Getting my best of 2023 piece out a touch before best of 2024 ones begin to drop. To be honest throughout a lot of this year, I haven’t felt the urge to catch-up on the films I missed or do any writing. But when I finally did get the desire to do some writing, this is the piece I wanted to start with. It felt silly to not do one of these lists for the first time in 15 years or so because I felt it was a little (or a lot) late. So here we go.

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I saw 125 films that came out last year. In terms of honourable mentions that didn’t quite make it, there’s a pretty big and broad list of them. I had coupled Skinamarink and Eo together to go on the list, but I just didn’t quite have room. Sometimes with these lists we forget about those films that are just a really good time. Some that ticked that box for me were Guy Ritchies action-comedy Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre and the comedy-horror Renfield, which I couldn’t quite grasp why everyone hated. Also its been ages since a Marvel film was fun and well-performed, and Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels was thankfully both of those things, No Hard Feelings was a better than solid contemporary comedy with Jennifer Lawrence at her most winning. A couple of underseen Aussie horror efforts I desperately wanted to include on the below list were Bad Girl Boogy and Godless: The Eastfield Exorcism. Support em both. Sly and OneFour: Against the Odds were two Netflix docos that took nuanced looks at two different artists. The former bringing to light a different side of a megastar of a person, the second a look at a booming artform alongside brutal and heinous police overreach. The Creator and Linoleum took two as different as you can imagine approaches to sci-fi and I loved the both of them. The first third of Oppenheimer was maybe the best cinema experience I had all year, the second third was fine and the final third was so utterly inessential it meant the film was nowhere near making this list, but I still think it requires a mention. Flamin’ Hot made me like one of those weird cynical capitalist product biopics, Sweet As was a bloody lovely Australian teen road story with a sharpness lying just beneath the surface while The Old Oak was powerful and affecting, even if a fair way from the best of Ken Loach’s late career works. But there’s still no-one else making films like it and Loach is a huge loss to cinema if indeed that is his last feature.

10. Streaming genre gems

Direct to video genre joy no longer exists. But more than ever it is now in some ways being replicated with straight to streaming efforts. At times these are leaner genre throwbacks and sometimes they are more diverse and less standard attempts at genre that maybe aren’t (rightly or wrongly) expected to resonate as broadly. The two below are one from each of those categories.

Extraction 2

Reminds you how much of an absolute blast a straight-up explosion of action cinema can be. At times the action and even script has a poetic rhythm to it. Simple genre infused and enhanced with artistry. Scenes of utter chaos, that are rendered in a way that you can still follow what is happening and exactly where everyone is. Jumps from one high concept action setting to the next. We got fights on the street, fights in prison, train fightin and a bunch more. Ponders the nature of cowardice in this most masculine of made-up worlds. Also sets up a third film in a way that makes me super excited to see it.

They Cloned Tyrone

More than any other film on this list, this one is driven by the performances – in this case the three leads of John Boyega, Jamie Foxx and Teyonah Parris are all phenomenal. Doesn’t always feel like a sci-fi film, but builds into a really cool example of the genre. Some cool mystery elements mixed in there too. Feels authentic, the sense of place and culture make it stand apart. So ingrained in a specific community on earth in a genre that is generally spacebound. Occasionally the plotting or themes don’t entirely work. But it ends super satisfyingly, nailing the climax and main themes.

9. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

I love when something can combine absurdity (a tiny shell finds fame) with deep meaning. This has such a wonderful script that is deep and genuinely illuminating on life. It looks amazing. Has just such a genuine heart to it, which again is a testament to the creativity and writing given we are dealing with a tiny shell. The absurdity of it all not only provides a basis for the comedy (and it is a very funny film) but also enhances the themes really strongly. A film that considers empathy in many forms and the resilience required to endure isolation. The latter of which was particularly affecting for me. It is all weaved together too. The silliness and the profundity work together, not separately.

8. How to Blow Up A Pipeline

In some ways this is a really classically constructed and executed thriller – getting the team together, the minutiae of preparation, slow burn heist vibes, hitches in the plan and the getaway – all set to the best score of the year. But that’s all in service of something so contemporary in its concerns: direct action, climate change, anarchism and the real-world impact of climate grief. There’s a sense of tension throughout, even in the smallest moments. I appreciate how twisty and plotty it gets, without being overdone about it, or ever being solely about that and losing sight of everything else going on. A genuinely radical piece of cinema.

7. Godzilla Minus One

An understated and grounded look at found families, recovery from the war, the dearth of society that remains and the challenges that presents, how an individual’s deep regret and cowardice may reflect a broader societal one… but y’know with Godzilla. Looks soft and warm, also packs some of the coolest fucking shots – Godzilla hunting down boats. On paper – a haunted man fighting “ghosts you created” whilst fighting a literal monster – feels really on the nose. But in practice this is filmmaking so classy it knits all that together almost subtly. The creature has loads of character and it all crescendos into an amazingly choreographed and scored finale. A refreshing and wildly effective take on the kaiju film.

