My top 10 favourite movies of 2023 🍿

Hello! I am here today to talk about my top  10 favourite films of 2023. I have a full top 20 list that you can have a look at on my  Letterboxd if you are interested. When I make a list of favourites for me it's very much about  my real emotional reaction to the film. There are of course many films that I watch that I  think are really great films. But if I watch a film and I have no desire to watch it again  it doesn't usually end up being a favourite for me. So I really do define a favorite b

y either  something that I would want to watch again in the future or something that just I really emotionally  connected to. Which leads very nicely into number 10 on my list which is, what is the actual  title of this film, it is The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. I was of  course a teenager during the original Hunger Games era though I did come to them a little bit  late. I remember reading all three books when I was in Year 12, so I was 17. And then the actual  Hunger Game

s movies came out for every year that I was at university. But you know I was still  in my late teens, early 20s when they came out so they are incredibly nostalgic for me. I love  the books so much I reread them a couple of years ago and I think they are actually incredible. I  think Suzanne Collins just wrote one of the best YA trilogies that will ever exist. They're so  eternally relevant in their themes and so well written, all the characters so iconic, they're  just great stories. With the

films my sister and I rewatched them in anticipation of this new film  coming out. I think the first two are really good, especially Catching Fire the second one, I  think that one has an advantage of having some very iconic moments in it. Unfortunately  the separation of the last book into two movies really was a downfall for it. They somehow turned  what is quite an exciting book into two very slow and dull films. Which is such a shame because in  so many aspects those films are really great.

My sister and I were especially commenting on  on the production design and the costumes, how timeless everything is. It really doesn't  feel dated in a way that films from the past often do. Because they weren't referencing  fashions or styles from the early 2010's, they were actually looking to the past for those  references, particularly quite 40's inspired in its design which has carried it through to  this new film. I've read this book which is a prequel to The Hunger Games a couple of year

s  ago when it came out and thought it was a really fun book. Definitely not on any level of the  original trilogy but Suzanne Collins is a great writer so it was really enjoyable. It's all about  President Snow as a young man and sort of you see his journey into the character that you know him  as in the original series. You always have to be skeptical of why we would need a prequel to  a villain and I'm still not really sure that it adds so much to the original story, but it is  definitely int

eresting. It's such a long book and quite an involved story that I was very curious  to see how they would adapt it to the screen and I think they've done the best job that they could  actually do. It probably helps that it is all the same creators behind it as for the original films,  so you do get a certain level of consistency that really helps. Even though you are in the world  of The Hunger Games many many years before the original films and with a completely new cast  of characters and act

ors, as soon as it started I felt like I was completely swept back into the  Hunger Games world. It was really exciting to be watching a whole brand new Hunger Games movie. The  casting of Tom Blyth as Snow is probably the best casting you could get because in the book he's a  little bit more obviously not a nice person from the beginning because you are hearing his thoughts  and his thoughts are not always the best. But in a film like this you kind of do need to like the  protagonist more I thi

nk to get on board with it, especially for such a long film. And he really did  such a perfect job of, you really want to like him there's something about him that seems like a nice  person so you do really stay with him despite the fact that you are seeing him do more and more  despicable acts throughout the film. Rachel Zegler plays his love interest Lucy *Gray Baird*  who is the tribute from District 12. The whole plot of the film is that the Hunger Games have  only been going for a few years

and people are kind of losing interest in them and so this is the  first Hunger Games where we see the idea of making a spectacle of it and a big TV production of it  become more of a reality and sets it up for the hunger games that we know in the original trilogy.  Lucy Gray is a singer and Rachel Zegler is perfectly cast in that way because she can sing so  well and I think you really needed that with this character for us to really believe the effect that  her singing has on the people aroun

d her. It's not exactly a film I would recommend to anyone who  wasn't already a fan of The Hunger Games. I just personally loved being back in the world and it  just almost feels a shame that there isn't more to come necessarily unless Suzanne Collins decides  to write some more books. They are really horrific films but I think they talk about horrifying  situations in a way that is very accessible but without detracting from the horrificness  of them in a way. At number nine on my list is Thea

