Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to the countdown.
Last time, I did the list of worst movies of the year 2023, so in the 4th and final countdown, we’re going to the good side of movies.
Yes, I know, 2023 wasn’t the best year when it comes to either successful movies or flopped movies at their box-offices, or even the effect from Hollywood labors strike, but they didn’t matter, cause, despite they’re all flopped or even didn’t turned out from various reasons, I have a list of my good movies to cap off this year.
So this is the Top 10 Best movies in 2023.
But before we get started, im gonna have a quick honorable mentions.
Honorable Mention: Elemental
Even though il give a credit what Peter Sohn was trying to make his own passion project based on his own reality with elements, it has a nicely crafted animation with promising visual effects, some good humors and a creative ideas, but the reason why its off from the list is that this is probably one of Pixar’s weakest movie I’ve ever watched, im not saying I hated it, I like the concept of the movie, but it feels like its just like one of those unlikely romantic movie of a loving relationship wasn’t so easy for how they don’t look the same. Sure the movie got a very bad start at the opening weekend’s box-office, but it does gained a cult following that it became a sleeper hit. It may not be one of my Pixar’s favorite, but il give a respect what Sohn tried and a fascinating concept.
Honorable Mention: Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Yeah, this may sounds unfair for putting it on HM, mainly because even though I enjoy this movie, but this is more of a morbid curiosity to take my first taste of DnD. While its a pretty standard adventure movie that its all about adventures about main hero, who’s a bard, trying to save his daughter in order to be a hero in order to stop being a rogue for looting greed and more focus on one thing for our main bard. FAMILY. While the writing is pretty that I can say, but maybe its kinda complex, even if im not a fan of DnD, it may not be my favorite, but il give it a pass as a good movie, even if its another one of those movies got victimized from being flopped.
So now we got that out of the way, lets get started, shall we?
Number 10: Renfield
Lets start off with Universal’s weirdest rebooting take of Dracula, cause im pretty sure Universal must be too obsessed of rebooting their classic monsters from the 30s over and over again with mixed result, but with Renfield is no stranger to be one of them
For started, this one is basically when a henchman wants to get away from his boss, but in a vampiric way, with narcissism. Where after Renfield meets Dracula that we all know and love, he just want to be live with normal life in peace without getting confronted by his master Dracula to either take the blood or die for no chemistry together. Whereas Rebecca Quincy seeks revenge for hunting vampires for the sake of her old friend and her footstep of her father Quincy Morris. It sounds like an interesting concept for a movie based on Dracula, well, loosely for make something different.
While this movie may look impressive, a pretty good action scenes with blood all over that I enjoy to watch, but the major downside for why I put on much lower, is the poor writing. I mean some characters would’ve been fairly descent, but it didn’t help when the writing is disappointingly questionable. Not to mention, it also trying way too hard to have a dark sense of humor, but most of the jokes are lower eyebrows at best. But I think the only one who’s the saving grace is Nick Cage’s role of Dracula, he’s probably the most memorable part of the movie his humor, narcissistic persona and what better way to giving us a unique performance from Cage himself, eh?
But of course, since Universal trying way too hard to make another reboot, the movie got flopped for like the second time since their remake of The Mummy with Tom Cruise. But at least Renfield is kinda watchable then the poorly remake one.
Even though its disappointed, but it has some ok stuff in the movie, hence why I put this on Number 10.
Number 9: Gran Turismo
When I first saw Gran Turismo, I thought to myself that its a pretty fascinating movie, but when looking back now, my feeling has toned down based on the amount of research.
The obvious that this movie is mainly based on the true of a real life underdog racer named Jann Mardenborough, where he went from GT gamer to real life racer after his run with GT Academy. It sounds like a challenging story for the idea of a movie with a game that became a real life underdog tale that, despite its been done before, but its more of a based on true story. Which il give the appreciation of the inspiration. But of course, the racing scenes are no stranger to be the highlight of this movie, since after all, its based on the game to simulating real racing. Even the movie’s presentation in a documentary style is nicely well-done in Neill Blomkamp.
However, the reason why I put this one in a lower list is when they trying to make a life of Mardenborough, they were flipped upside down to for some inaccuracies how it takes place on. Rather than took place on PS3 days, they skipped all the way in PS5, whereas in PS3, we had GT Academy, but in nowadays, GT Academy was no more since 2016. Not to mention along with badly placement of various events like when movie’s version of Mardenborough had a crash in Nürburgring before going into 24 hours of Les Man, which is a bad and controversial inclusion for the sake of the plot. Not to mention with constant mentioning “This isn’t a video game anymore”. As with some that I mention before with some humor attempt that felt like they tried too hard.
