Top 10 Best and Worst Films of 2023

2023 has come and gone, and what a year it was. I finally got Pipe Vortex finished and released to YouTube. I'm a short story writer for Reedsy Prompts. One of my cousins welcomed a new member to the family. My sister had her wigging this Thanksgiving. Some cousins got married. The AggRetsuko article series came to an end. And while there was the justifiable strikes in Hollywood and Warner Bros getting everyone's blood boiling time and time again, it was a pretty decent year.

We certainly got some interesting movies with how 2023 will be defined by many things. The year where Cocaine Bear became such a meme. The Barbenheimer year. The year where there were a lot of great animated films, and Velma, which was not so great. I certainly saw a lot of good movies and also a tad bit of some bad ones that came out. The worst list is first up to bat so we can end things on a high note.

As always, I haven't seen every film of the year, even with the catchup. Horror movies of the supernatural kind are not going to be here, as expected (with one exception). I also ran into some trouble with Netflix and Peacock to where they don't work on my TV well, so I had to watch some movies later than when they came out.

Now I noticed a lot of Worst Movies lists this year put Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey at number 1; however, I didn't see it because I grew up on Disney's Winnie the Pooh and I knew that watching that would be a boring evisceration of the iconic character. On top of that, I don't cover horror movies that often, but the ones I did see are on their corresponding list.

Expendables 4 also isn't on here and neither is the Little Mermaid remake or Peter Pan & Wendy after I learned my lesson with straight to Disney+ live action remakes. I was going to add Wish to this article, but with how I wrote up most of this ahead of time and how it was purchase only instead of rental at the time of writing, I had no choice but to skip watching it for this article.

So let's get into it with all that preamble out of the way.

Dishonorable #15: Trolls Band Together (7/10):

Seemed pretty foregone there would be a movie that touches on Justin Timberlake's boy band roots. I appreciate there's 2D scenes in this (by Titmouse) and the scrapbook aesthetic is still strong, but the dialogue seemed like they're hammering in the plot constantly like you didn't absorb it the first two times. The stakes seem nonexistent with the formula of meeting new characters at a new location and musical number per scene when someone's life is on the line, and not giving the new characters much intrigue or development when introduced. Yes, it's a kids movie, but the dialogue comes off like it's treating kids like they're stupid and only bad kids movies do that.

The villains look pretty cool and made Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) sound and look really cool though. I'm also glad they got NSYNC back together, even if it was for the end of the movie.

Dishonorable #14: Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (7/10):

I knew that when this movie would drop that it would be pretty inconsequential with this having been almost finished when the DCEU ended in complete catastrophe, shooting down every project that it was going to do and then making movies prior mean nothing in the process (more on that further down the article).

Now, it's seems pretty unfair to put this on the worst list simply because it's non-canon, but it has other problems such as a mediocre story, villains that are extremely weak compared to the previous movie, and having subplots that don't really have much impact as far as concept and execution.

That being said, the visuals are still the strongest of the film and it ended much more gracefully than the actual ending this franchise has. Just an unfortunate movie that was shot dead in the water by circumstances that can't really be controlled.

Dishonorable #13: The Equalizer 3 (7/10):

You know you're in trouble when the movie takes too long to get to the action. Now, I wasn't expecting much since I only ever saw the second Equalizer weeks prior to going to the theater for this movie. The weird thing about this movie is just how it felt like Denzel's character didn't really seem to do much other than get hurt and hang around a town that he's staying in for the sake of his health. Then he gets wrapped up in a plot involving a town-wide protection racket from a biker gang. It felt like a major downgrade from the plot of the second film with how he does nothing but just drink tea and when the action does come up, while it is exciting, it doesn't really seem to have much impact with how the main character is injured and so that flaw feels like an afterthought when he mows down bad the guys. Even the final fight with the main villain and his henchmen doesn't seem to give Denzel's character much challenge outside of some scratches and seemed more like a looming specter of death than someone who wants to throw hands compared to the previous movie. Just seemed like a side adventure rather than like a final installment, which was disappointing to say the least.

