90 voters. More than 120 movies. Hyperreal Film Club is proud to present our second annual Best Of List: A decisive, irrefutable list of the best films 2023 has to offer. This time, we asked the community to submit their top 5 movies of the year, with their #1 favorite getting 5 points, their #2 getting 4 points, so and so forth. We then used these ranked votes to create the top 10 you’re about to see using a proprietary formula* new and improved for this year.

We’ve also chosen to share the Honorable Mentions list in a separate article, which you can find here: The Best Movies of 2023: Honorable Mentions and Editors’ Choice.

Without further ado, here it is: Hyperreal Film Club’s Best Movies of 2023: Top 10 list, as determined by the Hyperreal Film Club Community and featuring writing by 10 of our wonderful contributors.

*We counted them up and did math. It was hard. Please be nice to us. :(

10. Asteroid City

One of the reasons I want to make movies for a living is not just because I want to make a lot of money, it's also because I love working with talented actors. Wes Anderson seems to love actors too, as Asteroid City is not only one of the best films of the year, but one of the best films I’ve seen examine the art of performance, which he does with one of the best casts he's ever assembled.

To me, performance is the art of carefully trying to bring to the surface one's awareness of the subtleties of human behavior, then deliberately burying them. Not too deep, but just enough to barely stick out above the ground, just enough to be seen in a small movement of the hand or the face. This then invites the audience to dig for these nuggets of nuance and interpret them for themselves.

Anderson's typical, controlled style is juxtaposed expertly against a cast who find themselves unable to maintain that delicate control over their lives after an extraterrestrial event in the story they're telling, and after genuine tragedies in the reality that they work in. Ironically enough, the alien visitor may be the most uninteresting aspect of the film. Because it's not his story: it's about the actors who play it out, and how the rich tapestry of their lives informs their art. — Will Carroll

9. Anatomy of a Fall

I get worried when I see a Palme d’Or winner. I know I’m in for something amazing or something that a prestigious critic would review by saying “Dangerous….” But when I heard the instrumental to P.I.M.P. by 50 Cent playing on repeat, I knew I was in for something good. Anatomy of a Fall is aware of its space and the placement of the characters in relation to the camera in a way that even the best filmmakers would strive to replicate. The film knows where we want to look. It knows the reactions we want to see and the revelations we want in the eyes of so many characters—but repeatedly, we are denied glimpses of truth. At pivotal moments, the opportunity for us to determine a truth is taken away. We are forced to speculate, not only on the actions of Hüller’s Sandra Voyter but also on the fallibility of her son Daniel (in a stand-out performance from Milo Graner) and our own memories. Anatomy of a Fall is a thriller, a court-procedural, a family drama, and maybe most importantly, it's got a bald guy who shows us levels of hating never before thought possible. — Jarett Bonner

8. May December

May December is not camp. Yes, Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman are engaged in a diva-off of sorts and it opens with a gag about hot dogs, but these moments of theatricality disguise the movie’s insidiously tragic heart. Todd Haynes’ newest masterpiece is a film about filmmaking, and the director cleverly implicates both the medium and the audience in his examination of our thirst for “the truth.” It’s a risky endeavor. Considering its vulgar subject matter, the film runs the risk of sensationalizing the story just as the tabloids did. This never happens for one very important reason: Charles Melton. While Moore and Portman feed off each other á la Liv Ullmann and Bibi Andersson in Persona, Melton’s heartbreaking performance gives the film its necessary pathos, reminding us of the stakes of this story. Yet there is no real catharsis here. In the end, Haynes denies us the definite answers we desire, instead leaving us with the jagged pieces of a life’s shattered facade. — Kira Deshler

7. Bottoms

In the year of Barbie, Priscilla, and 80 for Brady, the movies we watched reflected our collective cultural craving for positive depictions of femininity, and realistic portrayals of female empowerment. But no film showcased the power of the divine feminine, the vigor of female friendships, and the importance of letting women be mediocre and messy quite like Bottoms. Emma Seligman’s sophomore feature boldly asks the question: what if you sucked all of the toxic masculinity out of Fight Club and replaced it with girls, gays, and loads of really dumb humor?

What begins as a casually absurd adventure evolves into a parade of preposterousness, where the firmly established rules of high school movies are deconstructed. What a triumph, to have achieved a level of representation where queer stories can be nuanced, unsophisticated, and stunningly vapid. Bottoms resides at the intersection of cynicism and stupidity, and yet it is one of the most uproariously hilarious and earnestly positive films to be released this year. Bottoms is for the losers, lame-os, and marginalized kids who couldn’t translate their marginalization into any cachet, but it’s also for people like my dad—the former high school jocks who know the power of an elegantly placed “deez nuts” joke. — Lili Labens

6. Beau Is Afraid

You don’t live in the safest apartment. Your luggage and keys were stolen just before a trip out of town. A serial killer the news is calling the “Birthday Boy Stab Man” is on the loose. The tattooed, screaming, and threatening masses of the earth are now wreaking havoc in your apartment while you sleep on the fire escape. But most horrifyingly, your mother is very disappointed in you.

Ari Aster’s 3-hour fever dream Beau Is Afraid is, if nothing else, one of the most accurate screen depictions of anxiety that I’ve ever seen. Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) is afraid. The “cool new drug” his therapist has prescribed isn’t cutting it. Although Beau finds himself stumbling along a hero’s journey with numerous comic and dramatic set pieces, its end point isn’t growth so much as an escalating series of anxiety spirals, each more suffocating than the last.

