My 2023 Feature Film Rankings
It was an excellent year in movies. Let’s run through the 36 feature films I saw in 2023.
Happy Oscars Sunday everyone, and welcome to the latest edition of The Martell 100 newsletter! This month, instead of providing an updated top 100 movies list, I have been watching and rewatching films from last year before tonight’s Academy Awards. My typical monthly top 100 rankings will return on April 1, but in the meantime, here are my rankings of the 36 feature films I saw that were released in 2023.
It was an excellent year in movies, the best since at least 2019 and one of the best over the past two decades. Four movies on this list were featured in the most recent edition of my top 100: Killers of the Flower Moon, no. 23; Oppenheimer, no. 49; Past Lives, no. 92; Anatomy of a Fall, No. 99.
There is marginal separation between any of the next five films, all of which could have taken the fifth spot, and the hardest movie for me to rank was The Zone of Interest, which is an undeniable masterpiece that is difficult to watch but impossible to look away from. In the end, I put it ahead of Ferrari and American Fiction because I have not stopped thinking about it since I saw it in early December.
In most years, the four films ranked here from 11-15 would have been in my top 10, and in many others, No Hard Feelings, Beau Is Afraid, Air and Maestro would’ve had a shot at the top 15. It was great to see Indiana Jones back, and although I could feel Disney’s hands incoherently micromanaging parts of the plot, Dial of Destiny was a joy to watch. And one of my favorite movie experiences from 2023 was going to see Cocaine Bear with my friend Andy in a packed house on opening night. Cinema, baby!
Indeed, it has been a great time at the movies. Even the bad films I saw in theaters, The Marvels and Saltburn, had things to recommend, and I had fun seeing them.
Last year was one of the most challenging times of my life. I was laid off in mid-February and didn’t get a full-time job again until this January. It’s silly to say that, along with my family, friends, freelance opportunities and playing baseball again, going to the movies helped me make it through a trying and uncertain period. For that, I am grateful.
Thanks for reading along with this newsletter. I hope this fun project of mine has inspired you to seek out movies you otherwise wouldn’t have watched and prompted you to think about others in a new light.
OK, that’s enough sentimentality from me. It’s time for my 2023 feature film rankings, and then it’ll be time for the Oscars.
36. Saltburn
Director: Emerald Fennell
Cast: Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike
Synopsis: Struggling to find his place at Oxford University, student Oliver Quick finds himself drawn into the world of the charming and aristocratic Felix Catton, who invites him to Saltburn, his eccentric family’s sprawling estate, for a summer never to be forgotten.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Amazon Prime with a subscription.
Saltburn is last year’s Don’t Worry Darling, except without the tabloid fodder and with better technical craft and performances. The problem with both movies is they think they have something to say about the world, but the actual messages they convey make the opposing argument. Saltburn is much more watchable, but in the end, it’s just as empty.
35. The Marvels
Director: Nia DaCosta
Cast: Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, Iman Vellani
Synopsis: Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel, has reclaimed her identity from the tyrannical Kree and taken revenge on the Supreme Intelligence. But unintended consequences see Carol shouldering the burden of a destabilized universe. When her duties send her to an anomalous wormhole linked to a Kree revolutionary, her powers become entangled with that of Jersey City super-fan Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel, and Carol’s estranged niece, now S.A.B.E.R. astronaut Captain Monica Rambeau. Together, this unlikely trio must team up and learn to work in concert to save the universe.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Disney+ with a subscription.
Pretty much everything in this movie with Kamala Khan and her family works well. Their story is funny and sincere. Pretty much everything else is not good. The cats are cute, at least.
34. The Strays
Director: Nathaniel Martello-White
Cast: Ashley Madekwe, Justin Salinger, Jorden Myrie
Synopsis: A Black woman’s meticulously crafted life of privilege starts to unravel when two strangers show up in her quaint suburban town.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Netflix with a subscription.
33. Rustin
Director: George C. Wolfe
Cast: Colman Domingo, Aml Ameen, Glynn Turman
Synopsis: Activist Bayard Rustin faces racism and homophobia as he helps change the course of Civil Rights history by orchestrating the 1963 March on Washington.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Netflix with a subscription.
32. NYAD
Director: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin
Cast: Annette Bening, Jodie Foster, Rhys Ifans
Synopsis: Athlete Diana Nyad sets out at 60 to achieve a nearly impossible lifelong dream: to swim from Cuba to Florida across more than 100 miles of open ocean.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Netflix with a subscription.
