Our second annual paid subscriber poll yields a Scorsese/Nolan battle royale at the top and suggests future cult status for 'Beau is Afraid' and 'How to Blow Up a Pipeline.'
I see by the comments in that old A.V. Club article you linked up at the top, you (& wife) were imminently expecting a child... so I take it that child is 16 now? (God, now even *I* feel old, and my oldest just turned 5)
I didn't see American Fiction until after I'd voted. :( Otherwise it would've made my top five. The tone wasn't always consistent, but I thought it totally stuck the landing. It was a far funnier movie than I thought it would be (that eulogy on the beach!).
Barbie getting a middling score seems appropriate -- and now I absolutely must watch Beau is Afraid.
Your mileage may vary (drastically, tenaciously) on Beau but it's for this very reason that's it worth a view. Not even close to my top 5 but it really brings up what do I even mean by my "favorite" or "top" or "best" films? At this point I love to be surprised and see something I've never seen before in a movie and Beau certainly delivered on this. I want more movies like this even if they don't land on my "top" 5. Also, the first third of this movie is the "best" horror film of the year and it's not even close.
Totally agree. It's a big, glorious swing, even if it misses for you: I saw it with a fairly large group, and I think we were split pretty evenly down the middle on it. Personally, I don't think I've laughed harder at the movies this year.
And I laughed for so many reasons! Discomfort, outrage, fear, glee... This is really making me want to re-watch it now that I know what's coming. It really hooked me with the first third - the whole "city" sequence - and then really lost me in the country. And... *sigh* this might be petty but I really wonder what my estimation of it would have been without the CGI cock...
That first hour had me laughing almost nonstop! Phoenix's performance is just so good -- his ineptitude and fear is so straight and real that it pumps up the violence and ridiculousness to 11. My favorite part was when he's in the convenience store and watches all the nutjobs slowly migrate...and then, of course, the finish (the phone book!). Just a masterful sequence.
I meant to see the first few minutes before the stuff I had to do today, but then the first few minutes turned into the first hour. O'LOHA, the best of Hawaii AND Ireland! The number of visual gags here rivals the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker works, and that is high praise indeed.
I don't have time to watch the rest today, but I'll finish it tomorrow and report back, but I love what I've seen so far. It reminds me, in a way, of Aronofsky's mother!, except it's a whole lot funnier. Is Joaquin not even nominated? Just for the bathtub scene alone, he should be! And that he keeps so straight through all the zaniness. The first hour of this movie is absolutely a ride.
OK, I just finished watching it. (Is it funny that I'm also halfway through Showing Up, a movie that perhaps could not be more opposite in every way to BIA?) Whew! What a movie.
I remember reading somewhere that Midsommar was Aster's take on the breakdown of a relationship. So if we're going by that type of thinking, then it's quite obvious BIA is all about guilt, motherly guilt in particular. For me, it absolutely suffers from its bloated runtime -- he probably could cut the entire Lane/Ryan subplot and the movie really wouldn't suffer too much. But re-reading Keith's initial review, he's spot on -- this is a journey I won't soon forget.
Also funny -- I said earlier that it reminded me of Aronofsky's "mother!" -- looks like Darren stole Ari's title years ago. :)
Some other comments while watching:
- Lane and Ryan were both in Only Murders in the Building, playing characters that were quite possibly as zany as what's going on in this movie. I guess it was a practice run of sorts?
- How good of a casting was Zoe Lister-Jones as young Patti LuPone? In that monologue scene with the spinning night light, I believe Aster snuck in the elder every now and then, only further reinforcing the awesome casting.
- Never thought I'd see animation in this movie -- and it was GREAT! Loved the effects, and especially the ridiculous ending, when the sons ask him, "Ummm, dad, if you never had sex...?"
- "Shiva Steve's - Grub for the grieved" -- it's gold, Jerry, gold!
- I remember seeing "MW" on the microwave and also the logo on the TV dinner. Didn't put it together until he visits his mom's gorgeous house.
- Why did Beau live in such a shithole if his mom was so rich? Obviously they had their issues, but it didn't seem like she was the type to cut him off financially? Or did I miss something?
- Did you see the list of thank yous at the end? It's like a murderers row of cool people (these are just the ones I recognize): Daniel Clowes, Bo Burnham, Bill Hader, PT Anderson, David Fincher, Spike Jonze, Joel Coen, Ruben Ostlund, Clara Mamet, Lorene Scafaria, Adrian Tomine, Rooney Mara, Christ Abbott
- The movie's budget was $35, which I think is actually pretty frugal for all that it entails.
All in all, not a waste of time at all. Far from it. I'm very tempted to recommend the first hour and the forest portion of the film, as standalone units. Each has a beginning, middle, and end, so they could function quite well by themselves.
Are we actually surprised BARBIE didn't have a better showing? Barbie is a summer blockbuster based on a toy franchise that has been cast as an Important and even Great movie because, well, we're in an era where that's the type of thing we're going to do.
But let's flash back 20 years to LEGALLY BLONDE, the best parallel I can think of for Barbie. Fun, entertaining, endearing lead performance and a nice little light feminism along with it. But does anyone, now or then, think it was a Great film? Complain it was snubbed at the Oscars?
And the audience here is going to self-select for cinephiles. Barbie has more popular support, but give me Eileen any day.
Totally disagree. Gerwig had to thread an almost impossible needle: make a movie about one of the most famous toys ever, but don't make it a dull cash grab! Say something interesting and resonant about feminism without pretending that Barbie is unproblematic OR pissing off Mattel! Make something that appeals to the target demo of young girls but works for adults too! And above all, make it super funny and stylish!
This is landing a quadruple axel at the Olympics level of difficulty, and she pulled it off with such aplomb! All that PLUS writing that role for Gosling PLUS a giant MGM musical style soundstage dance number?!?
