50 Favourite Films and TV of 2023

I’ve barely seen any films or TV this year, I’ve been absolutely aloof of what’s been doing festival rounds so my MAMI viewing this year wasn’t particularly spectacular, but most of the things I watched throughout the year were either terrific or a few steps away from it, and I know there’s more to come, I’m fairly certain Avinash Arun’s Three of Us will make my list (missed it in theatres unfortunately) but I’m feeling impatient and this needs to go out right now. My top 50 films/tv of the year : 

Dr Who 60th Anniversary Specials 

David Tennant and Catherine Tate have unnaturally good chemistry and they anchor these three specials through any silliness Russell T Davies throws at it. Wild Blue Yonder, the second of these specials, is one of the finest episodes of any series this year despite its horribly dodgy effects. As a whole these are very thrilling, campy science fiction tales. 

Ryuichi Sakamoto : OPUS (dir. Neo Sora) 

A final performance captured with spare purity. A privilege to behold and an appropriate tribute to a great artist. 

Anselm (dir. Wim Wenders) 

Was lucky enough to watch this in 3D on a giant LED theater. Had no idea about the artist but seeing his works photographed and projected in 3D justified the medium in a way. Yes, there is the artist’s history and life, but the works itself are near-perfectly presented in this format. 

I’m a Virgo (dir. Boots Riley)

Anticapitalist superhero fable from Boots Riley, to whom I am very comfortable conferring the title “visionary”. This is what an X-Men movie should be. 

Ultraman Blazar

What makes Ultraman Blazar such a joy to watch every week, thanks to the global YouTube simulcast, is that the tone is perfect. It’s absolutely goofy but still manages to be exhilarating, when it needs to be emotional or serious it, it manages to do so even with people in rubber suits fighting in a miniature city. An absolute joy to behold. 

Flora & Son (dir. John Carney)

John Carney is incapable of making a bad film. 

Past Lives (dir. Celine Song)

If you follow film, I don’t think you’ve escaped mention of this lovely debut. I don’t think it shines in comparison to something like last year’s marvellous Aftersun, which feels, even though they’re about absolutely different things, like imparts the same flavour, but lacks its rawness and punch. Maybe too understated? Still quite lovely. 

Dungeons & Dragons : Honour Among Thieves (dir. Daley, Goldstein)

I didn’t expect this to be as fun, creative and funny as it turned out to be. Enjoyable cast of characters and has a lot of fun with its premise. Definitely one of the better Hollywood blockbusters this year. 

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 (dir. James Gunn)

There’s a Burton-y quality to James Gunn’s work, in his love for freaks and outsiders. However, Burton seems to dress himself up in this affectation, as if you take off the freak suit and there’s no Burton left anymore. Freaklove seems to be James Gunn’s very soul and we are so much better for it. 

Mobile Suit Gundam Witch From Mercury Cœur 2

An absolute mess but skates by to greatness thanks to its central characters. I was embarrassingly quite engrossed with the characters to an extent I was actively angry when the company that bankrolled it decided to downplay a plot development at the end of the series. I wish we had five more years of this but I’ll take the one we got. I doubt I’m going to forget any of these guys and the robot model kits this show spurred me to buy are going to make sure I don’t. 

All That Breathes (dir. Shaunak Sen) 

A gorgeous film. Shame it lost the Oscar but I reckon we came very very close. 

When Evil Lurks (dir. Damien Rugna) 

Gnarly horror parable of covid and the disinformation age. I don’t think it’s as scary or thrilling as much as it is didactic but there’s a universe built up here that I would love to see more of. 

Succession S4

The fourth and final season of Succession was its most audacious yet. While the prior two series almost threatened to become sitcoms with the characters circling the same drain and chasing after each other with the same problems, this series finally moves it forward by eliminating the very object of every characters’ obsessions. It’s quite engaging to witness everything pan out and the narrative does a great job of keeping you on your toes. 

Barry S4

Who expected Bill Hader of all people to be such a fantastic director? The latter half of the series felt like a very incisive examination of the 

confluence of Hollywood violence, militarism and evangelical christianity. 

Pantheon S2

I hadn’t heard anything about this show until a few animation forums started popping off about it. S1 was dropped, quite unceremoniously, on a platform I hadn’t heard of, it was promptly cancelled and S2 dumped on Amazon prime in just New Zealand? I feel very thankful for the modern wonder of piracy otherwise I would have been deprived of this fantastic show. While s2 doesn’t measure up to s1’s sheer excellence, it remains a heady, thrilling science fiction show, I’d go as far as to call it a sort of spiritual successor to the Matrix. 

Blue Eye Samurai S1 

What it lacks in originality, it makes up for in adequate style. Thought this was a wonderful series but a mish-mash of Conan, Snowblood and Kill Bill and the only influence it seems to admit is Kill Bill, especially when it deploys anachronistic music to its action. This could turn out to be an all-timer but the jury’s still out. 

Suzume (Makoto Shinkai)

Makoto Shinkai is incapable of making a bad film. 

