top films

Brandon’s Top 20 Films of 2024

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1. She is Conann – My favorite working director reshaped the Conan the Barbarian myth into a lesbian fantasia built on ego death and the cruelty of having to make art in a decaying world.  No one else alive has dared to hijack the movie-making dream machine for their own perverse pleasure in the way Bertrand Mandico has.  He’s perfectly attuned to the medium’s ability to evoke powerful ideas & feelings out of pure, hand-crafted imagery.  There are allusions to luminary provocateurs here that indicate Mandico thinks of himself as the modern equivalent of a Kenneth Anger or a Rainer Werner Fassbinder, but he’s actually our modern Méliès: an illusionist who’s pushing a still-young artform to its most fantastic extremes.

2. I Saw the TV Glow – The melancholy dark side of the Brigsby Bear moon. It’s impossible not to read this VHS-warped dysphoria horror as a cautionary tale for would-be trans people who are too afraid to come out to themselves, but it hits home for anyone who’s ever avoided authentically engaging with their life, body, and community by disappearing into niche, obsessive media consumption instead.  It made me so sad that I felt physically ill, and then I immediately retreated into another movie screening so I wouldn’t think about it for too long.

3. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World – A three-hour Romanian art film about labor exploitation in the global gig economy . . . One that communicates through vulgar pranks & memes, setting aside good taste & subtlety in favor of making its political points directly, without pretension.

4. Mars Express – A great sci-fi action blockbuster that happens to be animated & French. It’s just familiar enough to make you wonder why Hollywood studios aren’t regularly making large-scale sci-fi like Minority Report & Terminator 2 anymore, but then its third act shoots for the stars in a way that distinguishes it from its obvious reference points through sheer dazzlement.

5. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga – George Miller’s action blockbuster sequel gives me the RRR tingles more often than it gives me the Fury Road tingles, which is honestly just as good. It’s large-scale, uncanny CG mythmaking from one of our finest working madmen.

6. The People’s Joker – This fair-use Joker parody is the kind of direct, rawly honest outsider art that hosts a guided tour of the inner sanctums of its director’s brain. It’s not Vera Drew’s fault that the secret batcaves of her particular brain are wallpapered with copyrighted corporate media. We’ve all been mentally poisoned by pop culture iconography in that way, but most artists are too timid to engage with it in their work with this level of fearless vulnerability. It’s an impressively funny, personal comedy framed within the grease stain that Batman comics have left on modern culture.

7. Last Things – Billed as “an experimental film about evolution and extinction from the point of view of rocks,” the most exciting thing about this apocalyptic hybrid-doc is finally getting to experience what it’s like to be Björk for an hour: finding infinite significance, beauty, and terror in simple mineral formations.

8. Memoir of a Snail – A stop-motion animated dramedy about cruelty, loneliness, and mental illness from the director of Mary & Max: a stop-motion animated dramedy about cruelty, loneliness, and mental illness. There’s a tangible, darkly comic sense of despair to Adam Elliot’s work that’s matched only by fellow snail’s pace animator Don Hertzfeldt, except Elliot thankfully borrows a little Jean-Pierre Jeunet whimsy to help cut the tension. 

9. Cuckoo – Tilman Singer’s teen-angst freakout escalates the verbally conveyed psychedelia of his debut Luz to something more traditionally thrilling. He genre-hops from demonic possession to creepy asylum horror but maintains the same screenwriting ambition of pulling brain-melting ideas out of simple, stripped-down tools. It’s also a major triumph for audiences who’ve been waiting around for Dan Stevens & Hunter Schaeffer to be handed meatier material; our time is now.

10. Love Lies Bleeding – I went into this muscular erotic thriller expecting to swoon for its synths, sex, and biceps. I’m surprised to say that I was also emotionally invested in its central romance beyond those surface aesthetics, which was not as much of a given. Rose Glass amplifies everything that was exciting about her debut Saint Maud to grander effect, once again getting away with one of my least favorite genre filmmaking tropes (contextualizing all supernatural fantasy elements as dreams & delusions instead of them “really” happening), somehow making it feel like audacity rather than cowardice. It’s ripped, roided, and noided.

11. The Substance – There was a movie called Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo at Cannes a few years ago that got unanimously rotten reviews complaining that it’s just four relentless hours of young people’s gyrating butts.  It never got US distribution, but Coralie Fargeat’s satirical body-horror comedy is exactly what I imagined it looked like, except now with positive reviews and surrealistic gore effects from Screaming Mad George.

