It’s Too Early For a Top 10 of 2023

A pet peeve of mine is the publishing of early top 10 lists. I know, most of the major newspapers and magazines want to get a head start and be the first ones out of the gate with their lists, but it comes at a blatant disregard.

Many of the critics who publish these lists will have no time to check off every single thing on their must-see list. Hell, lists were being published before “Godzilla Minus One” had even been screened for critics, and now that film is being touted as one of the best monster movies of the 21st century. There’s also Sean Durkin’s “The Iron Claw,” barely seen by critics, and Michel Franco’s “Memory,” which had its screener links only sent out last week.

Then there’s the value of rewatches. Some films gain in esteem with second or third viewings. In the coming days, I’m looking forward to reacquainting myself with films that might have underwhelmed me at first, or resulted in polarization — here’s looking at you, “Beau is Afraid.

Also, no attempt at a ten best list would be complete without attempting to find a way to fit a 4-hour Frederick Wiseman doc into your busy schedule — his latest one is called “Menu-Plaisir — Les Troisgrois” and the reviews have been great.

So, no, I won’t be publishing my personal top 10 until the middle of the month. The good news is that it’s been a strong year at the movies. Most of us were real down about the state of cinema during the pandemic. I’d rank 2020, 2021 and 2022 at the very bottom of 21st century movie years. The art form was in a near-disastrous state.

Thank the cinematic heavens that 2023 delivered, and, almost, brought us back to the quality output we had in 2019. To the point where I’ve decided to skip IndieWire’s invitation to participate in their annual critics poll for the best films of 2023.

I’m not ready to rank the best films I’ve seen this year. For the time being, these are the 35 highlights, unranked, of 2023 — I just need to figure out which 10 films stood out the most for me …

Anatomy of a Fall, Killers of the Flower Moon, The Boy and the Heron, Memory, May/December, American Fiction, De Humanis Corpis Fabrica, BlackBerry, Across the Spider-Verse, Oppenheimer, Rotting in the Sun, Poor Things, Talk to Me, Tori et Lokita, The Royal Hotel, The Delinquents, The Taste of Things, The Zone of Interest, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, Pacifiction, Passages, Leave the World Behind, The Iron Claw, Reality, Mission: Impossible— Dead Reckoning Part One, Sisu, A Plein Temps, Cairo Conspiracy, How to Blowup a Pipeline, Cat Person, Fallen Leaves, RMN, Dream Scenario, Napoleon, Asteroid City, Saltburn, The Holdovers

Of note, if you want a good site that compiles every single one of these critics’ lists the you won’t do better than CriticsTop10.com — last year they managed to amass over 1000 lists from critics. They’ve just started compiling 2023 lists and the count so far is 23.