I wrote about both Rustin and NYAD in my previous newsletter, about biopics. I’ve included what I said below.
These two movies are fitting examples of what is wrong with the genre. They are bland awards fodder that tell the story of historical figures who overcome adversity to achieve greatness and/or change the world for the better. They are meant to inspire, but end up being nothing more than vehicles for their stars to do a lot of ACTING. So, naturally, the acting categories are where these two biopics were recognized: Annette Bening (Best Actress) and Jodie Foster (Best Supporting Actress) for Nyad, and Coleman Domingo (Best Actor) for Rustin. All three actors give strong performances, though I don’t think any of them should have been nominated this year.
Bening and Foster are always great, and without them, Nyad would be nothing more than a solid made-for-TV movie. That said, neither performance ranks among the top 10 in either of their iconic careers. The Academy could and should have nominated any of the following actors (and, I say actor, not actress, because the word actress is nonsensical) instead of Bening: Margot Robbie for Barbie, Greta Lee for Past Lives, Natalie Portman for May December, and though she never had a chance, Jennifer Lawrence for her fearless performance in the raunchy comedy No Hard Feelings. Robbie was the most obvious snub here. I would have gone with her over Bening and Lee over Carey Mulligan, who was nominated for Maestro. In place of Foster, I would have nominated Penélope Cruz for her performance in a far superior biopic, Michael Mann’s Ferrari.
Domingo might be the only thing that’s watchable in Rustin, though his performance is much more than just watchable. This is what I texted two of my friends shortly after I finished the movie: “So guys… I actually liked Rustin quite a bit!” To be clear, Rustin is a bad movie, which I realized as I thought more about it, but Domingo was good enough that he made me question whether the movie was better than it actually is. Still, that doesn’t mean he was worthy of a nomination in a year that was loaded with excellent lead acting performances in far better movies, namely Leonardo DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon; Andrew Scott in All of Us Strangers; Zac Efron in The Iron Claw, another (really good!) biopic; and Adam Driver in Ferrari. I’d also like to shout out Joaquin Phoenix for his role in Ari Aster’s batshit surrealistic odyssey, Beau Is Afraid, because that is a much better movie than Rustin. However, it’s hard to say that Phoenix should have been nominated over Domingo, because Domingo’s performance is much more Oscar-y than whatever the heck Phoenix was doing in Beau.
31. Napoleon
Director: Ridley Scott
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby, Tahar Rahim
Synopsis: An epic that details the checkered rise and fall of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and his relentless journey to power through the prism of his addictive, volatile relationship with his wife, Josephine.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Apple TV+ with a subscription.
Despite deserving its three nominations — for visual effects, production design and costume design — this is a disappointingly chaotic movie that has some fun moments and epic battle sequences. It feels both too long, in that it is 2 hours and 38 minutes, and too short, because it attempts to squeeze so much of Napoleon’s life into its runtime and ends up feeling more like an overview of plot points than a cinematic experience. As always seems to be the case, Ridley Scott supposedly has a four-hour director’s cut of this film that he wants to release at some point. If he does, hopefully that version will satisfyingly fill in the gaps rather than expand upon the mess of the theatrical version.
30. Priscilla
Director: Sophia Coppola
Cast: Cailee Spaeny, Jacob Elordi, Ari Cohen
Synopsis: The unseen side of a great American myth in Elvis and Priscilla Presley’s long courtship and turbulent marriage, from a German army base to his estate at Graceland.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Max with a subscription.
29. Fair Play
Director: Chloe Domont
Cast: Phoebe Dynevor, Alden Ehrenreich, Eddie Marsan
Synopsis: An unexpected promotion at a cutthroat hedge fund pushes a young couple’s relationship to the brink, threatening to unravel not only their recent engagement but their lives.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Netflix with a subscription.
28. Cocaine Bear
Director: Elizabeth Banks
Cast: Keri Russell, Alden Ehrenreich, Ray Liotta
Synopsis: An oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists and teens converge in a Georgia forest where a 500-pound black bear goes on a murderous rampage after unintentionally ingesting cocaine.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Prime with a subscription.
RIP Ray Liotta. Also, great year for Ehrenreich, with three different and interesting performances in this, Fair Play and Oppenheimer.
27. The Boy and the Heron
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Cast (Voices Dubbed in English): Luca Padovan, Christian Bale, Robert Pattinson
Synopsis: A young boy named Mahito yearning for his mother ventures into a world shared by the living and the dead. There, death comes to an end, and life finds a new beginning. A semi-autobiographical fantasy from the mind of Hayao Miyazaki.