6. Sick of Myself

Pretty unique arthouse fare. A slow-burn consideration of unlikability through a body-horror filter. Narcissism bought to life really starkly. One character’s almost visceral disgust at the success of another. The way those two characters mirror each other and the notions of acceptable actions and particularly what is to be celebrated in life. Will make you think of that couple you know who despise each other, but still defend each other to the hilt. Narratively repurposes the unreliable narrator to fascinating ends. Kristine Kujath Thorp gives one of the performances of the year in a role that could have so easily been caricature.

5. Auteur Hollywood Analysis

Movies about the movies are almost as old as movies themselves. These three all take radically different approaches to the concept, working in three different genres. Though they all share an aversion to navel-gazing or self-seriousness about both the stories they are telling and the modes they are telling those stories in.

Babylon

An almost delirious descent into showbiz and Hollywood with a spectacular Margot Robbie performance at the centre of it all. Chazelle is in maximalist form here, even for him. His storytelling is wildly ambitious and shambolic in a way I loved. The whole thing feels decadent. The love of movies and the joy they bring explode through at regular intervals. Art has power both enduring and fleeting, and this film brings both of those forms of meaning to life in a quite amazing way. And closes on a bold choice that many hated, but tied the whole thing together for me.

Pearl

Perhaps the low expectations from not loving X played into how much I liked this. But this is a very different classic Hollywood tribute. Everything contributes to the uniquely warped vibe – including the colours, maximalism and Mia Goth’s lead performance. It feels successfully transgressive in a way so few contemporary films are. I love that this weird pastiche is the prequel to what is a pretty straightforwardly played slasher flick (and I must admit, revisiting X after watching this one, I appreciated it more). But it’s not just a surface level plaything. Ti West makes auteurist horror and this is no different. There is also a lot of real-life emotion and feeling, even if it’s very dialled up and impacting on a delusional main character, that drives the film along.  

Poor Things

Of these three, this one is the least obviously about Hollywood. But one of the elements of this that worked best for me was as a Frankenstein adaptation. And I think to have such a strange, complex inversion of one of Hollywood’s most classic monster films is a piece of industry-based discussion. It’s thankfully a lot more challenging and multi-faceted a take than a mere gender-swapping. This film is a wild vision – occasionally perfectly controlled, occasionally getting away from director Yorgos Lanthimos – and all the better for it. Both Emma Stone and Christopher Walken in particular are amazing, in tricky roles. Challenging films about sex are all too rare and this is one of the best of recent times.

4. The Survival of Kindness

Iconic Australian director Rolf de Heer delivers a late career art film by way of apocalyptic sci-fi. Barely seen and divisive amongst those who did. Curious and evokes curiosity in the viewer. Very challenging on both a filmmaking and storytelling level. Amazing work done with non-professional actors. A sense of danger, challenge and bewilderment lying around the corner of each scene change. Very much about our current moment in time and the ways in which we could react to it. There’s something to be embraced in the righteous filmmaker whose righteousness springs forth from their work.

3. Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse

I didn’t quite get the hype for this one’s predecessor but absolutely adore this take on the superhero multiverse (which is a plot device that I generally find annoying). Some films ooze cool and I think this does it in a way I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an animated film do before. The visuals and music just totally pop off the screen. Uses the multiverse device not just to consider heroism and teen hood, but also the very notions of storytelling. Considers the fight against “just the way things are meant to be” and how it may be the most important fight of all. A film about destiny and stories and the ways to tell the latter. 

2. Beau is Afraid

The second out of Ari Aster’s three career features to make one of my end of year lists.  This is an uncompromising three-hour vision. I suspect if I had watched it in a different mood, I may well have hated it. On one level, a film about someone deeply missing their mum and the journey to fill that gap. A boy who desperately wants to meet expectations but doesn’t know how. Deeply strange streetscapes teeming with life. Fascinating detail in every shot. Funny and absurd. Not a horror film in the sense of Aster’s others, but there is a sideline of strange cult stuff going on.  An epic journey, both physical and internal. A rambling tale of grief. 

1. Polite Society

The most fun film of last year is also my absolute favourite. A love letter to pulpy genre films and kickass young women, that is also not afraid to take the plot to some very silly places. Hilarious with some amazing action to boot. There’s a great spirit to the central sisters as desi teens (and slightly older) trying to find their place. Dabbles in various genres – the teen film, kung-fu film – while smoothly maintaining the focus on its characters and their relationships. Reinterprets genre in ways that are incredibly fun. Moments of bloody and over-stylised neo-teen film energy, kid detective shenanigans and the upkeep of the body as (light-hearted) torture. A fucking stylish and fun action movie take on sisterly love.

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