Mercury sports editor selects top 10 movies of 2023

This past year, I watched 147 movies either at home or in a movie theater (according to Letterboxd, a website and app where I’m able to track every movie I see throughout a given year). Of those 147, a little more than a third — 52 to be precise — were released in 2023.

Looking back to my 2022 efforts, I watched 34 fewer movies overall this year than I did last year, and 24 fewer films specifically released during that calendar year.

Last year, when I mentioned how many movies I had seen in the past year, I said that I should probably get a life. While I’m not sure if I achieved that, exactly, I did get a girlfriend this year. And while it’s not like she’s been holding me back, having someone else in your life can help you realize that there’s more that you can do with your spare time than watching movies.

I’m not going to say I’m completely convinced, but it is a compelling argument.

With that being said, I’ve once again brought together a list of my favorite 10 films released in this year. This is the second year in row that I’ve published my list in The Mercury, and the seventh year that I’ve done it for my own personal edification.

As always, there are films that I was not able to see before I made this list that very well could end up being among my favorites of the year. Movies like “Maestro,” “Ferrari,” “The Zone of Interest,” “Poor Things,” “American Fiction” and “The Iron Claw” are not widely released as of publication. Others that are, like “Godzilla Minus One,” “Showing Up,” “The Boy and the Heron,” “Saltburn” and “Master Gardener” are available, but I just didn’t find the time to see them prior to writing this.

Lastly, while I limited myself to 10 movies, there were many others that were near misses, including “Air,” “Evil Dead Rise,” “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” “Knock at the Cabin,” “Napoleon,” “Past Lives,” “Polite Society,” “Priscilla,” “Rye Lane” and “Theater Camp.”

10. BlackBerry

The story behind the former Canadian cell phone giant’s meteoric rise and calamitous fall, “BlackBerry” is “The Social Network” of the 2020s. The third film from director Matt Johnson, who also stars as one of the founders of the company along with Jay Baruchel, the movie charts how BlackBerry took over the world as the first smartphone. Come for the comedy and the heart (and heartbreak, as Apple’s iPhone basically ends up killing the company in one fell swoop), stay for “Always Sunny in Philadelphia” star Glenn Howerton’s fire-breathing performance as CEO and investor Jim Balsillie.

9. Barbie

You’ll find both halves of the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon on this list, and for good reason. It had been a while since a true event hit theaters, and when “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” premiered this summer, it was all anybody could talk about. A lot of hype was drummed up for its release and it 100% lived up to it. Director Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird,” “Little Women”) found a way to bring the world of Barbie to life in a self-aware, but not self-loathing, way that shows how the doll that’s been an American icon for more than 60 years has helped shape generations of girls (for good and for ill) while also being one of the funniest movies of the year. Margot Robbie’s self-aware Barbie is pitch-perfect, but almost gets overshadowed by Ryan Gosling’s Ken, who has become tired of living in his more-famous girlfriend’s shadow. Gerwig and co-writer (and husband) Noah Baumbach (“The Squid and the Whale,” “Marriage Story”) have crafted a smart and funny look at gender, sexual politics and what it truly means to be human.

8. Beau is Afraid

This one is for the real weirdos out there! From the demented and worrisome mind of director Ari Aster (“Hereditary,” “Midsommar”), “Beau is Afraid” is not going to be for everyone. However, I find it fascinating. Aster’s nearly-three hour epic follows Beau (Joaquin Pheonix at his most nervous and off-putting) making his way to his overbearing mother’s house (played with psychotic brilliance by Patti LuPone) following her death. What all happens on that journey and what he finds when he arrives can’t really be described with the column inches I have available to me, but it’s safe to say that you won’t find a more original, thought-provoking and (at times) disturbing major-release movie this year.

7. The Holdovers

The warmest movie I saw all year, director Alexander Payne’s (“Election”, “Sideways”) film about a lonely and bitter teacher Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti in a deceivingly complex role) at a boarding school in 1970 who gets stuck watching the students left at the school over Christmas break. All but one of the students, Angus Tully (played by newcomer Dominic Sessa in a seemingly effortless and engaging performance), get swept away on a ski trip, leaving Tully alone with Hunham and the school’s head cook Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who recently lost her son in Vietnam. The three grow a truly special bond that’s really a joy to watch unfold as each character is taken apart layer by layer, showing that it’s our similarities that define us, not our differences. You see the joy in heartbreak and the triumph in defeat play out over the several weeks that these characters spend together.

6. Asteroid City

Wes Anderson’s (“Fantastic Mr. Fox,” “Moonrise Kingdom”) star-studded, trick-filled and stylish tale of grief, loneliness and aliens, “Asteroid City” is a lot of things. It’s a play, it’s a television special on the making of said play and a movie about small town in the California-Arizona-Nevada desert where photographer Augie Steenbeck (played by Jason Schwartzman) and his four kids get stranded several weeks following the death of his wife. The film features numerous characters, all filled with A-list talent (Scarlett Johanssen, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, Steve Carell and more) and each one crackles to life and is memorable. The fear and uncertainty of life and outer space descend upon the town and each character has to find its own way of dealing with it. It’s funny, heartfelt, thought-provoking and perhaps Anderson’s best since 2014’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel.”

5. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

The most visually stunning film that I saw all year, “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” (the second in the Spider-Verse series) had a high bar to clear that was set by its predecessor, and it did so marvelously. The continued story of Miles Morales’ Spider-Man, we see Morales struggle with identity, acceptance and purpose while facing the reality of the multiverse and the consequences it brings. Just like the first Spider-Verse movie, this film is absolutely dazzling to look at. The animation is groundbreaking and the level of detail involved is so minute that it’s absolutely impossible to catch everything, even after the third or fourth watch. On top of all of that, the voice talent really succeeds, led by Shameik Moore’s Morales, Hailee Steinfeld’s Gwen Stacy and Oscar Isaac’s Miguel O’Hara. It leaves you hanging at the end, but that only leads to your wanting more and waiting on bated breath for the third movie.

4. Talk to Me

The debut feature from YouTubers Danny and Michael Philippou, Australian horror film “Talk to Me” is the scariest film of the year. A group of teenagers come across a severed and embalmed hand that allows the user to commune with the dead if they say “Talk to Me” while holding it. The hand falls into the possession of Mia (newcomer Sophie Wilde), a 17-year old whose mom recently committed suicide. While she’s warned not to use it for extended periods of time, she can’t resist trying to contact her mom. As things do in almost in most horror movies, terrible things begin to happen. There are several truly chilling scenes and images that will stick with you long after the movie ends, along with some truly impressive practical effects. Wilde’s performance is star-making, and the Philippous show that they are one of the most exciting young voices in horror. But even with the scares, the film still finds a way to have something important to say about coping with grief and the eternal truth of the dangers of getting what you most deeply desire.

3. The Killer

Sometimes people just aren’t that good at their jobs, even people who have jobs where their skill is a matter of life and death. Bad doctors kill their patients, bad lawyers get their innocent clients killed and bad hitmen end up failing to kill. David Fincher’s (“Zodiac,” “Fight Club”) darkly comedic “The Killer” gives us just that and more. The movie follows a meticulous but shoddy murderer-for-hire with no name (played by Michael Fassbender with down-the-middle hilarity) as he bumbles a hit early in the movie and spends the rest of the runtime dealing with the consequences of his mistake. The film features a voiceover from Fassbender throughout much of the movie, showing us his internal monologue which is absolutely hilarious at times. The supporting cast, led by Tilda Swinton and Charles Parnell, is fantastic, and the world that Fincher builds through the dark alleys and side streets of Paris, New Orleans, New York City and Chicago engrosses you as the thumping, heartbeat-like score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross helps ratchet up the tension.

2. Oppenheimer

Christopher Nolan’s historical epic is absolutely incredible. The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer (played with steely precision by Cillian Murphy in a career-defining performance) and the creation of the atomic bomb shows the power and responsibility of genius. Do our choices define us? Is Oppenheimer a hero for inventing the thing that ended World War II, or a villain for lighting the match that could one day burn the entire earth to the ground? Nolan is at his best in nearly every aspect of the film. The cast in incredible. Murphy is joined by the likes of Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh and many others. Nolan’s insistence on practical effects, even when filming the recreation of the Trinity tests of the atomic bomb, left me stunned. Especially in the theater, you really feel the power and enormity of the explosion. It’s just such a well put-together movie. Nolan loves unique story structure, and his use of shifts from black and white to color and changing aspect ratios to let the audience know what part of the timeline we’re in really shows that the director was fully in his bag when putting the movie together. In a lot of ways, “Oppenheimer” represents a new gold standard for Nolan, who already was one of my favorite filmmakers.

1. Killers of the Flower Moon

Never bet against Martin Scorsese. The 81-year old master is still at the height of his powers and he proved it again with “Killers of the Flower Moon.” The film is adapted from David Grann’s compelling work of journalistic narrative which tells the story of the systemic slaughter of roughly 24 members of the Osage tribe over the span of several years in the early 1920s in northeast Oklahoma, and the investigation into the murders by the U.S. Government which led to the creation of the FBI. While that seems very procedural, Scorsese finds a way to bury the viewers in the grief and betrayal of the situation, while also showing the pride and the beauty of the Osage people. The movie focuses on Mollie Burkhart (played by Lily Gladstone in perhaps the performance of the year) and her husband Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the conspiracy that’s hatched to kill off Mollie’s entire family by white members of the community in the attempts to obtain her money and her oil rights. There are a plethora of excellent performances throughout the film, including Robert De Niro’s villainous William “King” Hale, Ernest’s uncle, who truly worth the price of admission. Scorsese lays it all over a three hour-plus run time that flew by.