The Top Ten Films of 2023

The Top Ten Films of 2023

Rant by Paul Preston

How good was this year? Exceptional! And it snuck up on me.

I spent the first half of the year only talking about one or two films, but sure enough by the end, Hollywood’s late-year awards dump really piled on some extraordinary movies. My first-ever trip to Telluride gave me advance views of some of the movies that came out at the end of the year. I saw them in September and the extra time to let them stew always helps a film work its real magic.

First, let’s see what didn’t make the cut. You could take these #11-#20 films (listed alphabetically) and make an equally good Top 10 to what I lay out below. It was that good of a year:
Anatomy of a Fall (outstanding take on the did-they-or-didn’t-they mystery with dense dialogue and great performances)
Asteroid City (every Wes Anderson movie should probably be nominated for Best Picture ‘cause nobody does a movie like him. Nobody.)
The Holdovers (a massive return to form for an all-time favorite of mine, Alexander Payne)
The Iron Claw (Sean Durkin is a fantastic filmmaker, guiding a transformative performance from Zac Efron)
Killers of the Flower Moon (Scorsese does it again with a powerful statement on how absolutely awful gaslighting men can be)
The Mission (a Christian man takes it upon himself to bring Jesus to a remote island where civilization has never set foot. Then, the natives kill him. This is a great documentary)
Oppenheimer (the adult blockbuster in the room)
Priscilla (fascinating, frustrating look at Elvis and his powers of control)
Society of the Snow (chillingly effective take on the Uruguay rugby team plane crash story)
Theater Camp (funniest movie of the year!)

Not to mention Air, A Good Person, Past Lives, the year just didn’t QUIT!

Here are the Top Ten Films of 2023 (need I explain that this is really my Top Ten Favorite films of 2023? It’s always subjective, but hopefully I can entice you to check out something new or make you give a second look to something you may have dismissed):

10. John Wick: Chapter Four
I usually make room in my top ten for the funniest movie of the year. Which means, there’s usually an outlier amongst the prestige pics – something like Borat or Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. I could put Theater Camp in my Top Ten for that reason, but this year I swapped out the funniest movie of the year for THE action movie of the year as 2023’s one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other entry. As large as the set pieces are in something like Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part One, the sheer VOLUME of action in John Wick: Chapter Four is not to be denied. Director Chad Stahelski outdoes himself in scene after scene. Right when the Osaka Continental sequence seemed like the film has outperformed the finales of lesser action movies in its first half hour, there’s the long-take overhead shot, then the Arc du Triumphe sequence, the staircase, and on and on and it’s relentless. The supporting cast is also incredible, with scene-stealing Donnie Yen, always-reliable Hiroyuki Sanada, and a nearly unrecognizable Scott Adkins. I saw this twice, that’s six hours of my life well spent.

9. Dream Scenario
Nicolas Cage is like the Russell Wilson of Hollywood. You gotta “Let Nic Cook”, and that’s exactly what writer/director Kristoffer Borgli does with this story of a quiet professor who finds himself thrust into the spotlight when he starts appearing in people’s dreams. It’s nothing he asked for and the journey he’s taken on is a fascinating warning tale of celebrity. Cage called this script one of the best he’s read, right up there with Raising Arizona, and within that, Borgli offers Cage one of his best roles in years, and the freedom to make wild choices. Unlike some of the recent Cage projects that let him go nuts and leave the film behind, Dream Scenario is a smart and smooth blend of what makes Cage great, and a story that’s good to begin with.

8. Perfect Days
Wim Wenders latest film (actually, one of TWO the 78-year-old director released this year!) is about simply this – a man in Japan who cleans toilets and the people he meets who have banal or charged conversations with him. So, why did this very simple story leave me a crying mess?! That’s the magic of the movies, man, and the magic of Koji Yakusho in the lead role. The subtlety of the movie is sublime, working on you when you think you’re just being a passive viewer. The ending is beautiful and, if the title is to be believed, perfect.

7. Radical
Here’s another teacher-who-changes-the-lives-of-his-students movie. But do we need another one of those? The emotional investment I made in Radical proves the answer to be a resounding yes! Eugenio Derbez plays an unconventional teacher who must turn his students’ grades around in a poor school. The unique element that sets this story apart from others of its genre is its Mexico setting, so the poor neighborhoods have different challenges, and the American dream isn’t a thing. The crime-filled border town setting sets dire futures in motion for young people unless someone like Derbez’s Sergio can come along and change things, and that revolutionary behavior and its effect on the students rocked me. Great movie. And points to Daniel Haddad in a fantastic supporting performance as the school’s principal (who looks like a cartoon character – see Massimo in Disney’s Luca).