As a fan of GT, it may looks like a promising movie that we hoped for following the plot of real life underdog racer, but the movie just confused itself that, despite a promising presentation, but the writing could’ve been better to follow the real life history.
Number 8: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
While im not a fan of TMNT, but I did remember the 2003 and kinda with the 80s one. But I think this one is actually not bad for another TMNT movie.
While the story is yet another standard superhero shtick, but this is all about how to be a hero after being mutated from Green Ooze while they’re a bunch of teens, the latter of which makes a lot more sense that if they are TMNT, make them act like teenagers learning to be a hero without making chaos. Even the Ninja Turtles themselves are all voiced by actual teens that il give an appreciation of their performance that I think they had fun with it. Plus, the animation’s presentation looks pretty impressive to going wild with some scribbles and unique colors, even if some of the character designs could get questionable.
However, the reason why its on lower list is the writing is pretty weak that it feels unoriginal that its just like any standard superhero movie with some clichés and some of the action scenes could be a bit lacking for trying to focusing on character driven, but again, the writing could’ve gone better.
But in fairness that as a minor fan of TMNT, il give an appreciation what they’re trying to be nicely fitting, have some fun and has a unique inspired animation style.
Number 7: Wish
(gets aimed by people who hate Wish with guns)
Hear me out before you sending me a death threat, please?
Yes, Disney in 2023 was easily the worst year, not because almost all of their movies we’re flopped whether be the MCU is becoming a franchise fatigue, along with “Cinematic Superheroes Fatigue”, the aforementioned Elemental got a rocky start, but eventually recovered, and of course, despite the Disney’s CEO Bob Iger came out of retirement to fix all the problems, many people (probably myself included) said that the damage was already done with all the broken down mess what Bob Chapek did last year. And there’s also Iger’s bad call over the actors and writers strike that he called them “Unrealistic”.
But what about the movie Wish? Well, first all, yes, as im aware, many people considered Wish one of Disney’s next worst movie ever since Chicken Little, saying that its nothing but an overhype celebrating movie for the sake of Disney’s 100th anniversary, pointing the low quality and many other criticism points on this movie. But I hate to say for any of you who likes to bashing over Wish, as for me? I don’t think its not that bad, I find it a fairly descent movie.
Yes, I know it feels like it goes back to the simple story of a girl who wishes upon a star for her family while also digging deep about King Magnifico of his collection of people’s wishes, I know its sounds simplistic, but I think its actually a nice concept, even if the writing isn’t the perfect one for the execution. Even the characters are mixed, though il give the appreciation of the main protagonist and the antagonist, along with fun voice acting. While the songs are ok at best for me.
And one of the biggest point for the reaction that people are pointing the movie’s presentation for the low-quality point for Disney, but personally, I think they kinda plain exaggerating, cause again, I don’t think it looks bad, it looks nice to be a mix of 2D and 3D animation style, its more of a mix of old school animation presentation in a modern 3D animation, like some background are done with 2D, some effects also done with 2D and even the quality, while look low and kinda cheap (despite the expensive budget) is more somewhat less shade. Plus, I also gave an appreciation to have some Easter Eggs as a fan of Disney.
It may not be Disney’s best, but most people, myself included, could probably call Wish as a guilty pleasure animated film. Hence why its on Number 7.
Number 6: Barbie
Well, this may sounds like a pretty dumb movie, but it has something interesting idea of this movie. But of course, what better way to including that this movie came out the same year as another movie that’ll make on the list, but I digress.
For starter, we’ve never expected to having a movie based on Barbie dolls in the first place before many people (myself included) wanted to have movie based on Mattel props like say, Hot Wheels, like come on man, Hot Wheels are my childhood. Well ok, we did have a mini series back in millennium, but I digress. But the idea involving toy’s world connect to our real toy is possibly the most either interesting or odd concept, in a movie, about Barbie dolls. But this movie’s execution that its all about dealing with existential crisis when one Barbie doll feels that not everything is all cutesy and sun shining rainbow than when she used to.
Which, while its a dumb concept, but it does have some unique writing where Barbie wants to learn how she’s dealing with existential crisis by trying to discovering the real world for her attempt of either reuniting a former child or even exploring whatever happen to her, while at the same time, Ken wants to get attention to her than being ignorant, even if we though the subplot about Ken sounds wasted at first, before it gets interesting with the third act. Again, the story is questionable, but its the execution that we may relate the similar problem, mainly the aforementioned existential crisis.
