In the realm of TV and movies, 2023 will mostly be remembered for the writers and actors strike that shutdown the entire industry. It will also be remembered for some really good TV and movies that struck gold. Awards season has ended, 2024’s blockbuster season is upon us, but I thought it would be fun to take one last look at 2023.

The Last of Us (Season 1 on MAX)

2023 will go down as a landmark year for video game adaptations. The Super Mario Bros Movie made over a billion dollars at the box office, Five Nights At Freddy’s had a huge opening weekend, but The Last of Us was the one that gained critical acclaim. The hit show was created by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann. Mazin wrote HBO’s Chernobyl and Druckmann was the Creative Lead on the video game. The pair expertly picked their spots. They knew what parts of the story to expand, condense or reimagine. The opening was nearly a note for note remake of the game, but smart choices gave the audience more time with Joel’s daughter, Sarah. The story of Bill and Frank was transformed into a warm love story and one of the best episodes of TV all year. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey played Joel and Ellie brilliantly and their dysfunction early on made their father-daughter relationship so satisfying by the end of the season.

Back in 2013, when I played The Last of Us for the first time, I never could have imagined watching its TV adaptation on HBO a decade later. The show was crafted with such care and consideration. Season 2 is going to be incredibly divisive, but really entertaining.

Succession (Season 4 on MAX)

One of my favorite genres in media is “rich white people who have everything but are actually miserable”. Succession perfected the formula with incredible writing and some of the most compelling performances we’ve seen on television. In the show’s final season, Roman, Shiv and Kendall are broken down to their emotional core and we are reminded that there is absolutely nothing under the surface. Each episode of season 4 offers a different emotional viewpoint into the lives of the most powerful people in the world. Their lives are empty, vacuum-sealed, and room temperature. They have no real human connections, they have no creative ideas, and they are only interested in gaining more power. When Roman used the influence of ATN to call an election, we are reminded how people with power are idiots, but have the capacity to impact the lives of millions. When Kendall tries to convince his siblings that he deserves to run the company because he is “the eldest boy,” we are reminded that powerful people are not in that position because of merit or ability. When Shiv holds Tom’s hands in the final moments of the series, we see how powerful people latch onto others when their power begins to wane. Logan’s sudden death during Conner’s Wedding forced his three children onto center stage and they buckled under the pressure. They squirmed and withered in the spotlight. In the end, after all the deals, and politics, and insults they were left with nothing but their billions. Bravo! This show is an excellent critique of capitalism and how it corrupts. 

Rye Lane (Streaming on Hulu)

Rye Lane a colorful, snappy, romcom that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The simplest way to think about this movie is “A Black, British Before Sunset”. Most of the film is set within one day where Dom and Yas (David Jonsson and Vivian Oparah) meet and fall for one another. The premise is the most straightforward thing about it. Everything else is dripping in style, charm and flair. Our two leads are so fun together. They toss incredibly well scripted lines back and forth as South London vibrates around them. I am so excited to see what David, Vivian and director Raine Allen-Miller do next.

Honorable Mention

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
• Theater Camp
• Full Circle (Especially that first episode)
• Blue Eyed Samurai

Barry (Season 4 on MAX)

The evolution of Barry from a hilarious Hollywood satire into an auteur-driven, character study is astonishing. Over the course of the show’s four seasons we watched creator, writer, director and star Bill Harder become a more confident and clear-eyed visual storyteller. The way he moves (or doesn’t move) the camera, and the way he stages setpieces are signs of a special filmmaker. As the show got darker it was still hilarious and incredibly satirical. NoHo Hank is one of the best characters I’ve ever seen on television. A complete caricature and comic relief that got so much depth from the writing and Anthony Carrigan’s performance. The writers saw his talent and gave his character the arc he deserved. The tragic end of his love affair and his heel turn at the end of the series was heartbreaking but aligned with season four’s darker tone. Barry goes to some truly sad places and ends with the idea that cycles of violence and harm can (hopefully) be broken.

Barry is one of the best shows of the last decade.

Oppenheimer (Streaming on Peacock)

Christopher Nolan is the most important director in Hollywood today. Like Spielberg in the 80s and 90s, Nolan’s films are box office hits, critically acclaimed and culturally significant. The Dark Knight being snubbed for Best Picture at the 2008 Oscars expanded the category from five to ten films. Inception and Interstellar are two of the biggest original sci-fi films of the last 20 years. Even Tenant brought people to the theaters during the pandemic. Every Nolan movie has become an event. Oppenheimer would’ve been successful on its own, but releasing the same weekend as Barbie created one of the biggest pop culture moments of 2023. The movie grossed over $900 million dollars and won seven Academy Awards, including Nolan’s first for Best Director. No other filmmaker could have made a three-hour biopic about a scientist more successful and mainstream.

