It finally happened: I watched every film I wanted to see IN THE YEAR IT CAME OUT! For the first time, I’m making my annual “best of” list with a clear conscious. I can tell you with absolute confidence that Maestro needed a better script, and that Dream Scenario is the best movie Nicolas Cage has done in decades, and that Saltburn was a little too weird for me, and that May December gave me an overall feeling of discomfort… because I actually got to see them all! Thanks to the hybrid release model, I could watch the ones that most appealed to me in a theater, and stay home for the rest. I had the freedom to wear my cutest pink outfit to see Barbie at the Alamo Drafthouse with a pink cocktail, then put on pink sweats to watch it again at home with another pink cocktail. Win-Win.

2023 brought me a lot of cinema joy, but if I’m honest, I saw more classics on the big screen than new releases. There’s still a huge dearth of mid-budget, character-driven stories out there, which is my sweet spot in the entertainment landscape. I like movies with actors you’d recognize, with a good costume/production design budget and a tight script. I like movies that can be edited down to a 90-120 minute runtime, because if I have to kill my darlings as an author, filmmakers should have to kill a few of theirs too (looking at you Scorsese!). If you are also a fan of these things, you might like following picks as much as I did. Cheers!

1. Priscilla

Sofia Coppola’s nuanced portrait of Priscilla Presley is a return-to-form for one of my favorite directors who excels at showing the silent inner rage of a young woman. Often, they are women whom society wants to dress up like a doll and stick on a shelf, or in this case, a thickly-carpeted Graceland. Priscilla is a stylish, well-constructed story full of quiet moments that bring us to the root of who Elvis and Priscilla were, both individually and as a couple. Yes, the hair was big, but not nearly as big as my love for this movie.

2. Barbie

From the beautiful costumes, to the Slim Aarons influences on the set design, to the poignant message about women never feeling like they’re “enough”, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie was everything I needed it to be. It’s nostalgic, but it’s also progressive, using the beloved toys of my youth to tell a story that needed to be told. And my god, I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as hard in a movie theater as when Ryan Gosling started singing Matchbox Twenty’s “Push”. Comedy gold.

3. The Holdovers

I watch a lot of classic films, and one of my favorite cinema eras is the 1970s. So when I tell you that Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers feels like it was actually made in 1970, believe. We’ve lost the kinds of character-driven scripts and realistic performances that were the hallmark of that era, but Payne has given it back to us in this story of a teacher, a student, and a cook marooned together at a boarding school on Christmas. Da’Vine Joy Randolph steals the show (as she does in literally everything she’s in), but Paul Giamatti and Dominic Sessa more than keep up with her. These are people I want to spend the holidays with every year.

4. You Hurt My Feelings

I’m starting to think it’s impossible for Nicole Holofcener to make a movie that doesn’t speak directly to me. Just as she did with Friends With Money and Enough Said, she gave me You Hurt My Feelings at the time in my life when I most needed to see it. My debut novel hadn’t yet been released, it was failing to get early reads and reviews, and I felt just like Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s character- sitting at the bar with my head in my hands and a cold martini in front of me, doubting everything. Is this book any good? Am I any good? What if the people in my life who are telling me this is good are just lying because that’s what you’re supposed to do when you love a neurotic, untalented artist? They’re questions that will never have answers, but gosh it was nice to see someone else struggle with them for a little bit.

5. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.

A movie that captures the female experience at different stages so perfectly, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. is one I know I’ll be coming back to again and again. Director Kelly Fremon Craig is so good at conveying adolescent angst, but with this adaptation of the beloved Judy Blume book, she also gives us a story about complicated family dynamics and how the relationships from our past inform how we move through the present. This movie would have meant a lot to me if it had come out when I was eleven or twelve, but it still means a great deal at forty. And I suspect, it still will at sixty.