The 2023-2024 school year had many amazing movies come out. Something I really appreciated about a lot of these movies is how they are full of amazing, memorable characters. I would like to give an honorable mention to Nyad, Rustin, and The Killer, as they were very close to making this list. I would also like to shoutout Drive Away Dolls, as it was so forgettable that when I made my ranking of the movies that came out this school year in order to come up with the ten for this list, I accidentally left it off for two weeks because I forgot that it existed.
10.Priscilla
Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla is an uncomfortable and heartbreaking movie about Priscilla Presley and her relationship with Elvis. The screenplay conveys the emotions of Priscilla very realistically, while also making her dialogue feel so genuine. Licensed music is playing over a lot of this film, but the direction behind the songs they chose to play is so unique and interesting that it never bothered me and the final song choice is particularly brilliant. The film has a really unique look to it and it is overall well directed. Cailee Spaeny is absolutely incredible in the titular role, playing the naivety of Priscilla, as well as the development she goes through throughout the film, perfectly. It is one of the more realistic depictions of a high schooler that I have seen, acting wise. Jacob Elordi is also pretty great as Elvis, portraying his charisma and confidence, as well as the dark sides of him, really well. I am very much not a fan of biopics usually, but Priscilla is an overall great movie that I hope more people watch.
9.Monkey Man
Dev Patel’s Monkey Man is an action movie, where the action scenes feel so brutal and real and are so creative, that it is some of the best action I have ever seen in a movie. The action is so good that it brought this movie up to Number 9 on this list, even though the screenplay really isn’t much to write home about. It is not bad, just kinda forgettable, with some really good bits of writing here and there. The film is about an Indian wrestler who decides to fight against the corrupt government of his country, which does lead to some good political commentary. Dev Patel gives an amazing lead performance, fully embodying this character and portraying his head space stunningly. The character he plays, Kid, is also a really cool, well thought out protagonist. The cinematography is beautiful and visually interesting. This film is insanely impressive as Patel’s directorial debut. If you like really good action scenes, you NEED to watch Monkey Man.
8.The Color Purple
Blitz Bazawule’s The Color Purple is an adaptation of the musical version of the classic novel and my first consumption of the story. It is an engaging and beautiful tale of women breaking free from the restraints of society, and their everlasting friendship. While the songs are not amazing, they get the job done competently and there are a few songs, such as Hell No! (specifically the Hell No! reprise) and Shug Avery Comin’ to Town, that I quite like as they sound great and accomplish a lot for the story and characters. The ensemble is fantastic with Fantasia Barrino perfectly playing the development of her character, and Taraji P Henson and Danielle Brooks expertly playing the strength and charisma of theirs. There are a few performances with smaller amounts of screen time that I quite like, such as Halle Bailey, whose song that she wrote for the movie, Keep It Movin’ was a standout, and Colman Domingo, who is becoming one of my favorite actors. The costume design is eye-catching in this film, as well as the production design and cinematography. I quickly began to love the main trio of characters and the film really does a great job at making you root for them. I don’t like the ending very much, but overall 2023’s The Color Purple is a wonderful film.
7.Anatomy of a Fall
Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall is a captivating court drama with directing that reinvents what a court drama can be visually, a screenplay that is profound and fascinating, and a lead performance by Sandra Huller that is absolutely commanding with how genuine it feels. It follows a woman who goes on a trial after being accused of murdering her husband. Milo Machado-Graner gives a standout performance as Sandra’s, the main character and defendant, blind son that shows his emotions phenomenally. Swann Arlaud is also a standout as Sandra’s lawyer. Antoine Reinartz gives a stellar performance as the prosecutor and Samuel Theis’s performance truly makes a big impression on you in a very small amount of screentime. I was very disappointed with the ending of this film and how Sandra’s son was handled, but overall Anatomy of a Fall has an amazing screenplay and very inventive, memorable directing.
6.American Fiction
Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction is a smart and hilarious satirical comedy-drama. It is about a struggling author, who writes a purposefully stereotypical book, that gets published and gains critical acclaim. Jeffrey Wright gives both a wonderful dramatic and comedic performance, as well as Erika Alexander, Sterling K. Brown, and Keith David being great in supporting roles. This film has a lot of serious and comical commentary to make on society that it does very well. It is a very funny screenplay overall, and the performances make the comedy even funnier. The serious beats are also done very well, and my favorite scene of the movie is one near the end that has very few jokes in it. Monk, the protagonist, is an interesting, amusing, and very watchable character that I have a lot of love for, and I love this film’s ending a lot. The cinematography is great, despite it having pretty bland locations to work with for the most part. I do have problems with the movie, such as I am not very fond of the (Oscar nominated???) score, as I find it to be bland, manipulative, and repetitive, but I think American Fiction is incredible.
