2023 was such an amazing year for films with something truly for everyone. For me, personally, there were so many incredible films I had a difficult time making a list only including ten films. There are so many films floating outside my final Top Ten that truly are some of my favorites of the 2020’s already. Some films outside my final list below that I need to shout out include, Infinity Pool, Emily, Saltburn, Palm Trees and Power Lines, and Showing Up. The films that made it into my official Top Ten are films that not only had an immediate impact on me while watching, but also emotionally stayed with me after.

Here are my Top Ten films released in 2023.

10. The Peasants (Dir. DK Welchman & Hugh Welchman)

The Peasants is a heart wrenching, powerful, hallucinatory film focused on sexual liberation, female rebellion, and repressed desires. The beautiful hand painted film immerses you into the world of the adaptation of the Nobel Prize winning novel while exploring the ugliness of humanity. Filmed in live action and painted over with over 40,000 oil paintings, The Peasants is a visual triumph as it relentlessly explores sexual liberation, repressed desires, and misogyny. The striking animation style beautifully covers the 1924 Nobel prize-winning epic novel by Władysław Reymont. Directors DK Welchman and Hugh Welchman deliver a spellbinding tale of a woman’s desperate search to be independent, sexual liberation, tragic love, and 19^th-century Polish life. 

9. May December (Dir. Todd Haynes)

Todd Haynes latest film continues his pattern of his films needing audiences to have a self-awareness the characters in his films don’t always have. Written by Samy Burch, May December is a sincere film exploring tabloid sensationalism with three of the strongest performances of the year. The playfulness throughout the film emphasized by the score and stylized cinematography only comes down with moments that will shatter your heart. Julianne Moore is outstanding in a deeply layered performance one comes to expect from her collaborations with Haynes alongside Natalie Portman in one of her best performances to date. But it’s Charles Melton you come away from the film blown away by in what is the best performance of the year let alone the film.

8. Maestro (Dir. Bradley Cooper)

In his directorial follow up to 2018’s A Star is Born, Bradley Cooper does it again with a heartbreaking, consuming portrait of marriage, true partnership, and a passion for creation. Maestro is not a biopic about one of the most prolific conductors, Leonard Bernstein, but is a sweeping, achingly moving portrait of Felicia Montealegre Bernstein and her life with Leonard. Cooper as an actor has never been better but Cooper as a director solidifies, he’s a new auteur. Carey Mulligan delivers a heart wrenching, career defining performance.

7. John Wick: Chapter Four (Dir. Chad Stahelski)

The surprise of the year for me was discovering the John Wick franchise. Upon hearing just how great the latest installment was, I binged the first three films as a first viewing before seeing the fourth chapter in IMAX. Not only has it remained my favorite theatrical experience of the year, but John Wick: Chapter Four is my most watched film of the year with seven watches. What Keanu Reeves, Chad Stahelski, and the entire cast/crew created with John Wick is truly so special. The stuntwork is outstanding, the care in each shot truly shows, and there are so many callbacks to classic cinema from Singin’ in the Rain to Bob Fosse.

6. Barbie (Dir. Greta Gerwig)

Barbie has one of the most important lines of the year for me. “We mothers stand still so that our daughters can look back and see how far they’ve come.” I knew in that moment that Barbie was a movie that was going to stick with me throughout 2023 and honestly, years to come. What Greta Gerwig did with the biggest film of the year is so impressive as a movie about Barbie never had to have so much on its mind. Not only does the film have some of the most incredible costume design of the year but the music (CHARLI XCX!) is an incredible soundtrack that works within the film and as a listen on its own. The world Gerwig built with her crew is much more than plastic fantastic.

5. Past Lives (Dir. Celine Song)

Something that makes Past Lives so special is that the film has no interest in dealing with the ‘one who got away’ themes but instead focuses on allowing Nora (Greta Lee) reconcile with the girl she left behind with her first love. There are so, so many scenes in Celine Song’s brilliant directorial debut that play in my mind and bring me to tears. There’s something so authentic yet cinematic about the way Song writes and shows relationships. Lee, Teo Yoo, and John Magaro have some of the best chemistry of the year and deliver such sensitive, delicate performances. Song’s screenplay is one of the best of the year and perhaps it’s not too early to say the decade.

4. The Iron Claw (Dir. Sean Durkin)

I was born and raised outside Dallas, Texas long after the reign of the Von Erich brothers, but the family legend was a cautionary tale we heard all too often growing up. I was always nervous about The Iron Claw not only having been familiar with the story but just the tragedy of it all. I was blown away by what Sean Durkin and his crew pulled off with this film as it is not only heartbreaking but also somehow makes you feel closer to your own family. The Iron Claw beautifully explores the bond of a family, forced restrictions of masculinity, and not processing your grief.

3. Ferrari (Dir. Michael Mann)

Michael Mann always has been one of my favorite directors and the project of Ferrari has been a long process for the director and his fans. When I first saw Ferrari, I was blown away by how palpable the grief is that hangs over the entire film. The racing sequences are brilliant and some of the best ever set to film, but the portrait of a man coming undone and unable to see a way out is much more interesting. Adam Driver and Penélope Cruz both deliver career best performances in a film that challenges them both and allows both actors to tell such strong stories in their powerful silence. Masculinity is a prison and Mann uses that to tell the story of Enzo Ferrari and it could not land better for me.

2. The Zone of Interest (Dir. Jonathan Glazer)

The latest Jonathan Glazer film is perhaps one of the best films I’ve ever seen and I don’t think that’s an exaggeration. The Zone of Interest made me feel physically ill, challenged, and honestly changed the way I view the world. I’ve never quite seen, or heard, a film like this. Glazer refuses to show any glimpse of violence and challenges the audience to be enveloped in the sounds of the horrors of the Holocaust. The Zone of Interest, to me, is not a film interested in exploring how a Nazi could be living amongst us but what happens once evil has become so normalized. The desensitization of society allows for us to remember what happened by honoring the memory of those lost, but how can we ensure society never allows this behavior to begin again? The Zone of Interest is the most important film of the year and urgently needs seen by all.

1. Priscilla (Dir. Sofia Coppola)

There was never going to be another filmmaker who could succeed with the delicate nature of showing and not telling the way Sofia Coppola does in Priscilla. What Coppola does with the story of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley is something only a master can pull off with the fragility, respect, and understanding she has for Priscilla at every moment covered in the film. I grew up reading ‘Elvis & Me’ cover to cover as summer reading thinking it was just a juicy celebrity memoir, but as I got older, I realized how heartbreaking Priscilla’s story was. She was just a girl who grew up to be a woman within the confines of a controlling relationship that never allowed her to grow into herself without someone’s dictations of who she should be. Coppola was born to make this film and there was never going to be a better actress for the role than Cailee Spaeny. Priscilla essentially is what a young girl thinks is a fairytale of the man of her dreams coming to save her, but the ending is about a woman leaving what she loved before she resents it.