2023 was the year Hollywood's ideological divide became impossible to ignore at the box office. VirtueVigil reviewed and scored all 54 major 2023 theatrical and streaming releases, applying the dual-scoring methodology across every film: Woke Score measures progressive ideological content, Traditional Score measures duty, sacrifice, family loyalty, patriotism, and earned competence.
The results are striking. Poor Things and Barbie sit at one extreme, films that are not merely progressive but ideologically totalizing. Society of the Snow and Sound of Freedom sit at the other, films whose traditional frameworks drove audience passion the critical press struggled to explain. Every film links to the full VirtueVigil review. Ranked from most woke to most traditional.
#1 (Most Woke): Poor Things (2023)
Yorgos Lanthimos's Oscar-winning fever dream follows a brain-transplanted woman discovering sexuality and politics in Victorian-era Europe. The -38 WOKE margin is the highest in the 2023 pool, driven by the film's relentless framing of sexual liberation as enlightenment, religious faith as oppression, and masculine authority as inherently violent. Every traditionally coded male character is a jailer, abuser, or fool. Emma Stone won the Oscar. The film is formally brilliant and ideologically totalizing in a way that leaves nothing ambiguous about its intentions.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Poor Things
#2: Barbie (2023)
Greta Gerwig's cultural phenomenon is a technically accomplished, visually inventive comedy that functions as a lecture about patriarchy delivered to the widest possible audience. The -32 WOKE margin reflects the film's systematic framing of the real world as an oppressive male power structure that even plastic dolls must escape. Mattel's boardroom is depicted as a parade of buffoons. The film's final scene, in which Barbie chooses a female gynecologist as her first real-world act, is not subtext. $1.4 billion worldwide.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Barbie
#3: Saltburn (2023)
Emerald Fennell's psychological thriller stars Barry Keoghan as a scholarship student who manipulates his way into an aristocratic British family's summer estate. The -32 WOKE margin is driven by the film's framing of class resentment as its moral engine and its graphic sexual content deployed as a statement about power and ownership. Keoghan's Oliver is not a villain the film condemns; he is the film's dark protagonist whose victory the narrative endorses. Formally seductive, ideologically corrosive.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Saltburn
#4: The Creator (2023)
Gareth Edwards's visually stunning sci-fi film frames artificial intelligence as the persecuted underclass of the future, with America and the West as the genocidal occupying force in Asia. The -31 WOKE margin comes from the film's sustained anti-American military framing, its AI-as-oppressed-minority allegory, and its positioning of Western technological power as the existential villain. The visual craft is genuine. The ideology is equally deliberate and equally present in every frame.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Creator
#5: The Marvels (2023)
The MCU's lowest-grossing theatrical release at the time made $206 million worldwide against a reported $220 million budget. The -14 WOKE margin reflects the film's explicit feminist empowerment framing, progressive identity politics, and the consistent sidelining of male competence. Three lead characters, all women, all defined by their oppression histories. The film's failure was attributed to superhero fatigue; the VirtueVigil data suggests the ideology was a contributing factor the trades were reluctant to name.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Marvels
#6: Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023)
James Wan's sequel embedded a climate change allegory into its underwater adventure premise, positioning Atlantis as an ancient victim of surface-world pollution. The -12 WOKE margin reflects the climate messaging, progressive environmental framing, and the diminished action-hero coding of Arthur Curry compared to the original. The film grossed $297 million worldwide against a $205 million budget, a sharp drop from the original's $1.1 billion. DC's ideological drift and its commercial decline were accelerating in parallel.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom
#7: The Little Mermaid (2023)
Disney's live-action remake cast Halle Bailey as Ariel in a change that became one of 2023's most debated casting decisions. The -12 WOKE margin comes from the film's revised messaging about patriarchal authority, the weakened father-daughter reconciliation arc, and the film's emphasis on Ariel's autonomy over her obligations to family and kingdom. Bailey's voice is genuinely impressive. The story rewrites diminish the original's emotional architecture and replace it with a blunter ideological frame.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Little Mermaid