Look I'm glad you love the movie because I always prefer that people like movies. So good for you! But to me this is like people who say "Oh man Iron Man was such a successful movie because it had to establish a huge franchise and please fans while simultaneously bringing in neophytes to comics etc. etc. etc."
Yeah, sure. That makes Iron Man a successful movie. But is it a great movie? I don't think so.
And Barbie has some issues for me. The Will Ferrell boardroom scenes seem to come from an earlier draft of the screenplay, it runs on a little long, it's sometimes annoyingly self-important for a giant fucking toy commercial and moneymaker. Wouldn't sniff my Top 10. It's a successful movie to be sure.
Def top 5 here. Obviously to each their own, but calling it out for "being self-important for a giant toy commercial and moneymaker" is essentially the same sort of "you're not actually considering the movie we have here" take that you dismiss when talking about the complexity of getting it made.
I'm not sure I agree with your criticism of your criticism. :)
My comment on its self-importance was the tone - I felt the movie (America Ferrera's speech being the most obvious example) often took on a tone of self-importance. That is absolutely criticizing the movie we have here
...or, it would be if you didn't also say that it's "a toy commercial and a money maker".
MMV obv but sometimes obvious is called for. I just about always hate anything that has a whiff of self-importance or didacticism or what have you but, there wasn't a sec in this movie that didn't trip the trigger for me.
Anyway, not shocked to see Barbie not do better in this pole - we're a bunch of folks far more interested in May/December than more mainstream stuff, I get it.
I did not vote for Barbie and can easily see why it didn't make the top 5, but I'm honestly baffled that anyone thought the vibe came anywhere near "self-important." Even the speeches — Ferrara's, but also Perlman's — contain truisms but are (as far as I can recall) never not entertaining or playful.
My hot take is that it's better than Poor Things, working similar territory.
Well I'm honestly baffled that you could find anything "playful" in the following 331 words. Like it or hate it, it's a completely straight, serious speech. A summer blockbuster which takes 2:30 minutes for a Friedan-esque monologue about the problems with modern womanhood should at least make you understand why the phrase 'self-important' comes to mind
"It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don't think you're good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we're always doing it wrong.
You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can't ask for money because that's crass. You have to be a boss, but you can't be mean. You have to lead, but you can't squash other people's ideas. You're supposed to love being a mother, but don't talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people.
You have to answer for men's bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you're accused of complaining. You're supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you're supposed to be a part of the sisterhood.
But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful.
You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It's too hard! It's too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.
I'm just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing women, then I don't even know."
Those words absolutely seem playful — funny, channeling well-worn sentiments with new phrasing and real anger. They are not at all new insights; they're sentiments that have been around a while.
More crucially, they're playful because America Ferrara knocks that speech out of the park. The audience I saw the movie with was laughing and cheering and applauding at the end. That speech told me, a cis white feminist guy, nothing particularly new, but it certainly was fun to listen to.
Clearly we just disagree, which is fine, but I genuinely have never thought of that speech as self-important. (That's a tag I'd much more readily apply to Poor Things, frankly.)
I can't help but wonder what the gender breakdown of the votes would be. Most of the commenters on this Substack seem to be dudes and weirdly Barbie didn't make the list....just saying. I just wonder if it was the possible lack of women subscribers. With that said, I didn't love Barbie exactly and wouldn't have voted for it but also I am surprised it didn't make the list.
Barbie made my Top 5 (at #5) because it was my funniest movie of the year. It’s interesting that there’s always a ton of critical discourse around the Academy not appreciating comedies, and our list here pretty much bore that out! I’m not gonna say it’s the greatest movie ever or that it’s better than Lady Bird or Little Women (it’s not), but boy did I think it was hilarious in both mainstream and subversive ways that I did not expect from Gerwig and Baumbach. That coupled with the emotionally resonant aspects was enough to put it in my top tier (along with the Holdovers, which I was happy to see make the list but likewise not as high as I placed it at #2).
The Holdovers was my #1, and much funnier for my money than Barbie but comedy is about as subjective as things get so no argument - if you found it funny, you found it funny.
Yeah movie snobs tend to look down on things that make you FEEL and prefer things that make you THINK. So horror, sexiness, humor are all viewed as inferior. And God forbid Steven Spielberg "manipulates" you into feeling something! But yeah, it's a dumb prejudice. Good comedies are hard to make
It netted out the same for me (Barbie at #5), and I agree that comedies are terminally under-appreciated. It makes me so happy that Gosling is not just nominated but seen as a lock for Supporting Actor, because that is one of my favorite comedic performances of the past... hmmm.... maybe ever. There are so many great moments in Barbie! I have sky high expectations for Gerwig + Baumbach as a writing team and this somehow exceeded them. If you'd told me last year that one of my favorite characters of 2023 would be Alan, a short lived Mattel doll from the early 1960s, I would not have believed you.
But seriously, great list and great write-ups (not sure about that Wilson guy, though). And that painting by Pamelyn is so sick! Also thanks for reminding me to get off my ass and finally watch Enys Men and How to Blow Up a Pipeline. This was such a good year, I feel like I'll be catching up for a long time.
Guessing from these results that not a lot of you had the opportunity to see The Taste of Things prior to voting - go see if it you can, it’s good - and I believe it would have placed in this poll if it has been released sooner.
It was the number one film I was trying hard to see before I put together my list! Unfortunately was in between the limited release in nyc and the mass release in 2024.
FWIW, The Taste of Things did appear on five ballots, but there's no question the release date strategy cost it a lot more attention. Ditto Perfect Days, another five-ballot title that ranked even higher than TTOT on ballots.
I realized a few hours after I sent in my ballot that I should’ve written something about Rye Lane, my #2 for the year. Such an explosion of joy, and a visual feast. Not surprised it’s not on the list, but it was easily my most delightful surprise of the year.
Loved rye lane so much. I think it was the victim of recency bias for me. If I saw it during the week i was putting together my top 5 im sure it would be on it.
