2023 Best Movies Unveiled: From ‘Tár’ to ‘Barbie’, a Cinematic Odyssey
In the dynamic world of cinema that is 2023, the year commenced with the impact of a locomotive. ‘Tár,’ ‘The Fabelmans,’ and ‘EO’ graced our theaters, adorned in accolades. Meanwhile, the horror-comedy M3GAN elevated the A.I. doll meme-athon to new heights, captivating audiences with its wicked charm.
March, a month of unexpected treasures, bestowed upon us the surprisingly excellent ‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves,’ the delightful London romcom ‘Rye Lane,’ and a pair of profound French dramas—’The Night Of The 12th’ and ‘The Beasts.’
As the summer heat embraced us, the unsuspected double-bill, ‘Barbenheimer,’ stormed in, a 50-year box-office juggernaut ($2.3 billion and counting) that left everyone in awe. Then came silence. August, a post-storm lull, offered only a couple of indie gems—’Theater Camp’ and ‘Scrapper’—to momentarily distract us from Hollywood’s ongoing civil war and its looming existential doom.
Yet, we are resilient, and the anticipation for the rest of the year keeps our spirits high. The list is set to expand as we approach awards season, featuring gems like Venice-winning ‘Poor Things,’ Palme d’Or victor ‘Anatomy of a Fall,’ Ridley Scott’s colossal ‘Napoleon,’ and our top pick, the WWE family drama ‘Iron Claw.’
For now, amidst the current cinematic doldrums, here are the standout movies that make stepping out of your abode in 2023 more than worthwhile.
1. Tár
Genre: Drama
Call it ‘A Portrait of the Artist In the Midst of Being Canceled’. In Todd Field’s psychological character study, Cate Blanchett is Lydia Tár, a genius-level composer, EGOT winner, and insufferable narcissist. Blanchett’s Oscar-nominated performance has rightly earned the lion’s share of plaudits, but the superb acting is buoyed by Field’s subtly off-kilter visual style, lending the ‘ripped from the headlines’ narrative a hint of Kubrickian uncanniness.
2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Genre: Animation
Building on the mash-up of animation styles that made ‘Into the Spider-Verse’ vibrant, this dazzling sequel is the persuasive case for superhero movies that the genre desperately needed. The Miles Morales version of Spidey, voiced with wonderment and soul by Shameik Moore, zooms across multiverses in a personal quest with universal stakes. The gags and pop-culture references, delivered with trademark Lord and Miller irreverence, come thick and fast, requiring multiple viewings to unpack them all.
3. Oppenheimer
Genre: Drama
Even on IMAX, the seismic themes spill over the sides of Christopher Nolan’s most spectacular, cerebral, and haunting blockbuster yet. Cillian Murphy is brooding and brilliant as the titular physicist, J Robert Oppenheimer, charting his quest to build America the A-bomb in a science-fact thriller that’s paced like a chain reaction. The film’s jaw-dropping centerpiece – the first atomic bomb test – gives you a sense of what the first audiences to see ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ must have felt.
4. EO
Genre: Drama
Thanks to ‘Banshees of Inisherin,’ ‘Triangle of Sadness,’ and this disarmingly powerful four-legged odyssey from veteran Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski, the humble donkey has become a cinematic colossus. The genius of ‘EO,’ which follows one little donkey across Europe, is in using its furry hero as a mirror to reflect back at us the state of the world in all its beauty, pain, and ineffable sadness.
5. Killers of the Flower Moon
Genre: Thrillers
Already a hot favorite for Oscars across most categories, Martin Scorsese’s 1920s true-crime epic is meticulously crafted, beautifully played, and entirely gripping. Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro shine, but newcomer Lily Gladstone centers the film with a soulful, delicate performance.
6. Return to Seoul
Genre: Drama
A diaspora tale of real psychological acuity and emotional eloquence, this captivating drama perfectly articulates the hurt of a young adopted Frenchwoman as she returns to the country of her birth. French-Cambodian filmmaker Davy Chou follows his brilliantly-drawn protagonist, the spiky, chaotic Freddie (Park Ji-Min), as she wrestles back control of her inner life.
7. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Genre: Action and Adventure
Tom Cruise’s willingness to do literally any mad thing finds its purest expression in the seventh installment of the consistently excellent ‘Mission: Impossible’ movies. Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie expertly executes jaw-dropping action set pieces, with charisma machine Esai Morales making dialogue about A.I. sexy as the superbad, Gabriel. Roll on Part Two.
8. How to Have Sex
Genre: Drama
A sun-kissed hangout movie that sours and spins out of control, Molly Manning Walker’s debut is where bubblegum fun strays into a minefield of sexual assault, trauma, and heartbreak. Terrific newcomer Mia McKenna-Bruce shines in this coming-of-age drama.
9. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
Genre: Documentaries
Laura Poitras’s doc, centered around iconic photographer Nan Goldin, takes us on a tour of New York’s ’70s counterculture, Goldin’s quest for justice against the Sacklers, and the nuts and bolts of social activism. It’s moving, enthralling, and artful – in every sense of the word.
10. Rye Lane
Genre: Romance
Putting an authentically South London spin to the romance formula, ‘Rye Lane’ is sparky, romantic, and pisstakey in all the ways that London is. David Jonsson and Vivian Oparah provide charm, jokes, and relatable insecurities as two young Black Londoners. Their Salt-N-Pepa karaoke scene is a mic-drop moment in every sense.
11. Past Lives
Genre: Romance
Getting compared with Wong Kar-wai’s classic romance ‘In the Mood for Love’ loads seriously unreasonable expectations on a first-time filmmaker. Yet, Korean-Canadian filmmaker Celine Song’s tender-hearted romance holds up to them purely for its emotional intelligence, wisdom, and sheer empathy for its characters. The central relationship plays out over several decades between a Korean New Yorker (Greta Lee) and her childhood sweetheart (Teo Yoo), who never left Seoul. A love letter to two people and two cities – Seoul and New York – in all their messy glory.
12. Fremont
Genre: Drama
Played by real-life Afghan refugee Anaita Wali Zada, Donya is an interpreter forced to flee the Taliban and start afresh in America in this soulful, black-and-white study of loneliness and connection. British-Iranian director Babak Jalali’s meticulous compositions and a faint, slackerish energy make ‘Fremont’ a lo-fi gem that deserves to be discovered on streaming.
13. They Cloned Tyrone
Genre: Film
This raucously entertaining, needle-sharp Blaxploitation riff got lost amid July’s ‘Barbenheimer’ noise but is ripe for discovery on Netflix. An almost uncategorizable mix of crime thriller, satirical comedy, and near-future sci-fi, it’s the handiwork of a first-time filmmaker of real promise in Juel Taylor. ‘They Cloned Tyrone’ features John Boyega, Teyonah Parris, and Jamie Foxx teaming up to uncover a conspiracy to control Black consciousness.
14. The Fabelmans
Genre: Drama
In an era of filmmakers recreating their childhoods on screen, Steven Spielberg’s ‘The Fabelmans’ feels the most alive to the possibility that it might even be misremembering or misinterpreting events. With Spielberg’s on-screen surrogate, Gabriel LaBelle’s Sammy Fabelman, to the fore, its many moments of hurt and wonderment are dazzlingly realized.
15. Reality
Genre: Thriller
Euphoria’s Sydney Sweeney is electrifying as 25-year-old NSA translator Reality Winner. Tina Satter’s anxiety-inducing thriller expertly transfers her ‘verbatim theatre’ stage production ‘Is This a Room?’ into a kind of verbatim cinema, drip-feeding dread in a real-time recreation of Winner’s first interrogation. It signals the arrival of a singular talent in Satter and offers further evidence of Sweeney’s brilliance.
16. Theater Camp
Genre: Mockumentary
This achingly funny mockumentary takes cues from Christopher Guest and ‘Waiting for Guffman’ in its spoofy homage to two great American institutions: summer camp and musical theatre. Capturing the chaotic creativity of a group of young tyros prepping a new musical, it’s as big-hearted and affectionate as comedies come.