#8: Priscilla (2023)
Sofia Coppola's portrait of Priscilla Presley's marriage to Elvis frames the relationship entirely as a story of systematic control, emotional manipulation, and captivity. The -10 WOKE margin comes from the film's refusal to acknowledge any complexity in Priscilla's choices or any genuine affection in the relationship's early years. Elvis is present only as an oppressive force; the film forecloses any alternative reading of the Presley marriage. A one-note portrait dressed in excellent production design.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Priscilla
#9: The Color Purple (2023)
Blitz Bazawule's musical adaptation is visually bold and emotionally powerful in stretches. The -8 WOKE lean reflects the film's consistent framing of Black male characters as abusers and oppressors while positioning female relationships as the primary redemptive force. The source material carries the same ideology; the 2023 film amplifies it. The gospel sequences are legitimately moving. Fantasia Barrino is excellent. The film earns its emotion while pushing its ideological frame harder than the material requires.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Color Purple
#10: American Fiction (2023)
Cord Jefferson's satire follows a Black novelist who writes a deliberately offensive stereotype-laden book as a joke, only to watch it become a bestseller. The -8 WOKE lean is earned: the film critiques the demand for Black victimhood narratives from progressive media and publishing. But the film's own progressive assumptions about race and class politics partially undercut the satire. Jeffery Wright is outstanding. A film that knows what it wants to say and mostly says it with intelligence, even when it trips over its own premises.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of American Fiction
#11: Blue Beetle (2023)
DC's first Latino superhero film centered Jaime Reyes, a working-class Mexican-American college graduate who accidentally bonds with an alien scarab. The -6 WOKE lean comes from the film's class-versus-corporate-power framing, the villain's explicit portrayal as a defense contractor exploiting minority communities, and progressive family dynamics. The family ensemble is warm and the film has genuine charm that partially offsets the ideology. A better film than its box office suggested.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Blue Beetle
#12: Wish (2023)
Disney's centennial celebration film produced one of the studio's weakest recent entries commercially and critically. The -6 WOKE lean reflects the film's framing of institutional authority as inherently deceptive and the protagonist's autonomy as the ultimate value. The film was clearly designed to echo prior Disney classics but the narrative logic is thin and the messaging that adults with power cannot be trusted lands awkwardly in a children's film. $252 million worldwide on a reported $200 million budget was a disappointment by any Disney standard.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Wish
#13: Oppenheimer (2023)
Christopher Nolan's three-hour biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer won seven Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director. The -4 WOKE lean reflects the film's progressive framing of McCarthy-era anti-communist investigations as persecution theater, the sympathetic portrayal of Oppenheimer's Communist Party associations, and the moral framing of American atomic power as the primary post-war danger. The filmmaking is extraordinary on every level. The ideological lean is mild and likely reflects the historical record as much as any deliberate agenda. A genuine masterwork regardless of where it lands on this list.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Oppenheimer
#14: Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
Martin Scorsese's three-and-a-half-hour account of the Osage Indian murders and the birth of the FBI is an imposing historical achievement. The -4 WOKE lean comes from the film's sustained framing of American law enforcement and federal authority as fundamentally complicit in the exploitation of Native Americans. DiCaprio's Ernest Burkhart is the film's moral center, a weak man who participates in evil out of love and greed. De Niro's William Hale is the system incarnate. The ending reframes the entire story through a contemporary lens in ways that feel deliberately pointed.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Killers of the Flower Moon
#15: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
The third Ant-Man film launched the MCU's Multiverse Saga with a -4 WOKE lean driven by progressive family dynamics, female competence framing, and the franchise's continuing drift away from earned male heroism. Kang the Conqueror was intended to be Phase Five's Thanos; the film's failure made that arc impossible. $476 million worldwide against a $200 million production budget was a commercial miss for an MCU title. The film's chaotic quantum realm setting matched its narrative incoherence.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
