Barack Obama Reveals Favorite Movies, Music, Books of 2023: ‘Oppenheimer,’ ‘Air’ and ‘Leave the World Behind’ Make List

It’s that time of year again, when Barack Obama annually shares his favorite movies, books and music.

“As I usually do during this time of year, I wanted to share my favorite books, movies, and music of 2023,” the former president wrote on social media, asking his followers to comment with their favorites, as well.

In his typical fashion, Obama shared separate posts for each medium, starting with listing his picks for the year’s best books, including The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store (James McBride), The Maniac (Benjamin Labatut), Poverty, by America (Matthew Desmond), How to Say Babylon (Safiya Sinclair), The Wager (David Grann), Chip War (Chris Miller) and The Vaster Wilds (Lauren Groff).

His other top picks were Humanly Possible (Sarah Bakewell), King: A Life (Jonathan Eig), The Covenant of Water (Abraham Verghese), The Best Minds (Jonathan Rosen), All the Sinners Bleed (S.A. Cosby), The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory (Tim Alberta), Some People Need Killing (Patricia Evangelista) and This Other Eden (Paul Harding).

Next up was his favorite movies of the year, which featured three flicks that were produced by his and Michelle Obama’s production company Higher Ground. He wrote in the post, “I’m biased since these movies were produced by Higher Ground, but these are in fact three of the best films I saw this year”: Rustin, Leave the World Behind and American Symphony.

The former president also acknowledged the historic Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes that took place earlier this year. He wrote in the caption, “Writers and actors went on strike to advocate for better working conditions and protections. It led to important changes that will transform the industry for the better. Here are some films that reflect their hard work over the last year.”

The other films in his list included The Holdovers, Blackberry, Oppenheimer, American Fiction, Anatomy of a Fall, Monster, Past Lives, Air, Polite Society and A Thousand and One.

On Thursday, one day after he revealed his top movies, Obama took to X, formerly Twitter, to share that he just watched The Color Purple and “loved it” and is “adding it to this list as one of my favorite movies of the year.”

Obama also shared his favorite songs from the year on Friday, including “TQG” (Karol G and Shakira), “Cobra” (Megan Thee Stallion), “Water” (Tyla) and “America Has A Problem” (Beyoncé ft. Kendrick Lamar).

Other tracks that made the list were “The Returner” (Allison Russell), “My Love Mine All Mine” (Mitski), “Sittin’ on Top of the World” (Burna Boy ft. 21 Savage), “Toxic Trait” (Stormy ft. Fredo), “La Bebe (Remix)” (Yng Lvcas and Peso Pluma), “Crazy Love” (Rita Wilson and Keith Urban), “Road to Freedom” (Lenny Kravitz) and “It Never Went Away” (Jon Batiste).

Updated Dec. 29 with Obama’s favorite music list.