Dishonorable #12: Five Nights at Freddy's (6/10):

I was looking forward to this movie, even though my experience with the franchise that this is based on is surface level and not really based on background details within the games like lore or Easter eggs. I knew I had to take my friend and cousins to this movie with how much fun it was going to be around Halloween and I even took a Foxy plushie with me to the theater. In the Dolby screening, there was a loud crowd of teenagers that were talking and yelling loudly and I walked out with a few takeaways from the experience.

First of all, I will say that the movie was really fun in terms of the over-the-top kill scenes and also how faithful the animatronics looked and moved thanks to Jim Henson's Creature Shop. They looked really terrifying and cool. They used remote control animatronics and people in suits for those. I also appreciated the Easter eggs like having MatPat and a fan song in the movie.

However, while it was pretty faithful to the source material in some parts, the biggest problem with the movie was that it was a horror movie that wasn't scary in the slightest. On the contrary, I was laughing at the kill scenes. There was one time I flinched in the movie, but that was more from being caught off-guard. It's not a good sign if a horror movie fails to be scary or unnerving at all.

Another thing is that a lot of the time, the movie wasn't even about animatronics killing people. It's on many different things at once such as a guy wanting to solve who kidnapped his younger brother using sleeping pills while also trying to get a job to keep him and his sister afloat; the guy wanting to keep his aunt from taking custody over his sister; and the guy could tap into the spirits of dead kids using sleeping pills that took him to the same dream every night somehow. Basically, there was a lot of downtime with these characters in between the scenes with the animatronics to where they were like guest stars in their own movie.

Despite the negative reception around the movie, this did really well at the box office to where there's going to be sequels, and honestly, I'm excited to see where this goes, but hopefully, the story of the sequels is better than this.

Dishonorable #11: Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (6/10):

One of the biggest hot takes I've ever had. Now, don't get me wrong. The action was indeed thrilling, with one of the craziest stunts Tom Cruise has ever done, and the rise of AI being involved in stuff like art especially is scary. It's just that the movie was pretty disappointing as far as the story's execution.

AI as a super weapon that everyone wants to take control of is an interesting and terrifying concept. As a result, once the AI starts taking over stuff, the characters have to use tech that's not as high-tech as what I've come to expect from these movies, which can allow for being creative with some scenes. The problem is that it made the villain that's in cahoots with the sentient AI of this movie come off as precognitive or even nigh-omniscient rather than cunning and slippery. He makes moves that he follows to the letter like he was led by this AI that he works for like it's his god. As a result, action sequences go a certain way that seems like it's following the blueprint of the villain's plans, and this being a two-part movie plot didn't help matters. The opening sequence that showed clips of the movie within also didn't help with spoiling the action to come either.

That being said, Part 2 is probably going to be epic, but I do worry about that leading to the problem of "writing themselves into a corner" considering how AI as a threat in a movie that relies of high tech can make things get hairy. Maybe they'll fix the villain problem within Part 2, but we'll see I guess.

With the dishonorable mentions taken care of, let's get into them.

Worst #10: Cocaine Bear (5/10):

This is very much a meme at this point with how crazy this turned out to be, even with the trailer making that pretty clear. The stuff related to the true story behind the title bear is pretty vague enough to where you don't really know the full story other than that a bear got into some coke and died from an overdose. That bear was preserved and is in a Kentucky mall.

Admittedly, this movie is in that camp of "so bad it's funny" to me. The kill scenes I thought were pretty funny with how outlandish they were. The rest of the film was filled with boring scenes with characters that were just there to be fodder for the entertaining parts of the movie.

It is worth noting that this was Ray Liotta's posthumous role and the fact his character gets killed during the climax when he passed before the release of this is kind of chilling.

Worst #9: Haunted Mansion (5/10):

I really wanted to like this movie with how silly it was, but while it wasn't scary, it was pretty dull. Yeah, the performances were really good, but Jared Leto as the villain gave me the vibes of Morbius and Venom, and not in a good way. Considering how much I praise the Venom movies and yet despise the Morbius movie, that really says a lot.

Much like with Five Nights at Freddy's, I didn't think the movie was scary, but unlike that movie, I wasn't laughing much when it came to the scares that did show up in this. I also wasn't laughing much at the humor either. It had some moments that seemed to be there to drag out the runtime, whether that be a joke or extra plot developments. The plot developments in particular had a few plot holes when it came to the climax.

