The best movies of 2023 - fantastic films of the year

The second half of the unlikeliest of double bills that played out this summer (the first being Barbie) was Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. This meaty biographical drama details the great American physicist and his central role in the development of the world’s first nuclear bomb. Besides a gripping depiction of the Manhattan Project, Oppenheimer runs through the man’s complex personal life, which ultimately led to ostracism by the American political and military establishment. It also manages to depict a nuclear explosion through practical effects, which is as awesome and terrifying as it sounds.

For his latest film, Martin Scorsese showed us a familiar world of limited men giving in to their darkest and most violent impulses. However, Killers of the Flower Moon is no retread. Based on a non-fiction book by David Grann, it unflinchingly and unglamorously tells the story of the Osage people during the early 20th century. After finding oil and sudden wealth, these native Americans fall prey to rapacious white men, led by Robert De Niro’s duplicitous and ruthlessly ambitious cattle rancher.

Decent romcoms are like hen’s teeth these days, but 2023 saw one of the sharpest efforts in quite some time with Rye Lane. Two young strangers, Yas (Vivian Oparah) and Dom (David Jonsson), meet at a gallery and spend a sunny day wandering around picturesque South London locations, talking through their relationship issues and setting out on ill-fated missions to right personal wrongs. It doesn’t take a genius to spot where it’s all heading, but the journey to get there sure is cute and cuddly.

We’ve heard Studio Ghibli maestro Hayao Miyazaki claim he’s retiring before, but The Boy and the Heron might actually be the 82-year-old auteur’s last film. It’s a fitting send off if so, touching upon familiar themes of grief, parental loss and the magical escapism of nature. It features 12-year-old Mahito who, having moved to the country following his mother’s death, is soon pulled into an Alice in Wonderland-like parallel universe. As ever with Ghibli, the true magic here is in the finely observed details and a dreamlike tone.

The original Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse single-handedly renegotiated the terms of engagement for Hollywood animation studios with its daringly brash art style and no-holds-barred storytelling. This sequel somehow manages to one-up that first film in almost all departments, with more spectacle, more alternate universe-hopping action, and even more inventive animation. Does the fact it’s the first of a two-parter lessen its impact somewhat? Sure, but that also means we’ll get a third film in just a year or two, so we’re cool with it.

Disappointing box office takings might suggest audiences have finally had enough of Tom Cruise’s stunt-pulling special agent, Ethan Hunt, after seven cinematic appearances. However, that’s no reflection on the quality of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning. This is another super-slick action-thriller, with all the glamorous globe-hopping and choreographed violence you could want. This one actively leaves you wanting more, with a cliffhanger pointing the way to a concluding film in 2025. Whether this marks the beginning of the end for the series or not, it’s a more than worthwhile entry.

Not only was Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 an effective and emotional conclusion to one of the more consistent series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it could also well prove to be the last of MCU’s golden run of hits. If we end up caring as much for any subsequent Marvel movie character as much as we do for Rocket Racoon – the computer generated heart of this emotional third entry – or any of GotG’s motley crew of misfits, we’ll be surprised.

If there’s one film that elicited a close to unanimously positive response in 2023, it was Past Lives. It seems everyone who saw it left their screening utterly beguiled, not to mention quietly reflective of their own roads not taken. Celine Song’s remarkable debut sees two South Korean childhood friends reuniting in the US more than two decades after being separated, prompting both to reflect on the life choices they have made, their contrasting cultural identity, and what might have been had things played out differently

Putting aside the negative reports that surrounded the production of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (which, lest we forget, is widely loved), director Gareth Edwards returned to the world of epic sci-fi with The Creator. If anything, this one’s even more ambitious – a completely original production in which an embittered agent reluctantly takes on the care of a messianic AI child. With its bold retro-futuristic aesthetic and heartfelt performances, The Creator was one of the smartest and freshest blockbusters of the year.

If you were to define 2023’s cinematic output with a single story, it would be that of Barbenheimer – an apt portmanteau representing the dual release of two wildly different, but equally momentous movies in the middle of the year. Barbie more than held up its side of the bargain (see Oppenheimer’s entry for the other), offering a surprisingly deft deconstruction of the famous toy brand. We say ‘surprising’, but anyone familiar with director Greta Gerwig’s work would have known that this would be more than mere marketing fluff.

