2023’s most important works of cinema were odd ducks, moonshots, horny as hell, and/or bizarre corporate shilling

They Clone Tyrone. // Courtesy Netflix Media

There are years, and then there are years. 2023 had so much going on in every corner that it feels like we crammed 24 months’ worth of big events (another KC Super Bowl championship, Hollywood strikes, the slow and terrible death of Twitter), breakthroughs (artificial intelligence), existential crises (…artificial intelligence) and unifying cultural moments (Barbenheimer, the Eras tour, the Renaissance tour, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s relationship) into 12. It would feel like we got a sweet deal if it wasn’t also exhausting. This year was simultaneously exciting, terrifying, overwhelming, and strange, and the movies were no different. 

Locally, Kansas City had an outstanding year that started with getting a prominent spotlight on The Last of Us, complete with shots of Worlds of Fun and the KC skyline. After years without statewide filming incentives, Missouri finally passed a bill that should help bring more productions (and production jobs) to town and support local filmmakers. Area native Gavin Brivik got a warm hometown reception for his scoring work on the excellent environmental thriller How to Blow Up a Pipeline. Filmmaker brothers Jacob and Ben Burghart also premiered their promising first feature, Headcount, featuring regional locations and an impressive cast. 

In many respects, this was a banner year for local film and local filmmakers. On a larger stage, things were a little harder to pin down. Every year has its own cinematic trends, but 2023’s felt exceptionally weird.

In a year where solidarity against corporate honchos was as strong as ever (if not stronger), 2023 was inexplicably the year of the corporate origin story. Tetris, Air, and Blackberry covered the executives who brought you an iconic video game, an iconic sneaker, and a once-iconic piece of technology. Of the three, Air was the ickiest, emptiest ode to American capitalism, while Blackberry excelled at dissecting the atmosphere of corporate toxicity we currently live in.

Speaking of IP, this year also gave us another mixed pile of movies based on games, toys, and comics. Superhero fatigue approached its peak with bulky franchise entries like The Flash, Shazam!: Fury of the Gods and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Fortunately, the animation acrobatics of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem kept things lively. Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves successfully balanced the mechanics of D&D with smart action sequences and fantastic jokes (not that you’d expect anything less from the filmmakers who gave us Game Night).

And then, there was Barbie.

Greta Gerwig’s film was announced with raised eyebrows, then raised expectations once the first trailer hit. Finally, after weeks of joyous promotion and anticipation, July 21 (a date that will live in infamy) hit, and we all showed up in our pink outfits, ready to go. What a bizarre and wonderful gift Barbie turned out to be, full of nods to classic Hollywood musicals, knowing humor that was just self-aware enough, and incredible performances from Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. Most importantly, Barbie was also a loving and affirming look at womanhood, the impossible societal standards placed on us, and how Barbie (the doll) has come to represent all of it.

Barbie was part of a wave of 2023 movies that explored female identity. Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things was easily the most creative and bizarre, a Frankensteinian fable about independence and sexual freedom. Birth/Rebirth used reanimation to explore motherhood—its demands and the way society uses it to define how women see themselves. Priscilla looked at the life of a woman whose marriage to her iconic husband eclipsed her understanding of herself.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. It was a gentle and loving look at a young girl coming of age physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Eileen and May December both took the Persona route to differing outcomes. William Oldroyd’s adaptation of Otessa Moshfegh’s book was a mid-century-tinged queer feminist crime drama, while Todd Haynes’ film playfully explored the boundary between fiction and real life.

All this, of course, is but a sampling of the heap of films (good, great, and otherwise) that this year plopped onto our platters. Here’s a breakdown by genre of some of the other highlights this year:

Horror

M3GAN: This James Wan-produced creepfest about a killer robot doll was a perfect early-year release, providing a dose of freaky pep (and epic dance moves) to a characteristically dreary month. Megan is the new Babadook. I don’t make the rules.

Knock at the Cabin: A stellar turn from Dave Bautista and a solid base in Paul Tremblay’s novel The Cabin at the End of the World added up to a surprisingly strong showing from polarizing auteur M. Night Shyamalan.

Evil Dead Rise: The latest iteration of the storied Sam Raimi film series (this one from director Lee Cronin) moved the action from a cabin in the woods to a high-rise apartment building, with appropriately fun and nasty results.

