"I'm here to see my projectionist!" - the 2023 ILX Film Poll Results Thread

In the interests of bipartisanship, we'd like to congratulate all the winners and capitulate to their every whim.

157 movie-shaped objects nominated by 21 voters. No comic-book adaptations in the top half of the finals.

anyone ready to open their presents?

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do it

you think it's a lovely time to do so?

yes, the perfect time

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=49 Un beau matin (One Fine Morning)
Hansen-Løve ⸱ FR/DE 2022
52 points, 2 votes

this was enjoyable. it felt a lot like a particular genre of films from France today, but it was subtle I thought. I have liked all of Mia Hansen-Løve's films

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=49 All Of Us Strangers
Haigh, Yamada ⸱ UK 2023 (barely)
52 points, 3 votes

Nice, but very somber. To me still, the best thing Andrew Haigh has done was the show Looking on HBO which went for two seasons only

Really felt the ending let it down.

It turned out to be an elegant puzzle, but felt distant. Another somewhat sober film that seemed like a puzzle was Aftersun (2022), but that had a bombshell ending in retrospect and I really want to see that again

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48. Retour à Séoul [All The People I'll Never Be]
Chou ⸱ FR/KH/QA/BE/DE 2022
54 points, 2 votes

still haven't seen this

Really felt the ending let it down.

What?! Where they turn into a star while "The Power of Love" plays?!!

I felt the whole "reveal" really undercut the emotional work of the whole thing. I was thinking too much about the reality of it. The parents, ok, that all worked and I got it and it was beautiful but to add the extra thing (being vague) at the end was too much.

Aftersun is pure emotion and memory so that ending for me just works as it's of a piece. It's a reveal that gives weight to what came before, whereas in Strangers it just made me question it.

Gukbe!

has no longer left the world of ilx film polls behind

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=46 Leave the World Behind
Esmail, Alam ⸱ US 2023
56 points, 2 votes

Doesn't come together but I actually really liked several scenes. My friend refused to watch because it was "Obama propaganda".

Pretty good; not as good as Mr. Robot at its best.

I thought the book was better. I made my family watch this and they were too unnerved by it, but I thought is was great, there were so many eerie scenes, and I liked the skepticism of the Julia Roberts character and character arc of the two kids

I wasn't expecting the ending of Aftersun to be a nightclub as a vision of suicide

xxp The Power of Love is a great song

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=46 Polite Society
Manzoor ⸱ UK 2023
56 points, 3 votes

Saved that on my Peacock app at some point last year and never got around to it.

really fun. the action and comedy probably not just play better in a crowd/big, but there's such a thread of the characters' shifting relations throughout that on home viewing it probably reads just as a low-key family drama with extra seasoning

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45. Pacifiction
Serra ⸱ FR/ES 2022
57 points, 2 votes

Placed at 33 in 2023, with 81 points from 3 votes.

Pacifiction will be on my 2023 list

― Dan S, Sunday, 10 December 2023 00:04 (eleven months ago)

Return To Seoul I found really remarkable, a troubled, difficult protagonist that avoids anti-hero clichés while leaving you rooting for her. The wife and I were looking into adopting when I saw it and let's just say it gave me a lot to chew over.

I liked Polite Society quite a bit but, to indulge in one of this thread's refrains, her tv work is better.

been a rough couple of months so didn't get to submit a ballot in time. mostly experimental so wouldn't have impacted much:

Music (Shanelec)
You're Dancing This Dance All Wrong (Wooden)
Fluid Fragments (Proctor)
Ashes By Name Is Man (Rosinska)
Trailer of a film that will never exist (Godard)
Intersection (Tuohyy, Barrie)
The Secret Garden (Ouyada)
Menu Plaisirs (Wiseman)
Yaagna Plays Itself (Piron)
Pillow Bowl Rose Tree (Todd)
Souvenir D'Athenes (Rousseau)
Being in a Place (Fowler)
Godzilla Minus One (Yamazaki)
FuegoFocFire (Vasquez Mendes, Alvarado Matos)
Pacification (Serra)
El Juicio (De La Orden)

should be: You're Dancing This Dance All Wrong (Worden)*

One Fine Morning came close to topping my 2023 list.

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44. River
Yamaguchi, Ueda ⸱ JP 2023
60 points, 2 votes

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43. BlackBerry
Johnson & Miller after McNish & Silcoff ⸱ CA 2023
61 points, 3 votes

I really liked Blackberry. Never saw whatever that extended cut they did to make a TV mini-series.

Same and same. Got the impression that the additions were primarily in order to restructure it as episodic, so I'd guess that whichever version someone sees first will feel definitive, rather than that stuff feels missing from the feature / padded in the miniseries.

Love River a lot. That troupe just does time loop films again and again and it never gets old.

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42. Under The Light
Zhang, Chen ⸱ CN 2023
63 points, 2 votes

Intermission now. Later: ENTER THE QUORUMZONE

hadn't heard of River until now, it sounds interesting

45. Pacifiction
Serra ⸱ FR/ES 2022
57 points, 2 votes

― no, uh, bombast (sic), Thursday, December 12, 2024 9:38 PM (yesterday)

Placed at 33 in 2023, with 81 points from 3 votes.

so wait - it got 81 points last year and 57 points this year, totaling 138, and you aren't adding them? that is very un-Pazz and Jop of you

I know nobody cares, I just like posting in this thread

milms and foovies

I believe a decade or so I tried to advocate for Academy Rules but that was too US-centric. Well look where we are now! First Brexit and now this.

no wrong year to watch a movie

I'll admit that at my age I'm solidly a year behind anyway so this is gonna be my watch guide for the next six months.