17. The Old Oak
Genre: Drama
British cinema’s own old oak, Ken Loach, delivers a film as inflamed and vital as ever. ‘The Old Oak’ traverses some of the biggest cultural fault lines of modern Europe – race, migration, religion – in its story of a struggling northeast English community reacting to the arrival of Syrian refugees. The directness is its greatest strength, and throughout, the cast of first-time actors bring unvarnished warmth to its moving moments of human connection.
18. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Genre: Animation
What unexpected joy and wisdom this stop-motion animation delivers. Expanding a 2010 short, it introduces us to a sparkly little mollusk called Marcel and her gentle Nanna Connie, left behind when their community of shells disappears overnight. Cute but never cutesy, and with a surprisingly sharp wit, it’s cinematic soul food that’ll have you going back for a second helping.
19. Saint Omer
Genre: Drama
The directness of French filmmaker Alice Diop‘s courtroom drama shouldn’t be confused with simplicity. ‘Saint Omer’ traverses some of the biggest cultural fault lines of modern Europe – race, migration, religion – in its story of a young woman accused of leaving her child to drown on a Normandy beach.
20. Barbie
Genre: Film
Greta Gerwig’s fuchsia-hued fantasia delivers all the promised silliness, mockery, and straight-up Kenergy. ‘Barbie’ sends Margot Robbie’s living doll on a journey of empowerment with Ryan Gosling’s insecure Ken in hot pursuit. Gerwig and Noah Baumbach’s screenplay goes all-in on Jordan Peterson-style meninism and challenges the movie’s own paymasters at Mattel, making it a memorable experience regardless of how one feels about Barbie.
21. Women Talking
Genre: Drama
While not exactly an escapist night at the pictures, Sarah Polley’s tough, talky, ‘The Crucible’-esque feminist allegory all but dares you to reach for your popcorn. Sit up and pay attention, it demands – and anyone prepared to lean into its dialectics is rewarded with an elite group of actors (Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy, Rooney Mara, Frances McDormand, and Ben Whishaw) debating a still-scarily-resonant case of sexual abuse in a religious commune. Faith, female rage, and the meaning of forgiveness have been rarely chewed over with quite this simmering power.
22. Passages
Genre: Drama
Characters don’t have to be likeable or good to be great. Love is Strange director Ira Sachs gets it, delivering a so bad he’s grand antagonist for the ages in self-centered Tomas. Portrayed by mercurially intriguing German actor Franz Rogowski (Great Freedom), he’s a Paris-based filmmaker and hot mess who’ll crack it at an actor for not walking down the stairs artfully enough. Beautifully written, framed, and performed, it’s a thoroughly French, knotty affair.
23. The Royal Hotel
Genre: Thrillers
‘It’s a mining area so you’ll have to be okay with a little male attention.’ As understatements go, the parting words of the recruiter who sets up American backpackers Hanna (Ozark’s Julia Garner) and Liv (Glass Onion’s Jessica Henwick) with a job pulling pints in a remote Aussie pub is a doozy. Director Kitty Green made the excellent post-Weinstein thriller The Assistant, also with Garner facing down some despicable bastards, and here she puts a feminist lens on a beery, blue-collar kind of male toxicity. Like the Outback tinnie-sploitation classic Wake in Fright, The Royal Hotel is a brilliantly nightmarish night at the boozer.
24. Enys Men
Genre: Horror
There’s something haunting and ancient in the soil of Britain and it’s captured mesmerically in a trippy tale of isolation and disturbing plant life that plays like a druid’s cheese dream. It could only be the work of Cornish auteur Mark Jenkin, whose debut drama, Bait, was a handmade treasure back in 2019. Here, he uses the same vintage aesthetic and 16mm cameras to craft a worthy companion piece to any of the great ’70s folk horrors, as Mary Woodvine’s botanist goes full The Lighthouse on a remote island.
