2023 First-Timers

There’s little I love more than being able to confidently recommend a movie to someone based on what I know about their taste, and then either getting to share in their discovery with them or hearing about how much they liked it later. Narcissistically, that may just be my desire to be right talking, but I like to think that I’m also doing my share in keeping the culture of movies – especially the importance of knowing and recognizing good ones – alive in a small way (insert joke about it ain’t being much, but it’s honest work here). Continuing to expand my own horizons means watching older movies for the first time, and for all the angst I have about streaming affecting how movies are made and funded and distributed and potentially destroying the ability for new artists to naturally evolve, there is a wealth of classic and international films within reach of anyone with a subscription.

I track a lot of what I watch on Letterboxd, a social media website/app that operates much like Goodreads, and looking back on it I watched 60 films this past year that were released before 2022 or 2023 that I’ve never seen before, which is quite a total to be confronted with. What’s even more is that I liked most of them, but I’d never subject you to a full rundown of that many movies. So, here’s a brief word on what I liked the best – as always, I’ll have the full list compiled at the end for the TL;DR crowd.

Golden Age Hollywood.

• It Happened One Night (1934). I’m not smart enough to proclaim this the first rom com ever made, but I think I can confidently call it one of the best I’ve ever seen, even nearly 90 years on. The chemistry between the two leads is palpable and wonderful, the jokes still land, and the way that the movie (doesn’t) address sex, gender roles and class is as charming as it is witty.

• Laura (1944). If you know my taste, you know that I absolutely love film noir, and Otto Preminger’s murder mystery remains one of the genre’s staples for good reason. In addition to hitting all the right tropes at all the right times, it addresses them in fascinating ways. This movie’s look at a near-psychosexual fixation on its “femme fatale” and titular murder victim reaches Hitchcockian levels of intrigue, but if you’re just looking for a crime story full of twists and misdirection, look no further.

• Out of the Past (1947). Another noir, another classic, another movie that’s far deeper than its inclusion in the genre would suggest on the surface. The movie opens as a western, becomes an international story of love and betrayal through flashbacks in the first hour, then becomes a pure urban-bound noir in the second hour. Robert Mitchum is spectacular as the P.I. trying to avoid his past (potentially corrupting the idyllic small town he’s trying to disappear into), but it’s an impossibly young Kirk Douglas as his counterweight that might impress the most.

• Anatomy of a Murder (1959). This movie gets far darker, discusses sex, sexual violence, and murder far more explicitly, than movies at that time could and so has a lasting relevance. It also walks a very ambiguous moral tightrope in a modern way; the case lies on a temporary insanity plea for a man who may be dangerous who undoubtedly killed another man that supposedly raped his very flirtatious wife, so it’s not a question of guilt as much as using the law to “prove” innocence in court. This is a magnificently entertaining movie that I’d recommend in a heartbeat.

French Imports.

• Contempt (1963). Jean-Luc Godard, one of the paragons of the hugely influential French New Wave, died in September of 2022 so I made watching a couple of his films a priority, and this one still hasn’t let me go. It’s a rough look at the process and artistic degradation of the moviemaking process, a tragic story of a relationship falling apart, and captures the utterly specific feeling of knowing your significant other is a. out of your league and b. upset with you and refusing to tell you why. It’s gorgeous, challenging, and haunting.

• Agnes Varda: Cleo From 5 to 7 (1962), Le Bonheur (1965). More French New Wave, but in watching the works of the Great Men who re-shaped movies, it’s important to not overlook the women like Chantal Akerman or Agnes Varda who were just as prolific and artistically achieved just as, or even more, deeply than their male peers. I saw two films by Agnes Varda this year and was blown away by both while preferring Cleo’s nearly real-time documenting of a woman not too far from a nervous breakdown as she awaits the severity of a cancer diagnosis. She distracts herself, reacts harshly to news of the world, seeks consolation, and we are along for the entire gripping ride. That said, I’d recommend both works to anyone looking to understand a bit more about film history.

