Consumption: 2023
I maintain this list every year, for fun and for reference. I don’t do a numbered ranking, but my #1-most-fun-I-had-at-the-movies award goes to GODZILLA MINUS ONE.
For films watched on video, standouts included the hallucinatory Korean film CURE and Lena Dunham’s delightful CATHERINE CALLED BIRDY. For more film favorites consult my top-5 list on Yelling About Movies—an ongoing YouTube series featuring me and 5 friends. The title of the show says it all.
On the TV series front, favorites at our house included Bad Sisters, The Bear, and, surprisingly enough, Derek, a decade-old sitcom starring Ricky Gervais that is set at a nursing home. Who would have thought?
MOVIES ON THE BIG SCREEN
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022, James Cameron)
Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023, Peyton Reid)
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 3 (2023, James Gunn)
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023, James Mangold)
Princess Mononoke (1997, Hayao Miyazaki)
Barbie (2023, Greta Gerwig)
Oppenheimer (2023, Christopher Nolan)
Haunted Mansion (2023, Justin Simien)
The Holdovers (2023, Alexander Payne)
Godzilla Minus One (2023, Takashi Yamazaki)
Maestro (2023, Bradley Cooper)
MOVIES ON THE SMALL SCREEN
Love and Monsters (2022, Michael Matthews)
Memory: The Origins of Alien (2019, Alexandre O. Philippe)
I Love My Dad (2022, James Morosini)
Italianamerican (1974, Martin Scorsese)
By Design: The Joe Caroff Story (2022, Mark Cerulli)
The Automat (2021, Lisa Hurwitz)
Ronin (1998, John Frankenheimer)
Apocalypto (2006, Mel Gibson)
The Green Fog (2017, Guy Maddin & Evan & Galen Johnson)
Get Duked (2019, Ninian Doff)
Undergods (2020, Chino Moya)
Dogtooth (2009, Yorgos Lanthimos)
La Moustache (2005, Emmanuel Carrère)
Something in the Dirt (2022, Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead)
Elevator to the Gallows (1958, Louis Malle)
Top Gun (1986, Tony Scott)
The Fabelmans (2022, Steven Spielberg)
Aftersun (2022, Charlotte Wells)
The Forgotten Battle (2020, Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.)
Fury (2014, David Ayer)
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2023, Joel Crawford)
Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008, Darren Lynn Bousman)
Keane (2005, Lodge Kerrigan)
We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021, Jane Schoenbrun)
La Cérémonie (1995, Claude Chabrol)
The Piano Teacher (2001, Michael Haneke)
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011, Rupert Wyatt)
Eyes Without a Face (1960, Georges Franju)
Frank (2014, Lenny Abrahamson)
The Salton Sea (2002, D. J. Caruso)
One, Two, Three (1960, Billy Wilder)
Dive (2022, Lucía Puenzo)
World on a Wire (1973, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014, Matt Reeves)
Sisu (2023, Jalmari Helander)
Being Mary Tyler Moore (2023, James Adolphus)
Call Me Kate (2022, Lorna Tucker)
Where’s Poppa? (1970, Carl Reiner)
White Heat (1949, Raoul Walsh)
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985, George Miller & George Ogilvy)
How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2022, Daniel Goldhaber)
Week-end (1967, Jean-Luc Godard)
Teorema (1968, Pier Peter Pasolini)
Next Door (Naboer) (2005, Pål Sletaune, Tony Spataro)
Proof (1991, Jocelyn Moorhouse)
Naked (1993, Mike Leigh)
War for the Planet of the Apes (2017, Matt Reeves)
Used Cars (1980, Robert Zemeckis)
Beowulf (2007, Robert Zemeckis)
Le Cercle Rouge (1970, Jean-Pierre Melville)
