Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore in May December. Photo: Screenshot.
I hate the end-of-year list economy, mostly because I can never make my mind up. The absolute shriek I let out every time Oppenheimer had Albert Einstein appear out of the cloak of darkness? The May Dethember lithp of it all? Every moment of Teyana Taylor in A Thousand and One? Leonardo DiCaprio’s bad posture in Killers of the Flower Moon? The Passages crop top! These are not phenomena that can be shuffled into a numerical ranking.
What’s more: I’m not sure I could even round out a top 10 list. There were so many movies that I found on-paper great but ultimately mid (You Hurt My Feelings), overrated (Anatomy of a Fall), outright bad, or just fine (Past Lives, Maestro??). On TV there was more to go around: Jury Duty, The Curse, The Bear, and, obviously, Succession. (Even though there could’ve been another Logan season!) This feels so out of character for me, a woman who has quit every sport she has ever tried, but few things were more moving than tearing up in the nosebleeds of Arthur Ashe, watching Coco Gauff win the US Open. (Am I Challengers spon? Lmao.)
We’ll have so much more time to reflect on all of these movies for the next three months of award season, but I’m ready to take accounts. (And I’ll be damned if I write another word about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. I understand that I’ll never understand — and frankly, I’m tired of standing.) What were THE new releases of 2023 for you — the good, the bad, the Saltburn.
Housekeeping: Because I’m in a mood (in desperate need of a tan, and mad about it) and we’re entering the dead week between Christmas and New Year's, tomorrow I’ll start a White Lotus season one chat on the Substack app. Watch with me if you’re looking for something to do between making New Years Eve resolutions and googling Ferrari showtimes.
Some 2023 releases I haven't seen get mentioned yet that I loved: Are You There God, It's Me Margaret, Theater Camp, The Holdovers, Godzilla Minus One, and Polite Society!
Some TV I loved: The Other Two s3, Minx s2, American Auto s2. Technically it was from 2022, but I watched Bad Sisters this year and that was maybe far and away my favorite thing I watched.
Dec 23, 2023·edited Dec 23, 2023Liked by Hunter Harris
Poor Things is hanging in my mind since I saw it a few weeks ago like nothing else this year. There’s just so much here to like.
Yorgos Lanthimos snatching Tim Burton bald? The best Willem Dafoe has ever been? Emma Stone fully in her Indie Spirit bag? Jerrod Carmichael thinking he can act?
Like Hunter, I felt like this was the year of overhype and let-downs. I felt so catfished by Past Lives, All Of Us Strangers and even May December a little.
Dec 23, 2023·edited Dec 23, 2023Liked by Hunter Harris
favs, especially as-yet-unmentioned ones:
The Taste of Things - the cooking, the Binoche acting opposite a man she had a child with and then broke up with over 20 years ago IRL, the poached pear
How to Blow Up a Pipeline - a perfect thriller
Huesera: the Bone Woman - another motherhood horror, but a really good one
Magic Mike's Last Dance - two separate women in my row just straight up took out their phones in the movie theater to record Mike's last dance
Return to Seoul - wholly original emigrant story
Everything But the Girl's "Nothing Left to Lose" video
My favorite watch all year: the K-drama "The Glory," a long-game revenge saga on Netflix. Heroine to root for, genuinely suspenseful, hint of romance (but never getting in the way of the oh-so-necessary revenge), and fabulous clothes (because ... K-drama!). Sixteen eps of can't-miss perfection.
I also want to brag that I just finished Barbra Streisand's memoir. Not that it's a hard read (it's like buttah!). But at 900+ pages, I want a little credit for that. 😄
And thank you, Hunter, for your great work. Many good wishes for 2024!
Probably not the objectively best thing I watched but the one that hit me hardest was Our Flag Means Death episode 3 the one with the merman tail and using another classic Kate Bush song. After seeing Bat for Lashes perform A Woman's Worth live right before lockdown while going through alot of family health issues I will ugly cry with the best of them when that song is on.
I also absolutely adore Carol at the End of the World-I know Netflix is trying to murder adult animation but somehow this incredibly sweet and beautiful series got through? If you like Melancholia meets Somebody Somewhere that's the show for you.
