jeffery berg's top 10 films of 2023!

This is one of the busiest end-of-the years I can remember for prominent late releases, but many of my favorite films came out early on, and have subsequently (and sadly) been somewhat overlooked. A strong film year overall. 

10.

SHOWING UP

Kelly Reichart is a wonderful director who has been working a long time with modest budgets and stories that take on greater meaning. This one may be my favorite. A haunting, complicated, yet surprisingly (in these times) optimistic look at family, the creation and endurance of art (and the time it takes!) and friendship.  

9.

9.

A THOUSAND AND ONE

The ambition of this on-location NYC-set film of a mother and son by debut director A.V. Rockwell is impressive, spanning decades of the 90s into Bloomberg's early 2000s. Teyana Taylor is full-stop fantastic.

Other great NYC films this year besides this one and Robot Dreams include You Hurt My Feelings and the underrated Mutt.

 

 8.

OPPENHEIMER

Brooding and elegantly-filmed and edited (by Jennifer Lame) epic, with two particularly breathtaking sequences. A Christopher Nolan agnostic, I went in skeptical, and came out changed.

 

 7.

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

Another towering historical epic that's simultaneously entertaining, remarkably well-crafted, and terrifying. Listening to different interviews about the care and attention to detail on Martin Scorsese's movie has been enlightening. Also, Lily Gladstone is an amazing human being.

 

 6.

PRISCILLA

Sofia Coppola's deceptively modest, immersive portrait of Priscilla Presley during the courtship and marriage with Elvis. Beautiful music choices and exquisite, tactile aesthetics.

 

 5.

PASSAGES

Has there ever been a protagonist so destructive and frustrating? Probably. But Franz Rogowski's brilliant performance is so compelling and unique that he (and the characters around him, destroyed in his wake) becomes all you can think of watching this film. But the costuming, by Khadija Zeggaï, are also well-done, and enviable (for Ben Whishaw!) and aptly appalling (for Rogowski).

 

 4.

THE HOLDOVERS

Like his prickly characters, Alexander Payne can come off as kind of a pain in interviews, but it's hard to ignore his skill of creating rambling movies that probe the mishaps and follies of human existence with such grace, humor and specificity. Giamatti is a multi-dimensional curmudgeon. Discovery Dominic Sessa feels like a throwback to the story's time period. Laid-back yet steely, Da'Vine Joy Randolph seems to effortlessly create a much richer character than what was probably on the page of an otherwise brilliant script.

 

 3.

EARTH MAMA

Beautifully realized story of a young woman's decisions (and lack thereof, in a brutal American ecosystem). Different friendships between women are tested in ways not often seen in movies. Although acclaimed and released by A24, this ended up being one of the unsung films of the year.

 

 2.

MAY DECEMBER

Barbed, complicated tale of parasitic relationships. Absurdly strong, memorable performances across the board, including the surprisingly heartfelt, winning turn from Charles Melton. 

 

 1.

ALL OF US STRANGERS

A very complex ghost story that surveys mortality, desire, pop culture, and the trappingsof the past. Sometimes a movie feels cosmic, otherworldly. An indelible experience for me at NYFF.

 

  The best of the rest... other notable films of 2023 (in approximate order of preference):

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret., Chile '76, R.M.N, Robot Dreams, Occupied City

20 Days in Mariupol, Four Daughters, Orlando, My Political Biography, Omen (Augure), Past Lives, The Zone of Interest

Monica, Mutt, Tori and Lokita, Godland

Green Border, The Killer, Anatomy of a Fall, Saltburn, Maestro, The Taste of Things

Fallen Leaves, The Blue Caftan, La Chimera, Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, You Hurt My Feelings, Air, M3GAN

The Disappearance of Shere Hite, Theater Camp, Rotting in the Sun, Afire, Joyland, Talk to Me

Eileen, The Royal Hotel, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, The Color Purple, Bruiser

La Civil, Barbie, Dream Scenario, Perfect Days, The Blackening, Totem, Kokomo City, Society of the Snow

A look back at 2022!

-Jeffery Berg

jeffery berg's top 10 films of 2022

2022 was a year of maximalist movies about spectacle (Elvis, Avatar: The Way of Water and Babylon) and extravagant movies about the continuing widening divide in class and social stratification (Everything Everywhere All at Once, Barbarian, Triangle of Sadness, The Menu and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery). 

