The Best Movies of 2023: Honorable Mentions & Editors' Choice

A top 10 list is, by its very nature, a limited format: There can only be 10 movies, and those positions are determined by popular vote. But there are thousands of films released in a given year, and here at Hyperreal we want to recognize those unsung releases too—films that for one reason or another, didn’t crack the top 10, but that we felt deserved recognition, too. 

We have 5 Honorable Mentions for you this year, running the gamut from new entries in beloved franchises to exciting and underseen avant-garde gems, highlighted by 5 fantastic contributors. We also added 5 Editors’ Choice films this year, films selected by one of your esteemed editors that didn’t make the Top 10 but we felt should have, gosh darnit. 

The aforementioned Top 10 list is here: Hyperreal Film Club’s Best Movies of 2023: Top 10

Without further ado, here are our 2023 Honorable Mentions and Editors’ Choice lists! 

Honorable Mentions

American Fiction

If you’ve read Percival Everett’s 2001 novel Erasure, you probably found yourself surprised to hear that it was being adapted into a feature film. The book is a meta-narrative buried within a meta-narrative and reads fairly unadaptable without completely changing the core of its message. American Fiction dares to pull off the impossible. Cord Jefferson’s directorial debut explores the mundane life of Monk Ellison, a writer frustrated with the notion of what’s considered a “black” novel, and in a drunken stupor decides to write his own take on that story. To him, a parody, but to the writing world, it is a nuclear bomb of raw emotion, the film balances these moments with great comedy and the effect it has on Monk’s mental state. Jeffrey Wright plays the character with a subtlety that still finds a way to silently convey his thoughts and feelings. The jazz soundtrack keeps the film feeling light but provides a bit of melancholy to all of it. Life has its ups and downs and the film does a great job of showing you all those moments while making the audience question themselves and their preconceptions as a whole. — Blake Williams

Saw X

Last year, my dear, sweet Barbarian was unceremoniously sidelined to “Honorable Mention” and now, this year, y’all are doing it to Saw X. Come on. This movie is literally “John Kramer does Saw stuff in Mexico” and has at least six highly stylized flashbacks to things that happened less than ten minutes ago. It’s also the TENTH movie in this beautifully convoluted and gross franchise. What more do you want? 

In this very good movie, John Kramer, The Jigsaw Killer, travels to Mexico to seek medical “miracle” treatment for his terminal cancer. How do you know he’s in Mexico? Because of the always-problematic Mexico filter they added. After he finds out this miracle treatment is a scam, John Kramer does the only thing John Kramer knows how to do; quickly build an elaborate and fully functional warehouse of sadistic death machines to enact revenge on all the fake doctors that conned him into thinking his cancer could be cured. Of all the people in the world to con, John Kramer is a terrible choice. And Amanda, his devoted, daughter-like sidekick, is back. They banter! They have a heartfelt connection! They hook people up to nearly unbeatable death traps! It’s moving. 

At this point, most people know what the Saw movies are all about. So you know whether they are for you or not. But the fact that a nearly 20-year-old franchise can come back this hard and be this much fun is something to truly delight in. Saw now, Saw forever. — Hannah Dubbe

The People’s Joker

I have no doubt that The People’s Joker could crack the Top 10 if the people were able to see it. In fact, I bet it would ride the Smylex high straight to the top. If you were lucky enough to catch the sold-out Fantastic Fest screening or one of the other scattered secret events, you already know: Vera Drew has created a wholly unique debut film that flips superhero tropes, revels in its own camp, and makes a clear case for why we needed not just another Joker origin story, but this specific Joker origin story.

The People’s Joker is a trans coming-of-age narrative parodying DC comics (lovingly) and the mainstream comedy scene (with biting satire), balancing Adult Swim absurdism and heartfelt sincerity. Through the titular Joker the Harlequin, Drew recounts formative experiences of gender dysphoria and coming out while wrenching the hero with the best villains from the hands of MRA fanboys. The Joel Schumacher-ness of it all always belonged to the queers, anyways.

I wholeheartedly agree with Hyperreal’s Fantastic Fest reviewer Morgan Hyde that TPJ lives up to the sky-high expectations and then some. There’s no experience of cinematic gender euphoria more immediate or unflinching. #FreeThePeoplesJoker — Craig Zirpolo

Magic Mike: The Last Dance

Last Dance is the swan song of two great artists who swore they’d never dance again, telling the story of their partnership and their shared obsession. In 2011, Soderbergh had already announced his retirement to focus on painting when he heard Tatum’s life story and was immediately entranced. Three different times, Soderbergh and Tatum were lured out of retirement from directing and stripping (respectively) to personally co-finance movies where the main character tries and fails repeatedly to leave dancing, each time finding himself irresistibly compelled to return.

Early Mikes didn’t have confidence in Tatum’s abilities as a lead, splitting his screen time with other characters and playing him across sneering young women who don’t take him seriously as a romantic prospect because of his goofy job. Magic Mike’s Last Dance represents a change of heart, when Soderbergh saw the Magic Mike live show directed by Tatum in a London casino and was shocked by how good it was. Once again inspired to tell Tatum’s life story, Soderbergh wrote a script where Mike is swept off his feet by a stand-in for himself, a monied creative who recognizes the raw passion behind the silly sexy dancing. — Louise Ho

