2023 in film has been kind of strange, it feels like the cinema is starting to approach returning to what it was pre-pandemic but there’s been some massive shake-ups in what a hit film can be. Instead of Superheroes dominating the box office, this year Barbie ran the roost and even helped meme a serious drama to near the top of the box office (If you try to claim Oppenheimer could’ve made that much without the Barbenheimer meme, I will laugh in your face). Small-budget horror films managed to dominate early in the year and a few old franchises came back and surprised everyone, either by being surprise hits or vanishing in seconds (remember how we had an Indiana Jones film this year? Did anyone see it, cos I know I didn’t).
Since this year is now officially out of the way it’s time for the usual bit of reflection about what’s been released and if I liked it or not because it’s my blog and that’s just a thing that happens.. Before we start the list properly though, let’s lay out the ground rules.
- I didn’t get to see every film, despite my best attempts some slipped through the cracks, some I avoided, and some only got released in Sydney when I just didn’t want to make the trip. I still managed to review over 120 films in 2023, which should be enough to provide a decent list.
- Only films released in Australia in 2023 are going to be on this list. We’re talking mainstream releases that I could access either by VOD or my local cinema (there might be a few festival films thrown in). So if you see a film you think is from 2022, check and see when Australia got it because that’s what I have to go with. Also, keep in mind some films that came out in 2023 in the states are slated for 2024 in Australia, so things like Next Goal Wins, Dream Scenario and Priscilla will all be eligible for next year’s lists.
- Any video-on-demand movie is eligible for all lists. If they sent it out to be viewed by an audience, then they should be ready for critique.
- Remember that “Best” and “Worst” really mean “Film I liked the most” and “Film I disliked the most” because film is art and art is subjective and all lists of this nature are merely using the titles that work best for the search engine and makes you sound like some form of authority.
- These are merely my opinions at the time I made the list and you are absolutely entitled to disagree with me for any reason, hell I’ll probably disagree with me in a matter of months. Go nuts, make your own list in the comments or question my order or even what I had on the list. That’s fine. What’s not fine is just saying “Your list sucks” with no reason behind it, critique is fine but blind attacks with no justification aren’t. If you leave a comment that’s a critique I will happily discuss it with you but if it’s an insult… well, I’m the one with the delete button.
Alright now let’s get on with the honourable mentions!
Guardians Of The Galaxy: Vol 3 – Guardians Of The Galaxy: Vol 3 was a film we almost didn’t get to have because a bunch of morons got really upset that James Gunn didn’t like Donald Trump and so they took a whole bunch of jokes from James’ edge lord days, removed every scrap of context they could and created an internet mob to get him fired which worked exactly long enough for James to go off to DC for a bit, make one of the best films DC has done in years, before he came back to make the best superhero film of 2023. Guardians Of The Galaxy: Vol 3 is not only a fantastic film on its own, telling the story of a found family dealing with just an endless supply of trauma, but it’s a glorious middle finger to people who deserve a middle finger thrown their way.
Elemental – Elemental was doomed to fail, and then through word of mouth became a sleeper success story which proves that maybe we should try waiting a little before declaring something dead at the box office. It’s a charming romance between fire and water, a doomed romance that somehow ends up working out. With glorious animation, endless charm and a beautiful story about the immigrant experience, Elemental might’ve taken a minute to shine but it managed to be brighter than anyone gave it credit for.
Hot Potato: The Story Of The Wiggles – This documentary not only takes the time to explore their roots but provides absolutely essential context for every new highlight in their careers, from how 9/11 played into their initial break into the US market to their adapting with the times and including new members. It’s captivating, treating this children’s band like the most important musical act ever could’ve ruined this documentary but every minute works, you will finish this and be absolutely ready to wiggle.
Sisu – Old prospector kills Nazis… the stunning thing here is I didn’t just put it in a numbered slot on the list
AND NOW, THE LIST!