The year offered films of memory pieces, childhood traumas, composers, artists and writers, projectile vomiting, whales and donkeys. In the year when Roe vs. Wade decsion was overturned by the Supreme Court, many films about abortion happened to come out: Call Jane and Tbe Janes, Happening, and Lingui, The Sacred Bonds. Environmental concerns surfaced in The Dam, EO, All That Breathes, The House, The Territory and Wildcat. 

Even if they weren't financial successes, numerous movies about movies emerged (Babylon, The Fabelmans, Pearl, X, Last Film Show, Empire of Light). Most were set in the past, and wistful reminders of technological changes: the demise of the projectionist and the shifting away for many from the theatrical experience.  

Here goes my Top 10 films of 2022 with notables as well!

10.

LINGUI, THE SACRED BONDS

Vividly filmed and performed Chad-set drama focusing upon a mother and her daughter's pregnancy and the patriarchal society that thwarts them at every turn.

9.

VORTEX

An incredible use of split screen of an ailing elderly couple (played very well by Dario Argento and Françoise Lebrun) in a drab, over-stuffed flat in France, directed with a sense of dread, horror and empathy by Gaspar Noé.

8.

CLOSE

Two 13-year old friends gradually drift apart in this heartbreaking drama. The explorations into masculinity are deftly handled by filmmaker Lukas Dhont.

7.

ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED

Breathtaking documentary of Nan Goldin's  life and also her fight against the opioid crisis, zeroing in on the Sackler family. The archival footage and imagery of Goldin's astonishing work and films of Goldin's contemporaries are so beautifully presented.

6.

LOST ILLUSIONS

Balzac's vision is still biting all these year's later in this lush, brisk, well-acted and assembled adaptation. 

5.

EO

An incredible film of animal pathos, with Director Jerzy Skolimowski moving in close to the experience of a roaming donkey in the fickle and hostile world of humankind.  

4.

AFTERSUN

Like Barry Jenkins's Moonlight, Aftersun strikes with a cumulative power. A memory piece, sometimes light-to-the-touch, and sometimes agonizing. Director Charlotte Wells's work shines admirably in her first feature-length.

3.

THE FABELMANS

I was so pleasantly surprised by Spielberg's cinematic semi-memoir--it was much funnier and adroit than I expected, and the cast is wonderful. Outside of the "awards race," it's a lovely coming-of-age film that doesn't shy away from the perspectives of being an artist, privilege and gnawing self-doubt.

2.

TÁR

The most memorable film-going experience of the year at New York Film Festival, and then the movie grew in estimation after re-watches. A vigorous, full-bodied character study from Todd Field's acid tongue script and brilliant direction. 

1.

BENEDICTION

A gripping reimagining of the poet Siegfried Sassoon's life in the aftermath of World War I and into his later years. I went back to some of Terence Davies' previous work immediately after watching this stirring film (biting, funny, moving); he is one of our more unsung auterus with an incredibly rich and daring filmography. 

Other 2022 films of note in rough order of preference:

Pearl / X, Emily the Criminal, The Woman King, A Night of Knowing Nothing, Top Gun: Maverick, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, The Northman, Cha Cha Real Smooth, Descendant, The Girl and the Spider, Barbarian, The Banshees of Inisherin, Saint Omer, Nope, All That Breathes, Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, Causeway, Stars At Noon, Nitram, Playground, The Cathedral, Empire of Light, Hit the Road, To Leslie, Sr., Argentina, 1985, In Front of Your Face, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Wildcat, Navalny, Devotion, Hold Me Tight, The Box, Bitterbrush, The Territory, A Love Song, Bones and All, Till, The Dam, Fire of Love, Petite Maman, The Outfit, Gagarine, The Eternal Daughter, Last Film Show, The Janes, Moonage Daydream, Clara Sola, Our Father, After Yang, Great Freedom, Neptune Frost, Triangle of Sadness, Kimi, Women Talking, Smile, The Batman, Happening, Watcher, Fresh, Sharp Stick, The Innocents, The Dream and the Radio, Armageddon Time, She Said, Private Desert, Scream, Bros, A Wounded Fawn, The Quiet Girl, Avatar: The Way of Water, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Nanny, The House, Hatching, Corsage. Decision to Leave,  Deep Water, The Son, The Fallout, Mad God, Speak No Evil, We Met in Virtual Reality, Downfall: The Case Against Boeing, Italian Studies, Palm Trees & Power Lines, Living, Here Before, One Fine Morning, Master, The Tale of King Crab, Last Flight Home, Saloum

-Jeffery Berg

A look back at 2021 when The Worst Person in the World was my #1.

jeffery berg's top 10 films of 2019

2019 brought an array of films from around the world with different styles and stories. Many portrayed an unsettled state, especially in terms of economic division. Here is my Top 10 of the year.