ter Camp. This is a sort of mockumentary  about a theatre camp for kids in America that is being threatened to be closed down. And  it is highly comedic, it's incredibly funny, but it is actually also really touching in the way  that it looks at the importance of these kinds of camps for kids who feel a sense of community  from them. That gives them an opportunity to be creative and perform in musicals even though in  this particular case the musicals are written by characters played by Molly Go

rdon and Ben Platt.  They're two people who went to the camp themselves when they were children and clearly thought that  they would end up being big stars and have not, they have simply become teachers returning to  this camp every year. You have other characters, the son of the woman who runs the camp. She gets  really sick and is in a coma and so he has to come in and try and keep the camp open while being  completely hopeless at anything because he's just this kind of TikTok star that thinks

he knows  a lot about finance but really doesn't. You also have a Ayo Edebiri who is a teacher that comes in  who completely faked her resume, who knows nothing about acting. Her scenes pretending to do acting  lessons are incredibly funny. I took my friend who loves theatre, who did theatre at university,  with me to see the film and she said it was incredibly accurate to the sort of theatre culture  that she's experienced. And you can really tell that it's coming from such an authentic place.

It  sets the tone so perfectly where you know that the things that are being made fun of are coming from  people who genuinely do love theatre and love the theatre community and so they can just be so much  more specific and interesting with their comedy. Just such a fun film and just a rare comedy that  is funny throughout the whole way. I often find with comedies they can start out really funny  but the comedy can often take a backseat when the drama has to sort of step in or the story has to

  step in or the comedy can get a little bit tired because it ends up being a bit one note. But I  actually just found this film balanced the story and the drama aspect with the comedy throughout  the whole film so perfectly. At number eight is Broker. This is a film by Hirokazu Kore-eda who I  think is becoming one of my favourite directors. I saw his latest film Monsters last month and  loved that so much. Pretty much every one of his films I've seen so far I've really enjoyed. He's a  Japanes

e director but this film is actually set in Korea with Korean actors. And it starts out with  a woman putting a baby in a baby box which seems to be a place where you can leave children that  you want to be adopted. But this baby actually gets picked up by two men who take these babies  sometimes to sort of privately adopt them out themselves. Obviously they're like selling babies  kind of illegally but they see it as doing a good thing because they believe the adoption system  is really not wor

king in the best interest of children. I watched this film a while ago but if I  remember correctly one of them was in the adoption system and so he feels really strongly about it.  And they think selling these babies to these rich people who can't necessarily access the adoption  services for various reasons like they might not be married or that kind of thing. The mother of  this baby does come back looking for her and it becomes this kind of road trip where she agrees  to help them adopt the

baby out and split the funds. There's also this aspect of the plot where  she's being followed by the police. There's a lot going on but it's just such a sweet and lovely  movie. I always love found family stories as well and this is such a lovely example of that.  Kore-eda is known for having child actors in his films and getting really good performances  from them and it's the exact same in this one, there's a little boy that joins them who is so  cute. He just makes these films about people i

n not what you'd call ordinary situations,  they're always sort of slightly heightened from the everyday but they are still just kind  of everyday people and they're situations that I guess could potentially happen in real life. He  tells these stories without any sense of judgment, it's always with such a sense of compassion and  humanity.They always make me cry at some point. So I definitely recommend Broker or any of his films  really. Monsters if you can see that is amazing and his most famo

us film to date I think is  Shoplifters that came out a few years ago that's also a great one. At number seven I have Quiz  Lady. I feel like this is a controversial choice because it's hardly got good reviews anywhere. But  I just loved this film so much. I just randomly put it on, it's on Disney+ in Australia and it  stars Awkwafina and Sandra Oh as sisters. They are kind of estranged but they come back together  because their mother has run away from her nursing home. They discover she has ga

mbling debts and  so they have to find a way to pay those debts off otherwise Aakwafina's dog which gets kidnapped,  something bad will happen to it. Awkwafina's character has always been obsessed with this  TV quiz show hosted by Will Ferrell and Sandra Oh basically says well you're amazing at this  quiz if you go on it will be able to win money and pay off all the debts. It's a really absurd  plot when you explain it out loud like that, but when you're watching it the performance of the two  l