Oppenhimer could have been a very conventional biopic about the “Father of the Atomic Bomb”. Instead Nolan chose to tell the story nonlinearly. Jennifer Lame’s editing is the most impressive thing about this movie. The main threads are Los Alamos, during the creation of the bomb, Oppenheimer’s security clearance hearing, and Lewis Strauss’ Senate hearing. We are anchored by those plotlines and able to move between Oppenheimer’s past, present and future. We even cut back to the same moment several times throughout the movie. This unconventional story structure allows pieces of the plot to fall into one another like a puzzle.

Beyond the editing, the cast is stacked with incredible character actors and career-cementing performances. Cillian Murphy’s quiet uncertainty informs the entire film. Matt Daemon delivers a brilliant supporting performance as Gen. Leslie Groves. Emily Blunt does not have much to do (like many women in Nolan’s films), but the moment she does get is very satisfying.

This is not Nolan’s best movie (see: The Prestige), but it combines all of the best parts of his filmmaking style into an undeniable piece of entertainment. Also, this soundtrack is amazing!

How To Blow Up A Pipeline (Streaming on Hulu)

This movie might be the inverse of Oppenheimer. 

While that movie depicts the creation of the atomic bomb, the weapon that would solidify U.S. domination and hegemony throughout the 20th century, How To Blow Up A Pipeline offers a glimpse at our alternative future. As the planet becomes uninhabitable and as corporations continue to lie about Green initiatives, people are going to have to create solutions. This movie offers one. You don’t learn how to blow anything up, but you learn how different people are pushed towards political action. It’s structured like a heist movie, but the moral and political implications add a unique wrinkle to the formula. It challenges our notion of political extremism. 

How To Blow Up A Pipeline humanizes activists and shows that they are more than just people who spend all of their time online complaining and correcting everyone. The propaganda has been really effective. People are more annoyed and angered by activists than they are by corporations doing actual harm to our water, air and food. Despite the bombing at the center of this story, the real motivation is love for us all. What drives this group of young people differs but at their core is an unwillingness to compromise humanity.

Spider-Man: Across The Spiderverse (Sony)

Spider-Man has been adapted in every way possible. The character is omnipresent. Spider-Man: No Way Home gave us three Spider-Men in one movie. Sony is failing to expand the Spider-Man universe with Venom, Morbius, Madame Web and Kraven movies. If I wasn’t watching Spider-Man, I was playing the Insomniac game at home. Peter’s web’s are everywhere. For IP that feels so overworked, it’s shocking that the Spiderverse movies still feel fresh and original. 2018’s Into The Spiderverse is a beautifully crafted love letter to Spider-Man lore. It also redefined what animated movies could look like. Across The Spiderverse is a bigger and bolder sequel that builds on its predecessor in every way imaginable. Miles enters the multiverse and upends the status quo when he “decides to do his own thing”. The Spider Society chase is one of the most impressive animated sequences ever created, but it’s the smaller moments that make this movie so special. 

Miles and Gwen hanging upside down is a lovely moment where the characters are so close to sharing their feelings (It also mirrors the famous image from Into The Spiderverse). The moment with Miles’ mother, Rio Morales (voiced by Lauren Vélez) was the highlight of the movie for me. During their exchange she asks Miles to remind his inner child that he is loved and wherever he goes he can always come back home. She doesn’t realize that her son was about to get lost in the multiverse, but her sentiments land with an emotional weight we don’t often get from superhero movies.

This trilogy has the chance to go down as one of the best whenever the final film is released.

Beef (Netflix)

Beef has a comically simple premise. “Two people have a Road Rage incident.” The chaos that spills out of that simple set up is a beautiful, dark and ultimately hopeful story about depression, loneliness and self-discovery.

This show could not work without the two leads. Ali Wong is extraordinary as Amy and Steven Yeun as Danny Cho is my second favorite performance of 2023. He captures the despair of the working class expertly. His desperation leads to countless mistakes and miscalculations that only compound his suffering. During one of many low points he eats a bunch of Chicken Sandwiches from Burger King. When he goes to church he breaks down and cries in a jaw-dropping piece of acting. In any other story this moment would be a profound turning point for the character. Instead, Danny continues to make selfish and shortsighted decisions that hurt him, his family and others. Amy and Danny destroy one another but out of that ruin comes a clarity that they find in each other. These two won’t find happiness in material gain. They both had to look at each other to see themselves and find some form of fulfillment within. This show does all of this while also offering funny lines like: “I know we’ve only been DMing a few days, but I feel like I’ve been DMing you my whole life.” Beef is thoughtful and hilarious. A phenomenal show deserving of all the praise it earned this award season.

