LeavittLens' Top 10 Films of 2023

From a cinematic perspective, 2023 is wrapping up as one of the most "mixed-bag" years in recent memory. On the one hand, we have been gifted with terrific work from some of our creative masters, both veterans--Scorsese, Nolan, Scott, Fincher, Lanthimos, Payne, Mann--and other recently established rising stars--Gerwig, Anderson, Esmail, Jefferson. Yet in the midst of such prolific, high-quality production, we also saw numerous industry strikes cost film workers billions of dollars and ultimately delay the starting, completing, and releasing of countless anticipated projects, perhaps none greater than Denis Villeneuve's Dune sequel. The result is at once a class of films that are almost certainly carry staying power in our cultural consciousness for years--perhaps decades--to come, and yet a persistent feeling of incompletion, particularly in the industry's lack of care for the vast majority of the people it employs.

All said, for truly the first time since 2020, it seems like movies are really back: from sweeping cultural events like Barbenheimer and the bounceback of some major cultural IP (Spiderman: Across The Spider-Verse was an absolute standout) to some creative new ideas from culturally diverse sources (Past Lives, American Fiction come to mind), theatres were more full than I can remember in recent memory. Here's to that trend continuing in 2024! Below are my highlights from this year.

1. My top 10 films of the year are featured based on their LeavittLens rating. More in-depth reviews may be coming in the near future for some of these films. Keep in mind: the top 10 list only includes films that have been released in 2023, and only films that I have seen in 2023. This, unfortunately, means I won't be able to include films like The Zone of Interest, as it has not yet been released in my locale, so there is admittedly a gap in my end of year list.
2. My film journal for the year, which includes ratings for all of the 97 films I saw this year (released in 2023 or otherwise), is also listed below the Top 10. This list features not only my ratings, but my wife Emily's ratings of the films we watched (where applicable), and even a one-sentence thought from Emily in reflection upon some of the films. I am fully aware that my wife's ratings and reviews may interest the reader more than my own...
3. I also want to be sure to include a link to my Letterboxd profile, where I log and track my film watching. Be sure to follow me there to keep up in the new year.

LeavittLens Top 10 Films of 2023

10. Past Lives | Director: Celine Song | MPA Rating: PG-13 | LeavittLens Rating: 7.5/10

Synopsis: A methodical, meditative exploration of fate, identity, immigration, and home. Central performances that ring forth in two languages, writing that provokes thoughtful questions without handing our pat answers, and beautiful shots speaking of the struggle and beauty of a life that includes cultural upheaval. The stairs at the start; the carousel in the middle; and the streetside at the end: all quietly shouting forth the structural and constraining nature of classism, and Eastern view of the cyclical pattern of existence, and the pain and confusion of calling two different continents home. More--and better--than simply a romance.

9. Asteroid City | Director: Wes Anderson | MPA Rating: PG-13 | LeavittLens Rating: 8/10

Synopsis: In the midst of a prolific year of filmmaking that included a series excellent and tragically under-advertised (looking at you, Netflix) adaptations of classic Roald Dahl short stories, Asteroid City arrived as another terrific installment in Wes Anderson's filmography. As clever and winsome as any of his installments, but with a greater degree of maturity indicative of a filmmaker reckoning with his own life's work in real time, this one certainly sits near the top of late stage Anderson.

8. The Killer | Director: David Fincher | MPA Rating: R | LeavittLens Rating: 8/10

Synopsis: Over the last 30 years of David Fincher's illustrious career, a narrative has emerged regarding one particular personality trait: per legend, he's a control freak. Obsessed with obtaining perfection, meticulous about his set designs and actorly precision, and perhaps even maniacal about his vision, Fincher's work has always had a sort of exact clarity to it - from the dread and darkness of Se7en, which is shot almost entirely in the rain and reveals exactly as much as we need to be both drawn to and sickened by its content, all the way up to the perfect coalescence of style and writing substance in his Sorkin collab (and perhaps masterwork) The Social Network, there is never a shot or a line from Fincher that feels empty. While the truth of his "control freak" legend has had more light thrown onto it in recent years, his latest project seems to be a self-reflexive affirmation of another man who shoots people for a living. The Killer traces a nameless assassin, whose constant narration convinces us both of his expert control over all variables while his actions constantly bring the trustworthiness of his perspective--and his control--into doubt. He drones on about how important it is to stay in shape for his work, exhibiting a meticulous stretching routine, but then during his first outing we find him chowing down on a McDonalds breakfast. He perfectly places a nail gun into the chest of a target, showing unflinching anatomical awareness in estimating how long the target will live as he interrogates him, but then the target dies far sooner than he estimated, to his ultimate shagrin. He seems at once to be the best in the world at his job, and the most self-deceived narrator one could create. The result is a movie that is as darkly humorous as it is viscerally propulsive, and it remains another notch in Fincher's belt when it comes to elevating genre movies (particularly the thriller), a task that perhaps no working director has achieved with more regularity and success. Regardless of The Killer's connectedness to Fincher's own self-identity, one thing is certain: control is far out of reach for any of us, whether or not we shoot people for a living.

