Top 20 Best Films Of 2023

While 2023 was a turbulent and stressful year for the film industry… it was also a fantastic year for the movies. It built on the momentum from 2022, when blockbusters came back with a vengeance after the lockdowns, and showed a lot of filmmakers going bigger and even taking some genuine risks. Not just delivering big-screen spectacle but actually pushing what certain genres were capable of conveying. What’s more, quite a few filmmakers that I’ve been ragging on for years like Eli Roth, Will Gluck, Guy Ritchie, and Tim Story redeemed themselves with some quality productions this year. Hell, I even got over my problems with David F. Sandberg; regardless of how disastrous that film turned out, this felt like a year where grudges could be forgotten and we were all working towards better days.

It was also a landmark year for yours truly, although if you were going just by what I put up on here, that might require some explanation. FilmInk kept me good and busy through the year, giving me more work than any other year previous, and… honestly, that I got given so many big-name features to look at (quite a few of which will show up on this list) was a solid reassurance that my editor trusted me to get this shit right.

Also, I finally met one of my personal goals and got one of my write-ups up on the review wall at the Dendy Newtown, a cinema I frequent and that tends to have the better selection of all of the cinemas in my ‘area’ (it’s still a bit of a trek from here in the suburbs).

So, as a last hurrah for a pretty damn good year for both myself and the artistic field I’ve dedicated my time to examining, let’s take a gander at my picks for the Top 20 Best Films of 2023. But first…

Spiral: From The Book Of Saw (2021) - Movie Review

I’m probably going to make a habit of saying this over the next few months, now that the COVID shuffle has begun to ease up and all the big franchise pictures from last year are finally primed for release, but it’s especially true for this film in particular: I have been hyped for this for well over a year. The Saw series remains my all-time favourite movie franchise, Saw III is one of my all-time favourite films, and for as much of a remix as it was, the Spierig Brothers’ Jigsaw was a satisfying effort. I look forward to new Saw movies the same way Nintendo kids look forward to new Zelda games; I hunger for shit like this.

Escape Room (2019) - Movie Review

Well, it’s February and you know what that means: Horror movies. No, I didn’t just suffer a stroke; it’s just that the start of the year is usually when studios dump off the movies that weren’t good enough for release the previous year, and horror movies are nothing if not plentiful regardless of the time of year. Knowing that off-season horror fare usually isn’t worth writing home about (we’ll ignore the irony that I do that for literally every new film I see), I can’t say I was expecting much from this. Hell, between director Adam Robitel, whose last film was pretty plain in the visual department, and writers whose best-known work between them is an early-2010’s Nicolas Cage flick, there’s not much reason to expect more than mediocrity here. Well, thankfully, this film does have quite a bit going for it. And it even manages to achieve some of it.

Top 100 Favourite Films: #40-31

#40: Terminator 2: Judgment Day – Grabbing the metallic throat of destiny

Watching “classic” films for me has always come with a certain amount of baggage. I feel like, because a given feature has garnered legendary status since its initial release, I’m under some obligation to at least understand why, let alone agree with the masses. This film is one of the major exceptions to that, as not only was it instantly clear why this film has held up as well as it has, I also fell in love with the thing pretty damn quickly.

Jigsaw (2017) - Movie Review

Saw is my favourite film series. I really have no other way to put it; I friggin’ love these movies. Born right here in my homeland from director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannell, the yearly Halloween release of these films was one of the few cinematic schedules I stuck to without a break. And it’s not even for ironic ‘guilty pleasure’ reasons, as there’s honestly a lot to genuinely like for the more strong-stomached audiences out there. The grungy visual texture, Charlie Clouser’s heart-racing soundtracks, the twisted ingenuity behind the series’ trademark traps, even down to the compelling and surprisingly complex characters; it’s a cult film series with the easily-overlooked positives and myopic detraction that a lot of these series end up getting.

 

When the series originally closed out with The Final Chapter, while disheartened that it ended on its worst note, I’ll admit to being more disheartened that the story was closing up shop. But then, the marketing for today’s film kicked in and… well, for reasons I’ll get into, I’m approaching this with an equal mixture of excitement and hesitance. Let the games begin again.

Top 10 Welshy Videos

When you’re someone who spent pretty much all of his air time (or screen time or whatever you wish to call it) openly and gleefully taking pot shots at pretty much every aspect of the fandom that you yourself are in, there will often come a time when you wonder just how much the dude actually means. Maybe if he spent less time spraying sans praying and more time focusing on his output, he probably wouldn’t have left so many expected projects (Bond Month, Halloween Retrospective, reviewing the TGWTG anniversary specials, even his Saw Retrospective) incomplete. And then, due to events involving the thorn in our collective sides that can still be felt to this day that is Blip, he just retired altogether. Bah! So, with my now-standard aimless piss-take out of the way, let’s get into my Top 10 Welshy Videos. Why only Top 10? Because, in comparison to a lot of other producers that I’ll be covering, his videography isn’t that much. Not that he lacks in quality, mind you, as I’m about to get into.