Allegra's year in movies 2023

152 films I watched within 365 days.

Cookies were a staple in my movie watching this year.

This year, I watched a lot of movies. There were several reasons why this was both my most treasured and habitual activity in 2023. I am required to watch movies for my job, which means I get access to a lot of early screenings and screeners. I also spent the majority of the year, as I wrote about last time I popped up here on the blog, in immense physical pain; I spent a lot of time on the couch, so I also spent a lot of time playing video games (Pokémon Scarlet, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Mario Kart 8 mostly), watching TV shows (too many to even list here; watch Scott Pilgrim Takes Off), and sitting through extremely long video essays on YouTube. 

In 2023, I watched 152 movies, which is more than I have ever watched before in my life, I think. That includes movies I streamed and saw at a theater; movies I rewatched or had never seen before; and movies I watched and judged as a member of a jury for a major film festival (!!!), among others. There were even a handful of movies that I watched more than once this year, a testament to how many great movies came out this year.

Below is a complete list of the movies I watched in 2023. This is for accounting purposes, mostly. But I also think it paints a better picture of the year I had than any of my typical melodramatic, woe-is-me musings can. I don’t do that whole Letterboxd star-rating shtick, so I didn’t rate these—but I thought it would be fun to do some superlatives, good and bad, anyway. 

Favorite new movie of the year: 

Past Lives. Past Lives. PAST LIVES.

Least-favorite new movie of the year: 

Down Low is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen in my life. Its trailer is also the first one I’ve ever seen that quotes a review I wrote. This is what I deserve.

New movies I saw twice this year: 

Past Lives, Barbie, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Poor Things, The Boy and the Heron.

Most-watched actor of the year: 

I watched four movies starring Albert Brooks this year, all of which I liked a lot. (The best was probably Modern Romance.) The documentary his bestie Rob Reiner made about him, less good. If we’re not including that one, Albert is tied with Ryan Gosling; he starred in the best movie I watched entirely on my phone this year. Half Nelson! Streaming for free on YouTube!

Most-watched actress of the year:

Rachel Sennott, three of whose movies I watched in quick-ish succession this year. I also suffered through all of The Idol. But I liked watching Rachel do Bottoms promo with Ayo Edebiri more than anything I actually saw her act in.

Most underrated movie I watched this year:

I have been thinking about and referencing The Adults for eight months straight now. It wasn’t that good of a movie, but it was definitely a fun viewing experience for me—I watched it at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday during Tribeca Film Festival, and I was the only one laughing and cringing among my scant fellow filmgoers. Michael Cera’s Marge Simpson impression is just too good!

Most overrated movie I watched this year:

The more I think about American Fiction, the more annoyed and disappointed by it I get.

Most appropriately rated movie I watched this year:

Paddington 2 is as good as everyone says it is.

And now, here’s the full list of all 152. 

1. Jeanne Dielman

2. This Place Rules

3. Love and Mercy

4. Death of a Salesman (1985)

5. To Leslie

6. The Conformist

7. Cat Person

8. Eileen

9. Theater Camp

10. Sometimes I Think About Dying

11. A Little Prayer

12. Fairyland

13. Knock at the Cabin

14. Beyoncé: The President’s Daughter

15. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

16. Modern Romance

17. The Return of Beyoncé

18. Another Body

19. Angel Applicant

20. BlackBerry

21. You Were My First Boyfriend

22. Geoff McFetridge: Drawing a Life

23. My Year of Dicks

24. M3GAN (unrated)

25. Join or Die

26. The Young Wife

27. Pay or Die

28. Queendom

29. Riders on the Storm

30. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair

31. Down Low

32. Bottoms

33. Peak Season

34. Great Photo, Lovely Life

35. Problemista

36. Molli and Max in the Future 

37. I Used to Be Funny

38. Americana

39. Navalny

40. Midnight Run

41. Wendy and Lucy 

42. Old Joy

43. The Super Mario Bros. Movie (x2)

44. Suzume

45. Tetris

46. The Bling Ring

47. Beau Is Afraid 

48. Charlie’s Angels (2000)

49. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret

50. Half Nelson

51. A Thousand and One

52. Bring It On

53. Defending Your Life

54. Spring Breakers

55. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

56. Scream 4

57. You Hurt My Feelings

58. Scream 5

59. Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck

60. Anna Nicole Smith: You Don’t Know Me

61. Past Lives (x2)

62. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse 

63. Batman (1989)

64. The Flash 

65. Your Fat Friend

66. Metropolis 

67. Elemental

68. Asteroid City

69. Waitress: The Musical 

70. The Adults 

71. Reality

72. Hideo Kojima: Connecting Worlds

73. Fantastic Mr. Fox

74. Take Care of Maya

75. Spirited Away

76. Raiders of the Lost Ark 

77. Victim/Suspect 

78. Nimona 

79. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

80. Gray Matter

81. Art College 1994

82. Oppenheimer 

83. Barbie (x2)

84. The Deepest Breath

85. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade 

86. Haunted Mansion (2023)

87. The Nice Guys

88. The First Slam Dunk

89. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

90. Spider-Man: Lotus  

91. Passages

92. TMNT: Mutant Mayhem 

93. All I Wanna Do (Strike!)

94. Person to Person

95. BS High

96. The Elephant 6 Recording Co.

97. Shiva Baby

98. Stolen Dough

99. You’re So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah 

100. Stop Making Sense 

101. They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead

102. The Automat 

103. The Faculty 

104. Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me

105. I Know What You Did Last Summer 

106. The Boy and the Heron (x2)

107. Foe

108. All of Us Strangers

109. The Ringleader: Case of the Bling Ring 

110. Anatomy of a Fall

111. Mean Girls 

112. Hit Man

113. Priscilla 

114. There Will Be Blood

115. The Zone of Interest

116. Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

117. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour

118. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World 

119. Dream Scenario 

120. Vertigo 

121. American Fiction 

122. Killers of the Flower Moon 

123. The Holdovers 

124. Five Nights at Freddy’s 

125. Rustin 

126. In the Mouth of Madness

127. Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds + Snakes

128. Poor Things (x2)

129. The Marvels 

130. Albert Brooks: Defending My Life

131. Mind Game

132. Saltburn

133. Muppets Treasure Island

134. The Killers 

135. May December

136. The Color Purple (2023)

137. It Started as a Joke

138. Renaissance 

139. Safe

140. The Iron Claw

141. No Hard Feelings 

142. Good Time

143. Paddington 2

144. The Most Wonderful Time of the Year 

145. Muppet Christmas Carol

146. The Apartment 

147. Godzilla Minus One

148. Wonka

149. Chicken Run 

150. The Eternal Memory 

151. Rye Lane

152. Real Life