7. Barbie | Director: Greta Gerwig | MPA Rating: PG-13 | LeavittLens Rating: 8/10

Synopsis: It’s an utter cultural phenomenon. It’s an internet sensation, filling social media threads everywhere with memes upon memes. It’s the dynamite to a consumeristic gold mine. It’s immediately (and expectedly) become weaponized for culture warring – both in seemingly unaware and on-brand hypocrisy that ironically reinforces and bolsters the text of the film and its critiques, and in “but-it-isn’t-enough” reviews calling it just a further reinforcement of the very dynamics it critiques. And in just its first 18 days at the box office, it’s a worldwide, billion-dollar blockbuster, the first of its kind to have been directed by a woman. It’s Greta Gerwig‘s Barbie, a clever, comedic, satirical take on all sorts of wide-ranging topics, from American capitalism to male and female roles, corporate hierarchies to mother-daughter relationships.

And in many ways, Barbie is precisely what one might expect from Hollywood in 2023: an adaptation of a previously existing intellectual property backed by brilliant marketing, overseen by a megacorporation, and designed to sell toys and open theme parks. Yet what separates the film from the largely unoriginal and often stale monocultural consumerism of contemporary cinema is what it packs underneath its glossy pink packaging: a rich, self-aware, prophetic tale that proves to be one of the richest theological and sociological messages put to film in recent years.

That’s not by accident, either. In interviews before the film was released, Gerwig was candid about the movie’s biblical inspirations, for instance. “Barbie was invented first,” she said in an interview with Vogue back in May, and “Ken was invented after Barbie, to burnish Barbie’s position in our eyes and in the world. That kind of creation myth is the opposite of the creation myth in Genesis.” Greta is citing the oft-articulated stance that Adam was created first and is therefore the principal human form, while Eve was created second as a subsidiary or supplement to Adam, her identity intrinsically dependent upon him. It’s noteworthy here that this patriarchal interpretation of Genesis 1-2 that Greta cites (and has likely experienced and heard articulated in religious spaces) is actually precisely the opposite of what a multitude of scholars have concluded the narrative is really getting at. As it turns out, mutuality between the sexes, one of the ultimate concluding points of the film, is actually what is depicted in Genesis 1-2, making Gerwig’s movie in many ways an affirmation, not a rebuttal, of the biblical story. (Quick note: if you’ve also had patriarchy reinforced by Christian religious institutions, in harmful ways or otherwise, and are interested in accessible tools to help with healing from or correcting this sort of egregious interpretive error, I’ve included a list of resources at the end of this review). Nevertheless, Gerwig’s initial critique is understandable given the painful experience of so many women in Christian religious spaces, and her theological goals are obvious from the outset. Even star Margot Robbie doubled down on the biblical connections, pointing out that one pivotal scene–when Barbie sits down with her creator, Ruth Handler (played by Rhea Perlman)–is meant to mirror Michelangelo’s famous painting “Creation of Adam,” citing that “Greta snuck that in there.” These robust and millennia-old spiritual musings serve as a consistent narrative springboard for the witty and technically precise achievements of the film.

It opens with a brief homage to Stanley Kubrick’s classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, replacing the Darwinian image-making with a more “Matellian” one. In an ancient age of toys, girls were only ever given baby dolls to play with, reinforcing the notion that femininity is exclusively linked to motherhood. Then suddenly, as if from the heavens, these girls are introduced to a curvy adult female doll, donning a swimsuit and sunglasses, and empowering them to the important reminder that being a woman isn’t always and only about being a mother. This groundbreaking achievement produced what narrator Helen Mirren calls a solution to the problem of equal rights, where Barbie’s multi-faceted iterations served as inspiration for women in the real world to take on far more than motherhood. “At least,” she says, “that’s what the Barbie’s think.”

Cut to Barbieland, an idyllic and immaculately conceived paradise akin to the Garden of Eden, where the Barbies live as empowered women and where the men, the Kens (led by Ryan Gosling‘s perfectly chiseled example), live in the position that patriarchy assigns women: as adjacent beings with identities entirely dependent upon their female counterparts. Gerwig and her team do an excellent job of realizing Barbieland for the filmgoer – the set and costume design reinforce both the plastic and polished nature of the world, all the while still bringing to life the imaginative power of dollhouse play. It’s not long, though, before things go awry. Soon Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) begins to experience fractures in her perfect paradise, cleverly rendered in humorous ways. She notices she has a bit of morning breath upon waking up; her breakfast toast is burned; her feet fall from their usual elevated, high-heel position; and so forth. Upon confessing these faults to her fellow Barbies, Stereotypical Barbie is prompted to approach the sage of the community, Weird Barbie (played hilariously by Kate McKinnon). She quickly learns the truth behind Barbieland: each Barbie has an assigned human in the real world who plays with them, and when their assigned human goes through something sad or difficult, their pain is manifested in their Barbieland Barbie. Given a Matrix-esque choice between the high-heeled naivete of her current life and the Birkenstock-clad real world, Barbie opts for the latter, adventuring to L.A. (with Gosling’s Ken stowing away) in order to find her assigned human and make her joyful again.

Expecting to enter a society where women are empowered, Barbie and Ken are instead quickly exposed, an homage again to the realization of nakedness in the Fall of Genesis 3. Barbie experiences the objectifying male gaze for the first time, while Ken stumbles upon what he initially feels are the joys of patriarchy. This two-pronged venture into the real world actually helps the film through its middle act, Barbie’s journey serving as the emotional entree topped by Ken’s perfectly comedic awakening. Their misadventures ultimately lead them to Gloria (America Ferrera) and her daughter Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), who both are attempting to navigate the difficult world as women, one with a bit more hope and the other with bitter cynicism. Meanwhile, Ken takes the news of patriarchy straight back to Barbieland, which he promptly transforms into a “Kendom,” instituting scathingly accurate and silly staples of patriarchy like mansplaining, using over-the-top Creed-esque vocals in their musical numbers, and a perpetual obsession with horses (amongst a multitude of other more sinister symptoms). The Garden has been infiltrated by the original sin of patriarchy, and something needs to be done to solve it.

