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2023 is nearly half over (of note: how?) and many of the year\u2019s most anticipated films are still waiting in the wings for their summer or fall debuts, but the year has already provided an absolute sm\u00f6rg\u00e5sbord of cinematic delights for those who know where to look (or are lucky enough to live in the kind of place where AMC isn\u2019t the only game in town). <\/p>\n
Many of the early highlights \u2014 including heart-stopping immigration dramas \u201cR.M.N.\u201d and \u201cTori and Lokita,\u201d as well as the more narcotized likes of \u201cGodland\u201d and \u201cPacification\u201d \u2014 are inevitable holdovers from last year\u2019s Cannes lineup, while more recent festival breakouts like \u201cRye Lane,\u201d \u201cThe Starling Girl,\u201d \u201cA Thousand and One\u201d have already made their way down the mountain from Sundance. There are even an assortment of still older festival picks, like \u201cMonica,\u201d \u201cFalcon Lake,\u201d \u201cThe Blackening,\u201d and \u201cMaster Gardener\u201d that have finally arrived on American shores, along with the recent release of British indie hit \u201cBlue Jean.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the most pleasant surprise of the movie year so far is that several of this winter and spring\u2019s new releases have wildly over-delivered on expectations (e.g. \u201cM3GAN,\u201d \u201cAre You There God? It\u2019s Me, Margaret\u201d), while auteur-driven fare like Wes Anderson\u2019s \u201cAsteroid City,\u201d Celine Song\u2019s \u201cPast Lives,\u201d Ari Aster\u2019s \u201cBeau Is Afraid,\u201d and Makoto Shinkai\u2019s \u201cSuzume\u201d have taken such great pleasure in confounding them. A smash hit by any and all metrics? \u201cSpider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,\u201d which delighted movie-goers and critics, and made a pretty penny while doing so.<\/p>\n
With new work from masters and favorites like Martin Scorsese, Greta Gerwig, Christopher Nolan, and Yorgos Lanthmios on the immediate horizon \u2014 and surely many other gems set to emerge this fall festival season \u2014 there\u2019s reason to hope that our already excellent year in film is only just starting to heat up. <\/p>\n
Here are our picks for the 30 best movies of 2023 (so far). We will be updating and refining this list throughout the year as new films are released.<\/p>\n
This article includes contributions from Siddhant Adlakha, Carlos Aguilar, Christian Blauvelt, Jude Dry, Steph Green, Ella Kemp, Leila Latif, Ryan Lattanzio, Marisa Mirabal, Rafael Motomayor, Christian Zilko, and Esther Zuckerman.<\/p>\n
Joanna Scanlon in After Love
\nPhoto : After Love
\n\u201cAfter Love\u201d (dir. Aleem Khan)
\nMary (Joanna Scanlan) loved her Pakistani husband so much that she converted to Islam for him, and spent her life wearing a head scarf while living a quiet life in rural England. Genevieve was so enamored with a married man that she had a decades-long affair with him while raising his illegitimate child. When Mary\u2019s husband dies and Genevieve begins to suspect that her lover isn\u2019t returning, they\u2019re drawn together by the shared experience of grieving the person you\u2019ve given your life to \u2014 and by the fact that they\u2019re both hung up over the same guy.<\/p>\n
Aleem Khan\u2019s feature directorial debut is a slow, meticulous examination of the role that devotion plays in our lives and the gaping void that can be left when you lose the basket with all your eggs in it. It\u2019s an imperfect little film about the imperfect little relationships that life often thrusts us into at our lowest points and a reminder of how certain kinds of people can keep affecting us long after they\u2019re buried. Anchored by Scanlan\u2019s nuanced lead performance, the film ends up a beautiful, jagged exploration of the messy nature of being human. \u2014CZ<\/p>\n
Air
\nPhoto : Amazon Studios
\n\u201cAir\u201d (dir. Ben Affleck)
\nToday, there are 37 different variations of Air Jordan models available. From the basketball court to the streets and even the catwalk, the Nike sneakers have become a staple of American culture. Director Ben Affleck\u2019s \u201cAir\u201d invites audiences into Nike headquarters to experience the story behind the popular shoe that was built solely for the legendary athlete for which it is named: <\/p>\n
Set in 1984, Affleck stars as Nike founder Phil Knight. An ambitious, rebellious, and passionate leader who likes to live by Douglas McArthur\u2019s famous quote that \u201cyou are remembered for the rules you break,\u201d Knight thrives on taking risks, a trait which endears him to the slumping company\u2019s go-for-broke basketball guru Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon). Affleck\u2019s fun and zippy film takes more of a better safe than sorry approach, but what \u201cAir\u201d lacks in boldness it makes up for in sure-handed satisfaction, as this free throw of a corporate fairytale hits every shot it takes from the line, and leaves you pumping your fist at the prospect of millionaires turning into billionaires \u2014 and also for the equity that Air Jordans earned for the athletes themselves, a profit-share model that Affleck extended to the entire crew of his film. \u2014MM<\/p>\n
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
\nPhoto : Lionsgate Films
\n\u201cAre You There God? It\u2019s Me, Margaret\u201d (dir. Kelly Fremon Craig)
\nJudy Blume never talked down to kids or adults, and such is the spirit that drives Kelly Fremon Craig\u2019s film adaptation of the author\u2019s most beloved book, \u201cAre You There God? It\u2019s Me, Margaret.\u201d It\u2019s an adaptation that Blume long resisted, at least before \u201cThe Edge of Seventeen\u201d filmmaker and her mentor and producer James L. Brooks pitched their idea to her, but Blume\u2019s book translates beautifully to the big screen with same zip, pep, and good humor of Blume\u2019s books.<\/p>\n