12. Aishiteru! (Safe Word) – A semi-pink mockumentary about a pro-wrestling pop idol who gets recruited as a dominatrix because she can’t stop playing heel.  Whatever dramatic authenticity is lost in its sub-professional production values is made up for in its intense fixations on sexual power dynamics & subcultural detail. If you have any entry-level interest in wrestling, pop, or kink, this is a thrilling, endearing journey through their backrooms & dungeons.

13. Kinds of Kindness – The sinister absurdism of this New Orleans-set anthology drama convinced me that Yorgos Lanthimos would be just as effective as a playwright as he is as a filmmaker, which I can’t believe never occurred to me before. More urgently, a lot of it was shot in the immediate area where I work & live, which was uncomfortable because I don’t want any of the creeps he’s dreamed up anywhere near me.

14. A Different Man – Aaron Schimberg ventures further into the ethical & psychological labyrinth of rethinking onscreen disfigurement & disability representation that he first stepped into with Chained for Life, this time with less third-act abstraction.  Sebastian Stan does incredible work building complex layers in the lead role until Adam Pearson completely wrecks the whole thing in the funniest way possible.  It’s a great dark comedy about the tensions between internal & external identity.

15. The Feeling that the Time for Doing Something Has Passed – Joanna Arnow delivers the driest humor you’ll find outside a Roy Andersson film, which is funny to say about an autofictional BDSM romcom where no single scene lasts longer than a minute.

16. Anora – This sex-work Cinderella story is the feel-good sweet counterbalance to the feel-bad sour notes of Sean Baker’s Red Rocket. Both films are equally funny & frantic, but Baker has clearly decided he wants audiences to love him again after his brief heel era, and it’s impressive to see him face-turn to this opposite tonal extreme of his work without losing his voice.

17. The Beast – A sci-fi fantasy horror about falling for the same entitled fuckboy over & over again in each of your past & future lives, and all that changes is the temporal context in which he sucks. It’s one of those purposefully cold, inscrutable Euro provocations that you’re not sure if you’re supposed to take entirely seriously, until director Bertrand Bonello tips his hand a little by making you watch pop-up ad clips from Trash Humpers in a brilliant throwaway gag.

18. Nosferatu – Robert Eggers has softened his alienating approach to narrative structure so that he can escalate his exquisite, traditionalist images to a grander, major-studio scale.  As a result, this cracked costume drama doesn’t add much to the ongoing ritual of restaging Dracula (except for accidentally making the argument that Coppola’s version is the best to date).  It’s a gorgeous, heinous nightmare in pure visual terms, though, which obviously goes a long way in a largely visual medium.

19. Longlegs – This supernatural serial killer thriller feels convincingly Evil and gives Nicolas Cage free rein to be erratically Intense. Call me a simple man, but that’s more than enough for me.  The Oz Perkins directorial project continues an upward trend.

20. In a Violent Nature – A corny 80s bodycount slasher shot & edited with modern slow-cinema arthouse distancing.  It’s very funny in how it gives horror-convention gorehounds exactly what they want (the most annoying idiot youths to ever disgrace the screen being gruesomely dismembered) while also being stubbornly withholding (shooting the stillness of the woods with an Apichatpongian sense of patience).

-Brandon Ledet

Lagniappe Podcast: Conclave & SEFCA Awards 2024

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For this lagniappe episode of the podcast, Brandon is joined by Moviegoing with Bill‘s Bill Arceneaux to discuss the Southeastern Film Critic Association’s awarded films of 2024, starting with Edward Berger’s papal voting-process thriller Conclave.

00:00 Moviegoing with Bill
22:15 Conclave (2024)
54:40 SEFCA’s Top 10 Films of 2024
1:29:19 Other SEFCA winners

You can stay up to date with our podcast through SoundCloud, Spotify, iTunes, TuneIn, or by following the links on this page.

– The Lagniappe Podcast Crew

SEFCA’s Top 10 Films of 2024

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Swampflix’s official coverage of the best films of 2024 won’t start until January 2025, but list-making season is already in full swing elsewhere. General consensus on the best films of the year is starting to take shape as regional film critic associations are publishing their collective Best of the Year lists, and I’m proud to say I was once again able to take a small part in that annual ritual. I voted in the Southeastern Film Critics Association poll for the best films of 2024, representing a consensus opinion among 89 critics across nine states in the American South. Winners were announced this morning, and it’s a pretty solid list. At the very least, it’s cool to see Sean Baker recognized for his latest in a long line of high-energy, high-empathy sex industry dramas, Anora, and to see the objectively best score of the year win its respective category: Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross’s music for Luca Guadagnino’s erotic tennis thriller Challengers. I’m also proud to have helped a movie as absurdly grotesque as Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance get rightfully highlighted as one of the year’s major works.