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41. بنات ألفة [Les Filles d'Olfa]
Ben Hania ⸱ TN/FR 2023
64 points, 3 votes

I'll add this to my Netflix list for when I subscribe for a month.

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40. Rotting In The Sun
Silva, Peirano ⸱ MX 2023
68 points, 3 votes

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39. TMNT: Mutant Mayhem
Rowe, Rogen, Goldberg, Hernandez, Samit, O'Brien, Eastman, Laird ⸱ US 2023
75 points, 3 votes

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5. Poor Things
Lanthimos, McNamara, Gray ⸱ IE/UK/US 2023
285 points, 9 votes, 2 #1s

A divisive one on this board

I really liked it but have never considered revisiting it. A little schematic maybe, but a good watch. I'm a Yorgos-skeptic though.

no more divisive choices: from here on, everything got over 50% of the vote

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4. Killers Of The Flower Moon
Scorsese, Roth, Grann ⸱ US 2023
312 points, 12 votes, 1 #1

Didn't get the masterpiece vibes others got from it but def a very strong film.

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3. Anatomy Of A Fall
Triet, Harari ⸱ FR 2023
328 points, 12 votes

Better and a little more ambiguous than the procedural courtroom drama tone, but suffered greatly for me because I saw it a month or two after I saw Saint Omer, the vastly superior film from that view that involved the batshit French legal system.

Are we concerning ourselves with spoilers at this date?

I wanted to tell Samuel "Get off that cross; you need the wood to refinish the attic.

Much love to Messi as Snoop.

I was pretty disappointed by Anatomy of a Fall. Maybe partly because I saw it late, after awards buzz and hype, I expected something different from it. At some basic level I didn’t buy the premise.

who up

I want results!

I'm up in Madrid gin bar. Hit me.

anatomy of a fall must have been inspired by the documentary miniseries the staircase, right? fall has a clever opening sequence but the trial felt paint by numbers.

I’m on the train to the last local screening of Schrader’s Oh Canada so chat amongst yourselves in the lobby

That one is eh.

Eh Canada?

Canada, eh?

good morning

if you say so, I died waiting on results

fuck movies

― Dr Morbius, March 9, 2017

I think the preferred term is "adult films"

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2. The Zone Of Interest
Glazer with Burn very slightly after Amis ⸱ UK/PL/US 2023
333 points, 11 votes, 2 #1s

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1. May December
Haynes, Burch, Mechanik, IRL ⸱ US 2023
373 points, 13 votes, 2 #1s

good top two

If people who like posting their full ballots could do so here: BALLOTS: Ragnarok - ILM 2017 film poll ballot recycling , that would be helpful - full ballots make the results threads difficult to use afterwards. Please do argue here about other peoples taste, and say things like "I can't believe A Heavy Burden didn't get higher, it was my #24" in this thread though!

Both worthy. And glad we can have some distance from the "is it camp" conversation.

(re: May/December. Not Zone, obv. Though it is *a camp*)

My #1

I knew people who looked at me aghast when I'd say so.

bonkers to me. when i saw may december i said "finally, a real movie"

Our first winner to be primarily distributed by a streamer?

I haven’t really kept up with movies for a while. Kinda randomly watched May December a couple of weeks ago and I was very impressed.

Not sure how I'm still largely inattentive to cinema-ILX (heck, ILE broadly, for that matter) but thanks sic and all the voters!

*adds several overlooked titles to watchlist, etc*

Thanks for polling as in previous years, sic, I've added a few things to my watchlist.

Cheers for this sic. Great work.

Great, entertaining thread. Thanks, sic!

May/December is so good. I want to see it again. Devilish movie.

And yes thanks sic!

just missed: Magic Mike's Last Dance, at 51 with 49 points.

Thanks for polling sic!

Rotting in the Sun is pretty nifty, methinks. It was sitting right there on Mubi but I apparently needed this thread to focus my attention. Cheers.

Showing Up
May December
The Zone of Interest
Perfect Days

those were my top 4

I came of age in the 70s and loved watching The Holdovers.

Oppenheimer was pretty good for a Christopher Nolan movie

I thought Anatomy of a Fall and Killers of the Flower Moon were interesting but I dunno, they both seemed overlong and very flawed

thank you sic, this was a great thread to read

I didn't participate in the poll because I don't think of myself as deep enough of a cineaste. BUT I saw Bertrand Bonnello's 'La Bete' / 'The Beast' the other night and was very surprised to find no mention whatsoever on ILX.

Did this slip through the cracks or was there just no love for it? I honestly think it was a remarkable film with many parts I'll be thinking about for a long long time.

Did anyone see it?

I'm pretty sure it's been mentioned.

My film crits circle loved it enough, I think: https://www.floridafilmcritics.com/2024/12/21/the-beast-dominates-ffcc-awards/

I expect the Beast to finish high in the '24 ILX poll. IF THERE IS ONE! (Sorry, apparently this is compulsory to say about all future elections now.)

there’s a bonello thread, i’ve talked about the beast there

huh. i think i even searched for bonello and found little. oh well

Bertrand Bonello's young-terrorist-band thriller NOCTURAMA