Alexander Payne movies in this register are unbeatable to me. I always manage to be caught off-guard at how emotionally messy they're willing to be (it's what makes Sideways and The Descendants so intoxicating). Yet, they have a way of just oozing a kind of pure humanity. Payne is a director who knows people are mean and complicated but only loves them more for it. This film could've been much more frictionless and come out as a charming, feel-good story your parents would love. Instead, it's a film that steers into the skids while still finding a way to salvage its warmth. Broken and hurt, but never bitter.

I love "November movies"––the kinds of films that are designed to be watched from beneath a blanket. I had hoped this would be that, but I was surprised to find this is pretty unmistakably a soft Christmas film, something I'll probably watch in early December every year or maybe over Thanksgiving weekend.

God bless Alexander Payne. God bless this cast.

07. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning

dir. Christopher McQuarrie Watched July 10 🍿

Given the unenviable task of following up my favorite action movie ever made, Tom Cruise has somehow pulled it off. There's a solid argument to be made that this is our greatest movie star of all time in our greatest franchise of all time, making the rubric here a nearly impossible one.

But what this film lacks in once-in-a-generation orchestration, it mostly makes up for in brilliant set pieces (The submarine! The desert! The airport! Venice! The train!) and some surprisingly graceful filmmaking formality. This thing is a dutch-angle fest and––at the risk of besmirching it by comparing it to a lesser franchise––almost feels like it takes a bit from John Wick's recent success in ballet-adjacent combat. There's a scene on a pedestrian bridge that may be the series at its most beautiful. It's louder than hell and unbelievably high-octane for large stretches, but they haven't spared any craft. It's hard to believe it exists in the same world where someone spends $200 million to make The Gray Man.

The funny thing about these films that people rarely admit is that they're hard to follow. Part of Fallout's success is that, after repeated viewings, I know exactly what's going on. But this feels more like a return to the series' murky plotting. The stakes are clear enough, but for a film with a good bit of exposition, I'm still not sure I could recount its exact narrative.

But that doesn't really matter. One quickly realizes they're in the hands of people with tons of money and a deep love of blockbuster filmmaking, and it's a gift to experience. I saw it in an uncomfortably crowded and irrationally warm theater and still didn't want its 160 minutes to end. That's worth its weight in gold.

06. Asteroid City

dir. Wes Anderson Watched July 3 & July 12 🥰

An unmistakable trademark of Wes Anderson's is the restraint of emotion. His style is so interminably formal and perfect that it makes those moments in which something more dangerous slips through feel exhilarating. His best films have these fleeting instants where things almost seem to come unstapled. Asteroid City wrestles free in a passage near the end, and it may elevate this film to my new favorite from Anderson.

It's intensely labyrinthine and almost needlessly dense (I had to watch it twice), but it also feels like a director putting all the pieces together. Once viewers start to catch it a second time, it'll get this top-tier recognition, though maybe my connection to it is more personal.

It's got perfect music, but it's also his prettiest movie. I adore this thing. I really do think it’s his best work.

05. Killers of the Flower Moon

dir. Martin Scorsese Watched October 19 💭📈

There is a list of movies that could be seen as essential viewing in explaining America, and Martin Scorsese has directed half of them. Killers of the Flower Moon follows in that lineage, taking Marty's career-long fascination with corruption, greed, and American decay and transposing it upon unmolested Osage land just as the nation we've come to know began to sink its fangs into it.

The weird thing about my relationship with Scorsese is that I rarely fall entirely in love with the great ones off the bat, and this is no different. This is a towering work, yet I still think it's a bit too rigorous and deliberate to be legendary––a 206-minute book-turned-movie that's refreshingly languid and haunting for this director but frustratingly lacking the nooks and crannies that take films of this ambition over the hump to timeless.

Yet, for how buttoned up it is––and how much it's right within Scorsese's wheelhouse––it's still mesmerizing watching him operate at this level at his age while bringing in new tools. For all the man does well, I've never considered him a prolific image-maker, at least in the modern sense. But this is just dazzling, and it feels like a fresh setting allowed him and DP Rodrigo Prieto to expand the palette. This is going to give Oppenheimer a run for its money in Best Cinematography.

And the ending is absolutely phenomenal.

04. May December

dir. Todd Haynes Watched December 1 💭

This may be my favorite in an excellent year for decidedly adult slow-burn dramas. Three monumental performances, a tightrope tone, and a whole grab bag of really fascinating nuances and character details form something that feels wholly new and invigorating. It's hard to even know where to begin in a film this rich, but I know it's one I'll be chewing through for a while. As much as I truly do love huge, silly blockbusters, it's nice to get a movie like this to remind you of what's possible.

03. The Killer

dir. David Fincher Watched November 10 🥰🍿

I want to kiss David Fincher on the lips.