How to Blow Up A Pipeline

Daniel Goldhaber and team expertly frame How to Blow Up a Pipeline like a 1980s heist thriller, but with the pertinence and fuel of the current age. With a pulsating electronic score from Gavin Brivik, whose influence includes early Michael Mann films, Pipeline is infused with the anger of people everywhere that is reaching the boiling point as global temperatures do. The film relentlessly stares the seemingly endless politics of climate change in the face and doesn’t let you go until its very *explosive* end. What’s most admirable about the film is its willingness to dive into the ethical complexity and emotional toil of extremist activism. Is it possible to change the systems around us without disrupting the status quo? Or is that exactly the point, even if it hurts the average citizen? Not for one moment does Goldhaber pretend the issue is over when the credits roll. There are no platitudes about saving the world. Instead, the film is rooted in a gritty, grounded reality and picks characters from all walks of life whose collective helplessness drives them to action. The film pushes them—and us—to the brink, and asks, what are we willing to do? When is enough, enough? — Andy Volk

Editors’ Choice

Return to Seoul

Return to Seoul, directed by French-Cambodian filmmaker Davy Chou, follows Korean-French adoptee Freddie as she seemingly finds herself back in her birth country of South Korea. But what starts as an adoptee trying to reconnect with her birth parents quickly evolves into an unflinching tale of a young person navigating through their twenties. Freddie constantly oscillates between naivety and saboteur. And Chou forgoes sentimentality for a story of a young woman pushing against her dual cultural identities in an often disquieting journey. 

Chou, at times, seems less interested in his character gaining what was lost and more in examining the isolations and barriers that Freddie’s identity has imposed on her. From being a Korean child to adoptive white French parents, but also identifying as French and not understanding the language and customs of her birth country (nor interested in learning them). These contradictions lead Freddie to have strained, distanced relationships with men, friends, and family. This is grounded or perhaps confounded by the elusive and assured debut performance by Park Ji-Min as Freddie. Park Ji-Min’s face is able to illustrate all of these internal struggles—many times in the same breath. Every whim, regret, hostility, and devastation. — Joshua Bippert

M3gan

When I walked out of the theater in January I knew M3gan would be my top film of the year–and here we are! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, that’s cinema, baby!!!

In a way I’m almost glad M3gan somehow didn’t make the Top 10 because it gives me the chance to once again talk about how fantastic this movie is. M3gan is a murderous American Girl Doll in a ridiculously Victorian overcoat here to teach us a lesson about raising our kids on YouTube. Allison Williams turns in one of my all-time favorite “Women Who Suck” performances as Gemma, a toymaker with zero interest in how children use or interact with the toys she makes. Her niece Cady is there too, I guess. Look, I’m just going to come out and say it: This is yuri. I want 1,000 problematic fanfictions about M3gan and Gemma, preferably going on a roadtrip together. 

Listen, if you haven’t seen M3gan yet, or if you forgot it came out in 2023, which is the only reason why, I assume, it didn’t make at least #5 on our Top 10 list: there’s still time to right this wrong. Get a big mug of the hot beverage of your choice, slip under a nice cozy blanket, and go watch M3gan. For me. 🥺 — remus jackson

Showing Up

Like a fault line's gentle, steady friction building up into an earthquake, Kelly Reichardt's films are both quiet and momentous. They're films that seem as if nothing really happens even as her characters undergo monumental changes in perspective. Being alive in the world is to experience events that are impossibly important to you even as they don't seem consequential to anyone else, and personal epiphanies are often too trite and too, well, personal to really share with someone else in words. 

Showing Up follows quietly resentful sculptor Lizzy (played by frequent Reichardt collaborator Michelle Williams) as she tries to carve out time to focus on her own art while working as an administrator assistant at a local arts college, badgering her landlord to fix her hot water, and juggling her family's overbearing lack of expectations. Lizzy's problems are mundane and familiar. Who hasn't struggled to finish a creative work when life gets in the way? Who hasn't looked at another person's success and wondered "Why not me?" even as you have your own small wins and steadily climb toward a better version of yourself imperceptibly? Showing Up is Reichardt's best film so far, an achingly familiar and sincere depiction of life, art, and community. — Ziah Grace

They Cloned Tyrone

Anyone who knows me knows I’ve spent the past month searching long and hard for a hidden gem worthy of my Editors’ Choice pick. After watching many duds and a couple contenders, I kept coming back to one: Juel Taylor’s directorial debut They Cloned Tyrone. The worldbuilding in Tyrone is something to behold. Taylor creates a space outside of time, filled with 70s blaxploitation costumes and suburban gothic landscapes and backed by a funky soundtrack. These curated vibes are anchored by the performances of John Boyega, Jamie Foxx, and Teyonah Parris (and a Kiefer Sutherland jumpscare). In Taylor and Tony Rettenmaier’s screenplay, scenes transition smoothly from Scooby Doo capers in underground bunkers to quiet moments driving home the dire reality of the trio’s situation. The ideas brought up in They Cloned Tyrone—anti-Black policing and surveillance, a central conspiracy reminiscent of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, internal struggles on assimilation versus annihilation—aren’t fully realized in the end, but the ride is still worth it. And in the endless churn of streaming #content, it’s a joy to find an immersive genre-bender from new creative forces. —Alix Mammina

Poor Things

With the steampunk odyssey Poor Things, Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos offered one of the most unique stories of the year. Emma Stone rejoined the director for another rousing film about Bella Baxter, who, after getting a new start on life (via some experimental science), sets out to craft an existence of her own. On her journey across a surrealist version of Europe, Baxter comes up against money, greed, sex, and most predominantly, pathetic men who seek ownership over the newly formed woman. It feels similar to 2023’s fellow Barbie, not only in story, but in its ambitious set design and world building, which reach far outside the confines of our own, while examining our very real gender dynamics. Stone gets to let loose even further than in 2018’s The Favourite, solidifying a much more engaging turn in her career. She’s matched in Poor Things by equally electrifying performances from Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, and Ramy Youseff. With an acute attention to detail in costume and set design, Lanthimos lets the imagination run wild in this unrestrictive romp. — Gabrielle Sanchez