I've seen the original Haunted Mansion a long time ago, and that was more entertaining than this. At least it didn't have obvious product placement like, ahem, Burger King.

Worst #8: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (5/10):

Another inconsequential prequel that is full of contradictory stuff for the main 2007 movie storyline and so stakes in the movie are nonexistent when you know most of the characters are not going to get much of a scratch.

This movie may be slightly better than Bumblebee, with cool allies and enemies for the main Autobots, but it's still from the same prequel timeline that's full of details that seem like they should come up in the confusing timeline of these Michael Bay Transformers. Then again, the Michael Bay Transformers had a timeline that was prone to retcons and details that come up in flashbacks if they're relevant to the movie they come up in. I shouldn't be surprised to see retcons coming up in these movies at this point.

Weirdly enough, they teased a crossover with GI Joe at the end, so I'm not sure where that's going to go. We'll just have to wait and see I guess.

Worst #7: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (5/10):

I heard a lot of bad things about this one with how it was made during COVID times, doesn't have Spielberg in the director's chair and instead has the director of Logan and Ford v. Ferrari involved, Harrison Ford can't really do many stunts at his age, and how it seemed to be significantly worse than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I personally have only ever seen the first movie when I was a kid, and a piece of Last Crusade a couple months back randomly on Pluto TV, but even then, I noticed that it genuinely didn't feel like it had any of the charm that those films and others inspired by the franchise. I still got roped into watching it all the same and it was quite a mess.

It was filled with unbelievable moments with characters just knowing stuff suddenly, making very poor decisions, and a lot of scenes that seemed to occur just to make this movie as long as it is and so have no impact on the stuff that is important to the plot. The epitome is how a character notes that they don't know how to swim and then several scenes later, not only learns how to swim quickly, but well enough to catch up to all involved. Then there was a scene where that same character hot-wires a plane and suddenly is an expert at piloting when they don't even know how to pilot a plane. Part of the movie is full of stupidity, the other part is just boring and predictable even for a movie that incorporates time travel somehow.

I know the previous movie in the franchise has aliens involved, but time travel seems a tad bit much, especially when it seems like they went with the most basic story on time travel MacGuffins where the villains use that specifically to try to skew the past in favor of their side of a war. On the note of the villains, they were pretty bland and had moments of showing up at convenient times that seems like lazy writing at times.

The way that it ended just seemed like they didn't know what else to say about it and just let the franchise go out with a whimper. I don't have much else to say with how I was initially going to avoid this movie, but when I got roped into a movie night with this involved, what can I do? Say no?

Worst #6: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (5/10):

A movie that felt like a Star Wars movie with the many different alien races, the evil Empire vs. rebellion plot, faceless minions that have terrible aim, and even a Darth Vader type that gets a heroic sacrifice by the end of it in the form of the MCU's take on MODOK.

Despite being set up for another one of the Avengers' biggest villains, Kang the Conqueror and his many alternate universe counterparts, the pacing and humor being awkward and slowing up progression of the movie's plot are what bogs this one down. Not to mention that the movie seemed like it was driven by characters being dumbed down to where they're basically bound to the plot and so have to make a bunch of bad decisions in order to either drive the plot along or cause a comedic moment. The CG in this movie seemed pretty weird to me, reminding me of Sharkboy and Lavagirl a little at points.

The movie got a particularly low score with how Johnathan Majors, the one who's been set up to play the next big threat for the Avengers to tend to, having been fired from Marvel for getting into trouble for assault and harassment, and considering the plans for Kang Dynasty for MCU with how Majors was supposed to be the face of the character in this movie and Loki (which I haven't seen yet), that means Marvel's going to be in a real jam with trying to find a replacement story arc if that's getting canned. It also renders the stuff that occurs in this movie totally pointless.

Worst #5: Meg 2: The Trench (4/10):

I was really hoping for this movie to be fun, but it really wasn't. The first movie certainly was fun like it was one of those Sharknado movies, but then this movie became like the sequels that amped up the campiness and wasn't fun.

It tried to copy multiple movies at once such as Jurassic Park, James Bond, Godzilla, and Jaws, but didn't understand how those movies worked all that much. The villains were really weak to where they just end up killing themselves by the end of the day. Their only purpose was to justify getting killer sharks set loose into the world by throwing in a subplot that boils down to "corporate greed causes environmental damage". It doesn't help that the heroes were dumbed down to where they had a lot of scenes of some or all of them getting captured and escaping from the villains by doing things that would've been helpful before they got captured.