Rye Lane, Bottoms, Halle Bailey singing Part of Your World, basically everything from Succession but especially Kendall taking a walk at the end of Succession, the Love is Blind reunion failing to load, people eating dinners on The Gilded Age, I don’t even watch Vanderpump Rules but Scandoval, depression Barbie pride and prejudice bit, Beyoncé’s America Has a Problem dance
The Bear by far, current season of Fargo is excellent, Succession, The Rehearsal, How To with John Wilson, Jury Duty, and all Scandoval content. I realize this is very basic, but I am who I am. 🤷🏻♀️
I’d shout out Beef, and Aftersun, as great new things this year. Rip Succession. So also-- Hunter is such an interesting and wide-ranging critic who inspires me as a source of recs and references THAT I can directly or indirectly credit her for a smorgasbord of interesting other watches this year. Classics like When Harry Met Sally, Moonstruck, Yentl, Goodfellas, Days of Heaven, Margot at the Weddings, yes I will credit her with all these deep cuts.
Last, but not least, I Love Suzie was amazing and feels winter-relevant this time of year.
I still think about jury duty all the time but nothing lit me up quite like scandoval... the season airing paired with watching it all go down in real time was unlike any other viewing experience. And while I’m at it, this season of rhoslc is top tier
“Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” was so poignant and well acted, I thought it captured the awkwardness of middle school so well and was one of Rachel McAdams’ best performances ever. Seeing the Barbie neighborhood on the big screen for the first time - so lush and bright! Seeing Miss Blue Ivy Carter in the flesh and also all the clips of her gaining confidence and beaming at the audience. So many moments at Usher. 2023 was actually a feast for the eyes!
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON is some of Marty's best work; Leo is looking tired and I would have loved to have seen someone else in this role, but Marty loves Leo
NAPOLEON was terrible and exactly what a 85 year old British man with an axe to grind against the French would make
I will throw SPIDER-MAN ACROSS THE UNIVERSE up there too! It thrills me to see any kind of interesting animation these days (haven’t seen Boy and the Heron yet!)
BARBIE felt like a fever dream, only sometimes in a good way
PAST LIVES is extremely my shit (named my cat Celine after Julie Delpy’s character in the Before movies AND had a scene read from the first one at my wedding!)
TV it took me like 4 months to watch all I HATE SUZIE TOO but phew what a force. Also where my FOR ALL MANKIND heads at?? New season is promising! Second season of THE BEAR is so much better than season one lol. REZ DOGS feels like the most original storytelling on TV. I thought this last season of SUCCESSION was mid at best but White Lotus season 2 soared. Love Island UK was also a BIG improvement from the winter season. YMMV!
poor things prob my fav movie i rlly enjoyed anatomy of a fall but more excited for the other hueller movie zone of interest oppy was also up there and bottems was a fun time i know it came out last year but im still counting it this year for tv i hate suzie too (im hoping for a 3rd) succession (duh) oh and beef (sooo unfortunate who created it) and severance (that was this year right? lol)
The Bear, episode 7. Taylor needle drop, super fine dining, Olivia Colman, and an emotional wallop of an ending...it’s got it all and is the single best thing I’ve seen all year
I hadn’t stopped thinking about Poor Things since I saw it at NYFF so I’m thrilled that’s it finally out and I get to continue to enjoy it! Such a feast for every sense!
Some other faves are Return to Seoul, Passages, A Thousand and One, Fallen Leaves, Rye Lane, and The Zone of Interest. Such a great year for film.
But the best thing I watched in 2023 was Beyoncé performing live like idk kinda no competition 🤷♀️
I’ve decided the movie I’m riding hard for this year is The Holdovers. Very basic to say that my favorite movies are the ones I can watch over and over again, but that’s the truth and this one will be an annual Christmastime watch going forward. The performances, the writing, Alexander Payne, the 70s of it all. Loved everything about it.
Hands down favorite thing I watched was Renaissance.
Most proud of overcoming my anxiety about going to the movie theater which has resulted in me seeing more things, and being able to participate in the cultural conversations around things again!