A wonderfully specific story about a pre-teen girl eagerly anticipating the arrival of her first period, \u201cAre You There God? It\u2019s Me, Margaret\u201d is also a story that doubles as a deeply universal tale of searching for life\u2019s meaning at any age. That\u2019s the magic of Blume\u2019s books: Ostensibly for kids and young adults, the author treats all of her characters and their concerns as being worthy of examination. The stakes might seem different for, say, Margaret\u2019s mom worrying about reconnecting with her parents after they cut her off long ago over her choice of husband versus her sixth-grade daughter agonizing over when she\u2019ll need her first bra, but here these people and their problems are all important, all vital, and all worthy of respect. \u201cAre You There God? It\u2019s Me, Margaret\u201d isn\u2019t just the best Blume adaptation currently available, it\u2019s also an instant classic of the coming-of-age genre, a warm, witty, incredibly inspiring film that is already one of the year\u2019s best. \u2014KE<\/p>\n
ASTEROID CITY, from left: Jason Schwartzman, Jake Ryan, 2023. \u00a9 Focus Features \/ Courtesy Everett Collection
\nPhoto : \u00a9Focus Features\/Courtesy Everett Collection
\n\u201cAsteroid City\u201d (dir. Wes Anderson)
\nLike any movie by Wes Anderson, \u201cAsteroid City\u201d is the epitome of a Wes Anderson movie. A film about a television program about a play within a play \u201cabout infinity and I don\u2019t know what else\u201d (as one character describes it), this delightfully profound desert charmer \u2014 by far the director\u2019s best effort since \u201cThe Grand Budapest Hotel,\u201d and in some respects the most poignant thing he\u2019s ever made \u2014 boasts all of his usual hallmarks and then some.<\/p>\n
A multi-tiered framing device, diorama-esque shot design, and Tilda Swinton affectlessly saying things like \u201cI never had children, but sometimes I wonder if I wish I should have\u201d are just some of the many signature flourishes that you might recognize from Anderson\u2019s previous work and\/or the endless parade of A.I.-generated TikToks that imitate his style.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s just say that all of the people in Asteroid City will be more directly confronted with the unknown than anyone in a Wes Anderson film has been before. Imagine if Mr. Fox\u2019s encounter with the wolf on the hill came at the end of the first act instead of the end of the third, or if Steve Zissou came face-to-face with the jaguar shark that ate his friend just a few minutes after the jaguar shark ate his friend. Imagine if any of Anderson\u2019s most resolute yet vulnerable characters \u2014 all of whom have devised intricate systems of living in order to impose some degree of control over a chaotic universe \u2014 were forced to reckon with their own helplessness right from the start. \u2014DE<\/p>\n
Joaquin Phoenix in Beau Is Afraid
\nPhoto : A24
\n\u201cBeau Is Afraid\u201d (dir. Ari Aster)
\nA sickly picaresque guilt trip that stretches a single Jewish man\u2019s swollen neuroses into a three-hour nightmare so queasy and personal that sitting through it feels like being a guest at your own bris (in a fun way!), Ari Aster\u2019s seriocomic \u201cBeau Is Afraid\u201d may not fit the horror mold as neatly as his \u201cHereditary\u201d or \u201cMidsommar,\u201d but this unmoored epic about a zeta male\u2019s journey to reunite with his overbearing mother eventually stiffens into what might be the most terrifying film he\u2019s made so far.<\/p>\n
Mileage will vary on that score \u2014 the scares are typically less oh shit Toni Collette is spidering across the ceiling and more oy gevalt, Joaquin Phoenix\u2019s enormous prosthetic testicles are causing me to squirm under the weight of my own emotional baggage \u2014 but anyone who would sooner die for their mom than answer the phone when she calls should probably mix a few Zoloft into their popcorn just to be safe. Those people should brace for a movie that triggers the same cognitive dissonance from the moment it starts, often relying on that friction to propel its plot forward in lieu of dramatic conflict. Most of all, they should brace for a movie they\u2019ll love in an all too familiar way: unconditionally, but with a nagging exasperation over why it feels so hard. \u2014DE<\/p>\n
BLACKBERRY, Jay Baruchel, 2023. \u00a9 IFC Films \/ Courtesy Everett Collection
\nPhoto : \u00a9IFC Films\/Courtesy Everett Collection
\n\u201cBlackBerry\u201d (dir. Matthew Johnson)
\nIs there anything worse than becoming obsolete? It\u2019s a fear many share \u2014 to be slowly forgotten and discarded, left on a proverbial roadside as the rest of the world continues to innovate at pace around us. It isn\u2019t just a business concern, but a human one: the innate craving for relevancy in a world where something or someone shinier than you is always around the corner.<\/p>\n
The BlackBerry, with its distinctive QWERTY click-click keypad, met a sobering fate when it faded into quiet obscurity in the past decade \u2014 going from having a 43 percent market share in 2010 to zero percent just six years later \u2014 and when it was announced that a film charting the smartphone\u2019s rise and fall had landed a Berlinale competition slot, one\u2019s initial thoughts were: oh, that old thing?<\/p>\n
But \u201cBlackBerry,\u201d which follows Canadian software company Research in Motion and the mistakes made by co-CEOs Mike Lazarides (Jay Baruchel) and Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton), uses lashes of retrospective irony to dive into the precarity of monolithic success. With a good deal of zippy snark \u00e0 la \u201cThe Social Network\u201d and a sense of deadpan comedy straight from the \u201cSuccession\u201d playbook, \u201cBlackBerry\u201d is the kind of mid-budget marvel that doesn\u2019t seem to come around often anymore. \u2014SG<\/p>\n
A screenshot from Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
\n\u201cBlind Willow, Sleeping Woman\u201d (dir. Pierre F\u00f6ldes)
\nAt this point, Haruki Murakami\u2019s trademarks are known to anyone with even a passing interest in contemporary literature. The author\u2019s stories \u2014 many of them considered unfilmable until a recent string of major adaptations \u2014 unfold like steam rising off a lake, flowing in seemingly directionless patterns before forming something indescribably beautiful. His protagonists are often ambitionless men who appear content to let life happen to them. But as they get sucked into increasingly surreal adventures, their passive dispositions and willingness to go along with things quickly make Murakami\u2019s bizarre plots seem relatively normal.<\/p>\n
