What a strange, fascinating year this was for film.

The cinematic quality absolutely showed up in 2023: multiple mega-budget discussion magnets rolled onto big screens without even one (1) superhero in them – and some of the movies that did feature comic book origins were even quite good! We got gigantic big-screen showcases and intimate streaming-friendly art pieces waiting to be picked apart. We got new Scorsese, new Fincher, new Scott, and new Nolan joints within one calendar year, and they all looked expensive – which just seems crazy in a post-lockdown world.

Speaking of which, the last of the major pandemic-delayed movies may be behind us now, but we may be in for a wave of strike-delayed features – hopefully made by fairly-compensated people – over the next couple of years.

I saw 28 new-release films in 2023, which was always going to come far below my 2022 tally, but almost everything I saw this year was worth my time, and some of these may even be worth yours! To close out the year as always, these are my top ten favourite movies of 2023.

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VR BEST OF 2023 DISCLAIMER

This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. If you agree with me 100%, go buy a lottery ticket. Respectful disagreement is most welcome.

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10. Barbie

Our first entry seemed for a while like it could have gone in either an ultra-shallow or overly-pretentious direction, and it kind of did neither. Frustratingly uneven given the ridiculously stacked roster of people involved both in front of and behind the camera, Barbie is still a relentlessly entertaining ride from the triumphant set design of its opening scene to those loopy, abstract final minutes. And sure, it has prompted remarkably varied discussions about quality, thematic payoff and commercial realities among my friends and family that I have and will likely continue to enjoy over time – which will always give a movie extra points in my book – but it also gave us two of the best musical sequences of the year, one of Kate McKinnon’s most unhinged cinematic turns, and that career-highlight performance from Ryan Gosling.

9. Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part I

I’ve found the seventh Mission Impossible film exceedingly hard to quantify over the last half-year, largely because after they made two of the greatest action movies ever back-to-back, Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie decided to lean into more character-focused territory – and tell only half a story – for their third Mission Impossible project as a team. Thus many of the narrative choices the script makes are yet to be resolved, and for once the action isn’t uniformly excellent enough to make up for this: the movie features only the second-craziest vehicular chase down a Roman staircase this year (and unbelievably, the year’s third-most-intense action scene on a European staircase altogether); the realities of the pandemic clearly also limited the volume of real-world stunt magic this time around.

But just to be clear, I still love this movie; Ethan’s established crew (Ilsa Faust aside) is handled as endearingly as ever, newcomer Grace makes a fantastic entrance, and the lead character’s continued transformation into the ultimate ride-or-die partner keeps the stakes impossibly, entertainingly high.

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