eads keep it kind of grounded I think. It's also meant to be a really heightened comedy and I found  it really funny as well, I thought it all kind of worked weirdly well. I love stories about sisters  and it was a fun sort of switch around to see the younger sister be the sensible one and Sandra Oh  be the kind of crazy out of control sister as the older sister. I think Awkwafina often gets miscast  as this kind of crazy character when I think she works best as the straight person to everyone 

else's crazy. And that's exactly what she does here and I think she does it really really well.  Jason Schwartzman is also in this film as one of the contestants on the quiz show, he's kind  of the running champion and he is hilariously annoying. Tony Hale is also in this, he is  the owner of a Benjamin Franklin themed hotel, he is dressed as Benjamin Franklin and acts like  Benjamin Franklin throughout the entire exchanges that they have with him when they're staying in  this hotel and it's jus

t so funny to me. I guess this film just perfectly appealed to my exact  sense of humour, plus being about sisters which I love, and just having the exact right amount of  sweetness and you really care about the characters while also it just being incredibly funny and not  taking itself seriously as well. I just enjoyed it so much and I would absolutely watch it again.  I think it could easily become a comfort watch if I still had Disney+ which I don't because it's  too expensive. And the sad th

ing is they probably won't ever release it on DVD. That is always the  downfall of watching streaming only movies because that's the only way to watch them. At number six  I have a completely different film called Reality. This stars Sydney Sweeney as a real life person  Reality Winner. And it's based on a play where the entire script is based off the transcript  of an FBI investigation that happened over the course of a day into this woman. Members of the  FBI came to this woman's house, search

ed through her belongings and had this full-on interview  with her, and you see that all play out in the film. So every line of dialogue that everyone  says here was said by the real person in real life. And you do get moments where what they've  said has been redacted which is shown as well in the film. It's definitely something that could  have been gimmicky but it actually works so well. I think mainly because Sydney Sweeney is genuinely  a really good actor. I think she's been in some not ne

cessarily great films recently so it could  be easy to forget that she is actually really good and this film really shows that. The way the  actors are able to play around with the lines that have been said is really interesting. Obviously  most films, the script isn't necessarily exactly like how people talk because the real way people  talk is stumbling over words or you know stopping halfway through a sentence and starting it again.  All kinds of vocal ticks that people have and often that is

n't in a film because it would just  lengthen the film, it would be boring to watch, take through long. But they've included all of  that in because it's exactly what happened and it's actually so fascinating to see that acted  out. It's a fascinating story that I didn't know much about. I'm sure for American audiences they  would remember it would have been a huge thing around this woman being accused of leaking files  related to Trump's election. Just a fascinating film, really well done. One

of those films where  if I was holding my own Oscars, Sydney Sweeny would be getting best actress for that role.  At number five I have Wonka. This is a prequel to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, very  specifically the 1970's version which is is one of my favourite films. And because it's also from  the makers of Paddington, two films that I love, I was very excited for this film while also being  a little bit skeptical because I could not imagine Timothee Chalamet in a Paddington style f

ilm.  The word whimsical does not automatically make me think of Timothee Chalamet, him having stuck to  more sort of indie more serious roles for the most part. But I should have had my faith in Paul King  the director the whole time because he was great in it. He definitely isn't doing a Gene Wilder  impersonation, which he shouldn't have to do, but he does have this incredible manic energy to  him that is something I've never seen from Timothy Chalamet before and is completely different from 

how he is in real life, so he is actually a good actor after all which was something I wasn't sure  about. He can also sing well enough for the music, it's a musical, I really enjoyed all the musical  numbers and it really is a proper musical like the first scene in the movie is a musical number.  It's a film about Willy Wonka coming to this town where they they make supposedly the best chocolate  in the world and he wants to be a part of that he wants to be a chocolate maker. But of course  th

e people who currently have the monopoly on chocolate in the town don't want him to do that.  So he kind of gets tricked into being trapped in this wash house with a bunch of other people and  sort of has to work his way out of that, defeat the bad guys and share his amazing chocolate  creations with the whole town. It's actually kind of a sweet and lovely story about how being a  genius, which he is shown to be, doesn't mean that you don't need help from other people. Basically  these people in

this wash house they all have different skills that he needs. One is literally  an accountant. So I think that's actually a really sweet message of just you can't do everything by  yourself. Even if you have all these great ideas you need a whole team of people all with their  own expertise to make your idea come to life. And then again it also has this aspect of family  and found family. And how something as delicious as chocolate should be shared with everyone, it  should be something that br

