Brian Tallerico

Jasmila Zbanic’s Quo Vadis, Aida? is a razor-sharp incrimination of failed foreign policies from around the world embedded in a deeply humanist and moving character study of the kind of person that these policies leave behind.

Parasite is unquestionably one of the best films of the year. Just trust me on this one.

Cuaron has made his most personal film to date, and the blend of the humane and the artistic within nearly every scene is breathtaking. It’s a masterful achievement in filmmaking as an empathy machine, a way for us to spend time in a place, in an era, and with characters we never would otherwise.

It’s also, crucially, a deeply humanist movie. Anderson cares about these characters deeply. Bob’s frustration becomes our own, as does his concern for Willa. So many “films of our moment” have felt angry or cynical, but Anderson’s movie transcends that by being human and even offering optimism. It’s not one loss after another. It’s one battle. Keep fighting.

For all five hours, Loktev’s camera is positioned close to her subjects, much like a friend in the same room, lending the project an intimacy and empathy that it would have otherwise lacked. And the length allows us to really get to know these people, feeling their frustration and their tension. It becomes our own. We don’t just see it. We feel it in our bones.

This devastating drama is an act of remembrance for its filmmaker, who has been open about how much of this story is her own. It’s also a reminder of the power of filmmaking to turn the deeply personal into relatable art, and an announcement of a major talent, one who has made the best film of the year to date.

With remarkable grace and compassion for his characters, Baumbach portrays divorce as a great equalizer, turning us into versions of ourselves we didn’t expect to become.

Gosling and Stone get these characters, finding grace in their movement but emotional depth in their arcs; Stone has never been better.

David Byrne’s American Utopia is a joyous expression of art, empathy, and compassion.

For the bulk of Shoplifters, Kore-eda works in a beautiful register that feels both detailed and genuine at the same time. We get to know these characters so deeply, watching them all at their jobs.

Memoria is a sensory experience, but it takes a performer like Swinton to amplify Joe’s technique.

It’s that honesty that makes The Florida Project so powerful. This is a remarkable film, one of the best of the year.

With stunning performances from two completely genuine young leads, this is a movie people will talk about all year.

It’s a film that somehow plays as both a child’s heroic journey and an old man’s wistful goodbye at the same time, a dream-like vision that reasserts Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli’s voice and international relevance. It’s gorgeous, ruminative, and mesmerizing, one of the best of 2023.

The Brutalist is a work that incorporates well-known world history into two of the definitive forms of expression of the 20th century in architecture and filmmaking, becoming a commentary on both capitalism and art.

These moments have a tactile intimacy that’s incredibly powerful, placing these ordinary people in an almost timeless continuum of seemingly ordinary behavior that becomes extraordinary in memory, or through the eyes of a camera.

From its very first scenes, Fury Road vibrates with the energy of a veteran filmmaker working at the top of his game, pushing us forward without the cheap special effects or paper-thin characters that have so often defined the modern summer blockbuster.

Whiplash is cinematic adrenalin. In an era when so many films feel more refined by focus groups or marketing managers, it is a deeply personal and vibrantly alive drama.

In the end, Killers of the Flower Moon is like a puzzle—each creative piece does its part to form the complete picture.

Safdie’s daring choices merge with the best performance of Timothee Chalamet’s career for a story of a man who thinks he’s the best in the world at something, and that thinking is as important as actually being it.

It’s a fantastic piece of observational filmmaking about a small town on the edge of Texas and three of the men who live there.

A film this satisfying on every level — one that can be enjoyed purely for its narrative while also providing material for hours of discussion on its themes — is truly rare.

The film finds von Trier wrestling with the claims of misogyny and misanthropy that have followed him his entire career, but not in the way you’d expect. If anything, he leans into both, daring you to look into the abyss with him as he interrogates his own dark side and banishes himself to the underworld.

Anger is an energy in Martin McDonagh’s brilliant Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, one of the best films of the year.

A birth-to-death character study, “Train Dreams” is a meditation on the beauty of everyone and everything, how we are connected to both the earth and those who walked it before us.

This story has been told several times before—and influenced other similar romances—but Cooper and Gaga find a way to make this feel fresh and new. It’s in their eyes.

It is a formally gorgeous piece of work, the kind of film that exudes confidence in structure and tone, and it contains some of the most striking, memorable imagery of the year. Don’t miss this one.

Say what you will about Scott’s most divisive movies—they’re usually big swings with big ideas. What’s so disheartening about “Napoleon” is how small it ultimately feels.