Where to Watch: Now playing in theaters.
I really like Hayao Miyazaki, and this was one of my most anticipated movies of the year. As always with Miyazaki, the visuals are stunning and the world-building is impressive. But I felt like I missed something in the story and was trying to play catch-up throughout the movie.
26. The Killer
Director: David Fincher
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Tilda Swinton, Charles Parnell
Synopsis: After a fateful near-miss, an assassin battles his employers, and himself, on an international manhunt he insists isn’t personal.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Netflix with a subscription.
WWJWBD? (What would John Wilkes Booth do?) Throw on a Hawaiian shirt, fire up the Smiths and do some yoga, obviously. It’s lower tier Fincher, but lower tier Fincher is still quite good!
25. Knock at the Cabin
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: Ben Aldridge, Jonathan Groff, Dave Bautista
Synopsis: While vacationing at a remote cabin, a young girl and her parents are taken hostage by four armed strangers who demand that the family make an unthinkable choice to avert the apocalypse. With limited access to the outside world, the family must decide what they believe before all is lost.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Amazon Prime with a subscription.
Dave Bautista gives one of my favorite performances of the year as the bringer of the apocalypse.
24. All of Us Strangers
Director: Andrew Haigh
Cast: Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Jamie Bell
Synopsis: One night, screenwriter Adam, in his near-empty tower block in contemporary London, has a chance encounter with his mysterious neighbor Harry that punctures the rhythm of his everyday life. As Adam and Harry get closer, Adam is pulled back to his childhood home where he discovers that his long-dead parents are both living and look the same age as the day they died over 30 years ago.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Hulu with a subscription.
I love everything in this movie with Adam (Scott) and his parents (Bell and Claire Foy). Mescal is a great actor, but his story line doesn’t quit come together.
23. Master Gardener
Director: Paul Schrader
Cast: Joel Edgerton, Sigourney Weaver, Quintessa Swindell
Synopsis: Narvel Roth is a meticulous horticulturist who is devoted to tending the grounds of a beautiful estate and pandering to his employer, the wealthy dowager Mrs. Haverhill. When she demands that he take on her wayward and troubled great niece, it unlocks dark secrets from a buried violent past.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Hulu with a subscription.
22. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Cast: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames
Synopsis: Ethan Hunt and his IMF team embark on their most dangerous mission yet: To track down a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity before it falls into the wrong hands. With control of the future and the fate of the world at stake, and dark forces from Ethan’s past closing in, a deadly race around the globe begins. Confronted by a mysterious, all-powerful enemy, Ethan is forced to consider that nothing can matter more than his mission – not even the lives of those he cares about most. ×
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Paramount+ with a subscription.
21. May December
Director: Todd Haynes
Cast: Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, Charles Melton
Synopsis: Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, a married couple buckles under pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about their past.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Netflix with a subscription.
20. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Director: James Mangold
Cast: Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen
Synopsis: Finding himself in a new era, approaching retirement, Indy wrestles with fitting into a world that seems to have outgrown him. But as the tentacles of an all-too-familiar evil return in the form of an old rival, Indy must don his hat and pick up his whip once more to make sure an ancient and powerful artifact doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Disney+ with a subscription.
19. Maestro
Director: Bradley Cooper
Cast: Carey Mulligan, Bradley Cooper, Matt Bomer
Synopsis: This love story chronicles the lifelong relationship of conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein and actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Netflix with a subscription.
Maestro is an ambitious and well-made movie that is worthy of praise, even though I’m not entirely sure what director Bradley Cooper is trying to tell us about Leonard Bernstein. It is lively, emotional and funny, with excellent performances from the two leads, as well as from Matt Bomer and especially Maya Hawke in supporting roles.
18. Air
Director: Ben Affleck
Cast: Carey Mulligan, Bradley Cooper, Matt Bomer
Synopsis: Discover the game-changing partnership between a then undiscovered Michael Jordan and Nike’s fledgling basketball division which revolutionized the world of sports and culture with the Air Jordan brand.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Amazon Prime with a subscription.
17. Beau Is Afraid
Director: Ari Aster
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Patti LuPone, Amy Ryan
Synopsis: A paranoid man embarks on an epic odyssey to get home to his mother.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Paramount+ with a subscription.
A three-hour movie about blue balls in Travis Bickle’s New York? Heck yeah!