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 (Tom Cruise)

More Capra/Hitchcock than anything else, this is a pretty fun caper with one overrated stunt and one exhilarating train-set set-piece. Its attempts at seriousness are its undoing. 

La Chimera (Alice Rorwacher)

I haven’t really watched the Crown so Josh O’Connor took me by surprise. He reminds me of Robert Pattinson, not Twilight Robert Pattinson, but the Robert Pattinson who acted in a Claire Denis or a Cronenberg, he feels very supine to the female gaze here. Otherwise this is a lovely lark, with an undercurrent of melancholy that keeps it from feeling schmaltzy. 

The Bear S2

Has three of the best TV episodes I’ve seen all year, and the whole season makes for a marvellous salve to the relentless tension and anxiety of the first. It’s comparatively more languid, exploring its characters and the art they’ve committed to with greater depth. Life is much more interesting when you’re not suffering for cash. 

Afire (Christian Petzold)

I’ve been a Petzoldhead since Phoenix and this is the first time he’s done comedy, I think? It’s extremely funny, its protagonist harrowingly relatable and it ends beautifully. Not his best but a fantastic film. 

Kaathal (dir. Jeo Baby) 

Mammooty’s performance is astounding, in its tone and narrative feels like a film made in a parallel universe. Understated but it understands what to do with its tools. There is not a smidge of hatred in any pixel. 

SpyXFamily

This is my comfort show. Feels like an update of Lupin the Third but also caters to a fantasy of this very lonely generation. My only fear is that the characters really go nowhere and won’t for the rest of this show’s existence. 

The Swan (dir. Wes Anderson)

Poison (dir. Wes Anderson) 

Ratcatcher (dir. Wes Anderson) 

Some of Wes Anderson’s best work, he owns the artifice inherent in his newer productions like a magician revealing his tricks and performing them to applause. 

May December (dir. Todd Haynes) 

I don’t think a short capsule-y review can do this justice, there’s so many pieces at play, every minor revelation add so much to it, every judgment upended and remade, it’s a marvellous film that’s grown on me even more since I watched it.  Charles Melton is the heart of this film. 

As Filhas do Fogo (dir. Pedro Costa) 

Poetry sung by three indigenous Portuguese sisters in the midst of a volcanic eruption? Hellfire? 

Perfect Days (dir. Wim Wenders) 

I love seeing people who are good at their jobs be good at their jobs filmed by people who are good at their jobs and Wenders is more than upto the task. I enjoyed the vibe and atmosphere of this film more than I enjoyed it as a narrative. Smarter people have talked about why it made them feel gross but ultimately it’s about a man feeling content after washing toilets filmed by someone who will never have to wash a public toilet in his life. 

John Wick IV (dir. Chad Stahelski) 

Appropriately elegiac, has something of a western quality to it despite not being the John Wick film where John Wick uses a horse to kill people. See, at the end of the day I love seeing people who are good at their jobs be good at their jobs filmed by people who are good at their jobs.

The K_.ller (dir. David Fincher)

I love seeing people who are good at their jobs be good at their jobs filmed by people who are good at their jobs. This is a film about such a person having one bad day. Has one of the crunchiest action sequences I’ve seen in movies this year. It’s great. 

Barbie (dir. Greta Gerwig)

That there is genuine emotion in this is nothing short of a miracle. I don’t think the set pieces work as well as they should but Gerwig really gets you emotionally as this idea of a thing slowly turns into the real thing. It’s a smarter film than its detractors claim it to be and I don’t think we should despise it for not being feminist enough. 

Evil Does Not Exist (dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi)

Anurag Kashyap is a dumbfuck. Hamaguchi is an absolute master of tone and atmosphere and he deploys it effortlessly in a film that plays like a deeply absorbing observation and, by the end, some sort of fable. The most inscrutable ending of any film I’ve seen this year. 

Beau is Afraid (dir. Ari Aster) 

I’m afraid to admit it, so I must implore whoever reads this to avoid watching this film, but this is the closest any film has gotten to whatever the fuck swirls inside my head these days. It’s magnificent and probably Ari Aster’s most confident, accomplished work. This is my hole, it was made for me. 

Makanai (dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda and others) 

Glory and defeat in lower key, while delight and joy are depicted with vivacious aplomb. A very pleasant slice(s)-of-life narrative with a zen attitude. Enjoyed every minute of it. 

Jigarthanda DoubleX (dir. Karthik Subbaraj) 

The power of cinema, by way of Sergio Leone, RGV, Anurag Kashyap, Vetrimaaran, Selvaraj, Rajamouli and, finally, Potemkin. The original Jigarthanda was about making movies, this one is about what movies do. I feel it’s keenly aware of the medium’s uselessness except in the hands of the powerful and attempts to reclaim it. Has its cake and eats its dessert, too. 

Scavengers Reign 

Sci-fi in the spirit of Jean Giruad, pure brain candy for the soul. There is a tactility to its unique, surreal world that really sells the artistry of the series. Perhaps the best animated show to come out of the west since Primal broke through. 

Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam (dir. Lilo Jose Pelissery) 

This film plays like a dream, a detour, a momentary derailment from the cycle of life, and the dream? One rotation on another circle of life. A wonderful ghost story with another lovely understated performance from Mammooty. 

