Film
Bottoms
Orion Pictures Inc.
Nobody in their orbit likes PJ and Josie, the “ugly, untalented gays” played by Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri. But to this viewer, their pairing is perfection. As best friends who start an all-girls fight club to land the crushes of their dreams, the actresses have a crackling rapport with a dynamic supporting cast to match. Sharp, silly and sadistic — this is a high school sex comedy that deserves to land among the ranks of classic forebears like Mean Girls. — Aisha Harris
Film
Fair Play
Sergej Radovic/Netflix
Chloe Domont’s feature debut is a delectably brutal melodrama about romantically involved colleagues at a cutthroat hedge fund company. The relationship sours when the woman gets a promotion over the guy and he becomes her direct report. His ego severely wounded, things begin to unravel at home and at the office. Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich give themselves over completely to the awkward and discomforting tensions that arise as the couple tries to navigate this sudden shift in power. — Aisha Harris
TV
Hijack
Apple TV+
Idris Elba finally gets the action-hero project he has always deserved in this thrilling and occasionally ludicrous miniseries. He plays Sam Nelson, a highly skilled corporate negotiator who deploys those skills when he finds himself trapped aboard a flight from Dubai to London overtaken by an eclectic band of hijackers. Their motives are (at first) unclear, and the tension rarely lets up. This is grab-your-popcorn, edge-of-your-seat entertainment at its most fun — a perfect binge. — Aisha Harris
Film
Killers of the Flower Moon
Apple TV+
Under a different artistic vision, the true story of the Osage murders would in all likelihood play like a white savior tale, a case solved by a “heroic” FBI investigation. Mercifully, this is not that. Instead, Martin Scorsese tackles a far more sinister version of the gangster movie, one that lays bare the insidiousness of capitalism fueled by racism. Every piece — the performances, editing, costuming, music — works at the highest level to craft an engrossing tale of greed and deceit. — Aisha Harris
Film
May December
Francois Duhamel/Netflix
A lurid, ripped-from-the-headlines premise told with melodramatic flair: An actress (Natalie Portman) prepares to play a homemaker (Julianne Moore) who gained notoriety decades earlier for raping an adolescent boy and later marrying him and raising a family with him (Charles Melton). Director Todd Haynes explores the art of “truth” and the truth of “art,” and how the pursuit of either can be a futile, if fascinating, exercise. — Aisha Harris
Film
Passages
MUBI
“I can be terribly self-involved.” So says German filmmaker Tomas (Franz Rogowski) in a rare moment of introspection. He’s a maddening combo of impulsiveness and indecision, someone who takes “follow your heart” too literally — he flits openly back and forth between his husband (Ben Whishaw) and new lover (Adèle Exarchopoulos) with little consideration for their feelings. Director Ira Sachs’ turbulent love triangle has an exasperating antihero at its center, yet it’s impossible not to be drawn in. — Aisha Harris
Film
Return to Seoul
Sony
In Cambodian French director Davy Chou’s melancholic drama, a young woman who was adopted by French parents as a baby attempts to contact her birth family in Seoul, South Korea. In real life, adoption narratives are hardly pat, so it’s fitting that this journey never leads to expected places. The steely protagonist, played by a devastating Park Ji-min, has an air of mystery about her that the film takes its time to break through. But when it does, you just might find yourself undone. — Aisha Harris
Film
Rye Lane
Chris Harris/Searchlight Pictures
Rom-coms are having a bit of a resurgence, but few recent outings can boast instant rewatchability cred like Raine Allen-Miller’s delightful British romp. David Jonsson and Vivian Oparah play a pair of 20-somethings who meet at a mutual friend’s art show and then spend the day wandering about South London, getting into some silly misadventures, tending to personal crises and falling for each other along the way. It’s the kind of movie where you smile all the way through. — Aisha Harris
Film
Talk to Me
A24