Cure (1997, Kyoshi Kurosawa)
La Piscine (The Swimming Pool) (1969, Jacques Deray)
L’inconnu du lac (Stranger by the Lake) (2013, Alain Guiraudie)
Young Adam (2003, David Mackenzie)
Studio 54 (2018, Matt Tyrnauer)
Tokyo Story (1953, Yasujirō Ozu)
Skinamarink (2022, Kyle Edward Ball)
Iris (2014, Albert Maysles)
Goodnight Oppy (2022, Ryan White)
Killer Joe (2011, William Friedkin)
Bone Tomahawk (2015, S. Craig Zahler)
M (1931 Fritz Lang)
Zodiac (2007, David Fincher)
The Clone Returns Home (2008, Kanji Nakajima)
Bright Future (2002, Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Hide Your Smiling Faces (2013, Daniel Patrick Carbone)
Army of Shadows (1969, Jean-Pierre Melville)
Tori and Lokita (2022, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
Two-Lane Blacktop (1971, Monte Hellman)
One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (1971, Agnes Varda)
El Conde (2023, Pablo Larrain)
Return to Oz (1986, Walter Murch)
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969, Sidney Pollack)
Close (2022, Lukas Dhont)
Barbarian (2022, Zach Cregger)
Der Hauptmann (The Captain) (2018, Robert Schwenke)
1944 (2015, Elmo Nüganen)
Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007, Sidney Lumet)
12 Angry Men (1957, Sidney Lumet)
Eight Men Out (1988, John Sayles)
Squaring the Circle: The Story of Hipgnosis (2022, Anton Corbijn)
The Hired Hand (1971, Peter Fonda)
Catherine Called Birdy (2022, Lena Dunham)
The Terror Within (1989, Thierry Notz)
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010, Jalmari Helander)
Don’t Bother to Knock (1952, Roy Ward Baker)
Blonde (2022, Andrew Dominik)
Teknolust (2002, Lynne Hershman-Leeson)
In the Mouth of Madness (1994, John Carpenter)
May December (2023, Todd Haynes)
Asteroid City (2023, Wes Anderson)
REWATCHES
Heaven Can Wait (1978, Buck Henry & Warren Beatty)
Deathtrap (1982, Sidney Lumet)
Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022, Cooper Raiff)
The Endless (2018, Aaron Moorhead & Justin Benson)
Cape Fear (1991, Martin Scorsese)
Attack the Block (2011, Joe Cornish)
I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958, Gene Fowler, Jr.)
Teenagers from Outer Space (1959, Tom Graeff)
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011, Joe Johnston)
The Rocketeer (1991, Joe Johnston)
Dark City (1998, Alex Proyas)
Shakespeare in Love (1998, John Madden)
Meshes of the Afternoon (1941, Maya Deren)
The Fall (2008, Tarsem Singh)
Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966, Gordon Flemyng)
Strange Days (1995, Kathryn Bigelow)
His Girl Friday (1940, Howard Hawks)
The Worst Person in the World (2021, Joachim Trier)
Phase IV (1974, Saul Bass)
Persona (1966, Ingmar Bergman)
The French Connection (1971, William Friedkin)
The Poseidon Adventure (1971, Ronald Neame)
Hauser’s Memory (1970, Boris Sagal)
Splice (2009, Vincenzo Natali)
Upgrade (2018, Leigh Whannell)
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986, Woody Allen)
Home For The Holidays (1995, Jodie Foster)
The Cooler (2003, Wayne Kramer)
Terror From the Year 5000 (1958, Robert Gurney Jr.)
Dredd (2020, Pete Travis)
TELEVISION
Bad Sisters
The Last of Us
Poker Face
Ted Lasso
Derek
Mrs. Davis
The Bear
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Welcome to Wrexham
Rampatrouille Orion (Space Patrol Orion)
Julia
BOOKS
White Noise (Don DeLillo)
CONCERTS
Jerry Harrison & Adrian Belew (12/30, Warfield Theater, San Francisco)
*a footnote!
Random Blood Polka 