Best of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival
The 2023 Sundance Film Festival has officially come to an end. I saw 28 feature films at this year’s festival and a handful of shorts. Overall, I thought this year’s festival was pretty solid. There were a number of movies that I really liked and only a few that I truly did not like, for one reason or another.
However, missing from this year’s festival, as has been missing from the past couple of festivals, was that truly great film. At previous Sundance festivals, there had been a movie that truly blew me away, like Whiplash in 2014, Hereditary in 2018, Minari in 2020, and Flee in 2021. This year was missing that, though a few came close. Obviously, I didn’t see every movie that played during the festival, so it’s possible I might have missed one, but for the ones I saw, there was a lot I liked, but not one I truly loved. So with that, these are my picks for the best movies and performances from the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.
Best Movie: Magazine Dreams
Magazine Dreams isn’t a perfect movie, but it’s one that I cannot stop thinking about. Director Elijah Bynum’s sophomore directorial effort is a tough, relentless, engrossing watch about mental illness, toxic masculinity, and finding your reason to live when all seems lost. It’s a punishing, bruising movie that rests on the outstanding performance of its lead, Jonathon Majors.
Best Director: C.J. ‘Fiery’ Obasi, Mami Wata
C.J. ‘Fiery’ Obasi’s West African drama is a stunning film in every sense. Working on the film for seven years, Obasi put his blood, sweat, and tears into Mami Wata and the result was one of the best movies of the festival. The film had a good story, exciting action, gorgeous costumes and production design, the best cinematography I have ever seen at the festival, and was rooted in West African culture lore, with Obasi’s love for his homeland front and center.
Best Actor: Jonathan Majors, Magazine Dreams
As mentioned above, Magazine Dreams was my favorite movie of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival in large part due to the performance of Jonathan Majors. Majors, arguably the most exciting actor working today, gives the best performance of his career as a bodybuilder struggling with a human connection. Built and cut like a Greek God, Majors shows us Killian’s sweetness, his charm, the boiling anger under the skin, the intimidation, and the explosive blow-up. And even when Killian is at his lowest or his worst, Majors somehow makes us empathize or sympathize with him rather than hate him. Though it is so early in the year, this is the performance to beat in 2023.
Best Actress: Daisy Ridley, Sometimes I Think About Dying
Ridley’s post-Star Wars career as an actress hasn’t gotten off to a great start, but if she continues to do movies like Sometimes I Think About Dying, her career might be rather interesting. She stars in director Rachel Lambert’s dramedy about a seemingly shy office worker who must learn to open up when she forms a relationship with a new employee. Ridley is quietly sweet, and funny, and gives a performance that isn’t very showy, but one that puts us into the mind of her character without her having to say much. It is a wonderful performance that I really love.
Best Ensemble: The Accidental Getaway Driver
The Accidental Getaway Driver features an ensemble of four core actors, but director Sing J. Lee gets four tremendous performances out of each of his actors. Hiep Tran Nghia stars as an old Vietnamese cab driver who gets kidnapped by three escaped convicts, played by Dustin Nguyen, Dali Benssalah, and Phi Vu. Lee does a great job of making the actors work together seamlessly while also giving each of them their own moment to shine. All four performances are spectacular and are the highlight of this emotional crime film.
Best Screenplay: Fair Play
Chloe Dumont gave us one of the most impressive directorial debuts at this year’s Sundance and it was highlighted by her crackling, whip-smart screenplay. Telling the story about the power struggle between a couple when one of them gets a promotion, this is a tight, thrilling screenplay that looks at gender dynamics in a relationship, in the workplace and toxic masculinity. Dumont structures Fair Play like a ticking time bomb: it slowly unveils itself until the explosive finale that had my heart racing.
Best Documentary: Pianoforte
Pianoforte is a documentary about the Chopin Piano Competition, the legendary piano contest held in Warsaw, Poland every year, and the young pianists participating. Director Jakub Piatek made a musical documentary that felt like a sports documentary, highlighting the mental and physical toll this contest takes on these young pianists. Piatek introduces us to a handful of contestants and shows how each of them prepares for and handles the contest. Pianoforte is a fascinating and entertaining look at this competition as well as and dissection about the pursuit of perfection.
Best Midnight Movie: Divinity
Though it wasn’t technically part of the Midnight’s category, Divinity would have played nicely with the group of late-night cinematic wonders. Director Eddie Alcazar’s experimental, inventive film has sprinkles of David Cronenberg’s body horror and David Lynch’s experimental horror while also featuring stunning visual effects and a stop-motion finale that had my jaw on the floor. There aren’t many films as bold as Divinity, and you won’t see many films like it.
Best Short Film: Pipes
Pipes played in the Midnight Shorts Program at the festival, and it was easily my favorite short film and one of my favorites throughout the festival. Pipes finds Bob, a plumber, going to fix a broken pipe. When he arrives at his destination, he is surprised to find out that he is repairing a pipe at a gay fetish club. This animated short is a brisk four minutes long, but the animation is fun and unique, and the story unfolds in creative and amusing ways.
SPECIAL RECOGNITION: Best Cinematography: Mami Wata
A special award needs to go to Mami Wata for its stunning cinematography. This is one of the best uses of black and white in a modern movie I have seen in a long time, with the black highlighting the dark skin of our West African characters, which allows the white face paint and clothing to glow off-screen. Mami Wata was not only the best-looking movie I saw at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival but one of the best-looking films I have ever seen in my years of covering Sundance.
OVERALL RANKING OF EVERY FEATURE FILM I SAW
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Magazine Dreams
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Mami Wata
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Flora and Son
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Pianoforte
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Fair Play
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Scrapper
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A Still Small Voice
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Divinity
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Sometimes I Think About Dying
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Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project
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Animalia
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The Accidental Getaway Driver
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A Thousand and One
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The Deepest Breath
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Joyland
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Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis)
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Polite Society
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My Animal
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The Eternal Memory
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Bravo, Burkina!
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Cat Person
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AUM: The Cult At The End Of The World
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Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls
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Young. Wild. Free
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Run Rabbit Run
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Talk to Me
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Infinity Pool
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In My Mother’s Skin
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