Australian twins and directors Danny and Michael Philippou’s debut contains some of the most memorable horror sequences in recent memory. A severed, embalmed hand connected to another realm captivates a group of teens, who host parties where they take turns holding onto it in order to experience a temporary demonic possession. The effects are a standout, but Sophie Wilde’s visceral performance as a girl still reeling from her mother’s suicide two years earlier is the most haunting aspect of it all. — Aisha Harris
Film
The Artifice Girl
Paper Street Pictures
2023 sure seemed like the year where AI panic reached a fever pitch, and writer-director Franklin Ritch’s under-the-radar sci-fi drama just happens to speak directly to the moment. Ritch stars as a visual effects artist turned vigilante who’s investigated by authorities after creating an exceptionally advanced AI girl to lure and catch child molesters. Deeply intellectual questions about superintelligence and free will unfold via an engrossing and well-crafted story. — Aisha Harris
Film
Kokomo City
Magnolia Pictures
There’s a lot of pain, grief and righteous rage in D. Smith’s searing documentary profiling four Black trans women sex workers (one of whom, Koko Da Doll, was tragically murdered this year). But there’s also some joy and liberation to be found in the assured and defiant sense of self that’s expressed in each individual; through their own words and cleareyed perspectives, they become more than just their work and traumas. — Aisha Harris
Film
American Fiction
Claire Folger/Orion Pictures
Cord Jefferson’s clever directorial debut is for the post-“racial reckoning” era. Jeffrey Wright (brilliant, per usual) plays a depressed, irritable author whose latest manuscript is rejected — that is, until he jokingly crafts a new story filled with the most stereotypical Black characters and dialogue he can conjure. He lands a six-figure deal and faces existential dread. But this is also an intimate family drama with great performances by Erika Alexander, Leslie Uggams and Sterling K. Brown. — Aisha Harris
Film
Anselm
Janus Films
In 2011, Wim Wenders made a 3D documentary about dancer Pina Bausch. International arts films don’t usually receive the 3D treatment, but the results were sublime. Now Wenders uses the format to immerse us in the rubble of postwar Germany and reveal the world from which acclaimed visual artist Anselm Kiefer’s monumental works were born. There are no talking heads or experts, but rather a lyrical dance between subject and filmmaker that manages to say so much, and through artworks and landscapes that glide before your eyes. — Bilal Qureshi
Film
Four Daughters
Jour2Fête
Technically it’s a documentary, but that fails to capture what Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania achieves in this portrait of radicalization. It’s the story of a grieving mother and her two daughters and the missing sisters they lost to the Islamic State, young women seduced by martyrdom. To tell the story, however, Ben Hania invites actresses to play the part of the missing daughters, blending fact and fiction. The result is a haunting exploration of loss, told entirely in women’s voices. — Bilal Qureshi
Film
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Lucasfilm Ltd.
Turning nostalgia and aging into its explicit subject is a clever conceit for this truly handsome revival. With all the khaki, leather and hat wear any sequel must possess, Dial of Destiny restores the electric vibrance of the Indiana Jones franchise via a winning Phoebe Waller-Bridge and many widescreen set pieces. Unlike with the last attempted reboot, director James Mangold restores the old-school sexiness and delivers a film that’s adventurous, wanderlust-inducing and a heartfelt farewell. — Bilal Qureshi
Film
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One
Christian Black/Paramount Pictures and Skydance
Once again, the stunts are superlative and spectacular, but sometimes this incessant franchise feels redundant in theory. But the magic of the Mission Impossible films is simply undeniable, powered by extraordinary locations, smart writing and one Mr. Tom Cruise. It’s kinetic, dazzling and joyfully unhinged, with practical effects that render each crunch and punch palpable. This sequel was overshadowed by Barbenheimer, but we IMAX audiences were served with a dangling train finale for the ages. — Bilal Qureshi
Film
Origin
Neon
Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste is a nonfiction work of social science and reportage. In adaptation, it suggests a documentary, but in director Ava DuVernay’s masterful reimagining, the quest to understand the origins of our hatreds becomes a deeply moving narrative of a wife, daughter and searcher. DuVernay transforms Wilkerson’s travels to India, Germany and the American South into pure cinematic poetry. Lost in libraries and lived pain, Origin is a cathartic quest and DuVernay’s masterpiece. — Bilal Qureshi
Film
Showing Up
A24
Kelly Reichardt has been collaborating with Michelle Williams for years, and their films are cult classics in indie circles. In Showing Up, they take on the subject of making art itself. What sounds meta and abstract is instead one of Reichardt’s funniest and most accessible works. Williams is a staffer at an art school, struggling to find slivers of time to make her sculptures and navigate creative frenemies. It’s the sharpest and most honest portrayal of creative life I’ve seen on-screen. — Bilal Qureshi
Film
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Paramount Pictures
This reboot did not need to be so extraordinary, but here we are. With the film co-created by Seth Rogen and so stylishly animated, after some ghastly live-action editions, the Turtles, voiced by teenagers, have been restored to their original teenage goofiness. Ice Cube, Paul Rudd and Maya Rudolph are the villains, and the soundtrack blazes with ‘90s needle drops. It’s a fever dream of night fights and high-stakes adventures across New York City, a film that radiates charisma (and ooze) and is so very fun. — Bilal Qureshi
Film
Joy Ride
Ed Araquel/Lionsgate
Ashley Park has always been the glittering star of the Netflix series Emily in Paris, and with Joy Ride she finally gets a role that reflects all her comedic and dramatic gifts. On its surface, it’s an R-rated girls trip to Asia, with a genius foursome that includes Sabrina Wu, Sherry Cola and Stephanie Hsu. But alongside the hilarity and raunch, there is a deeply moving story of identity, race and friendship. To tie it together in a film so seamless, smart and savvy is no small feat and, indeed, always a joy. — Bilal Qureshi
Film
The Zone of Interest
A24
In what is the most chilling film about the Holocaust I’ve ever seen, Jonathan Glazer finds new film language to show the scale of Nazi Germany’s barbarism. He foregrounds the commanding officer who led Auschwitz, living his pastoral “best life” outside its gates with family. As they picnic, host dinners and garden in their villa, mass murder forms the muffled soundscape in the not-so-distance. It’s a visual and auditory triumph that imbues tragedy with a resonance and precision beyond words. — Bilal Qureshi
TV
Barry, Season 4
Merrick Morton/HBO
Just when you felt Bill Hader couldn’t push his black comedy about a hit man turned actor any further, he crafted a finale season so creatively bleak and uncompromising that it couldn’t have ended any other way. Curdled by the original sin of killing his acting teacher’s girlfriend, Hader’s Barry corrupts everything he touches, trying to kill a man he once idolized, reaching a final fate earned through blood and brutality. Hollywood’s fumbled retelling of Barry’s story is the final, ice-cold punchline. — Eric Deggans
TV
Beef
Andrew Cooper/Netflix
Describing the premise — two superstressed drivers let a road rage incident become a blood feud that upends their lives — doesn’t do justice to this series’ sprawling, category-busting tale. It’s a treatise on anger, sexism, racism, classicism, Asian family culture, modern capitalism and forgiveness, wrapped in an unpredictable plot and career-best performances by Steven Yeun, jangling like an exposed nerve, and Ali Wong, who plays damaged repression better than any other actress on the planet. — Eric Deggans
TV
Fargo, Season 5
Michelle Faye/FX
What unites five seasons of this off-kilter anthology — besides oblique references to the Coen brothers’ film — are crime stories on the dark, passive-aggressive underbelly of “Minnesota nice” people. Hence, the tale of Juno Temple’s suburban mom, Dot Lyon, fleeing abusive sheriff Roy Tillman, played by Jon Hamm as a deadly cross between a cult leader and a Midwestern Bull Connor. It’s a delicious combination of characters as combustible as a snowmobile towing a trailer full of kerosene. You betcha. — Eric Deggans
TV
Only Murders in the Building, Season 3
Patrick Harbron/Hulu
