Top 15 Films of 2023 – Allen’s Picks

December 29th, 2023 | POSTED BY Allen Almachar

5) The Holdovers

The first collaboration between director Alexander Payne and actor Paul Giamatti since Sideways (2004) is once again a funny and insightful look at people from different walks of life learning to find common ground. The film’s great success is in its ability to let the characters breathe – to live in the moment as themselves. It knowledges that they are more than just teachers, students, and faculty stuck together during the holiday season. They are constructed as individual personalities trying to find a space to call their own. The film is also quite touching, even when the dialogue gets abrasive. Giamatti – along with co-stars Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Dominic Sessa – strike the right balance of emotion and humor. Payne’s direction is unobtrusive, letting the camera hang back so that the performers can do their thing. This is good old-fashioned movie making by a crew all working at the height of their powers.

4) The Zone of Interest

The Zone of Interest is a harrowing, disturbing, and haunting look at the everyday life of evil. On the surface, we see Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) and their family living a comfortable existence within a picturesque villa. But beyond the walls, beyond what we can see, are the human atrocities taking place within the Auschwitz concentration camp during WWII. The Holocaust has often been visited in movies, but few are as quietly upsetting as this one. Utilizing distinctive sound design and precise camera angles, we witness the Höss family go about their routines while gunshots, screams, and trains are heard in the background. The lack of compassion and utter frivolity the family exhibit – being so close to mass genocide – is as shocking as anything you’d see in a horror film. Even more troubling is how the themes have parallels to the modern day. In a time of division and unrest, silence can be a form of complicity. It’s as though Jonathan Glazer’s direction acts as a warning, telling us to learn from the past before we are doomed to repeat it.

3) Past Lives

I was caught off guard with how much Past Lives moved me. In her writing and directorial debut, Celine Song has made a delicate and lyrical work involving romance, second chances, destiny, and the unseen bonds that connect us. I think we’ve all been there in various ways: Seeing the relationships we make change, grow, and even dissolve as time passes. Sometimes we find that special person, sometimes fate deals us a cruel hand and takes them away. Song shows how the connections we have can be beautiful and tender, but also fleeting. Love is something that is wonderful, mysterious, confusing, and terrifying all at the same time. Yet, we put ourselves out there time and time again – tempting heartbreak because we understand how precious love can be, and how it can make us feel alive. This is a love story that feels real and grounded – filled with passion and intelligence. It’s inhabited by characters that we not only understand, but whose shoes we may have walked in ourselves. 

2) Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer is Christopher Nolan’s most mature work to date. It’s the biopic of a man who realizes that his brilliance has only led to death and destruction, and that the burden of his guilt will forever hang over him. Cillian Murphy gives a career best performance. So much of the film’s success relies on his face – seeing the bravado and arrogance turn to horror once his character understands the enormity of what he has done with the atomic bomb. The effectiveness of Murphy’s work is equaled by that of Robert Downey Jr., playing Oppenheimer’s nemesis, Lewis Strauss. It’s a fascinating dynamic. Strauss yearns to achieve the success Oppenheimer has reached, yet that very triumph has become a source of inner turmoil for his rival. Nolan’s great accomplishment is the way he works the theme of “Chain Reactions.” Choices have consequences, for better or worse. A decision made professionally could be disastrous personally. What we do in life could have ripple effects that carry on throughout time. Nolan pleads that the choices made today will affect those yet to come, and that we must take that responsibility with the utmost importance. Through his technical craft and artistic vision, Nolan has delivered a film of epic proportions.

1) Killers of the Flower Moon

Martin Scorsese has done it again. Even though he is well over eighty years of age, despite social media hounding him over his own opinions, and despite him accomplishing as much as any filmmaker could possibly dream of, he continues to fight the good fight. Killers of the Flower Moon is yet another entry in a long line of masterpieces. Scorsese returns to one of his cinematic obsessions: exploring the depths of humanity, coming face to face with the darkness afflicting society and asking us how such an evil could exist. His examination of the Osage Nation, who – during the 1920s suffered deplorable killings all in the name of oil and wealth – is one of racism and greed. Scorsese’s work is the study of monsters, and how they were able to hide in plain sight.

But the film goes further than that. Featuring an incredible cast (including Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, and Lily Gladstone), it doesn’t just explore the Osage people and the crimes that were committed against them, it goes deeper to examine the very nature of storytelling itself. Scorsese doesn’t just point the finger at the perpetrators, but at those who would trivialize, ignore, or minimize the seriousness of this story. In a stroke of brilliance, Scorsese places blame on himself as well. He admits that he is just as responsible for making sure future generations remember what happened. Are we doing all we can to maintain our history? Do we see ourselves with honesty, or do we hide beneath the cover of denial? Killers of the Flower Moon is a staggering achievement. It opens the curtains to show the wolves walking amongst us. “Where did they come from?” You might ask. They’ve always been here. But now that we know, are we going to do anything about it?

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Abby Ryder Fortson, Alexander Payne, Anatomy of a Fall, Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret, Arthur Harari, Celine Song, Charles Melton, Charlotte Vandermeersch, Christian Friedel, Cillian Murphy, Da'vine Joy Randolph, Dogtooth, Dominic Sessa, Emma Stone, Featured, Felix van Groeningen, Godzilla Minus One, Hayao Miyazaki, Jonathan Glazer, Julianne Moore, Justine Triet, Kelly Fremon Craig, Killers of the Flower Moon, Kôji Yakusho, Kore-eda Hirokazu, Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Martin Scorsese, May December, Monster, Natalie Portman, Oppenheimer, Paris Texas, Past Lives, Paul Giamatti, Perfect Days, Poor Things, Rachel McAdams, Rashomon, Robert De Niro, Robert Downey Jr., Ruen Impens, Sandra Hüller, Sideways, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Takuma Takasaki, The Boy and The Heron, The Edge of Seventeen, The Eight Mountains, The Favourite, The Holdovers, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Lobster, The Zone of Interest, Todd Haynes, Top 15 Films of 2023, Wim Wenders, Yorgos Lanthimos