Welcome once again to my annual run down of my favourite movies of the year and my favourite first time watches. These are the movies (and episodes) I enjoyed most in 2023.
Best Movies of 2023
1. How To Blow Up A Pipeline
In the year when the United Nations met to tackle the climate crisis and achieved precisely fuck all, How to Blow Up A Pipeline suggests a simpler, more direct approach is needed. This is protest filmmaking - like The Battle Of Algiers for climate action. It barely registered a theatrical release in Australia and it’s not hard to see why one of the world’s biggest climate criminals would be terrified of a movie like this. How To Blow Up A Pipeline is fierce, pissed off and righteous filmmaking - a raised fist salute, a brick through the window and a middle finger to useless politicians everywhere. This is essential viewing and my clear and easy favourite movie of the year
2. Talk To Me
I’m always wary of hype surrounding Australian horror as it’s rarely, if ever deserved, but Talk To Me bucks the trend. There are no cheap scares, Sophie Wilde is terrific (as are the rest of the cast) and it’s creepy, nervy and visceral. The best ‘Evil Dead’ movie since Army of Darkness
3. The Creator
Stunning visuals, big imagination and a juicy, existential story about sentient A.I. and it's right to exist. There’s a lot to take in and although The Creator loses its way a touch toward the end, it’s easy to get lost in this phenomenal looking world. Would pair well with Neil Blomkamp’s underrated Elysium
4. Asteroid City / The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
A delightful return to form for Wes Anderson, Asteroid City is wonderfully told, heavily stylised and incredible to look at; with the usual cast of oddballs, tasty dialogue and oscillating aspect ratios that make his movies so much fun to watch. He followed it up with a Netflix short, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, which is equally as enjoyable, perfectly cast and impeccably told.
5. Triangle of Sadness
Ruben Östlund takes class war to the high seas with this darkly hilarious tale of a luxury yacht and its unpleasant occupants. It’s got drunken ideological conflict, elderly arms dealers and more projectile vomiting than a theme park rollercoaster. Triangle of Sadness hit Australian cinemas at the tail end of 2022 but it’s too good to exclude.
6. Thanksgiving
Eli Roth’s seasonal slice ‘n’ dice transcends its gimmicky origin (as a fake trailer in Grindhouse) and delivers some gory, darkly humorous, unpretentious fun in a genre that too often forgets to enjoy itself.
7. The Killer
David Fincher’s stoic take on the assassin movie sees Michael Fassbender’s methodical contract killer take revenge on his double crossing employers. Shares a title with a John Woo classic and a plot with Grosse Point Blank, but this Killer is dark and interesting and has more than enough of its own ideas to be worth your time.
8. Plane
Plane sits somewhere in between Rambo and Airport ‘77 as Gerard Butler crash lands a passenger jet in miscellaneous hostile territory and then sets about rescuing his passengers from a warlord. Its as solidly entertaining as we’ve come to expect from Butler of late, an actor who’s transformed himself from an ‘also ran’ into a reliably good value action star. Between Den of Thieves, Greenland and now Plane, I’ll automatically check out whatever he’s up to next, including any transport based sequel they dish up after this - Train? Car? Hovercraft?
9. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3
I haven’t really enjoyed anything Marvel has done for quite some time - with the exception of She Hulk which was a riot - so I’m happy to report that GotG 3 is really quite a lot of fun. Every character gets something to do and it’s vibrant, imaginative science fiction with an unsubtle, but well intentioned, anti-vivisection message. I liked this quite a bit. But I still cannot stand Chris Pratt.
10. Knock at the Cabin
Full disclosure, in a stronger year this might not make the Best Of list. Nevertheless, A Knock at the Cabin is a return to form for M. Night Shyamalan too, as a group of strangers take a family hostage and demand they make a sacrifice to avert the apocalypse. It’s nicely worked out, enjoyably tense and I’ll pretty much watch Dave Bautista in anything.
Favourite First Time Watches 2023
Bones and All (2022)
I enjoyed the heck out of Luca Guadagnino’s languid cannibal love story. Taylor Russell and Timothée Chalamet (sporting a Fugazi t-shirt) were excellent, while Mark Rylance was nightmarishly creepy as a mysterious weirdo loner. The cannibal genre is mostly only ever concerned with exploitation, but Bones and All is interested in much more and is really quite something. One of the best horror movies of the decade.
The Night Stalker (1972)
The Night Stalker is a supernatural detective yarn that has Daryl McGavin as world-weary news hound Carl Kolchack, going up against a creepy looking vampire who guzzles blood, strangles cops and chucks hospital orderlies out of fifth floor windows. Hard boiled detective work collides with classic vampire lore and City Hall bureaucracy, meaning The Night Stalker totally delivers!
Rabid (1977)
Early Cronenberg is a bit of an embarrassing blind spot for me, so Rabid was long overdue a viewing, and I absolutely loved it. There's a genuine feeling of nausea to Rabid that's quite unsettling. Not in the sense of it being particularly scary or terrifying, but in a permeating, queasy vibe that churns your stomach. It's a massive drag that Rabid did not bring Marilyn Chambers more crossover work because she's fantastic here and you can see both her influence and the movie itself in everything from Re-Animator to Species to 28 Days Later. Highly recommended.
Conan The Barbarian (1982)
Classic Arnold sword and sorcery business that needs no introduction. Somehow I’d never seen it but it’s an absolute riot. It’s got everything - from James Earl Jones leading a snake cult, to Arnold punching a camel. Magnificent stuff.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)
I did not expect much from this, since I thought the first Knives Out movie was overrated and I find director Rian Johnson to be completely insufferable. So Glass Onion came right out of left field. A seemingly predictable whodunit hiding multiple layers like an… onion. It’s genuinely funny and has a great ensemble cast with Kate Hudson and Jessica Henwick as my MVPs. Glass Onion is a perfect Sunday afternoon movie.
Boiling Point (2021)
Boiling Point is a stressed out, high anxiety endurance test that gives you the sweats and sets your pulse racing, as head chef Stephen Graham tries to negotiate a disastrous dinner service at a high end restaurant. Uncomfortable yet riveting viewing. Fot fans of the Safdie Brothers or Emily The Criminal.
The Autopsy / The Viewing (2022)
A slight cheat because these are my two favourite episodes from Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities series on Netflix. Nevertheless they remain two of the best horror films I’ve seen in quite some time. The Autopsy is an absolutely top drawer horror short, in which F. Murray Abraham is a coroner examining a mysterious corpse, before unexpected events take off in a dark and nasty direction. While The Viewing is Panos Cosmatos’ follow up to Mandy and sees a bunch of eggheads invited to millionaire Peter Weller’s mansion to examine a rare meteorite. Needless to say, there are plenty of weird trippy visuals as it goes right off the deep end.