The biggest story of last year’s SEFCA list was the total dominance of Christopher Nolan’s historical drama Oppenheimer, which then went on to sweep The Oscars as well, with seven wins out of thirteen nominations. This year, there’s no clear dominant winner, as the majority of the prizes are evenly split among Anora, Conclave, and The Brutalist. That sounds like a robust crop of movies to me. To quote SEFCA President Scott Phillips in today’s press release, “Every year we hear from the naysaying sectors of the industry that it wasn’t a very good year for film. This slate of winners easily disproves that statement for 2024. Between theatrical distribution and streaming, releases can be a bit scattered and hard to find, but if you take the time to find the better films of 2024, they form a potent lineup. We hope that film fans out there can use our Top 10 list to catch up on some of the best that 2024 had to offer.”

Check out the SEFCA’s Top 10 Films of 2024 list below, and the full list of this year’s awarded films on the organization’s website.

  1. Anora
  2. The Brutalist
  3. Conclave
  4. Dune Part 2
  5. Challengers
  6. Nickel Boys
  7. Sing Sing
  8. Wicked Part 1
  9. The Substance
  10. A Complete Unknown

11th Place Runner-Up (and my personal favorite on this list): I Saw the TV Glow

-Brandon Ledet

Swampflix’s Top 10 Films of 2023

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1. Barbie – Greta Gerwig’s hot-pink meta daydream combines the bubbly pop feminism of Legally Blonde with the movie-magic artifice of The Wizard of Oz to craft the modern ideal of wide-appeal Hollywood filmmaking. It’s fantastic, an instant classic. 

2. Enys Men – In a year where the buzziest horror titles were slow-cinema abstractions (see: Skinamarink, The Outwaters), Mark Jenkins’s sophomore feature was our clear favorite.  More like an imagistic poem about loneliness and isolation than a “movie,” Enys Men is the psychedelic meltdown of id at the bottom of a deep well of communal grief.  It restructures the seaside ghost story of John Carpenter’s The Fog through the methodical unraveling of Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, dredging up something that’s at once eerily familiar & wholly unique.

3. Poor Things – Yorgos Lanthimos has always poked at assumed social norms as if they were a corpse he found in the woods.  That naive interrogation has never been as scientifically thorough nor as wickedly fun as it is here, though, to the point where he’s articulated the entire human experience through repurposed dead flesh. We love everything about this perverse Frankenstein story: every outrageous set & costume design, every grotesque CG creature that toddles in the background, every one of Mark Ruffalo’s man-baby tantrums and, of course, every moment of Emma Stone’s central performance as an unhinged goblin child.

4. Asteroid City – A new contender for one of Wes Anderson’s strongest works.  In The French Dispatch, he self-assessed how his fussy live-action New Yorker cartoons function as populist entertainment. Here, that self-assessment peers inward, shifting to their function as emotional Trojan horses. It has more layers of reality upon fiction upon more fiction upon reality than The Matrix, with gorgeous set design and an incredible cast of actors giving career-best performances.

5. The Royal Hotel – Kitty Green’s service industry thriller plays like a slightly more grounded version of Alex Garland’s Men, except the men in question swarm their victims like George Romero zombie hordes. A great film about misogyny, social pressure, and alcoholic stupor.

6. Smoking Causes Coughing – An anthology horror comedy disguised as a Power Rangers parody, Smoking Causes Coughing is another bizarro knockout from Quentin Dupieux (director of Rubber, Mandibles, and previous Movie of the Year pick Deerskin).  Apparently antsy about having to spend 70min on just one absurdist premise, Dupieux’s now chopping them up into bite-sized, 7-minute morsels, which is great, since every impulse he has is hilariously idiotic.

7. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem – Not only the best Ninja Turtles movie in thirty years, but also the best mutation of the Spider-Verse animation aesthetic to date and the most a Trent Reznor score has actually sounded like Trent Reznor’s band. We were particularly delighted that it leans into the “teen” portion of its title by making everything as gross as possible and by making the turtles’ ultimate goal Saving Prom.

