DrogeMiester's Top 10 BEST Movies of 2023

An end-of-year list is a snapshot in time. After spending so much effort into watching as many things as I could for the entire calendar year, it feels like a ceremonial way to officially put a bow on the previous year before moving onto the next year.

Some people do this in December. I’ve even seen posts like this in late November. And sure, I get the idea of wanting to put out your list in the most optimal time while the “year in review” idea is on people’s minds. To me, though, I would rather do justice to the year itself by waiting until the year is actually over. Even then, I give myself a few extra weeks to beyond that to catch up on major movies I missed or wait for a few more of the limited release movies to expand far enough for me to actually see them.

But at some point you’ve gotta call it and post the list. You’re never going to see every movie that’s released. And that’s fine. For me that point in time always comes around Oscar nomination time, which was about a week ago. And definitely before February I need to get this submitted, so here we are.

The unique thing about this year, though, is that I finally signed up for a Letterboxd account at the beginning of 2023. In past years, I kept track of everything with Excel charts. When it was time to post the year-end list, I’d fire up my system of organizing the list and I would surprise myself with what I came up with. But with Letterboxd I’ve been keeping track of everything on the app for the whole year and I had a private list of favorite movies of 2023 that I kept up to date with an ongoing ranking of my favorite movies. So there’s no real “surprise” this time around for myself. It was just a matter of some last minute tinkering and cutting it down to 25 movies before making that list public and typing up this blog post. Now I only have 13 followers on Letterboxd, so I don’t exactly use it as a “social media,” per sé, but it’s been a very useful tool for me in tracking exactly what I watch and an easy place for all the lists I enjoy creating.

The other reason I bring the Letterboxd thing up is that, while this particular blog post will be a snapshot in time with how I’ve felt at this moment about the movies I’ve seen in 2023, when I catch up on other movies in 2023 that I missed, whether that be in a day or two, or 10 years down the road, I can instantaneously update my 2023 list if that movie was good enough to make the top 25. I can even adjust the order of the current movies at any time if I decide I feel differently. And I did that for every year-end list from 2010 on this past year and in several cases they ended up quite different than what I had initially posted. Again, this is all mostly for my personal tracking since I’m the one that cares about this the most, but if you do want to be part of the very exclusive club that follows my every movement there, feel free to give me a follow. It’s just my first and last name. But all of that means that I’m less worried about seeing everything I need to because I know I can update things later.

All that said, it’s still fun to do this post, even if it becomes outdated in a week or two. And yes, that was a longer than normal preamble, but it I feel it was an important one to point out. But enough of all that, let’s get to the list proper, as currently constituted!   

10- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

It was a really rough year for Marvel in terms of the public reaction to their projects. And I could go on a long tangent about how silly all of that is and how people are definitely being way too critical towards both Marvel and the superhero genre itself, but that can be a conversation for another time. Suffice it to say, though, I’m still on board. And if enjoying superhero stuff goes back to being a niche thing rather than something that mainstream audiences still gravitate towards, then so be it. Marvel might have to learn how to budget things more responsibly, but I’ll still be showing up. Funny thing about all of that, though, is that in the midst of people trashing everything Marvel and Disney as the worst pieces of trash they saw all year, you remind them about “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” and they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, that was good.’ Because it was. After the second movie was a bit of a let down for me, James Gunn in his swan song from Marvel before going off to fix DC provided us with the Guardians sequel that I wanted all along. And yes, for me this is the best of the three movies for me. Even better than the original.

9- Killers of the Flower Moon

A cold, dark crime thriller from Martin Scorsese. Given the subject matter was one I was familiar with, combined with Scorsese returning to the crime drama genre, this was one of my most anticipated movies of the year and it definitely delivered. Scorsese decided to tell the story of the Osage Tribe murders in the early 1900s and the way in which the movie is constructed makes you extremely frustrated. Greedy white men are taking advantage of a rich Native American tribe by marrying into their families and secretly murdering them to inherit their wealth, yet the government is not doing a dang thing about it. If it was just about any other race of people, the FBI would be right on it, but it’s a sad reminder of how poorly the Native Americans have been treated by our country, a trend that honestly hasn’t improved that much. The frustration you feel from this movie means the whole thing is extremely effective at what it sets out to do. The biggest gripe is that I listened to a podcast that told this story very effectively in 40 minutes, while Marty’s movie is a massive 206 minutes. I didn’t need the movie version to be short, but cut out 45 minutes and you have a perfect crime thriller.