But what makes it even more fascinating is the presentation to replicating the costumes, the sets, the colorful design and even some fascinating Easter Eggs, which im sure some Barbie fangirls can easily pointed at some. Plus, I also give a fun appreciation that the casts are both great and even fun to watch for their delivery and even the humor, from Margot Robbie’s curious and playful in Barbie to Ryan Gosling’s over-the-top and funny performance as Ken. And of course, who could ever forget the most memorable song that we never forgot “Im just Ken” and Gosling did a pretty good job of his singing.
Of course, this movie was such a big deal at the time for how many people are morbidly curious for a movie based on Barbie, it managed to earned more than 1.446 BILLION DOLLARS, pretty much being the top of highest grossing film of the year 2023.
It may not be as perfect, but its a good kind of dumb movie that, while im not a fan of Barbie, but its worth of watching for being part of biggest event in the summer of 2023.
Number 5: Thanksgiving
Now I know that Slasher movies is becoming forgotten genre in nowadays, but with this movie, it was actually enjoyable for another holiday themed slasher movie done by Eli Roth.
Originally made as a fake trailer in a double feature films was called “Grindhouse Films”, which this movie maybe look like an average holiday slasher movie with some obvious clichés, but it was actually enjoyable to watch.
Movie’s presentation looks beautifully well done for the shots in outdoor and various angles, the writing of the movie’s story is actually nicely for the traditional Black Friday to the celebration of Thanksgiving in a brutal way, even some of the writing lines does give me a chuckle.
But of course, the kills are the highlight of this film, but man, it looks brutal, gory and graphical, but I enjoy seeing those kills for R-Rated slasher movie, whether it could be a nasty accident on Black Friday or even serial killer behind John Carver’s mask’s creative and brutal kills to watch.
However, the downside why its on 5th place, is that some of the subplot was worthless at some moment, the writing of the characters could’ve been gone better to either add something fun or maybe even a character development, and no offense for my nitpick, but if you wanna make a slasher movie, one missing ingredient to included is sex scene, I mean sure we have horny scene but briefly, but where’s the birds in a bee scene like any cliché slasher movies? But again, that’s just me.
It may not be a perfect slasher movie, but it is a fun movie for yet another holiday themed slasher in celebration of Thanksgiving with brutal and gory kills.
Number 4: The Super Mario Bros Movie
As we all know from couple years ago, Nintendo wanted the second attempt of movie adaptation of their flagship franchise. And as a result, is a worth of waiting that its fun, but also got a problems to have.
For starter, the animation from Illumination is outstanding to look at and also resembling from the game we all know, the story isn’t like a generic damsel in distress like the game, but all about saving Mushroom Kingdom from Boswer’s threat, it has a fun action scenes and some of the characters are good with a nice changing, including Princess Peach depicted as a strong-willing and mentor to our hero Mario, talk about a badass change for everyone’s favorite princess of Mushroom Kingdom. Even some of the casts are good and fun to hear. And yes, lets not forget my favorite song next to “Im just Ken”, is Jack Black’s “Peaches”, which I love to hearing it over and over.
But sadly, the reason why this film isn’t make in the podium is that the movie has a lack of development of the characters nor even Mushroom Kingdom itself, but focused too much on action and such, which the movie’s pacing feels like a rushed job, some humors are ok, and of course, the biggest elephant in the room, is the voice of Christ Pratt as Mario that its just didn’t work for his style nor even a same charm as retired Charles Martinet, like I said in my review, you might as well giving Peter Quill with plumber gimmick.
Even though it sucked the perfectly potential movie fell apart with some problems, but hey, at least its a fun movie to see, for the fans of video games and even Mario franchise.
Number 3: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Huh, sounds coincidence to have Number 3 within Number 3, but for good reason.
As I said before, 2023 was the worst year for superheroes in the big screen, since its now becoming a cinematic superheroes fatigue as I mentioned in the worst movies of 2023, it wasn’t just DCEU got a bad rep that it was killed off after Aquaman’s sequel that they’re gonna do a reboot, but MCU is getting tired again and again to see standalone hero movie or even sequel for being part of canon that we wish that some movies should stay as standalone in non-canon, but im getting ahead of myself.
But the one film that its considered the only saving grace of MCU is the 3rd and final volume with our familiar guardians in… Well, “Guardians of the Galaxy”, which is going to be their final hurrah of their journey, but with a heart broken moment.
For starter, the story is more focus on emotional, which like I said, its going to be their final journey, along with sharing a tragic backstory that we surprisingly didn’t know, mainly where did Rocket Raccoon all begin as part of experiment with his old friends before becoming a guardian that we all know and let me tell you, its pretty heart broken when we dig deeper on Rocket’s past when he’s on recovery, even some other guardians are also having some emotional moments like when Peter Quill reflects at new Gamora for how much he misses the old Gamora. The action scenes are no stranger to be a fun part in MCU standard, especially with something that made it too close to be R-Rated, including one moment when Peter Quill literally dropped an F-Bomb over a car’s door, which I know it was all improvised from Chris Pratt himself that James Gunn just let it go. Even some of the upgraded and new characters are good too.