I did also learn that these are inaccurate to the book series that they're based on, and with how well the movie did at the box office, we'll be expecting as many sequels as there are shark movies on SyFy like Sharktopus and Sharknado.

Worst #4: To Catch a Killer (3/10):

I had no expectations when watching this movie a day before Halloween. There were some fine performances, but the script made this thriller not very exciting. It had similar problems as Meg 2 with characters making bad decisions and doing stuff that they didn't do sooner, especially towards the third act with how it drags out the ending.

I don't have much else to say other than it was forgettable, generic, and was a thriller that failed to be exciting.

Worst #3: The Marvels (3/10):

I wanted to give this movie a chance with how much bad buzz this has been getting and didn't make bank at the box office for a Marvel movie. I even watched all of Ms. Marvel to see if I can keep up with the movie. You know it's going to be bad when the first action sequence is so clunky with its switcharoo gimmick that it's hard to follow. Then the bit with the planet of singing seemed really weird, even for Marvel, and then became annoying and out of place.

Now don't get me wrong, the chemistry between the leads is decent. It's just that it's overshadowed by a pretty poor script, which is par for the course with these post-Endgame films for Marvel. The writing seemed a bit weak as far as explaining stuff around the characters' powers. The heroes make a ton of mistakes that make them seem dumber. The villain seemed about as weak as a lot of the villains that the MCU has made that aren't Thanos or Loki. The dialogue seemed pretty clunky at points. There's moments where the movie slows down for humor when there's like a space station that's on fire and people need to leave. Finally, when the movie isn't annoying or being contradictory to what was established in Captain Marvel and Ms. Marvel, it's just plain boring. It seemed like it had nothing new to add other than have the inevitable team-up and a plug to introducing the X-Men to the MCU.

I think it's safe to say that Disney had a pretty rough 100th anniversary when two thirds of the Marvel movies did badly at the box office alongside most of Disney's movies in the year doing terribly (and yet Warner Bros did worse). Marvel seemed to have learned their lesson on how less is more with how there's going to be one movie this year, which is Deadpool and Wolverine. I can't wait to see how that turns out.

Worst #2: Shazam! Fury of the Gods (3/10):

Now I have a soft spot for the first Shazam film and also mythology in general. I really was looking forward to the sequel because of how the trailer had a dragon and Greek myth involved, but when it comes down to the movie itself, it's pretty mediocre.

The title alone makes it seem like the gods are wanting the return of the powers that were stolen and imbued into the Shazam family. However, it's really on a few gods that are daughters of the Titan Atlas, which between how Atlas' power is canonically within Shazam, the names of the daughters themselves and also their plot involving the Golden Apples of the Garden of the Hesperides seems somewhat spot on with the research. I also really liked that the dragon is based on the guardian of the golden apples, Ladon, as well, and they incorporate some Greek monsters in there like Minotaur and harpies, but that's where my praises for the film ends.

The film seems like a major downgrade from the first film in that the Shazam family don't really do much of anything together and the main guy does all the heavy lifting whereas everyone else either loses powers or get taken down rather easily when everyone has like 1/6 of the original Shazam's power divided amongst them. It isn't to say the characters are just doing nothing without their powers cause they still do stuff to help out, it's just pretty disappointing when the trailer promised something like that with how the first film ends with Shazam sharing his powers with his foster siblings, only for them to lose it all within this movie.

The humor seems like it drags out the pacing of the scenes they come up in, but does point to another problem with the film, which is that the reason that the characterization of Billy and his alter ego worked in the first film is why it doesn't really work in this film. I feel for the first film it works with how Billy was immature and he's not really pure of heart enough to be worthy of the power, and when he gets it, it's pretty much how one would react to getting powers, but with this film, he and his siblings have had the powers for a couple years and so there's not much growth that's happened within the time skip.

So the film was pretty disappointing and on top of that, The Flash is just going to reboot the film franchise from the ground up, so it's disappointing and not even worth the time to get invested in when it's just going to be erased from existence courtesy of the Flashpoint reset button.

