Continuing my countdown of last year’s best films…
Best Films of 2023
#12. May December
Todd Haynes’ thinly veiled exploration of the Mary Kay Letourneau scandal is a darkly comic, but deeply sad, look at our fascination with celebrity and the complicated truths buried beneath the tabloid surfaces.
Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, and Charles Melton form one of the year’s best trios — I’m still bummed none of them were Oscar-nominated. Each is doing something entirely different but it somehow all gels. Melton, in particular, bares the damaged soul of his character so completely that you feel guilty for enjoying the campy perfection of his co-stars.
This is one of the movies on my list I most want to re-watch, as I’m sure it plays much differently once you’re in on its secrets. But one viewing was more than enough to know it’s something special.
#11. Killers of the Flower Moon
It was physically painful to leave Martin Scorsese’s latest epic just outside of my top ten, but the movie year was so good I was left with no choice. What’s so important about the number 10, anyway? Consider this the first entry in my Top 11.
Killers of the Flower Moon is a cold examination of one of our country’s original sins, the mistreatment of its indigenous people. Adapting David Grann’s best-seller, but shifting the focus from the FBI investigation to the couple at the center of a quiet genocide, Scorsese crafts both a compelling yarn and a metaphor for the evil duplicity of white men throughout American history.
Should this tale have been told by a member of the Osage Nation? Probably. But nobody has exposed America’s dark underbelly as ruthlessly as Martin Scorsese, and this film is the culmination of that vital project. I was especially moved by the film’s epilogue, which brilliantly comments on our national pastime of converting tragedy into entertainment — and acknowledges Scorsese’s own role in it.
Meet Me In Montauk 
I enjoyed and appreciated both of these films, though not quite as much as you did.
May/December, despite the excellent performances, skewed a bit too close to feeling like a movie-of-the-week, which I blame Todd Payne for. I’ve never been a big fan of his directing style and choices.
Killers of the Flower Moon was certainly compelling, but my enthusiasm was a bit tempered by Amy’s negative reaction as she felt the film did not do justice to the book.
Don’t let that woman’s negative reaction temper your enthusiasm!
As I read your post today, I realized I wanted the Origin version of Flower Moon, for which Grann provided a perfect template. The Osage people were sidelined in this adaptation, and it just didn’t settle right with me for most of the film. Somehow the epilogue (radio show followed y ceremonial dance) you admire hit me in exactly the opposite way.
Clearly this is a film made by masters of their craft, but the whole thing made me want to immediately reread the book.
I was more ambivalent about May/ December, and found Melton’s performance brilliant and heartbreaking. I wonder if I’d seen it in a theater if it might have registered differently.
l loved Killers of the Flower Moon and that may be because I didn’t read the book. It is definitely in my top ten and Leo DiCaprio’s snub was certainly greater then Margot Robbie for Barbie but the world did not go crazy. I was tired when I saw May/December and would like to see it again because I’m I missed parts I do remember being heartbroken for the young man who lost his childhood to this wacky woman.