However, its nowhere perfect to cap off the trilogy, such as some of the characters are a wasted potential like Adam Warlock, which is something he should’ve appeared in Endgame, not arriving too little too late after the cliffhanging ending in Vol. 2, some part of writing may not be as perfect and the action scenes are kinda lacking to more focus on emotional moments.
It may not be a perfect way to end the trilogy, but it still a pretty good movie to earning a bronze on this list.
Number 2: Oppenheimer
This one is quite possibly one of the most over complex movie I’ve ever watched and learned about it for a 3 hour long movie made by Christopher Nolan.
For starter, this is a one long history moments for our titular man who changed everything in WWII, J. Robert Oppenheimer, which it goes from his origin to becoming theoretical physicist from student to a teacher, the complicated love triangle, his famously involvement of Manhattan Project to creating a nuclear weapon to put the end of WWII and his fallen down at security hearing. Its nice where how they show what goes something promising to red flag moments. Plus, the writing is all over the place, I know Nolan did his best for all the learning moments of Oppenheimer by adapting from biographical book “American Prometheus”, but jeez, its just way too much of all the science and such others that it makes me wanna say “My Brain Hurts!”.
Im not saying the writing is bad, its pretty good for get go, but jeez, learning about this and that is only gearing towards science researchers. Despite my nitpicky of the writing for being overly complex for learning and such, at least the movie’s presentation look pretty impressive for the set of the 40s to, in Chris Nolan’s fashion, a fascinating practical effect from the nuclear effect to pulling a real explosion. And no, they don’t do the real nuke, that’s a whole different story. Even the characters and the casts are pretty good too for the explanation, the chemistry and memorable performance, especially with Cillian Murphy’s performance as Oppenheimer for calculative creator of nuclear weapon or maybe even former Iron Man Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss for being hostile against Oppenheimer’s project.
However, I know some people will calling it the best movie of the year, I may agree with, but the reason why its on Number 2 is that it wasn’t just the writing that it hurts my brain to learning about it, but also some moment could be exaggerating and the switch of colored and monochrome is questionable what we watching. Its not like “We’re going to re-releasing Oppenheimer in full black and white”, but one film that we do notice of releasing both colored and black and white is Godzilla Minus One (but that’s a different story). But of course, there are couple of inaccurate moment in the movie, but it s a long story from over complex writing. And the aforementioned 3 hour long movie that its… Too much for me, just saying.
It may not be my kind of perfect movie, but it is a pretty fascinating movie for a long learning of Oppenheimer’s life and a big deal for both Chris Nolan’s film making and Cillian Murphy’s performance.
But before we moving on to Number Uno, I have one more honorable mention, but this last one will not be on the big screen, but rather a small screen that happens to be my new favorite show.
My Adventures with Superman
Like I always said before, the superhero movies in 2023 was nothing but a big fat fatigue that all of them are flopped faster than speeding bullets. Well except for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, its a pretty good one.
But in for superheroes on shows, its no stranger to be the best time with Harley Quinn’s more crazy adventure with her girlfriend Poison Ivy, Invincible’s continuation in 2nd after a brutal end of first season to The Boys’ spinoff Gen V was good from the castings. But the one is easily the best superhero show in my book the re-re-re-re-revision of Superman, but more like “What if Superman’s animated show is in anime style, from the Korean company who gave us The Legend of Korra?”. Which is exactly what they gave us, but ohh boy, this show is pretty good.
While the show has problems like the pacing for unable to give times of long development (for the most par)t and how the show is meant to be in Cartoon Network but swapped to Adult Swim for wrong reason when its meant to be geared towards teens, this show is pretty good to make a nice changing.
While the writing isn’t as perfect, but its nicely well-written for the chemistry of our heroes, some of the scenes or the dialogue are so funny and the outstanding animation done by Studio Mir, I think what makes this show so good are the characters.
I really like how they changed the characters to be much different to make flaws, well driven and even fun. Such as Clark Kent/Superman for being while good heart and protective, but also being flawed, kinda being a clutz and even struggled to live in double like, along with Jack Quaid did a fun work of his role (and becoming my favorite next-gen actor), and of course Lois Lane being a tomboy, smart, driven and feisty love interest with Alice Lee kicked ass her performance. Sure there are other characters that we enjoy, but sometimes some are passable. But again, the characters are enjoyable for the changing.