I’m A Virgo (Amazon Prime)

Boots Riley wears his leftist politics on his sleeve. It was clear in his directorial debut, 2018’s Sorry To Bother You, that he was going to use film to articulate his pro-working class ideas in unique ways. He doesn’t have time for subtlety. I’m A Virgo is a weird, scatter-brained piece of propaganda from the mind of an anti-capitalist organizer.

My biggest issue with the show is that it actually has too many ideas and can’t dive into all of them thoughtfully. One of the central themes is how to raise a child within a violent, exploitive system like capitalism. It is also about how to prepare a child to challenge that system when they are ready. Our main character, Cootie, has been kept from the outside world by his parents because he’s a giant and they know how terrible the world can be. When Cootie finally does leave home he learns the world is not as simple as he realized. 

It is an abrasive critique of capitalism. At one point a character dies because they can’t afford healthcare. One of the many threads in the show is a General Strike organized by Jones, a young activist that befriends Cootie. Jones is the best character on the show and has the power to perform Psychic Theatre. These are moments when the show stops and we get a lesson on “The Crisis of Capitalism” or police violence and how it prop up capitalism. I love these brief instances of Political Education because Boots cuts out all the innuendo and symbolism and instead names the problem for what it is.

Ultimately this show is the most flawed entry on my list, but I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

The Bear (Season 2 on Hulu)

The first season of The Bear was a complete surprise. The show was shot quickly, on a relatively small budget and was released all at once on HULU. It became one of the most talked about shows of 2022. It was fast-paced, well-written, and fantastically acted. If the first season was excellent, Christopher Storer and his team delivered a nearly flawless follow-up for season two. Fishes and Forks are two of the best episodes of TV this year and they come one after the other. Both episodes introduce new characters, while also pulling us deeper into the world and moving us closer to the characters. Ayo Edebiri and Jeremy Allen White have dominated the award season and they deserved to. I still believe that Ebon Moss-Bachrach did the best acting within the ensemble this season. Every character grew but Richie’s was the most satisfying to watch. His triumphant moment during the season finale felt like a victory for the audience and was so well earned.

This was my favorite show of 2023. Season 3 drops on June 27th!

Past Lives (Available on VOD)

When I watched Past Lives for the first time I was captivated. The directing and performances are perfectly calibrated for a story about love and longing that spans over twenty-years and two continents. The story follows Nora and Hae Sung and the love story that they never get to have. Cecile Song, the first time director of Past Lives, says the “villain” of this movie is not a person, but “time and space.” 

This story is semi-autobiographical for Song and you see an intimate understanding of Nora. It’s a story about immigration, what you leave behind and what you discover about yourself in a new place. Often the love you leave and the love you discover never meet. In this magical movie Nora’s past and present crash into one another. Our two leads, Greta Lee and Teo Yoo, are incredible together. Even their Skype calls are compelling and full of desire, and endless possibility. I found myself smiling when they shared scenes together. They captured the exciting, awkward, uncertainty of true love unrealized. 

The amazing trick this movie pulls is that Nora falls in love and marries another man and it’s also compelling and exciting to watch. You don’t hate her husband Arthur, excellently played by John Magaro. The movie could have easily fallen into the “Evil White Boyfriend” trope, but it sidesteps the cliche expertly. Arthur gives his wife the space she needs to live in her past for a night before she returns to their life together.

None of this would work without Greta Lee’s performance. She’s my favorite actor of 2023. She’s otherworldly throughout the entire film, but she’s doing Oscar-worthy work when Hae Sung comes to visit her in New York. The first time they see each other she’s oscillating between so many emotions. She’s excited to see Hae Sung, she’s clearly flirting with him, restraining herself from making a life-altering mistake, all while excavating and examining the past she left behind. It’s wonderful!

The last 25 minutes of this movie are wild! I’ll quickly run through them now:

• Nora brings Hae Sung home to meet Arthur (messy).
• They have an awkward hello (Arthur speaks a little Korean).
• Nora finds out Arthur has never been to the Statue of Liberty despite taking Hae Sung there that afternoon (messy).
• Nora and Hae Sung talk about their break up in Korean in front of Arthur (super messy).
• At the end of their night Nora walks Authur to his Uber and they stare at one another for what feels like the entire length of the film.
  • This is no fairytale. This ends like it would in real life. No sweeping kiss, no perfect speech, no chase through the city. Nora walks back to her husband and cries in his arms while Hae Sung quietly goes back to Korea. 
• The movie ends perfectly.

During an interview Cecile Song said Nora “chooses herself” at the end. She does but with a palpable uncertainty that left me at the edge of my seat.

This is my favorite film of 2023!

Thank you all for reading! Please feel free to follow me on Letterboxd for movie reviews throughout the year!