#16: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
Sony's animated sequel is one of the most visually innovative films of the decade, a genuinely stunning technical achievement that expands the Spider-Verse in every direction. The -2 WOKE margin is mild and comes from the film's progressive family framing and Miles Morales's positioning as a symbol of multicultural identity. The animation is a legitimate artistic breakthrough. $690 million worldwide made it one of the year's biggest hits. The ideology is present but subordinate to the storytelling craft.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
#17: Scream VI (2023)
The sixth Scream film moved the franchise from Woodsboro to New York City and produced one of the series' stronger entries on craft. The -1 WOKE margin reflects mild progressive identity politics in the supporting cast and a slight lean toward female empowerment framing in the leads. The kills are inventive, the pacing is solid, and the franchise lore is handled with more care than most legacy horror sequels. Melissa Barrera anchors the film effectively despite the razor-thin ideology score.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Scream VI
#18: Thanksgiving (2023)
Eli Roth's slasher based on his own Grindhouse fake trailer is a competent genre exercise with no meaningful ideological content. The effectively balanced margin reflects a film focused entirely on kill sequences and holiday atmosphere. The cultural critique about American consumer violence embedded in the original fake trailer is largely absent from the feature. Fun for genre fans, ideologically inert, and precisely what it advertises.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Thanksgiving
#19: Napoleon (2023)
Ridley Scott's $130 million account of Napoleon Bonaparte's rise and fall grossed $222 million worldwide, a commercial disappointment for a prestige historical epic. The +1 TRAD margin reflects a film deeply ambivalent about its subject: Napoleon is neither a hero to emulate nor a villain to condemn, but a man whose ambition consumed everyone around him including himself. The battle sequences are exceptional. The Josephine relationship is depicted as a genuine emotional anchor that Napoleon's megalomania ultimately destroys.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Napoleon
#20: The Flash (2023)
Andy Muschietti's long-troubled Flash film deployed a multiverse premise to bring back Michael Keaton's Batman and generate nostalgia-driven marketing. The +2 TRAD margin comes from the film's treatment of Barry Allen's maternal grief and the father-son heroism framing in the final act. The CGI work was heavily criticized and legitimately so. $268 million worldwide on a $220 million budget was a commercial disappointment that effectively ended the SnyderVerse. The Keaton sequences are the only ones that feel genuinely alive.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Flash
#21: Past Lives (2023)
Celine Song's debut feature is a quiet, observational film about first love, immigration, and the lives not chosen. The +2 TRAD margin reflects the film's honest engagement with adult sacrifice, the costs of ambition, and the emotional weight of choosing a life over the person you were with at 12. The progressive immigrant framing is present but not the film's dominant register. Greta Lee and Teo Yoo are exceptional. One of 2023's most genuinely felt films by any ideological measure.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Past Lives
#22: The Iron Claw (2023)
Sean Durkin's account of the Von Erich wrestling dynasty covers one of American sports history's most tragic family stories. The +2 TRAD margin reflects the film's honest portrayal of paternal ambition, masculine duty, and family loyalty alongside the destruction those values can enable when taken to pathological extremes. Zac Efron's Kevin Von Erich is the film's moral center, a man who loves his brothers without reservation. The film does not moralize; it observes. Harris Dickinson's performance as David is the year's most underrated supporting turn.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Iron Claw
#23: Maestro (2023)
Bradley Cooper's biography of Leonard Bernstein is a lavish, formally ambitious portrait of a man whose genius coexisted with persistent personal failure. The +3 TRAD lean reflects the film's honest engagement with the costs of artistic ego, the damage Bernstein's dual life inflicted on his marriage, and the genuine weight of Felicia Montealegre's sacrifice. Carey Mulligan's performance is the film's conscience. Cooper's physical transformation is complete. The film ultimately validates commitment and fidelity as values worth defending even when they break under pressure.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Maestro
#24: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023)
