Best Movies of 2023

In addition to our master list we are going to go over the Best movies of 2023, the blandest movies of 2023 and the worst movies of 2023. This is the Best list. This list is really in no particular order. I think every film on this list is of the exact same quality and I would rewatch every single film on this list several times over. Our top 5 best movies of 2023 are;

Godzilla Minus One

First up is Godzilla Minus One…truly might be one of the greatest movies that I have ever seen. It is such a brilliantly executed story about grief and guilt and it ends in hope. And seeing it has made me want to dedicate more time to foreign cinema because if this is any measure of what Japanese film is like then I need to watch all of it. It was heartfelt and emotional and it was still a monster movie. I never expected Godzilla to be the conduit for a story about survivor's guilt but it couldn’t have been told any better.

The Color Purple

Perfect as a movie. Perfect as a musical. Perfect as a movie musical. Such an honest adaptation from the book and the movie. And the performance quality was Tony award winning across the board. It does help that Danielle Brooks herself (who was Tony nominated) was also in the film adaptation. The casting couldn’t have been more perfect. I truly believe that even if you aren’t a musical person that you would (and should) love this movie. It transcends genre preference; it's filled with just truly life changing performances.

Across the Spider-Verse

It is very rare for the sequel to be as good as the original film, even more rare for it to be better. But I stand by the fact that Across the Spider-verse is better than Into the Spider-verse. When I found out there were people that exist that didn't like this movie I was genuinely confused. Then I remembered that stupid people exist and it all started to make sense again. If you have more than 3 brain cells then this was a perfect movie and no one can convince me otherwise.

The Iron Claw

Genuinely did not expect the level of greatness that I got from this movie. I truly went in thinking that it was just a movie about wrestling and damn I was pleasantly surprised. Zac Efron proves once again that he is an incredible actor with depth and range. And I was even more impressed when I found out just how accurate the adaptation of the real story was. Based on true stories are always hit or miss and when they miss they miss really hard. But some of the actual family was involved in the movie and I’m sure that helped keep the filmmakers honest. But the screenwriter seemed genuinely invested in telling the real story and he did a fantastic job.

Nimona

When I tell you I’ve never been so invested so fast. This movie played with my emotions in so many wonderful ways. This was the most emotionally connected film of the year and it was so incredible. This film was also based on a comic book and though I can’t speak to how accurate of an adaptation it was I can say that it felt like it was adapted from a comic book. The animation style and fight scenes all felt very comic book based and that made it so much more fun to watch.

So the reality is that there were so many phenomenal movies this year. I promised myself that I was going to judge movies way harder than I did last year and I believe I have. But Hollywood really stepped their shit up so that said I have to put a bonus movie on this list that I just could not overlook.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

It was the perfect kids movie, it was the perfect movie. I will be watching this over and over again. I grew up watching the cartoon and to have a story this well written for characters that a lot of us grew up with was great. To have the teenage mutant ninja turtles actually sound like teenagers was really important and it really elevated the film as a whole.