I REALLY wanted Royal Hotel on my top 5 and so put it there, but if I was being totally honest this had to be on my top 5 last year. Watched twice so far and look forward to more re-watching in the future. We really don't get enough coming of age stories like this one from the perspective of young women/girls going through what has to be the most brutally social period of life.
Re-tweet. I was so looking forward to this year and like I total nerd have been refreshing my inbox to see if you all released it every day. This is an awesome, knowledgable, open, humble film community full of enthusiasts rather than elitists. Such a rare combo and I really cherish this substack.
Your contributions were so freaking good. When Keith sent back the edit, he highlighted the last line of your Past Lives write-up to note it was the most succinct statement about the film that he'd come across.
Well maybe next year I'll remember to submit my ballot. :)
I'm baffled by the Killers Of The Flower Moon love. I watched this weekend, gave it a 6/10, and have spent the days since wondering if that was too generous. In the spirit of open-mindedness, I'll just say it's fascinating that someone can watch that and see a complex romance when I saw just the opposite.
I still haven't seen Oppenheimer, American Fiction, The Zone Of Interest, or The Boy And The Heron, plus several other things I may love, but right now my Top 10 would be something like:
My challenge for getting a ballot in: so many good films in December, and unlike the pros running this newsletter, I haven't had time to see many of them yet.
I usually do well enough getting to everything by the Oscars, though that will be harder this year without Netflix disc service. I was just starting to get back in the habit of going to the theater again, after the pandemic and then we had a baby, but then I got sick with Covid for a month straight. But I managed to see Bottoms, Godzilla, The Holdovers, and Poor Things.
I don't know if I'm baffled since it's a well made scorcese film but I share your struggle with it. I think flipping the protagonist from Leo to lily maybe would solve most of my misgivings about it.
This feels weird to say for a 4-hour movie, but I think part of FLOWER MOON's impact for me was the theatrical experience. I felt like I was stuck in its moral swamp with no way out, and was kind of forced to bend to its rhythm. Which isn't to say the home experience is the only reason it wouldn't work for someone, just that I'm not sure if I personally would've clicked with it so much if I hadn't been literally trapped with it.
I totally resonate with feeling trapped. I'm glad I saw it in a theater because I don't think I would have finished it. Same goes for Zone of Interest - both films I felt totally stuck and forced to sit in extreme discomfort. Both were unsettling and deeply uncomfortable experiences for me but the discomfort I felt after was quite different - Killers and specifically some of Marty's choices about humanizing Leo's character nagged at me in a way that felt really unsatisfying while Zone nagged it's way to my top film of the year. Really interesting to look at two films I couldn't stop thinking about and my different reactions to them.
Partially it's that I just really struggle with biopics or "based on a true story" movies. They always say "well we had to change things, move things around, combine characters to make it more cinematic, to make the narrative flow better." I understand that argument, but the problem is I'll read about the history afterwards, and almost invariably it seems more interesting than the movie version.
As an example, I watched The Last American Hero recently. I don't even think I knew it was a biopic until afterwards, and that Junior Johnson was a real person. So I was reading up about him, and Wikipedia mentioned that he invented drafting in car racing. And the movie doesn't depict that at all. How do you make a movie about a guy and his sports career and not detail that he fundamentally changed the sport?
Not to totally derail the conversation, but this was something that drove me nuts in MAESTRO. There wasn't really any exploration of how Bernstein changed American musical programming, or of the work he did to expand music education. There are a couple vague allusions to it, but like: This is why the dude is important! Show it to us!
Right, that's what really soured me on the movie. It looked good but there was no discussion of his impact, or for that matter his politics (would've loved to see the party from RADICAL CHIC, albeit from a less hostile viewpoint than Wolfe took)
I've definitely gotten worse, at least when I watch a movie by myself. If I'm in a theater I'm fine, or even least watching with my wife, it's much easier to settle down and leave the pause button alone.
Same! I used to be able to sit down at home and solo something with no problem, but I really struggle with it now, unless the movie is light and silly. Anything more challenging than Crawl is going to require the presence of Mrs Utah, or a trip to the theater.
Oh man... Unrelated/related: I watched Crawl for fhe first time last year. Boy have I been sleeping on that... On my top 10 for films not released in 2023 that I saw for the first time in 2023.
Fwiw, I was the same way about KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON after seeing it, but I was driven back to it by a few moments refusing to get unstuck from my head and a curiosity over exactly what Scorsese was doing with the home stretch (before the radio play). Didn't entirely solve that last mystery for me, but it did cement this as an indelible, valuable work for me.
Happy to see my comments made it in! The Zone of Interest has become one of those movies I love parsing and talking over with people because there's a billion little moments or angles that may not stand out but contribute to a greater part of the whole. For the first time in a few years (since maybe 2019), making even a Top 15 felt like absolute murder. So many i thought about putting instead but I had to go with the truth of things. Can't wait to do it again.
This is a great read, thanks for putting this together and while I would expect as much from this group, I'm still blown away by the thoughtfulness and articulation on display here. Here's to another good year for movies.
As one of those few but proud Beau is Afraid supporters, I agree that it is destined for cult classic status. I can see why many people dislike what is a meandering, picaresque, extremely weird 3-hour anxiety/guilt-fueled fever dream psychological horror/comedy film. But that's exactly what made it resonate so much for those of us who love it. To me, it perfectly captured the way anxiety disorders and guilt complexes feel emotionally, but took as its premise "what if those feelings were not irrational fears but actually manifested in the world?" The whole movie is clearly an extended allegory and not meant to be taken as realism, which is part of why some folks bumped on it. I had friends who said they just didn't understand the rules of this world of the movie, but that really misses the point. There are no rules, because this "world" is just a manifestation of one man's damaged psyche. For me, this is the appeal, that I feel heard and seen by this film and by Ari Aster's vision of Beau's existence.