25. Subject
Genre: Documentaries
This gripping, intelligent doc interviews the subjects of some of the most famous docs of recent years about their lives through a lens. The stars of The Staircase, Hoop Dreams, and Capturing the Friedmans reveal what it’s like to be at the eye of a non-fiction narrative story, testimonies that are delivered with compassion and insight. ‘Subject’ captures the documentary form at a crossroads, hopefully finding its way to a more caring, culturally sensitive future. Filmmakers could do a lot worse than watch Camilla Hall and Jennifer Tiexiera’s engrossing film as a cautionary tale.
26. War Pony
Genre: Drama
This social drama set on the Native American reservations of South Dakota reflects the outside status of America’s indigenous people in stark, emotionally searing terms. Co-directors Riley Keough and Gina Gammell, and their Native American screenwriters Bill Reddy and Franklin Sioux Bob, sweeten the tough stuff with hope and cautious optimism. Blunt yet lyrical, it’s a deeply rewarding watch.
27. Alcarràs
Genre: Drama
A juicy organic tomato of a movie that deservedly won Berlin’s Golden Bear, Carla Simón’s ‘Alcarràs’ channels the Spanish filmmaker’s own experiences growing up on a Catalan farm to give life to one hard-working farming family. A new landowner’s attempt to install solar panels threatens the farmers’ livelihood in a movie that succeeds as a family drama and a deconstruction of capitalism.
28. Joyland
Genre: Drama
It’s complicated enough when stay-at-home dad Haider (Ali Junejo) finds fulfillment as a backing dancer to trans performer Bibi (trans actress Alina Khan) in Lahore. When he also finds love with her, the fabric of his life – and his family’s – begins to unravel. Faced with Pakistan’s draconian censorship laws, ‘Joyland’ had to struggle to the screen, but you’d never know it from its effortless humor, compassion, and craft. A bold snapshot of Pakistani society, masculinity, and gender in flux, it would feel progressive if it’d been set in Paris or Palm Springs.
29. The Eight Mountains
Genre: Drama
Pietro and Bruno, two boyhood friends, reconnect as adults in a soulful Italian language film that sweeps you up in its glorious Alpine vistas, themes of hard-earned brotherhood, and a sense of rough-hewn spirituality. Like the hand-constructed mountain cabin at its heart, friendship is something that must be built brick-by-brick in Belgian co-directors Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s idyllic but unsentimental story. The upshot is an emotionally eloquent film about two buttoned-up men.
30. Air
Genre: Drama
Does it sound like an unquestioning hymn to capitalism? Yep. Does it get close to deifying Michael Jordan? That too. But there’s something in Ben Affleck’s pacy, loose-limbed retelling of Nike’s efforts to sign a young Jordan from under the noses of more powerful rivals Adidas and Converse that blasts past any reservations. That secret sauce is a simple but infectious joy in sharp dialogue and characterization that feels like a throwback to Hollywood’s ’70s golden age. It doesn’t hurt to have Matt Damon schlebbing-up winningly as Sonny Vaccaro, the Nike NBA savant willing to risk everything for Jordan’s signature, and Affleck himself in as a wonderfully droopy version of Nike founder Phil Knight. Championship rings for all involved.
31. Scrapper
Genre: Drama
Not so much ‘magical realism’ as magical and realistic, Charlotte Regan’s debut paints in much brighter colors than you’d perhaps expect from a film about a young girl swerving social services in an east London estate. Full of big laughs, it’s a loose-limbed depiction of that girl, 12-year-old Georgie (the brilliant Lola Campbell), as she reluctantly reconnects with the dad she’s never met (Triangle of Sadness’s Harris Dickinson). The offbeat bond that develops between them is a reminder of Taika Waititi’s Boy, with Regan’s affection for her characters making for a movie with a generous heart and an irrepressible spirit.
32. The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan
Genre: Action and adventure
The best Alexandre Dumas adaptations in decades – sorry, Dogtanian and Paul WS Anderson fans – this swaggering French adventure flick has everything you could want from a swashbuckling caper. The improbably sexy cast has Eva Green as the pipe-puffing Milady, executing Cardinal Richelieu’s devilish scheme against a gauche monarch, the English, the Protestants, and our heroes themselves, the Musketeers – here featuring a moody Vincent Cassel and a flamboyant Romain Duris. We came for the all-star lineup and stayed for the blur of sword fights, horse chases, and smart storytelling choices. Roll on part deux later this year.