8. M3GAN – Finally, a modern killer doll movie where the doll actually moves, a huge relief after spending so many years staring at the inanimate Annabelle.  M3GAN loves to move; she does TikTok dances, she actively hunts her prey and, most importantly, she never turns down an opportunity to give Michelle Pfeiffer-level side-eye.  It’s been a long time since this first hit theaters, but the increasing, insidious popularity of A.I. among tech bros kept it on our minds all year.  What a doll.

9. Infinity Pool – There certainly hasn’t been a shortage of “Eat the Rich” satires recently, but Brandon Cronenberg’s entry in the genre still stands out in its extremity.  Not only does it have Mia Goth’s most deranged performance to date (no small feat), but it’s also more willing than its competition to push its onscreen depravity past the point of good taste for darkly comic, cathartic release – careful to put every substance the human body can discharge on full, loving display. Plenty audiences were turned off by its disregard for subtlety & restraint, but that’s exactly what makes it great.

10. Priscilla – Sofia Coppola’s downers & cocktails antidote to Baz Luhrmann’s brain-poison uppers in last year’s Elvis.  Technically, both directors are just playing the hits in their respective Graceland biopics, but only one of them successfully recaptures the magic of their 1990s masterworks.  It’s one of Coppola’s best films about the boredom & isolation of feminine youth, which by default makes it one of her best overall.

Read Alli’s picks here.
Read Boomer’s picks here.
Read Brandon’s picks here.
Read Britnee’s picks here.
See Hanna’s picks here.
Hear James’s picks here.

-The Swampflix Crew

Alli’s Top 10 Films of 2023

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1. Poor Things
I love everything about this movie: the imaginative sets and world design, the grotesque lil creatures that pepper background scenes, Emma Stone playing an unhinged goblin child, and every single outfit she wears while doing so. The entire cast is amazing, especially Stone, but shout out to Mark Ruffalo for throwing the best man-baby tantrums. Past those surface-level joys, the ideas are complex and amazing.  What responsibilities do we owe other people, especially in our own efforts to be free? Where does bodily autonomy start and end? Which societal expectations help or hinder us? It’s a lush work of genius. 

2. The Boy and the Heron
Dreams and memories blend with a wide array of art styles in what is probably the messiest and yet most poignant work by Miyazaki. Ultimately the messages and metaphors become muddled and unclear, but in a way that’s true to life. Should future generations hold onto the things older people built or just topple it over and begin again? Does he want us to take his work as meaningless doodles, or does he think the kids these days need to stop obsessing over every little detail and just go exist in real life? Yes, it’s typical curmudgeonly Miyazaki stuff, but to me, the complexity is so fascinating. Also, there are some very cute little weird guys (the entire theater experienced me squealing over them every time they were on screen; seriously, they’re that cute), and Robert Pattinson puts in the voice acting performance of the year.

3. Enys Men
We’ve all had too much time being isolated the past few years. I think at some point we all feel stir crazy and a little like we’re in a time loop. Watching the scientist protagonist spend every day checking the same flower, dropping a stone down the same pit, and ultimately having nothing change—until it does—hits close to home. How long can someone last doing the same things in the same place before they start experiencing weird stuff? What tasks do we have to give ourselves to make our days meaningful? The filmmaking here is just so cool and the vibes are very uncomfortable and haunting.  

4. Barbie
I was a Barbie-obsessed child of the 90s. I had a Barbie Dream House, complete with a Barbie toilet. I had too many dolls to count. I once pushed a boy who was bigger than me over and got in trouble for it, because he threw one of my Barbies on a roof (proto man-eating-feminist baby Alli was not to be trifled with). I was all-in from the start when I heard this movie was being made, while folks around me remained hesitant. I feel extremely vindicated that it’s as wonderful as it is. It’s a hot-pink meta daydream about plastic feminism and how the patriarchy can seep in and take control solely through books about horses or other innocuous male-driven media. I think a lot of people missed the point in thinking that reforming Ken was the focus of the movie rather than the butt of the joke, but the basic point of “Hey, check out these double standards” still got across. I’m very glad this was the most popular movie of last year.

5. Asteroid City
Yet another movie on this list that’s all style and complex metaphor about surviving forced isolation, but this one has a sense of self-deprecating humor about it! It’s a movie about a televised documentary about the making of a play, which is a ridiculous concept only Wes Anderson can get us on board with for an hour and 45 minutes. Impeccably stylish and effortlessly funny, this belongs in the same breath as The Royal Tenenbaums as one of his strongest works. 