Worst #1: The Flash (2/10):

Speaking of The Flash, we all knew this movie was going to be surrounded in controversy. I'm not gonna turn this into a rant about Warner Bros Discovery and their ever-growing mountain of bad decisions that is burning money and good will in filmmakers and even people in Congress. We've heard it all with how they've cancelled films time and time again to keep from hemorrhaging money even further. However, they should've known what price was going to be paid for not cancelling this movie.

It's pretty much common knowledge that with how the DC live action films are under new management by James Gunn and the DCEU is dead at this point, they would need a way to reboot the franchise. DC Comics have a reset button of their own through their Crisis Event storylines, which essentially wipe out alternate universes and just reset everything from the ground up. One of their biggest Crisis Event storylines is Flashpoint, involving Barry Allen using his powers to time travel to the past to save his mother from a tragic death, but in doing so, creates an alternate timeline where everything is significantly different and also at risk of an apocalypse occurring to the planet. Barry undoes the mistake by time traveling to undo him trying to fix things, and the timeline is restored, but is not quite the same.

This seemed like a movie that could've been interesting, even though there's an animated Flashpoint movie that came out a decade ago and was really good. It also seemed like Warner Bros was counting on this movie alone to make bank after the merger resulted in them canceling movies like Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme to save money. So what went wrong with this? Pretty much the reasons why this movie failed big time at the box office.

Warner Bros didn't cancel this movie because it was a necessary reset button for the franchise. It wasn't cancelled despite Ezra Miller being the face of the movie and all the controversies surrounding them that would get this movie shelved for tarnishing the brand name. It wasn't cancelled when the effects looked particularly unfinished that it made something like Sharknado look like Avengers Endgame. It wasn't cancelled when it had very troubled production in terms of reshoots due to the change in direction to where the twist ending was kept secret until the movie's release and also character arcs feeling like they were stopped abruptly before they could get momentum. And it certainly wasn't canceled despite the usage of CG to recreate the likeness of deceased actors, which felt especially heinous.

Guess what? Warner Bros didn't cancel and they paid dearly for it with how this movie failed big time at the box office from the likes of Across the Spider-Verse and Elemental being significantly better choices to see at the theater, the controversies behind the actor and the special effects, and how overhyped it was, among other reasons.

This movie was a long time coming for evisceration because of what Miller had done. Words can't describe how monumental of a mistake this was for Warner Bros. They had many reasons to not go through with this and they chose not to anyway, thinking it was their true last hope to pay off the colossal merger debt. It was also bad because DC made a Flashpoint movie a decade ago that was way better at adapting the story and it was animated!

Needless to say, all things considered, The Flash easily took the worst movie of the year. I really hope James Gunn's DC Universe turns out really well cause DC deserves so much better than this.

With that out of the way, on to the best this year had to offer:

Honorable #18: Leo (7.5/10):

An animated Netflix original starring Adam Sandler that's actually good. While I haven't seen Uncut Gems, I've heard good things about it.

Ever since seeing Hubie Halloween, I'm pretty jaded when it comes to Netflix originals with Adam Sandler, and Eight Crazy Nights being an Adam Sandler animated musical film that is not good either doesn't help matters.

To my surprise, this actually turned out alright. I found the songs to be alright, you got to know all the kid characters that were taught life lessons by the title character, and the story was genuinely heartfelt. Just combined with the fierce competition with the other animated films of the year, and the sign of the time period within the movie's setting that could date the movie potentially, the best it can get is being pretty low on the best list and being crowned the Best Adam Sandler Netflix film, which has sway in keeping it off the worst list by a long shot.

Honorable #17: Air (8/10):

A very interesting look into the origins of the Air Jordans that's pretty well-crafted as far as cinematography, acting, and looking into the life of Michael Jordan.

Honorable #16: Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken (8/10):

I didn't hate this one compared to other people who made worst movie lists for this year. It's a shame it didn't do well at the box office because I thought it was cool that it was like Turning Red but with sea monsters cause that meant seeing some exciting giant monster battles in the water, and if sequels did get made, it would expand on the lore it had.