6. The Zone of Interest
With ten Best Picture nominees and five Best Director nominees, it’s always tough to see who gets left off the director list. Thank god this year it’s not Jonathan Glazer, who has directed The Zone of Interest with astounding surety and bold choices. The film tells the story of a Nazi family living suburban-style right next door to a concentration camp. It might be the banality of day-to-day living and the lack of horrific images that makes this depiction of WWII especially haunting. Best Actress (for Anatomy of a Fall) nominee Sandra Hüller has a lead role here, too, adding up to one of the more impressive acting years for a performer in recent memory.

5. Maestro
Bradley Cooper is an exceptional talent, directing Maestro as if he, himself, is conducting a symphony, telling the story of acclaimed composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein and his relationship with Felicia Montealegre. And it’s a tough one. Like Priscilla before it, here’s another story of a musical legend who acts in his own way, behaving as he cares to, with no real thought (no real adult thought) about who suffers in his wake, which includes both Felicia and his daughter. Felicia sees what’s going on, too, as Bernstein has affairs with men throughout their relationship. Things come to a glorious head, though, in numerous high-emotion scenes that really deliver not only for the acting, but Cooper’s ability to trust long, wide shots without cuts. There’s is a great love story, but man is it complicated. But that’s really the best compliment you can give a relationship in a film, book or TV series – it’s complicated. When you watch the film, crank the volume. The music needs to overwhelm you like it does Bernstein and there’s a long sequence where he conducts Mahler, and you can see all of Bernstein’s emotion and the passion he gave classical music in a bravo sequence that’s one of the year’s best. Giving over to that scene, you really could cry. You buy him, you buy what the music does to him, and I’m always swept away by a film about an artist and his art.

4. American Symphony/Beyond Utopia
Let me return to two concepts brought up here: the end-of-year awards movie dump and an artist and his art. American Symphony is about Jon Batiste and his life as a musician, focusing on the turbulent recent years where he was heading up the band on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and winning Grammys, all while his wife was dealing with a brutal cancer. Music IS Batiste’s life, and it saves his life. This was the first film I saw at the Telluride Film Festival in August, and it has stayed with me ever since, winning the argument that award-worthy films need to be released throughout the year, not just at the end, so they can simmer and allow you time for reflection. And also, this allows you to avoid the situation where you don’t have to rush on to the next film ‘cause you have a week until the Oscars! Spread these movies out and sit in ‘em. Matthew Heineman’s doc about Batiste’s musical journey is an emotional workout and one of the feel-outstanding movies of the year. On the opposite end of the “feels” spectrum is Beyond Utopia, a doc about the efforts to smuggle people and families out of North Korea. The facts of the efforts are fascinating, the stories are exciting and dangerous, the people are remarkable and the entire world of Kim Jong Un is frustrating as hell. So, yes, there are feels, but you’re rarely feeling outstanding. But, you’re never wondering what to feel. Director Madeleine Gavin guides you on this journey like nothing you’ve ever seen with a steady hand and a fantastic editing team. Witnessing the work Pastor Seungeun Kim puts in to traffic people to a better life out from inside Kim Jong Un’s Korea is unforgettable. How these two docs aren’t nominated for Best Documentary Film at The Oscars is unfathomable.

3. All of Us Strangers
A stunning, haunting and moody drama about a young man who seems to thrive on isolation, living in an apartment complex that’s nearly otherwise devoid of tenants who visits his parents regularly. That doesn’t sound like an exciting premise, but for the fact that his parents died thirty years ago. There’s also a new neighbor who he at first pushes away and eventually lets and in, sparking a new relationship in his otherwise solitary life. One of the best aspects of this movie is its ability to be supernatural, but also grounded. The performances certainly help in one of the year’s biggest snubs – bigger than the Barbie snubs – Andrew Scott in the lead role is fantastic. As are Paul Mescal, Claire Foy and Jamie Bell in supporting roles. This is one of those films where the director is working so meticulously, you’re not even aware of how he’s working on you until the final scene and, even more so, the final shot, which now has a permanent place on the walls of my memory. Writer/director Andrew Haigh fills this movie with surprises and is constantly exploring the concept of love, whether it’s parental, romantic, or – in the case of the lead character – self-love. This film checks all the boxes for humanity, excellence in filmmaking and it builds and spins an unpredictable web. It’s outstanding, one of the best films of the year.