But also, crucially, this is also somehow a hilarious comedy despite what sounds like heavy subject matter, and when I saw this on opening night with a sold-out crowd of over 400 people, the entire audience was laughing uproariously. It was one of the most fun movie theater experiences I've had in years, and that tells me that if theaters start showing this in the future as repertory screenings, like a midnight movie kind of thing, it will attract that cult-movie crowd to be able to have that collective experience.
Love your reading your review of this- I'm destined to give it another shot. Also, I'm wondering now if that's why the city part resonated so hard for me and it lost me towards the end - just a much more personal relationship with anxiety than... oedipal complex? I dont even know what- in the latter parts of the film.
I actually feel similarly to you. As much as I enjoy the whole movie overall, I would say most of my love of it is for the first half, the city and suburb sections, because they are more about anxiety. I do also really respect and appreciate the "in the woods" section with the long animated aside, but I have less of an emotional reaction to that and more just appreciate the craft and the willingness to go off on a tangent when it has thematic resonance. The last quarter of the movie is much more about a guilt complex and parental pressures and resentments, and pent-up sexual and emotional baggage, and that part was less resonant for me and had some clunky moments. But I still appreciate it because it feels so personal and I'm sure it resonates with a lot of folks out there, especially anyone who has that stereotypical over-bearing Jewish (or insert your preferred ethnicity here) mother in their lives.
Agreed! So hilarious and uncomfortable at the same time! People were basically shrieking in shock and delight at the same time in the theater, especially the bathtub sequence, and the naked running through the street sequence.
Beau Googling the side-effects of his medication and immediately landing on an obituary page was the funniest gag of the year for me, partly because it felt like it was addressed to me personally. I'm sure anyone who's ever gone down a WebMD death spiral knows exactly what I mean.
Interesting that only two horror films got multiple votes. I guess I was only the Infinity Pool vote. My favorite Brandon Cronenberg and I don't think his father has directed a movie as good since Dead Ringers.
Interesting! I thoroughly enjoyed Infinity Pool - some of the most fun I had at the theater this year- but found it to be a regression from Possessor, which was one of my top movies of... 2021? What is time. I love this huge take about Brandon v. David even though I differ- Crimes of the Future was my number 2 movie of last year on this poll. Regardless, it's really exciting to me to have them both be making films! Can't wait for more from both, especially Brandon, whose films will be appointment viewing for me as long as he makes them.
What I would say is that I just found Infinity Pool more disturbing and thematically complex than Possessor. I really like both though. I will always be in line for either Cronenberg.
It's probably time to revisit Possessor - I haven't watched it since it came out, and I think part of it's appeal for me at the time was my excitement of witnessing some the chops of baby cronenberg.
Also... recently went on a beach vacay to resort for the first time ever this winter and could NOT stop thinking about this movie. Perfectly encapsulates the liminal space/ divide between cultures that occurs in places like these.
I'm skimming the summary too much, but I see Enys Men got a blurb. Did only one person vote for it (and was also articulate about it)? Because that movie seemed to be clearly trying to be a horror movie (I think it succeeded, though it wasn't on my ballot).
Honored to have my Fallen Leaves blurb included here! I wonder how this poll would look in two months' time once more people have seen Perfect Days and The Taste of Things. I love both, and they just missed my top five. Perfect Days continues to creep up the list the more I sit with it. Would make a terrific double feature with Paterson. On the Beau Is Afraid love, if I could extract the anxiety-riddled, apartment-set first act as a standalone short, I would rank it among my five. I'd love to see the complete list of outliers that received a single vote (I'm curious if I'm the only person who submitted Godland). Thank you for the time and effort you guys put into this poll! It already feels like a great cinephile tradition.
I saw Perfect Days last weekend and Taste of Things tonight and really enjoyed both; I don’t think either would have made my Top 5, but highly likely at least one (if not both) would have snuck into my Top 10, so I definitely agree with your thought about whether the poll would differ. (And love the Paterson comparison with Perfect Days - that film came to mind for me too)
This was really great, and I'm so glad I became a subscriber this year. Reading everyone's comments over the year, and I'm this poll, has been enlightening
Thank you, and thank you for including my Dream Scenario but! I love that movie and want everyone to see it, even if they don't like it in the end!
I see by the comments in that old A.V. Club article you linked up at the top, you (& wife) were imminently expecting a child... so I take it that child is 16 now? (God, now even *I* feel old, and my oldest just turned 5)
Holy moly. Yes. 2/1/08. She just turned 16 and is doing very well. I, on the other hand, am 16 years older now and feel like the Crypt Keeper.
But where are the spoopy puns then Scott, HUH?
So she drives a car, and you cackle like a deranged fiend, making dad puns about ghoulish death... sounds exactly like where I'm headed.
I didn't see American Fiction until after I'd voted. :( Otherwise it would've made my top five. The tone wasn't always consistent, but I thought it totally stuck the landing. It was a far funnier movie than I thought it would be (that eulogy on the beach!).
Barbie getting a middling score seems appropriate -- and now I absolutely must watch Beau is Afraid.
Your mileage may vary (drastically, tenaciously) on Beau but it's for this very reason that's it worth a view. Not even close to my top 5 but it really brings up what do I even mean by my "favorite" or "top" or "best" films? At this point I love to be surprised and see something I've never seen before in a movie and Beau certainly delivered on this. I want more movies like this even if they don't land on my "top" 5. Also, the first third of this movie is the "best" horror film of the year and it's not even close.
Totally agree. It's a big, glorious swing, even if it misses for you: I saw it with a fairly large group, and I think we were split pretty evenly down the middle on it. Personally, I don't think I've laughed harder at the movies this year.
And I laughed for so many reasons! Discomfort, outrage, fear, glee... This is really making me want to re-watch it now that I know what's coming. It really hooked me with the first third - the whole "city" sequence - and then really lost me in the country. And... *sigh* this might be petty but I really wonder what my estimation of it would have been without the CGI cock...
