Millennials have this snazzy saying: “Oh, we are so back.” Hollywood has proven that entertainment is truly so back this past year and months. Before the strikes, parts of Hollywood shut down and got back on their feet. There was the Barbenheimer phenomenon, and Martin Scorsese dropped Killers of the Flower Moon. Many movies attracted and entertained audiences.
Overall, 2023 was a good year for movies. However, which ones were the best? We’ll give you a roundup of our picks!
Spiderman: Across The Spiderverse
Sure, playing in an online casino Philippines is fun, but movies are on a whole other level. The follow-up to Into The Spiderverse has arrived and built up on the styles that made the previous film vibrant and much beloved. With stop-motion LEGO animation, more animation styles have been added to the repertoire. The sequel is the most persuasive movie about superhero movies we need. Shameik Moore returns as the Miles Morales iteration of Spiderman with a sense of wonderment and soul. Thanks to Lord and Miller’s irreverence, there are plenty of outrageous gags and references to pop culture. This movie is more than entertaining!
Oppenheimer
Every year, the Academy Awards are usually dominated by long epics. Oppenheimer is such one – it doomscrolls the life of the inventor of the atomic bomb. The biopic is an all-time great and came out as a blockbuster. However, the devil lies in the material and details – many themes are contained within it: war, genocide, guilt, nuclear fission, the Red Scare, the Spanish Civil War, the apocalypse, love, marriage, et al. Cillian Murphy is excellent and haunted as J Robert Oppenheimer and wears the guilt on his face. The rest of the cast is terrific, too, with Florence Pugh, Alden Ehrenreich, Robert Downey Jr. and Emily Blunt as part of the standout ensemble. The OST is vibrant, vivid and unforgettable.
Poor Things
God created man, but Willem Dafoe sure created woman in the movie Poor Things. A fearless and funny Emma Stone stars as Bella Baxter, a woman with a grown woman’s body but the brain of a baby. Yorgos Lanthimos is famous for his absurdist works, such as The Killing of A Sacred Deer, The Lobster, and The Favourite. Lanthimos assembles a satire of gender roles – and the result is part “Pygmalion,” part “Lolita,” and otherwise totally distinct from anything else on the scene. Barbie was notorious for poking fun at the patriarchy. Meanwhile, Bella upends it with her new life experiences.
Past Lives
Ten years after A24 existed, audiences learned what to expect from the indie studio. Usually, A24 movies are personal pieces, in the vein of Moonlight and Minari, or flashy and stylistic movies like Uncut Gems. Celine Song makes her debut in the vein of personal stories, with a poignant counterpart to A24’s busy, Oscar-winning “Everything Everywhere All at Once. She asks us the question: what if there was a different universe and everything that happened to us turned out differently? In Past Lives, Nora, an immigrant Korean playwright, asks what her life might have been had she not left South Korea – and Teo Yoo plays the friend who could have been her significant other.
May December
An underrated gem from Todd Haynes, May December is inspired by tabloid subject Mary Kay Letourneau, who was notorious for allegedly grooming her husband when he was still a minor. Natalie Portman plays an actress who swoops into the life of a wiley ex-con (Julianne Moore) after she initiated a sexual relationship with a younger man who was a minor (Charles Melton). The line between empathy and exploitation begins to blur. Thus, everything starts and begins with Joe (Melton), the victim whose actor is the newest acting gem in Hollywood.
Wrapping Up
The must-watch movies are hard to narrow down because 2023 was such a good year. Many directors were able to release their projects and, despite the strike, are still promoting them. One thing is for sure, however: creativity truly is endless!
