My Top Ten Favorite Movies of 2023:
1. Past Lives
2. Barbie
3. Oppenheimer
4. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
5. The Holdovers
6. John Wick: Chapter 4
7. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
8. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1
9. Poor Things
10. What Happens Later?
These are my favorite movies of the year, not necessarily the best movies of the year. My friend Michael Phillips, Film Critic for the Chicago Tribune, once asked me what distinguished my favorite movie from the best movie. We got that distinction is subjective. I have nothing, but mad love and respect for Michael. I think that Michael is the Best Movie Critic on Planet Earth. He’s also my Favorite Movie Critic of All-Time. My Movie Critic Hero. Here are my distinctions of favorite and best movie.
Director Celine Song’s Past Lives is my most Favorite Movie of the year. It’s also the Best Movie of the year for me. Celine’s Past Lives is the timeless love story of Nora and Hae Sung, played by Greta Lee and Teo Yoo. They were best friends when they were 12 years old, but separated when Nora’s family moved to Canada. 20 years later, they meet again in New York City. Now writer Nora is married to her writer husband Arthur, played by John Magaro. Hae Sung is a single engineer.
In Korean culture, in-yun means providence or fate. The one who you marry or fall in love with, is the one you were with for over 300 generations, in your past lives. In the poignant climatic narrative arc, Nora and Hae Sung look into each other’s eyes, into each other’s souls. Are they going to kiss? Is this in-yun?
Hae Sung was in love with Nora since they were 12 years old. She says, “You stayed with me when I cried.” No, they don’t kiss. Leaving Hae Sung says to Nora, “See you then [in the next life] …” Nora cries. I cried in the theater, too. I’m on the journey to fall madly and deeply in love. Past Lives reminded me to keep the faith. Keep moving forward.
Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone as Earnest and his Osage Indian wife Mollie in 1920’s Oklahoma, where the Osage Tribe became oil rich. Killers of the Flower Moon is about the murder of the rich Osage. Leonardo DiCaprio will likely get a Best Actor Academy Award Nomination for his portrayal of the uneducated sociopath Ernest. Lilly Gladstone will also likely get a Best Actress Nomination for her portrayal of kind suffering Mollie. Excluding Mollie, everyone in Killers of the Flower Moon is a repugnant, reprehensible human being.
I saw Killers of the Flower Moon with my friend, who hated the movie. She thought that the characters in the movie were horrible human beings. The movie was so fucking depressing, which it was. Still, I was curious to see how this movie ended as painful as that might be. My friend had enough and wanted to leave. So, we left about halfway through the 3.5-hour movie. That being said, Killers of the Flower Moon is not my Favorite Movie of the Year. Although, it might be one of the Best Movies of the Year.
I believe what constitutes the best movies are inspired direction, an excellent screenplay, and great acting. Past Lives and Killers of the Flower Moon check all those boxes. Still, Past Lives is my Favorite and Best Movie of the Year. Killer of the Flower Moon might be one the Best Movies of the Year. It is not my Favorite Movie of the Year at all. I’ve yet to go back and watch the movie in its entirety. Not a profound loss. Maybe, I’ll stream it sometime. Maybe.
In Variety Actors on Actors, Actor Chris Evans reflected upon what makes people see his movies, whether that’s Avengers: Endgame or Lightyear. Chris said, “The audience doesn’t come to see you. They come to see themselves. At the end of the day, you have to let them in.”
I didn’t see myself anywhere in Killers of the Flower Moon. Even me on my most asshole day. I resonated with the yearning for true love in Nora and Hae Sung’s hearts in Past Lives. I feel my favorite movies from the inside out. My favorite movies on the screen live inside me with their courage, love, and laughter. As Chris said, I see myself, see my life in my favorite movies. Besides, Michael Phillips’s Best Move of 2023 is also Past Lives. So, I’m not totally whacked.
My favorite movies inspire. In Director Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, Margo Robbie as Barbie tells her creator Ruth Handler, played by Rhea Perlman, “I want to be a part of the people that make meaning, not the thing that’s made. I want to do the imagining. I don’t want to be the idea.” I want to make meaning. I want to have a meaningful life like my late Mom and the late Mizukami Sensei. Amen.
In Director Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, Neils Bohr, played by Kenneth Branaugh, warns Robert Oppenheimer, played by Cillian Murphy, “You are the man who gave them the power to destroy themselves. And they are not prepared.” We still are not. Oppenheimer is the eloquent conscience that we must have great wisdom to wield great power.
In Writer and Director Chad Stahelski’s John Wick: Chapter 4, master assassin John Wick, played by Keanu Reeves, finds sanctuary with his dear friend and mentor Koji Shimazu, played by Hiroyuki Sanada. Koji tells John, “A good death only comes after a good life.” John says, “You and l left a good life behind a long time ago, my friend.” What is a good life?
In the First Noble Truth of Buddhism, there will always be suffering in life. The Fourth Noble Truth is the path to end suffering. In John Wick: Chapter 4, John finds his path to end the suffering over the loss of his late wife Helen, the great love of his life. On my path to the end suffering that I’m not good enough, I love myself for who I am and forgive myself for who I’m not. Perhaps, the possibility of a good life. I work on myself, not on others. That’s all I can do. That’s all that we can do. Just train.
In Director Yorgos Lathimos’s Poor Things, Emma Stone plays Bella Baxter, the grown woman implanted with a child’s brain. She’s the experiment of Dr. Godwin Baxter, played by Willem Dafoe. In Poor Things, Bella invents herself becoming the best person that she can be. Bella says, “I’m a flawed and experimenting person.” We’re all flawed. We’re all imperfectly human. Our design.
In the Japanese aesthetic wabi-sabi: There is beauty in imperfection. There is beauty in our own imperfection, too. What makes us beautiful lies in our inherent imperfection, in our humanity. Nothing is perfect. Nothing is the best, either. My Favorite Movies are not perfect, much like life, much like us. What makes them my favorite is the beauty I see in their imperfection, what distinguishes them. My Favorite Movies make me laugh, inspire me, make me cry, and fill my heart. They aren’t perfect. They’re not the best. They’re just my favorite.
What are your Favorite Movies of the Year? Just asking.