2. Barbie
A movie about the toy doll Barbie shouldn’t lead to anything memorable. It should probably find its place alongside the American Girl Doll movie series, of which, and you did NOT know this, there are THIRTEEN FILMS. But, in the greatest hiring move since getting the director of Elf to launch the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Mattel and Warner Brothers brought aboard Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach to spearhead the film and the results became a summer blockbuster punching way, WAY above its weight class. Addressing the patriarchy the way the film does leads to some of the most surprisingly deep moments of the year coupled with some of the funniest stuff I saw in a movie in 2023. A film of remarkable confidence, Barbie says a lot in unexpected ways with a top-notch cast and I need it to be an Oscar-winning film. I think Billie Eilish will see to that.

1. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
SPOILERS AHEAD!

The world’s greatest adventurer is back in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, but can things really, realistically be the same? Fortunately, the new film takes a swing at another round of exhilarating action while at the same time balancing the idea that Indy is struggling with his place in the world. It makes for a more layered story than we’ve seen from the franchise in the past, sprinkled with what’s kept the franchise great for decades.

GERMANY, 1944
The film opens with Indiana Jones in another situation where he’s being an incredible nuisance to the Nazis. This is one of the things I’ve enjoyed more and more in re-watches of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indy’s just an enormous pain in the ass to the Third Reich. They can’t get any of their horrible ideas done in that movie without having to deal with the gnat that is Indiana Jones mucking things up, undoing everything and dispatching with a high body count of those awful individuals…to great applause.

At the film’s opening, with de-aging technology, we get to see Harrison Ford as Indy in WWII one last time. It’s the tail end of the war, and although the Germans accuse Jones of being a spy for America, he’s really just there to do Indiana Jones stuff!…again, to great applause. He wants to save an ancient relic, the Lance of Longinus, from the Nazi plundering of precious artifacts (it’s the blade used to pierce Jesus’ side as he hung from the cross). Thomas Kretschmann takes on the role of Colonel Weber, or “German guy annoyed to no end by Indy”, a designation previously owned by Colonel Dietrich and General Vogel, as attempts to hang Jones, shoot Jones and throw Jones off a train don’t work.

I knew I was in good hands early in this film when I heard John Williams. Always a welcoming presence. I felt this way with the first Indy sequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: Could anything have matched Raiders in terms of the sheer joy I felt watching it? Before that film gets to Kate Capshaw’s “Anything Goes” number, they let John Williams rip a few French horn trills just to let you know, lest there were any doubts, you needn’t worry. The same thing happens in The Dial of Destiny. Williams’ score helped put me in the world of Indiana Jones early and often, and he even tossed in the “Belly of the Beast” theme from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to tie these villains directly to the Nazis I’ve seen before. I now see how they’ve made an Indiana Jones picture with a new director, but I don’t think you could make an Indiana Jones picture without John Williams.

The other thing that put me at ease early happened when Indy needed to get to the train holding the looted antiquities. He steals a car and he does it by knocking on the driver’s side window. The driver rolls down the window, Indy punches him in the face and he takes the car. It’s that simple. It clued me in early that new director James Mangold is going to be more concerned with the no-nonsense Indiana Jones that I love most, and less concerned with broad jokes. The Dial of Destiny has plenty of humor, but it doesn’t have as many jokes. There’s a difference. For example, Indy didn’t have to pretend he’s Scottish to steal the car. That “Here to see the tapestries” moment from Last Crusade is one of the weirdest in the franchise’s history. Since when does Indiana Jones have to do a character to accomplish anything? And it’s especially odd when that scene ends with Indy seemingly giving up on his bit and just punching the castle doorman anyway, a thing he should’ve done in the first place. Well…he does that here. He punches the damn Nazi and takes the car. ‘Cause he has things to do.

