The Best Movie Moments of 2023

variety.com:

Variety staffers reflected on some of the most standout scenes from the year’s top contenders. For 2023, there’s been no shortage of imaginative and inspiring storytelling crafted by both award-winning pros and newcomers — and each one has gifted audiences memorable scenes that have left us laughing, crying, and with plenty to think about long after the credits have rolled. (Amazon MGM Studios) Of the many powerful moments in Ben Affleck’s “Air,” the film’s true linchpin is a scene between Nike execs Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) and Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman) where Vaccaro literally freeze-frames the moment Michael Jordan became a star.

Scanning a replay of the 1982 NCAA championship game in which Jordan scored the winning shot, Vaccaro zeroes in on the ease and comfort the then-scrawny college player displays under pressure, a sign of things to come.

After going third in the 1984 NBA draft, Jordan was largely counted out in comparison to his higher-scoring counterparts. But Vaccaro crucially identifies that he possesses more than talent.

Even then, Jordan embodied a kind of greatness that comes along once a generation, or even lifetime, and that discovery becomes the fuel that drives Vaccaro’s willingness to gamble not only on his own future, but Nike’s, on landing an endorsement deal that would make their company forever synonymous with a bona-fide legend. — Todd Gilchrist (MGM) The satire in Cord Jefferson’s “American Fiction” really takes comedic flight when Jeffrey Wright’s Monk talks with eager publishers on the phone at his agent’s office.