Movies & TV / Columns
Stew’s Top 50 Movies Of 2023 (#20 – 11)
Image Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures
As a quick catch-up: I watched 113 movies that came out in 2023, and I’m counting down my Top 50, all of which fall into my “Definite Recommends” category. We’ve done #50-41 (click HERE for that), #40-31 (click HERE), and #30-21 (HERE). So we are into the teens!
That’s not what I want to talk about, though. In 2022, I set a goal for myself to watch 300 individual movies by year’s end. I smashed it. In 2023, I set my goal at 100 movies that were mass released in 2023. Killed it.
What should my goal for 2024 be? Here’s what I’m thinking: 300 movies total is too much to do again. I’ll pass on that. 100 new releases was pretty fun in 2023, so maybe I can just repeat that? Or! I could split the difference somewhat and do 200 movies I’ve never seen before. So that will obviously include all new releases, plus just whatever else I watch for the first time ever.
If I don’t choose one of those, I might be stuck making an actual New Year’s Resolution to improve myself, like a schmuck! As of this writing, it’s 12/19/23, so I still have a little time to work this out, but until then, let’s get into the list!
20. Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret
I was a huge fan of Abby Ryder Fortson’s work in the first two Ant-Man movies, where I thought she was a hilarious and promising child actress. So when I saw she had her own leading role coming out, I was eager to see how she would do outside of a smaller supporting one. Even if the movie was about a young girl wishing to get her period.
So, okay, AYTGIMM is about a lot more than that. There are struggles with friendship, choosing a religion, and growing up emotionally all packed into this one tale.
It’s not cohesive enough to be as amazing as I had been hearing—there are characters and plot points that don’t factor much into Margaret’s ultimate growth—but it’s still incredibly sweet and well acted, so I can’t go lower on the score than “great”. It’s also the rare movie that could have stood to be 15-20 minutes LONGER to give more resolution to Margaret and Nancy’s relationship and have her maternal grandparents mean a bit more.
19. The Boy And The Heron
Allegedly Miyazaki’s last movie–we’ll see how that works out this time–The Boy And The Heron is a crazy imaginative an beautiful note to go out on.
The story is a BIT nonsensical, but you get the feeling that Miyazaki wanted to put all the ideas in his head on display before worrying about anything else.
18. Totally Killer
I told you last time we’d come back to the marvelous Ms. Kiernan Shipka, and here we are. I believe I also told you we’d have more slasher-comedies. So many promises fulfilled with this one!
Shipka remains a powerhouse in a genre movie that is right up my alley: a slasher-meets-Back To The Future mash-up. It’s funny, doesn’t rely on all the stereotypical “it’s the 80’s” beats, and works as a Slasher on every level it needs to.
17. Skinamarink
Oh ho ho… Skinamarink. Skinamarink has become such a measuring stick movie for me, personally. I watch movies that are considered to be avant garde or where the director is clearly trying to be clever, and then I think, “They should have just made Skinamarink“.
One of the most hated movies of the year by a lot of folks, I would never dream of saying this is for everyone. But if you like atmosphere and dread and this creeping feeling that there is something there you JUST… can’t… detect? Check this one out. In the dark and with headphones if possible.
16. They Cloned Tyrone
What a blast this was, it was one of those flicks that gives you more faith in Netflix original movies. And we get another one before this very article is over!
Three great performances carry a movie with a surprisingly effective tonal shift in the late second act. Until that point, it’s a hilarious outing. After it, it’s much more dire, but it works at both ends.
15. Knock At The Cabin
I found this to be insanely tense and gripping. Edge of the seat kind of stuff here. I was full engaged throughout, and the main actor performances were all top-tier.
I love seeing the transformations that Batista is capable of, and it’s great that we live in a world where he, Cena, and The Rock are all out there doing their own things and being really successful at it. Santa With Muscles feels like a distant bad dream, right? Anyway, M. Night changed the ending to this from what the original book had, and you know what? I think I like the movie’s ending better.
14. A Spoonful Of Sugar
Another small climb in my scores here, as with Spoonful Of Sugar, we are out of the “Great” movies and into the “Amazing” (4.0 to 4.5 out of 5).
This is a dark, disturbed, uncomfortable, wild ride of a movie. The last 15 minutes in particular just goes fully off the rails of sanity and normalcy, and in the last 5 minutes or so, it finds some NEW rails, and then it goes off of those, too!
It’s the story of a babysitter of a child with various disabilities, and the babysitter is on acid. And then just… all kinds of screwed up stuff happens. I always find one or two real gems on Shudder every year, and this was absolutely one of them for 2023.
13. Evil Dead Rise
I guess I have to give up on my notion that Evil Dead properties have to be humorous. Between this and the 2013 remake/sequel, that’s clearly not the standard anymore. Does that mean I have to re-assess the aforementioned 2013 flick? Probably. I always held it’s lack of silliness against it.
But without 2013 preparing me for that, I might not have enjoyed Rise as much. But this time, its seriousness was expected. There’s still some… gory goofiness, especially in the climax, but there’s no Ash Williams here, that’s for sure.
Ultimately, I enjoyed this enough to see it twice in theater because my wife missed it the first time and wanted to see it. So it’s one of just two flicks this year I went to the movies to see more than once… and the other is my #1 movie!
12. Polite Society
I was so excited for this when I saw the trailer, and it ended up paying all the way off. Polite Society is stylish, funny, rambunctious, and gleeful. It also isn’t afraid to get a tad bizarre when the third act comes around.
In a world where every action movie is either a superhero flick or a John Wick clone, we need more Polite Society. Too bad it didn’t make a ton of money at the box office.
11. The Killer
Speaking of John Wick clones (and going back to They Cloned Tyrone, of Netflix original offerings)…
David Fincher and Michael Fassbender’s The Killer is one of the better Wickian action movies released in the last several years because it has so much more depth and such a powerful lead performance. You really come out of this one thinking “Well no one but Fassbender could have hit that role that well”.
The action is stupendous, too. Everything about The Killer lands, and it falls juuuust outside my top ten of the year!
Next time: My Top Ten Movies Of The Year!
And if you want to check out my Top Twenty WORST movies of the year, click HERE!
Until next time… take care!