I forgot that Across the Spiderverse was this year - it was visually stunning and narratively beautiful, I loved it! Also, I can’t explain why, but this bacon commercial (odd, I know, walk with me) makes me really wistful somehow. It’s the guy’s leaning in to hear about her day at the end 🥹 (yes, I’m going through a breakup lol). https://youtu.be/3_Vkf5MViwQ?si=x09R-9EMnMoMZDsi
Call me obvious and I’ll deserve it, but seeing “Barbie” in a sold-out theater with my children and hearing women laughing and crying around me was one of the best experiences of my movie watching life. I’ve seen it twice since then and still loved it, but the collective experience of the first one, even years after lockdown, reminded me of how moving it can be to experience things with strangers.
Best things I saw this year were definitely Succession (basically every episode of the season but especially "Connor's wedding" of course), The Bear (also basically every episode but especially "Honeydew", "Fishes" and especially "Forks"), the episode of The Last of Us with Nick Offerman & Murray Bartlet (and that Linda Ronstad song), "Beef" (although it's kind of marred by everything that happened after) and "Mrs Davis". Also really liked "Past Lives", "The Holdovers", "Bottoms", "Theater Camp", "Rye Lane", "Are You There God It's Me Margaret" and "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse".
I thought I was blessed with great shows this year : The Last of Us, Succession, The Bear, Ted Lasso, Good Omens.
I don’t watch a lot of movies but for sure Godzilla Minus One is a great movie. Really liked the Hunger Games movie, felt like a big throw back to ten years ago.
The hardest I laughed at a television moment this year was at Greg Kinnear's physical comedy in Shining Vale, a truly delightful show that just announced its cancellation after two seasons. If you have not watched Shining Vale: horror/comedy, Courteney Cox, Greg Kinnear, Mira Sorvino, Judith Light. She was too good for this world!!
I'm trying to avoid mentioning the Big movies people have already brought up--
I loved The Disappearance of Shere Hite (I don't watch a ton of docs but loved this), thought Blackberry was surprisingly good (I do think the Big Short still has so much to answer for, in terms of cinematic trends), I enjoyed Sharper, Boston Strangler, American Fiction, She Came To Me... and fuck it- The Holdovers!
I loved watching The Gilded Age, enjoyed Shrinking, and obviously Succession left a giant hole in my heart I will attempt to fill and fail miserably!
my year was defined by RHOSLC; Godzilla Minus One was the movie that I’ve thought about the most with a smile on my face; and Deadloch was the show that made me giggle the most :^)
agree with much of what's been said but i also loved DROPS OF GOD (apple tv limited series). it was exquisite start to finish and my dream job would be a location scout for this kind of project (japan, france, etc). don't google too much about it, just watch!
The Bear and Succession obviously. Both were amazing! I've also started getting into For All Mankind which is as good as everyone annoying you to watch it says it is. In terms of movies, the films I probably recommended the most this year are Passages(because I could not stop thinking about it) and Sanctuary(a perfect, twisted chamber film).
I also really enjoyed Showing Up. it wasn't extraordinarily engaging but as a slice of life film about the hard work of creating art, it was really good and Michelle was fantastic in it.
I also loved everything about May/December's 90's tv movie vibe.
Succession! I'm so desperate to find a good drama to fill a Logan-sized hole in my heart. I'm currently watching The Morning Show and... No. This ain't it. ATV > UBA
I still need to see Maestro (aka the Tár prequel), Saltburn and Poor Things!!
I adored the final season of The Other Two, loved cousins episode in The Bear and actually really enjoyed No Hard Feelings. Also I feel seen by this Past Lives being a let down, it wasn’t bad or anything he just hmmm boring?
Also, Reservation Dogs is a great show. The final season aired this year.
Some 2023 releases I haven't seen get mentioned yet that I loved: Are You There God, It's Me Margaret, Theater Camp, The Holdovers, Godzilla Minus One, and Polite Society!
Some TV I loved: The Other Two s3, Minx s2, American Auto s2. Technically it was from 2022, but I watched Bad Sisters this year and that was maybe far and away my favorite thing I watched.