Pierre F\u00f6ldes\u2019 delightful new animated anthology \u201cBlind Willow, Sleeping Woman\u201d shows that even the most Murakami-esque source material can be turned into cinema in the right hands. The film adapts several of the author\u2019s short stories (from his collection of the same name), while also taking bits of material directly from larger works like \u201cThe Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.\u201d The end result \u2014 set during the aftermath of the devastating 2011 T\u014dhoku earthquake, and following an ensemble of middle aged characters as they deal with the trauma in different ways \u2014 is a film that\u2019s less notable for the journeys of its characters than for its ability to bottle up Murakami\u2019s creative ethos. Anyone who is unfamiliar with his work could watch this movie and leave with a pretty solid understanding of what all the hype is about. \u2014CZ<\/p>\n
THE BLACKENING, from left: Antoinette Robertson, Grace Byers, Jermaine Fowler, Dewayne Perkins, 2022. ph: Glen Wilson \/ \u00a9 Lionsgate \/ courtesy Everett Collection
\nPhoto : \u00a9Lions Gate\/Courtesy Everett Collection
\n\u201cThe Blackening\u201d (dir. Tim Story)
\n\u201cThe Blackening\u201d is the first great horror parody of the post-\u201cGet Out\u201d era. The scares may be underserved, but the laughs and Blackness commentary make this a thrilling rollercoaster of a film. Based on 3-PEAT Comedy\u2019s 2018 Comedy Central digital short of the same name, it asks a simple question: If the Black character is always the first to go in a horror movie, what happens when the whole cast is Black?<\/p>\n
In the original short, a serial killer forces the group to sacrifice whoever is Blackest in order to save themselves. Directed by Tim Story (\u201cShaft\u201d), the film expands the concept to lampoon every other horror trope and clich\u00e9. We start with a remote house in the woods \u2014 not a cabin, it\u2019s a gorgeous home \u2014 with, of course, a creepy basement. There\u2019s a horribly racist board game, The Blackening, which has a big blackface figure as a mascot. The game is simple: Answer questions about blackness or die.<\/p>\n
The influences in \u201cThe Blackening\u201d range from from \u201cFriends\u201d and \u201cThe Fresh Prince of Bel-Air\u201d to \u201cGet Out,\u201d with references to both the sunken place and \u201cThe Shining\u201d sketch from \u201cKey and Peele.\u201d It interrogates the idea of Blackness, and the stupid attempts made to quantify it. \u2014RM<\/p>\n
The Blue Caftan
\n\u201cThe Blue Caftan\u201d (dir. Maryam Touzani)
\nWhen an aging couple operating a struggling Moroccan dress shop hire a dashing young apprentice, some of the first words out of his mouth are \u201cI work fast.\u201d That also describes the approach of \u201cThe Blue Caftan\u201d director Maryam Touzani, who sets up its straightforward premise so quickly that you\u2019d be forgiven for thinking you had the entire film figured out within five minutes. A closeted gay tailor, who fights with his wife about money, begins mentoring a young man who\u2019s more beautiful than any item in his shop. Gee, what could possibly happen here?<\/p>\n
But rather than use that premise to blow up the status quo, Touzani meticulously works backwards, illustrating that there was so much more to these relationships than we could have possibly guessed. Working with an intricacy that rivals that of the craftsman at the center of her film, the auteur crafts a surprisingly warm story that subverts expectations at almost every turn. While \u201cThe Blue Caftan\u201d is a film about a gay man exploring his sexuality, the love story at its core is really one between him and his wife. It\u2019s about the friendship and understanding that can form over the course of a lifetime spent together, no matter how unusual the arrangement. As much as anything else, Touzani\u2019s delightful sophomore feature is a defense of the institution of marriage, a reminder that each human soul is worth a lifetime of exploration to someone. \u2014CZ<\/p>\n
BLUE JEAN, from left: Stacy Abalogun, Kerrie Hayes, Rosy McEwen, Amy Booth-Steel, 2022. \u00a9 Magnolia Pictures \/ Courtesy Everett Collection
\nPhoto : \u00a9Magnolia Pictures\/Courtesy Everett Collection
\n\u201cBlue Jean\u201d (dir. Georgia Oakley)
\nAs difficult as it can be to look back at less accepting times in queer history, it\u2019s even more painful how relevant it remains. Though \u201cBlue Jean\u201d \u2014 an acutely felt lesbian drama set during Margaret Thatcher\u2019s regime \u2014 takes place over 30 years ago, 1980\u2019s England could easily stand in for any conservative state today. Set against a backdrop of rising anti-gay sentiment and pending legislation, \u201cBlue Jean\u201d tells a political story through one woman\u2019s strained attempts to straddle two worlds. Featuring a stirring breakout performance from the luminous Rosy McEwan, \u201cBlue Jean\u201d grounds the political with the personal \u2014 without losing sight of queer joy.<\/p>\n
The film opens with a classic image of identity assertion, as puckish Jean (McEwan) bleaches her cropped hair blonde in a mirror. True to its title, she drives a vintage blue compact to school, where her popularity with students stokes jocular envy from her fellow teachers. Jean\u2019s unease creeps in slowly in director Georgia Oakley\u2019s restrained slow-build drama, and McEwan translates Jean\u2019s internal simmer with an arsenal of furtive glances, labored chirps, and subtle posture corrections. As she toggles between work and play, home and office, out and closeted, the exhaustion of constant code-switching begins to take a toll. When Jean\u2019s student Lois appears at the bar one night (at her pool table, no less) her carefully sectioned worlds threaten to collide, sending her careening towards a breaking point of self-reckoning. \u2014JD<\/p>\n
The Eight Mountains
\nPhoto : Sideshow Films
\n\u201cThe Eight Mountains\u201d (dir. Felix van Groeningen & Charlotte Vandermeersch)
\n\u201cThe Eight Mountains\u201d lovingly adapts Paolo Cognetti\u2019s novel of the same name, a valentine to brotherhood and a shape-shifting tale of self-discovery, resilience, nature and love \u2014 platonic but more steely than any rock you could climb. Pietro (Luca Marinelli, at his strongest physically and most tender emotionally) is haunted by the octet of mountains that surround the peak of Meru, and by the hope that climbing them might resolve some of the angst that has attended him since childhood. Every year he returns to the alpine village he first visited as a boy, and reconnects with his best friend Bruno (Alessandro Borghi, the film\u2019s hurricane heart and spiritual guide). Their friendship deepens with every passing summer, until the rocky paths of adulthood reveal the true meaning these two men have always maintained for each other. <\/p>\n