6. Skinamarink
If you thought I was done talking about movies that deal with being stuck in one place, you were wrong! No story about two kids getting trapped inside a house has ever delivered more digital fuzz or existential dread. This is a bad-vibes-only 90s horror fever dream that still has me thinking about it all the time even a full year after I saw it. A Freudian family-dysfunction nightmare, dread fills every single frame. There’s something about it that shook my inner little kid who remembers staying up too late, under-supervised and watching weird cartoons while every single noise in the house was the scariest thing in the world. Plus, I watch kids for a living, and I keep seeing that damn phone around the houses where I’m sitting. 

7. M3GAN
A.I. is taking over the minutiae of our lives, and some tech bros without enough cultural knowledge to know better would like it to take over art as well (GROAN). Most A.I. horror fails to capture how casually insidious that desire is, but not M3GAN. It’s a Frankenstein-eqsue horror about nerds not thinking through the consequences of their actions, because they’re just too excited about what they’re doing to care, which is exactly the problem. Also, it’s a very funny horror comedy with a very creepy robot girl. 

8. Smoking Causes Coughing
Quentin Dupieux continues his streak of absurdist horror-adjacent nonsense for weirdos, and we should all love him for it. A parodic “super sentai” force, powered by the harmful chemicals in cigarettes, fights giant reptile monsters until they’re sent on a wilderness retreat to work on their teambuilding. They end up telling spooky stories instead, so the film takes a hard left turn into the horror anthology genre. It’s disgusting, and I love it.

9/10. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem & Nimona (TIE)

Both of these animated films are about self-acceptance and about how sometimes the bad guys just need a friend to push them in the right direction. They’re also both examples of how children’s media outside of Disney is often much fuller of heart and emotion. They’re funny, visually wonderful, and absolutely silly. Nimona made me tear up from feelings. Mutant Mayhem made me tear up from laughing.

-Alli Hobbs

Britnee’s Top 15 Films of 2023

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15. No One Will Save You – Like Priscilla, this is a great film about loneliness. Except, instead of being trapped in Graceland, our main girl is dealing with home-invading aliens.

14. The Holdovers – An instant holiday classic. The movie version of a comforting bowl of chicken noodle soup on a chilly winter’s day.

13. M3GAN– Finally, a modern killer doll movie that isn’t afraid to be weird AF.

12. Priscilla – I didn’t know that Graceland was so scary. Sofia Coppola did a wonderful job telling Priscilla Presley’s story.

11. No Hard Feelings – Raunchy comedy is not dead! I haven’t seen a film this funny in a long time, and now I have hope for the future.

10. May December – All of the campy made-for-tv drama is extremely fun, and then Charles Melton makes it clear that this film is actually about how trauma ruins lives.

9. The Iron Claw – Coming from someone who dislikes sports dramas, this is an incredibly powerful movie with outstanding performances, particularly from Zac Efron (never thought I would say that). I wanna cry just thinking about it.

8. John Wick: Chapter 4 – Another fantastic edition of the greatest action franchise of our time. This was my favorite theatrical experience of 2023. I saw it with a group of girlfriends, and we had so much fun cheering John Wick on while almost going into cardiac arrest from all of the intensity.

7. Past Lives – A love story that isn’t actually romantic but is so deep and real. It slowly pulled all sorts of emotions from me and then really hit me in the feels at the end.

6. Talk to Me – Grief horror is my new favorite sub-genre. There’s just something about covering your eyes in fear while crying at the same time that really makes me feel alive. 

5. Barbie – I didn’t expect this to be such a meaningful personal experience. But seriously, how can I rent one of the Barbie Dreamhouses from the set? I bet the utilities are included. 

4. The Royal Hotel – I’ve never been to Australia nor have I worked at a bar, but my god, this film captures the unnerving feeling of being trapped in a misogynistic environment fueled by alcohol. Every woman needs to have a Hanna in their life. 

3. Beau is Afraid – This is such an accurate depiction of living with anxiety, which is what makes it so terrifying yet beautiful. Ari Aster is a genius, and I adore his sick and twisted mind.

2. Infinity Pool – Mia Goth is at her peak when she’s playing deranged characters, and this is her best film yet. I loved how batshit and unique the story is, and I can’t wait for the next Brandon Cronenberg fever dream.

1. Saltburn – The trashiest film of the year, one that has influenced the youth to embrace filth. It’s everything a modern movie should be.

-Britnee Lombas

Podcast #203: The Top 24 Films of 2023

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Welcome to Episode #203 of The Swampflix Podcast. For this episode, Brandon, James, Britnee, and Hanna discuss their favorite films of 2023.