TV: Starstruck S3!!!! I will miss her so much.
Poor Things is hanging in my mind since I saw it a few weeks ago like nothing else this year. There’s just so much here to like.
Yorgos Lanthimos snatching Tim Burton bald? The best Willem Dafoe has ever been? Emma Stone fully in her Indie Spirit bag? Jerrod Carmichael thinking he can act?
Like Hunter, I felt like this was the year of overhype and let-downs. I felt so catfished by Past Lives, All Of Us Strangers and even May December a little.
I'm a Sofia Coppola stan so I loved Priscilla
Also a show I'm not sure anyone else watches but I love Rap Shit, Issa Rae is such a talent
favs, especially as-yet-unmentioned ones:
The Taste of Things - the cooking, the Binoche acting opposite a man she had a child with and then broke up with over 20 years ago IRL, the poached pear
How to Blow Up a Pipeline - a perfect thriller
Huesera: the Bone Woman - another motherhood horror, but a really good one
Magic Mike's Last Dance - two separate women in my row just straight up took out their phones in the movie theater to record Mike's last dance
Return to Seoul - wholly original emigrant story
Everything But the Girl's "Nothing Left to Lose" video
My favorite watch all year: the K-drama "The Glory," a long-game revenge saga on Netflix. Heroine to root for, genuinely suspenseful, hint of romance (but never getting in the way of the oh-so-necessary revenge), and fabulous clothes (because ... K-drama!). Sixteen eps of can't-miss perfection.
I also want to brag that I just finished Barbra Streisand's memoir. Not that it's a hard read (it's like buttah!). But at 900+ pages, I want a little credit for that. 😄
And thank you, Hunter, for your great work. Many good wishes for 2024!
I gotta say Caroline Polachek’s performance of “Dang” on Colbert! Lives were changed!
Probably not the objectively best thing I watched but the one that hit me hardest was Our Flag Means Death episode 3 the one with the merman tail and using another classic Kate Bush song. After seeing Bat for Lashes perform A Woman's Worth live right before lockdown while going through alot of family health issues I will ugly cry with the best of them when that song is on.
I also absolutely adore Carol at the End of the World-I know Netflix is trying to murder adult animation but somehow this incredibly sweet and beautiful series got through? If you like Melancholia meets Somebody Somewhere that's the show for you.
Rye Lane, Bottoms, Halle Bailey singing Part of Your World, basically everything from Succession but especially Kendall taking a walk at the end of Succession, the Love is Blind reunion failing to load, people eating dinners on The Gilded Age, I don’t even watch Vanderpump Rules but Scandoval, depression Barbie pride and prejudice bit, Beyoncé’s America Has a Problem dance
The Bear by far, current season of Fargo is excellent, Succession, The Rehearsal, How To with John Wilson, Jury Duty, and all Scandoval content. I realize this is very basic, but I am who I am. 🤷🏻♀️
I’d shout out Beef, and Aftersun, as great new things this year. Rip Succession. So also-- Hunter is such an interesting and wide-ranging critic who inspires me as a source of recs and references THAT I can directly or indirectly credit her for a smorgasbord of interesting other watches this year. Classics like When Harry Met Sally, Moonstruck, Yentl, Goodfellas, Days of Heaven, Margot at the Weddings, yes I will credit her with all these deep cuts.
Last, but not least, I Love Suzie was amazing and feels winter-relevant this time of year.
Thank you for shouting out Teyana Taylor cause she acted her ass off.
My favorite thing? Swiping America, the only good dating show where everyone actually seemed fun enough to be around after a date.
I still think about jury duty all the time but nothing lit me up quite like scandoval... the season airing paired with watching it all go down in real time was unlike any other viewing experience. And while I’m at it, this season of rhoslc is top tier
“Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” was so poignant and well acted, I thought it captured the awkwardness of middle school so well and was one of Rachel McAdams’ best performances ever. Seeing the Barbie neighborhood on the big screen for the first time - so lush and bright! Seeing Miss Blue Ivy Carter in the flesh and also all the clips of her gaining confidence and beaming at the audience. So many moments at Usher. 2023 was actually a feast for the eyes!
