Barack Obama’s top 2023 movies are already controversial
Library of Congress/Warner Bros.Barack Obama has revealed his favorite movies of 2023 – and the list has already sparked debate and even backlash.
As the dawn of a new year approaches, filmgoers often endeavor to rank everything they’ve watched. This year, there’s been some incredible movies, whether it’s Oppenheimer, Barbie, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Past Lives, or many, many others – you can check out our 2023 list here.
The former US president is among those who indulge in this annual, painstaking tradition of curating and ordering. Last year, his list included The Fabelmans, Aftersun, Petite Maman, and Top Gun: Maverick.
In other words, he’s shown himself to be a cineaste of great taste – and while there are some great picks among his 2023 selections, people have a few bugbears.
Barack Obama reveals his top movies of 2023
Obama shared a list of his favorite movies on X/Twitter. He kicks off with Rustin, Leave the World Behind, and American Symphony, three movies produced by his Higher Ground company (in his defence, he admits that he’s “biased”).
His “other” top movies are The Holdovers, Blackberry, Oppenheimer, American Fiction, Anatomy of a Fall, Monster, Past Lives, Air, Polite Society, and A Thousand and One.
The first notable omission is Barbie. “Obama not liking Barbie is so weird to me,” one user wrote. “I normally joke about how Obama’s movie and song lists look like they’ve been focus-grouped, but his movie list this year doesn’t even include Barbie,” a second tweeted.
“Dear Obama, your exclusion of the film Barbie and inclusion of the film Air on one hand, is showing me that this is actually your list. On the other hand, it also makes me question your film taste because like who tf liked Air that movie was a meme as soon as it came out,” a third wrote.
Others have noted that Killers of the Flower Moon also didn’t make the cut. “Obama going with the Ben Affleck shoe movie over Killers of the Flower Moon is so sick lol,” one wrote. “Obama should be retroactively impeached for not putting Killers of the Flower Moon on this,” a second joked.
There’s also the fact he included films from his production company, regardless of the caveat. “Obama is new to Hollywood, so let’s break it to him lightly — Barack, you don’t put your own movies on your ‘Best Of’ list,” one wrote. “Son of a bitch voted for himself THREE TIMES instead!” another posted.
You can check out our end-of-year round-ups below, if you want to catch up on the best shows and movies from 2023: