Karenna Umscheid is a staff writer for Boston Hassle. She is a third-year Journalism student at Emerson College, and is the General Manager for WECB, Emerson’s only fully student-run radio station. Her favorite filmmakers include David Lynch, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Agnes Varda, and Paul Thomas Anderson, but she spends most of her time rewatching Point Break.
Ever since 2019, the year I resolved to watch as many new releases as possible in order to feel qualified to have opinions on the subsequent awards season, I have found myself glued to the silver screen (and that of Letterboxd open on my laptop screen, as well). And every time I write a piece even partially encapsulating the expanse of cinema and what it means to me, I find myself at a loss for words. I have had countless theatrical experiences this year that have had me rocking back and forth with excitement, sobbing so uncontrollably that the faces of moviegoers entering the theater were riddled with confusion and pity, frozen and speechless in awe, and laughing loudly and tirelessly with my friends, all of it causing this endless internal writhing for love of cinema. Since 2019, I have struggled to find a year so beautifully cinematic, with rich moviegoing experiences, a blend of solemn and dark films, flashy and delightful romps, and those celebrating the richness of life and others examining the depths of human evil – but I think I have found it in 2023. Please enjoy my personal, objective, arbitrary rankings; it means everything to me.
Honorable Mentions: Knock at the Cabin, Eileen, Barbie, Dream Scenario, Bottoms, Perfect Days, The Zone of Interest, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, All of Us Strangers.
Top Ten:
10. Asteroid City (Dir. Wes Anderson)
I’ve always been pretty ambivalent about Wes Anderson, not totally understanding the hype but keeping a mild appreciation for his individual style. Asteroid City, however, made me a believer. The idyllic West sets perfectly this tale of alien invasion, meshed with the postmodern context of a play, tying art with mythology and unshakable belief. It’s delightful and sweet, a thoughtful piece of filmmaking with an exceptional cast, and a theatrical sense of postmodernism that could only be created by the likes of a really genuine storyteller.
9. Monster (Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda)
Hirokazu Kore-eda is one of my favorite filmmakers, and it seems that every year he has a new release, that film makes it into my top ten. This year is no exception. Monster is quite unlike many of his previous films, notably Shoplifters, the film that won him the Palme d’Or in 2018. It’s challenging, like a cinematic exercise in human preconceptions and assumptions. Kore-eda’s deft character building lends itself to an original narrative that is ruined by any spoilers in the slightest, so for now, that’s all I will say.
8. May December (Dir. Todd Haynes)
Todd Haynes’ masterful melodrama examines manipulation followed by spectacle and invasion, on levels tabloid-big and terrifyingly intimate. Charles Melton gives us one of the most astonishing performances of the year, and perhaps the best ever film performance by a Riverdale alum (followed closely by Lili Reinhart in 2019’s Hustlers). The skin-crawling uncomfortability of May December is its strength; the visceral performances and sneaky, clever direction all hinge on Melton’s emotional core, and he fully delivers. This is more than a filmic representation of an infamous tabloid sensation, it’s a questioning analysis of obsession, intimate infiltration, and the parasitic nature of entertainment culture. Perhaps it’s just what grown ups do.
7. The Boy and The Heron (Dir. Hayao Miyazaki)
Hayao Miyazaki’s latest was destined to be as incredible as all his past works, but the revelation that perhaps the aging wizard seeking a new leader for his delicate kingdom is the creator himself further cements this as a perfect story from the greatest animation filmmaker of our time. Set during the Pacific War, a young boy named Mahito discovers a mysterious tower and a talking gray heron at his aunt’s estate following the death of his mother. In search of his mother, whom he believes is still alive, he embarks on an otherworldly, imaginative adventure like that of the rest of Miyazaki’s filmography. It’s beautiful and dreamlike, highly autobiographical and full of love, an ode to the choices that build our lives. The Japanese title translates to “How Do You Live?” and I find it so apt, a simple, sweet question that the film does not answer; instead, it’s the question the film implores us to ask.
6. Past Lives (Dir. Celine Song)
Past Lives is Celine Song’s directorial debut chronicling a Korean-Canadian woman as she reunites with and drifts apart from her childhood best friend throughout her life, but honestly, any attempt I make at summarizing the plot feels like a disservice to the astounding essence the film permeates in. With love and connection palpable as Portrait of a Lady on Fire or In The Mood For Love, Past Lives is often slow, drawn out with not just longing, but deep thought evident in the performances of Greta Lee and Teo Yoo. But this is not just a love story, it ventures into questions of fate, the life choices that take us on different paths, the people they take us away from, and the people they bring us to.
