Best of 2023: films and TV that entertained and engaged

This year, smaller, carefully considered films and television shows were often crowded out by CGI thundering spectacles. But all was not lost for audiences who value the ability of these mediums to successfully entertain and engage. Tymon Smith selects his best of the year’s big and small screen stories that moved, provoked and asked difficult questions while still delivering plenty of twists, turns and drama.

FILM

Tár — Rent or buy Apple TV +

Director Todd Field’s return to screens after a 16-year hiatus provided some of the year’s most provocative and probing cinematic drama. Anchored by a career-best performance from Cate Blanchett as the hubristic, narcissistic, tragically flawed classical conductor Lydia Tár, the film wove a sophisticated contemplation of the difficult questions about great art made by dubious artists to emotionally devastating effect. Field’s expert control and evocation of the stifling, claustrophobically rarefied world of its setting, make the film a superior example of the effective marriage between form and content that earned it six Oscar nominations, even if it didn’t win on awards night.

Oppenheimer — Rent or Buy Apple TV +

Stripped from the publicity hype of its release date competition with Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, Christopher Nolan’s ambitious and epic biopic of the father of the nuclear bomb proved to be one of recent cinema’s most intelligent and relevant historical dramas. Starring Cillian Murphy as the charming, self-doubting though prescient Manhattan project leader, Nolan’s portrait of one of the most important men in 20th century asked provocative questions and delivered plenty of spectacle. 

Barbie — Rent or buy Apple TV +

A film about an iconic doll seemed, at first glance, a cynical corporate push to expand Mattel’s IP into the world of blockbuster franchises. But thanks to a smart script and pop-reference savvy treatment from director Greta Gerwig, the story of the plastic Malibu princess’s adventures, disappointments and romance with the realities of the real world, was one of the year’s most entertaining, intelligently feminist, big budget adventures. With tongue-in-cheek performances from Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, a host of toe-tapping earworms from Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, and inventive costume and production design paying homage to Barbie’s six decades of history, it’s a film to grin through, which has enough substance to leave you wondering why the gaps between fantasy and reality are still so big.

Asteroid City — Rent or buy Apple TV +

Wes Anderson took his devoted ensemble of regular, offbeat collaborators to the post-war, nuclear-hysterical desert in this typically retro-designed, heartfelt exploration of lost souls burning for connection in an uncertain, anxious world. Artfully weaving its tale within a meta narrative device that places the central story within a story about the making of a story, the film considers the problems of storytelling, never losing sight of the emotional challenges faced by its quirky cast of junior stargazers and their parents as their plans are derailed by the appearance of an interstellar visitor.  

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed — Showed at Encounters Film Festival

Artist and activist Nan Goldin earned the prestigious top spot honour on this year’s Art Review Power 100 list of the most influential people in the contemporary art world. That’s partly because of a long history of using art to advocate and enact real world change, and partly because of the sensitive, inspirational light shed on her career, personal demons and commitment to social justice in Laura Poitras excellent, Oscar-nominated documentary. The film focuses on Goldin’s hard-fought, successful protests against the economic associations between the world’s most prestigious museums and the Sackler family — owners of Purdue Pharmacy whose nefarious pushing of the drug OxyContin led to thousands of deaths and started the opioid epidemic. The film paints a portrait of Goldin as an artist whose advocacy goes hand in hand with her photographic practice. She's a woman whose difficult personal history made her a master chronicler of outsiders.

Past Lives — Rent or buy from Apple TV +

Celine Song’s debut feature is an  emotionally complex, moving drama offering psychologically relatable twists and turns. It’s an ordinary tale of the ebbs and flows in the relationship between Korean childhood friends over decades who take different life paths as they move to places far from their origins — both physically and intellectually. The film is extraordinary for Song's skilful handling of the subtle emotional drama and broader questions the film asks about life, love, fate and chance.

Anatomy of a Fall — shown as part of the EU Film Festival

Justine Trier’s Palme d’Or-winning drama uses the traditional courtroom genre to turn what appears to be a straight whodunnit procedural into an intriguing, uncomfortable dissection of the messy, intimate details of a modern middle-class marriage. Anchored by an icy performance from Sandra Hüller, it’s a complicated film weaving tropes from several genres into a piece of classical European cinema that confounds expectations, leaving you with more questions than answers.

Return to Seoul — Shown as part of the Durban International Film Festival

Director Davy Chou’s effective and affecting drama, starring artist Park Ji-min in his acting debut, tackles themes of identity, nature vs nurture and genetic inheritance against the backdrop of historical geopolitical realities and their consequences on those caught in their tides. Inspired by the true story of a friend and collaborator of the director, it’s an engaging drama about a woman’s search for herself and a nation’s reckoning with its past. It hits home thanks to a strong sense of place and an eye for universally truths.

Killers of the Flower Moon — Rent or buy from Apple TV+

Epic in length, scope and ambition, octogenarian American master Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of the true crime book by David Grann delivered another feather in the cap for a director who has impressively smart and innovative invention left in his creative tank. Featuring the first Scorsese collaboration between Leonard DiCaprio and Robert De Niro and a glowing performance from Lily Gladstone, it’s the story of the murderous lengths to which money-grabbing, white connivers went to steal the oil profits of the Osage nation in the 1920s; it's also about the shameful, rapacious racism that’s shaped US history, staining its deluded foundational myths in blood.