La Bête (dir. Bertrand Bonello)

I think its silliness helps it, as it goes through three genres and styles of films, it endears you to its ambition. I’m waiting to watch it again as it lends itself to multiple interpretations but the persecution of women, in life and cinema, sticks through. 

Across the Spider-Verse (dir. Santos, Powers, Thompson)

My jaw was on the floor for most of the film the first time I saw it. I still can’t believe what they did with Spider-Punk. Almost entirely a flex of style and animation prowess, this film zips from set-piece to set-piece and have enough story and character to keep you emotionally engaged through its barmy plot. 

Killers of the Flower Moon (dir. Martin Scorsese) 

Do I even need to say anything here? I have no issue with a white man directing something like this, I just wish we spent more time with the Osage, who, even in the film, feel way more fascinating than the bumbling whites that carry out their genocide. 

Taskmaster s16

I’ve come late to the Taskmaster fandom but it was only a matter of weeks before I’d devoured every last bit of it and caught up with the near-simulcast of the latest, marvellous season. Probably the greatest game show ever made? Definitely the funniest. I never in a million years thought I’d grow to love a show like this and s16 has the most eclectic cast of contestants so far, from comedy legends to savant-like newcomers who somehow gel together like the oddest found family. 

Tár (dir. Todd Field) 

Extremely funny investigation of power dynamics in Academia, although friends have warned me that it isn’t entirely accurate. Cate Blanchett is flawless as this really fascinating character we follow through her downfall. Possesses perhaps the funniest punchline of all movies I’ve seen this year. 

Anatomy of a Fall (dir. Justine Triet)

Triet coaxes faultless performances from her actors, somehow even from the dog, in service of one of those examinations-of-relationships-via-courthouse-drama a la recent films such as Ronit Eklabetz’s Gett or Asgar Farhad’s Separation or even Marriage Story. I feel what makes this film unique is the montage flitting from subjectivity to verité-style “objective” camerawork which really helps to shift the film from under your feet, there is a real tension between judgment and empathy at play here which really helps to make it engrossing. 

Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World (dir. Radu Jude) 

All I can say is that this is a dense, trying document of the world we live in now. Covering TikTok filters to film theory to advertising to Uwe Boll to corporate exploitation and the callous quietening of oppressed voices, DNETMMFTEOFTW still manages to be hilarious while laying down a dispiriting truth, we don’t really have a choice but to be exploited by the powers that be. What makes this special is that none of it feels didactic, the human informs the polemic rather than the other way round. 

Showing Up (dir. Kelly Reichardt) 

I’ve been a late convert to the Church of Reichardt but this is another rewarding gift to the faithful. A quiet film about the pain and glory (and madness) of creating and pursuing art. Its milieu is knowingly a little off-putting, what with its coterie of artists living, mingling and appreciating each other within their little world, but whatever they’re creating is true and joyous. 

The Holdovers (dir. Alexander Payne) 

Science fiction, action and horror movies got me into films, it was films like Payne’s Holdovers that made me stick around. This is a cozy, funny film about Christmastime melancholy, with an endearing and unlikely found family at its centre. It takes its time unfolding each brilliantly played character throughout the film, contempt being washed away by the empathy of familiarity. Giamatti is terrific in this, Dominic Sessa a revelation. They don’t make em like this any more. 

Oppenheimer (dir. Chris Nolan)

Nolan’s blockbuster sensibilities reinvigorate this genre-fluid biopic, aided by a chronologically scattershot montage cut by Jennifer Lame that brings to mind the time-jumping narrative of Alan Moore’s best comics work. This is by turns a heist film, a chamber drama, and most pertinently, a horror film. It boasts an unnaturally strong ensemble of actors who, in any other film, would be the leads, and a magnificent score from Ludwig Gorranson. After his last Batman film, I’d resigned myself into believing that Nolan was done as a filmmaker but this is perhaps his best work, with some of the best scenes he’s ever directed. I left this film shocked and surprised, shaking as I walked out of the screen.  

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (dir. Wes Anderson) 

A concentrated shot of Asteroid City's Russian Doll narrative conceit but deployed with far more precision, focus and beauty. Any risk this film had of falling into the pit of postmodern artifice is waylaid by pitch perfect performances by a troupe of actors who play multiple characters. Cumberbatch shines in a role which asks him to be suave but slimy, sharp as well as sleazy and, for a bit, delightfully chameleonic. The breathless deployment of the story keeps one arrested, and not a word, not a breath, not one single gesture or expression is wasted. A near perfect film. 

No Bears (dir. Jafar Panahi) 

Panahi was a fantastic filmmaker before his house arrest and his persecution at the hands of the Iranian government has injected a ferocity in his filmmaking that the understated, observed narrative of his earlier work simply could not possess. “No Bears” is an artistic statement in microcosm, the artist’s political intent, the immediacy and importance of his art, sorrow and horror for those who have suffered because of it and his refusal to abandon his home country despite everyone encouraging him to do so. An artist’s defiant response to this new age of Fascism.