2023 Year in Review: Movies, Music, and More!

by Russell Michaels · December 31, 2023

Photo by PantheraLeo1359531, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

I saw 127 movies in theaters in the year 2023. From The Whale to The Color Purple, it has been a year. I broke my all-time movie theater record I set in 2019, which was 120 movies in theaters. This year in review will cover movies primarily, but I will also talk about my favorite show, album, song, and video game of the year. I have decided to only do a top 10 movies this year and only the worst movie of the year as that dishonor was so impossibly bad. A couple movies make the top ten over others in a way you might not expect, but that is due to hindsight. One film in particular I realized I liked a lot more than I initially gave it credit for. Movies are first out of the gate. I agonized over the order a bit.

This one nearly went to Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant, but the ten spot goes to Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning: Part One. It was an edge of your seat thrill ride for basically the entire runtime. This is the first of four movies that I first saw in July to make this list. I can’t wait for the concluding sequel, even if opening about ten days before Barbenheimer really put a boot on the neck of this movie’s box office.

Horror movie of the year ends up going to Talk to Me. Made for basically nothing and shunted to a $5 Regal Monday Mystery Movie, the film still made over $90 million worldwide. And they’re already working on a sequel. As I mentioned in my initial review, there is plenty of unexplained lore to explore in future movies.

The Holdovers is the surprise on this list. The movie I gave movie of the month to over this in November, The Killer, does not make the list. Hindsight and retrospect are powerful sometimes. Paul Giamatti is wonderful, the chemistry between the two leads is pitch perfect, and the journey through the plot was delightful. Heartfelt in a way that can be so hard to nail.

The first of two movies I have yet to talk about, The Iron Claw is a real-life family tragedy. It is odd the Von Erich wrestling family had a sixth son the film treats as non-existent, but the movie is great. Zac Efron gives easily the best performance of his career. I don’t think he’s high in the running for Best Actor, but he deserves a nomination.

Godzilla Minus One is the other movie I have yet to discuss. One of the best foreign language films I have ever seen and the best Godzilla movie I have personally seen. I really didn’t like Shin Godzilla, but I loved this. It makes the human characters interesting, which none of the Hollywood Godzilla films have ever really done. Godzilla is the bad guy in this one, unlike the recent Hollywood ones. The drama in the film is also handled very well, while the monster effects look incredible considering this film’s small budget.

As I mentioned in my initial review, this movie was a fever dream in the best way. Stop Making Sense is the best concert film I have ever seen. I still need to buy the album, but I’ll get to it. I had not really been exposed to Talking Heads before, so I wasn’t coming into this as a major fan. But I was one by the time the credits started rolling.

The top animated film of the year is Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. And the only superhero movie to make my list… This was really not the best year for superhero films. Like the tenth entry on this list, this is a part one of two. Unlike that one, we have no idea when the second one is coming out. This movie just did everything right while setting up the next film. I don’t know if it is as good as the first one, but it gets very close.

Better than the third one, John Wick: Chapter 4 brings John Wick’s story to a close, but not the universe the story takes place in, given the prequel miniseries and the spin-off film. The action is amazing in every scene. A sumptuous feast. I cannot wait for the other films this creative team will make.

Sisu was just bloody brilliant. A one-man army tearing his way through Nazis is probably bound to be a good time no matter what, but the action was so awesome. I had a smile on my face nearly the entire runtime.

I had a feeling this one was not gonna be beaten. Oppenheimer is movie of the year. I sincerely hope Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey, Jr., and Christopher Nolan all win Oscars. Managing to film an explosion of that scale with completely practical effects is quite a feat. There is not a single special effects shot in the entire movie. The IMAX screening was especially enjoyable.

WORST

Skinamarink is almost surely one of the bottom ten worst movies I’ve ever sat through. The pacing is glacial. They did such a horrible job with the audio mixing and sound design, they had to put subtitles in occasionally throughout the film as some dialogue is just horrendously quiet. The movie is shot so weirdly, likely due to its paltry budget, with the camera being pointed at the upper walls in nearly every scene. This all makes the movie somewhat difficult to follow. Just so painfully bad. And yet, critics seemed to like this movie for some reason.

EVERYTHING ELSE

Best new show of the year ended up being pretty easy. Poker Face was so damn good. It’s Columbo with a twist. Like Columbo, you see the murder at the beginning. The twist is that it then flashes back where the main character’s involvement in the events leading up to the murder are spotlighted before heading into the murder investigation. It has been greenlit for a second season. There really weren’t that many new shows this year to challenge it. Bosch: Legacy and Reacher returned, but those don’t count as new.

Dan Avidan had two new albums this year, although Ninja Sex Party is not releasing another album until next year. The first one was a second acoustic covers album with the Super Guitar Bros. While very enjoyable, the other album he did gets my top honors. Out in the Moonlight, the second Skyhill album ever, is just a treat for the ears. Interestingly, the band released a single in 2015 called “Firefly,” but this album has a re-recording of that song but changed the title to “Fireflies.” A few other bands I liked also released new albums. TWRP and James and the Shame both released EPs, while Steel Panther released a full album. None of them really got close to knocking Dan Avidan off his perch, but they were enjoyable nonetheless.

Song of the year goes to “Rich Men North of Richmond.” I don’t think there was any doubt about that. Nothing really got particularly close, although Ninja Sex Party did release two singles off their next album this year. My further thoughts on it can be read here.

Video game of the year was rather easy. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was such a fun ride. Zelda is my favorite video game franchise of all time, so I knew I would love this game. I really couldn’t put the game down. Beyond that, while not released this year, I sunk many hours into Peglin, an indie game that is a roguelike mixed with pachinko. It is profoundly fun and the only game I played on Steam this year other than Vampire Survivors. I highly recommend it. It is still in early access. I still need to play the two new Mario games, although I do own one of them. I also started but have yet to finish Metroid Prime Remastered. The DLC for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet came out, although I only played the Scarlet one. The first half of it was better than the second in my opinion. We’re getting an epilogue to it in January.

And that’s the year 2023. My December theater roundup will be coming out sometime after this.