5. The Iron Claw (Dir. Sean Durkin)
Zac Efron was my first favorite actor, and my devotion to the High School Musical trilogy altered the course of my life for the better. His stunning dramatic breakthrough in The Iron Claw is outstanding, from the impressive physicality to the subtleties in his facial expressions, and if I had my way he would be the frontrunner for Best Actor. The film follows the famous, and perhaps dangerously cursed, Von Erich family, a tragedy masquerading as a sports drama – but aren’t so many sports films tragic anyway? Success is never truly salvation, and no trophies or sparkly championship belts ever heal the wounds that these athletes come from in the first place. Without being sappy in the slightest, The Iron Claw is a heart-shatteringly sad, beautiful story made even more powerful by the fact that it is a true story, and the reality is even more tragic than the film.
4. Anatomy of a Fall (Dir. Justine Triet)
A thrilling courtroom drama featuring the best child and dog performances of the year, Anatomy of a Fall is an outstanding watch. Sandra Hüller plays Sandra Voyter, a novelist accused of murdering her husband, in one of the best performances of the year. The fiction draws inevitable comparisons to the treatment of Amber Heard in her trial, depicting unrelenting misogyny, a dangerous media spectacle, and disparagement on account of Voyter’s bisexuality. Justine Triet’s brilliant drama plays like a thriller, enamoring and breathtaking in every sense; it’s perhaps the most intense cinematic experience since Uncut Gems in 2019. Enraging and cathartic all at once, Anatomy of a Fall enthralled and surprised me like no other release this year. It’s an unforgettable, essential achievement, and the mirror art holds to reality has never been more clear and terrifying.
3. Oppenheimer (Dir. Christopher Nolan)
A primary reason why Oppenheimer was so stunning to me is because I have never been a Nolan fan, finding no connection that tied me to the love others had for classics like Inception. But Oppenheimer blew me away, pun not intended. The “Barbenheimer” craze was the most delightful cinematic weekend I have been a part of, and though I am a Barbie girl at heart, Nolan’s Promethean epic was my movie of the summer! Cillian Murphy carries the titular role in an incredible performance seen in every inch of his face and the entirety of his demeanor, and though Robert Downey, Jr. is garnering acclaim, the best supporting performance of the film comes from Emily Blunt’s superb portrayal of Oppenheimer’s wife, Kitty. Oppenheimer is a wilderness of guilt in the eyes of a creator, philosophical and powerful, cinematic storytelling at its absolute finest.
2. Killers of the Flower Moon (Dir. Martin Scorsese)
It should not be with any sense of doubt that I am immeasurably impressed with every new Scorsese film that is released, and it’s not a stretch to name him one of the greatest American filmmakers of all time. Though his epic narratives are often mistaken as celebrations of capitalism and American greed, Killers of the Flower Moon makes it very clear that this is not the case. This scathing indictment on the evils of the American empire is confrontational and unrelenting. Frequent Scorsese collaborators Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro are fantastic as ever, but this is truly Lily Gladstone’s movie; her performance perfect and continually layered along the 3 hr 26 min runtime, as her character becomes wrapped in anger, loneliness, and betrayal. Killers of the Flower Moon might have featured Scorsese’s most genius, unexpected ending, shattering the distance we think our comfortable, easy viewership has from the cinematic depictions of trauma and evil; it lives in the land we stand on, and it echoes through the screen.
1. Poor Things (Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)
I’ve always found myself drawn to the delightfully weird: the heartbeats in films like Titane and The Lobster and Her thrum even louder in the midst of their truly absurd situations. Poor Things is my movie of the year because it feels really right to me. The story has the kind of philosophy that feels threaded through my bones, that reassurance that there is some sort of recognition and understanding, there is something most definitely for me in this cinematic landscape I so frequently get lost in. Emma Stone put it best at the Golden Globes, where she said it was a rom-com about a girl falling in love with life – rich, colorful, endlessly amusing, aching to be explored, beautifully cyclical in ways that can’t be comprehended, so deeply funny – life.