16. No Hard Feelings
Director: Gene Stupnitsky
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Andrew Barth Feldman, Laura Benanti
Synopsis: On the brink of losing her childhood home, Maddie discovers an intriguing job listing: wealthy helicopter parents looking for someone to “date” their introverted 19-year-old son, Percy, before he leaves for college. To her surprise, Maddie soon discovers the awkward Percy is no sure thing.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Netflix with a subscription.
Great, fearless lead performances. The scene in which Barth Feldman sings “Maneater” — and Lawrence’s reaction to it — is one of the best scenes of the year.
15. The Iron Claw
Director: Sean Durkin
Cast: Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson
Synopsis: The true story of the inseparable Von Erich brothers, who made history in the intensely competitive world of professional wrestling in the early 1980s. Through tragedy and triumph, under the shadow of their domineering father and coach, the brothers seek larger-than-life immortality on the biggest stage in sports.
Where to Watch: Not available to stream for free or rent.
14. Barbie
Director: Greta Gerwig
Cast: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera
Synopsis: Barbie and Ken are having the time of their lives in the colorful and seemingly perfect world of Barbie Land. However, when they get a chance to go to the real world, they soon discover the joys and perils of living among humans.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Max with a subscription.
I’ve never felt more seen than when one of the Kens mansplains The Godfather.
13. Asteroid City
Director: Wes Anderson
Cast: Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks
Synopsis: Set in a fictional American desert town circa 1955, the itinerary of a Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention (organized to bring together students and parents from across the country for fellowship and scholarly competition) is spectacularly disrupted by world-changing events.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Amazon Prime with a subscription.
12. American Fiction
Director: Cord Jefferson
Cast: Jeffrey Wright, Sterling K. Brown, Tracee Ellis Ross
Synopsis: Thelonious “Monk” Ellison’s writing career has stalled because his work isn’t deemed “Black enough.” Monk, a writer and English professor, writes a satirical novel under a pseudonym, aiming to expose the publishing world’s hypocrisies. The book’s immediate success forces him to get deeper enmeshed in his assumed identity and challenges his closely-held worldviews.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Fubo TV with a subscription.
The two sides of this story — the sincere family dramedy and the satire of how our society processes institutional racism — are about as opposite as the literary works of Monk and Stagg R. Leigh. That they fit together is a testament to the strength of the film.
11. Ferrari
Director: Michael Mann
Cast: Adam Driver, Penélope Cruz, Shailene Woodley
Synopsis: A biopic of automotive mogul Enzo Ferrari, whose family redefined the idea of the high-powered Italian sports car and practically spawned the concept of Formula One racing.
Where to Watch: Available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Vudu and Google Play.
In the words of my pal Andy Kalmowitz, “Fast car go vroom!” Driver’s monologue about racing being his passion and terrible joy is one of the best moments of the year in movies.
10. The Zone of Interest
Director: Jonathan Glazer
Cast: Christian Friedel, Sandra Hüller, Medusa Knopf
Synopsis: The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp.
Where to Watch: Now playing in theaters.
I wrote about this movie in detail in the second edition of this newsletter. You can read that here.
9. The Holdovers
Director: Alexander Payne
Cast: Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa, Da’Vine Joy Randolph
Synopsis: A curmudgeonly instructor at a New England prep school is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually, he forms an unlikely bond with one of them — a damaged, brainy troublemaker — and with the school’s head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Peacock Premium with a subscription.
8. Poor Things
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Cast: Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willen Dafoe
Synopsis: The incredible tale about the fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter; a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist, Dr. Godwin Baxter.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Hulu with a subscription.
I wanna go to Lisbon with Mark Ruffalo too. Seriously, though, this movie is fun and complex. Some of the middle drags a bit, which holds it back from being a top five film.
7. The Taste of Things
Director: Anh Hung Tran
Cast: Juliette Binoche, Benoît Magimel, Patrick d’Assumçao
Synopsis: The story of Eugenie, an esteemed cook, and Dodin, the fine gourmet who she has been working for over the last 20 years.
Where to Watch: Now playing in theaters.
I have never seen anything quite like The Taste of Things. The romance at the center of this story is as rich as the food the characters are cooking. The cooking scenes in the kitchen are as exhilarating as many of the best action sequences. The less you know about the movie, the better. Go see it, but don’t go on an empty stomach.