As im writing this, they’re currently working for 2nd season after the cliffhanging ending, which im looking forward to see it either in this year 2024 or next year.
And now, the Number 1 best movie of 2023 goes to…
Number 1: Spider-Man Across The Spider-Verse.
What more can I say when it comes to yet another best Spider-Man movie, eh?
As I said in my review, I remember watching the first installment of Sony’s Spider-Verse, I was rather iffy about the animation from movements of frame-per-seconds. But looking back, im easily to thinking that its pretty impressive that it became a game changer from Sony’s animation division. But when they released the sequel, it didn’t disappointing as always that I still enjoy it.
The best way to describing in this movie is since Miles Morales became the new Spider-Man, we were hoping to see Spider-Verse further for new adventure, which we actually do have one, which is pretty fun to see many versions of Spider-Man like Indian Spider-Man, Spider-Punk, our old friends incarnation from “Into The Spider-Verse” and other versions that we recognized and fascinating Easter Eggs. However, the plot is more thought provoking, since again, we like to see Miles became Spider-Man, only to found out he became Spider-Man in a wrong place with wrong spider bite to overly protecting his parents, since many versions of spider got bitten by their own universes spider and lost one of their beloved ones. Leaving Miles’s Spider-Man becoming forbidden rogue while Miguel O’Hara considered to him, despite we have to dealing with The Spot. But I think what makes this thought provoking from this movie, its the message, its message of not all people wanna be in the same direction as part of Spider-People, which in case for Miles, its ok to be completely different, sure the spider that he was bitten was from different universe, but again, even though he was considered in a bad place, Miles doesn’t mind about it, he just wants to be Spider-Man for his responsibility with his great power. Its so thought provoking that its so relatable how we’ve been that we deserves to be equal in different way than forbidding foreigners.
Of course, the animation of this movie is outstanding to going wild to mixing any animation style based on Spider-Man gimmicks in different universe from Indian Spider-Man colorful Indian style, Spider-Punk in punk-rock style of xerox print, and many more to mentioning, same could be said with the villains like Vulture’s style is based on Di Vinci artwork, or even The Spot’s style is simply based on rough sketch concept, while being walking dots person. They did a pretty good job all the animations from the character design with their different style, the background, the effects and even action scenes, the action scenes are no stranger to be fun to watch.
However, its nowhere 100% perfect with some flaws like the lack of focus of going after The Spot to more focus on the Spider-Verse, some moment can be boring and Miguel O’Hara is being too strict against Miles, but then again, its the message works for the execution at the latter.
And yes, I do aware about the movie’s biggest elephant in the room. In particular, a poor working environment when making this animated movie. According to one article at Vulture on June 2023, four former employees came out revealing working with Phil Lord and Christopher Miller in animation was nothing but working NIGHTMARE. One person who’s easy to blame was Phil Lord, where he demanded the employees to approve him right, like when he strictly determined to look at the process, but then not only threw in the bin, but demanding his employees to start all over from scratch, leaving animators forced to developing some scenes 5 times in order to approve Lord, there’s also one moment he also demanding to change some scenes on HIS idea than some of their, causing some part being wasted. This caused an anxiety working conditions for the writers and some animators, while others just doing nothing before when they’re called to work with the rest of the process. As for Chris Miller, they never mentioned about him, which my only guess he’s pretty much ghosted for not being involve with this project but working with other stuff. With a combination of burnt out, overworked and manipulated, that caused over 100 employees calling quit during the process. What’s worse is that this is not the first time Phil and Chris had a bad working environment of animated film, they did the same with previous films they worked on like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, The Lego Movie and couple others, which when I heard about this, I was about to losing my respect about this situation. But as their respond? Well, in their interview in Variety, while they’re aware about unionization strike, they responded by thanking their employees their hard-work with Spider-Verse and that’s it. Wow, this is quiet possibly the worst respond I’ve ever heard that they just pretty much shrugged off like nothing wrong without ANY apology for their responsibility. Like Come on, Lord and Miller, WAKE UP!!
Despite the terrible working environment that the employees they had to dealt with or even calling quit in the middle of process, I still enjoy this movie, while its not as perfect what they give, its still a great sequel in Spider-Verse, which we hope to see something more promise to close off with “Beyond the Spider-Verse”.
And that’s why (other than toxic working condition) Spider-Man Across The Spider-Verse is my Number 1 best movie of the year 2023.
So this ends of my countdown, but got any other best movies out there? Which im sure I miss some, let me know at the comment bellow.
And now, we’re ready to see movies in 2024, as il make my quick thoughts of upcoming movies about next couple days or week.
But as always, thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.
