With 2023 coming to an end, I figured I’d write a sequel to last year’s “Top 5 Movies of 2022” and give you my opinion of the best five movies of last year. Honorable mentions go to Barbie for having the most fanatical fan base and Cocaine Bear for having the greatest movie premise of the year.
#5 Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Marvel had a rough 2023 with Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania and Secret Invasion both having poor reviews and The Marvels making the least amount of money in Marvel history when adjusted for inflation. However, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ended up being one of my favorite Marvel movies since Avengers: Endgame. With this being the final movie of the trilogy, director James Gunn was able to deliver a satisfying conclusion before leaving Marvel for DC. Every character in Guardians of the Galaxy got more nuanced and fleshed out, most notably the character Rocket who became the heart and soul of the film. The heart-wrenching story coupled with several awesome action scenes made this movie one of the best of the year and the best Marvel movie we’ll get for a while.
#4 Talk to Me
A lesser known movie released this year, Talk to Me is another amazing indie-horror movie comparable to Hereditary or Midsommar. Directed by two former YouTubers, Talk to Me is able to scare its audience without using gore or monsters to the extent that it would give Fr. Augustine or anyone else who believes in demons nightmares. The movie is also a really good social commentary on grief and drug abuse and it has an extremely ambiguous ending that could have multiple interpretations. This movie was an extremely unique take on the horror genre and by far the best horror movie of the year.
#3 John Wick: Chapter 4
This movie has some of the greatest action set pieces ever with scenes lasting well over five to ten minutes. Despite a considerable portion of the movie being action sequences, it never seems repetitive with each scene having unique scenarios. The camera work is one of the best of the year with many of the action scenes using impressive one shots including an overhead one shot where the audience can see everything going on instead of being jarred by close up quick shots. This movie earned its nearly three hour runtime with every scene keeping the audience engaged and the script utilizing that runtime to flesh out a lot of new characters. The John Wick series finished on a high note with one of the best action movies ever.
#2 Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
This movie had some big shoes to fill with it being the sequel to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, a movie widely regarded to have revolutionized the animation industry. It definitely succeeded and took everything great about the first movie and dialed it up to 11. Much like the original, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has an extremely unique and beautiful style of animation that frequently changes its frame rate to fit the situation. The sequel adds to this by changing animation styles when the characters travel across different dimensions. Despite it being animated, it is definitely not a kid’s movie, but a movie anyone can enjoy. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse absolutely blew Disney and Pixar out of the water this year and is one of the best animated movies ever made.
#1 Oppenheimer
If there is any movie to see in theaters this is the movie. There is no mystery why this movie made almost a billion dollars in theaters. Oppenheimer could be compared to a marathon in that it’s really long, oftentimes painfully long, with its run time being three hours. Regardless, not a single scene was unnecessary and could have been cut. Cillian Murphy gives by far the best performance of the year as J. Robert Oppenheimer, a man that requires a lot of depth and nuance. Likewise, Robert Downey Jr. gives an Oscar-worthy performance in his first major role since playing Iron Man. Oppenheimer swept at the Golden Globes and will likely sweep at the Oscars and it deserves every award it gets. Oppenheimer definitely isn’t for everyone, but in my opinion, it is the best movie of 2023.