00:00 Welcome
01:26 Night Swim (2024)

06:27 Skinamarink
13:30 May December
20:17 Anatomy of a Fall
26:09 The Five Devils
30:40 The Iron Claw
38:13 John Wick: Chapter 4
44:47 EO
49:16 Fallen Leaves
55:49 Dream Scenario
1:02:22 Past Lives
1:09:57 Talk to Me
1:15:56 Shin Ultraman
1:19:40 Beau is Afraid

01:28:00 Godzilla Minus One
01:33:03 TMNT: Mutant Mayhem
01:40:52 Smoking Causes Coughing
01:48:08 Priscilla
01:53:41 Infinity Pool
01:59:52 The Royal Hotel
02:08:55 Asteroid City
02:18:47 Enys Men
02:26:06 Barbie

02:34:50 Saltburn
02:46:33 Poor Things

James’s Top 20 Films of 2023

  1. Poor Things
  2. Enys Men
  3. Asteroid City
  4. Priscilla
  5. Barbie
  6. Godzilla Minus One
  7. Dream Scenario
  8. Smoking Causes Coughing
  9. Infinity Pool
  10. Skinamarink
  11. The Royal Hotel
  12. Fallen Leaves
  13. How to Blow Up a Pipeline
  14. May December
  15. Afire
  16. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
  17. Talk to Me
  18. M3GAN
  19. Leave the World Behind
  20. No Hard Feelings

You can stay up to date with our podcast through SoundCloud, Spotify, iTunes, TuneIn, or by following the links on this page.

– The Podcast Crew

Brandon’s Top 20 Films of 2023

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1. Poor Things — Yorgos Lanthimos movies have always poked at assumed social norms as if they were a corpse he found in the woods.  That naive interrogation has never been as scientifically thorough nor as perversely fun as it is here, though, to the point where it feels like he’s articulated the entire human experience through repurposed dead flesh. It’s clearly the movie of the year and, so far, the movie of his career.

2. The Royal Hotel — I’m shocked by how much I loved this service industry thriller, even though I bought in early on director Kitty Green & star Julia Garner stock back when prices were low (Casting JonBenet & Electrick Children, respectively). It plays like a slightly more grounded version of Alex Garland’s Men, except the men in question swarm their victims like George Romero zombie hordes. A great film about misogyny, social pressure, and alcoholic stupor.

3. Enys Men — In a year where the buzziest horror titles were slow-cinema abstractions, I’m glad one stabbed me squarely in the brain stem after a couple near-misses (see: Skinamarink, The Outwaters).  A pure psychedelic meltdown of id at the bottom of a deep well of communal grief.  It restructures the seaside ghost story of Carpenter’s The Fog through the methodical unraveling of Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, dredging up something that’s at once eerily familiar & wholly unique.

4. Priscilla — Sofia Coppola’s downers & cocktails antidote to Baz Luhrmann’s brain-poison uppers.  Technically, both directors are just playing the hits in their respective Graceland biopics, but only one of them successfully recaptures the magic of their 1990s masterworks.  It’s one of Coppola’s best films about the boredom & isolation of feminine youth, by which I mean it’s one of her best overall.

5. Barbie — Combines the bubbly pop feminism of Legally Blonde with the menacing, high-artifice movie magic of The Wizard of Oz to craft the first truly great Hollywood studio film of the decade. It’s fantastic, an instant classic.

6. Shin Ultraman — A 60s-throwback kaiju comedy that looks like it was shot by Soderbergh in full show-off mode.  It more often recalls Big Man Japan than it does Shin Godzilla, but that’s at least a comparison that does it a lot of favors.  Come for the absurdist skyscraper action; stay for the adorable go-getter humanist spirit.

7. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem — Not only the best Ninja Turtles movie in thirty years, but also the best mutation of the Spider-Verse animation aesthetic to date and the most a Trent Reznor score has actually sounded like Trent Reznor’s band. I was particularly delighted that it leans into the “teen” portion of its title by making everything as gross as possible and by making the turtles’ ultimate goal Saving Prom.

8. Smoking Causes Coughing — An anthology horror comedy disguised as a Power Rangers parody.  Quentin Dupieux is apparently getting antsy about having to spend 70min on just one absurdist premise, so now he’s chopping them up into bite-sized, 7-minute morsels, which is great, since every impulse he has is hilariously idiotic. He’s in his goofball Roy Andersson era. 