Aboard the train are more clever moments (the stolen Nazi uniform with a bullet hole) and we’re given a few minutes more with Jürgen Voller, who isn’t so much concerned with the Lance of Longinus as he is with Archimedes’ Dial. And here we have our macguffin, introduced after a great line about how desperate the Nazis are in that they’re searching for the Lance “because of its power”, and it doesn’t have any (and wouldn’t have, even if it wasn’t a fake). Voller says Archimedes’ Dial’s power can make a man a God, and he tries to convince the unexcited Nazi officers of its importance. Voller has half the dial and he wants to pursue the other half but the officers don’t really give him their full attention. This makes another interesting layer for Voller’s character that we’ll see later. Not only will he eventually try to use the dial to change the course of WWII, but his nerdenheimer ways and general inability to be taken seriously are turned from frustration to venom as the film jumps to the ‘60s. He wants to go back and win the war, but I can also feel in Mads Mikkelsen’s performance the desire (desperation!) to prove to everyone he’s right and to simply STOP being dismissed.

Overall, Ford’s de-aging worked pretty well. I’ve had mixed feelings about the technology in the past. I thought it worked fine in films like Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 and Tron: Legacy (used sparingly) but I wasn’t such a fan in The Irishman (I swear they even changed a character’s eye color). One thing that I believed worked in the tech’s favor here was having the scenes all take place at night or on a dimly lit train. There were never any glaring, bright shots calling out the effect except for a few used for necessary establishing shots. Also, Harrison Ford is a damn miracle of an actor and can still perform physically like a younger man than the 78 years old or so that he was when he shot Dial of Destiny, so the body looks accurate to the face’s age they’re trying to pull off with the visual effects (this is also something The Irishman didn’t quite achieve, in my opinion, as Robert De Niro moved like an old man with a young face superimposed on him). To sum up – the action is so wildly imagined and kick-ass, who the hell is paying attention to CGI?!

DID YOU SEE IT?
– As Weber is showing Shaw the contents of his partner’s bag, this includes Indy’s classic outfit and whip, but also a picture of Marion. He doesn’t mention her in Last Crusade, which took place in 1938, but now, probably six years later if timed with the end of WWII, he’s still pining for her. Off screen, the Indiana Jones canon has Marion marry another man soon after Raiders when Indy proves he can’t commit, so this photo is a big deal.

VINTAGE INDIANA JONES MOMENTS:
– Indiana is literally swinging from the rafters and a giant U.S. bomb from an overhead plane lands in between him and the German soldiers. Pulling the rug out from under the pace for a moment of real tension worked well. Also, Money Pit.
– Is there a more baller Indiana Jones moment than when he’s driving the car to the train and he shoves the German helmet he was wearing onto the gas pedal so he can JUMP OUT OF THE CAR and onto a motorcycle to take out the two Nazis on it? Who does that? JUMPING OUT OF THE CAR – didn’t see that coming.

NEW YORK CITY, 1969
I normally don’t go for my heroes all washed up. Especially when we last left them in a good place. Take the Ghostbusters, for example. They saved the city, but by the start of the sequel, they’re down and out, doing kid’s parties, their relationships have failed, and they’re being sued. It’s a tough place to write yourself out of and have a fun time doin’ it. By 1969, Indy is separated from Marion, his students don’t care about his lessons (or him) like they used to, and his adventuring days are in the past. Unfortunately, despite a lot of laughs, Ghostbusters II handled the lead characters’ situation by leaning on slime jokes (leaning on the past). The Dial of Destiny script makes Indy’s return to form the entire theme and plot of the movie, and in doing so, introduces many new, rich elements to the world of Indy (exploring new ground).

The visuals (thankfully, rather than some over-written dialogue) set up current Indy’s situation – Marion and he are separated and he (accompanied by audience laughter every time I’ve seen the film) isn’t averse to adding booze to his coffee FOR BREAKFAST.

DID YOU SEE IT?
– The photo of Mutt in Indy’s apartment next to an American flag, folded in the manner of those given to the families of fallen soldiers.
– The door of Indy’s neighbor’s apartment has numerous dents in it, no doubt caused by Indy’s baseball bat. He’s yelled at them before. Many times. Hilarious.

It’s in the familiar space of the classroom that the future eventually collides with Indy head on as the students are all excited for the parade happening outside, celebrating the NASA astronauts. This is an incredible achievement in science interrupting archaeology – Indy’s love and study of the past butting heads with the future (a future he’ll be forced to accept again later while LITERALLY in the past!).

The good news – Indy still seems to enjoy teaching. It’s the students who have changed. His lecture is interesting but when someone FINALLY responds to him (Helena), he seems charged up. If he lived to teach a schoolroom full of kids with phones, he’d call it a career for sure, but here…he’s hanging on.

