More Movies Like This, Please: 2023 List

I started something in 2012. Whenever I saw a new movie I liked, I would jump onto Twitter, identify the movie, then simply tweet: “More movies like this, please.”

Then I thought, Why don’t I do an annual More Movies Like This, Please list?

What do I mean by “more movies like this, please”? Not so much big popcorn flicks. Hey, I love huge spectacle movies as much as the next person, but we know Hollywood is going to make them, studios don’t need encouragement to produce prequels, sequels, remakes, tentpoles, and so forth.

Rather, I’m talking about movies Hollywood seems to have a hard time committing to nowadays for a variety of reasons, most of them related to economics and conventional wisdom about what supposedly will work / won’t work.

Here are some of elements I’m looking for in my More Movies Like This, Please list:

• More adult dramas
• More mid-budget movies [$25–50M], smaller stories that need larger budgets to be told well
• More original movies [based on an original screenplay]
• More movies targeting people who love movies and appreciate the history of movies
• More movies that represent the vision of one writer / writer-director or team of writers / writer-directors
• More movies that explore interesting, unique and unusual subcultures
• More movies written, directed, and/or starring BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and women
• More movies that take risks
• More movies that approach narrative in different ways
• More cinematic movies
• More quirky, whimsical, oddball movies reflecting a distinctive take on the world
• More movies where the focus is on characters, not special effects
• More movies that make me think
• More movies that have no reason to exist other than the fact they have a great story to tell.

So here is my 2023 More Movies Like This, Please list [Note: These only include movies I’ve seen]:

Air
American Fiction
Anatomy of a Fall
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.
Asteroid City
Barbie
Blackberry
Bottoms
The Boy and the Heron
Elemental
Flora and Son
Fremont
The Holdovers
Killers of the Flower Moon
Monster
No Hard Feelings
No One Will Save You
Oppenheimer
Past Lives
Poor Things
Priscilla
Shayda
Shortcomings
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
The Starling Girl
The Teachers’ Lounge

Okay, so I included a few big budget movies. They’re so good, they deserve to be on the list. But most of the titles listed here fall squarely into the More Movies Like This, Please category.

There are a bunch of movies I’ve yet to see: I suspect several of these would make my list such as: Dream Scenario, The Iron Claw, Showing Up, The Color Purple, Maestro, Theater Camp, Fair Play, The Persian Version, Godzilla Minus One, Origin, Talk to Me, May December.

I’m sure Past Lives will get a lot of attention during award season … as well it should as it’s a wonderful film. But please, do yourself a favor: Watch Fremont. It’s my favorite film of the year.

How about you? Which movies would you put on your More Movies Like This, Please list?