Stunt work is an aspect of film that is simultaneously embraced and underappreciated. While action fans have their favorite stunts and casual moviegoers will mostly show up for the impressive spectacle, it is still a department that has struggled to gain recognition in the major awards circles. 

2023 was an influential year for film when it came to blockbuster filmmaking and art cinema. At the Oscars, we saw the best lineup of nominations in years. Although the selected cultural canon of great cinematic work from the past year is diverse in terms of social inclusivity as well as cinematic mode, there are always films that don’t quite break through to the zeitgeist.

January and February, August and September. These pairs of months might not seem to be related even slightly, but they share a crucial similarity: they are continuously referred to as “dump months” for the movie theater marketplace.  

For many filmmakers, their twilight years are a period of slowdown and downsizing with smaller, less ambitious works replacing the grand epics and massive swings that defined their careers. That makes Martin Scorsese’s recent film run (starting with “The Wolf of Wall Street” in 2013 and continuing with “Silence” in 2016 and “The Irishman” in 2019) all the more remarkable. As he approaches his eighth decade, his films have only grown in ambition, subverting the genre convention he had helped popularize with his most famous works to tell a grand, interwoven tale about the history of America and how it is entrenched with exploitation and violence.

There are too many horror films to count that would be appropriate for a Halloween viewing through splayed fingers and squinted eyes in a dark room. Given the season’s celebration of the macabre, unorthodox and otherworldly themes, settling in for some onscreen frights on Halloween night is one of the best ways to honor the holiday.

It is an irrefutable understatement to point out that the film industry was forever changed by the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. Productions were halted, films were delayed indefinitely, casts and crew members from all over were sent into isolation, and the streaming world naturally took over as the entertainment savior of lockdown. There were a couple of failed attempts at resuscitating theaters during 2020, and it wasn’t until March 2021 that moviegoing started showing signs of life again. Even then it wasn’t until well into 2022 that the box office was back to relative normalcy.

Originating in the late 19th century, cinema is very much on the younger side compared to many other art forms, yet its power and influence is just as inestimable and transformative as any of them. Unfortunately, but perhaps unavoidably, the intimidating scope of the cinematic canon all but guarantees that many will go mostly unnoticed. There are enough films from each and every era of the medium to keep one occupied for a lifetime, and the following five are among some of the finest.