Belgian filmmaker Felix Van Groeningen goes bigger and purer than his previous work with the help of his partner Charlotte Vandermeersch who \u2014 after starring in a number of her husband\u2019s films \u2014 now co-writes and co-directs alongside him. Together they instill such affection in every frame, infusing the crisp mountain air with grace and levity where \u201cThe Broken Circle Breakdown\u201d and later \u201cBeautiful Boy\u201d were so stifled by the harrowing stories they were telling that it could often be hard to enjoy the light that pierced through the clouds. \u2014EK<\/p>\n
FALCON LAKE, from left: Joseph Engel, Sara Montpetit, 2022. \u00a9 Yellow Veil Pictures \/ courtesy Everett Collection
\nPhoto : Courtesy Everett Collection
\n\u201cFalcon Lake\u201d (dir. Charlotte Le Bon)
\nThe eerily contemplative opening frames of \u201cFalcon Lake\u201d depict an idyllic lake on a summer night, a scene so calmly off-putting that you just know something has to be amiss. The shot remains unchanged for so long that when a body finally rises out of the water, it feels more like an inevitable moment of catharsis than a jump scare. That ominous serenity continues throughout \u201cFalcon Lake,\u201d yet the first truly startling moment in Charlotte Le Bon\u2019s directorial debut is the sight of a Nintendo Switch.<\/p>\n
Thanks to Le Bon\u2019s dreamlike pacing and Kristof Brandl\u2019s grainy cinematography, the film\u2019s opening scenes of a nuclear family heading out for a lake house vacation come across as a long-buried memory unfolding before our eyes. The establishing shots would seamlessly fit into an ABC-era \u201cTwin Peaks\u201d episode, and the fashion could be ripped straight from a mid-90s Vineyard Vines catalog. The effect is so convincing that a brief mention of a contemporary video game console becomes an almost Brechtian revelation that we\u2019re watching something that takes place in our own world. That brilliant directorial choice sucks us into the same predicament that her characters can\u2019t avoid: We\u2019re always tempted to drift toward nostalgia despite the real-world pain that keeps being shoved in our faces. \u2014CZ<\/p>\n
Godland
\n\u201cGodland\u201d (dir. Hlynur P\u00e1lmason)
\nThe life and work of writer-director Hlynur P\u00e1lmason seems suspended in a liminal space between his homeland of Iceland and the neighboring Scandinavian nation of Denmark, where he studied filmmaking and has now raised a family. And nowhere is that interstitial status more evidently reflected than in his third and finest feature yet, \u201cGodland,\u201d an arrestingly beautiful and philosophically imposing bilingual historical drama about the arrogance of mankind in the face of nature\u2019s unforgiving prowess, the inherent failures of colonial enterprises, and how these factors configure the cultural identities of individuals.<\/p>\n
As in P\u00e1lmason\u2019s previous studies of seemingly mild-mannered male characters on the brink of a violent outburst, \u201cWinter Brothers\u201d and \u201cA White, White Day,\u201d his latest maps the mental and physical decay of Lucas (Elliott Crosset Hove), a 19th century Danish priest of the Lutheran faith tasked with overseeing the construction of a church in a remote corner of Iceland, at the time still a territory part of the Kingdom of Denmark. What follows is a voyage of visual splendor and divine contemplation, terrifying and breathtaking in equal measure. \u2014CA<\/p>\n
John Wick Chapter 4
\n\u201cJohn Wick: Chapter 4\u201d (dir. Chad Stahelski)
\nThe \u201cJohn Wick\u201d franchise has evolved from a small-scale tale of revenge for the death of a wife and the killing of a do to a globe-trotting epic that spans continents, dozens of characters, and an intricate mythology. In its fourth chapter, director Chad Stahelski and star Keanu Reeves bring this franchise back to its roots while expanding the world and the story to bigger and bolder places. The result is not only the best movie in the franchise, but also one of the best American action movies since George Miller\u2019s \u201cMad Max: Fury Road.\u201d<\/p>\n
After going to war with essentially the entire world, and causing the deaths of hundreds of people, \u201cChapter 4\u201d finally starts pondering the question of just how far John Wick is willing to go for revenge, how many people close to him he\u2019s willing to endanger, and whether it was all worth it. At this point, this is no longer about the killing of his wife and dog, it\u2019s about burning down a system that always resented Wick for abandoning it.<\/p>\n
Each setpiece takes advantage of the different locations and crews to deliver wholly unique fight scenes, and it continues to be a delight to see Keanu Reeves\u2019 John Wick constantly be out of breath, knocked down, and then beaten up before he stands back up. The last arc, in particular, should be placed in the Louvre, with a fight in the middle of a transited Arc de Triomphe. \u2014RM<\/p>\n
Joyland
\n\u201cJoyland\u201d (dir. Saim Sadiq)
\nThe first Pakistani film to premiere at Cannes, Saim Sadiq\u2019s \u201cJoyland\u201d rides a fine line between sweet and foreboding right from its opening shot, in which an unseen adult man waltzes mischievously with his nieces while shrouded in a bedsheet. His life, and his liveliness, are carefully concealed; he exists as if between the worlds of the living and the dead. The man is Haider Rana (Ali Junejo), a soft-spoken husband to an outspoken wife, and this film uses him as its magnifying glass to zero in on social rigidities \u2014 gender and sexuality in particular \u2014 and the quiet, often painful ways in which they manifest.<\/p>\n
A daring film given its conservative cultural backdrop, \u201cJoyland\u201d hinges on Haider\u2019s sudden infatuation with a transgender woman named Biba (Alina Khan) who leads a popular underground theater act. Biba seems to awaken something within Haider, and the more time he spends around her, the more he becomes a version of himself he cannot be at home \u2014 a transformation that threatens his marriage and reputation in the process (\u201cJoyland\u201d pairs nicely with \u201cZindagi Tamasha,\u201d a banned Pakistani queer drama directed by one of this film\u2019s producers, Sarmad Khoosat, in which dance leads similarly to a tale of social and masculine unraveling).<\/p>\n