The third act–which primarily follows Stereotypical Barbie, Gloria, and Sasha as they seek to resolve the brokenness of Barbieland and the real world–is perhaps the movie’s strongest point, particularly as a reprieve from a plot that gets a bit lost in its own contrived and absurdist renderings of the real world. It is in this portion that Gerwig’s screenplay (written in conjunction with her brilliant filmmaking partner, Noah Baumbach) shines forth, a staple of every one of her films. We get a brilliant monologue from Gloria that perfectly articulates the catch-22 experience of so many women in the world, and we are re-invited to explore some of the theological ideas that sparked the story in the first place. Barbie and Ken are forced to reckon with their own identities on the other side of their falls from respective patriarchy and matriarchy, longing for healing in all of the mess and turmoil of naivete (in Barbie) or downright abuse (in Ken).

And it’s here the film seems to be exploring, knowingly or unknowingly, a question that Christian theologians have been exploring for millennia: what if the fall into sin or brokenness, as tragic as it may have been, could actually produce a deeper and more fuller humanity on the other side of it? What if the bad could lead us into a deeper good? The Latin term to describe this notion is felix culpa, which means “fortunate fall,” and it captures the stunningly subversive heart of Christianity: that even the brokenness of poor choices can be transformed into a collection of fortunate scars, reminders that push humanity more into a glorious redemption that transcends even what existed before the Fall. The book of Revelation depicts this sort of new reality as the “New Heavens and the New Earth,” something that Jesus himself inaugurated through his own entry into, death to, and resurrection over the woundedness of the world. As the great 5th century theologian Augustine put it, “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist.”

In fact, that is precisely where things land in the powerful conclusion. Barbie has an emotional conversation with her Creator, face to face with the one whose identity is intrinsically wrapped up her own. She is given the choice to live in her own fantasy world, ignorant of and indifferent to the suffering she now knows and empathizes with, or to become truly human in order to serve as a vehicle that redeems and restores the people and world around her, a bridge that is fully Barbie and yet a fully real, embodied human. After a montage of the joys and pains of human life, filled by real home videos from the cast and crew of the movie, Barbie chooses the latter; that is, she chooses what God in Jesus chose, according to the Christian tradition. She chooses incarnation, dignifying the messiness of all human life by entering into it. And while the film doesn’t seem to posit a framework of how this conclusion really leads to healing or life (it ends abruptly with a hilarious but unfinal line), it certainly seems to chart a path towards redemption and restoration that is dignifying to all people, men and women, and all parts of their human condition, broken and messy as it may be.

Read from a surface-level, Barbie is a cinematic achievement of practical filmmaking, comedic dialogue in an era where that may be more difficult than ever, perfect musical notes, and memorable central performances. It is, in many ways, why we go to the movies. But Gerwig and company seem insistent on the fact that the movie is much more than just some popcorn fun. They seem insistent on the fact that it is packed with profundity about the human condition, profundity that is in dialogue with millennia of spiritual wisdom and truth. Far more than its pretty plastic package, Barbie serves as a spiritual parable for our time, enough–or KENough–to warrant deep reflection in each of our own hearts and minds.

*Further Resources on the bible’s affirmation of mutuality and refutation of patriarchy*

1. The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How The Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth, by Beth Allison Barr
2. The Bible vs. Biblical Womanhood: How God’s Word Consistently Affirms Gender Equality, by Philip B. Payne
3. Tell Her Story: How Women Led, Taught, and Ministered in the Early Church, by Nijay Gupta
4. Ordained Women in the Early Church: A Documentary History, edited by Kevin Madigan and Carolyn Osiek
5. Discovering Biblical Equality: Biblical, Theological, Cultural, and Practical Perspectives, by Ronald Pierce
6. Jim Singleton’s teaching, visible at this video link
7. Manuscript of N.T. Wright’s lecture on different New Testament passages

Please know that I am also available as a source to listen, process, and help answer any other questions on this front. Feel free to reach out at clint.springpeople@gmail.com!

6. They Cloned Tyrone | Director: Juel Taylor | MPA Rating: R | LeavittLens Rating: 8/10

Synopsis: The same weekend of Barbenheimer, another film was released straight to Netflix, and so naturally, no one saw it. Certainly a victim of its release date (again, looking at you, Netflix!), They Cloned Tyrone unfortunately received very little attention or conversation, which is one primary reason I find it important to list in my Top 10 of 2023. A comedic satire in the same vein as Get Out and Sorry To Bother You (also both creative debuts from up and coming black directors), this film adopts a sci-fi package to its primary themes, positing a sinister grand narrative underpinning the stereotypical "hood" tropes of supposed "black" stories (see American Fiction for an even more explicit and scathing critique of these tropes). Jamie Foxx turns in another terrific performance, John Boyega shows he's got more range than a Disney-fied storm trooper, and Teyonah Parris follows up on her excellent work in If Beale Street Could Talk - together, all three form a formidable--if, at times, dysfunctional--team who discovers and eventually works together to dismantle a corrupt system causing not-so-hidden generational suffering for their community. Genuinely hilarious gags pair well with deeply thoughtful commentary here, all wrapped in undeniably fun genre packaging. Open this one up during your holiday time off, and enjoy!