Haha That was also when I rolled my eyes. "Yes, yes, Ari, we get it."
I had recently rewatched POSSESSION when I saw BEAU IS AFRAID and my first thought was that he was ripping off Anna's Creature...
That first hour had me laughing almost nonstop! Phoenix's performance is just so good -- his ineptitude and fear is so straight and real that it pumps up the violence and ridiculousness to 11. My favorite part was when he's in the convenience store and watches all the nutjobs slowly migrate...and then, of course, the finish (the phone book!). Just a masterful sequence.
I meant to see the first few minutes before the stuff I had to do today, but then the first few minutes turned into the first hour. O'LOHA, the best of Hawaii AND Ireland! The number of visual gags here rivals the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker works, and that is high praise indeed.
I don't have time to watch the rest today, but I'll finish it tomorrow and report back, but I love what I've seen so far. It reminds me, in a way, of Aronofsky's mother!, except it's a whole lot funnier. Is Joaquin not even nominated? Just for the bathtub scene alone, he should be! And that he keeps so straight through all the zaniness. The first hour of this movie is absolutely a ride.
The obituaries for the people who didn't take the anti-anxiety medicine with water was by far my favorite gag in the movie
OK, I just finished watching it. (Is it funny that I'm also halfway through Showing Up, a movie that perhaps could not be more opposite in every way to BIA?) Whew! What a movie.
I remember reading somewhere that Midsommar was Aster's take on the breakdown of a relationship. So if we're going by that type of thinking, then it's quite obvious BIA is all about guilt, motherly guilt in particular. For me, it absolutely suffers from its bloated runtime -- he probably could cut the entire Lane/Ryan subplot and the movie really wouldn't suffer too much. But re-reading Keith's initial review, he's spot on -- this is a journey I won't soon forget.
Also funny -- I said earlier that it reminded me of Aronofsky's "mother!" -- looks like Darren stole Ari's title years ago. :)
Some other comments while watching:
- Lane and Ryan were both in Only Murders in the Building, playing characters that were quite possibly as zany as what's going on in this movie. I guess it was a practice run of sorts?
- How good of a casting was Zoe Lister-Jones as young Patti LuPone? In that monologue scene with the spinning night light, I believe Aster snuck in the elder every now and then, only further reinforcing the awesome casting.
- Never thought I'd see animation in this movie -- and it was GREAT! Loved the effects, and especially the ridiculous ending, when the sons ask him, "Ummm, dad, if you never had sex...?"
- "Shiva Steve's - Grub for the grieved" -- it's gold, Jerry, gold!
- I remember seeing "MW" on the microwave and also the logo on the TV dinner. Didn't put it together until he visits his mom's gorgeous house.
- Why did Beau live in such a shithole if his mom was so rich? Obviously they had their issues, but it didn't seem like she was the type to cut him off financially? Or did I miss something?
- Did you see the list of thank yous at the end? It's like a murderers row of cool people (these are just the ones I recognize): Daniel Clowes, Bo Burnham, Bill Hader, PT Anderson, David Fincher, Spike Jonze, Joel Coen, Ruben Ostlund, Clara Mamet, Lorene Scafaria, Adrian Tomine, Rooney Mara, Christ Abbott
- The movie's budget was $35, which I think is actually pretty frugal for all that it entails.
All in all, not a waste of time at all. Far from it. I'm very tempted to recommend the first hour and the forest portion of the film, as standalone units. Each has a beginning, middle, and end, so they could function quite well by themselves.
Same, Beau is Afraid is on Kanopy and I've been dithering because it's so long, but I have the house to myself tomorrow...
I’m in the ‘BEAU was bad’ camp. A divisive one I’ll prob have to revisit when, not if, Scott adds it to the CULT CANON.
I love, love, love that you guys do this. Thank you!
Are we actually surprised BARBIE didn't have a better showing? Barbie is a summer blockbuster based on a toy franchise that has been cast as an Important and even Great movie because, well, we're in an era where that's the type of thing we're going to do.
But let's flash back 20 years to LEGALLY BLONDE, the best parallel I can think of for Barbie. Fun, entertaining, endearing lead performance and a nice little light feminism along with it. But does anyone, now or then, think it was a Great film? Complain it was snubbed at the Oscars?
And the audience here is going to self-select for cinephiles. Barbie has more popular support, but give me Eileen any day.
Or poor things! Which I think was much more complicated, subversive, and interesting look into feminism and patriarchy. And just as much fun!
Agreed! Poor Things on my list, Barbie not
Totally disagree. Gerwig had to thread an almost impossible needle: make a movie about one of the most famous toys ever, but don't make it a dull cash grab! Say something interesting and resonant about feminism without pretending that Barbie is unproblematic OR pissing off Mattel! Make something that appeals to the target demo of young girls but works for adults too! And above all, make it super funny and stylish!
This is landing a quadruple axel at the Olympics level of difficulty, and she pulled it off with such aplomb! All that PLUS writing that role for Gosling PLUS a giant MGM musical style soundstage dance number?!?
Look I'm glad you love the movie because I always prefer that people like movies. So good for you! But to me this is like people who say "Oh man Iron Man was such a successful movie because it had to establish a huge franchise and please fans while simultaneously bringing in neophytes to comics etc. etc. etc."
Yeah, sure. That makes Iron Man a successful movie. But is it a great movie? I don't think so.
And Barbie has some issues for me. The Will Ferrell boardroom scenes seem to come from an earlier draft of the screenplay, it runs on a little long, it's sometimes annoyingly self-important for a giant fucking toy commercial and moneymaker. Wouldn't sniff my Top 10. It's a successful movie to be sure.
Def top 5 here. Obviously to each their own, but calling it out for "being self-important for a giant toy commercial and moneymaker" is essentially the same sort of "you're not actually considering the movie we have here" take that you dismiss when talking about the complexity of getting it made.