Jeff Rowe's animated reboot gave the franchise genuine visual energy and a surprisingly warm family dynamic. The +4 TRAD lean reflects the film's brotherly loyalty themes, Splinter's protective paternal instincts, and its honest treatment of belonging and rejection as formative forces. The progressive inclusion elements are present but do not dominate. The animation style, inspired by Spider-Verse, is legitimately distinctive. One of the better franchise entries the TMNT brand has seen in years.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
#25: Cocaine Bear (2023)
Elizabeth Banks's horror-comedy is exactly what the title promises: a black bear consumes a duffel bag of cocaine in the Georgia woods in 1985 and kills people. The +6 TRAD lean comes from the film's family loyalty themes, its functional law enforcement characters, and the total absence of any progressive identity politics agenda. The film is committed entirely to its absurd premise. It is not deep. It does not pretend to be. That restraint from ideological commentary is its own kind of traditional quality.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Cocaine Bear
#26: M3GAN (2023)
Gerard Johnstone's horror film about a lifelike AI doll that becomes dangerously protective of her young charge taps into genuine anxieties about technology replacing human connection. The +7 TRAD lean comes from the film's core argument: children need human relationships, not technological substitutes. The horror mechanics are effective precisely because the film takes the emotional premise seriously. Allison Williams is well-cast as the aunt who prioritizes convenience over presence. The sequel hook is earned.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of M3GAN
#27: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
James Mangold's fifth and final Indiana Jones film gave Harrison Ford a genuine farewell with a time-travel premise that allowed Indy to confront the cost of a life spent chasing history. The +7 TRAD lean reflects the film's honest engagement with aging, regret, and the choice to return to the life you built rather than escape it. The de-aged prologue is technically impressive. The final emotional beat earns its sentiment. Not the Indy film everyone wanted but a more honest film than it gets credit for.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
#28: Elemental (2023)
Pete Docter and Kelsey Mann's Pixar film uses its fire-and-water romance premise to explore immigrant family loyalty, sacrifice for children's opportunity, and the tension between filial duty and personal desire. The +8 TRAD lean comes from the film's genuine engagement with these themes through the father-daughter arc. Ember's sacrifice for her family's legacy and her ultimate assertion of autonomy are handled with more emotional honesty than most Pixar entries of the era. A commercial underperformer that deserved a wider audience.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Elemental
#29: The Holdovers (2023)
Alexander Payne's film about a curmudgeonly classics teacher and a troubled scholarship student stuck at a New England boarding school over Christmas is one of 2023's warmest films. The +8 TRAD lean reflects the film's honest treatment of academic standards, earned respect, adult guidance of young men, and the moral weight of maintaining dignity under pressure. Paul Giamatti is operating at the highest level of his career. Da'Vine Joy Randolph won the Oscar for Supporting Actress. A film about the value of enduring difficult things with someone who refuses to give up on you.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Holdovers
#30: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023)
The Transformers franchise reboot shifted the setting to 1994 Brooklyn and Peru and introduced the Maximals alongside the traditional Autobots. The +8 TRAD lean reflects the film's family loyalty themes, its Brotherhood of Autobots framing, and protagonist Noah Diaz's sacrifice-driven arc motivated by care for his brother. The action sequences are competent and the film is not trying to say anything beyond its genre commitments. Those commitments land consistently on the traditional side.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
#31: Anyone But You (2023)
Will Gluck's romantic comedy starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell was one of 2023's genuine commercial surprises, grossing $220 million worldwide on a $25 million budget. The +9 TRAD lean reflects the film's commitment to heterosexual romance, the absence of progressive ideology, and a story about two people who are attracted to each other despite themselves. The chemistry is real. The film is not complicated. That simplicity is the point and the product, and audiences showed up for it.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Anyone But You
#32: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)