33. The Beasts
Genre: Drama
A nerve-shredding modern Spanish parable that offers a gradually suffocating fog of xenophobia, resentment, and envy, this year’s Goya Award winner is set among scrubby, hardscrabble farmsteads of Galicia. Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s carefully constructed slow-burn thriller is full of great performances, too, especially from Marina Foïs as Antoine’s dogged wife and Luis Zahera as the sinewy, menacing neighbor who hates everything the couple stand for.
34. Evil Dead Rise
Genre: Horror
The bar was set low for Irish filmmaker Lee Cronin to re-raise this beloved but faded horror series from the dead. But by hellfire’s light, Cronin and co cleared that bar by miles with a ferociously funny gore splatter tailor-made for baying Friday night crowds. Australian stars Lily Sullivan and Alyssa Sutherland excel as estranged sisters holding back the dark in a condemned LA apartment tower, rather than a cabin in the woods. We never thought we’d say this, but bring on the sequel.
35. Revoir Paris
Genre: Drama
Fresh from Paul Verhoeven’s sexy nun psychodrama Benedetta, Virginie Efira takes things down a notch or two as the survivor of a Bataclan-style massacre at a Parisian bistro. Full of sensitivity in its depiction of the lonely path walked by a PTSD sufferer, French director Alice Winocour’s enthralling drama is alive with empathy. And it’s the Caesar-winning Efira who centers it all as a woman emotionally imprisoned by her trauma, with Benoît Magimel providing soulful support as a fellow survivor who helps her through.
36. How to Blow Up a Pipeline
Genre: Thrillers
Inspired by Swedish author Andreas Malm’s eco-manifesto, which suggested that non-violent protest was doomed to fall short in the face of the climate change catastrophe, co-writer/director Daniel Goldhaber and his diverse young cast (American Honey star Sasha Lane is a standout) craft an urgent thriller exploring the personal toll of committing to an existential cause. The source text was dynamite, while this is more of a slow burn. But when it catches fire, it’s both a compelling thriller and a clarion call to action.
37. The Whale
Genre: Drama
It would have been so easy for Darren Aronofsky’s adapted-from-the-stage chamber piece to get swamped by its prosthetic, fat-suited artifice and one-location staginess. That it doesn’t is down to a career-best performance from international treasure Brendan Fraser. He makes you take grieving, apartment-bound college tutor Charlie, a man facing up to his own mortality, to your heart in just a few scenes, supercharging this fable of human frailty and reconciliation with endless empathy and emotion. We’re not crying, you’re crying.
38. M3GAN
Genre: Horror
A toy inventor (Get Out’s Allison Williams) creates a sentient A.I. doll with creepy eyes and the grip of an industrial vice as a companion for her bereaved niece. What could go wrong? Just about everything, as this giddily mean-spirited Blumhouse horror charts. Despite having Saw’s James Wan’s bloody fingerprints all over it as co-creator, it reins in the nastiness in favor of big laughs, including some instantly meme-worthy doll dances. Roll on M4GAN.
39. Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves
Genre: Fantasy
Cinematically, the fantasy genre has tended to take itself very seriously, but Dungeons & Dragons comes at its swords and sorcery with a refreshing and exuberant irreverence. Writer-directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein respect their role-playing tabletop game source material but also mirror the sense of levity and improvised invention you get while playing it. With the help of an amiable ensemble, the jokes come as thick and fast as the FX-driven action. Game for a laugh, indeed.
40. Broker
Genre: Drama
Hirokazu Kore-eda has a knack for taking gritty slices of social realism and sprinkling them with a kind of escapist stardust. Here he heads to Busan, South Korea, and borrows Bong Joon-ho’s old mucker Song Kang-ho to headline another touching, wryly funny tale of surrogate families. Charles Dickens would be proud to have written a character like Song’s larger-than-life adoption broker Sang-hyun
