2023 Young Critic Awards

2023 was quite the whirlwind year, from the strikes that ground Hollywood to a halt to the geopolitical turmoil around the world, and even yours truly started a job that has hampered my ability to watch as many films as before. Nevertheless, it was still a year where great films came out, and despite not having been able to see all of them, I’ve compiled a list of those that most impressed me in the last 12 months.

 

Honorable Mentions

 

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret

 

Asteroid City

 

Barbie

 

The Holdovers

 

The Killer

 

Priscilla

 

 

10. Afire

 

Christian Petzold’s meditation on the anxiety and self-hatred that many artists and creators feel is brought to searing life in this drama. His ability to balance a protagonist that might come across as unlikeable, but which we all somehow relate to is the true triumph showing the clashes of hubris and humble need for connection with others.

 

9. Saltburn

 

Emerald Fennell’s sophomore directorial film was even more ambitious than Promising Young Woman (2020) and took aim at the class politics in the UK. With a riveting lead performance from Barry Keoghan, and one of the best visual palettes of the year, Saltburn brings us a satire, horror, and character piece rolled into one. 

 

8. Other People’s Children

 

Rebecca Zlotowski’s take on the romantic comedy genre, much like The Worst Person in the World (2021), seeks to be its antithesis. Along with a fantastic lead performance from Virginie Efira, we see the deconstruction of the romantic expectations to reveal not a cynical underbelly, but rather a sadly raw reality of how relationships come and go and how age and time beckons us to continue onward with a smile on our faces.

 

7. A Thousand and One

 

This portrait of a single mother who kidnaps her own son after being released from jail, is a searing and hard-to-watch view of the traumatic cycles of poverty and the impossible struggle of a single mother to survive and have her child escape the confines that bound her life.

 

6. American Fiction

 

This satirical comedy takes on the obsession and fascination that American culture has with the suffering of black people. Jeffrey Wright portrays an author writing a cliched book with black suffering tropes, only to find it be a best seller. The laughs and pointed social commentary add to a rather affecting character and family drama that will bring viewers to tears.

 

5. Anatomy of a Fall

 

The Palme D’Or winner at this year’s Cannes is a straightforward and seemingly dry legal drama, which slowly morphs into a biopsy of a relationship. Led by fantastic performances from Sandra Huller and Milo Machado Graner, Justine Triet’s film has viewers constantly guessing as to where the guilt of the murder (and the relationship’s friction) lies only to find themselves reflecting on their own perception of truth and guilt. 

 

4. Killers of the Flower Moon

 

The ever-youthful Marin Scorsese delivers another career defining work in his take on the Osage County murders of the 1920s, when white men sought to marry and murder Native Americans to steal their oil-rich land. Led by the towering performances of Robert DeNiro and Leonardo DiCaprio, the film is nearly stolen by Lilly Gladstone, encapsulating the hurt and restrained trauma this dark episode wrought on Native Americans and which sadly reflects too closely on modern America. 

 

3. Poor Things

 

Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest is a varied take on “Frankenstein,” taking Mary Shelly’s philosophical underpinnings instead of the horror elements and diving headfirst into them. Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo deliver career-best performances in this picaresque adventure that seeks to answer the questions of what humanity is. Along with an expert control of visuals, production design, and music, every inch of Poor Things is calibrated to facilitate the philosophical and humanist ponderings of the meaning of life. 

 

2. Maestro

 

Leonard Bernstein’s biopic is an incredibly ambitious sophomore directing effort from Bradley Cooper in both style and scope. Using an intriguing free-wheeling structure and a spying visual feel, viewers feel truly absorbed into the private life of Bernstein and his wife Felicia Montealegre. The latter is embodied by the fantastic Carey Mulligan, who along with Cooper’s script and direction, rightly elevate her role and importance in Bernstein’s life making her journey the secret narrative in the film.

 

1. Oppenheimer

 

Christopher Nolan’s magnum opus take on the American nuclear physicist brings together the skills and lessons from all his previous films and culminates them in this biopic. Alongside the pin-point perfect technical elements and impressive restraint to use only practical effects, Cillian Murphy delivers a career-defining performance alongside one of the best all-star casts of all time. Nolan’s exploration of the guilt and horror of his protagonist as well as the context of his own mind and moral journey helps deliver the most impactful, well-rounded, and impressive film for Young Critic in 2023.