5. The Holdovers | Director: Alexander Payne | MPA Rating: R | LeavittLens Rating: 9/10

Synopsis: The cinematic poet laureate of the brilliant but damaged soul, Alexander Payne triples down on it typical protagonist with The Holdovers, a simultaneously cynical and heartwarming story of three wounded pieces of a Massachusetts-set, Groton-esque boarding school called Barton Academy. Paul Hunham (depicted in a nomination deserving turn from Paul Giamatti) is a teacher with a punishing approach to grading and instruction that extends from his own self-punishment and degradation; Mary Lamb (Da'Vine Joy Randolph in a terrific supporting performance) is the school's head chef and a mother grieving the tragic sudden death of her son, a Barton alum; and Angus Tully (played in a promising debut from Dominic Sessa) is a son of a mother and stepfather who have opted to send him off to boarding school to shape up, and whose father is hinted at but remains utterly distant. As many of the boys in the school head back home for winter break, these three are forced to remain, for a variety of reasons. Stuck inside the school together as physical embodiments of cynical and self-deprecating thoughts stuck in their own minds, comedy ensues, but the forced proximity to one another also creates a deepened awareness of their shared humanity, leading to a second half that is full of deeply heartwarming moments indicative of the Christmas movies to which it owes a degree of allegiance. A Christmas movie at once self-aware of our proneness to shallow sentimentality while also nodding to its importance in our experiences, this is a Christmas movie for even the Grinchiest of us all.

4. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret | Director: Kelly Fremon Craig | MPA Rating: PG-13 | LeavittLens Rating: 9/10

Synopsis: The year is 1970. Margaret Simmons (Abby Ryder Fortson) is a 12 year old girl returning from Summer camp to horrifying realities: her family is moving far away from the city to suburban New Jersey, a greater distance is placed between herself and her grandmother, and on top of it all: she's facing down the intimidating unknown of puberty. This adaptation of the classic Judy Blume novel unfolds a yearlong coming-of-age tale of a part of adolescence that is often overlooked, expertly navigating mother-daughter relationships, religious jockeying of adults in the lives of young people, and the genuine awkwardness and hilarity of pre-teen life. Terrific turns from Rachel McAdams, playing against type as a mom rather than as the usual rom-com heartthrob, and from Benny Safdie as a dad who is at once a fulfillment of mid-century stereotypes and yet packed with layers that transcend that stereotype, this is a family comedy for all ages. Though it is likely to be lost to awards races because of its Spring release date, don't miss this hilariously heartwarming flick.

3. Oppenheimer | Director: Christopher Nolan | MPA Rating: R | LeavittLens Rating: 9/10

Synopsis: For decades Christopher Nolan has seemed intent on telling the stories of men composed of atoms at once aspirational and haughty, brilliant and haunted. For as much as these effectively tortured portraits of the brokenness and beauty of man’s search for meaning have captured critical appreciation and popular praise–recall the undeniably masterly showings from Guy Pearce in Memento, Hugh Jackman in The Prestige, or even Dicaprio in Inception–Nolan has also developed a stereotyped reputation, becoming a director who at times seems high on his own supply of convoluted timelines and obvious dialogue which breaks the foundational rules of “show, don’t tell” exposition. While establishing a filmography of compelling, spectacular, and eminently watchable (and rewatchable) movies that have rightly made every new release an opening weekend must-see, Nolan has still often seemed curiously like his protagonists: a man stuck within his own ingenious mind, method, and madness.

This is precisely why the life and work of J. Robert Oppenheimer, when it was announced as the subject material for Nolan’s latest project, seemed almost suspiciously perfect. Indeed, God made Nolan and Oppenheimer for one another – both are men whose undeniable intellectual fortitude and excellence in their craft are often overshadowed by the spectacle of what they have produced. And while we certainly find the expected spectacle in Nolan’s three-hour long magnum opus (indeed, there is not a filmmaker alive more equipped to visually and audibly re-enact the testing of the first atom bomb), it is the growth of his filmmaking in the smaller choices here that makes Oppenheimer Nolan’s best work to date.

The film is adapted from Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s massive 2005 biography American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, and thus it borrows extensively from the book, particularly in reference to Oppenheimer’s educational and professional journey towards his leading of the famous “Manhattan Project.” Oppenheimer recruited and worked together with dozens of the greatest scientific minds in the world as they attempted to, and ultimately succeeded in, developing atomic weapons that would lead to the immensely destructive and war-ending attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yet it’s not just the bomb and its development that explodes off the screen here: it’s Nolan’s in-depth character study of Oppenheimer–brought to life in an immediate awards frontrunner through the burdened and steely performance of Cillian Murphy–that makes this film far more than tremendous action. Whereas in many of his previous ventures Nolan might have resorted to some grandiose, obvious, and ultimately tacky dialogue to hammer home his themes, he maintains great restraint with this latest screenplay, allowing the moral ambiguity and weight to breathe, worn most in the body and ocean blue eyes of Murphy and shown through creative visual flourishes reminiscent of some of the greatest visual minds in recent cinema history. At times Nolan’s visual depictions of Oppenheimer’s mind reckoning with quantum mechanics through sudden bursts of light and sound hearken back to the best of Terrence Malick or Alfonso Cuarón. More than this, Nolan actually gives a woman something to do in this film, a rarity in his previous work. Emily Blunt‘s portrayal as the tortured wife of the genius and malintegrous central figure is compelling, and Florence Pugh‘s role as Oppenheimer’s communist muse and mistress Jean Tatlock provides a thoughtfully seductive and destructive flourish of a woman reckoning with identity and power in the world. These characters allow for the movie to become more than just another biopic about a “tortured and great man:” they provide meaningful insight–in unprecedented and striking scenes of intimacy for Nolan–into the nakedness and vulnerability not only of a man praised, used, and cast aside by his country but also of the women he himself praised, used, and cast aside. Indeed, the script is perhaps the best of Nolan’s because it is, at the necessary times, the least wordy he has been. He finally seems to trust his own image-making and the audience’s ability to put the pieces together themselves. One scene in particular, where Oppenheimer gives a resounding speech following the “success” of the attacks on Japan, is on the short list for best film sequences not just of 2023 but of the last decade in film.