\u201cJoyland\u201d may tread dangerous ground, but it has no qualms about exploring how the tension between religious conservative norms and modern sexual freedom can often be awkward and absurd. Its story may be linear and simple, but it feels always on edge, always unpredictable, as if its most human moments could lead either to harrowing disaster or to unconstrained euphoria. \u2014SA<\/p>\n
Mars One
\nPhoto : Netflix
\n\u201cMars One\u201d (dir. Gabriel Martins)
\nSometimes, the simplest stories are the most monumental. A boy wants to be an astronaut, a girl falls in love, a father lives out his dreams through his son. This is the stuff of life \u2014 nothing more, nothing less. Watching a film like \u201cMars One,\u201d from Brazilian filmmaker Gabriel Martins, is a humbling experience. Why over-complicate this business of storytelling when one can make such moving magic out of everyday experiences?<\/p>\n
Set in the wake of the election of Brazil\u2019s former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, \u201cMars One\u201d follows a single working-class family as they long for more, love each other, self-reflect, and struggle to make ends meet. Where a lesser film might pick one character to focus on, \u201cMars One\u201d nimbly centers each of its four main characters, elegantly weaving their stories into a poignant familial whole. All relatable, flawed, and charming in their own ways, they antagonize each other without anyone losing their humanity. Martins strikes a delicate balance that\u2019s unusually satisfying from a narrative perspective. It\u2019s refreshing to witness characters grow outside the traditional beats of most American dramas. There is an abundance of heroes\u2019 journeys in waking up every day and pushing past surviving to thriving. \u2014JD<\/p>\n
Photo : \u00a9Magnolia Pictures\/Courtesy Everett Collection
\n\u201cMaster Gardener\u201d (dir. Paul Schrader)
\nIn knowing how dark Paul Schrader is capable of going, his loyal audience will be bracing themselves for cruelty when \u201cMaster Gardener\u201d begins. But, while the central character\u2019s arc will likely launch a dreaded \u201cdiscourse,\u201d there is a tenderness to \u201cMaster Gardener\u201d that may prove its biggest surprise.<\/p>\n
Joel Edgerton plays the title role as Narvel Roth, a reserved and meticulous gardener who runs the grounds of the grand Gracewood estate along with a small but committed team. The estate is owned by Norma Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver) who swans into every scene with a perfectly coiffed helmet of hair and waspy panache. Their concerns may seem of little consequence, talking about preparations for a gala and the orchids they plan to auction off, but the oedipal tension between them is immediately unnerving.<\/p>\n
Outside of the opening credits, which feature time-lapsed flowers vividly blooming against a black backdrop, the gardens themselves seem cold and drained of color. Even trips to supposedly spectacular gardens feature dusty-toned hedges and the browning stems of conspicuously pruned roses against an overcast sky. \u2014LL<\/p>\n
MEGAN
\nPhoto : Universal
\n\u201cM3GAN\u201d (dir. Gerard Johnstone)
\nThere are many fun games to play during the riotously campy and delightfully self-aware killer robot horror comedy \u201cM3GAN,\u201d but the best is the most simple: Which one of these weirdo human suckers will this murderous android bump off first? (A much less predictable game, but just as edifying, is trying to guess when M3GAN will break into song; yes, song.) And while the final death tally might be a smidge lower than you might expect from a Blumhouse joint, this film from director Gerard Johnstone can\u2019t help but delight its audience. After all, it was built to do just that.<\/p>\n
Please welcome to the stage: M3GAN! Or, \u201cModel 3 Generative Android,\u201d a hilariously and obviously evil robot meant to protect and play with kids, but clearly more interested in murder as sport. Why does Alison Williams\u2019 desperate tech guru \u2014 so clearly not a kid person \u2014 think her obviously demented invention is going to be every child\u2019s new best friend? The logic is thin, but Cooper and Wan do a fine job selling the wackiness of a world gone mad for anything that might be viewed as a tech innovation. Nimbly blending camp and social satire and actual terror, that \u201cM3GAN\u201d is poised to crack the murder-doll pantheon and stay there forever. Oscars! \u2014KE<\/p>\n
MONICA, Trace Lysette, 2022. \u00a9 IFC Films \/ Courtesy Everett Collection
\nPhoto : \u00a9IFC Films\/Courtesy Everett Collection
\n\u201cMonica\u201d (dir. Andrea Pallaoro)
\nMirrors are more than just refracted light \u2014 they are how we see ourselves and a reflection of how others see us. Reflections are everywhere in \u201cMonica,\u201d an understated family drama starring Trace Lysette as a woman who reluctantly returns home to see her estranged and ailing mother. Shot in an elegant 1:1 aspect ratio, we see Monica through French doors left ajar, in the glass frames of childhood photos, and the patina of the antique mirror in her mother\u2019s girlish bedroom. If there is a reflection to be found, Monica is there.<\/p>\n
Caustic and frail, Eugenia (Patricia Clarkson) doesn\u2019t recognize her daughter, though it\u2019s unclear whether that\u2019s the dementia or because Monica is trans. Spare but poignant, \u201cMonica\u201d is a pensive family drama that\u2019s loaded with the empty space of things left unsaid. \u2014JD<\/p>\n
Pacification
\nPhoto : Grasshopper Film
\n\u201cPacification\u201d (dir. Albert Serra)
\nIt would be a severe understatement to say that Albert Serra\u2019s Polynesia-set \u201cPacification\u201d avoids the touristic travel-porn clich\u00e9s of most films about foreigners in a tropical locale. A drifting and rigorously introspective study of colonialism at the edge of apocalypse, \u201cPacification\u201d stars Beno\u00eet Magimel as De Roller, dispatched from Paris to serve as the High Commissioner of a country that\u2019s still controlled as a vestige of the French empire. Over the course of the film\u2019s droning 163-minute runtime, De Roller\u2019s rudderless existence is capsized \u2014 gently at first, and then with soul-crushing force \u2014 by rumors that France is preparing to resume nuclear testing near his adopted island nation.<\/p>\n