When I rewatched The Social Network this year, I realized how many of his movies are about repugnant psychos who also happen to be correct and how it's easy for one to draw a comparison to Fincher himself. He's a perfectionist who's unrelenting on those he works with because he sees only a single means to an end. And while that aura does often seep into his protagonists, it's never been as overtly played with as it is here. Fincher self-deprecatingly winking at his own neuroticism is sort of the only reading here.

It's interesting how many trace notes of his other films are here. If we're lucky, he has plenty left in the tank, so this comes as a mid-career course correction. I just love that there's a reading of this that sees a master toying around with something beneath him and another reading (which I'm finding myself subscribing to) that sees it as kind of a mid-life crisis––a beautiful, complicated retrospective of his growing body of work. "I have to remind myself that the only life path is the one behind you."

It sucks this was released on Netflix, and while that decision is kind of coded into the subtext of the film if you know which way to tilt your head, it stinks not to be able to watch this for the first time in a theater. But it does place what's going to be an eminently rewatchable film on a service built for it, so it's not all bad.

02. Past Lives

dir. Celine Song Watched June 24 🥰💭

I turned 30 last year, and for the first time in my life, I've been feeling old. I'm prone to reflection and flights of nostalgia as it is. Ordinarily, those trips down memory lane have been about songs I used to like or places I used to visit. Recently, I've spent a lot of time thinking about the series of choices that have led to my (very happy!) life today. I'm now to the point where these course-altering decisions were made by a version of myself I no longer recognize, which is terrifying to me.

To call Past Lives a movie about a missed romantic connection is selling it short. Yes, the two films I thought of while watching it are Before Sunset and Chungking Express, but Celine Song's movie is more about these versions of ourselves we've shed along life's journey. Hae Sung and Arthur are well-drawn characters, but this is wholly Nora's film. What would it be like to confront a version of yourself from a past life?

At 30 years old, this film and Aftersun are like drone strikes. Nostalgia is a foggy window, the past is a locked door, and the only version of yourself you'll ever know is the one who's reading this right now. I guess this is growing up.

01. Oppenheimer

dir. Christopher Nolan Watched July 23 & July 29 🥰

There's this quote by the French poet Victor Hugo: "Nothing else in the world...not all the armies...is so powerful as an idea whose time has come."

Oppenheimer is about a man, yes. And it's about a bomb. But this is a movie primarily concerned with this central idea: A man chosen by the cosmos, burdened with bringing to bear one of the most consequential ideas in the history of humankind. In the opening act, Oppenheimer is literally haunted by this idea––possessed by it. It has come without warning; it has chosen him, and its time has come. If framing the development of atomic weaponry in this divine way provides a tacit exoneration of Oppenheimer's moral responsibility, the film spares little in emphasizing the consequences of this burden on the man and his world. We see it in IMAX––scarring gorgeous vistas and sending columns of fire into the sky. We see it in closeups––his graying hair, rotting relationships, and visions of the dead. And we, perhaps most excitingly, see it at a literal atomic level, furious swirls of neutrons and the ravenous maw of black holes that send rattles through theater seats.

If this all sounds like a lot, it is. This movie is incredibly dense, lumbering around with a three-hour runtime most probably won't rush to repeat like I did. But the expanse allows a lot to develop, and Nolan doesn't waste any of it. This is not a film that can be broken down on a scene-by-scene basis. It's a wheeling and furious beast. But I'd love to know, to what degree this could even be determined, what the average length of a scene is here. These 180 minutes are breakneck, and they lend a furor––first thrilling and then portentous––to what might otherwise be described as a character study meets courtroom drama.

Good films of this scale have little pockets that are fun to explore. For example, on a second viewing, I couldn't help but notice how Nolan stacked some of his funniest lines into the moments immediately preceding the Trinity Test. The swelling score, the fast cutting, the impending explosion, and these clever bits of dialogue. This is all to drum up excitement at the second-act climax. We're being distracted as we're sent over a cliff, but it's only after we leap that we––and Oppenheimer––are forced to reckon with what lies or doesn't beneath us. The director is pulling levers like this throughout the movie. It takes a lot of talent and a lot of experience to wield this kind of toolbox.

I like Nolan's movies, but I've always kept him at arm's length. I've never considered him among my favorite directors. I thought it was because he was trying too hard––his films came across as pleas to be recognized for his genius and mainstream marketability. There's something almost cloying and distasteful about the intense desire to bring complexity to the masses. But I think Oppenheimer could also be seen as trying to do just that, and yet it's my favorite film of his and one of my favorites in years.

I think what really was holding me back about Nolan is that he felt a bit like a master without a masterpiece. But I think he's found it.

Favorite Movies of 2023