Talk to Me: Barbenheimer was one cultural moment that brought us together across divides this year. Another? Horror fans of all stripes getting their pants scared off by Danny and Michael Philippou’s supernatural roller coaster ride. Within the film itself, one particularly nasty moment reigned supreme (if you know, you know).

No One Will Save You: In the grand tradition of Disney dumping great genre films onto Hulu, No One Will Save You appeared unceremoniously on the streaming service in late September despite deserving a much better release. Brian Duffield’s alien invasion horror was impeccably art-directed and curiously bitter, with a marathon of a performance from Kaitlyn Dever.

Comedy

Asteroid City: Wes Anderson went full Looney Tunes on his latest tale of dry humor and existential ennui, this time set in a desert town that goes into quarantine after a visit from an alien. That story itself is a performance set inside another story about a mid-century playwright trying to write the play that we’re seeing. Asteroid City is as meta as Anderson’s ever gotten, and it was a pleasure to unpack.

They Cloned Tyrone: Juel Taylor’s sci-fi satire takes from the best influences to tell its bizarre tale of racism, gentrification, and, yes, cloning. Get Out and Sorry to Bother You are clear influences, but so are Black Dynamite and Foxy Brown. Teyonah Parris, Jamie Foxx, and John Boyega make a tasty meal out of the inventive script. 

Dicks: The Musical: Written by stars Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp, Dicks: The Musical is a buck-wild parody that packs in jokes like a tin of fancy sardines. As Stefon would say, this movie has everything. Two alpha male businessmen discovering they’re identical twins! Megan Mullally wearing jewelry made of roasted vegetables! Nathan Lane keeping two cannibal mutants called The Sewer Boys as pets! Megan! Thee! Stallion!! Is it meaningful art? Probably not, but I was still humming the songs and making myself laugh for weeks afterward.

Saltburn: You could argue that Emerald Fennell’s sophomore film is a drama, but it’s really a pitch-black comedy in the mold of The Talented Mr. Ripley and Kind Hearts and Coronets. Fennell’s sharply funny, riotously nasty and unabashedly horny movie also gave us an iconic film moment of 2023, an act of creepy self-pleasure involving a bathtub that rivals Call Me By Your Name’s peach scene for cringe inducement.

The Holdovers: Alexander Payne’s kindest film to date is also an instant Christmas classic, with all-timer performances across the board in a sweet tale of less-than-ideal holidays, grief and small acts of kindness. That it feels like it was made in the era it depicts is as much a reflection of the Hal Ashby-esque story at its core—a troubled teen stuck at boarding school over Christmas break with his cantankerous teacher—as it is its impeccable 70s aesthetic.

Drama

How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Daniel Goldhaber’s tale of young environmentalists driven to extremes was one of 2023’s biggest surprises. A taut thriller that pays homage to some of the best examples of the genre (William Friedkin’s Sorcerer is a clear influence), Pipeline is also an effective portrait of a generation fed up with the mounting effects of climate change and a system unwilling to do anything meaningful about it. 

Oppenheimer: Christopher Nolan’s film on Robert Oppenheimer is a movie of ideas and big questions that plays with form and pushes the limits of cinema. In other words, it’s a Nolan movie, though perhaps his headiest and most effective yet.

Killers of the Flower Moon: Martin Scorsese’s latest takes great care with its adaptation of David Grann’s book on the Osage murders in Oklahoma. It’s both tragic and life-affirming, damning of individual acts and always looking at the bigger picture those acts represent. It feels silly to say it’s Scorsese’s masterpiece — every new film of his seems to deserve the title—but it does feel like his most mature film to date.

Napoleon: Ridley Scott’s biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte was another welcome surprise during prestige movie season, a historical epic that didn’t take itself too seriously and was genuinely interested in its subject as a character. Some images and lines from this movie will live in my mind rent-free for years to come.

The Iron Claw: Sean Durkin remains a master at telling stories about bad fathers. The Iron Claw looks at the Von Erichs, a “cursed” family of wrestling greats plagued by tragedy. The real curse here is toxic masculinity, as patriarch Fritz (Holt McCallany) repeatedly pushes his sons to succeed in the ring but offers no help when failure, addiction, or injury inevitably present themselves.