All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)
In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have imagined this movie would be as compelling and thought-provoking as it was. I had seen the original in 8th grade or so, but this was on another level. Visceral, thundering, and yet somehow (all) quiet, I can’t remember being this sucked in to a military movie since 1917 just the year before. War is hell. This movie is not.
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Bullet Train (2022)
Hey you know what’s an amazing movie? Bullet Train? You know who absolutely slayed? The cast of Bullet Train. What happens when you get a screenwriter and director who have seen too much Tarantino and want to gently emulate the master of his craft, but do it on steroids? You get Bullet Train, a picture perfect movie starring Brad Pitt and a train full of assassins out to get each other. What a gem.
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Elemental (2023)
The critics got this one wrong; this movie was extraordinary. Pixar has been on an uphill climb these last several movies, from Turning Red to Luca to Lightyear. Each of them has brought something unsurprisingly exquisite to the table. Elemental tackles immigration in a smart, not even so subtle, but still incredibly effective way. Can fire and water really mix? You’d have to check out this glorious movie to find out.
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Oppenheimer (2023)
The half of Barbenheimer that I’d been anticipating for years sure didn’t disappoint. I’m pretty sure at this point that Christopher Nolan could make a compelling screenplay out of the phone book, and film it with only a few loud thuds. How a movie about people talking in rooms, sometimes in black and white was one of the biggest movies of the year speaks only to the sensational filmmaking of Christopher Nolan, though it would certainly be fitting of all to remember the incredible production and crew that went into making this as magnificent as it was.
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Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
An incredible follow up to a pretty good movie, this movie hits the city swinging and never looks back. Spider-Man, all his iterations, and his many accomplices make for a gorgeously animated, emotionally rich film with an ending that beggars the release of the its impending follow up.
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