top ten films of 2023

i was going to film a top 10 films of 2023 video but a cold hit me. hard. and i sound so awful that i don’t think i’ll be able to do a video.

so here it is in written form!

*i’m quite an active letterboxd user so you can find me here.

i watched 162 films in 2023.

a majority of the year was dedicated to the works of pedro almodóvar, gregg araki, and ingmar bergman.

before we get started, i just want to brag that i started the year off strong with The Servant (1963), a masterfully shot narrative surrounding social class hierarchy with queer subtleties. it has the very notions of Hitchcockian suspense, but veers into an anxious slow burn.

The Last Seduction (1994)

for making psycho-sexual thrillers so cool. linda fierentino with a big boat tote and slim black trench will always be my identity.

Law of Desire (1987)

for pushing queer love and incredible visuals in the eighties in a time when it was tough to be queer.

I Like Movies (2022)

for being an earnest rep for creating an unlikable underdog with so much heart in the pursuit of art, in the pursuit of some kind of love.

Talk To Me (2023)

shows how grief is not a thing to be trusted when we try to recollect ourselves in the process itself. fresh, crisp, and straight to the point in its horror.

You Hurt My Feelings (2023)

a smart, funny drama that makes us realize that all families are dysfunctional. it’s how we come together, in the end, do we realize how human it is to revel in our disfunctionalities.

God’s Own Country (2017)

proof that two unlikely people can cross paths to find love, perhaps one they’ve been missing all their life.

Asteroid City (2023)

continuing to break the conventions of narrative through set design, writing, and character actualization.

Totally Fucked Up (1993)

few films accurately capture the sweet nuance of teen angst. this is one of them.

Beau is Afraid (2023)

nightmares and dreams collide to finally admit that yes, i do have mommy issues. in no ways a perfect film where the last act is drawn out and unnecessary with the giant penis, but patti lupone’s performance is unhinged, powerful, and calls attention to all the hurt she can provide in voice.

Priscilla (2023)

perhaps sofia’s best work to date taking girlhood head on with, at first glance, a very sterile examination of wants vs needs only to entrap girl, hurt her, painfully so, that liberation, at all costs, becomes such a relief by the end of the film.

phew. now that those are out of the way,

10 Saltburn (2023)

watched this twice and it’s say to safe i’m a dumb gullible gay whose heart is still trapped by tumblr aesthetics. this is knives out for the gays and let that be. also, jacob elordi in blue jeans, white shirt, and a pair of angel wings will forever be ingrained in my thirsty ass lil brain.

9 Sidewalls (2011)

i thank hajin for this one, but two lovers who need love so desperately who don’t know that they are shoulder close find love for each other, with each other. it has that 2010’s indie charm with so much earnesty that tickles this little aching heart of mine.

8 Passages (2023)

i can’t stop thinking about this one. the heart wants what it wants. in love. in art. can we truly have it all? who do we hurt when we want it all? everything is at the tip of our fingers. do we let greed get the best of us?

7 Past Lives (2023)

you’re probably tired of me talking about this one, but y’all i ugly cried and those tears meant something. i think this just means so much because i’ve met some pretty incredibly people in 2023 and all of that is, i want to believe, because of 인연. i’ll take that. i’ll take whatever answer life provides to make sense of the love that i’ve made, the love that i have.

6 Maestro (2023)

this will perhaps be a hard 3 stars for most, but this is personal. leonard bernstein has always been an incredible influence on me in terms of work ethic. there was once a part of the world where standards were incredibly high.

you never canceled a show because of mental health. you never stopped working because of a cold. it’s the work ethic that still exists in john waters who did tours while being careful with the steps he took on stage as he was balancing pains of a kidney stone. its in madonna. its in elton john. it’s elton who said the moment you stop touring, your whole world stops.

it’s ever so rare you get to look into the window of life of your favorite giants. in man, in monstrosity, in might, we get this enamored look into lenny’s life. i will take every chance i can get to look into the lives of those who made me. full stop.

5 Anatomy of a Fall (2023)

my letterboxd review sums it all up: i can’t believe all of life is trembling and trudging towards finding someone to believe you. love comes after. and sometimes it doesn’t come at all.

4 All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022)

nan goldin has always been an artist that drew me to gay visuals. queer representation. no, it was not new episodes of glee on fox on thursday nights. it was these salacious pictures so full of freedom, so full of self-identity. so much pride. so little prejudice.

though, i actually never knew much about her, this documentary sheds light on a life that endured so much. so much pain, so much beauty, and at the heart of it all, this battle against big pharma.

so rare do minorities ever win. but here, we win. nan wins. she shook the art world when she first entered it. and shook it again with her stance against the sackler family.

3 Poor Things (2023)

yorgos once again exhibits the limitless possibilities of his imaginative worlds. from camera work to set design to personages, it is his world and we are living in it. it’s about the treacherous traps we are born into, the body, but for the female body, even more so. the film is a literal depiction of girlhood. if you feel uncomfortable, that’s obviously a you problem. a you problem because you’re not looking at the world for what it is, what it has always been: a patriarchal habitat for incels and man-children. wars come from men. children die because boys will always be boys. and poor poor bella realizes that through emma’s charming, crude, yet tender performance.

2 Monster (2023)

at first you point fingers. it starts with one. then the whole hand. then you wonder if the monster is you. if it takes shape in one person. if it’s actually many monsters, in all of us. in the slow burn unwinding, it actually becomes something more. about friendship. about love. broke me to pieces. i apologized to my mom. i apologized to my friends. but i don’t think i’ve said enough sorries to save me from all the hurt i’ve done in all the loving i’ve made.

1 Cyclo (1995)

this one’s personal. it is always so hard to relay the immense hurt of the vietnamese experience. everyone always talks about the strength and endurance my people went through, but they will never understand the pain. the war. the gashes and deep cuts america has left on the country. but it happened before that. korea hurt vietnam. the french hurt vietnam. china hurt vietnam. and it’s through these constant wars that the rivers have always run with blood. jungle grows wild because the soil is rich with blood, hungry of it.

this is pure poetry. meditative. you sink into it. scenes. sounds. it strikes you in parts of the heart i didn’t know existed. generations recall. my ancestors call out. they know my name. i am heard. and i feel them run through my veins, run through my blood.

trần anh hùng captures the very spirit of the vietnamese experience, the ways some of my relatives still live in the outskirts of saigon, through this story of an 18 year old boy making ends meet to provide for his family while also involved in gang violence.

it’s corny to say my own tears baptized me, but i came out of the film so proud to call myself vietnamese, to lay claim where i’ve been so ashamed to be, in my very self, in my own blood.

for the tl:dr, here is the letterboxd line up!

as always,

be well

do good work

keep in touch.

<3

n