That photo at the top isn't from Saltburn. Just sayin.
MAESTRO is, regrettably, very good??
THE HOLDOVERS feels like such a tired story
MAY DECEMBER is so much funnier than I expected
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON is some of Marty's best work; Leo is looking tired and I would have loved to have seen someone else in this role, but Marty loves Leo
NAPOLEON was terrible and exactly what a 85 year old British man with an axe to grind against the French would make
I will throw SPIDER-MAN ACROSS THE UNIVERSE up there too! It thrills me to see any kind of interesting animation these days (haven’t seen Boy and the Heron yet!)
BARBIE felt like a fever dream, only sometimes in a good way
PAST LIVES is extremely my shit (named my cat Celine after Julie Delpy’s character in the Before movies AND had a scene read from the first one at my wedding!)
TV it took me like 4 months to watch all I HATE SUZIE TOO but phew what a force. Also where my FOR ALL MANKIND heads at?? New season is promising! Second season of THE BEAR is so much better than season one lol. REZ DOGS feels like the most original storytelling on TV. I thought this last season of SUCCESSION was mid at best but White Lotus season 2 soared. Love Island UK was also a BIG improvement from the winter season. YMMV!
poor things prob my fav movie i rlly enjoyed anatomy of a fall but more excited for the other hueller movie zone of interest oppy was also up there and bottems was a fun time i know it came out last year but im still counting it this year for tv i hate suzie too (im hoping for a 3rd) succession (duh) oh and beef (sooo unfortunate who created it) and severance (that was this year right? lol)
The Bear, episode 7. Taylor needle drop, super fine dining, Olivia Colman, and an emotional wallop of an ending...it’s got it all and is the single best thing I’ve seen all year
I hadn’t stopped thinking about Poor Things since I saw it at NYFF so I’m thrilled that’s it finally out and I get to continue to enjoy it! Such a feast for every sense!
Some other faves are Return to Seoul, Passages, A Thousand and One, Fallen Leaves, Rye Lane, and The Zone of Interest. Such a great year for film.
But the best thing I watched in 2023 was Beyoncé performing live like idk kinda no competition 🤷♀️
Hunter I am devastated to find out you’re a saltburn hater lol 😭
2023 was a struggle so mostly rewatched stuff. New stuff I watched and loved: Deadloch, Fisk S1 (not S2), Black Ops, Jury Duty and The Night Agent.
I’ve decided the movie I’m riding hard for this year is The Holdovers. Very basic to say that my favorite movies are the ones I can watch over and over again, but that’s the truth and this one will be an annual Christmastime watch going forward. The performances, the writing, Alexander Payne, the 70s of it all. Loved everything about it.
once again it’s phantom thread
Also am I allowed to say the Beckham doc was easily one of the most compelling things I watched this year lol
Shrinking. Didn’t expect much, but it got better with every episode and absolutely landed the perfect ending and cliffhanger.
Rotting in the Sun!!! im not sure I liked it all the way through but thoroughly ICONIC to me!!
Blue Zones...help?????
Bottoms and Fellow Travelers, hands down the best things I watched this year
Hands down favorite thing I watched was Renaissance.
Most proud of overcoming my anxiety about going to the movie theater which has resulted in me seeing more things, and being able to participate in the cultural conversations around things again!
I forgot that Across the Spiderverse was this year - it was visually stunning and narratively beautiful, I loved it! Also, I can’t explain why, but this bacon commercial (odd, I know, walk with me) makes me really wistful somehow. It’s the guy’s leaning in to hear about her day at the end 🥹 (yes, I’m going through a breakup lol). https://youtu.be/3_Vkf5MViwQ?si=x09R-9EMnMoMZDsi
Call me obvious and I’ll deserve it, but seeing “Barbie” in a sold-out theater with my children and hearing women laughing and crying around me was one of the best experiences of my movie watching life. I’ve seen it twice since then and still loved it, but the collective experience of the first one, even years after lockdown, reminded me of how moving it can be to experience things with strangers.
