My favourite movies from 2023
I saw a lot of movies this year. Here are some of my favourites:
Best Animated Film – Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
In this film, Puss is relentlessly pursued by Death. I saw this movie in a large cinema, empty save for myself, with my heart beating wildly (from anxiety or my body fighting off some illness, I don’t know). I remember thinking, theatrically, that perhaps I was about to die.
Parallel narratives aside, there is much I adored about this movie. The dynamic score, the perfectly choreographed opening number and subsequent fight scene, the way it didn’t feel like a Shrek movie but its own, distinct film. I’m also a sucker for a movie that, at first glance is for children (read: simple, bland storytelling), but actually has enough nuance and richness for the adults in the audience. So far, I’ve seen it three times and would happily watch it again.
Gorgeous
Honourable Mentions:
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On – for being a perfect little gem of a stop-motion film (more on him later).
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse – for being one of the few superhero movies I’ll get excited over, and also the superb range of animation styles (comic book, water colour, collage…).
Most ✨Aesthetic✨ Film – Asteroid City
I wanted to like Asteroid City. There is much about it that annoys me, like the play-within the play and lack of narrative payoff. I still don’t know what it was trying to say, and I don't think the movie itself knows, either. I expected it to be pretentious, but still. It rubbed me the wrong way.
Pictured: my reaction while watching this movie
Here's what did work for me: beautiful hand-painted sets. Select and charming use of puppetry, miniatures and stop-motion animation. Midday sun through metal lacework, casting polka dots on children’s faces. An ensemble cast, even if we didn't get to spend as much time with everyone as I would have liked. Painted backdrops. Three dots followed by an unexpected fourth. The idea that desert light is clean and unforgiving. A vending machine that dispenses martinis with a twist. Violet dusk.
Watching Asteroid City feels like walking around inside a postcard. And for these reasons, I liked it. I'm not clamouring to see it again. But if I stumbled across it while channel surfing on a summer afternoon, still crusty from a midday siesta, I'd happily settle in to enjoy it.
Honourable Mentions:
Aftersun – for capturing the same feeling of summer holidays in an exotic place, though in a less stylised way.
Barbie – for plastic fantastic sets (more on her later).
Best Documentary or Mockumentary – Theater Camp
I used to be a theatre kid. I have some complicated feelings about it. Theater Camp helped me exorcise some of those demons.
Theatre kids are very earnest. They love things with a serious intensity that can make them a bit off-putting (at 15, I thought I was ‘dedicating myself to a craft’). Theater Camp has that same superb earnestness. Everyone moves with a sense of purpose and self-assurance. They know why they are there (to write and perform a new musical about their founder, who is currently in a coma) and they believe they will do it well. Oh to have such confidence.
I swear I’ve been in acting workshops exactly like this one
Theater Camp was life-affirming and healing. I think I let go of some of that shame around 14–17-year-old me who was so confident and self-assured, traits that have softened for me now. I am pleased to find that, by being an earnest and dedicated theatre kid, I have become an earnest and dedicated adult.
Honourable Mentions:
You Can Go Now – for painting an incisive portrait of Kamilaroi, Kooma, Jiman and Gurang Gurang artist, Richard Bell.
Australia’s Open – for being an excellent primer for the 2024 Australian Open.
Best Australian Film – Shayda
As I write this, I am not 24 hours from seeing Shayda for the first time. I have tried and failed to see it several times since it opened the Melbourne International Film Festival; I am so glad I finally got myself to a cinema.
I have also tried and failed to explain to other people what I liked about Shayda. I tell them, ‘I had a good cry’. I don’t tell them it’s because the children in this movie are so brave they break my heart, or because Shayda’s mother’s voice on the phone sounds so much like my Nonna’s (they have the same intonation). Or how amid the darkness, the joyful moments overwhelm me with their glow.
Oh god this movie was so painfully exquisite
Honourable Mentions:
Sweet As – for being The Breakfast Club on a bus in Pilbara Country, Western Australia.
Petrol – for being a dreamy film about creative envy, ghosts and a woman with a magical wink.
Best Soundtrack – Barbie
Like Asteroid City, I wanted to like Barbie more than I did. There are plenty of video essays out their breaking down its plastic feminism and the online discourse around whether or not it saved cinema (spoilers: it hasn’t). And while I wanted Barbie to be many things, there are two areas where it exceeded my expectations: style, and sound.
I touched on style under the Most ✨Aesthetic✨ Film category, so let’s focus on sound. In an interview with Letterboxd, Director Greta Gerwig cited Saturday Night Fever as one of her influences, because it has ‘an amazing soundtrack… Barbie seemed so disco to me’. She also likes how Saturday Night Fever is ‘a movie that was driven by music but was not a musical’.
Barbie’s feminism was basic, but the production was not
Both the Barbie score and the pop album released alongside it are fantastic. I have reached for them several times over the past four months since I saw the film. My favourite tracks include ‘Speed Drive’ (Charli XCX), ‘Man I Am’ (Sam Smith), and ‘Journey To The Real World’ (Tame Impala).
Honourable Mentions:
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On soundtrack by Disasterpeace – for being utterly charming and scoring my first few months at a new job.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish soundtrack by Heitor Pereira – for combining flamenco with 90s rap and the most wonderfully foreboding fight music (and of course for ‘Fearless Hero’).
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse score by Daniel Pemberton – for being glitchy with slow crescendos, and for remixing a goose honk into fight music (most of my love for this score comes from this episode of Soundtracking with Edith Bowman).
Some other films I liked this year, but not enough to place in a category
Triangle of Sadness – for leaving a packed cinema deliriously seasick.
Tár – for the chance to watch Cate Blanchett act the shit out of something.
Will-o’-the-Wisp – for climate anxiety and firefighters that strike curious poses (mark me down as scared AND horny).
EO – for rivalling Banshees of Inisherin for best donkey acting.
Stop Making Sense: 40th anniversary re-release in 4K – for a band having the best time at the gig.
David Byrne is…mesmerising 😍
My Favourite Film of 2023 – Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
I have endless love for stop-motion animation and crisp 90-minute movies. This film slipped in and out of my local independent cinema within a few weeks. Nearly a year on, it still occupies a special place in my heart.
My neighbour and I saw Marcel the Shell with Shoes On on a balmy summer evening. As the credits rolled, she turned to me and said: ‘that was a gift.’
This small but mighty film began as a YouTube short. A creature Frankensteined out of a shell, a googly eye and a pair of knock off Polly Pocket shoes, talking about his life and his enduring love for the world.
The feature film expands on this. Marcel lives with his Nana Connie. There used to be a whole community of shells, but now there's just the two of them. Together they tend to the garden and watch 60 Minutes. Their lives are made of quiet beauty, even if they are also shadowed by loss and grief.
On a technical level, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is immaculate, blending stop-motion animation and live action in ways I haven't seen before. Marcel and Nana Connie are voiced to perfection by Jenny Slate and Isabella Rossellini (!!!), and are backed by a joyful, sometimes contemplative soundtrack. Around them, Marcel's world looms large and golden, the perfect environment for this carapacial adventurer.
I want to put him in my pocket so bad
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On brought me peace. I hope he does the same for you.
Honourable Mentions:
Everything Everywhere All At Once – for blowing my mind on Easter Saturday.
Past Lives – for making me feel all gooey about the passage of time, and people I used to love whom I no longer speak to, and the people I used to love whom I still speak to.