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…

Top 20 Best Films Of 2021

2021 was definitely a disappointing year in a lot of ways, and one of the harder ones to deal with in many others, but honestly… forget how I ended my last list: For all the bad that happened, I’m glad that 2021 happened the way it did. I went through a lot of difficulties with my own work and life situation, true, but the latter half of the year had me reaping the rewards for the previous eleven years’ worth of grinding I’ve put into this little endeavour of mine. Not only did Universal Studios start contacting me directly to go to preview screenings, but I finally stopped being an intern with FilmInk as I have been for the last few years, and became a paid contributor. After spending so long doing all of this, resigning myself to this just being a hobby, I achieved one of my life goals and have made it as a professional writer.

In light of all that, and for as sour as my Worst list turned out, I find it difficult to really hate the last twelve months. As such, rather than doing my usual Best Worst Film Of The Year mention (which, for the second year in a row, went to an After sequel), I’m going to start this off with a quick rundown of ten things (in no particular order) that I loved seeing this year… that aren’t attached to films already in the list proper.

1.       Symbolic BDSM in an R.L. Stine adaptation

2.       Twitter Cinema

3.       Gay Venom

4.       James Wan going completely bugfuck

5.       Hugh Dennis in a James Bond movie

6.       Ridley Scott releasing two of his best films in a single year

7.       Chloé Zhao releasing two of her best films in a single year (Eternals was fucking brilliant, I don’t care what anyone else says)

8.       In a sea of nostalgia bait, a much-needed reality check

9.       A collaboration between Troma Studios and Saban Entertainment (well, damn near it, anyway)

10.   A new Clint Eastwood movie that didn’t make me feel like I would rupture a major artery

Yeah, a lot of good shit happened at the movies in 2021, when all the big fuck-off blockbusters that the studios had been sitting on for well over a year finally saw public release, along with some killer indie features. So, before we completely leave 2021 in the rear view, let’s take one last look at some of the best that the year’s cinema had to offer. Here are my picks for the twenty best films of 2021. (By the way, *SPOILERS* for Spider-Man: No Way Home ahead)

Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) - Movie Review

I did not like the first Venom film. And as much as me even bringing that up again is just adding more fuel to the underlying “critics hate movies that audiences actually like” conversation… fucking hell, that entire line of thinking, predicated on insisting that film critics might as well be a completely different species than every other kind of filmgoer, is one of the most annoying parts of the larger conversation regarding cinema. I mean, it’s a superhero film made by one of the biggest studios working today; it doesn’t need to be defended like it’s this groundbreaking indie underdog. At any rate, we now have a sequel, and what is being presented here is not only a lot more likeable than what came before, it’s honestly a comic book idea that hasn’t really been done before on the big screen.

Top 20 Best Films Of 2018

2018 was a fucking great year for movies. Not only that, it felt like there was some unified intent in the collective unconscious to finally get shit right, revising and correcting whole swathes of cinematic history in its wake. I could have made this a Top 40 list, and it still would’ve involve making some painful cuts because the best the year had to offer was just that damn good. Time for one last trip in reminiscence as I look at my picks for the top 20 best films of 2018.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: After many long years of planning and machination, the alien despot Thanos (Josh Brolin) is ready to initiate his ultimate plan: Gather all of the Infinity Stones and, with their combined power, wipe out half of all life in the universe. As he and his lieutenants make their way to Earth, where most of the Stones now reside, the now-scattered Avengers have to reunite and, with the help of the Guardians Of The Galaxy, stop Thanos from decimating the universe.

Captain America: Civil War (2016) - Movie Review

Back in 2007, long before my critical awakening even took place that would forever change (for better or for worse) how I look at media in general, I became embroiled in the original Civil War comic book event. This is without having read a single issue of the comic itself, nor any of the many, many tie-in issues. I have the Marvel Universe wiki to thank for this, as I wound up spending a lot of time at one of my school’s library computers reading up on various characters who were involved in the event. It is with this tertiary knowledge that I can safely say that this addition to the MCU might be one of the single riskiest ventures they have ever undertaken, as the fallout as a result of the original story is staggering and still being felt to this day. It doesn’t help that the inclusion of a certain character in this story almost guarantees that I need to go into comparisons with the source material; regular readers will know that I always try and avoid that when possible. So, as I wade through the massive backlog of releases I’ve accumulated over the last few weeks, I figure I’d start out with the most potentially problematic of them all.