This Week: Recapping the Best Movies of 2023

Did you miss us? After some brief technical difficulties, The Listies are back with a long-overdue recap of the Oscars, Bestie Awards, and all the best movies of 2023. Plus, we’ll even take a look at some of our favorite movies of 2024 (so far!!) and a few that we predict will make a splash at next year’s Academy Awards.

THE 8TH ANNUAL BESTIE AWARD WINNERS 🏆

Let’s start with the most important awards of all—our own! 2024 marked the 8th Annual Bestie Awards, which (much like the Oscars) were dominated by the Atomic Godfather himself, Oppenheimer.

Anatomy of a Fall won three awards, while Barbie, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse each won two. We pulled together a bunch of super cool stats below, but you can peep the full list of winners on our Facebook page… people still use Facebook, right? 😎

• Oppenheimer is the winningest film in Besties history with seven wins (the same number of awards the film won at the Oscars). The previous Besties record was six wins, held by Moonlight, Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, and Everything Everywhere All at Once.

• Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon led the nomination field with 12 nominations each, just one behind the record of 13 held by Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Dune: Part One, and Everything Everywhere All at Once.

• All of Us Strangers was the film this year with the most nominations (5) and zero wins. The record is held by Beanpole with nine nominations, followed by Silence and Dunkirk at seven nominations and You Were Never Really Here, Knives Out, Minari, and The Batman all with six nominations and zero wins.

• This was the first time that all five Best Picture Nominees won at least won one of their nominations. Previous Best Pictures nominees to go home empty handed included The Lobster, Dunkirk, You Were Never Really Here, Marriage Story, Beanpole, The Beatles: Get Back, and The Worst Person in the World.

• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse makes history as the first Animated film nominated for Best Picture at the Besties. The only Documentary to be nominated for Best Picture was The Beatles: Get Back.

• Sandra Hüller’s win in Lead Performance for Anatomy of a Fall and nomination in Supporting for The Zone of Interest marks the second time an actress won for Lead Performance while also being nominated in Supporting, after Florence Pugh (Lead win for Midsommar, Supporting nom for Little Women).

• Jacqueline Durran’s loss for Best Costumes for Barbie leaves her 0/6 at the Besties, the longest losing streak of any nominee in any category.

THE BESTIES VS. THE OSCARS 🤼

Out of a possible 85 nominations, the Besties matched 48 with the Oscars (56%), and in our 17 corresponding categories, we matched on 10 winners (59%).

The categories with most similar nominees were Best Picture, Director, Cinematography, and Animated Feature (all 4/5 matching with the Oscars), while our biggest diversions within the nominations came from the Best Supporting Performances, Original Song, Original Score, Documentary Feature, and Adapted Screenplay (all 2/5 matching with the Oscar noms).

Emma Stone won her second Oscar for Poor Things, but ultimately lost her third Bestie. She was previously nominated at the Besties for La La Land and The Favorite.

The only Bestie winners not nominated at the Oscars in their respective categories were Menus-Plaisirs - Les Troisgros for Best Documentary Film and Asteroid City for Production Design.

OUR TOP 10 MOVIES OF THE YEAR!

As evidenced by our Bestie Award winners, we both agree that Oppenheimer was the best movie of the year, with the equally compelling Anatomy of a Fall coming in a close second. From there, our lists differ slightly, with David favoring All of Us Strangers, Past Lives, and The Boy and the Heron and Emily showing a bit more reverence for The Zone of Interest, Menus-Plaisirs - Les Troisgros, and May December.

For a look at David’s more extensive Top 51 Movies of 2023, see the linked Letterboxd list below:

TOP 5 MOVIES OF 2024 SO FAR 🤔

1. Dune: Part Two

2. Problemista

3. Love Lies Bleeding

4. Kung Fu Panda 4

5. Bob Marley: One Love

Anyone who has seen Dune: Part Two on the big screen knows why it took the number one spot on our list, but we also wanted to shout out a couple of A24 movies in Problemista and Love Lies Bleeding, two unique and visually inventive films with very different vibes. Rounding out the list is Kung Fu Panda 4, a surprisingly competent entry in one of the Listies’ favorite nostalgic franchises, and Bob Marley: One Love, whose lead performances elevate it a bit beyond its tired biopic tropes.

As for the rest of the spring, keep an eye out for some highly anticipated new releases like Dev Patel’s directorial debut Monkey Man, the latest Alex Garland epic Civil War, the tennis-themed Zendaya vehicle Challengers, Jane Schoenbrun’s supernatural horror film I Saw the TV Glow, the Ryan Gosling action-comedy The Fall Guy, and the long-awaited (at least in our house) return to the “Apes” franchise with Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.

🚨 BONUS LIST ALERT 🚨

…and that’s all folks!