Serra has invoked the \u201970s conspiracy thrillers of Alan J. Pakula when talking about \u201cPacifiction,\u201d but the specter of nuclear weapons testing isn\u2019t what the film is \u201cabout\u201d as much as it contributes to an atmosphere of uncertainty and fragility. It\u2019s a narrative throughline on which Serra hangs other issues and ideas in this very episodic movie. Think of a Frederick Wiseman documentary but as a narrative feature; Serra almost made it like a documentary, filming 180 hours of footage (via three cameras at once for each scene, so really 540 hours of footage), and with the script revised and improvised on the fly.<\/p>\n
\u201cPacifiction\u201d is far too oblique to be fully an heir to the Pakula conspiracy thriller tradition. After all, it\u2019s possible weapons testing will never resume here. But isn\u2019t it disturbing enough that it\u2019s considered at all? \u201cPacifiction\u201d is vital because it\u2019s a movie for a culture constantly patting itself on the back but in desperate risk of repeating all its previous mistakes. Where every little bit of progress is imperiled. We delude ourselves into thinking colonial exploitation was left behind in the 20th century (along with nuclear tests). Or maybe we choose to ignore what\u2019s right in front of us. \u2014CB<\/p>\n
Photo : Courtesy Everett Collection
\n\u201cPast Lives\u201d (dir. Celine Song)
\nOf all the writers retreats in all the summer towns in all of New York, he had to walk into hers. As the sun fades on a perfect Montauk night \u2014 setting the stage for a first kiss that, like so many of the most resonant moments in Celine Song\u2019s transcendent \u201cPast Lives,\u201d will ultimately be left to the imagination \u2014 Nora (Greta Lee) tells Arthur (John Magaro) about the Korean concept of In-Yun, which suggests that people are destined to meet one another if their souls have overlapped a certain number of times before. When Arthur asks Nora if she really believes in all that, the Seoul-born woman sitting across from him invitingly replies that it\u2019s just \u201csomething Korean people say to seduce someone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Needless to say, it works.<\/p>\n
But as this delicate yet crushingly beautiful film continues to ripple forward in time \u2014 the wet clay of Nora and Arthur\u2019s flirtation hardening into a marriage in the span of a single cut \u2014 the very real life they create together can\u2019t help but run parallel to the imagined one that Nora seemed fated to share with the childhood sweetheart she left back in her birth country. She and Hae Sung (\u201cLeto\u201d star Teo Yoo) haven\u2019t seen each other in the flesh since they were in grade school, but the ties between them have never entirely frayed apart.<\/p>\n
On the contrary, they seem to knot together in unexpected ways every 12 years, as Hae Sung orbits back around to his first crush with the cosmic regularity of a comet passing through the sky above. The closer he comes to making contact with Nora, the more heart-stoppingly complicated her relationship with destiny becomes. And with each passing scene in this film \u2014 all of them so hushed and sacrosanct that even their most uncertain moments feel as if they\u2019re being repeated like an ancient prayer \u2014 it grows easier to appreciate why Nora invoked In-Yun on that seismic Montauk night. \u2014DE<\/p>\n
Plan 75
\n\u201cPlan 75\u201d (dir. Chie Hayakawa)
\nA scripted drama inspired by a 2016 mass murder at a Japanese assisted living facility, Chie Hayakawa\u2019s \u201cPlan 75\u201d imagines an alternate present in which the Japanese government has created a social welfare program in which citizens above the age of 74 can volunteer to be euthanized in exchange for $1,000. But that cash pittance isn\u2019t the real incentive, as the program is designed to target people who have no one to spend it on: lonely pensioners with tedious jobs who feel like leaving the world before their time might be more gracious than overstaying their welcome. <\/p>\n
The minute Plan 75 was signed into law, it put an unbearable onus of expectation on every Japanese citizen of a certain age. Now it\u2019s as if, with each breath, they have to justify their continued existence to everyone they meet. And to themselves. That kind of pressure could force the hand of even the most beloved and well-supported person in their twilight years, let alone a semi-frail and seemingly family-less hotel maid like Michi (Chieko Baisho). From the moment this movie starts, it\u2019s only a matter of time before she numbly begins to fill out the paperwork and prepare herself for cremation.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlan 75\u201d is held together by the contemplative nature of its approach and the gentleness of its argument, both of which allow this movie to annihilate the economic case for euthanasia without alienating those of us who believe in the right to merciful end-of-life care. The scariest thing about Hayakawa\u2019s film isn\u2019t its familiar depiction of a society that privileges human output over human dignity, but rather its soft dystopian sketch of a society that\u2019s able to soft-shoe around dehumanization and\/or sell it as an act of grace. \u2014DE<\/p>\n
Polite Society
\nPhoto : Focus Features
\n\u201cPolite Society\u201d (dir. Nida Manzoor)
\nBritish-Pakistani siblings Lena (Ritu Arya) and Ria (breakout star Priya Kansara) have always strived to carve their own path in the world, but as Lena\u2019s dreams of being an artist start to wane, Ria\u2019s aspirations to become a world-class stunt performer take on a much more important cast. She\u2019s gotta turn her love of ass-kicking into something that can do nothing less than save her entire world.<\/p>\n
For her first feature film, \u201cWe Are Lady Parts\u201d creator Nida Manzoor weaves a hyper-creative coming-of-age tale about (pause to take a big breath): fighting the patriarchy, gut-punching feminine expectations, \u201cThe Matrix,\u201d Islam, martial arts, family dynamics, high school dynamics, fresh-pressed juice, romance, friendship, forced leg waxing, possibly evil hybrid alien babies, diplomacy, computer hacking, and one seriously cool convertible. But Manzoor\u2019s stuffed-to-bursting \u201cPolite Society\u201d is held together by one haunting question: What happens when your best friend opts to take her own life path?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s exactly what happens to Ria when Lena gets engaged to a rich but untrustworthy doctor. But while her increasingly dramatic suspicions alienate her from just about everyone, she\u2019ll fight to the death for her sisterly bond. Big laughs, zippy editing, and incredible fight sequences recommend the film, but it\u2019s the profound emotion at the heart of that relationship that makes it special. \u2014KE<\/p>\n