All of this terrific screenwriting and directing is bolstered by another blaring score from Ludwig Göransson, Nolan’s partner in the equally excellent sound work in Tenet, and the work of Hoyte von Hoytema, who is rapidly becoming–after the legendary Roger Deakins–the greatest living cinematographer (just peruse his Imdb profile to be impressed). The movie not only works as a character study, but feels like the subject matter it is portraying, a tension-filled ticking of a bomb in your pounding chest and sweating palms. This remains true despite the fact that the movie is predominantly composed of people talking to one another: Oppenheimer is propulsive, particularly in its first two hours, though the final hour does fall prey to a bit of Nolan’s trademark cumbersome complexity. The editing of Jennifer Lame–she of Manchester By The Sea and Marriage Story, interestingly both compelling character dramas–helps immensely with this. Rarely is dialogue in a scene finished before we cut to the response or the next moment, making each shot feel unfinished and thus pushing the audience forward into the story.

Between him and his cast and crew, Nolan, like Oppenheimer himself, has managed to compile a perfect team to pull off the greatest feat of his career. A Promethean-esque true mythology; a damning critique of the military industrial complex; a deeply personal examination of how to evaluate corrupt genius; and an existentially provocative exposing of human capacity and hubris that left everyone in my screening reflectively silent for minutes as they filed out of the theatre. Oppenheimer is the most of Nolan’s best and the least of his worst, a certified 21st century staple that may finally earn him his long awaited Oscar.

2. Killers of the Flower Moon | Director: Martin Scorsese | MPA Rating: R | LeavittLens Rating: 9/10

Synopsis: “You like women?” William Hale (Robert De Niro) inquires of Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo Dicaprio), his nephew newly returned from fighting overseas in WWI. Following a resounding yes–with a caveat that the women he had met overseas were all white women–Hale follows up with a second question to Ernest.

“What about red [women]?”

After a not-so-brief pause, Ernest replies: “Red women, white women, blue women – I love ’em all.”

Red, white, and blue – this piercing proclamation of patriotic misogyny perfectly crystalizes the central lament of Martin Scorsese’s true crime tale Killers of the Flower Moon, capturing in a phrase the colonizing instincts both of an entire nation and of the violent men who so often populate it. There’s a grandiosity and intimacy working together throughout the film’s three and a half hour run time – it’s a masterclass both as a sprawling, clear-eyed American epic uncovering the systemic abuse so endemic of our nation’s distant and recent past, and as a heartbreakingly personal story of love and betrayal.

In many ways the film is a summation of the themes and ideas that have consumed Scorsese throughout his illustrious, decades-long career. Killers serves up an unflinching expose of the corrupt, not-so-organized crime of prideful and brutalizing American men, calling to mind his work in Goodfellas, Casino, and The Departed; it introduces the audience to the tensions of spirituality, identity, grief, and politics of non-Anglo communities, reminiscent of his work in Silence and Kundun; it even prophetically holds the bitter reality of capitalistic greed right in front of the eyes of those whose society runs on it, a nod to his bombastic work in The Wolf of Wall Street and The Color of Money. During a time in his life where he seems intent on self-reflection, his latest work serves as a remarkable rumination without ever feeling borrowed, nostalgic, or derivative.

Set in 1920’s Oklahoma, Killers is an adaptation of David Grann’s book of the same name. Both tell the story of the Reign of Terror, a series of grisly murders of the Osage Native American tribe at the hands of white men and women consumed by racism and greed. There’s hardly one way to tell this story, evidenced in how the film departs from the book: while Grann’s writing takes a more traditional crime procedural approach, ultimately spending considerable time on the FBI and their eventual convicting of those who played prominent roles in the murders, Scorsese reframes the story, dealing primarily with the central characters, both white and Osage, perpetrators and victims. While this story certainly deserves a uniquely Osage telling, Scorsese deftly navigates the tale as someone outside of the victimized community, regularly placing the Osage at center stage. Christopher Cote, a language consultant on the film, captured this well, commending Scorsese for his work while also reminding viewers that “this film isn’t made for an Osage audience.” It seems Scorsese is most interested in tossing this true story right in the face of those who otherwise have neglected or ignored it, unpacking the dynamics that underpinned such violence while also maintaining a central dignity for the oppressed and marginalized along the way.

The movie opens with an introduction to the Osage nation, forcibly displaced to a new land, a tale all too tragically common in American history. Yet they quickly find this new land is gushing with oil, and suddenly exorbitant wealth springs forth to the Osage like black gold from the Oklahoma ground – before long they become the richest people per capita in the entire world. Scorsese cleverly opts for a black and white, 4:3 aspect ratio during this early introduction, an immersive callback to the silent films of the 20’s that woos the audience into the world of this oft-forgotten–or altogether untaught–piece of American history. A dissolve of these black and white shots into a color frame of passengers on a train to Fairfax, a central home of the Osage, indicates we are entering into this history, and introduces us to Ernest Burkhart, a veteran arriving to live and work with his uncle after the war. It’s through Ernest that we are introduced to the buzz and noise of the town, something Scorsese and his team expertly navigate. Sweeping shots of business transactions and fights, enveloping production design, and pulsating music work together to create a mesmeric feel as Ernest steps off the train and into this new world.