10.

FOR SAMA



Brutal, searing diary-as-film from Waad Al-Kateab. An urgent love letter to the filmmaker's daughter in the midst of constant life-threatening conflict.


9.

LITTLE WOMEN

Rich and dense adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's classic novel. Not the pedestrian retread it could have been. Greta Gerwig's keen direction and script gives it immediacy and sense of the personal.


8.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD

Quentin Tarantino's immersive re-imagining of Hollywood on the eve of Sharon Tate's murder. Eclectic, richly-evoked details (that L.A. radio soundtrack!) boost the experience.



7.

THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO

An elegiac story of a man trying to reclaim an old home in increasingly gentrified San Francisco. Beautifully-told, with touches of whimsy embedded in a tale of pervasive sadness and frustration. A bold directorial debut from Joe Talbot.



6.

3 FACES

Another powerful snapshot of Iranian life from Jafar Panahi. This one travels to the countryside where Jafar takes an actress to connect with a family of a daughter who may or may not have killed herself.



5.

PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE

A flashback story of a painter commisioned to do a portrait of an aristocratic woman. Since the subject is unwilling, the painter studies her in detail on their daily walks to capture her essence. I was taken aback how well-executed the compositions in this film are and by its inherent, seemingly unforced tension that brims from the screen.



4.

THE IRISHMAN

Martin Scorsese's much-ballyhooed Netflix epic is a much more modest-than-expected story of key mob hit man. Exquisitely edited by Thema Schoonmaker and Joe Pesci is particularly sly and compelling. "Is that all there is?" the film asks. This is a cremation, in effect, of the twentieth century but with sudden resonance within aspects of America's current presidency.



3.

MARRIAGE STORY

Noah Baumbach's tender rendering of a bi-costal divorce and the legal drama that consumes it. I feel like these kind of smart family dramas, ones made with such careful attention, aren't made too much in America anymore, so I found it particularly moving and refreshing.



2.

PAIN AND GLORY

Director Pedro Almodóvar and his male muse Antonio Banderas return with a rhapsodic, semi-autobiographical dream of a movie. Gorgeously executed and wryly funny. A story of the past and present colliding, and of filmmaking itself.




1.

PARASITE

Maybe it’s a bit anticlimactic to have this as another number one on another best of the year list. But I didn’t see a movie that was kicking on all cylinders as astoundingly as this one. The ensemble is great, the script is energetic and crackling, amazing set designs (that unforgettable house!), and striking social commentary of class division and the cannibalization of others that hits its points home (literally, like a stone), but also comes leaves you feeling muddled and uneasy. Watching again, knowing its twists and turns, I found it an even more stirring ride.



other notable films from 2019 (in order of preference):

A Hidden Life, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Midsommar, Birds of Passage, Hustlers, The Wild Pear Tree, Atlantics, Rosie, Joy, The Farewell, American Factory, Booksmart, Us, Diane, Honeyland, Daughter of Mine, The Souvenir, Apollo 11, Gloria Bell, Rocketman, Harriet, I Lost My Body, Wrestle, 1917, Ma, The Third Wife, The Image Book, An Elephant Sitting Still, Knives Out, Judy, Ready or Not, In Fabric, Transit, Sorry Angel, Holiday, Diamantino, A Woman at War, Uncut Gems, Queen & Slim, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, Climax, Just Mercy, Black Mother, Clemency, Downton Abbey, Never Look Away, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Under the Silver Lake, Velvet Buzzsaw, Jobe’z World, Her Smell, One Child Nation, Sauvage, Jojo Rabbit, The Lighthouse, The Report, Ash is the Purest White, A Land Imagined, Family, The Gospel of Eureka, Ms. Purple, Pet Sematary, State Like Sleep, I Used to Be Normal: A Boyband Fangirl Story, The Dead Don’t Die, Rust Creek, Fyre, Annabelle Comes Home, Furie, Crawl, Knock Down the House, High Flying Bird, Western Stars, Tigers Are Not Afraid, Dear Ex, Roll Red Roll

-Jeffery Berg

top 10 films of 2018

Here are my top 10 films of 2018.