RMN
\n\u201cR.M.N.\u201d (dir. Cristian Mungiu)
\nChekhov\u2019s gun has seldom fallen into hands as steady and menacing hands as in Cristian Mungiu\u2019s poorly titled, expertly staged \u201cR.M.N.,\u201d which finds the elite Romanian auteur extrapolating the personal tensions that gripped his previous work (e.g., \u201cBeyond the Hills\u201d and the Palme d\u2019Or-winning \u201c4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days\u201d) across an entire Transylvanian village. The result is a socioeconomic crucible that carefully shifts its weight to the same foot that Mungiu always loves to rest on your throat; a slightly over-broad story of timeless xenophobia baked full of local flavor and set right on the cusp of a specific moment in the 21st century.<\/p>\n
When bull-headed Matthias (Marin Grigore) quits his job at a German slaughterhouse by assaulting his racist boss, he has no choice but to return to the financially dispossessed hometown he\u2019d left when the local mine shut down \u2014 the same place where a trio of migrant workers from Sri Lanka are about to be scapegoated for everything that goes wrong during a brutal winter. Pulling harder and harder at the tension between complex socioeconomic forces and the simple human emotions they inspire, \u201cR.M.N.\u201d masterfully spins an all too familiar migration narrative into an atavistic passion play about the antagonistic effects of globalization on the European Union. It will take your breath away. \u2014DE<\/p>\n
Rye Lane
\nPhoto : Hulu
\n\u201cRye Lane\u201d (dir. Raine Allen-Miller)
\nA winning rom-com in a dwindling sea of bad ones, Raine Allen-Miller\u2019s debut feature takes a simple premise and infuses it with warm performances and a distinct sense of place. Dom (\u201cIndustry\u201d breakout David Jonsson) is reeling from a break-up with his longtime girlfriend when Yas (Vivian Oparah) hears his whimpers in the loo at an art show. He\u2019s sobbing, she\u2019s intrigued, and the two soon find themselves walking around the South London neighborhood of Peckham as they navigate their respective heartbreaks. The script, from Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia, frames these two as a traditional odd couple: Whereas Dom shrinks from confrontation, Yas barrels headfirst into it. He\u2019s an accountant. She\u2019s a costume designer. Can I make it any more obvious?<\/p>\n
Watching the film, audiences will long for Allen-Miller\u2019s heroes to get together, but will also likely also crave the burritos they eat and itch to grab some pints and crisps with them. \u201cRye Lane\u201d offers both a vibrant window onto an under-exposed area of London, and a calling card for an emerging director who knows that the story of two people falling for each other should be as visually engaging as anything else in theaters. \u2014EZ<\/p>\n
Photo : \u00a9Sony Pictures\/Courtesy Everett Collection
\n\u201cSpider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse\u201d (dir. Joaquim Dos Santos & Kemp Powers & Justin K. Thompson)
\n\u201cSpider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse\u201d is awash in stories \u2014 its first five or so minutes, an ostensible prologue, is a dynamic tragedy in miniature, and that\u2019s just the first five minutes \u2014 all built around an idea one of its characters tosses out during a similarly information-packed voiceover: They\u2019re going to \u201cdo things differently.\u201d It\u2019s precisely what the film\u2019s predecessor, the rightly Oscar-winning \u201cSpider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse\u201d did four years ago, taking a well-worn concept (a Spider-Man origin story? again?) and turning it into an actual masterpiece built on a wealth of stories, new and old, told with legitimate energy and innovation. And it\u2019s what Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson attempt to replicate in their sequel, an aim that pays off mightily.<\/p>\n
\u201cInto the Spider-Verse\u201d was astute and funny, complicated and emotional, unique and daring, and its sequel only grows and expands on those aims. If the first film showed what superhero movies could be, \u201cAcross the Spider-Verse\u201d goes even further: It shows what they should be.<\/p>\n
In a genre built on the literally super and special, these films are unafraid to stand out and do something truly different, something that pushes the limits, to show the genuine range available to this subset of stories and feel damn good in the process (and look, dare we say, even better). \u2014KE<\/p>\n
THE STARLING GIRL, Eliza Scanlen, 2023. \u00a9 Bleecker Street Media \/ Courtesy Everett Collection
\nPhoto : Courtesy Everett Collection
\n\u201cThe Starling Girl\u201d (dir. Laurel Parmet)
\nLaurel Parmet\u2019s \u201cThe Starling Girl\u201d tells a tale as old as time \u2014 the broad strokes of its story about the affair between a na\u00efve teenage girl and a married older man who swears that he\u2019ll leave his wife adhere to convention from start to finish \u2014 but the power of this sensitive and devilishly detailed coming-of-age drama is rooted in the friction that it finds between biblical paternalism and modern personhood.<\/p>\n
While young women have always been taught to be ashamed of their desires (hot take!), Parmet\u2019s self-possessed debut is uncommonly well-attuned to how garbled that gospel might sound to a God-loving girl who\u2019s been raised amid the echoes of a secular culture.<\/p>\n
Played by the ever-arresting Eliza Scanlen, Jem Starling isn\u2019t the first Christian fundamentalist to feel an ungodly stir in her bones when she lays eyes on her youth pastor, but this sheltered Kentucky girl belongs to one of the first generations of her sheltered community who grew up with (limited) access to the internet. <\/p>\n
