Episode 93: Highlights of 2023

Cinema in Context

The good, the average and the weird. Sarah Watt, Jeremy Downing and William Chen discuss their film and television highlights of the year, including each of their best film of the year, their biggest surprise, their biggest disappointment, their wildcard film or television season of the year and their best television show of 2023. Here are the films and television shows we discussed: • Films of the year: Anatomy of a Fall (Sarah); Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (William, with runner-ups Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Nimona); Theater Camp (Jeremy, with runner-ups Triangle of Sadness and Barbie) • Biggest surprise of the year: Napoleon (Jeremy, with a special shout-out to Scream VI); Living (Sarah); Once Upon a Studio (Wiliam) • Biggest disappointment of the year: Astroid City (Wiliam, including parts of The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar); The Creator (Sarah, with a mention of Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody); Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Jeremy, with shout outs to The Flash and Beau Is Afraid) • Wildcard: Scrapper and River (Sarah, with shout-outs to Triangle of Sadness and How to Have Sex); Chang An | Chang'an san wan li and Moon Man | Du xing yue qiu (William); Mrs. Davis (Jeremy, with shout-outs to Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Red, White & Royal Blue) • Best season of television of the year: Jury Duty (Sarah); The Bear, Season 2 (William, with runner-ups Reservation Dogs and Scavengers Reign); Faraway Downs (Jeremy, with shout-outs to reality show Survivor and crime mystery show Poker Face)