This for me was the year when a lot of great cinema was made. I don’t believe those who are predicting 2024 to be a letdown, as I know a few upcoming titles that are yet to be announced at future festivals which will simply blow our minds. So instead of making a “best films of 2023” list, I’m just going to name a few gems, which can take us seamlessly into the new year. Mind you, I tried to steer clear of films that were nominated for the Golden Globes… A conflict of interest thing, you understand.

There was a recent article in the NY Times (find a screenshot from their newsletter below) which basically said that audiences chose unconventionally this year, when it came to films. I have to respectfully disagree. Audiences now, as they always have, choose films that could inspire them and definitely entertain them, as well as leave them walking out of the theater with an extra spring in their step. Even if the film is a human tragedy like Oppenheimer.

Now onto my personal list.

Let’s start with one film which didn’t make as big a splash as I’d imagined. Pablo Larrain’s El Conde, which wasn’t even selected by Chile as their official Oscar submission. Whaaaat? It’s one of the most intellectually stimulating while also sublimely entertaining films I’ve watched in a long time. And I watch a lot of films.

El Conde is a vampire romp slash black and white political satire, with a dash of thriller, about Chilean president/dictator Augusto Pinochet, who, in Larrain’s film is actually a 250 year-old vampire. Pinochet, who eats frozen heart smoothies for fun, is a dictator who objects to being called a “thief” yet not so much to being called a “murderer.” Doesn’t get much better than that. That is, until the film gets to the ending part, which will blow your socks off — if you have followed world politics of the past 50 years and think that the sins of the past (politicians) account for the troubles of the present and the disasters of our future. Ah yes, and there is a heavy handed presence of the Church in there too, but not the way our Pope Francis would have us believe in it…

Do yourself a favor, watch El Conde on Netflix. Now.

While we are on otherworldly stories, Sidonie in Japan, starring the magnificent Isabelle Huppert, is also a must-watch. In Élise Girard’s charming travel movie slash ghost story, Huppert plays a writer to is invited to Japan by her publisher to do a book tour coinciding with the reprint of her first book. While in Kyoto, she begins to see and feel the ghost of her late husband, who haunts her still and makes every step she takes a little bit more difficult. But it turns out that her publisher, the stoic and quiet Kenzo (played by Tsuyoshi Ihara, who played Baron Nishi in Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima) is also grappling with his own issues and their opposite cultures end up bringing each and both unpredictable joy.

If there is one film that expresses my state of mind, 80 percent of the time, it’s Sidonie in Japan. And not just because I love La Huppert and am a writer myself. Just watch the scene at the airport, in the beginning, when Sidonie is checking into her flight. It’s divine.

Documentaries these days are a great way to dive in deeper into a subject or discover something new. I learned a lot watching the John Galliano documentary High & Low by filmmaker Kevin Macdonald (of The Last King of Scotland fame). In it, he takes the audience through Galliano’s incredible life and somehow manages to infuse it with the man’s talent but also the weaknesses which led to his downfall. As the title implies, this is a rollercoaster ride and one complete with different opinions about Galliano — both the man and the designer, but also featuring the infamous video which led to his dismissal from the House of Dior in 2011. Built like an epic adventure, High & Low really rolls back the layer of transparent but necessary cling wrap that covers the pristine runways before a fashion show — metaphorically speaking of course. Macdonald’s film unwraps the myth of one of the most glamorous industries on earth and shows us, the audience, what really lies underneath the clothes celebrities wear.

A word of warning, watching High & Low may, at first, inspire you to dress more to impress, but by the end of the film, you may want to give all your clothes to charity and adopt a minimalist lifestyle. Because fashion should not come at a human price. Ever.

According to British Vogue, the film should be released in March 2024, worldwide. And I couldn’t find a trailer for it online, which is a shame. But the whole publicity, distribution thing for the film seems to be left to chance, which is also a shame as the film is a must-watch.

While we are on bad boys, cute ones who have been affected by drugs (maybe… don’t want to give any spoilers here, but you know…) Simon Baker playing a junkie police investigator, looking to reopen the case into the disappearance of an indigenous woman in the Australian outback in Limbo makes the film at once haunting and delicious. The Mentalist actor is perfect in Ivan Sen’s masterpiece, which in my humble opinion should have been nominated for a Golden Globes award, and even an Oscar or two… Limbo does it all, leaves the spectator thinking, entertains and astonishes, with a clear, crisp black and white cinematography by the multi-talented Sen — an Indigenous Australian himself. Sen also did the music, edited the film, on top of writing and directing it, and filming it. He’s a gem. Stay tuned for a wonderful interview with him, to come here.

I do hope this quiet masterpiece makes it to American and UK shores soon. I got to watch it in Marrakech and then listened to Baker and Sen talk about it. And I tell you, I wish I could watch it again, and again. It’s that good. The ending doesn’t spoon-feed the audience either and will leave you wondering, “wait? Is he? Did he? Was that?” But no spoilers here. I just learned that Limbo will be released in selected theaters in the US in mid-March 2024. Hurray!

Last but not least, I wanted to include an Arab title and among all I’ve watched this year. I have to say the film that stayed with me the most is Yemeni title The Burdened by Amr Gamal. Maybe it’s because I was recently asked by Screen to write up an interview with Gamal and his producer for awards season. Or maybe because I followed the film’s journey since their world premiere at the Berlinale last year… Or maybe, probably the best bet, because the film does something completely different from what an Arab film typically does and what we have come to expect of Arab cinema. The Burdened shows people taking their destiny into their own hands and breaking down barriers and taboos in the process.

The Burdened tells the story of a family in Aden faced with the impossibility of having another child — which would amount to another mouth to feed in an already financially strained household. Gamar handles the conundrum so well and weaves out of the story, which could have been the same old woe-is-me tale of the Arab world, something magical. Where the stunning city of Aden, the place the filmmaker loves and which he still calls home, becomes a character as important as the people in the script.

While the film was Yemen’s submission to the Oscar race, it didn’t make the shortlist, announced earlier this month. But this gem won’t stop, trust me, it’s going to come to screen near you. Soon, Inshallah.

Top image courtesy of the Marrakech International Film Festival, used with permission.