Best things I saw this year were definitely Succession (basically every episode of the season but especially "Connor's wedding" of course), The Bear (also basically every episode but especially "Honeydew", "Fishes" and especially "Forks"), the episode of The Last of Us with Nick Offerman & Murray Bartlet (and that Linda Ronstad song), "Beef" (although it's kind of marred by everything that happened after) and "Mrs Davis". Also really liked "Past Lives", "The Holdovers", "Bottoms", "Theater Camp", "Rye Lane", "Are You There God It's Me Margaret" and "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse".
I thought I was blessed with great shows this year : The Last of Us, Succession, The Bear, Ted Lasso, Good Omens.
I don’t watch a lot of movies but for sure Godzilla Minus One is a great movie. Really liked the Hunger Games movie, felt like a big throw back to ten years ago.
The hardest I laughed at a television moment this year was at Greg Kinnear's physical comedy in Shining Vale, a truly delightful show that just announced its cancellation after two seasons. If you have not watched Shining Vale: horror/comedy, Courteney Cox, Greg Kinnear, Mira Sorvino, Judith Light. She was too good for this world!!
Honestly, my favorite movies I watched this year were Pearl and Cocaine Bear.
My favorite TV is the agreed upon things: Succession, The Bear, Barry ...
Didn’t get much buzz but I thought Florence Pugh in A Good Person was great! I live to see this woman cry on camera!!
Looking at my logs, I've found these are my favorite 2023 new movies
Il buco
Poor Things
El Conde
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar
Birth/Rebirth
Afire
May December
Pacifiction
Padre Pio
I've also seen oppenheimer 5x bc... idk why lol
Wednesday
I'm trying to avoid mentioning the Big movies people have already brought up--
I loved The Disappearance of Shere Hite (I don't watch a ton of docs but loved this), thought Blackberry was surprisingly good (I do think the Big Short still has so much to answer for, in terms of cinematic trends), I enjoyed Sharper, Boston Strangler, American Fiction, She Came To Me... and fuck it- The Holdovers!
I loved watching The Gilded Age, enjoyed Shrinking, and obviously Succession left a giant hole in my heart I will attempt to fill and fail miserably!
perfect days, la chimera, oppenheimer, may december and killers of the flower moon ! but i still need to see so many more
my year was defined by RHOSLC; Godzilla Minus One was the movie that I’ve thought about the most with a smile on my face; and Deadloch was the show that made me giggle the most :^)
I don’t think we as a society will ever recapture the intensity of Scandoval ever again. I loved every minute of it!
New: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Holdovers, Priscilla, Showing Up, Asteroid City, Kokomo City, Tokyo Vice
Old: The Wonders, Suspiria, Streetwise, Amarcord, Heartburn
agree with much of what's been said but i also loved DROPS OF GOD (apple tv limited series). it was exquisite start to finish and my dream job would be a location scout for this kind of project (japan, france, etc). don't google too much about it, just watch!
EARTH MAMA. That Kelsey Lu score!
The Bear and Succession obviously. Both were amazing! I've also started getting into For All Mankind which is as good as everyone annoying you to watch it says it is. In terms of movies, the films I probably recommended the most this year are Passages(because I could not stop thinking about it) and Sanctuary(a perfect, twisted chamber film).
I also really enjoyed Showing Up. it wasn't extraordinarily engaging but as a slice of life film about the hard work of creating art, it was really good and Michelle was fantastic in it.
I also loved everything about May/December's 90's tv movie vibe.
Succession! I'm so desperate to find a good drama to fill a Logan-sized hole in my heart. I'm currently watching The Morning Show and... No. This ain't it. ATV > UBA
I still need to see Maestro (aka the Tár prequel), Saltburn and Poor Things!!
I adored the final season of The Other Two, loved cousins episode in The Bear and actually really enjoyed No Hard Feelings. Also I feel seen by this Past Lives being a let down, it wasn’t bad or anything he just hmmm boring?
It wasn’t a strong movie year but I loved Poor Things, BlackBerry, Bottoms, and Barbenheimer of course