Favorite (Mostly Queer) Films of 2023

While the horror pickings were, in my opinion, a bit slim this year, 2023 was a banner year for being queer in film. A year so good that Barbie and Bottoms didn’t even make my main list (I, for one, am shocked). I also didn’t make it to theaters in time to see Poor Things before this write-up, and I’m a huge Yorgos fan, so… noted. Anyway, let’s get to the movies.

Candy Land. Technically this came out in 2022, but I saw it this year and could not stop thinking about it. A low-budget slasher about sex workers who live and work out of a truck stop motel, the film reels you in with its warm, intimate depiction of its characters – and then it decimates you in the second half. Owen Campbell and Eden Brolin are standouts.

Dead Ringers. 2023 was a good year for ambitious female Frankensteins (I’ll remind you that Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster). Both this limited series and the excellent film Birth/Rebirth deal in single-minded women scientists who push the envelope ceaselessly and without remorse. Rachel Weisz plays thorny twin gynecologists in this updated, female (but certainly not stereotypically feminine) take on Cronenberg’s film.

Kokomo City. An energetic, vibrant, and starkly honest documentary about four black trans sex workers living in the U.S. It can’t be said enough: In a society where trans people are murdered at shockingly disproportionate rates, we need to be centering trans stories, especially trans stories that center the humanity of trans people as warmly as Kokomo City does. This documentary puts trans sex workers and their experiences front and center, unflinchingly and in their own words.

Pamela, A Love Story. Pamela Anderson was the real-life Barbie of my teens. I loved her – she was so beautiful, and seemed so kind. I loved how in love she was with Tommy, and how much he obviously adored her. Of course, the reality was much more complicated. Pamela delves into Pamela’s early life, her career, and the “sex tape” scandal that upended everything. The tape was a private recording stolen from the Lees’ home safe, a violating act made even worse by media outlets that gleefully shared the tape in full, treating it like a ploy for fame orchestrated by the Lees themselves, rather than the invasive crime it was. There are a lot of important post-Me-Too docs about female celebs, but this one—about such a divisive “sex symbol” and dealing in all the assumptions that come with that, juxtaposed with gut-wrenching excerpts from diaries Pamela kept throughout her life—hits especially hard.

May December. I remember first learning about Mary Kay Letourneau from a 2000 Lifetime TV movie, “Mary Kay Letourneau: All American Girl.” The saga of Letourneau and her paramour/student/victim has titillated and repulsed the American public in nearly equal measure for decades, making Todd Haynes’ alternatingly serious and campy approach to telling the story—occasionally reminiscent of a Lifetime movie—more than fitting. While Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore spar like soap opera divas in the foreground, Charles Melton is quietly, powerfully devastating from the background, forcing us to face the fact that our attention was trained on the wrong places all along.

Perpetrator. A modern-day body-horror-surreal-vampiric-fable about girls and women and the actual, tangible power of empathy in a patriarchal world. Surreal and a bit Lynchian, Jennifer Reeder’s films are still wholly her own, imbued with a unique style that she’s fleshed out further since Knives and Skin (2019), and characterized by a much-needed tenderness towards teenage girls. I can’t wait to see what she does next.

Rotting in the Sun. Bizarre and surprising in more ways than one, Rotting in the Sun is a breath of fresh air. A meta contemplation of the artist’s life on one level and a farcical murder mystery of sorts on another, you never quite know where director Sebastián Silva (playing himself alongside Jordan Firstman, an entertainer who originally rose to fame via Instagram) is going to take you next. It’s also never scared of a male full frontal scene.

Saltburn. We need queer films that are both spectacle and silly, that are here purely to titillate in the same way that hetero films have been allowed to since forever. While Saltburn can certainly be read as a serious indictment of class and an exploration of power, it is also, on another level, a very horny and deeply silly queer romp – and that’s what I, personally, love about it. Barry Keoghan is a revelation.

Sanctuary. Margaret Qualley delivers a stunning, star-making performance as a dominatrix whose wealthy client (Christopher Abbott, also excellent) is attempting to terminate his relationship with her – and failing. The power struggles between the two characters are on full display as the film slyly explores other things, like the intimacy (and accompanying danger) we find within and outside of our given and agreed-upon roles.

Talk to Me. I think this was the only new horror movie that genuinely scared me this year. Naturalistic, tense, and at times shockingly brutal, not to mention an original idea that didn’t spring from an already-existing property. Long live indie horror.

Honorable Mentions go to…

Barbie. Barbie told me I can be high femme and still get respect. Thanks, Babs.

Bottoms. Fight Club by way of Heathers, and with lesbians. What more could you ask for? Rachel Sennott? Ayo Edebiri? It’s got them, too.

My Animal. Gorgeous lesbian werewolf love story.

 

What were your favorite movies this year? Tell me in the comments!

 

 

 

All film stills are from IMDB.com.