5.The Holdovers
Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers is a cozy yet emotionally effective movie about a student, professor, and chef at an all boys prep school who connect with each other when they stay at the school over christmas break. It takes place in the 1970s, and you can tell a lot of effort was put in to make it feel like it is a movie from that time period. Every element of the film’s visual presentation is working to sell that to you, from the production design to the directing to the editing. I had very low expectations for this movie as I had seen the trailer and it looked very cheesy, obnoxious, and emotionally manipulative. This film definitely has ingredients that could lead to it feeling like that, but something about the way it is executed makes it feel so genuine. I found myself so emotionally invested in the film and its characters and I cried several times throughout. Paul Giamatti gives a stellar performance with many facial expressions that fully embody negative emotions, such as rejection. Dominic Sessa and Da’Vine Joy Randolph are really great in supporting roles, both feeling very charismatic. I enjoyed a lot of the licensed song choices throughout. The Holdovers is a movie that could have been awful if anyone else made it, but the way it was executed, it is a truly special movie.
4.May December
I had a lot of trouble ordering these final four movies, but I think I have come to an order that I am happy with. Todd Haynes’s May December is a creative, upsetting, and endlessly watchable exploration of obsession, loss of innocence, dedication, and many other things. It follows Elizabeth Berry, an actress who is hired to play Gracie, a woman famous for her affair with a thirteen year old boy named Joe, who she is now married to. Elizabeth meets with the two of them and their families in order to give the best performance she can in the upcoming movie. The film is as uncomfortable and fascinating as the premise makes it sound. I really appreciate pieces of media that can come up with many different unique concepts for scenes and find a way to make all of them feel cohesive in the story. I think movies like Saltburn have failed at this, because yeah, Saltburn has some cool scenes concepts but it just feels like everything in the movie around these scenes is just filler. May December feels so inventive and I don’t think it would feel that way if any other group of people worked on it.
The movie has great cinematography and I really love the score, even though I do understand why the music would bother some. The characters of the movie are all very memorable and interesting. May December has an insanely good ensemble. Charles Melton as Joe is a brilliant, heartbreaking portrayal of lost innocence and was more than deserving of all the praise he received. Juliane Moore played the naivety of Gracie perfectly and made her feel so childlike, while also playing her in a way where she feels terrifying. Moore and Melton would have been my picks to win supporting actor and supporting actress at the most recent Oscars. Unfortunately, neither of the two were nominated. Natalie Portman’s portrayal of Elizabeth Berry (also not Oscar nominated somehow) is absolutely stunning. She manages to play such a disingenuous character so genuinely, and her progression from start to finish is portrayed brilliantly. Many of the actors with lesser amounts of screen time, such as Cory Micheal Smith (who I am very excited to see portray Chevy Chase in the upcoming movie SNL 1975), Elizabeth Yu, and D.W Moffett were still fantastic and left a big impression on me with their performances. Moffett only has one scene, but he still really stood out to me. May December is an incredibly impressive movie that deserved way more awards attention than it got.
3.Challengers
Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers is an absolute cinematic achievement in every way. It is about two professional tennis players who go up against each other. One of them, Art, is in a relationship with his coach, former tennis star Tashi Duncan, and the other one, Patrick, used to be. The movie frequently switches between the past and the present, but because of the way the acting, writing, and makeup and hairstyling is done, it is never confusing. You always know what time period the film is in at any given moment. Apologies for bringing up Saltburn again, but it felt like what that movie was trying to be, with it being a really fun sensationalized film, but just done so much better. All three of the main acting performances are spectacular. The way they convey sadness, comedy, awkwardness, anger, etc. is so impressive and all three of them have incredibly entertaining chemistry with each other, with their dynamics still feeling somewhat uncomfortable.
The screenplay is fantastic and is so impressive as Justin Kuritzkes’s first screenplay. The screenplay is hilarious, emotionally engaging, exciting, and clever and there is never a dull moment. It feels like so much love and care went into crafting every character interaction and all of those interactions are a true pleasure to watch. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s score for Challengers is exhilarating (as is the movie as a whole) and I have continued listening to it ever since I saw the movie. Luca Guadagnino’s direction throughout is spectacular. The whole movie is building up to one tennis match that is teased from the start, and that match is one of the best directed things I have seen in a long time. Challengers is an exciting blast of a movie that I highly recommend, as I feel like the majority of people would thoroughly enjoy it. More so than many of the other movies on this list.