When it was obvious the third season would center on a musical with characters played by Paul Rudd and Meryl Streep, I had my shark-jumping metaphors ready. But Rudd’s gleeful performance as a jerk of a popular star and Streep’s take on a Broadway mediocrity given her first real stage role — some serious casting against type going on here — brought new shades out of a comedy about three true-crime podcasters (Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez) who were already the best team on TV. — Eric Deggans
TV
Reservation Dogs, Season 3
Shane Brown/FX
No shade on that high-profile film by the guys from Goodfellas and The Departed, but this TV series highlights the excellence and authenticity that come from giving Indigenous storytellers the agency to tell their own tales their own way. Mixing spiritualism and a streetwise pragmatism, this final season highlighted how youngsters coming of age on an Oklahoma reservation connected to the trauma of modern times, mentoring by their flawed elders and not-so-gentle nudging from the spirit world. — Eric Deggans
TV
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Season 2
Marni Grossman/CBS
Yes, it’s tough for Trek nerds to convince civilians a show they love is also great for everyone. But — you guys — this show is the one. Channeling the original Star Trek spirit into a story set years before the days of Kirk and Spock, this second season took huge swings that always paid off: an affecting musical episode (dancing, dubstepping Klingons!), a crossover with animated series Lower Decks and the debut of a young Scottish engineer, Montgomery Scott. Pure Trekkie heaven. You’re welcome. — Eric Deggans
TV
The Bear, Season 2
FX
After a blockbuster debut, two big questions remained for this raw story of a gourmet chef running his family’s greasy spoon: What will these characters do when the stakes rise? And how did Jeremy Allen White’s poor Carmy Berzatto get here in the first place? The show dove into those questions for a passionate, superlative second season, with ace backups like Jon Bernthal, Oliver Platt and the amazing Jamie Lee Curtis playing the relatives who helped make Carmy the conflicted jerk he is today. — Eric Deggans
TV
The Last of Us, Season 1
Liane Hentscher/HBO
Given how cinematic and story-packed modern video games are, it’s no surprise the best one — featuring a smuggler escorting a 14-year-old girl across a post-apocalyptic America — became one of 2023’s best TV series. Yes, Pedro Pascal was an off-the-charts zaddy as smuggler Joel, and Bella Ramsey gave a scarily precocious performance as Ellie. But it was the show’s penchant for compelling secondary characters with their own stories that avoided the predictability of so many zombie tales. — Eric Deggans
Film
Beau Is Afraid
A24
Director Ari Aster’s latest is a fever dream, a merciless compounding of anxiety, an extended study in dread. Sound fun? The plot: Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) tries to visit his mother. Ah, but what the film’s about is something else altogether: an endless series of discursive setbacks strung loosely along the same dire emotional through line. Beau Is Afraid is your nightmare brain working overtime — plus Patti LuPone viciously chewing her way through a corker of a monologue. What’s not to love/hate? — Glen Weldon
TV
Dungeons & Drag Queens
Kate Elliott/Dropout
Dimension 20 is a streaming series wherein viewers watch performers sit around a table and play Dungeons & Dragons. This summer, for a four-episode miniseries, the performers in question were drag queens new to D&D: Monét X Change, Jujubee, Alaska and Bob the Drag Queen. The Dungeon Master (read: host) was the network’s go-to DM, Brennan Lee Mulligan, who guided the queens, their big personalities and even bigger wigs through an adventure both hilarious and fabulous. — Glen Weldon
TV
Fellow Travelers
Ben Mark Holzberg/Showtime
Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey play two gay federal workers who fall in love in the 1950s at the height of Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s crusade against communists and “perverts” in government. The two leads deliver the best performances of their careers — Bomer as a swaggering jerk determined to stay in the closet and Bailey as a love-drunk idealist who wants to live honestly. The series brings in more perspectives than the novel it’s based on, to its credit, and features the hottest sex scenes on TV this year. — Glen Weldon
TV
Jury Duty
Freevee