Helena is there to coax Indy into helping her find half of Archimedes’ Dial. At this point, Helena is in her “fortune and glory” phase. Her arc will eventually (brilliantly) follow that of Indy in Temple of Doom and have her settling into “I understand its power now” mode by the end of the movie.

It’s here we’re re-introduced to Voller and the film does what Raiders of the Lost Ark did so well – establishes the stakes, then we can have fun in them. But, without stakes, there’s no movie. Whether it’s The Architect yammering on for days in The Matrix Reloaded or Mr. Freeze yammering on in Batman and Robin, there’s no sense of danger with those characters and not enough visceral sense of the villain’s purpose. Voller is set up swiftly (and with some uuuuuncomfortable dialogue) and his trigger-happy henchman let us know that Indy can’t just joke his way through this movie. Awesome. GO.

And it’s here we get into the action sequences of the film’s present – 1969. Wisely, the filmmakers never put Indy in a situation he can’t realistically handle at 70 years old (and 79 in Harrison Ford years!). He rides horses and tuk-tuks, punches people occasionally, but the story never asks more of Indy than 70-year-old Indy could deliver, and STILL the action sequences are a blast. In fact, there’s one moment when Olivier Richters’ Hauke takes a swing at Indy in the parade route scuffle, and if he connected, that’d be the end of Dr. Jones!

Soon, we’re in Tangier for one of the movie’s most clever sequences, as Helena tries to auction off her half of the dial. There are lots of salty characters (including some deliciously salty dialogue from Indy) and an action sequence that spills out into the streets between Indy, Helena, her “Short Round”, Teddy, Voller and his goons, and a Moroccan mobster and HIS goons.

DID YOU SEE IT?
– To remind us we really shouldn’t trust Helena until she can prove herself, Helena calls Indy “Jonesy”. Where have we heard that before? From Mack in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. And Mack wasn’t trustworthy AT ALL.

At this point in my review, I must comment on the reviews overall that are out there for Dial of Destiny. Good reviews seemed to praise any nostalgia the film has, bad reviews are harping on re-visiting it, so it depends on…if you’re an asshole or not, I guess? I mean, what do you want Indy to do, fight a robot from the future? No – there are caves and slithery things and Nazis and I was happy. This next sequence is for the people who didn’t want nostalgia – something new! Indy, Helena and Teddy head to Greece and search for a map to the second half of the dial by…sea diving! Haven’t seen Indy do that yet! And there’s an Antonio Banderas cameo! Sure, it’s not a big role, but (say like Ernie Hudson) “if someone asks if you’ll be in an Indiana Jones movie, you say YES.”

But before they dive, we come to one of the best sequences in the whole film. When talking with Helena about what he’d do if he could use Archimedes’ dial to go back in time, Indy says he’d stop his son from enlisting. Ford NAILS this scene, using his trademark underplaying, coupled with a no-doubt-he’s-lived-through-it authenticity. That scene is so delicately simple, PLUS John Williams…you son of a bitch…you did it again. He ever-so-wistfully lays in Marion’s theme to underscore the monologue. It’s a perfect storm of acting, music and script and, to me, plays out as the finest scene in the movie. Plus, anyone ready to crap on Mutt, either happy Shia is not in this or happy that Mutt’s dead, well, Mutt has now posthumously made for one of the best moments in Indy history. Keep your snark to yourself, haters.

Are you following the plot so far? One more shout-out to the noisy people online. The ones excited to cough up a bad review. These people sat down ready to hate it, calling the film “convoluted”? That’s on you. We have half of a thing, and we need the other half before the bad guys get it. Where’s the confusion? This quest leads us to Sicily.

MISSED OPPORTUNITY
Indy and Helena steal a vehicle from a wedding to get to Archimedes’ tomb. Upon arriving at the tomb, it could’ve been a clever line for someone to congratulate them on their marriage. Then, you could get more grumpy Ford mileage – “she’s my goddaughter!”.

DID YOU SEE IT?
While Teddy wanders the square looking for revenge on kids who sneered at him, there’s a puppet show happening. The puppet show is the tale of the Siege of Syracuse…WITH DRAGONS.