2.Poor Things
Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things is a hilarious, thought provoking, and captivating masterpiece of a film. Every element of this film is executed wonderfully. You can really tell that every person working on it really cared. It is about a woman named Bella Baxter, played by Emma Stone, whose corpse is brought back to life by a disfigured doctor, played by Willem Dafoe, in a fantastical version of Victorian England, and the doctor resurrects her and replaces her brain with one of a babies. Bella then leaves the doctor’s mansions and goes on a globetrotting adventure with the slimy lawyer Duncan Weatherburn, played by Mark Ruffalo.
Poor Things has an unbelievably talented ensemble cast. Emma Stone’s meticulous and very funny Oscar winning performance as Bella Baxter is one of my favorite acting performances of all time, and it is mind blowing that she was able to pull it off. The way the performance shows Bella’s progression is stunning. Mark Ruffalo gave an incredibly entertaining comedic performance as well. Willem Dafoe is really great and he adds a kind of warmth to the character that would not be there if anybody else played him. Ramy Youssef and Kathryn Hunter have less screen time than the main three, but do a lot in their screen time. Youssef plays the character’s innocence perfectly and Hunter plays the peculiarity of her character very well.
Poor Things is a visual delight. The production design and visual effects are utilized in perfect harmony as they both work to give the world of the film a very unique whimsical aspect to it, as well as showing how Bella is viewing the world as she is seeing it for the first time. The costume design is very distinct as well, and there are many outfits, such as several of Bella’s, that are very memorable. The makeup and hairstyling is very impressive as well. Yorgos’s Lanthimos’s directing is wonderful and you can really tell he had a very unique vision for the film.
Jerskin Fendrix’s score for Poor Things is my favorite film score of all time. It has a unique sound to it that immediately captivated me. It does so much to set a vibe and tone for the movie, while also perfectly conveying the changes in Bella’s mental state throughout. The score has so many different sounds throughout the movie that change in very fitting ways, and it is my go to music to listen to when doing school work. The screenplay is hilarious and also very inspirational and thought provoking. It has a lot of really interesting things to say about the way women are treated in society and societal norms. The screenplay takes many turns that you wouldn’t expect, but are all really interesting. The dialogue is very fun and memorable as well. Bella Baxter is one of my favorite fictional characters of all time, and I love what she represents. All of those things combined are the reasons that I absolutely adore Poor Things.
1.The Zone of Interest
I am not exaggerating when I say that Johnathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest may just be the best movie I have seen in my entire life. Everything about it is perfect. It follows Rudolf Hoss, commander of Auschwitz, and his wife, Hedwig, trying to live a perfect life next to the concentration camp. It is about the banality of evil. How all of this evil was done by actual people, who lived lives, which is terrifying, as you see bits and pieces of yourself in these people, and forget who you are watching. It is a movie that explores the morality of humanity in a disturbing way. Complacency is being discussed a lot right now, and this movie shows how humans have an ability to block out things they don’t want to think about, which every person does. It truly shows the dangers of complacency perfectly, especially with a certain scene near the end. The dialogue is fantastically written, with one line near the end really standing out as one of the best lines I have ever heard in a movie.
The realness of these characters is enhanced by the two incredible lead performances by Sandra Huller and Christian Friedel who just come off as so genuine. There is a scene where their two characters are arguing and the writing and acting just feels so insanely real. The production design is very impressive, as they pretty perfectly recreated Rudolf Hoss’s house and garden. This movie has my favorite use of sound in any movie. Without the sound being the way it is, the movie would completely fall apart. This movie’s decision to forgo a score during the majority of the runtime is a decision that I love so much, it inspired me to write an entire article about movie scores. The fact that the movie doesn’t have a score makes it feel even more real and increases your immersion. It is a movie without much plot. You mostly just watch the characters living their lives, so being immersed in their lives is very important. The only original score composed for the movie are two songs. One song is played during the very beginning over a black screen and one is played during the credits. I absolutely love the song that plays during the credits and it works amazingly off of the discomfort that the movie had already put you in.
Johnathan Glazer’s directing of The Zone of Interest is impeccable. Every directing decision feels deliberate. Every shot is visually interesting and there are several really impressive continuous shots. The Zone of Interest is not an enjoyable movie. It is uncomfortable and upsetting and nauseating. It requires you to give it a lot of patience. But it is an incredibly important movie that is thought provoking and goes greatly with current real world events. Please watch it if you haven’t. It has not been watched by nearly as many people as it deserves to be. It is an absolutely engrossing movie that on second watch, blew me away all over again.
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I hear a lot of people say that not a lot of good movies are released nowadays. That there is no reason to go to the movie theater anymore. I understand when people say that, only when it relates to blockbusters. Most modern blockbuster movies are not very good, mainly because of them feeling unoriginal and derivative, but if you expand your horizons and watch smaller movies, this was truly an extraordinary year for movies.