8- Anatomy of a Fall

The most recent movie from 2023 that I saw and reviewed, but one that’s been on my radar since it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2023. One that, based on everything I heard about it, is a movie that I knew I would love. It just took forever to get the opportunity to see it. When I finally did, it was exactly what I thought it would be. And in this case, that’s a very good thing. Another movie that can fall into the crime thriller category. If you didn’t know by now, that’s one of my favorite genres. This one was a lot more focused on the courtroom part of it. In a deserted area in France, a woman’s husband winds up dead and in this case, the options of how that happened are very limited. Either the woman killed her husband, he committed suicide, or it was a freak accident where he fell and hit his head the wrong way. The movie doesn’t spell out what happens. Instead, you are basically in the vantage point of the jury themselves, in a movie style similar to “12 Angry Men.” This is a fascinating little French film with a lot more layers and twists to it than you expect when you initially press play or sit down to watch.

7- Oppenheimer 

The movie of the year by many accounts. And could very well pull a sweep at the upcoming Oscars as we finally give Christopher Nolan his due, something we should’ve done a long time ago, in 2008 with “The Dark Knight” or 2010 with “Inception” at the very latest. I mean, ask yourself, is “Slumdog Millionaire” or “The King’s Speech” really better than those two movies, respectively? That’s what I thought. Now I’ve been a tad bit critical of Nolan’s last few projects, which has put me in a bit of hot water with Nolan fans who worship him as their Lord and Savior, but “Oppenheimer” is an excellent return to form. A very impressive feat that Nolan can take a three hour long historical biopic that is very dialogue heavy and courtroom based and turn it into one of the most fascinating and thrilling movies of the year. To go along with that, one of the most impressive acting performances I’ve seen in some time from Cillian Murphy, portraying the very complex J. Robert Oppenheimer. The movie will leave you deep in thought as you ponder on it’s fascinating themes. In the hands of any other filmmaker, this doesn’t even come close to $100 million at the box office. But Nolan somehow got this to close to the $1 billion club worldwide. Give the man all the awards. Obviously not my personal top of the year, but a movie in which I have no problem with seeing it take the gold.

6- Past Lives

Now we’re hitting the range of some movies that hit me in a very personal way, which is why they rose to the top in my personal favorite movies list. And few movies made me as much of an emotional wreck as this little Korean drama that I saw during the Summer. The story of two childhood lovers whose lives went in different directions, reconnecting later in life. And no, this is not a sappy romance movie. Not that there’d be anything wrong with that. But this is a movie that reflects on all the “What Ifs” in life. The girl in this story is married. Happily married. But reconnecting with this guy after being apart for years still brings in a flood of memories for her. And if you’ve ever had a situation in life where you’ve wondered how things would be with a certain person if one or both of you had made different decisions, then this is a movie that’s going to take a dagger right to your heart and cause all of those memories to flood right back to your mind. Not that I want to get too personal here, but… yeah. I’ve had lots of those. And this movie wrecked me. And I love it

5- Nimona

“Kids. Little kids. They grow up believing that they can be a hero if they drive a sword into the heart of anything different. And I’m the monster? I don’t know what’s scarier. The fact that everyone in this kingdom wants to run a sword through my heart… or sometimes, I just wanna let ‘em.”  Holy fire, this fun, silly, quirky little animated film that has you rolling over in laughter the whole film suddenly takes a massive emotional freight train and runs you right over. The metaphor of the movie presents the idea of what if society as a whole has been wrong in the way that it’s looked at and treated certain minorities. However the metaphor applies to you, if you’ve ever felt different in any way and been discriminated against because of it, this is a powerful movie that you’re going to relate to. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I SEE you, Nimona. And you’re not alone.” That there might be one of the most powerful moments in film last year. Because when someone feels like they want to disappear due to how society has been treating them, sometimes all it takes is for one person to truly see them for who they are. You can make a difference in someone’s life if you just open your eyes and look. And to think Disney tossed it in the trash when they got rid of Blue Sky. It would’ve been Blue Sky’s best movie by a long shot. I’m glad that Annupurna and Netflix revived it and put it out because it’s special.

4- Godzilla Minus One

I heard the buzz on this one when it was released and that made me excited to see it. When I immediately did, even though I prepared myself for something really good, I was not ready for what I got. The opening of this movie has to be one of the best openings to any monster movie. For a decent portion of the runtime, the most direct comparisons that I had in my mind is that it reminded me of a monster movie on par with the likes of “Jaws” and “Jurassic Park.” Godzilla in this movie is not a secret protector of the city. He’s a terrifying monster. Set in post World War II Japan, he’s also a metaphor. And not only are the scenes he’s in absolutely incredible, but the scenes that he’s NOT in wind up telling a very moving, emotional story with the human characters in the movie, something that few Godzilla movies have effectively done. You grow to love and care about the characters in the movie, who have beautiful arcs. And when Godzilla enters the picture, threatening to destroy their lives, you shrink in terror, thinking to yourself in your seat, “Oh HECK no. You get away from the humans I care about, you big dumb dumb lizard.” I haven’t seen every Godzilla movies. But I’m a fan of the ones I have seen. And I enjoy the recent American movies for what they are. But this is by far the best Godzilla movie I’ve ever seen. And one of the best monster movies, in general.