While Aster’s various acts don’t always perfectly hang together, it’s his first genuinely laugh-out-loud funny movie. In the end, the author of Beau’s fearfulness and guilt is his mother, along with everything else in his life. His father, previously unknown to him, is revealed to be a giant dick. Relatable. — Sarah Schuster

5. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

In the infinitely expanding pantheon of superheroes, Spider-Man has always stood apart as one of the lonely few with genuine pathos. There’s a felt sense that this is a vulnerable, lived-in character with real, earned heroism and real temptations, a reckless and powerful kid who is at all times flying inches from the sun, and the best Spidey tales weave the closest to that web.

Turns out the best Spider-Man movie… maybe ever? gets its power from taking those same risks. It’s extremely rare in American animation to see dazzling visual imagination applied for something other than utilitarian, expository means. Pixar’s (and etc.) worlds are often stunning, but the colors and shapes are there to inscribe buildings and planets and characters and concrete objects into your thinking brain. Across the Spider-Verse barrages your imagination directly, bypassing linear thinking by deploying color and motion to suggest emotion and speed and, if I can say it, wonder.

Maybe it’s just an effect of this writer getting older (every damn day can you believe it), but belonging vs. isolation feels like one of the most core human stories, and Spider-Verse rips open a portal to swing straight to the nucleus of it. Can’t wait for the next one. — David McMichael

4. Barbie

A number of folks in the Hyperreal community commented that writing about Barbie seems like a tough assignment—not the reaction you’d expect, necessarily, regarding a movie about dolls. Perhaps this is because Barbie is much more than that. Sure, it’s a delight to watch Margot Robbie pretend to eat waffles and pour invisible milk to the sounds of Lizzo, but the movie’s explorations into identity and self-determination aren’t exactly light, despite the sparkly patina of comedy. Don’t get me wrong, this movie is hilarious; it made tears of laughter literally burst from my eyes (thank you, Michael Cera). But it’s also insightful, which you know straight away when the opening makes the deft point that not all girls dream of being mothers. (In fact, adulthood itself provides plenty to fantasize about.) While there may be a winking nugget of truth in some dudes’ desire to sing Matchbox 20’s “Push” on repeat, Barbie makes the point that gender stereotypes are constricting for everyone, and that everyone confronts unattainable standards of perfection, not to mention those “irrepressible thoughts of death.” Life is hard, even for Barbie and Ken. This movie is a helluva lot of fun, but it’s also strangely real, and that combo is why so many people, including me, loved it. — Amy McCullough

3. Oppenheimer

There are a lot of things I could say about Oppenheimer, but the single highest praise I can give it is this: in a year of truly stunning films by some of Hollywood and the world’s greatest filmmakers, this is the movie I absolutely cannot get out of my head. This is the movie whose score permeates my mind during even the most mundane tasks. This is the movie that, almost half a year later, refuses to stop revealing its intricacies to me.

Christopher Nolan’s dedication to doing everything in camera gives this movie a weight and a level of visual spectacle that demands to be seen. They invented a new type of Kodak film for this movie. They build an entire town in the desert. They brought concepts of quantum physics and a nuclear explosion to the screen using practical effects. But what makes this movie truly great is Cillian Murphy’s characterization of one of the 20th century's most important people—a portrayal that allows the audience to come to their own conclusions. Nolan uses every second of his 181 minute runtime, packing each moment with a mind-boggling density of detail. The viewer is left exhausted in the best way, wondering if they have just witnessed the beginning of the apocalypse. That's not for me to say, but I know that I have witnessed possibly the greatest coalescence of filmic skills on a single project since Stanley Kubrick. — Colin Page

2. Past Lives

Although it may undermine my qualifications to write this blurb, I will be the first to admit that I'm not the biggest fan of romance movies. It takes a lot to hook me and even more to keep me invested for the entire runtime. For whatever reason, it’s usually star-crossed, forbidden love that really sucks me in. All tension, no release—think Decision to Leave or In the Mood for Love.

For my fellow cinema masochists out there, Celine Song’s debut Past Lives was a perfect addition to my small but devastating pantheon. It is beautifully restrained, but at the same time, everything feels heightened. The stakes are higher than a typical “will they/won’t they,” and that weight comes through masterfully in each quiet exchange. With striking performances (and maybe my favorite screenplay of the year), we watch as the main characters explore not only the question of who we are to each other, but if we even have a choice in the answer.

I think in less adept hands, the story told in Past Lives could have easily been a kitschy Hallmark melodrama with emotions played too big and a host of saccharine monologues. But it’s not like that at all. It’s quiet and precise, and it tugs at your heartstrings so softly that you don’t even realize you’re crying until you already have a headache during the end credits. Trust me, that’s the greatest compliment I could ever give. — Alyson Riley

1. Killers of the Flower Moon

It is refreshing to see a story like this, told by a big-time, white, male director like Martin Scorcese, be told with such care, consideration, introspection, and honesty. This immense true crime epic explores a haunting chapter in American history, offering viewers a stark and unapologetic view into the series of ruthless murders following the discovery of oil on Osage land. Intentionally overwhelming at three and a half hours, somehow this film doesn’t drag on. Instead, Scorsese frames the story in a carefully-paced, riveting way that delivers depth while leaving the viewer with the knowledge that this story is only scratching the surface of an infinitely deeper issue.

With the support of the Osage community, Scorcese studied their language, costumes, and intricate culture to prepare and assist in telling this story with as much honesty as possible. Scorcese felt that there was an unmet need to tell this story, stating “I wanted to do justice to the Osage, so that the audience feels the immensity of the tragedy.” Powerful performances, stunning cinematography, incredible costumes, and the shocking truths of this historical event come together in this beautifully crafted masterpiece, which is helping the awareness of this tragedy and its victims become more widespread. — Monique Glickstern

The Best Movies of 2023: Top 10