Given his war injuries, Ernest is unable to do much in the way of manual labor for work, so he opts to become a chauffeur to his wealthy Native American neighbors (this was a common gig for white men who lived in Fairfax at the time). In his work he soon meets Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), an Osage woman whose quiet fortitude and dignified posture carry a watchful wisdom in every moment she is on screen. After becoming her driver, Ernest shares a meal with his uncle, William Hale, and his brother, Byron (Scott Shepherd). He discusses how he has been driving Mollie Kyle around town, which prompts a pregnant glance from Hale to Byron. Hale shrewdly informs Ernest of the oil-fueled wealth that runs through the blood of Mollie’s family, and suggests–with a devilish combination of subtlety and strength–that Ernest’s pursuit of Mollie could easily lead to that wealth flowing in their direction. This prompts a season of flirtation and courtship between Ernest and Mollie, and eventually they wed.

Leo turns in a terrific performance here as Ernest, acting against type as a somewhat dim and naive young man whose charm and seemingly good intentions still manage to win Mollie over, but the clear star of the film is Gladstone in her role as Mollie. While often sharing the screen with one of the most recognizable and magnetic actors in the world, she steals every scene, constantly capturing with poise the passion, love, grief, sadness, and heartbreak of Mollie. The two ultimately work well together. Ernest regularly wears his heart on his sleeve or in his frown, a staple expression that displays outwardly the internal reckoning of a man whose longing for love is constantly clashing with his obsessive greed, while Mollie maintains a level of reserved dignity.

This romance serves as the emotional center for the film while also catalyzing a much larger plot: the organized dismantling of Mollie’s family and at least dozens of other Osage in an attempt to get their money into white hands. It’s in the middle third of the film, where De Niro’s Hale takes a central role, that we are forced into silent despair and grief alongside Mollie as native lives are systematically devalued and discarded at every level of society. Doctors, lawyers, bankers, law enforcement – all of them are complicit in this remorseless effort. Indeed, a scene in a Masonic lodge near the middle of the film shows us Hale standing with his two nephews on a chessboard shaped floor, not-so-subtly hinting at the methodical and ordered game he is playing, using everyone around him as pawns. At one point early in the film Ernest reads a children’s book on the history of the Osage which, ironically, is only ever read by white characters in the film, a testament to the reality that history often belongs to those in power. In the book he cites a caption underneath one of the primary illustrations: “Can you find the wolves in this picture?” While this line seems delivered directly to the audience as they watch the film, the wolves aren’t really hidden throughout – shot after shot, line after line, glance after glance reveal that wolves aren’t really hard to find, so long as you are willing to look in the right places.

As the plot and murders continue with increasing intensity and menace, Mollie eventually braves a trip to Washington D.C. to plead with the federal government to intervene. Enter a newly formed group referred to as the Bureau of Investigation, an invention of J. Edgar Hoover designed to expand his own power and pull in D.C. Mollie’s pleading leads to the sending of a team of investigators, led by the good-hearted Tom White (in a terrific turn from Jesse Plemons), to “see about these murders.” While ordinarily the entrance of detectives in film storytelling means the uncovering of evidence and details previously unknown to the audience, the wolves have made their tracks quite obvious from the outset. This is actually a clever narrative choice that Scorsese and his co-writer, Eric Roth, make in the film. By never making the evil much of a mystery, they underscore how tragically obvious and heartbreakingly avoidable many of these massacres were. Everyone in Fairfax knew, and yet no one did anything, either for fear of Hale or for their own benefit in the elimination of their native neighbors. It’s this obviousness that ultimately carries the movie’s central refrain: for as much as we might want to pretend to be surprised by evil in our midst, the truth is that it doesn’t have to do much hiding in a society already built on greed, already founded on colonialism, already structured around racism. The oil and soil under our feet have been fuel and fertile ground for the hells of our history and for the hells of our present, if we would have eyes to see their plainness before us.

In one later scene in Killers, Hale looks from his porch over the blurred images of what appears to be hellfire raging in his fields, a self-inflicted burn fueled by his desire for an insurance payout. As the fire burns in the background, we cut to Mollie, wasting away under the watchful eye of her betraying husband, himself sweating under the heat of his own miserable choices. We’ve come face to face with the devil and his hell, as he’s profited at the expense of the most vulnerable. He’s hiding in plain sight, but he’ll only be seen if we listen the stories of those on the margins. And so we’re left with that central question, as accurate in our own time as it was in the 1920’s: can you find the wolves in this picture?

1. American Fiction | Director: Cord Jefferson | MPA Rating: R | LeavittLens Rating: 9.5

Synopsis: Cord Jefferson, writer for some of the best T.V. shows of the last decade (The Good Place, Watchmen, and Master of None) and a man remarkably adept at fusing the humorous with the thematically resonant, makes his cinematic directorial debut in 2023 with American Fiction, a dramedy whose laughs are a mile a minute and dipped in poison. Jeffery Wright finally gets a chance to shine as a leading man as Thelonious "Monk" Ellison, an author and academic whose talent has bred a level of contempt for the commercial success of contemporaries who seem to be pandering their own "black" voices to white publishers and readers who subtly affirm the very racism they believe to be squelching. As the ultimate slap in the face to the industry, Monk decides to write an absurdly over-the-top, stereotyped book under a pseudonym. His work, My Pafology, reinforces what the market seems to call "black literature," but what was intended as a joke becomes hilariously accepted: a publisher buys the book, and it quickly becomes a cultural sensation, despite how absurd Monk escalates its title, production, and surrounding context. This scathing commentary on the self-congratulatory efforts of culture to cultivate diversity for the sake of its monetary value then opens up to a family drama in the second half, a helpful shift in the narrative as a way to undermine the stereotypical "black" stories that are told in our time. The result is a story that is at once hilariously satirical and brilliantly subversive: it holds up a mirror to our present culture, poses more questions than answers, and ultimately teaches us to become people who listen well in a culture utterly bent only on talking.