The premise: Build a show around a guy who thinks he’s serving on a jury that’s being filmed for a documentary. The twist: Everyone except that guy is an actor, and the trial is fake. The flourish: Hire James Marsden to play himself as a jerk. The stakes: Geez, this risks coming off cruel, doesn’t it? The execution: Genius. Heartwarming. Life-affirming. The reason: The real guy in question turns out to be a sweetheart whose genuine niceness leaches into every aspect of the series. — Glen Weldon
Film
M3GAN
Geoffrey Short/Universal Pictures
Sure, this horror-comedy is made of leftover parts from many, many films that came before, such as Frankenstein, Chucky, Blade Runner, Magic and Ex Machina. But what M3GAN brings to the table (besides some amazing needle drops and an indelible cinematic monster whose Mary Janes were made for stompin’) is a deadpan comic sensibility. Beneath all those pulpy/campy/creepy/meme-able kills lies a story that plays into parental anxieties and our collective dread over the future of artificial intelligence. — Glen Weldon
TV
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur
Disney
A girl. Her inventions. Her roller skates. Her time-displaced Tyrannosaurus rex. And they fight crime on New York’s Lower East Side? That’s a show, right there. But, wait, there’s more: Add in a high-energy visual style, original songs by Raphael Saadiq and slyly inserted lessons on STEM? You got yourself a hugely appealing all-ages animated series that brings a tiny, out-of-the-way corner of the Marvel Universe to groovy, funky, dazzling life. — Glen Weldon
TV
Mrs. Davis
Sophie Kohler/Peacock
There’s no way the makers of the series Mrs. Davis could have foreseen the sharp net increase in communal anxiety over artificial intelligence we experienced this year, yet they created the perfect show to speak to these times. The great Betty Gilpin plays a feminist nun who’s locked in a pitched, world-hopping battle with a ubiquitous AI that seems to want the best for humanity. Mrs. Davis is deeply weird, vauntingly ambitious and surprisingly thoughtful about humans, machines, God, family, love and the marketing of sneakers. — Glen Weldon
Film
Poor Things
Atsushi Nishijima/Searchlight
Deadpan absurdist Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest film is the feminist/socialist fable it seems to be, and the lessons it imparts are the ones you’d expect. Bella (Emma Stone) is a Victorian woman who gets to start over, having freed herself from societal constraints. She throws herself into life with a lusty abandon and a keen intellect, flouting systemic repressiveness in all its forms. Director Lanthimos avoids didacticism by embracing a breathtaking visual style and trusts Stone to ground it in the real. (She does.) — Glen Weldon
TV
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off
Netflix
When fans of the Pilgrim comics and the 2010 film based on them heard that the cast of the film had reunited to make an animated series, we thought … yay? Not that we didn’t love the video game besotted tale of an airhead Torontonian clashing with his girlfriend’s evil exes, but rehashing it in 2023 seemed, uh, fraught. Thankfully, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off justifies its existence by shifting the focus to the aforementioned girlfriend, Ramona, and building out the world in clever and surprising ways. — Glen Weldon
Film
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
Dana Hawley/Lionsgate
Writer and director Kelly Fremon Craig masterfully adapted Judy Blume’s beloved 1970 novel and expanded the story without undermining it. Abby Ryder Fortson gives one of the finest performances from a young actor you’ll see this year as Margaret, and Rachel McAdams plays her mother, whose story arc is expanded and linked to Margaret’s more than in the novel. This film flew under the radar a bit, and it’s my dearest hope that families continue to discover its sharp observations and its huge heart. — Linda Holmes
Film
BS High
HBO
I was transfixed, occasionally amused and deeply appalled by this HBO documentary about a scam high school football program that made it all the way to a game on ESPN. It’s a story of exploitation and the problem with a sports media that sometimes asks too few questions. The “coach,” Roy Johnson, is so bold and unapologetic, so certain that he can talk his way out of anything, that you do sometimes have to laugh. But the focus on the players and families he fooled is always sharp. — Linda Holmes
Film
Past Lives
A24