10 – Red, White & Royal Blue
For what could’ve been just a standard rom-com but with gay characters, Red, White & Royal Blue elevated beyond its genre conventions to be something truly special. The story of the son of a president and a prince having a secret relationship is simple but filled with moments of heartbreaking sweetness, side-splitting comedy, and one of the most beautiful romances on screen this year. The film developed an intense cult following for a very good reason, it’s a joyful queer rom-com that feels like a breath of fresh air and is sorely needed at a time when queer romance stories aren’t being told as often as they could be.
9 – Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves
Getting an Action-comedy to work as both an action film and a comedy is hard, especially when it’s based on one of the most famous IP’s of all time. Dungeons & Dragons absolutely worked not only for fans of the franchise but for complete novices who wouldn’t know what a Nat 20 was if it hit them in the face. Every minute of this film is genuinely hilarious, filled with wonderful performances by a cast who brought their A-game from start to finish and refused to back away from the challenge of tackling this property. It’s a shame that this film didn’t meet the box office expectations set for it because it’s the kind of film where there could easily be a half dozen sequels that become beloved classics. If you’re one of the many people who didn’t see this, it’s probably the film on this list that is the most accessible for most viewers and worth giving a chance.
8 – Mad Heidi
Whoever looked at the story of Heidi and said “What if we did that in the style of cheesy grindhouse films” deserves nothing but joy in their life because they created a masterpiece. Mad Heidi takes the little girl from the hills and turns her into an ass-kicking motherfucker who goes to war against the evil king who is obsessed with a special kind of cheese and in doing so pays loving homage to the Grindhouse. It throws everything at the wall, blindly certain that something will eventually stick and most of it does. It’s absolute anarchy, the kind of insane fucked up film you only get when no one has the nerve to tell the director to stop and it’s absolutely glorious.
7 – M3GAN
In a year where a lot of film discussion was focussed around the films that flopped, the talk that was happening right at the start of the year was about how there’s a resurgence of fun horror films that felt more like the campy silly stuff people in the 80s got to enjoy. M3GAN was a big part of that, not only being oodles of fun but proving that you could make it within the PG13 rating and also make a ton of money. This is the kind of special film that captured the attention of the world, people dressed up like M3GAN, she became an instant cultural icon while doing silly TikTok dances and killing anyone she liked. It’s wild to see the impact this one little horror film had this year but god damn it’s good to see that the fun horror films are back.
6 – Nimona
This is a film we almost didn’t get to see, it was almost a piece of media lost in the merger between Fox and Disney. It was almost complete and just needed a little bit of finishing up but Disney canceled it, and then Netflix brought it back to life and created a glorious story of found family, discovering your identity, and forbidden love all wrapped up in violent pink wrapping. There’s so much about this film to love, from the jaw-droppingly funny script to the pristine perfect look to the performances by a voice cast who put their souls into every line uttered. In a time where some studio heads seem to revel in canceling projects so near completion (fuck David Zaslav), here’s proof why sometimes it’s worth fighting for those projects to get released. Sure they might not be great, but sometimes you get something like Nimona and that’s something worth hoping for.
5 – Saltburn
Emerald Fennell is a menace and I’m glad she exists. In a year of mainstream films largely trying to play it safe so they can have an easy release after the high point of the pandemic, here comes Saltburn which said “Right, but what if we made an Oscar nominee lick up cum-flavoured bath water and lingered on it for several minutes, and then go further”. It’s twisted, it’s weird, it’s dark and it’s absolutely glorious. It’s the kind of film that feels dangerous, like at any second the studio is going to pull the print in hopes they can hide it before it damages their reputation. You will never think of Murder On The Dance Floor the same after seeing this film, and you’ll be thankful for that.