6. Perfect Days
Director: Win Wenders
Cast: Koji Yakusho, Tokio Emoto, Arisa Nakano
Synopsis: Hirayama seems utterly content with his simple life as a cleaner of toilets in Tokyo. Outside of his very structured everyday routine he enjoys his passion for music and for books. And he loves trees and takes photos of them. A series of unexpected encounters gradually reveal more of his past.
Where to Watch: Now playing in theaters.
Watching a baseball game at a bar and reading a book before bed — a perfect day, indeed!
5. How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2023)
Director: Daniel Goldhaber
Cast: Ariela Barer, Kristine Froseth, Lukas Gage
Synopsis: A crew of young environmental activists execute a daring mission to sabotage an oil pipeline.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Hulu with a subscription.
4. Anatomy of a Fall (2023)
Director: Justine Triet
Cast: Sandra Hüller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado Graner
Synopsis: A woman is suspected of her husband’s murder, and their blind son faces a moral dilemma as the sole witness.
Where to Watch: Available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Vudu and Google Play.
What allows Anatomy of a Fall to transcend the traditional courtroom drama — a genre that I love — and in some ways exceed it, is the son, Daniel. Yes, this movie is about a wife accused of murdering her husband, but it is also a story of a blind boy finding his voice, learning about the world’s messiness and grappling with the most devastating loss imaginable.
3. Past Lives
Director: Celine Song
Cast: Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro
Synopsis: Nora and Hae Sung, two childhood friends, are reunited in New York for one fateful week as they confront notions of destiny, love, and the choices that make a life.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Paramount+ with a subscription.
Celine Song’s magnificent debut feature is one of the best movies of 2023.
The film is about Nora and Hae Song, who were childhood friends in South Korea that lost touch after Nora’s family immigrated to the United States. They reconnect 10 years later via Facebook but do not see each other in person again until Hae Song visits New York, where Nora lives with her American husband Arthur, two decades after Nora left.
I won’t say too much about the plot, because I don’t want to spoil it for those of you who have not yet seen it, but I encourage everyone to check it out. It is a wistful and beautiful tale of love and fate.
2. Oppenheimer
Director: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr.
Synopsis: The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Peacock Premium with a subscription.
This movie is not a thriller, but it is quite thrilling. Beyond the pure spectacle, a good chunk of the first two acts of this story is about the race between good and evil. The pressure to build the bomb before the Nazis creates obvious stakes, and the quick editing adds to the tension.
Then, in the third act, the conflict gets more complicated. Even though we are not meant to support the smear campaign that Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) is waging against J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), we can at least recognize the issues are not black and white — even if Strauss’s perspective is shot that way. The strategy to use the threat of the bomb as a deterrent has worked, or at least, it hasn’t failed; since August 1945, no country has deployed a nuclear weapon. That doesn’t mean it is a sound policy, though. Playing a game of chicken with weapons of mass destruction is incredibly risky. Oppenheimer realizes this after he saw what he had created, and he feels that it is his duty to inform the public of the dangers of nuclear bombs. Is he right to do so, or is he just trying to make himself feel less guilty for his potential role in the fall of civilization? Either way, how much of a difference can he actually make?
There are no easy answers to the morality questions this movie raises. Did dropping the atomic bomb on Japan save lives because it ended the war more swiftly? Or did it just save more American lives? Should American lives be considered more valuable than the lives of Japanese civilians? Is there a responsible way to develop nuclear weapons? What should we do with them now that we have them?
1. Killers of the Flower Moon
Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Robert De Niro
Synopsis: When oil is discovered in 1920s Oklahoma under Osage Nation land, the Osage people are murdered one by one — until the FBI steps in to unravel the mystery.
Where to Watch: Streaming for free on Apple TV+ with a subscription.
“God bless America,” an older white man said to me, shaking his head, as he walked out of the theater. “God forgive us for what we have done.”
I have seen Killers of the Flower Moon four times, and I am still unpacking all of its layers. I’m not sure if a movie has ever before made me want to fully understand it in quite the same way. On my second viewing, I kept thinking about The Godfather Part II. The pacing of the two movies is similar in that you feel every bit of their run times, but you’re never bored and the length strengthens the impact of their conclusions.
One subtle thing I noticed on my most recent viewing: The final scene before the coda, when Mollie asks Ernest what was in the shots, ends not with Lily Gladstone getting up and leaving, or with Leonardo DiCaprio looking befuddled and devastated. Instead, Marty pans up and the camera lingers for a moment on Tom White. The last person we see is Jesse Plemons, playing the federal investigator. This story is now in the hands of the — white — people in power, for them to spin however they’d like.