Honorable #15: The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (8/10):

Despite my issues with prequels, and how I felt about the Mockingjay films, this was a pretty good look at the origins of the villainous President Snow in terms of his impact on the Hunger Games and how his environment shaped him from someone who had compassion for the tribute he was mentoring into the man we all loved to hate, let's be honest. Although a lot of the movie was spent on making you like him to where the third act kind of rushes into him becoming the villain like "don't forget that he's still a villain so let's circle back to how he got that way".

Still a pretty great entry for the franchise all the same, so check this out if you're a fan of Hunger Games.

Honorable #14: Blue Beetle (8/10):

The most exciting DCEU movie of this year that didn't disappoint on expectations, but also failed at the box office, becoming the lowest-grossing DCEU film.

I really liked the characters, humor, visuals, and heart a lot more than Shazam: Fury of the Gods. I just hope they move this movie to the DCU by James Gunn with how well it could work within that timeline compared to being in the DCEU which is, again, declared dead as of this year.

Honorable #13: Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham (8/10):

I haven't had much experience with direct-to-video animated Batman or DC movies beyond Flashpoint, Under the Red Hood, and Gotham by Gaslight. This came out within this year and was based on a comic written by the creator of HellBoy. It definitely delivered on the signature style of a story made by the creator of HellBoy with how it involved Lovecraftian monsters, fantastical elements in a grounded setting, and horror elements that were actually scary.

Honorable #12: Oppenheimer (9/10):

A very interesting movie done by Christopher Nolan, but I don't know the details behind the true story, so I don't know if it's accurate or not.

Honorable #11: Gran Turismo (9/10):

A really cool, inspirational movie that's also based on a true story. It was a great movie to see in the Dolby theater to make you feel like you're right there with the characters throughout all the driving and racing scenes. It's an interesting video game movie in that it's not trying to be a movie that tells the story of the video game, but of a racer who was inspired by the video game franchise itself. That's what makes it stand out from other video game movies.

Give this movie a watch when you can because it can make you feel inspired to follow your dreams.

With all those honorable mentions out of the way, let's get into the top 10 of the year.

Best #10: Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (9/10):

I've got a cursory knowledge of Dungeons & Dragons to know at least some creatures and races, but even if you've got cursory knowledge, know nothing about this, or are a fan of this RPG, you'll really have a great time watching this movie.

The characters were fun, the action was pretty great, it's got a lot of emotional heart, and the production design was very phenomenal. Made for a great experience in the Dolby Atmos.

Best #9: Wonka (9.5/10):

A prequel that put a smile on my face throughout with catchy songs, likable characters, and wasn't afraid to touch on some dark stuff. I'm pretty weird with prequels typically with how the characters would've turned out fine by the end of it no matter how big the stakes would've been. You can put characters through the absolute wringer but you know nothing truly awful will happen to them knowing they will survive it somehow. However, I thought it was really engaging despite that and I was genuinely surprised by how well Timothee Chalamet did with his performance as the title character.

It really makes you want to watch it with candy or something sweet. That's for sure.

Best #8: Elemental (9.5/10):

A very surprising Pixar movie that I was worried would turn out to be a box office bomb, but actually did really well when that wretched Flash crashed and burned horribly.

I had no expectations going in and thought the movie was going to be like Zootopia but with the four elements of water, earth, fire, and air. I was blown away when watching this in the Dolby with just how beautiful the movie was visually and emotionally. I may have had bad experiences with watching movies that focus on romance, but this was probably the best romance movie I had seen in a long time.

I couldn't give this a 10 mostly for the same reasons as Blue Beetle and Turning Red in that the characters are based on people of different ethnicities. I don't have a say in how well those characters are written. As it stands, give this movie a watch, you won't be disappointed.

Here are all of the 10s of this year:

Best #7: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem:

The coolest-looking TMNT movie that pulls off its own Spider-Verse-like visuals really well. I really liked this iteration of the turtles and all the other characters that were introduced.

Best #6: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3:

This was a great conclusion to this version of the titular team with how a good chunk of the team got closure to their character arcs, even when the focal point of the plot was on Rocket Raccoon and it touches on stuff that was mentioned in the Christmas Special on Disney+. It fits the characters would have something like this with how director James Gunn is moving on from Marvel to DC to help revamp their film series, and so the characters would be put on the back burner for the MCU as a result.