• Jean-Pierre Melville: Le Samourai (1967), Le Doulos (1962). Jean-Pierre Melville is another name that doesn’t always get associated with the French New Wave because he’s best known for several tough guy movies featuring organized crime, heists, twists, betrayals, and all the stuff I love in classic Hollywood noirs without the rules that the bad guys always have to lose and feel like the bridge the gap between those films and the stuff that Sergio Leone would go on to do in his famous Westerns. Le Samourai’s story of a lone, extremely disciplined hitman trying to navigate betrayals from his employers and mounting police pressure is still influencing stories today, most overtly in David Fincher’s The Killer from this year.

• Z (1969). If there was one of these, just one, that I would recommend to about anybody, it would be Costa-Gavras’ stunning, searing, and totally absorbing third film based on a true story. I’m sure it was a massive inspiration to Oliver Stone’s blistering masterwork JFK, not just because it features a local magistrate investigating the death of a peace-oriented politician and uncovering a conspiracy that he becomes more and more convinced by, but because it is a bold statement that will linger long after the credits roll. It’s not every film that can be this urgently important and this thrillingly entertaining, but this one is.

• Beau Travail (1999). This critics' “Best of All Time” stalwart that cracked the Top 10 of the latest Sight and Sound poll might be a little too patiently and atypically plotted for most people, but this movie’s evocation of repression in every sense threatening to burst at the seams is nothing short of sublime. Female filmmaker Claire Denis made perhaps the greatest study of threatened masculinity turned toxic in the form of, really, a French special forces unit doing a lot of calisthenics in a desert island surrounded by an ocean. It’s gorgeous and transfixing that relies heavily on the viewer’s intelligence to read both text and subtext before giving you one of the best endings to a movie – perhaps – ever.

• Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019). I wish I had gotten around to this sooner, and certainly would have made my Best of 2010’s list instead of whatever silly choice I had picked. This film is stunning in its beauty, captivating in its slow-burn romance, and in its evocation of women whose fates are bound by societal and familial expectations, nothing short of stunning. Director Celine Sciamma has certainly replaced the Akermans and Vardas I mentioned earlier as our foremost feminist filmmaker who is an artist of the highest class regardless of gender.

Other Foreign Imports.

• The Bad Sleep Well (1960). I've now seen 8 films directed by Akira Kurosawa, and have liked every single one of them. This slow-burn thriller about the depths of man's depravity and desperation (without dipping into anything resembling a horror film) is sandwiched between Stray Dog (1949) and High and Low (1963) in Kurosawa's unofficial "noir trilogy" but is capable of standing with those masterpieces in its physical filmmaking, writing and acting. Of the three, I'd more readily direct everyone to High and Low, but if you've seen that movie and want something that scratches a similar itch in a different way, give this one a watch.

• 8 ½ (1963). I'll come right out and say it: I think Martin Scorsese is our greatest living filmmaker, and he's often cited the work of Fellini (especially this film) as influential on him - I wasn't prepared for just how influential it was. If you like his usage of speeding footage up, slowing it down, and inserting freeze frames, there's plenty to be found in his self-reflexive telling of a director suffering a creative block. I usually find Fellini's surreal digressions more amusing than funny, but his impact, bravura talent, and unique voice are undeniable and unskippable for anyone who cares about movies.

• War and Peace (1966). If you think Lawrence of Arabia or the biblical epics of its day are the biggest films ever made, let me introduce you to this behemoth. Financed by the Soviet Union itself, lauded by critics, this 7-hour film was released in four installments over the course of 2 years. Its battles are as stunningly large and practically staged as its design of elegant ballrooms, uniforms, and gowns are lavish, but what blew me away the most was the near-experimental filmmaking and editing techniques that Bondarchuk employs - the camera will be fixed in place and convincing you you're looking at a stunning portrait, then reveal itself to be a handheld shot that moves through a crowd. Stunning stuff.

1970s*

• Cool Hand Luke (1967). Yeah, yeah, I can read - 1967 isn't in the 70's. However, this film and The Graduate from the same year, while not touching the levels of darkness that the classics of the 970's would, definitely foretold where the movies were heading by way of their stripped down, relatable, complex protagonists. Paul Newman is pitch-perfect as the titular convict who doesn't need to hold onto hope like Andy in Shawshank, nor is determined to escape like he's McQueen in Papillon, yet remains untouchable despite his circumstances while simultaneously rejecting the praise of his fellow inmates to moving and fascinating results; the classics are classic for a reason.

