Top 10 Movies of 2023
By Cinema Sugar
A pink dream house. A high-school fight club. A New England college campus. Our favorite films of 2023 transported us to many different places filled with so many compelling characters. These are the ones that stuck with us the most.
10. Bottoms
A peerless high school satire that forges its own smart, distinctive world, Bottoms is absurd, sanguine, and wild as all hell. The ruthless force and found community of their after-school fight club makes the drama of smartphones and social media kind of meaningless in comparison. When you’re preoccupied with (literally) slaughtering an entire rival football team, who even needs any of that stuff anyway? —Natalie Bauer
9. Godzilla Minus One
Godzilla is only the backdrop to this Japanese World War II period drama about the fallout of war, which follows a “failed” kamikaze pilot haunted by shame and plagued by the PTSD of his first encounter with the monster. There’s plenty of action along the way when a ragtag group of strangers harness their unique abilities to try to take on Godzilla once and for all before everything is taken from them. Bring tissues. —Natalie Pohorski
8. How to Blow Up A Pipeline
Through overlapping storylines and a heart-pounding heist, director Daniel Goldhaber’s adaptation of the novel How to Blow Up a Pipeline by Andreas Malm delivers a fiercely persuasive narrative on how the climate crisis affects everyone. From a cancer patient to a rancher to a Native American, Goldhaber tells a vital story of our times with empathy and urgency. —Kevin Prchal
7. Theater Camp
There’s perhaps nothing more “theater kid” than harmonizing to a generator’s electric hum during a power outage. Hyper-specific moments like that make this musical mockumentary so delightful, so endearing, and so damn funny. With both a lights-out ensemble and the dynamic duo of Ben Platt and Molly Gordon at its center, Theater Camp hits the mark and absolutely sings. —Chad Comello
6. Poor Things
Yes, it’s bananas (or should I say apples?) but bold and beautiful too. Bella (Emma Stone) experiences life as a child in an adult’s body thanks to her Dr. Frankenstein-esque “father” (Willem Dafoe). As her maturity grows, sexuality awakens, and non-people-pleasing ways flourish, Bella shows just how childish and afraid most adults really are, and on the way becomes a rather idyllic example of womanhood. —Natalie Pohorski
5. The Holdovers
Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers makes the strongest bid for a holiday classic since 2003’s Elf and Love Actually. Offering up the finest of Payne’s sensibilities (quiet, wry, dark, funny, warm), a picture-perfect New England setting, and deeply human performances from its three leads, it’s a certified classic in my book and one I’ll be watching (Miller High Life in hand) each holiday season forevermore. —Kevin Prchal
4. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
Cavity-inducingly sweet, quietly radical and complex, and accessible to anyone who’s ever been through the gauntlet of puberty, Kelly Fremon Craig’s adaptation of the beloved Judy Blume novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret is an instant classic. One to be watched and rewatched as you move through life, if not for the sheer joy of it then for the plain reminder that adolescence is a thing of infinite obstacles, depth, and triumph. —Kevin Prchal
3. Past Lives
We’ve all played that game of guessing the life stories of strangers passing by. But by zooming into the story of two childhood friends and their entwining fates across a lifetime, Celine Song’s delicate and deeply humane Past Lives shows why you can never truly know someone’s story without meeting every version of them—past, present, and possible. So may we all embrace the heaviness and heart our own past lives bring. —Chad Comello
2. Oppenheimer
Dense, complex, precise, and packed to the gills with ideas from start to finish, Oppenheimer is a high-water mark in the career of Christopher Nolan, whose films are the modern equivalent to the epics of David Lean. It still blows my mind that a film about nuclear proliferation and the societal proclivity to demonize intellect and free thought made nearly a billion dollars at the box office. They don’t make ‘em like this anymore… —Dylan Stuckey
1. Barbie
This one-of-a-kind wonder from Greta Gerwig could change the world, and that’s why it’s our #1. It explores so many themes, but ultimately it’s about exposing the patriarchy and finding our collective humanity, which is what America Ferrera’s “It is literally impossible to be a woman” monologue at the emotional climax of the film articulates so simply. Time to hunker down in your Mojo Dojo Casa House or Dream House and give it another rewatch. —Natalie Pohorski