ings people together. It's just exactly what you'd expect from the  makers of Paddington, it's just so sweet and lovely and funny. There is an aspect to it which  was a bit unnecessary I felt, there was some fat jokes made about Keegan-Michael Key's character  who is addicted to chocolate and slowly does get fatter over the course of the film. The joke just  being that he was fat is obviously just completely unnecessary and not funny. It's a shame because  otherwise this is just such a lovely mo

vie. And I'd love to see Timothee Chalamet reprise the  role, I think they could easily make a sequel. I'd love to see him do more interesting roles  like this or just ones that are really different from what he's kind of been a little bit type cast  into. And it really feels like Paul King and Simon Farnaby who wrote the script together, can really  do no wrong at this point. I'll be curious to see what other famous children's book they decide  to take on next. At number four I actually have a

documentary called Hot Potato: A Story of The  Wiggles. I was genuinely so excited when I saw the trailer for this movie because I love The Wiggles.  I was exactly the right age to grow up with the original Wiggles. They started as a children's  band only like a couple of years before I was born. The Wiggles have been around my whole life  and they're obviously an Australian band as well. We saw them live when I was a kid and so to have  an Australian kids band be as successful as they are is ki

nd of cool. I felt like I did know quite  a lot about The Wiggles story, just purely because of having grown up with them and so having seen  various news articles about them and interviews with them just throughout the years. Seeing  the different people that have joined the band, out of the original four only one of them is  still in the band Anthony. But even though I did know quite a lot, this documentary still has so  much about the band. And the special highlight is the fact that Jeff the

original purple Wiggle was  taking photos pretty much every day and he's never released them publicly before so this documentary  is full of photos of them like pre The Wiggles, really young. You just get such an insight into  what it must have been like because it's kind of a crazy thing for these four young men, three  of them did do early childhood education at uni, Jeff was the only one who didn't, but they were  all musicians, they were all in bands, but then kind of thought why not use the

ir love of like  rock and roll music to create music for children, was actually pretty revolutionary back then and  is the reason why their songs are still so catchy because they are actually genuinely really good.  This documentary made me cry so many times. The original four Wiggles have had so many health  problems. We all know about Greg who had to leave the band because of health issues, but every  single one of them has had like heart issues. And then you see interviews with people of how

much  difference The Wiggles made to young kids who are going through really difficult times, they  had this consistency of seeing The Wiggles and having their music. I haven't had the chance to go  to one of their 18 plus shows, I really wish I'd gone last time they came around but I didn't know  anyone who'd want to go with me, but I would love to go to one of those concerts because it would  be so much fun. The band has not been without controversy because obviously when Greg left they  had t

o get another person in, he was called Sam, he was a little bit unceremoniously dumped to when  Greg decided he wanted to come back. So they did interview this guy and he kind of just didn't  want to speak on it in any great detail but you could tell that he was still quite upset about  it. There's just so much in this documentary and I think it's really cool to have what really  is such an important part of Australian music history all in this one documentary, all these  really in-depth and fas

cinating interviews with all of the band members. It's really great, I  mean even if you're not a Wiggles fan I would recommend it's such a good documentary, it's  so well made. There's something about music documentaries that I especially love watching even  if I have no interest in the actual music itself, I don't even know why but I'll always go for a  music documentary I think they're so fascinating. At number three I have Asteroids City which is  Wes Anderson's latest film. Wes Anderson for

me is quite hit or miss. For me it sort of goes  on a scale, for the ones that I have watched anyway I haven't seen all of them yet, but it  goes on a scale between Moonrise Kingdom at the top and The French Dispatch right at the bottom.  And especially The French Dispatch being his film before this one, I was sort of thinking maybe Wes  Anderson just simply isn't for me. But this one I just absolutely loved. I have a full review of it  on the channel. But there was just something about the set

ting of it being old Hollywood, of it being  this meta thing of people putting on a play and then you're kind of seeing the play performed but  not really. The references to old sci-fi movies and the setting of it in the desert and then also  in this theatre. I also felt like he'd let his actors be a little bit freer in their performances  this time, it didn't feel quite as clipped as it normally is and I really like that because the  deadpan for me I can find a little bit difficult, actually no