I'm not sure I agree with your criticism of your criticism. :)
My comment on its self-importance was the tone - I felt the movie (America Ferrera's speech being the most obvious example) often took on a tone of self-importance. That is absolutely criticizing the movie we have here
...or, it would be if you didn't also say that it's "a toy commercial and a money maker".
MMV obv but sometimes obvious is called for. I just about always hate anything that has a whiff of self-importance or didacticism or what have you but, there wasn't a sec in this movie that didn't trip the trigger for me.
Anyway, not shocked to see Barbie not do better in this pole - we're a bunch of folks far more interested in May/December than more mainstream stuff, I get it.
I did not vote for Barbie and can easily see why it didn't make the top 5, but I'm honestly baffled that anyone thought the vibe came anywhere near "self-important." Even the speeches — Ferrara's, but also Perlman's — contain truisms but are (as far as I can recall) never not entertaining or playful.
My hot take is that it's better than Poor Things, working similar territory.
Well I'm honestly baffled that you could find anything "playful" in the following 331 words. Like it or hate it, it's a completely straight, serious speech. A summer blockbuster which takes 2:30 minutes for a Friedan-esque monologue about the problems with modern womanhood should at least make you understand why the phrase 'self-important' comes to mind
"It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don't think you're good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we're always doing it wrong.
You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can't ask for money because that's crass. You have to be a boss, but you can't be mean. You have to lead, but you can't squash other people's ideas. You're supposed to love being a mother, but don't talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people.
You have to answer for men's bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you're accused of complaining. You're supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you're supposed to be a part of the sisterhood.
But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful.
You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It's too hard! It's too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.
I'm just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing women, then I don't even know."
Those words absolutely seem playful — funny, channeling well-worn sentiments with new phrasing and real anger. They are not at all new insights; they're sentiments that have been around a while.
More crucially, they're playful because America Ferrara knocks that speech out of the park. The audience I saw the movie with was laughing and cheering and applauding at the end. That speech told me, a cis white feminist guy, nothing particularly new, but it certainly was fun to listen to.
Clearly we just disagree, which is fine, but I genuinely have never thought of that speech as self-important. (That's a tag I'd much more readily apply to Poor Things, frankly.)
If you think that speech leans more towards "playful" than "self-important," then yes we're just too far apart on this one
I can't help but wonder what the gender breakdown of the votes would be. Most of the commenters on this Substack seem to be dudes and weirdly Barbie didn't make the list....just saying. I just wonder if it was the possible lack of women subscribers. With that said, I didn't love Barbie exactly and wouldn't have voted for it but also I am surprised it didn't make the list.
Barbie made my Top 5 (at #5) because it was my funniest movie of the year. It’s interesting that there’s always a ton of critical discourse around the Academy not appreciating comedies, and our list here pretty much bore that out! I’m not gonna say it’s the greatest movie ever or that it’s better than Lady Bird or Little Women (it’s not), but boy did I think it was hilarious in both mainstream and subversive ways that I did not expect from Gerwig and Baumbach. That coupled with the emotionally resonant aspects was enough to put it in my top tier (along with the Holdovers, which I was happy to see make the list but likewise not as high as I placed it at #2).
The Holdovers was my #1, and much funnier for my money than Barbie but comedy is about as subjective as things get so no argument - if you found it funny, you found it funny.
Yeah movie snobs tend to look down on things that make you FEEL and prefer things that make you THINK. So horror, sexiness, humor are all viewed as inferior. And God forbid Steven Spielberg "manipulates" you into feeling something! But yeah, it's a dumb prejudice. Good comedies are hard to make
It netted out the same for me (Barbie at #5), and I agree that comedies are terminally under-appreciated. It makes me so happy that Gosling is not just nominated but seen as a lock for Supporting Actor, because that is one of my favorite comedic performances of the past... hmmm.... maybe ever. There are so many great moments in Barbie! I have sky high expectations for Gerwig + Baumbach as a writing team and this somehow exceeded them. If you'd told me last year that one of my favorite characters of 2023 would be Alan, a short lived Mattel doll from the early 1960s, I would not have believed you.
Hah, feel exactly the same – in my little blurb I called Alan the stealth winner of the movie (but I love Gosling here too!)
Justice for Plane!
But seriously, great list and great write-ups (not sure about that Wilson guy, though). And that painting by Pamelyn is so sick! Also thanks for reminding me to get off my ass and finally watch Enys Men and How to Blow Up a Pipeline. This was such a good year, I feel like I'll be catching up for a long time.
Scene of the year: the big gun from Plane
Plane rocks.
I can't believe Plane came out in 2023. I have lost all sense of time.
I think it was a Dumpuary release? I had the same thought when I looked at my Letterboxd list and saw M3GAN on there.
Both on Hulu, IIRC. How to Blow Up a Pipeline is a good Friday night movie- so well paced, so engaging!
That's certainly one of the remarkable things about it. It's crackerjack entertainment!
I LOL’d so hard in the theatre at the title reveal at the end of the PLANE trailer.
Then I watched it (at home), and was impressed at enjoying something much better than it should have been.
Guessing from these results that not a lot of you had the opportunity to see The Taste of Things prior to voting - go see if it you can, it’s good - and I believe it would have placed in this poll if it has been released sooner.
Most likely. It just opened here in Toronto. Hungry to see it!
Likewise! I'm seeing it tomorrow, and I'm primed to swoon.
It’s the Plane of food
[Super Troopers voice] Mother of God.
It was the number one film I was trying hard to see before I put together my list! Unfortunately was in between the limited release in nyc and the mass release in 2024.
FWIW, The Taste of Things did appear on five ballots, but there's no question the release date strategy cost it a lot more attention. Ditto Perfect Days, another five-ballot title that ranked even higher than TTOT on ballots.
