From the Reign of Terror to the End of War: All 53 Oscar nominees ranked

I was at the Alamo Drafthouse on June 17, 2023, to see a screening of Past Lives, and so began my journey of seeing all 53 films that would go on to be nominated for Academy Awards in 2023. The last of the nominees I saw was Napoleon on March 3 this year. I watched it from the comfort of my couch on AppleTV+. I had missed it in theaters, which is unfortunate because I can only imagine how impressive Ridley Scott’s imagery would have been on the big screen. Hopefully, I’ll catch it at a repertory screening one of these days.

A few of the films at the top of my list are destined to be all-time classics that stand the test of time, and only a couple films at the bottom are not worth your time. Just about everything here is worth checking out, and the nominees this year represent a wonderful sampling of the year in film.

So, here they are, all 53 nominees at the 2023 Academy Awards, ranked for your amusement:

1. Killers of the Flower Moon

2. Anatomy of a Fall

3. The Zone of Interest

4. Oppenheimer

5. May December

6. Barbie

7. Poor Things

8. 20 Days in Mariupol

9. Society of the Snow

10. Perfect Days

11. The Teachers’ Lounge

12. El Conde

13. The ABCs of Book Banning

14. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

15. Red, White, and Blue

16. Four Daughters

17. Pachyderme

18. Io Capitano

19. Robot Dreams

20. The Last Repair Shop

21. To Kill a Tiger

22. Godzilla Minus One

23. The Barber of Little Rock

24. Knight of Fortune

25. The Holdovers

26. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1

27. Bobi Wine: The People’s President

28. Ninety-Five Senses

29. Napoleon

30. American Symphony

31. The Eternal Memory

32. The Color Purple

33. American Fiction

34. The Boy and the Heron

35. Our Uniform

36. Invincible

37. Rustin

38. The Creator

39. Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó

40. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

41. Letter to a Pig

42. Past Lives

43. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

44. Maestro

45. Elemental

46. Nyad

47. Island in Between

48. Golda

49. Flamin’ Hot

50. The After

51. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

52. Nimona

53. WAR IS OVER!