James Gunn's conclusion to his Guardians trilogy is the best MCU film since Endgame. The +9 TRAD lean reflects the film's themes of chosen family, the moral obligation to rescue the vulnerable, and Rocket Raccoon's backstory as one of cinema's most effective arguments against treating living creatures as research subjects. The film closes with earned emotional weight. Gunn's departure to DC leaves the MCU without its most consistently traditional filmmaker at exactly the moment it needed him most.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
#33: Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley's adaptation of the tabletop RPG is a charming, well-paced adventure that fully embraces its genre commitments. The +9 TRAD lean reflects the film's themes of redemption, paternal sacrifice, and the loyalty that forms between people who fight together. Chris Pine is well-cast. The ensemble chemistry is genuine. A film that knows what it is and delivers it competently without ideological interference or agenda-driven rewrites of the source material.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
#34: Evil Dead Rise (2023)
Lee Cronin's franchise entry relocated the Evil Dead formula to an urban apartment building and gave the possession narrative a mother-daughter horror framework that amplifies the terror through family bonds. The +10 TRAD score reflects the film's genuine treatment of maternal sacrifice and family protection as the emotional stakes of the horror. Alyssa Sutherland's turn as the possessed mother is one of the year's best horror performances. A franchise entry that earns its place in the Evil Dead lineage.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Evil Dead Rise
#35: The Boy and the Heron (2023)
Hayao Miyazaki's likely final film is a formally radical, emotionally dense work about grief, creative inheritance, and the responsibility to build a world worth passing to the next generation. The +11 TRAD score reflects the film's themes of sacrifice, earned legacy, and the acceptance of loss as a prerequisite for living forward. Miyazaki's visual imagination remains unmatched at any age. A meditation on the costs and obligations of artistic greatness that rewards patience and demands nothing less than full attention.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Boy and the Heron
#36: The Nun II (2023)
Michael Chaves's sequel returns Taissa Farmiga's Sister Irene for a European-set expansion of the Valak mythology. The +11 TRAD score reflects the film's faith-affirming framework, the Catholic Church depicted as a genuine source of protective power, and religious devotion as a legitimate defense against evil. The horror sequences are effectively staged. A franchise entry that respects the faith-based elements of its universe rather than treating them as ironic window dressing or cultural costume.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Nun II
#37: Wonka (2023)
Paul King's prequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a musical origin story that centers themes of imagination, generosity, and friendship over institutional corruption. The +12 TRAD score reflects the film's warm treatment of chosen family, honest labor, and the moral clarity of the Oompa Loompa's role in the Wonka mythology. Timothee Chalamet is well-cast. The film's refusal to be cynical about wonder is its greatest asset and the reason it works where other IP prequels do not.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Wonka
#38: Migration (2023)
Benjamin Renner's Illumination animated film about a cautious mallard family's journey from New England to Jamaica is a warm, unpretentious family film with a genuine heart. The +12 TRAD score reflects the film's themes of paternal responsibility, family courage, and the value of expanding one's world without abandoning one's roots. The animation is polished. The film has no ideological agenda beyond its genre commitments and delivers them cleanly. One of the year's most consistently watchable family films.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Migration
#39: Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023)
David F. Sandberg's sequel brought back the foster family ensemble and the found-family dynamics that made the 2019 original work. The +12 TRAD score reflects the film's consistent framing of family loyalty, self-sacrifice, and the moral weight of protecting those who cannot protect themselves. The film was a commercial disappointment but delivered genuine warmth. Zachary Levi's earnestness remains the franchise's defining quality and the reason it punches above its budget on emotional impact.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Shazam! Fury of the Gods
#40: Five Nights at Freddy's (2023)
Emma Tammi's adaptation of the horror video game phenomenon centers a single father figure's sacrifice to protect his younger sister, with the horror emerging from unresolved grief over a missing child. The +12 TRAD score reflects the film's core themes of sibling loyalty, protective responsibility in the absence of parents, and the cost of carrying guilt alone. Josh Hutcherson anchors the film with quiet conviction. The animatronic sequences deliver what fans of the source material wanted.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Five Nights at Freddy's