• Woodstock (1970). This 3.5-hour, often triple-panel behemoth of a movie isn't just any concert film, rather it's a brilliant document of a cultural moment featuring some of the most gorgeous concert footage you’ll ever find. Though I was bummed that no Creedence Clearwater Revival footage made it into even the Extended Cut I watched, this film's ability to capture the three-day experience from top to bottom, from backstage to in the crowd and through several (mercifully) uncut performances ranks it deservedly among not just the best rock docs ever, but one of the best documentaries ever full stop. If the length scares you, no need to worry - editors Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker built in an "InterFuckingMission".

• Get Carter (1971). I watched this several months before Michael Caine's announcement that at 95 he would be retiring from film, but seeing him in star form in one of his signature roles was no homework assignment. Ladiesman gangster with a beating heart underneath jumps off the screen 52 years later, and the way that this stripped-down crime story becomes an bleak examination of England's rigid class structure makes an already compelling yarn into something powerful.

• Don’t Look Now (1973). This film was released with the tagline of being "Utter Madness" in 1973, and at 50 it remains thrillingly, tragically, and horrifyingly so. This film is part somber drama, part serial killer mystery, part supernatural thriller, and utterly stunning in every aspect. The way that Director Nicolas Roeg and his team use flashbacks, flash forwards, and repetition to create a sense of dread building towards an inescapable end will get under your skin while also moving you with its sadness; I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.

• The Exorcist (1973). Yeah, yeah, yeah "the movie guy" hasn't seen The Exorcist until this year. I'm not a huge fan of horror movies, but this one stands with The Shining and Alien as the all-time bulletproof classics that stunned me, have stayed with me, and that I'll surely want to revisit. Rather than rely on scares in a traditionally jumpy sense, the film truly upsets its audience by presenting ideas and imagery that are gross, sure, but feel illicit in their wrongness. The power of that hasn't faded, nor has the power of its central performances; calling this very human drama about faith and longing for meaning a horror movie feels incorrect, but then the scary stuff happens and I surrender that notion.

1990s and Beyond.

• Age of Innocence (1993). Martin Scorsese doesn't just make crime films, and anyone tempted to say something like that - or that those are his only good films - would be pleasantly surprised by this swooning and romantic period drama. His style of filmmaking is notably far less aggressive as it is in, say, GoodFellas, but he shoots would could be a dull story with a style that successfully evokes the repression and longing that is this story's lifeblood. He also captures the lavishness of their surroundings and costumes, presenting these things - everyday to our wealthy characters - as things that hem in our true selves. Every performance, particularly Winona Ryder's supporting turn, is spectacular.

• Before Sunrise (1995). Re-watching Dazed and Confused (something I make a habit out of) made me want to explore Linklater's other work, and his Before trilogy stands as his most beloved by audiences and critics. This movie, essentially a long stretch of walking and talking, is certainly flung out of the 90's indie boom, but is as beautiful, charming, relatable, and remarkably human as ever.

• Everybody Wants Some! (2016). Linklater made what's functionally a spiritual sequel to Dazed in 2016, and it feels like it never hit the mainstream in the way it should have, but I'm here to do my part to change that. This movie is as wonderful a hang-fest, boasting as robust a cast of now-recognizable faces, as Dazed but updates high school in the 70's for college in the 80's. This film isn't quite the ode to a generation (and the music they kept on blast) that Dazed is but captures the feeling of finding newfound freedom, friends, and romance after newly arriving at college as well as the awkwardness that comes with figuring out a new social hierarchy, and the humbling that happens when you realize you're the smallest fish in your chosen pond.

Full Movie List:

• Golden Age Hollywood. It Happened One Night; Laura; Out of the Past; Anatomy of a Murder 

• French Imports. Contempt; Cleo from 5 to 7; Le Bonheur; Le Samourai; Le Doulos; Z; Beau Travail; Portrait of a Lady on Fire

• Other Foreign Imports. The Bad Sleep Well; 8 ½; War and Peace

• 1970s*. Cool Hand Luke; Woodstock; Get Carter; Don’t Look Now; The Exorcist

• 1990s and Beyond. Age of Innocence; Before Sunrise; Everybody Wants Some!