As an end-of-year gift to our writers and readers, we've compiled a user-friendly overview of our publishing highlights from 2023. The collection is broken down by category: essays, interviews, festival coverage, and recurring columns.
Browse at your leisure, and raise a glass to our brilliant contributors!
Meanwhile, you can catch up with all of our end-of-year coverage here.
ESSAYS
Contemporary Cinema:
- Cinema as Sacrament: The Limitations of Killers of the Flower Moon by Adam Piron
- A Change of Season: Trần Anh Hùng and Frederick Wiseman's Culinary Cinema by Phuong Le
- Walking, Talking, & Hurting Feelings: Nicole Holofcener's Everyday Dramas by Rafaela Bassili
- The Limits of Control: Lines of Power in Todd Field's Tár by Helen Charman
- The Art of Losing: Joanna Hogg's Haunted Houses by Laura Staab
- Treading Water: Avatar: The Way of Water by Evan Calder Williams
- The African Accent and the Colonial Ear by Maxine Sibihwana
- Ten Minutes, but a Few Meters Longer: Mia Hansen-Løve's Memories in Locations by A.E. Hunt
- A Time for Change: The Radical Calm of Unrest by Corey Atad
- Hashtag History: The Missteps of Young-Adult Holocaust Films by Dan Schindel
- Memories of Murder: Holy Spider and Serial Killer Cinema by Kelli Weston
- How Animation Lives: Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron by Jennifer Lynde Barker
- Foreign Enough? Eastern Europe as a Lawless Land by Savina Petkova
- Method to the Madness: Medusa Deluxe and the Power of the Follow Shot by Juan Barquin
- While We Filmed: Behind the Daring Spirit of Indian Documentaries by Poulomi Das
- Close and Personal: Melodrama and Male Friendship in Close and The Eight Mountains by Eileen G'Sell
- Scarred States: Unclenching the Fists and the Art of Escape by Carmen Gray
Repertory Topics:
- The Beauties and the Beasts of Yasuzo Masumura by Jessica Kiang
- Missing Links: The Silences of Chantal Akerman by Brandon Kaufman
- An Angel Has Fallen: Kenneth Anger (1927 – 2023) by Celluloid Liberation Front
- All Too Real: The Films of Shinji Sômai by Patrick Preziosi
- Re-Vision: Robert Beavers and The Sparrow Dream by Genevieve Yue
- Raúl Ruiz: Into the Multiverse by Leonardo Goi
- The Cruel Passage: Palestine in Exile in The Dupes by Sanoja Bhaumik
- Restoring Llévame en tus brazos, A Lost Masterwork by Christopher Small
- An Oral History of the Making of Party Girl by The Deuce Notebook
- Basic Instinct: Getting Lost in Joe Dante's The Movie Orgy by Frank Falisi
- So Close to Real: Tsui Hark's Knock Off at 25 by Jonah Jeng
- Joyce Chopra: Memories of a Trailblazer by Kat Sachs
- Finding Home in Ah Ying: A Special View of 1980s Hong Kong by Koel Chu
- The Act of Reading with One's Own Eyes: Fred Camper's Seeking Brakhage by Paul Attard
- Monsieur Hulot's Two Holidays: Comparing Different Cuts of Jacques Tati's Classic by Jonathan Mackris
- Of Beast and Man: Ana Vaz’s Ecological Dreamscapes by Ela Bittencourt
- Death Race Calcutta: Ruchir Joshi’s Essay Films by Andrew Northrop
- I'll Be Your Mirror: The Living Cinema of Nan Goldin by Rachel Pronger
Screen and Public Personas:
- Adèle Exarchopoulos by Shonni Enelow
- Michael Cera by Nicolas Pedrero-Setzer
- Rebecca Hall by Philippa Snow
- Mink Stole by Kayleigh Donaldson
- Matt Damon by Christina Newland
- Jean-Pierre Melville and the Art of the Interview by Charlotte Palmer
Visual Art, Television, New Media:
- Perfect Illusion: The Cinema of Artificial Intelligence by Kim Hew-Low
- Keep the Swarm Primed: Terence Nance's First Gallery Show by Bedatri D. Choudhury
- Who’s Afraid of a Woman in Peril?: Revamping the Lifetime Movie with Doug Campbell by Ryan Coleman
- Everything Happens So Much: Soda Jerk and the Age of Appropriation by Lauren Carroll Harris
- Antichrist in Hollywood: William Mortensen's Photography of the Grotesque by Z. W. Lewis
- The Riddle of Lumen: Lynch's Lamps by Genevieve Yue
Writings by Filmmakers:
- The Abyss: Seeking Permission Through Onscreen Humiliation by Kit Zauhar
- Letter to a Young Filmmaker by Ira Sachs
- Histoire(s) du cinéma: Letters to Jean-Luc Godard: Seven reflections on Godard's memory from Ephraim Asili, Richard Brody, A.S. Hamrah, Rachel Kushner, Miguel Marías, Andréa Picard, and Lucía Salas
INTERVIEWS
Select highlights in alphabetical order:
- Joanna Arnow in conversation with Christina Newland