10.

Roma

Instead of delving into his own childhood, Alfonso Cuarón explores the story of housekeeper Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio). An unmissable drama. The camera is fascinating in this movie: the way it moves--so mechanically--as such a humanistic tale unfolds. Every drab detail radiates.



9.

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

I was swept up in Melissa McCarthy's portrayal of brash Lee Israrel who huckstered booksellers with forged letters. Vivid New York locales. Swoony, old-fashioned direction by Marielle Heller, which takes its time and lets its entire cast stand out.



8.

Widows

How I loved my theatrical viewing of this twisty, pulpy heist flick, directed by Steve McQueen and co-written by Gillian Flynn, in the midst of a slushy snowstorm. Riveting and deliriously entertaining--with a great big cast--and some broad brushstrokes that I embraced. Also features one of the best cinematic sequences of the year. Hollywood makes very few smart, crackling adult dramas like this anymore.


7.

Burning

Entrancing, engrossing mystery set in South Korea. This film has a great cinematic sequence too, a breathtaking one at dusk. It's hard to understand how a director (here, Chang-dong Lee) can sometimes so effectively put you under a spell.



6.

The Rider

Under the ingenious direction of Chloé Zhao, The Rider follows an injured rodeo rider--his friends and family--and how his physical health impacts his dreams and livelihood. Elegantly filmed and sensitively drawn.




5.

Shirkers

A tale of a stolen film and its ramifications on director Sandi Tan and her co-creators' lives. Tan packs a lot into this doc--the passing of time, film-love, and the troubling mystery at its core.




4.

Leave No Trace

Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie's performance is excellent as young daughter of a vet (Ben Foster) struggling with PTSD in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. The push and pull of what paths that these characters should take with their lives is perceptive and extremely moving.




3.

Happy as Lazzaro

Unusual saint-maybe tale, wrapped in two distinct landscapes: rambling Italian countrysides and later, in the fringes of an urban society. With a light touch, writer / director Alice Rohrwacher's clever picture explores dark issues of morality and human behavior.




2.

The Favourite

A seminal movie of this year. A culture of goofiness and meanness on display in these very goofy and mean times. The sharp, bracing comedy is delivered with pitch-perfect precision in delivery by Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz, and Olivia Colman. Colman sets the film ablaze with Queen Anne's unpredictable swings of emotion and pervasive grief.




1.

Eighth Grade

Bo Burnham's searing and immersive look at a girl  in eighth grade. Lead Elsie Fisher and Josh Hamilton as concerned father both shine brightly. A seemingly simple pic, with few huge dramatic moments, and yet so quietly devastating.



the best of the rest


A Star is Born, Sorry to Bother You, Hereditary, Mandy, Cold War, Night Comes On, On Chesil Beach, Nancy, Of Fathers and Sons, Won't You Be My Neighbor?, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, If Beale Street Could Talk, El Angel, Shoplifters, The Wild Boys, The Hate U Give, Colette, First Man, Madeline’s Madeline, We the Animals, BlacKkKlansman, Ocean’s 8, The Other Side of the Wind, Suspiria, Vice, Black Panther, The Kindergarten Teacher, Minding the Gap, The Cakemaker, Love, Simon, A Quiet Place, Tully, Zama, A Private War, The Land of Steady Habits November, Unsane, The Wife, McQueen, Let the Corpses Tan, Beautiful Boy, The Day After, Disobedience, Halloween, Wildlife, Crazy Rich Asians, Support the Girls, My Art, Private Life, Crime + Punishment, Blindspotting, Game Night, Three Identical Strangers, Lean on Pete, Blame, RBG, Annihilation, Saturday Church, Werewolf, Revenge, Outside In, Flower, First Reformed, Paddington 2, Hearts Beat Loud, The Sisters Brothers, Western, Golden Exits



A look back at 2017.


-Jeffery Berg