This sensitive story from writer-director Celine Song follows Nora (Greta Lee), who leaves her home in Seoul, South Korea, as a young girl and eventually ends up in New York. As an adult, she’s visited by Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), a boy she was close to in Seoul and has stayed in touch with. This visit creates tricky questions in her marriage to Arthur (John Magaro), who loves her but knows there are things he does not and cannot share with her. All three principals are outstanding, and the ending is breathtaking. — Linda Holmes
TV
Platonic
Apple TV+
Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne play old friends who reconnect and start spending a lot of time together after his divorce. Not at all a “Can men and women be friends?” story, this is a very funny comedy that accepts their platonic relationship and just watches it play out against the backdrop of her adoring husband, a nighttime caper and my favorite scene of all time involving electric scooters. An often silly show that also has space for a few thorny emotional questions is always welcome. — Linda Holmes
TV
Poker Face
Phillip Caruso/Peacock
This throwback case-of-the-week show stars Natasha Lyonne in a role that capitalizes perfectly on her talents. She plays Charlie, who’s on the run from some trouble in Vegas and who finds a mystery in every town. Poker Face calls back most obviously to Columbo, complete with a cavalcade of guest stars: Judith Light, Lil Rel Howery, Hong Chau, Stephanie Hsu, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Adrien Brody all appear. The show is an absolute delight — writing this, I talked myself into a rewatch. — Linda Holmes
Film
Saltburn
MGM and Amazon Studios
Emerald Fennell’s rather polarizing thriller — her second, after Promising Young Woman — finds Oliver (Barry Keoghan) summering at the family estate of his wealthy new friend, Felix (Jacob Elordi). There are shades of The Talented Mr. Ripley in Oliver’s fixation on Felix, but Fennell has another level of weirdness up her sleeve. Gleefully loopy, unapologetically vulgar and buoyed by comic performances from Rosamund Pike and Carey Mulligan, Saltburn is both utterly bleak and thoroughly lively. — Linda Holmes
TV
Shrinking, Season 1
Apple TV+
Jason Segel plays Jimmy, a therapist whose wife has died, leaving him and his teenage daughter reeling. At work, his partners are Gaby (Jessica Williams) and Paul (Harrison Ford). Ford is more explosively funny in this show than he has been in perhaps years, and the chemistry among all three of the leads is divine. A gimmicky hook about Jimmy deciding to tell all his clients the naked truth doesn’t amount to much; this is just a good-hearted comedy about grief and the people you care about. — Linda Holmes
TV
Succession, Season 4
David M. Russell/HBO
It’s so difficult to bring the plane in for a landing on a show as celebrated and complicated as Succession. But they did it. Shaking up the Roy family’s world early in the season (a secret that was very effectively kept) led to sinister consequences for everybody. There was never going to be a happy ending, and there was never going to be a winner. There was always going to be the pain and misery all these people have brought upon themselves and richly deserve. It was quite a ride. — Linda Holmes
TV
The Diplomat, Season 1
Netflix
There should always be fun shows about intrigue and secret plans and lying. This is a fact. And this year, The Diplomat filled that role perfectly. Keri Russell plays a newly minted ambassador to the U.K. who is also a seasoned foreign service officer. She’s juggling a complicated international conflict and managing her (maybe no-good?) husband, who has done similar work. Part twisty political thriller, part procedural that examines the very fine points of diplomacy, it makes for a terrific binge. — Linda Holmes
Film
The Holdovers
Focus Features
Alexander Payne directed this big-hearted story about three people trapped at a boarding school over Christmas break: grumpy teacher Paul (Paul Giamatti), his frustrating student Angus (Dominic Sessa) and Mary (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who runs the dining hall. Is this a story about three messy people figuring out how to form a little family over the holidays? It is. But it’s also smart and generous to its characters, and these three performances are all absolutely stellar. — Linda Holmes
Film
The Taste of Things
IFC Films