A Thousand and One — Rent or buy from Apple TV+

Director A.V. Rockwell’s debut feature places in focus the challenges faced by black American single mothers and the strains that socioeconomic injustices add to their difficult struggles for day-to-day survival. With a strong and assured performance from music star Teyana Taylor, the film tells a story that charts the relationship between a defiant mother and her son between 1994 and 2005 when gentrification swallowed up what was left of the original residents and unique character of vibrant, tough Harlem.

Showing Up — Rent or buy from Apple TV+

Indie master Kelly Reichardt reunited with regular collaborator Michelle Williams for this deceptively simple, Portland-set examination of the difficulties of creating art in late-era capitalist America. Set in a hippy northwestern art school, the film pays homage to its cast of left-of-centre oddballs, while lamenting the passing of the spirit of creativity for creativity’s sake that’s becoming a remnant of a bygone age.

May December — On circuit

Todd Hayne’s darkly campy melodrama is one of the year’s most enjoyably offbeat, provocative entertainments. Starring Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman and featuring a sensitive breakout performance from Charles Melton, it’s inspired by a true story of a scandalous relationship between a thirtysomething suburban woman and her teenage lover, 20 years after the tabloid dust has settled and they're celebrating the graduation of their teenage children, under the curious and often unsettling gaze of an actress researching for a role in a film about their lives. Filmed in hazy, soft light that reflects the eerie humidity of its Georgia locations, the film slowly (with Hitchcockian winks), gets under the surface of the characters to ask deep questions about trauma, taboos and their tentacled effects on scarred psyches. s

TV 

Beef — Netflix

Ali Wong and Steven Yeun went toe-to-toe in a dark comic tale of Los Angeles road rage that stretched out from its simple premise 10 episodes of examination of the reasons for rage, the differing experiences of Asian Americans, and the mad obsessions of petty revenge.

Poker Face — Showmax

Natasha Lyonne was perfectly cast for an update to the beloved Columbo TV format we never knew we needed until Rian Johnson gave it to us. Featuring a star-studded list of cameo performances, it’s a rejig of a small screen staple. Each episode we’re introduced to a new environment, new characters and a new murder that we wait for the irascible, drily cynical Lyonne to solve.

I’m A Virgo — Prime Video

Boots Riley’s modern fairy-tale about a giant African-American teenager who escapes the protective imprisonment of his fearful parents to discover that being black, 13-foot tall and curious may be signing his own death warrant. It was one of the year’s most inventive, satirical examinations of the absurdities of racial prejudice and injustice in a divided America.

The 1619 Project — Disney Plus

Nikole Hannah-Jones brought her influential podcast and book to life in this docuseries, which built on mixes of personal experience and expert observation to reveal the long shadows cast over present-day American society by its gruesome history of racial prejudice, exploitation and injustice.

Dead Ringers — Prime Video

Rachel Weisz stepped into the shoes originally worn by Jeremy Irons in this smart, feminist revamp of David Cronenberg’s body horror about nasty, manipulative gynaecologist twins who share everything. In this version, they're righteously determined to improve women’s health care by any dubious means necessary. 

Blue Lights — Shown on M-Net

A solidly, gritty cops-on-the-beat show using its Belfast setting to offer reflection on the directions taken by Northern Ireland society in the wake of the troubles. Well-acted and no-nonsense in its approach, and without needing to resort to the tired cliffhangers and convoluted plotting of other shows in the genre, it’s an intelligent social drama and engaging police procedural.

Silo — Apple TV +

Rebecca Ferguson stands out in the adaptation of the twisting, intrigue-filled series of sci-fi novels by Hugh Howey about a dystopian future world in which humans live in a giant underground silo. They’ve been told it's the safest place for the guarantee of their survival. Depressingly relevant in the wake of the ideological tensions that arose during the pandemic, it’s an engaging piece of sci-fi mystery that keeps you guessing.

Dreaming Whilst Black — Prime Video

Star and co-creator Adjani Salmo’s personal satire of racial attitudes in post-Brexit Britain offers a mix of reality and fantasy and a critique of the film industry in one of the year’s most hilarious comedies.

RETURNING AND ENDING SHOWS

Slow Horses — Apple TV +

Gary Oldman returned for a third outing as the irrepressible slob and underestimated espionage master, Jackson Lamb, in another rollicking, witty, London-set caper adaptation of the novels of Mick Herron. After two excellent seasons, this one is the most satisfying as the Slough House gang of misfits begrudgingly work together in a race against the clock to save one of their own.

Succession — Showmax

The biggest water-cooler television event of the year was Jesse Armstrong’s goodbye to the spoilt, back-stabbing Roy clan. In a season that provided gasps from its outset and left everyone guessing, Armstrong offered a masterclass in how to quit while you’re ahead, reminding us why the show is destined to hold a place as a 21st century cultural totems.

Reservation Dogs — Disney Plus

Taika Waititi and Sterlin Harjo’s laid back, coming-of-age comedy about a group of disaffected Native American teens on the cusp of adulthood ended after enjoying its status as one of recent television’s honest and subversive shows.

The Bear — Disney Plus

Carmine and his dysfunctional work family returned in this second season of the Chicago-set restaurant drama. We were given more insight into the personal lives and challenges of the characters and watched as they dealt with the unbearable pressures of trying to revamp The Bear. If you think your family Christmas gathering is going to be hell, watch this season’s family get-together.

Winning Time — Showmax

HBO’s whip smart, period sports dramedy about Magic Johnson and the rise of the Showtime LA Lakers soared to new heights in this tense second season that dealt with the beginnings of the legendary rivalry between Johnson and the Lakers, and Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics. Shamefully, it wasn’t enough to keep HBO from cancelling what was one of the most inventive and vibrant sports shows in decades.