Here’s where Teddy gets kidnapped. This year has got to mark about forty years of being frustrated by the actions of kids in movies that get themselves captured and thus interrupt cool stuff the adults are up to. Teddy owed me one. Luckily, I get paid back later when he not only kills Hauke (in COLD fashion!), but jumps off a statue in Archimedes’ tomb, disrupting the bad guys and allowing Helena’s escape. All is forgiven.

I love everything that happens next right up to the end credits:

– Helena finally ditching the lust for fortune and glory and motorbiking after and jumping into a speeding plane on a runway in an attempt to rescue Indy – kickass scene.

– The reveal that Voller is not only evil, but insane as he wants to use the dial to go back in time to kill Hitler and win WWII. So, then we get Mads Mikkelsen in full Nazi regalia. I hate to harp on more of these reviews, but I gotta mention one more. I read one that had a problem with all the Nazis being killed (as in, too much easy nostalgia – literally used the phrase FAN SERVICE about killing bad guys in an action movie). Now, that is obnoxiously picky. Also, really? You can kill TOO MANY Nazis?!? I’d watch a movie about Nazis being killed for two and a half hours and you wouldn’t even have to have a plot or Indiana Jones in it, and I’d LOVE it. Anyway, I digress…

– The time travel sequence is one of my favorite scenes in any movie in the past few years. First, John Williams, once again, DELIVERS. The music (when used, Mangold does pull the score out effectively here and there) is a key ingredient to the absolute chaos going on aboard Voller’s plane. Indy spills that continental drift may derail Voller’s plan, and they freak out, Indy starts laughing, the storm outside is raging, the plane is careening, everything is total bedlam. When I first saw this movie and Indy looked out the window, realizing they were in Syracuse in 214BC, I think I verbally spoke out loud, “Oh my god, they’re fucked”. The whole sequence is total madness, and I loved every second of it.

– It’s a good plot device to have Indy want to stay behind in the past. You can see it, maybe even root for it, but Helena’s right (and her blow to Indy’s jaw got a HUGE laugh at every screening I attended). Helena getting the chance to fully repair her relationship with Indy is necessary for both of their characters to have completed, satisfying arcs and that happens back in the present (1969). In fact, when Helena tells Indy he brought her back and Indy says, “for who?”, I fully expected her to say, “for me” because she has smartened up so much…then Marion walks through the door and forget everything – EMOTIONS.

DID YOU SEE IT?
When Marion opens the fridge to put groceries away, Indy moves the magnet he previously put over her face. It happens slyly in the corner of the frame.

There’s so much more to discuss, like some of that great dialogue:
– “You should have stayed out of Poland” – I mean c’mon!
– “You’re German, Voller. Don’t try and be funny.” – I mean, c’MON!!
– “And are you enjoying your victory?” – an unsettling line from the great, tense scene between Voller and a room service employee.
– “You’ve already lost your son, Dr. Jones. Your wife is gone. Do you really want to lose your godchild? For what? A world that no longer cares about men like us.” – and of course, after this line, Indy does the right thing. He knows what’s important and Helena will soon enough. But also, what a striking line from Voller, comparing he and Indy and calling out their place (or lack of it) in history.
– “Why would you go searching for the things that drive your father crazy?”, “Wouldn’t you?” – Koepp, the Butterworths and Mangold know us, the fans, and know we’d LOVE that exchange between Helena and Indy.

Great moments:
– Cheering like mad when Sallah shows up, only to turn around have him break your heart.
– The reveal of the wristwatch and dragons at Archimedes’ tomb. So clever and ominous.
– Indiana Jones riding a horse through the New York subway – just iconic right there.
– The “Well, where doesn’t it hurt?” sequence. Oh, my heart.
– John Williams outdoes himself with “Helena’s Theme”, a sweeping, old Hollywood-esque musical piece that evokes everything from adventure to the emotional pull of the end of Indy’s run. No surprise Williams got his FIFTY-FOURTH Oscar nomination for the score.

I’ve seen Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny five times now. The first time, I was just hoping for a better experience than the previous film. I got that. The second time it hit me, “Wow, everything is working here.” The third time was just fun and the fourth – let’s hunt for more Easter eggs. The fifth and subsequent viewings just remind me I enjoyed no film more than this one in 2023 and I can’t predict ever having a bad viewing of it. Indiana Jones has been with me for forty plus years and his final run is as worth watching as his second, third and certainly fourth. It bookends with Raiders of the Lost Ark nicely and may be vying for second favorite film in the franchise.

There’s no doubt I will greatly miss Indiana Jones.