Summer 2023: A summer of movies that made you say “Hell yeah”

Top 5 movies of the summer

Aug 04, 2023

Hello. It’s been a minute. Lots has happened. Most of you know that I live in Stillwater, Oklahoma now and it’s great. I started this newsletter as a writing outlet when I was looking for work, and when I got a job I let this passion project fall by the wayside.

But I’m back and what a summer of movies and media 2023 has been. Summer always has the blockbuster movies, but this summer many of them have freaking delivered. They’ve made me feel things and left me sitting in my seat, smiling and saying “hell yeah.”

So let’s talk about them. Here’s my ranking of the Top 5 movies I saw this summer. Will mostly be spoiler free. Per usual there will be movie, music, TV, book recommendations at the end of this piece. Let’s go.

Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse

The movie of the year so far, for me. I’ve seen it three times in theatres and it gets even more marvelous each time. The animation and score are obviously brilliant. More often than not, I had chills and was feeling things. If you haven’t seen this yet, you need to. It’s going to be the first animated movie nominated for Best Picture since Toy Story 3 (2010) and it has a chance to win, in my opinion. Just an absolute joy of an action, family, superhero, comedy, thriller movie.

Oppenheimer

I saw this on opening day at noon on a Friday in IMAX in a mostly sold out auditorium. What a journey. An experience that won’t be replicated soon. I went and rewatched Christopher Nolan’s second-best movie a few days later and had a ton of notes on it. It’s probably the frontrunner for Best Picture and it’s so dang cool how this and Barbie made for a fun weekend across the country.

Past Lives

Going into this, I was aware that it was a good movie. Leaving it, I thought about this movie for a long time. I laughed, I cried and it was just such a powerful movie about love and life. Hearing it will be streaming soon and I highly recommend it.

Barbie

Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling and Greta Gerwig freaking did it. For the longest time, there wasn’t much knowledge of a story or what the movie would be like. I tried to avoid spoilers and didn’t even listen to ‘I’m Just Ken’ before I saw the movie. It exceeded my expectations. This was a hilarious movie, with scenes and moments of sentimentality and thoughtfulness. Obviously subliminal moments and messages that played well in both times I saw it. All three of the people mentioned above should be rewarded with Oscar nominations and I think they will be.

Asteroid City

Fantastic Mr. Fox is one of my favorite movies. I love the Grand Budapest Hotel. The French Dispatch dispatch is a movie I rewatch plenty. This movie was another soon-to-be classic that I’ll be rewatching a good bit I feel like. Awesome performances from a hell of a Wes Anderson ensemble, cool story and just fantastic execution.