Best #5: The Super Mario Bros. Movie:

I know a little bit about the Mario games based on stuff I've seen online, and playing a bit of the games on Nintendo DS and Switch, but it was definitely the best Illumination movie by a long shot and was on a movie that's not even their own property. I'm excited for the sequels to come from this.

Best #4: John Wick: Chapter 4:

A movie that seems like a proper conclusion to the title character who's got enemies everywhere he turns, while making it a very exciting conclusion full of clever fight scenes and many familiar faces in the mix.

The passing of Lance Reddick before the movie's release in theaters was certainly a gut punch that no one expected out of this, and so the passing of his character in the film made it hurt so much more with. Lance Reddick helped make this movie series what it is, and so we salute him for his hard work.

Even though the series is on a break rather than a conclusion with word going around about a potential fifth John Wick film, the film concluded the series pretty well for what it's worth.

Best #3: Barbie:

Growing up with some Barbie dolls, I had a feeling this movie would be fun, and it delivered on what I was going to expect from this movie and then some. It was genuinely really funny and emotional. It seemed like a big advertisement for the brand at points, but was also a celebration of the brand with how iconic it was.

Best #2: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse:

Even when working on the completion and release of Pipe Vortex, I knew that this was the one movie I would drop everything for when it was released, and I was watchful of when the ticket pre-sales would open, knowing not only how the tickets for opening weekend would be nabbed really quickly, but also that I never saw the first movie on opening weekend. I was very lucky to have been part of the domestic preview screenings that occurred on my birthday that allowed this movie to make $17.35 million at the box office. Even did it in Dolby Cinema at AMC to get that overstimulated feeling I felt from the previous film.

A movie like Into the Spider-Verse is like top-tier perfection, and it set the bar for other movies to strive for that kind of visual flare. Naturally, a sequel would be expected and yet seems like it would be hard to not only pull off in terms of upping the ante, like with any sequel, but to pull off and actually make it work with how sequels tend to be hit or miss in their execution. It's especially Herculean to do a sequel to what I described as top-tier perfection and actually make it work even when it seems natural for the Spider-Verse film series.

Needless to say, Across the Spider-Verse stood up to the challenge... And it didn't just knock it out of the park; it shot right through to the moon and then some.

It's been commonly described as like The Empire Strikes Back or The Dark Knight as far as great second installment sequels, but it's akin to those and Avengers: Infinity War with the sheer number of details, story, and scale they show and setup in the 2 hours and 20 minutes that go by so quickly and yet by the end, it's still so big of a story that it wouldn't be resolved so easily within that runtime. It still came with the surprise and frustration of having to wait another whole year for the conclusion that came with Infinity War especially when when the credits were about to roll and someone in my screening yelled, "that sucks!" Considering how big the sequel story is supposed to be, that's the point, and it still works at invoking that feeling, which goes to show how effective these movies are.

The movie certainly upped the ante in having a ton of care for the visuals of the different universes, callbacks to various Spider-Man media such as The Spectacular Spider-Man, the MCU and the Venom movies, and having a villain that, while having not been part of the original story, actually worked well within giving a threat that both feels fitting of the scope and very personal to the main character, Miles Morales.

One of the craziest things about the movie is just that the villain is played by Jason Schwartzman, who played the main guy of Klaus. I find it very meaningful that for the second film, they got him to play the villain because of how I have noted and will still defend the first Spider-Verse and Klaus were the two greatest animated films of the 2010s. Just seems like a genius move on casting to pit Miles against essentially Jesper of Klaus, and I respect that.

On that note, been talking about the cool details, but I'm sure you want my input on how this film excels as far as progression to the character arc of Miles Morales, and also touches on Gwen Stacy's character arc more. This is a movie that breaks down all the things that a Spider-Man goes through as far as "canon" like it's a destiny that's set in stone, and that any choice that causes it to stray from the path will result in catastrophe, almost like if you subvert a cliche of Spider-Man mythos that it's no longer recognizable, or how one choice can result in catastrophe. However, some stories like Miles and Gwen are meant to subvert so they're not the exact same as Peter Parker. Gwen was a girlfriend of Peter Parker in the older comics with the famous Death of Gwen Stacy story, and in later years, alternate universe stories of her becoming Spider-Gwen or Ghost-Spider came up as a subversion of white male superheroes. Miles is the first black Spider-Man and the second Latino Spider-Man after Miguel O'Hara/Spider-Man 2099 (or as I called him in the movie, Spider-Man Beyond, considering how I'm obsessed with Batman Beyond). Miles took the mantle when his universe's Spider-Man died in comics, while Miguel is from the future, having taken the mantle by having undergone genetic splicing from the same company, Alchemax, that shows up as antagonists in these movies.

