Ray Richmond: In case no one noticed, 2023 has been a superb year for movies

Sometimes, it takes me a while to wrap my head around certain undeniable facts.

For instance, it only started to occur to me a few weeks ago that this is a particularly exceptional year for the motion picture. Usually by this time (a few weeks before the end of the year), it starts getting easier to weed through my Best Picture contenders because I’ve found plenty of even the highly-touted movies to be ordinary at best or, more likely, lousy. But in 2023, this has been the case with practically none. And now I’m anticipating having to make some particularly difficult choices on the Oscar Best Picture Top 10.

I have at least one interesting theory for why this is so, and it’s this: films delayed by the pandemic had a longer time to gestate and grow creatively, and we’re seeing the fruits of that patience-by-necessity now. The current crop is dominated by movies that weren’t rushed, and it shows – and in that sense, COVID proved a blessing in viral disguise. Is this really accurate? Who knows? But this is what I’m going with.

There have been very few movies that I walked out of this year and thought they were overrated or contrived or just plain dreadful. There are, conversely, several that feel like classics. I’m talking about “Oppenheimer” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Poor Things” and “Maestro,” films that I think will be hailed as exemplary years and even decades from now. “Barbie” will be held up as an incredibly imaginative masterwork of comedy and sass, colorful (in every sense) as well as delightful and dazzlingly original. It deserves all of its success.

But the above handful of movies merely tips the 2023 iceberg.

There have also been “American Fiction,” a scathing satire about the world of writing that never panders; “The Holdovers,” smart, funny and beautifully acted by a small cast with chemistry to burn; “The Color Purple,” powerful and bolstered by  magnificent direction and performances; and “The Zone of Interest,” a chilling Holocaust masterpiece that seeps into your consciousness and takes up residence there. “Nyad” is also a water-borne biopic that gives us astoundingly good portrayals from Annette Bening and Jodie Foster and deserve much more love than it’s gotten so far.

“May December,” “Air,” “Rustin,” “Ferrari,” I’ve enjoyed them all. “Past Lives” was a moving love story that affected me. “Anatomy of a Fall” is an intriguing, thought-provoking thriller that kept me in its thrall. And “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” is one of the coolest animated films I’ve ever seen.

What’s gotten into me? I’m always the curmudgeon who bitches about whatever I see, not the guy who likes everything. And yet, here we are. It’s not that every movie I’ve seen this year is a grand slam, and I can surely find fault with nearly all of them if I try hard enough. But there is just an abundance of quality product in 2023 whose greatness as a group can’t be denied, at least by me. Even films that haven’t received as much love like “Priscilla” and “The Killer” hit me in the right spot.

What is this all likely to mean for the Oscars? It’s not entirely clear, except for the fact that to my mind, anyone and any film that wins this year is really going to have to earn it. And I doubt there is going to be any film sweeping up seven trophies in March like “Everything Everywhere All at Once” did earlier this year. I’m seeing a lot more wealth spread around this time in terms of winners. Promotion and marketing your movie is poised to matter more than ever this time, just because there are so many worthy victors both above and below the line.

I just wonder if this really is as superb a movie year as I’ve experienced or it I’ve just suddenly become much easier to satisfy. All I know is, going to the movies (or watching them stream) has become a much richer and satisfying experience of late. And not a moment too soon, with theaters finding it increasingly tough to  convince the public that going out to the movies is still a great thing to do for a night out. There is still no experience that equals watching a movie on a  big screen in a dark theater with dozens or hundreds of others. And this year, that devotion is being rewarded with consistently entertaining fare like we’ve rarely seen of late.

If it sounds like I’m suddenly a lackey for the film industry, I swear I’m not. I just like what I’ve been seeing, and I hope it continues into 2024.