AFI Names 10 Best Films and TV Series of 2023: ‘Barbie,’ ‘Past Lives,’ ‘Oppenheimer,’ ‘Succession,’ ‘Beef,’ and More

Samantha Bergeson
·3 min read
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The American Film Institute (AFI) has announced its annual list of best films and TV for the past year. The 2023 honorees include summer smash hits “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer”; plus streamer-backed fare like “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Maestro,” “May December,” and “American Fiction”; and indie films “The Holdovers,” “Poor Things,” and “Past Lives.” Animated feature “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” was additionally among the top 10 picks.

Television series “Abbott Elementary,” “Succession,” and “The Bear” returned to the AFI list, as well as new series “Jury Duty,” “Poker Face,” “The Last of Us,” and “Beef.”

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“As our nation and our world continue to navigate difficult times, AFI is honored to shine a proper light upon these works of art that lift us up and, ultimately, lead us to empathy,” Bob Gazzale, AFI President and CEO, said in an official statement. “That we do so without competition is AFI’s hallmark, and we are proud to gather this community of artists together — as one — to celebrate their extraordinary contributions to our time.”

Last year, AFI selected 2022 films “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Elvis,” “The Fabelmans,” “She Said,” “TÁR,” “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Women Talking,” “The Woman King,” and future Best Picture Academy Award winner “Everything Everywhere All at Once” as the top movies. The list echoed the Oscars Best Picture nominees, making this year’s AFI picks essentially a shortlist for the Oscar nominations.

Honorees will gather on Friday, January 12 for recognition at the annual AFI Awards private luncheon at the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills — an event favored by the entertainment community for its informal intimacy and its inclusive acknowledgement of excellence.

Per its official mission, the AFI Awards “celebrate film and television arts’ collaborative nature and is the only national program that honors creative teams as a whole, recognizing those in front of and behind the camera. All of the honored works advance the art of the moving image, inspire audiences, and artists alike and enhance the rich cultural heritage of America’s art form. When placed in a historical context, these stories provide a complex and rich visual record of our modern world, per the official press statement.”

The 2023 juries, each for film and TV, included Paris Barclay, Sarah Broshar, David Chase, Carol Leifer, Gina Prince-Bythewood, and Joe Weisberg; scholars Mark Harris, Leonard Maltin, and more from Syracuse University, the University of Southern California and the University of Texas at Austin; members of the AFI Board of Trustees; critics Ann Hornaday, Mary McNamara, Janet Maslin, Peter Travers, and others from The New Yorker, TV Guide, and more.

The juries were chaired by AFI Board of Trustees member Jeanine Basinger (Chair Emerita and Founder of the Film Studies Department, Wesleyan University) and AFI Board of Trustees Vice Chair Richard Frank (former Chairman of Walt Disney Television, President of Walt Disney Studios, President of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences).

This year’s AFI FEST screened 2023 AFI list-makers “All of Us Strangers” and AFI top film “Maestro,” plus “The Bikeriders,” which has since been pushed to a 2024 release under new distributor Focus Features.

See the full list below.

AFI MOTION PICTURES OF THE YEAR

AMERICAN FICTION

BARBIE

THE HOLDOVERS

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

MAESTRO

MAY DECEMBER

OPPENHEIMER

PAST LIVES

POOR THINGS

SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE

AFI TELEVISION PROGRAMS OF THE YEAR

ABBOTT ELEMENTARY

THE BEAR

BEEF

JURY DUTY

THE LAST OF US

THE MORNING SHOW

ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING

POKER FACE

RESERVATION DOGS

SUCCESSION

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