9. Asteroid City — In The French Dispatch, Wes Anderson self-assessed how his fussy live-action New Yorker cartoons function as populist entertainment. In Asteroid City, the self-assessment peers inward, shifting to their function as emotional Trojan horses. I found the former funnier, the latter more affecting, and I suspect they’re both worthy of repeat viewings to fully sink into their dense detail.

10. Godzilla Minus One — It was a great year for nostalgic throwbacks to vintage tokusatsu (see also: Shin Ultraman, Shin Kamen Rider, Smoking Causes Coughing), but this is the only title in that crop to hit the notes of deep communal hurt from the original 1954 Godzilla film that started it all. That sincerity is incredibly rewarding, if not only because it’s the only Godzilla movie I can remember making me cry.

11. Infinity Pool — Among its many fellow recent “Eat the Rich” satires, this most reminded me of Triangle of Sadness, mostly for how far it pushes its onscreen depravity for darkly comedic, cathartic release – careful to put every possible substance the human body can discharge on full, loving display.  Plenty audiences are turned off by both works’ disregard for subtlety & restraint, but that’s exactly what makes them great.

12. Rimini — In which a has-been pop singer drinks and fucks away the remaining scraps of his life in off-season beachside hotel rooms.  It’s commendable both as a wryly grim character study and as the Euro counterpoint to recent American films only using geriatric sex for gross-out jump scares.  Sure, the racist, alcoholic protagonist is gross, but the sex he’s having is refreshingly matter of fact in its vulgarity.

13. The Taste of Things — An aggressively sensual romance about the joy of sharing thoughtfully prepared meals. It’s absurdly cozy & warm, likely the best movie about food since Pig.

14. The Five Devils — An intensely fucked up little time-travel family drama, punctuated by volatile jabs of style & emotion. Petite Maman for sickos.

15. Piaffe — Ann Oren’s follow-up to her outsider-art cosplay documentary The World is Mine is high-art pony play erotica.  It’s the closest thing we got to a new Peter Stickland movie this year, which automatically earns it a slot on this list.

16. Give Me Pity! — Amanda Kramer’s feature length spoof of disco era one-woman TV specials, one that pushes well past the initial layers of irony & artifice to dig at something deeply ugly about all artists’ outsized, fragile egos.  It’s a vicious takedown of fame-obsessed LA Brain from women who seem like they’ve suffered it first-hand.

17. Sick of Myself — A hilariously squirmy satire about art-world narcissism in which neither of the competing egos at the center actually make art; one is a designer furniture thief, and the other is an ambitionless barista who medically self-harms for attention.  In a way, their dual addiction to the spotlight makes them a perfect couple.  It would almost be romantic if they weren’t constantly, viciously fighting for flash-in-the-pan media coverage. Love is petty, love is benign.

18. M3GAN — What’s most important here is that the killer doll gives the best side-eye since Michelle Pfeiffer in French Exit.  Hell, maybe even the best side-eye since Michelle Pfeiffer in mother!.  No small feat.

19. Shin Kamen Rider — All of the retro kitsch of Shin Ultraman and the volatile brutality of Shin Godzilla streamlined into one unfathomably efficient superhero saga.  Zips through a half-century of TV episode storylines so quickly you have no time to care whether you have any idea what’s going on or not. Just do your best to tag along for the high-speed motorcycle rides & insectoid hyperviolence or you’ll miss a season’s worth of plot reveals in a single blink.

20. Suzume — I don’t know that Makoto Shinkai will ever match the soaring teen emotions of Your Name., but the visual artistry of his two lesser loved follow-ups still coasts miles above most modern animation.  His work remains impressively gorgeous & earnest in the moment even if it’s no longer surprising or novel in the larger context of his career, since he keeps repeating the same beats every picture. If anything, at this point the defiant tripling down on his schtick is starting to become endearing in a Wes Andersonian way.

-Brandon Ledet

Boomer’s Academy Ballot 2023

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I managed to see more new releases this year than I saw in any prior year writing for Swampflix (at least as far as I can tell, having started noting every movie that I see with the date I watched it just a few years ago). The issue is that sometimes I see movies that have some individual elements that are fantastic but aren’t enough to push that movie into the “best” of the year for me. For instance, I didn’t care for Infinity Pool very much—it was excellently made, perfectly sound edited, expertly cast—but still want to highlight that it deserves consideration in some field, even if I can’t consider it one of my favorites for the year. Cobweb was a fun movie that fell apart toward the end, but its lead child actor deserves special accolades for the performance that he turned in. There are also times when some of the most beautiful parts of a movie only become clearer later on, sometime after I wrote my review, and I want to make sure that I highlight a performance that had a bigger impact on me after I had more time to ruminate on the piece.