4 – Barbie
How the hell was Barbie the most controversial movie of the year? How? How was this cotton candy pink fluff of a film able to get the internet in a fury and have tiny man-children burning dolls on a barbecue? Oh, right, because it dared to make a commentary about misogyny and how it affects women, I forgot you’re not allowed to do that… well, Barbie did that while also being one of the funniest films of the year. Once again this is a film that was blessed with one of the best scripts ever written and a cast who understood the assignment, everyone realised the kind of silly shit that was expected of them and god damn did they deliver. The fact that a film about Barbie is now a serious Oscar contender is something that shouldn’t make sense, but anyone who has seen it can attest that it absolutely deserves to be up there with all the Oscar Baity films that didn’t make this list… I mean sure some chuds are going to be upset about it, but who cares about them?
3 – Saw X
For a horror franchise to make 10 films and still find ways to be relevant and interesting is impressive enough, but Saw X blew everyone away by taking the franchise back in time and turning everything you thought you knew upside down. Turning the villain into the hero can be risky, but Saw X pulls it off by telling a story about a bunch of medical grifters who ran their scam on the wrong person, thus anything done to them becomes acceptable. While there are the normal horrific traps that fans have come to love, there’s a much more powerful story of a person who has their hope torn away from them and decides to get revenge. It’s stunning to think that this franchise was almost ready to just be retired and written off, but this has completely and utterly revived the property and it won’t shock me if we’re at the start of another decade of Jigsaw’s wrath, and this film deserves that kind of follow up.
2 – Dicks: The Musical
There is a chance that this one could be recency bias, ever since seeing it at the start of December the tunes have gone through my head and I catch myself quoting lines regularly so that is possibly why it’s so high but a film this funny and this daring deserves to be on this kind of list. A quirky queer adult musical retelling of The Parent Trap is such a wild idea that shouldn’t work, but god damn does it work.
Every single line of dialogue is hilarious, it’s hard to find even a minute that isn’t filled with side-splittingly hilarious jokes. It’s boundary-pushing and breaks all the rules of good taste but it’s somehow never mean about it. This is the film that should be shown to comedians who try to say that they can’t tell jokes anymore, because Dicks The Musical tells the filthiest jokes you’ve ever heard and gets away with it with a combination of bravado, playfulness, and understanding what makes a good target. It’s the kind of zany offensive raucous comedy we should get more of and hopefully, the creators of this have a few more weird musicals in them because they are needed more than ever… but it’s hard for a musical about fucking identical twins to beat the glory of a bear doing all the cocaine.
1 – Cocaine Bear
The bear did cocaine. That’s it, that’s why this film is the best film of the year. A large bear did a large amount of cocaine, hilarity and brutal slaughter soon followed. Its brutal simplicity is what makes it great, it doesn’t need to be anything that fancy or do anything too complicated because once you have decided to see a film about a bear who does cocaine, that’s all you need.
It delivers on what you asked for, it does what it says on the tin, and does every permutation of that core idea. Does cocaine make you speedy? It does that to bears too, let’s watch a coked-out bear run. Does cocaine make you violent? It does that to bears too, here’s a bear tearing off someone’s arm because its nostrils are covered in Columbian powder. Does cocaine make you sleepy? It does that to bears too, watch a bear collapse in exhaustion on top of the guy who played Han Solo because that will be very fucking funny.
Cocaine Bear does not need to have any deep meaning, but it even works in a story about a mother trying to protect her kids and do a series of motifs about the family unit and how certain kinds of parenting can create certain kinds of kids… all while a giant bear runs around high on cocaine, did I mention the bear does cocaine? Because it does SO MUCH COCAINE! It’s hard not to love this, it’s hard not to beam with delight just saying the title of the film. Sure, Cocaine Bear might not be the brilliant piece of cinema that one might expect to be on top of an average best-of list, but it’s the most fun film I’ve seen all year which makes it the best film I’ve seen all year and since this is my list, it gets the top spot because I say so!
And that’s the list, tell me what films you liked this year and remember one important thing… THE BEAR DID SO MUCH COCAINE!
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