Year In Review: Hunting for those five stars on Letterboxd

So, a couple years back I started using the movie-geek logging app and database Letterboxd to exhaustively keep track of my film-watching habits. Created right here in little old New Zealand, it was bought for a whole lot of money this year.

In an age where most social media has turned into a bilestorm of nastiness, I find it’s generally a fun space to spend a bit of time, with lots of thoughtful film reviews – and lots of incredibly goofy, snotty one-liner reviews as well. It’s a mix of snark and sense. 

I’ve been using Letterboxd for a while but this year for the first time I thought I’d challenge myself by also doing ratings for the movies I logged – you have the option of ranking movies from five stars to no stars. I hadn’t done it before because there’s an easy tendency to let thinking about the ratings overwhelm the film experience itself – you spend too much time obsessing over what you might rate something. There’s an awful lot of Letterboxd cultists out there who seem to spend an awful lot of time obsessing over their “rating curve” for movies or asking everyone on Reddit to rank their rankings, and it can all get a bit performative. 

Eh. I don’t care that my movie curve “leans” toward higher ratings. I mean, life is short and you should generally watch stuff you like or reckon you might like, right? Still, I have tried to be restrained when it comes to awarding five stars. It’s been an interesting experiment this year because it makes you truly think, how has this movie landed with me? What’s the difference between the film as a film and my experience of it? Why do we rate things the way we do, anyway? 

For instance, objectively, it’s insane to rate Tommy Wiseau’s legendarily awful sex thriller/comedy/drama The Room as five stars, isn’t it? But, I saw it at a packed 20th anniversary showing with the whole family featuring co-star Greg Sestero (who wrote The Disaster Artist book about the making of The Room), there were skits, making-of-stories, plastic spoons flying, and honestly, it was one of the most fun times I had at the theatre this year. The right experience can make a bad movie seem good, I reckon. 

In the end, a star is just a designation that might well change based on my mood or the atmosphere or the configuration of the stars in the sky itself. There’s a LOT of movies that I gave 4 1/2 stars to that might on a different day or second viewing rise up, so in the end you have to take any movie ratings with a grain of salt.  

The majority of my “five star” ratings for 2023 were movies that I had, of course, seen before, because honestly, I think you tend to truly love a film more upon repeat exposure. But not always – there was some excellent new to me stuff this year that dazzled from the first few frames. 

I logged a rather solid total of 228 movies seen in 2023 (trust me, I’m apparently a total amateur compared to some Boxd-heads). In the end, I gave 24 films five stars.

The ones I saw for the first time:

The Misfits (1961) – As noted here, this final film from Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable blew me away.

Shock Corridor (1963) – So this is where David Lynch and Martin Scorsese were born. Pulp melodrama at a mental hospital that is absurd from a plot standpoint but hypnotic in style and execution. 

Thief (1981) – James Caan, Michael Mann, neon-lit neo-noir, thieves and cons – inject it right into my veins!

The Hit (1984) – The Limey is one of my all-time favourite crime flicks and this underrated gem starring Terence Stamp and a wonderful John Hurt is like the prequel I never knew I needed. Look, I like movies about hitmen starring great actors, OK?

Aftersun (2022) – So damn sad, so damn good. 

Pearl (2022) – The first great COVID pandemic movie, maybe?

Godzilla Minus One (2023) – After 70 years we might just have the best Godzilla movie yet.

Asteroid City (2023) – Wes Anderson goes full Wes Anderson and either you get it or you don’t. 

Poor Things (2023) – Filthy, funny, fantastic femme fatale Frankenstein.

Oppenheimer (2023) – I mean, duh. 

Repeat viewing offenders – Beloved film friends I watched again this year that were confirmed in my mind as film classics, from Claude Rains spooking everyone with his invisible powers to Ben Kingsley spooking everyone with his cockney gangster accent:

The Invisible Man (1933); Singin’ In The Rain (1952); All That Heaven Allows (1955); 12 Angry Men (1957); Blow-Up (1966); The French Connection (1971); Fist of Fury (1972); Stardust Memories (1980); The Thing (1982); Videodrome (1983); Sexy Beast (2001); The Room (2003); Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011); John Wick (2014); The Sparks Brothers (2021)