I realized a few hours after I sent in my ballot that I should’ve written something about Rye Lane, my #2 for the year. Such an explosion of joy, and a visual feast. Not surprised it’s not on the list, but it was easily my most delightful surprise of the year.
Loved rye lane so much. I think it was the victim of recency bias for me. If I saw it during the week i was putting together my top 5 im sure it would be on it.
Nice, my 5-point bomb for Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret snuck it onto the honourable mentions :)
I REALLY wanted Royal Hotel on my top 5 and so put it there, but if I was being totally honest this had to be on my top 5 last year. Watched twice so far and look forward to more re-watching in the future. We really don't get enough coming of age stories like this one from the perspective of young women/girls going through what has to be the most brutally social period of life.
Thanks so much for putting this all together Scott and Keith! Truly honoured to be included.
Re-tweet. I was so looking forward to this year and like I total nerd have been refreshing my inbox to see if you all released it every day. This is an awesome, knowledgable, open, humble film community full of enthusiasts rather than elitists. Such a rare combo and I really cherish this substack.
Your contributions were so freaking good. When Keith sent back the edit, he highlighted the last line of your Past Lives write-up to note it was the most succinct statement about the film that he'd come across.
Well maybe next year I'll remember to submit my ballot. :)
I'm baffled by the Killers Of The Flower Moon love. I watched this weekend, gave it a 6/10, and have spent the days since wondering if that was too generous. In the spirit of open-mindedness, I'll just say it's fascinating that someone can watch that and see a complex romance when I saw just the opposite.
I still haven't seen Oppenheimer, American Fiction, The Zone Of Interest, or The Boy And The Heron, plus several other things I may love, but right now my Top 10 would be something like:
Poor Things
Return To Seoul (it's on the 2023 Academy list!)
Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse
The Holdovers
Bottoms
Past Lives
Talk To Me
Asteroid City
Barbie
Afire
My challenge for getting a ballot in: so many good films in December, and unlike the pros running this newsletter, I haven't had time to see many of them yet.
I usually do well enough getting to everything by the Oscars, though that will be harder this year without Netflix disc service. I was just starting to get back in the habit of going to the theater again, after the pandemic and then we had a baby, but then I got sick with Covid for a month straight. But I managed to see Bottoms, Godzilla, The Holdovers, and Poor Things.
I don't know if I'm baffled since it's a well made scorcese film but I share your struggle with it. I think flipping the protagonist from Leo to lily maybe would solve most of my misgivings about it.
The microcosm of the movie is when their kid dies, and 90% of the reaction to that is given to Ernest and William, and 10% to Mollie.
Yes. Exactly choices like these that nagged. Not the same kind of discomfort as Zone.
This feels weird to say for a 4-hour movie, but I think part of FLOWER MOON's impact for me was the theatrical experience. I felt like I was stuck in its moral swamp with no way out, and was kind of forced to bend to its rhythm. Which isn't to say the home experience is the only reason it wouldn't work for someone, just that I'm not sure if I personally would've clicked with it so much if I hadn't been literally trapped with it.
I totally resonate with feeling trapped. I'm glad I saw it in a theater because I don't think I would have finished it. Same goes for Zone of Interest - both films I felt totally stuck and forced to sit in extreme discomfort. Both were unsettling and deeply uncomfortable experiences for me but the discomfort I felt after was quite different - Killers and specifically some of Marty's choices about humanizing Leo's character nagged at me in a way that felt really unsatisfying while Zone nagged it's way to my top film of the year. Really interesting to look at two films I couldn't stop thinking about and my different reactions to them.
Partially it's that I just really struggle with biopics or "based on a true story" movies. They always say "well we had to change things, move things around, combine characters to make it more cinematic, to make the narrative flow better." I understand that argument, but the problem is I'll read about the history afterwards, and almost invariably it seems more interesting than the movie version.
As an example, I watched The Last American Hero recently. I don't even think I knew it was a biopic until afterwards, and that Junior Johnson was a real person. So I was reading up about him, and Wikipedia mentioned that he invented drafting in car racing. And the movie doesn't depict that at all. How do you make a movie about a guy and his sports career and not detail that he fundamentally changed the sport?
Not to totally derail the conversation, but this was something that drove me nuts in MAESTRO. There wasn't really any exploration of how Bernstein changed American musical programming, or of the work he did to expand music education. There are a couple vague allusions to it, but like: This is why the dude is important! Show it to us!
Right, that's what really soured me on the movie. It looked good but there was no discussion of his impact, or for that matter his politics (would've loved to see the party from RADICAL CHIC, albeit from a less hostile viewpoint than Wolfe took)
I did at least manage to watch it all in one day, and in fewer sessions than I feared. The baby takes long naps at least :)
You're stronger than I am, I have the attention span of a mayfly. Hell, I'm still not done with the Irishman.
I've definitely gotten worse, at least when I watch a movie by myself. If I'm in a theater I'm fine, or even least watching with my wife, it's much easier to settle down and leave the pause button alone.
Same! I used to be able to sit down at home and solo something with no problem, but I really struggle with it now, unless the movie is light and silly. Anything more challenging than Crawl is going to require the presence of Mrs Utah, or a trip to the theater.
Oh man... Unrelated/related: I watched Crawl for fhe first time last year. Boy have I been sleeping on that... On my top 10 for films not released in 2023 that I saw for the first time in 2023.
Fwiw, I was the same way about KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON after seeing it, but I was driven back to it by a few moments refusing to get unstuck from my head and a curiosity over exactly what Scorsese was doing with the home stretch (before the radio play). Didn't entirely solve that last mystery for me, but it did cement this as an indelible, valuable work for me.
Happy to see my comments made it in! The Zone of Interest has become one of those movies I love parsing and talking over with people because there's a billion little moments or angles that may not stand out but contribute to a greater part of the whole. For the first time in a few years (since maybe 2019), making even a Top 15 felt like absolute murder. So many i thought about putting instead but I had to go with the truth of things. Can't wait to do it again.