The movie is a friendly reminder that unforeseen circumstances will happen to people but what matters is how you choose to go about the hand you're dealt. It also shows that nothing is set in stone, especially in comics where stuff like retcons and variations are commonplace.

I was expecting this movie to be number 1 and not be dethroned by any other movie like it, but unfortunately, this movie had some troubled production behind it in relation to how a bunch of artists and animators behind it were subjected to crunch time in order to get this movie made before the June 2023 release window, and the ending of this was finished about a solid few weeks before the release in theaters. It was certainly rushed when not only that happened, but at the domestic preview screening on my birthday, the sound of the dialogue was very muffled, almost like the people behind it didn't even do a test to make sure everything was in order before release. It got to the point it had to be pulled briefly to fix that, and when I saw it a second time months later, it sounded significantly better than the muffled mess I heard on my birthday.

I was even more appalled when the strikes happened and heard that an executive behind these movies told the artists and animators to "suck it up" when they voiced their concerns about not being able to make the release of the next movie, Beyond the Spider-Verse. To put it in perspective, the third movie hasn't gone past testing the visuals and were in the animatic stage I believe and, with the strikes that occurred at the time, delayed doing voiceover for a movie they were hoping to have out by March 2024. I'm hoping the Animation Guild strike addresses that issue cause, unsurprisingly, the movie was pulled from that 2024 release window to ensure the movie has all the time it needs to be top-tier perfection like the other movies and not subject people to crunch time. I really do hope they take all the time they need with Beyond the Spider-Verse cause those artists and animators deserved so much better than this.

Best #1: Nimona:

With all that said, the new number 1 is Nimona.

I really was interested in checking this one out with how it's ND Stevenson's magnum opus being adapted as a film on Netflix with the same directors as Spies in Disguise and was going to be the last Blue Sky Studios film before the merger between Disney and Fox made the studio close its doors for good. Luckily, Netflix and Annapurna were able to save this one from being shelved for good, and I'm glad they did that. I really wish the same for Coyote vs. Acme.

I really loved this movie with how unapologetically fun and queer this was from start to end. The visuals were really cool and they complement the story and world really well. It's very much a movie about understanding people who are different instead of being pushed back and demonized, especially when Disney tried to shelve this movie for its very heavy LGBTQ+ themes being a threat to social norms, but Netflix allowed it to be finished and released as it so rightfully deserved. Owl House ended pretty recently due to Disney feeling like the show didn't fit the brand because of the LGBTQ+ themes and characters within that. It was almost like they were scared of what would happen in society if they allowed not only this to be released as it should, but also if Owl House continued the story as the creators intended (instead of the ending they ended up with). We need more movies like this that have representation that's unapologetic and shouldn't be seen as an outlier amongst their contemporaries.

The movie shows the relationship between Nimona and Ballister in terms of how Nimona is an allegory for transgender and nonbinary people interacting with Ballister who is cisgender. The first time Nimona shows their power to Ballister, it's like a cisgender person learning about nonbinary and transgender people for the first time. Their relationship grows as Ballister understands that Nimona's many forms they take on are just them and they has no true form. As someone who is asexual, transmasculine, and nonbinary myself, it's a really compelling and relatable dynamic the two have.

On that note, I have a history of seeing bad movies that have Chloe Grace Moretz involved somehow, but to my absolute shock, this was actually my favorite performance of all the characters in this movie. She encapsulated the pure anarchy and emotional depth of the character so beautifully, which paired really well with Riz Ahmed as Ballister who tries to be more logical in trying to clear his name of a murder. She deserved that Annie Award for her voice acting.

For having unapologetic LGBT representation, clever subversion of fairy tale formula, and making me want to check out the source material, Nimona easily deserved the 10 it got and the number 1 spot.

So what do you guys think of my list? What are your favorite or least favorite films of 2023? Comment below and let me know.