Well, cinema is certainly not dead.
I’ve been hearing this a lot lately; How 2023 has been the best year for movies since that legendary 1999 edition. I really believe it’s way too early to make this assertion. Let the films simmer a bit, let them age out and then come to this conclusion.
Moviegoing hasn’t been this good since 2019, which is when you had “Uncut Gems,” “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” “The Irishman,” “Parasite,” and many others.
With that said, I think it’s been a strong year. We’ve had new films from Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Glazer, Hayao Miyazaki, Todd Haynes, Wes Anderson, Alexander Payne, Ari Aster, David Fincher, Yorgos Lanthimos, Michael Mann, Richard Linklater, Greta Gerwig, Kelly Reichardt, Ridley Scott, Andrew Haigh, Sofia Coppola, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Cristian Petzold, Justine Triet, Aki Kaurismaki …
The always reliable Viewer Anon, on Twitter, is another person banging the drum for 2023 as potentially being “legendary”:
2023 feels like one of those legendary movie years like 1999 - the amount of *outstanding* films that have been released is staggering. And we’ve still got a couple months to go!
There’s that 1999 mention again. There’s always people pointing out 1999 and 2007 as the defining movie years of the 21st century.
Contrary to 2023, it just felt like one great film after another was being released, every single week, in 1999 and 2007. Cannes had one of its best lineups, so did Toronto. In all, I’ve found a grand total of 40+ movies, from both years, respectively, that were good, very good or flat-out great.
Now, I haven’t even started assembling my top 10 of 2023, but something tells me I’ll probably have a hard time squeezing in just 10 titles this year. It’s been a strong year, by far the best of the pandemic-era.