As a lifelong fan and even, dare I say, a student of movies, at this time of year I like to peruse the ‘best of’ lists from movie critics, looking for something I’ve missed that I’d like to check out in the next year.
There is, I know, a gap between the kind of movies a professional, high-brow ‘cinema’ critic sees and likes, and the kind of movies an amateur, middle-brow film fan like me likes. But this year, the gap between us isn’t just yawning, but Grand Canyon-sized. And the more ‘important’ the publication, the larger the gap.
Take the New York Times, for example. I’m not expecting them to go ga-ga over a new Adam Sandler film (to be fair, no one should), but this year the suggestions from their two critics are far removed from anything I’d like to see, steeped in ‘take your medicine’ movies, mostly by first-time female directors.
You, dear reader, may feel that some of the following examples sound like your kind of cinema experience, and if so, good for you. So, for your edification, here are some of the Times best movies of the year.
No. 3 on one list is Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troigros, a documentary about a dynasty of French chefs. Sounds … delicious (or delicieuse), I guess. For a little light viewing, how about Occupied City, a four-and-a-half-hour documentary about the fate of Amsterdam’s Jewish population during WWII. Sounds like a great date night flick. Oh, and this sounds like fun: Orlando: My Politician Biography, an “essayistic documentary” by a transgender philosopher and activist that “explores the complexities and many cages of identity”.
If those sound a little too niche for you, how about Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, a documentary from Estonia that was one of many 2023 films that chronicled “women’s journeys toward becoming their own heroes in a world still tilted toward patriarchy”. Well, who can say no to a documentary from Estonia set in a smoke sauna over the course of a year?
Now let’s take a peek at an even more upper-crust publication, The New Yorker, where the critic goes to rapturous extremes of garbled praise.
The critic loved Barbie (any critic that didn’t love Barbie would have been drummed out of the critics’ circle), describing it as “a new dimension in modern cinema.” A film called Passages “unleashed torrents of violently mixed emotions and yields a vertiginous, ecstatic sense of liberation.” Priscilla, the life of Priscilla Presley, actually sounds kind of interesting, until the critic calls it “a poignant synecdoche for the subordination of women in the culture at large.” (BTW, ‘synecdoche’ is defined as “a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa.” I hope that clarifies things.) And what list would be complete without Our Body, a documentary set in the gynecology ward of a French hospital.
TIME magazine is a little more middle-brow, with one recommendation that I might actually seek out. It’s called Dreamin’ Wild, about two people (Walton Goggins and Casey Afleck) who sought pop stardom as teens and who get a second chance in middle age. This I could at least check out, which is more than I can say for TIME’s best picture of the year, Fallen Leaves, from Finland.
Anyway, enjoy. Let me know how the Estonian smoke sauna film turns out.
In This Corner 
I laughed out loud. And I don’t LOL easily. I would love to see more movie reviews from you — but also would like a few recommendations. Surely there must be something worth watching, and by that I mean entertaining.
Thanks, Elinor. I’ll come up with a list of good stuff (or at least my idea of good stuff) in a future blog. Thanks for reading.