3- Barbie

The “Barbenheimer” phenomenon was definitely a wild one that easily defined 2023. People might try to find the next “Barbenheimer,” which is funny because movies come out on the same day all the time, so it’s not like this is anything unique. But the social media reaction to this was the unique element. Instead of people arguing over which one to see, it became a trend to go see both movies on the same day. Which is what I do a lot, anyways. But hey, if people want to follow my way of watching movies, then I’m all for it. If you want to do another double feature, just hit me up! Anyways, it certainly helped boost the phenomenon that both movies were fantastic, which helped the phenomenon last all the way until the combined for 21 Oscar nominations last week. “Oppenheimer” might have the last laugh at the actual awards ceremony, which again I’m fine with, but my personal favorite of the two was actually “Barbie,” an absolute riot of a film that encapsulates the world of “Barbie” in a wonderfully amusing way, that also ends up being so much more. Some people say it tried to do too much, but my take is that I was blown away by how beautifully Greta Gerwig weaved everything together. Her first two movies, “Lady Bird” and “Little Women,” both made my best of the decade list for the 2010s. And now she’s three for three in regards to home run hits for me. Even the best directors have their off films, so I won’t turn against her if that happens, but it’s not happened yet, so I might as well assume everything is going to be a masterpiece. If Narnia is next, let’s do it!

2- John Wick: Chapter 4

Not just another John Wick movie, which I would’ve had no problem with. But this potential final film feels like a whole lot more. After making three very successful films that beautifully built off each other, it feels like Chad Stahelski and Keaunu Reeves set out to make this the most epic final chapter that they could and they definitely outdid themselves  with a movie that I think is one of the most entertaining action flicks I’ve seen. The villain is top notch. The rivalry in the film is the best of the series. The action sequences are bigger and better than before. The cinematography in the movie should’ve been nominated for an Oscar. It doesn’t hurt on a personal level that most of the movie is set in Paris, which just happens to be my dream vacation. The movie is nearly three hours long and it absolutely flies by. The final act in this movie is absolutely thrilling and it leads to a final showdown that is epic. The movie wraps up in a way where I don’t need another John Wick movie. This is the perfect ending for the series and I think maybe Chad Stahelski wants to try something else after spending the last decade making John Wick movies. Although I’m sure Lionsgate looked at the box office numbers and said, ‘Oh no you don’t. You come back and make us a fifth one.’ If that happens and John Wick: Chapter 5 undoes the ending of Chapter 4 and continues the series, that’s not going lessen the impact of Chapter 4 for me. That’ll be all on Chapter 5. There’s already several spin-off in the works, a series that’s already on Peacock and a the first spin-off movie coming out in June. And that’s not even involving the side characters they set up in the fourth movie. I say let’s focus on all of those instead of continuing the main series, but we’ll see what they decide.

1- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse 

It’s hard to even know where to begin with “Across the Spider-Verse.” I really enjoyed “Into the Spider-Verse.” Some called it the best animated movie ever made, so I guess there are a lot of people that liked it a lot more than me. That’s not a critique of the movie, though. It’s still great. I don’t really have anything bad to say about it. But in my opinion, “Across the Spider-Verse” does what all great sequels should do. Take everything that’s good about the first movie and amplify it. I loved that the first movie combined a lot of different animation styles while also being a fun ode to actual comic books. With this second one, they were, like, ‘Yeah, hold my beer.’ What they accomplished in bringing together just about every animation style possible with an almost uncountable number of Spider-Things might be one of the greatest feats in animation. Going along with that, the Multiverse journey is as crazy and bonkers as you expect from a properly done Multiverse story. But at the same time, they don’t let that get in the way of the story they’re telling. And they very cleverly tie in every Spider-Man story to create a very powerful arc for Miles himself. And before we even dive headfirst into the chaos, the movie takes its time to build the emotion and make this a beautiful character piece. Not just for Miles, but also for Gwen Stacey. After finishing “Into the Spider-Verse,” I badly wanted a Spider-Gwen movie. This movie gave that to me, while also not letting that get in the way of Miles’ story. Truly an absolute stunning piece of art in just about every way. The potential “Empire Strikes Back” of the Spider-Verse franchise, cliffhanger and all. If they stick the landing with “Beyond the Spider-Verse,” whenever that ends up coming out, this could be one of the greatest trilogies ever.