#41: Air (2023)
Ben Affleck's dramatization of Nike's 1984 signing of Michael Jordan follows Sonny Vaccaro's conviction about a player no one else prioritized. The +13 TRAD score reflects the film's celebration of earned expertise, conviction against institutional consensus, and the loyalty between a company and an athlete that created something genuinely transformative. Matt Damon is excellent. The film argues that believing in someone before they prove it is itself a moral act, and it makes that argument without apology or irony.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Air
#42: Extraction 2 (2023)
Sam Hargrave's follow-up to the 2020 Chris Hemsworth action hit is a technically accomplished film with one of the decade's most impressive single-take action sequences. The +13 TRAD score reflects the film's themes of redemption through sacrifice, the protection of children as the highest moral obligation, and the traditional action-hero framework of a man defined by what he will and will not do. Hemsworth's Tyler Rake is a genuinely traditional action hero operating without ideological interference from the filmmakers.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Extraction 2
#43: The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic's adaptation of Nintendo's flagship franchise is a warm, visually spectacular family film with no ideological agenda beyond delivering the world of Mario to the widest possible audience. The +14 TRAD score reflects the film's brotherly loyalty themes, its celebration of earned skill, and its framing of family bonds as the ultimate motivation for heroism. $1.36 billion worldwide made it 2023's third-highest-grossing film. The audience spoke clearly and the film gave them exactly what they wanted.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Super Mario Bros. Movie
#44: Guy Ritchie's The Covenant (2023)
Guy Ritchie's Afghanistan war film starring Jake Gyllenhaal is a direct, unsentimental account of an interpreter who saves an American soldier and the soldier's obligation to return for the man who saved him. The +16 TRAD score reflects the film's commitment to loyalty, military honor, and the moral weight of leaving no one behind. It is the year's most explicitly traditional war film and was largely ignored commercially despite being better than almost everything playing alongside it.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Guy Ritchie's The Covenant
#45: Creed III (2023)
Michael B. Jordan's directorial debut followed Adonis Creed's confrontation with a childhood friend whose incarceration was partially Adonis's fault. The +17 TRAD score reflects the film's themes of brotherhood, the obligation to confront the past rather than escape it, and the masculine discipline of the boxing framework. The Donnie Yen-influenced final fight is cinematically distinctive. A strong franchise entry and a confident directorial debut that trusts its male characters to carry genuine moral weight.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Creed III
#46: The Equalizer 3 (2023)
Antoine Fuqua's conclusion to the Equalizer trilogy retires Robert McCall to a Sicilian village where he becomes the community's protector against a local crime organization. The +18 TRAD score reflects the film's framing of competence deployed in defense of the vulnerable as the highest masculine virtue, the community protection themes, and McCall's consistent moral code across three films. Denzel Washington operates in total command. The film argues that protecting the weak is worth any personal cost, and it makes that argument feel earned.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Equalizer 3
#47: Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)
Christopher McQuarrie's seventh Mission: Impossible film pits Ethan Hunt against an AI weapon that predicts and manipulates outcomes. The +18 TRAD score reflects the film's explicit argument that human judgment, sacrifice, and moral conviction cannot be replaced by algorithmic prediction, the traditional action-hero framework of a man who succeeds through loyalty and cunning rather than superior firepower, and Tom Cruise's physical commitment to practical stunt work. The train sequence is one of the decade's great action set pieces.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One
#48: Godzilla Minus One (2023)
Takashi Yamazaki's Japanese Godzilla film is the franchise's best entry in decades, setting the monster's return against the ruins of post-war Japan and centering the story on a kamikaze pilot who survived because he could not complete his final mission. The +19 TRAD score reflects the film's themes of sacrificial courage, redemption through duty, collective sacrifice, and the moral weight of rebuilding a nation from nothing. It won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, becoming the first Japanese film to do so. A genuine masterpiece.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Godzilla Minus One