A feast for the senses, Vietnamese-born French director Trần Anh Hùng’s 19th century French country idyll begins with a delectable, near-wordless kitchen sequence in which Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel prepare a mouthwatering banquet: from consommé to rack of veal to baked Alaska. Magimel hosts intimate dinners to showcase his recipes. Binoche is the artist who coaxes those recipes to life. They are quite evidently in love, as much with the food they prepare as with each other. Don’t watch on an empty stomach. — Bob Mondello
Film
A Thousand and One
Aaron Ricketts/Focus Features
A mom fresh out of prison — played with anxiety-tinged bravado by singer-songwriter turned actor Teyana Taylor — kidnaps her 6-year-old son from foster care in first-time writer-director A.V. Rockwell’s drama. With a gentrifying 1990s New York City as background, the film chronicles lives of love and subterfuge, building to a startling last-minute reveal that’ll have you rethinking every sacrifice the protagonist made. Character portraits don’t come sharper. — Bob Mondello
Film
Barbie
Warner Bros. Pictures
A buoyant, hot-pink popcorn movie with lots to say about both Mattel’s iconic doll and the society that has simultaneously embraced and ridiculed her, director Greta Gerwig’s giddy blockbuster is an inventive exercise in style, a peppy showcase for unhinged whimsy and an often-exhilarating feminist call to arms, all wrapped up in eye-popping production design. It’s also history-making, as the highest-grossing movie of 2023 and the biggest opening ever for a film directed by a woman. — Bob Mondello
Film
Close
Diaphana Films
In Belgian director Lukas Dhont’s wrenching tale of adolescent friendship, two 13-year-old boys spend their final middle-school summer acting out war stories, using each other as pillows while sunning in the grass and clowning around on sleepovers. Then a classmate’s casual question ruptures their closeness. There’s no overt bullying or homophobia, just internalized pressures on still-developing psyches. Tears flowed freely at the screening I attended. Were hardened critics able to stay dry-eyed? Not even close. — Bob Mondello
Film
Maestro
Jason McDonald/Netflix
Bradley Cooper’s sophomore directing stint is a theatrically stylized, baton-waving, downbeat-hammering, profoundly musical portrait of Leonard Bernstein, America’s first great homegrown composer/conductor. Cooper plays the maestro in all his bisexual, hopped-up, insecurely entertaining glory, and he’s more than matched by Carey Mulligan as Bernstein’s fierce, stoic and vulnerable wife, Felicia. The film will be enthralling for those who know Bernstein and eye-opening for those who don’t. — Bob Mondello
Film
Oppenheimer
Universal
A monument to science and the arrogance of genius, director Christopher Nolan’s biographical thriller about the father of the atom bomb burns nuclear with technical virtuosity and the anguish of hindsight. Filmed with IMAX 65 mm cameras, it’s held together by Cillian Murphy’s feverishly intense physicist, his thoughts punctuated with fiery particles and sinuous waveforms as if his very ideas are skittering across the screen. It’s arguably the most deserving serious film ever to approach the billion-dollar club. — Bob Mondello
Film
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Sony Pictures
When the first animated Afro Latino Spider-Man movie (Into the Spider-Verse) was released in 2018, no one expected much of it. But its $384 million box office take and Oscar for best animated feature set the bar higher for the next one. With a story about personal growth and uniquely cinematic, animated styling for each spider-verse — from punkish graffiti to Lego blocks to shifting watercolor pastels to saturated Indian reds and golds — this centerpiece of a trilogy (to be completed in 2024) exceeds all expectations. — Bob Mondello
Film
The Boy and the Heron
Studio Ghibli
It’s been a decade since Hayao Miyazaki ostensibly bid the world of anime a final farewell with Studio Ghibli’s gorgeous epic The Wind Rises. Yet here he is again, freshly valedictory at the age of 82, telling a story not unlike his own — about a boy whose mother dies during World War II and whose father takes him to the countryside, where he’ll work through his trauma in a world of dreams and fantasy. The film is rendered in hand-drawn images so exquisite it’s hard to know why other animators even try. — Bob Mondello