Parmet\u2019s decision to firmly anchor this story from Jem\u2019s POV allows \u201cThe Starling Girl\u201d to pulse with its young heroine\u2019s ecstasy and confusion, even if the broad predictability of how things play out gives undue weight to the less familiar specifics of Jem\u2019s religious subculture (i.e. a plotline about courting). It helps that Scanlen\u2019s performance refuses to let this movie feel trite. The Australian actress, whose work in \u201cBabyteeth\u201d and \u201cLittle Women\u201d have already established her as a genius of desperate self-becoming, plays Jem as a young woman who feels everything in her life with evangelical intensity. That includes her love for God, which is ultimately too pure for her to understand what part of herself she\u2019s meant to be ashamed of. \u2014DE<\/p>\n
Suzume
\nPhoto : GKIDS
\n\u201cSuzume\u201d (dir. Makoto Shinkai)
\nIn \u201cSuzume,\u201d Makoto Shinkai\u2019s seismic anime about saving the world from natural disaster, the legendary giant catfish Namazu \u2014 which Japanese mythology identifies as the source of all earthquakes \u2014 is replaced by a snake pit of burning, writhing, fire-red worms, who escape from a hellish netherworld bent on causing geographical devastation.<\/p>\n
If that all sounds too geologically serious, think of Japan as a teenage girl, and the earthquakes as ripples of youthful angst that always feel more like a tsunami than temporarily ennui. In this epic, moving story that is simultaneously about trying to saving the world and confronting the inevitability of grief, we follow young Suzume\u2019s adventure across the length, breadth, and depth of her country \u2014 from Miyazaki on Kyushu island up to Ehime, through Tokushima and Kobe, passing Tokyo, up to Miyagi, and finally through to T\u014dhoku, Suzume\u2019s birthplace, and the site of the 2011 earthquake that killed her mother (along with 20,000 other people). <\/p>\n
\u201cSuzume\u201d doesn\u2019t lean into tragedy as spectacle, however: it is a spiritual journey through the very fabric of a land, anatomizing how we navigate nostalgia for home and grief for lost loved ones when both have been long-destroyed by the senseless strike of an invisible force. With it all packaged into a story of cosmic reconciliation between Suzume and her inner child, the emotional heft of this thing breaks the Richter scale. \u2014SG<\/p>\n
A Thousand and One
\nPhoto : Focus Features
\n\u201cA Thousand and One\u201d (dir. A.V. Rockwell)
\nThere are two bruising lines that bookend first-time feature director A.V. Rockwell\u2019s \u201cA Thousand and One,\u201d a vivid portrait of Harlem life from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s more to life than fucked-up beginnings,\u201d Inez, a woman living life in New York on her own terms and brilliantly played by R&B super-artist\/actress Teyana Taylor, tells her young son Terry (Aaron Kingsley Adetola). She has kidnapped him out of the foster care system, which has kept them separated after her stint in Rikers Island beginning in 1993, and now hopes to give him a better life. But at the end of the movie, after a decades-spanning, bittersweet bond forms and fizzles between them and shattering revelations are had, she tells the older Terry (Josiah Cross), \u201cI fucked up. Life goes on. So what?\u201d<\/p>\n
A searing protest against the inhumanity of gentrification in a city whose policies and policing are already so punitive towards poor Black families, \u201cA Thousand and One\u201d serves as a sobering reminder of how fucked-up beginnings can hopefully bring about better endings. Cross is crucial to the success of the film\u2019s unforgettable final scenes, but it\u2019s Taylor who anchors Rockwell\u2019s direction and screenplay with her powerhouse performance. Taylor has worked with the likes of Tyler Perry in comedies, but her turn here \u2014 as fiercely committed to the character as Inez is to Terry \u2014 signals a major dramatic talent. \u2014RL<\/p>\n
Tori and Lokita
\nPhoto : Sony Pictures Classics
\n\u201cTori and Lokita\u201d (dir. Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
\nThe tragic story of two young Cameroonian refugees who come to Belgium and pose as siblings in order to share the smaller one\u2019s asylum status, \u201cTori and Lokita\u201d is the angriest movie the Dardenne brothers have ever made, a distinction that shouldn\u2019t be taken lightly in the context of filmmakers who\u2019ve spent the last three decades carving diamond-sharp moral dramas from the plights of Belgium\u2019s most dispossessed people.<\/p>\n
Like most of the duo\u2019s work, \u201cTori and Lokita\u201d leverages the irreducible nature of human dignity against the ever-worsening apathy of human civilization. Like much of their work \u2014 including the Palme d\u2019Or winner \u201cRosetta\u201d and the 2002 masterpiece, \u201cThe Son\u201d \u2014 the film\u2019s threadbare story hinges on effectively parentless children whose need for support leads them towards danger. And like the best of their work, which this sobering return to form represents from its curious first shot to its furious last beat, its premise pulls tighter until even the simplest actions are endowed with breathless intensity. <\/p>\n
The Dardenne brothers may not be known for mincing words, but \u201cTori and Lokita\u201d pioneers never-before-seen degrees of words un-minced. The final moments of their latest film hit you in the stomach with several lifetimes\u2019 worth of unresolved outrage, as the social ills they\u2019ve spent the last 30 years trying to dramatize toward visibility have only gotten worse \u2014 and hope that much harder to find. \u201cTori and Lokita\u201d ends much like it started, with someone facing the camera, aware they\u2019re being watched but with no good reason to believe they\u2019re being seen. \u2014DE<\/p>\n
View this article at IndieWire<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 30 Best Movies of 2023 (So Far): 2023 is nearly half over (of note: how?) and many of the year\u2019s most anticipated films are still waiting in the wings for their summer or fall debuts, but the year has already provided an absolute sm\u00f6rg\u00e5sbord of cinematic delights for those who know where to look
+ Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":325,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,11,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-elsa-ramo","category-indiewire","category-tiffany-boyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6911"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6914,"href":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6911\/revisions\/6914"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ramolawpc.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}