- Catherine Breillat in conversation with Caitlin Quinlan
- Davy Chou in conversation with Elissa Suh
- Souleymane Cissé in conversation with Yasmina Price
- Pedro Costa in conversation with Christopher Small
- Lav Diaz in conversation with Lukasz Mankowski
- Ja'Tovia Gary in conversation with Ruun Nuur
- Dustin Guy Defa and Hannah Gross in conversation with Jordan Cronk
- Daniel Goldhaber in conversation with Saffron Maeve
- Todd Haynes in conversation with Nicolas Rapold
- Radu Jude in conversation with Dora Leu and Öykü Sofuoğlu
- Kevin B. Lee in conversation with Arta Barzanji
- Daisuke Miyazaki in conversation with A.E. Hunt
- Park Chan-wook in conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist
- Christian Petzold in conversation with Luise Mörke and Tobias Rosen
- Jennifer Reeder in conversation with Sophia Satchell-Baeza
- Michael Roemer in conversation with Brandon Kaufman
- Thelma Schoonmaker in conversation with Matthew Thrift
- Claire Simon in conversation with Ela Bittencourt
- Eduardo Williams in conversation with Matt Turner
FESTIVAL COVERAGE
Features:
- Split Together: Weathering the Storm at the Camden International Film Festival by A.E. Hunt
- Sundance New Frontier Roundtable by Jordan Cronk: Directors Deborah Stratman, Fox Maxy, Mary Helena Clark, and Mike Gibisser discuss their boundary-pushing new films, as well as the experimental filmmaking ecosystem.
- Liberated: Women's Pictures and Feminist Films at Il Cinema Ritrovato by Imogen Sara Smith
- <--->: A Quick Pan Across TIFF's Wavelengths by Michael Sicinski
- Locarno: At World's End by Jessica Kiang
- The Cemetery of Cinema: Berlinale Forum Expanded by Sophia Satchell-Baeza
- Breathing Room: Sundance Narratives by Matthew Eng
- Outsider Art at International Film Festival Rotterdam by Matt Turner
Dispatches:
- Cannes by Lawrence Garcia, Leonardo Goi, and Daniel Kasman
- Toronto by Daniel Kasman and Chloe Lizotte
- Venice by Leonardo Goi and Matthew Thrift
THE CURRENT DEBATE
The Current Debate is a column by Leonardo Goi that connects the dots between great writing about a topic in the wider film conversation. These four pieces elegantly frame new releases as flash points for wider film-industry trends.
- Killers of the Flower Moon and the Pain of Perspective: Scorsese’s epic about the Osage murders challenges our art-deadening debates about who is and isn’t allowed to tell whose story.
- Toward a New Blockbuster? On Nolan’s Oppenheimer: At once monumental and intimate, does Nolan’s latest epic challenge the “summer tentpole” framing of its marketing?
- The Cornball Sincerity of Avatar: The Way of Water: James Cameron’s return to Pandora flaunts his gifts as an image-maker as well as his weaknesses as a storyteller.
- Oscars 2023: Retread or Revolution?: In an edition marred by campaign controversies, what does the Daniels’ astonishing triumph mean for the Academy and the industry at large?
CUTSCENES
Cutscenes is a column written by Notebook assistant print editor Matt Turner that explores—and blurs—the intersection of cinema and video games.
- Angela Washko's Critical Interventions: Whether she’s dueling pickup artists or using The Sims as a sandpit, Washko's new-media art looks courageously into dark areas of the internet.
- “Gotta Go Fast!” Speedrunning Awesome Games Done Quick 2023: On the cinematic allure of livestreams of world-record-shattering gameplay.
PRIMERS
The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history. Here are a few sterling deep dives from this year:
- Jim Jarmusch by Vikram Murthi
- Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis by Ciara Moloney
- British Erotica by Georgina Guthrie
MOVIE POSTER OF THE WEEK
Finally, a few eye-catching highlights from Adrian Curry's column about the artistry of movie posters.
- The Title Treatment Hall of Fame: Curry collects his favorite title lettering.
- The Film Posters of Cruz Novillo: More than thirty years of movie posters from a titan of Spanish graphic design.
- The Film Posters of Mihajlo Arsovski: A remarkable series of 1960s Yugoslavian silkscreen posters for American westerns from one of Croatia’s preeminent graphic designers.
- Heinz Edelmann and the "Grosses Kino" Exhibition: Curry selects one poster from among 5,000 to be included in a Berlin exhibition.