Zone of interest number 1 and may December number 2 was maybe the only thing easy about my list this year. I agonized over the last 3 spots.
Hey, looks like Bradley Cooper is a subscriber!
This is a great read, thanks for putting this together and while I would expect as much from this group, I'm still blown away by the thoughtfulness and articulation on display here. Here's to another good year for movies.
Would love to read the blurb from the person who put maestro first! I actually really enjoyed it (more than it seems most did), but not on my top 15.
As one of those few but proud Beau is Afraid supporters, I agree that it is destined for cult classic status. I can see why many people dislike what is a meandering, picaresque, extremely weird 3-hour anxiety/guilt-fueled fever dream psychological horror/comedy film. But that's exactly what made it resonate so much for those of us who love it. To me, it perfectly captured the way anxiety disorders and guilt complexes feel emotionally, but took as its premise "what if those feelings were not irrational fears but actually manifested in the world?" The whole movie is clearly an extended allegory and not meant to be taken as realism, which is part of why some folks bumped on it. I had friends who said they just didn't understand the rules of this world of the movie, but that really misses the point. There are no rules, because this "world" is just a manifestation of one man's damaged psyche. For me, this is the appeal, that I feel heard and seen by this film and by Ari Aster's vision of Beau's existence.
But also, crucially, this is also somehow a hilarious comedy despite what sounds like heavy subject matter, and when I saw this on opening night with a sold-out crowd of over 400 people, the entire audience was laughing uproariously. It was one of the most fun movie theater experiences I've had in years, and that tells me that if theaters start showing this in the future as repertory screenings, like a midnight movie kind of thing, it will attract that cult-movie crowd to be able to have that collective experience.
Love your reading your review of this- I'm destined to give it another shot. Also, I'm wondering now if that's why the city part resonated so hard for me and it lost me towards the end - just a much more personal relationship with anxiety than... oedipal complex? I dont even know what- in the latter parts of the film.
I actually feel similarly to you. As much as I enjoy the whole movie overall, I would say most of my love of it is for the first half, the city and suburb sections, because they are more about anxiety. I do also really respect and appreciate the "in the woods" section with the long animated aside, but I have less of an emotional reaction to that and more just appreciate the craft and the willingness to go off on a tangent when it has thematic resonance. The last quarter of the movie is much more about a guilt complex and parental pressures and resentments, and pent-up sexual and emotional baggage, and that part was less resonant for me and had some clunky moments. But I still appreciate it because it feels so personal and I'm sure it resonates with a lot of folks out there, especially anyone who has that stereotypical over-bearing Jewish (or insert your preferred ethnicity here) mother in their lives.
Yeah I'll say it again... That first long sequence in the city is some of the best filmmaking of the year. Period. I was squirming in my seat.
Agreed! So hilarious and uncomfortable at the same time! People were basically shrieking in shock and delight at the same time in the theater, especially the bathtub sequence, and the naked running through the street sequence.
Beau Googling the side-effects of his medication and immediately landing on an obituary page was the funniest gag of the year for me, partly because it felt like it was addressed to me personally. I'm sure anyone who's ever gone down a WebMD death spiral knows exactly what I mean.
The worst possible outcome to propping open a door was the funniest thing I saw all year.
Interesting that only two horror films got multiple votes. I guess I was only the Infinity Pool vote. My favorite Brandon Cronenberg and I don't think his father has directed a movie as good since Dead Ringers.
Interesting! I thoroughly enjoyed Infinity Pool - some of the most fun I had at the theater this year- but found it to be a regression from Possessor, which was one of my top movies of... 2021? What is time. I love this huge take about Brandon v. David even though I differ- Crimes of the Future was my number 2 movie of last year on this poll. Regardless, it's really exciting to me to have them both be making films! Can't wait for more from both, especially Brandon, whose films will be appointment viewing for me as long as he makes them.
What I would say is that I just found Infinity Pool more disturbing and thematically complex than Possessor. I really like both though. I will always be in line for either Cronenberg.
It's probably time to revisit Possessor - I haven't watched it since it came out, and I think part of it's appeal for me at the time was my excitement of witnessing some the chops of baby cronenberg.
Also... recently went on a beach vacay to resort for the first time ever this winter and could NOT stop thinking about this movie. Perfectly encapsulates the liminal space/ divide between cultures that occurs in places like these.
I'm skimming the summary too much, but I see Enys Men got a blurb. Did only one person vote for it (and was also articulate about it)? Because that movie seemed to be clearly trying to be a horror movie (I think it succeeded, though it wasn't on my ballot).
Honored to have my Fallen Leaves blurb included here! I wonder how this poll would look in two months' time once more people have seen Perfect Days and The Taste of Things. I love both, and they just missed my top five. Perfect Days continues to creep up the list the more I sit with it. Would make a terrific double feature with Paterson. On the Beau Is Afraid love, if I could extract the anxiety-riddled, apartment-set first act as a standalone short, I would rank it among my five. I'd love to see the complete list of outliers that received a single vote (I'm curious if I'm the only person who submitted Godland). Thank you for the time and effort you guys put into this poll! It already feels like a great cinephile tradition.
Fallen Leaves is an admission from my top 5 that I agonized over. It's really really good.
I saw Perfect Days last weekend and Taste of Things tonight and really enjoyed both; I don’t think either would have made my Top 5, but highly likely at least one (if not both) would have snuck into my Top 10, so I definitely agree with your thought about whether the poll would differ. (And love the Paterson comparison with Perfect Days - that film came to mind for me too)
This was really great, and I'm so glad I became a subscriber this year. Reading everyone's comments over the year, and I'm this poll, has been enlightening
Thank you, and thank you for including my Dream Scenario but! I love that movie and want everyone to see it, even if they don't like it in the end!