t a little bit I can find it quite a  lot difficult because I think for me I need my characters to be a bit more expressive for me to  really care about them. I especially thought Jason Schwartzman's performance in this was so good. He  has just had the best year, I mean he was the most watched actor on Letterboxd last year on account  of him being in Asteroid City and The Hunger Games movie and he also did a voice in the um  Spider-Man film. And then he was also in Quiz Lady as well. But he jus

t has such a sad and soulful  performance, his wife has died and he hasn't quite told his four children about it yet. It was just  so sweet, I felt like it was a Wes Anderson film of what I always wanted his films to be. At number  two is You Hurt My Feelings. I really thought this was going to be my number one film for such a  long time. I watched this in the middle of last year and it stars Julia Louis Dreyfus. She is  married to Tobias Menzies, she's an author and she is trying to write a nov

el following up her  memoir that did relatively well though everyone tells her it should have done better. And then  she overhears her husband telling the husband of her sister that he doesn't actually like her new  book even though this whole time he's been saying he thinks it's amazing. And it's a classic Nicole  Holofcener film, who's the director and writer, in that it is about these people who are fairly well  off and it's self-aware about how comfortable the lives of these people are and h

ow minuscule their  problems are in comparison. But it's also about how important our problems are to us when we are  going through them. And it just is so sweet and funny. Lovely to look at because everyone has like  nice homes but not like ludicrously nice homes. they're ones that you could imagine people living  in. Everyone has nice clothes, they're always like eating food walking around New York. I just really  loved it, I love Nicole Holofcener's films and I love Julia Louis Dreyfus, I jus

t think she is so  funny. And so at number one we have just one of my favourite films I've watched in such a long time  The Holdovers. I love that this has really become a big film on the internet as well, I feel like  everyone is really getting on board and I love it when I love a film that everyone else loves.  But this stars Paul Giamatti as a teacher at a boarding school, it's a boys boarding school,  during the 1970's. And he's not particularly well liked by anyone at the school because he'

s very  sarcastic, very funny. He has been tasked with looking after the boys who have to stay at the  school during the Christmas holidays. Only one boy ends up staying for the most part, that's a  boy called Angus who's played by Dominic Sessa, which crazily enough he was actually a student  at the school that they ended up filming at, they were just auditioning boys to see if anyone  would work and he just gave this incredible performance having never done any professional  acting before. Als

o still at the school is the head chef Mary played by Da'Vine Joy Randolph.  Again it is this sort of found family story, the three of them take a lot of comfort in each  other. Her son has recently died in Vietnam so she is grieving. And Angus is incredibly upset  about the fact that his mum and his stepdad have decided to go on honeymoon over having him for  Christmas.Tthe relationship that forms between Angus and Paul Giamatti's character Paul is just  so sweet and lovely. And what I really l

oved is they're not portraying Paul as being a surrogate  father to Angus, he is actually just a friend and I think that's really sweet because you can have  a support system from friends instead or just older people in your life. And then of course  the setting of the film adds so much to it, it is set at Christmas, it's really snowing  they were so lucky with the timing that they filmed this because it genuinely did snow. It is  filmed to look like it was filmed in the 70's, there's a grainine

ss to it. It's just kind of  everything that I love in a film. Definitely a film I will be probably watching every Christmas.  The one film I watch every Christmas is While You Were Sleeping, it might become two films now,  that and The Holdovers because I actually just want to watch it right now if I could, but I will  save it for Christmas. I was really lucky in that I got to watch it before Christmas because that's  when the screening was, but it actually came out in Australia in the middle o

f January, which  is insane to me because it's such a beautiful Christmas movie. If you haven't seen The Holdovers  it is worth the hype, I would highly recommend. Really hoping that it wins lots at the Oscars,  it is definitely the film that I am particularly rooting for. So that was my top 10 of 2023, it was  a really good year for films I think. I obviously didn't put Barbie or Oppenheimer on my list, it  is on my top 20 list. I think for those films the experience of the Barbenheimer and bei

ng  involved with that was probably more fun for me than the actual films themselves. Please tell  me your favourite film from last year so if I haven't seen it I can add it to my watchlist.  And I will see you in my next video, bye!