If anyone was going to tackle and tame a biopic that had scared off several industry titans – including Stanley Kubrick – then it was going to be Ridley Scott. His treatment of the great French dictator-general might play fast and loose with history, but it also offers a compellingly idiosyncratic take on one of history’s most infamous warmongers. You’d expect nothing less with Joaquin Phoenix in the lead role, though the true stand-out here is Vanessa Kirby’s sensuously manipulative Josephine, as well as some spectacularly shot battle scenes.

Anatomy of a Fall won this year’s Palme d’Or with its thoughtful, methodical brand of courtroom drama. Sandra Hüller plays Sandra Voyter, a bereaved writer striving to prove her innocence following her husband’s fall and death at a snowy Swiss chalet. Soon enough, Voyter’s fiction starts to encroach on real life, as her motives, past indiscretions, and the status of her relationship with her husband come under the microscope. French director Justine Triet and writer Arthur Harari have produced a masterful film here.

Netflix really created some strong cinematic moments in 2023, but none were starrier or more timely than Leave the World Behind. Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke’s American couple take their family on an impromptu short stay, which appears to coincide with the world (or at least the US) falling apart. Mahershala Ali adds further doubt and intrigue as the charismatic owner of the rental property they’re staying in, who appears to know more than he’s letting on about events outside their plush Long Island bubble.

Director Alexander Payne and actor Paul Giamatti are back on the same film together for the first time since 2004’s Sideways. That’s reason enough for celebration, but The Holdovers more than earns its place on both men’s CVs. Serving as an ode to the ’70s, and in particular that decade’s filmmaking, it features Giamatti as a pernickety teacher forced to spend Christmas with a neglected youth and a cafeteria manager at a posh boarding school. Mystifyingly, this one’s going to miss the obvious festive window here in the UK, but it’s worth tracking down in January.

Bradley Cooper writes, directs, and stars in this lavish biopic of composer Leonard Bernstein, who was one of the most important musical figures of the last century. Besides the great man’s fabulous music, the film zooms in on the unique relationship between Bernstein and his wife Felicia Montealegre (played by Carey Mulligan) and the friction that was caused by Bernstein’s continued extramarital pursuit of men. Cooper’s film offers a suitably combustible depiction of this brilliant yet conflicted figure.

The ever-divisive Wes Anderson had his most prolific year yet in 2023, producing an entertaining series of Roald Dahl shorts for Netflix, and this: arguably his strongest film since The Grand Budapest Hotel. Asteroid City has all the Anderson hallmarks: mannered performances from a familiar all-star cast, a stagey conceit, and a pristine retro aesthetic. This time, the setting is the titular desert town, which plays host to a documentary about a play about a youth astronomy convention. Like we said, it’s very Wes Anderson.

Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore star in this queasy tale about exploitation and our fascination with scandal. Natalie Portman plays the Hollywood actor trailing Julianne Moore’s housewife as research for a part. Moore’s character is now married to a man that she had an affair with decades prior while he was still very much a minor and she a full grown adult, earning her a criminal record. It’s all knowingly melodramatic, but the inherently uncomfortable core of the drama is expertly observed by these two great actors.

Undoubtedly the most international effort on this list, Passages is a French-German production set in Paris, with an American director and French, German, and English leads. An unexpected and emotionally devastating love triangle ensues when a mercurial director (Franz Rogowski) cheats on his husband (Ben Wishaw) with a straight woman (Adèle Exarchopoulos). When Rogowski’s Tomas expresses his wish to explore this new side of him, it places an understandable strain on the relationship that no amount of open communication can overcome.

Ari Aster has built his fledgling career on two deeply disturbing horror films, Hereditary and Midsommar. Beau Is Afraid is the first of his films to step outside of those genre boundaries, though it’s hardly all sweetness and light. Rather, this is a comedy of the most twisted, inscrutable, and genre-bending sort. Joaquin Phoenix plays the title character, an anxiety-ridden middle-aged man who embarks on a series of unfortunate (and unlikely) events on the eve of a visit to his mother.

Michael Fassbender returns to the big screen (or little screen, as it’s a Netflix production) as an oddball assassin who dresses like a German tourist and insists on an orderly routine. Pretty soon he’s messing up a big hit, and the tables are being turned with explosive results. It’s a familiar story alright, but David Fincher’s unique directorial sensibility, Fassbender’s offbeat performance, and a sprinkling of unexpected story beats keep The Killer feeling like much more than a rote genre exercise.