So, in order to make sure that I give out all the laurels that my limited internet presence allows, here are some of the standouts in every category. It’s based largely on the Academy ballot, but without the categories I’m not qualified (either because I didn’t see enough of them, like documentaries, or because I don’t have access to some relevant material, like best original screenplays, etc.) to judge. I also didn’t include Best Original Song because there’s really only one contender in my mind: ”Dear Alien (Who Art In Heaven)” from Asteroid City. I also fiddled with the Supporting Actor section to split it up between age groups rather than genders, both to ensure that nonbinary actor Quintessa Swindell had a seat at the table for their stellar performance in Master Gardener (another film that didn’t make my Top 20) and to highlight that this was an amazing year for children and young adult performers. Whether as uncannily unchildlike creeps in There’s Something Wrong with the Children, or the victims of terror as in Cobweb and M3GAN, a lot of young actors brought a lot to the table this year. Please enjoy these recommendations, and happy holidays!

  1. Best Visual Effects
    1. M3GAN
    2. Asteroid City
    3. Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1
    4. No One Will Save You
  2. Best Actor in a Leading Role
    1. Nicolas Cage – Dream Scenario
    2. John Boyega – They Cloned Tyrone
    3. Joaquin Phoenix – Beau is Afraid
    4. Zach Gilford – There’s Something Wrong with the Children
    5. Ed Norton – Asteroid City
    6. Paul Giamatti – The Holdovers
  3. Best Actress in a Leading Role
    1. Margot Robbie – Barbie
    2. Julia Garner – The Royal Hotel
    3. Kaitlyn Dever – No One Will Save You
    4. Sandra Hüller – Anatomie d’une chute (Anatomy of a Fall)
    5. Da’Vine Joy Randolph – The Holdovers
    6. Teyonah Parris – They Cloned Tyrone
    7. Greta Lee – Past Lives
  4. Best Adult in a Supporting Role
    1. Dominic Sessa – The Holdovers
    2. Quintessa Swindell – Master Gardener
    3. Patti Lupone – Beau is Afraid
    4. Jeffrey Wright – Asteroid City
    5. Tilda Swinton – The Killer
    6. Ursula Yovich – The Royal Hotel
    7. America Ferrera – Barbie
    8. Mia Goth – Infinity Pool
    9. Antoine Reinartz – Anatomie d’une chute (Anatomy of a Fall)
  5. Best Non-Adult/Young Adult Performer in a Lead or Supporting Role
    1. Woody Norman – Cobweb
    2. Brielle Guiza – There’s Something Wrong with the Children
    3. Jake Ryan – Asteroid City
    4. Armen Nahapetian – Beau is Afraid
    5. Violet McGraw – M3GAN
    6. Enzo Ferrada – La vaca que cantó una canción hacia el futuro (The Cow Who Sang a Song into the Future)
    7. Milo Machado Graner – Anatomie d’une chute (Anatomy of a Fall)
    8. Iman Vellani – The Marvels
  6. Best Art Direction
    1. Moon Garden
    2. Enys Men
    3. Asteroid City
    4. Ang Pagbabalik ng Kwago (aka Leonor Will Never Die)
    5. Fumer fait tousser (Smoking Causes Coughing)
    6. Barbie
    7. Master Gardener
  7. Best Cinematography
    1. Enys Men
    2. La vaca que cantó una canción hacia el futuro (The Cow Who Sang a Song into the Future)
    3. Infinity Pool
    4. Past Lives
    5. Moon Garden
    6. A Haunting in Venice
  8. Best Costume Design
    1. The Holdovers
    2. Asteroid City
    3. They Cloned Tyrone
    4. No One Will Save You
    5. Cocaine Bear
  9. Best Director
    1. Celine Song – Past Lives
    2. Francisca Alegria – La vaca que cantó una canción hacia el futuro (The Cow Who Sang a Song into the Future)
    3. Martika Ramirez Escobar – Ang Pagbabalik ng Kwago (aka Leonor Will Never Die)
    4. Brandon Cronenberg – Infinity Pool
    5. Brian Duffield – No One Will Save You
    6. Alexander Payne – The Holdovers
  10. Best Film Editing
    1. Enys Men
    2. The Royal Hotel
    3. Infinity Pool
    4. Scream VI
    5. Anatomie d’une chute (Anatomy of a Fall)
    6. No One Will Save You

-Mark “Boomer” Redmond