#49: Gran Turismo (2023)
Neill Blomkamp's dramatization of Jann Mardenborough's journey from video game champion to professional racing driver celebrates earned competence, the willingness to be coached, and the discipline of translating virtual skill into physical reality. The +19 TRAD score reflects the film's consistent themes of paternal pride, genuine mentorship, and the value of preparation and expertise over shortcuts. David Harbour's Jack Salter is the film's best character. A crowd-pleasing sports drama that delivers on its premise.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Gran Turismo
#50: Fast X (2023)
Louis Leterrier's tenth Fast and Furious main entry introduces Jason Momoa's flamboyant villain Dante Reyes and sets up an end-of-saga confrontation. The +20 TRAD score reflects the franchise's foundational commitment to family loyalty as the ultimate value, sacrifice for the collective, and the chosen-family bonds that have defined the series since its Los Angeles street-racing origins. Twenty-two years and ten films in, the family dinner table is still the franchise's moral center, and no amount of escalating absurdity has changed that.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Fast X
#51: The Boys in the Boat (2023)
George Clooney's account of the University of Washington's eight-man rowing team that won gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics is a traditional sports drama elevated by genuine emotional investment in its ensemble. The +21 TRAD score reflects the film's themes of collective sacrifice, working-class determination, national pride, and the triumph of coordinated human effort over individual ego. The 1936 setting gives the victory additional weight. A film that trusts its audience to be moved by straightforward heroism without ironic distance.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of The Boys in the Boat
#52: John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)
Chad Stahelski's fourth John Wick film is one of the decade's definitive action achievements, a nearly three-hour test of endurance and craft that closes the Wick saga with a final act of chosen sacrifice. The +23 TRAD score reflects John Wick's fundamental moral code: a man who can be trusted because what he values does not change under pressure, the honor-bound society of assassins as a genuine reflection of traditional masculine virtue, and the film's conclusion in which freedom is purchased through death. The Osaka Continental sequence and the Sacre-Coeur staircase fight are action filmmaking at its absolute peak.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of John Wick: Chapter 4
#53: Sound of Freedom (2023)
Alejandro Monteverde's dramatization of Tim Ballard's mission to rescue trafficked children in Colombia became 2023's most politically resonant film when it grossed $250 million worldwide against an $8 million budget, outperforming blockbusters on a fraction of the marketing spend. The +27 TRAD score reflects the film's explicit faith-driven moral framework, its framing of child protection as a sacred obligation that overrides all institutional caution, and Jim Caviezel's committed performance as a man who believes in the mission more than in the system. The audience found it. The media largely refused to explain why.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Sound of Freedom
#54 (Most Traditional): Society of the Snow (2023)
J.A. Bayona's account of the 1972 Andes plane crash and the survivors' seventy-two days on the mountain is the year's most emotionally devastating film. The +31 TRAD score is the highest in the 2023 pool, driven by the film's unflinching engagement with sacrifice, the obligation of survival, collective care for the injured, and the decision to eat the dead in order to honor the living. The survivors' final prayer before the rescue walk is one of cinema's great sequences. A film about what human beings owe each other when there is nothing left.
Read the full VirtueVigil review of Society of the Snow
Methodology
All scores use the VirtueVigil dual-scoring system. Woke Score measures the density and intensity of progressive ideological content across categories including gender politics, religious critique, racial messaging, sexual content framing, and institutional critique. Traditional Score measures duty, sacrifice, family loyalty, moral clarity, patriotism, and earned competence. The Score Margin is the difference between the two, with positive numbers indicating a traditional lean and negative numbers indicating a woke lean. For complete methodology details, see the VirtueVigil Methodology page.
Browse every reviewed film at VirtueVigil.com. For other annual comprehensive rankings, see Every 2022 Movie Ranked, Every 2024 Movie Ranked, Most Woke Movies of 2025, and Most Woke Movies of 2026. For genre-specific 2023 rankings, see Every 2023 Action Movie Ranked, Every 2023 Drama Movie Ranked, Every 2023 Thriller Movie Ranked, and Every 2023 Animated and Family Movie Ranked.