Honorable mentions: Spiderman: Across The Spider-Verse, Join Or Die, How To Blow Up A Pipeline, Ferrari, Poor Things, Maestro, American Symphony

LeavittLens’ Film Journal | 2023

1. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 96%
2. Emily's Rating: 86% ("I just like his striped clothing")

2. Babylon

1. Clint's Rating: 77%
2. Emily's Rating: 85% ("I feel like that movie was just a sin-fest.")

3. The Pale Blue Eye

1. Clint's Rating: 53%
2. Emily's Rating: 58% ("Did I see that one?")

4. Into The Inferno

1. Clint's Rating: 84%
2. Emily's Rating: 80% ("Fire.")

5. Tar

1. Clint's Rating: 92%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

6. Nope (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 95%
2. Emily's Rating: 82% ("I like the inflatable rubber arm things...")

7. Guillermo Del Toro's Pinnochio

1. Clint's Rating: 82%
2. Emily's Rating: 78% ("I'm not lying: this one was packed with nostalgia for me.")

8. Emily The Criminal

1. Clint's Rating: 83%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

9. Vengeance

1. Clint's Rating: 78%
2. Emily's Rating: 70% ("What happened in this one?")

10. All Quiet On The Western Front

1. Clint's Rating: 82%
2. Emily's Rating: 87% ("Beautifully shot, intense, and heavy.")

11. Triangle of Sadness

1. Clint's Rating: 78%
2. Emily's Rating: 65% ("All I can picture is vomit.")

12. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

1. Clint's Rating: 23%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

13. Women Talking

1. Clint's Rating: 96%
2. Emily's Rating: 98% ("As they should...")

14. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

1. Clint's Rating: 78%
2. Emily's Rating: 88% ("

15. The Elephant Whisperers

1. Clint's Rating: 71%
2. Emily's Rating: 91% ("Awww.")

16. Everything Everywhere All At Once (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 82%
2. Emily's Rating: 78% ("Similar to a laundry load.")

17. Women Talking (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 96%
2. Emily's Rating: 98%

18. Side Effects

1. Clint's Rating: 78%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

19. The Outfit (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 74%
2. Emily's Rating: 68% ("I love movies where there's precision...all the details are great.")

20. The Devil's Advocate

1. Clint's Rating: 53%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

21. The Lost City

1. Clint's Rating: 58%
2. Emily's Rating: 62% ("I liked her sparkly outfit.")

22. Bad Words (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 60%
2. Emily's Rating: 73% ("Jason Bateman's the GOAT.")

23. Air

1. Clint's Rating: 83%
2. Emily's Rating: 82% ("Come on and slam, and welcome to the jam...")

24. Beau Is Afraid

1. Clint's Rating: 79%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

25. American Hustle

1. Clint's Rating: 56%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

26. Sleepless In Seattle

1. Clint's Rating: 76%
2. Emily's Rating: 85% ("The best love story I've seen in a minute.")

27. The Super Mario Bros. Movie

1. Clint's Rating: 51%
2. Emily's Rating: 87% ("This is the first time I realized they were plumbers.")

28. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret

1. Clint's Rating: 89%
2. Emily's Rating: 92% ("We must, we must, we must increase our busts.")

29. Heat

1. Clint's Rating: 87%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

30. Heat (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 87%
2. Emily's Rating: 81% ("Gotta love a Deniro and Pacino sandwich.")

31. Period. End of Sentence (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 90%
2. Emily's Rating: 75% ("Exclamation point: you should watch this.")

32. Master Gardener

1. Clint's Rating: 78%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

33. Women Talking (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 96%
2. Emily's Rating: 98%

34. About My Father

1. Clint's Rating: 19%
2. Emily's Rating: 45% ("I love Sebastian...in his stand-up...")

35. Minions: The Rise of Gru

1. Clint's Rating: 54%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

36. Spiderman: Across The Spider-Verse

1. Clint's Rating: 91%
2. Emily's Rating: 87% ("The animation is top-notch.")

37. Long Shot

1. Clint's Rating: 61%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

38. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

1. Clint's Rating: 90%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

39. The Secret Life of Pets

1. Clint's Rating: 21%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

40. Asteroid City

1. Clint's Rating: 90%
2. Emily's Rating: 65% ("Classic Wes.")

41. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

1. Clint's Rating: 71%
2. Emily's Rating: 80% ("Makes me want to go to Disneyland baby.")

42. Mission: Impossible (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 88%
2. Emily's Rating: 100% ("Oh yeah! He does those stunts...that's amazing. 100%.")

43. Mission: Impossible II (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 52%
2. Emily's Rating: 80% ("Was this a different director?")

44. Mission: Impossible III (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 78%
2. Emily's Rating: 100% ("Oh yeah! He does those stunts...that's amazing. 100%.")

45. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

1. Clint's Rating: 83%
2. Emily's Rating: 100% ("Oh yeah! He does those stunts...that's amazing. 100%.")

46. Just Mercy (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 91%
2. Emily's Rating: 82% ("It's sad but it's good.")

47. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

1. Clint's Rating: 81%
2. Emily's Rating: 100% ("Oh yeah! He does those stunts...that's amazing. 100%.")

48. Barbie

1. Clint's Rating: 82%
2. Emily's Rating: 85% ("Hey Barbie!")

49. Oppenheimer

1. Clint's Rating: 94%
2. Emily's Rating: 95% ("A work of a genius.")

50. They Cloned Tyrone

1. Clint's Rating: 88%
2. Emily's Rating: 75% ("The funny thing is that I take elevators into basements every day for work...")

51. The Fugitive (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 85%
2. Emily's Rating: 85% ("I love a good action movie.")

52. Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

1. Clint's Rating: 84%
2. Emily's Rating: 100% ("Yeah..he does those stunts...that's amazing. 100%)

53. Oppenheimer (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 94%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

54. Untold: Johnny Football

1. Clint's Rating: 81%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

55. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 91%
2. Emily's Rating: 50% ("Oh...that was awful.")

56. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

1. Clint's Rating: 87%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

57. Sicario: Day of the Soldado

1. Clint's Rating: 63%
2. Emily's Rating: 67% ("It wasn't as good as the first.")

58. The Wizard of Oz

1. Clint's Rating: 88%
2. Emily's Rating: 80% ("I knew all the songs.")

59. Join or Die

1. Clint's Rating: 90%
2. Emily's Rating: 85% ("Good movie to watch post-COVID.")

60. The Witch

1. Clint's Rating: 84%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

61. A Haunting In Venice

1. Clint's Rating: 61%
2. Emily's Rating: 64% ("Wanted it to be more like Knives Out.")

62. Superbad

1. Clint's Rating: 68%
2. Emily's Rating: 65% ("I enjoyed it secretly...but it's really bad...like, really bad...like, superbad.)

63. Oppenheimer (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 94%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

64. No One Will Save You

1. Clint's Rating: 78%
2. Emily's Rating: 60% ("Not my fave genre.")

65. A Few Good Men (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 87%
2. Emily's Rating: 76% ("YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!")

66. The Silence of the Lambs

1. Clint's Rating: 91%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A ("Watched in third grade and will never watch it again.")

67. Poison

1. Clint's Rating: 85%
2. Emily's Rating: 60% ("What was the name of that snake?")

68. Killers of the Flower Moon

1. Clint's Rating: 94%
2. Emily's Rating: 85% ("You've got nice color skin...What color would you say that is?...My color.")

69. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 84%
2. Emily's Rating: 75% ("I'm in a glass cage of emotion!")

70. Killers of the Flower Moon (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 94%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

71. The Killer

1. Clint's Rating: 88%
2. Emily's Rating: 67% ("It felt wrong that I was on the side of an assassin.")

72. The Holdovers

1. Clint's Rating: 90%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

73. Past Lives

1. Clint's Rating: 84%
2. Emily's Rating: 65% ("Passing ships in the night.")

74. Three Thousand Years of Longing

1. Clint's Rating: 68%
2. Emily's Rating: 57% ("I'd rather watch Aladdin.")

75. Good Time (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 82%
2. Emily's Rating: 73% ("Clint's dream guy - Bobby P.")

76. The Farewell

1. Clint's Rating: 81%
2. Emily's Rating: 70% ("It seems like a lot of work to lie.")

77. Clue (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 85%
2. Emily's Rating: 90% ("DOPE.")

78. Napoleon

1. Clint's Rating: 56%
2. Emily's Rating: 71% ("I got nothing.")

79. Star Wars (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 81%
2. Emily's Rating: 67% ("The music was great!")

80. Four Christmases

1. Clint's Rating: 69%
2. Emily's Rating: 75% ("Watched it on a friend's recommendation...and I LOVED it.")

81. American Symphony

1. Clint's Rating: 83%
2. Emily's Rating: 97% ("I want Jon and Suleika to be our friends.")

82. Dream Scenario

1. Clint's Rating: 81%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

83. Home Alone (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 80%
2. Emily's Rating: 99% ("Very impressed with his "trapestry.")

84. Home Alone 2: Lost In New York (Rewatch)

1. Clint's Rating: 83%
2. Emily's Rating: 95% ("I'd rate it higher if I wasn't scared of birds...")

85. Leave The World Behind

1. Clint's Rating: 77%
2. Emily's Rating: 52% ("Julia Roberts is a helluva driver.")

86. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

1. Clint's Rating: 89%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

87. May December

1. Clint's Rating: 85%
2. Emily's Rating: 50% ("Clint makes me watch these torturous movies.")

88. The Rat Catcher

1. Clint's Rating: 85%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

89. The Swan

1. Clint's Rating: 85%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

90. Maestro

1. Clint's Rating: 88%
2. Emily's Rating: 58% ("I liked when they leaned their backs to each other and had their little thing.")

91. Klaus

1. Clint's Rating: 83%
2. Emily's Rating: 90% ("New favorite Christmas movie.")

92. American Fiction

1. Clint's Rating: 95%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

93. How To Blow Up A Pipeline

1. Clint's Rating: 86%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

94. Poor Things

1. Clint's Rating: 78%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

95. Ferrari

1. Clint's Rating: 81%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

96. BlackBerry

1. Clint's Rating: 84%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A

97. Renfield

1. Clint's Rating: 58%
2. Emily's Rating: N/A