As we come to the end of another eventful year for the film industry, where theatrical releases have been plagued by SAG-AFTRA strikes and screenwriting labor disputes, in-all, it’s been a very prosperous 12 months. With the global phenomenon that was Barbenheimer raking in over $2 billion worldwide, as well as the likes ofSuper Mario Bros. Movie,Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, andMission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One, bringing in a combined total of $2.7 billion.
The film industry has thoroughly enjoyed the fruits of its labor, making 2023 a very lucrative year for moviemaking. The quality of film has, too, reflected this, and none more so than those named on the recently announced BFI Sight and Sound Top 50 Films of the Year official list. With this prestigious list an annual occurrence, let’s take a look at the 10 best movies to feature according to BFI Sight and Sound.
10May December
May December
Read Our Review of May December
Another Impressive Original for Netflix
The Netflix-backedMay December, directed byCarol’s Todd Haynes, landed on the streaming giant’s extensive catalog at the beginning of December and received critical acclaim. Featuring Natalie Portman (in one of her best performances) as Hollywood actress, Elizabeth Berry, a woman tasked with undertaking research for a new role, she is thrust into the lives of a married couple, whose relationship is built on a seriously taboo love story. Julianne Moore and Charles Melton star alongside Portman in what is a thoroughly well-acted and sensitive account of life after sexual abuse.
Stream on Netflix
Related:Taking a Look at the BFI Sight and Sound Poll
9Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
An Exercise in Exposing the Flaws of Western Society
The niche of Romanian cinema is one that is rarely tapped into, but when filmmakers from the region are given a platform to exhibit their talents, we are gifted little gems likeDo Not Expect Too Much from the End of the Worldby auteur, Radu Jude. This comedy drama is an exercise in exposing the flaws of Western society and the continuous exploitation of workers at its center. The film speaks to the issues that plague the modern world, manifesting itself in the chief protagonist, Angela, a production assistant, who is tasked with working on a workplace safety video.
8Anatomy of a Fall
Read our Review of Anatomy of a Fall
A Beautifully-Shot Thriller
This hybrid English-French courtroom drama is a gargantuan success in both storytelling and the art of building suspense. Set against the backdrop of the snow-laden French Alps,Anatomy of a Fallchronicles a mother and widow’s fight to clear her name following the suspicious death of her husband at their family home. After a number of damning revelations threaten to convict her of a crime she has ardently protested that she did not commit, key pieces of evidence are left in the hands of her adolescent son.
Preorder on Prime Video
Read Our Review of Passage
A Great Entry Into LGBTQ+ Cinema
Set in France, this LGBTQ+ romantic drama is a lesson in testing the boundaries of romantic connections between people. Ira Sachs' low-budget film,Passages, examines the marriage of a gay couple living in Paris, whose relationship is thrown into disarray when one of the men decides to embark on a heterosexual affair with a young woman.Passagesdepicts an explosive story of love, lust, sexual liberation, and conflicted feelings that are all, somehow, inextricably linked.
Rent on Apple TV
Read Our Review of Barbie
Greta Gerwig’sBarbiewas the highest-grossing film of 2023, and it became one of thequickest movies to ever hit the $1 billionmark. Margot Robbie features as Barbie, with Ryan Gosling as Ken, in this riveting social commentary on feminism. The film explores the disparities between the harsh, patriarchal reality of the modern world and the seemingly idealistic conditions of Barbie Land, as Barbie and Ken make the switch.
A Great Message of Feminism
In typical Greta Gerwig fashion, this is a highly satirized, hilariously self-aware movie that scrutinizes the greater picture at hand. Robbie and Gosling are spellbinding in their principal roles as the dim-witted, naive, and highly ignorant Barbie and Ken. This is a film as much about their character development and dawning realizations as it is about Gerwig employing the film to highlight the inequalities in the world and the craziness of them.
Stream on Max
5Oppenheimer
Oppenheimer
Read Our Review of Oppenheimer
Premiering on the aptly dubbed, Barbenheimer weekend, Christopher Nolan’s eagerly awaited historical biopic,Oppenheimer, offered a fascinating insight into the creation of the atom bomb by revered physicist, Robert J. Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy). This anti-war flick is epic in a plethora of proportions, from the scale of production and lack of reliance on CGI to the ensemble cast at its heart.
Possibly Christopher Nolan’s Best Movie
Oppenheimerdetails the rise of the “Father of the Atomic Bomb”, and his eventual Jekyll and Hyde-esque realization, as he comes to regret his involvement in the creation of this weapon of mass destruction. Cillian Murphy is in Academy Award-winning territory for his performance as the titular protagonist, and his performance is terrifically complemented by his co-stars. Nolan’s film, along with Gerwig’sBarbie,emphaticallymade box office history.
4Poor Things
Poor Things
Poor Things is a sci-fi romance film from The Lobster director Yorgos Lanthimos. The story focuses on the bizarre and fantastical world of Bella Baxter after a scientist named Dr. Godwin Baxter brings her back to life. The film is based on the 1992 novel of the same name by Alasdair Gray.
Read Our Review of Poor Things
Yorgos Lanthimos' Best Film
Yorgos Lanthimos has manufactured a real reputation as a filmmaking virtuoso, forever locating the hilarity in absurdity. Asone of the Greek director’s best movies, his most recent offering to the world of film,Poor Things, is arguably his most self-indulgent and preposterous to date. This period film traverses the tale of Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), a woman resurrected after a daring scientist performs a brain transplant, giving Bella a child’s brain. A chronicle of sexual liberation, eccentricity, liberation, and female empowerment,Poor Thingsis irrefutably one of the films of the year.
Poor ThingsIs Currently in Theaters
3Past Lives
Past Lives
Rekindling with a former flame is a thought most people will have had at some point during their existence. Celine Song’sPast Livesembraces this idea with vigor and tenderness, yet spares us the conventional sentimentality that comes with it. This part-English, part-Korean language feature follows Nora and Hae Sung, estranged childhood friends, who reconnect after several years apart.
A Perfect Display of Human Emotion
This is a movie that examines the concept of unexplored love, this shared post-mortem of “what could have been”, and mutual acceptance that life is determined by the choices we make. Although deeply sensitive,Past Livesdoesn’t fall victim to nostalgia or sentiment, but merely allows its characters to openly portray almost tangible human emotion through the prism of desire and regret.
Rent on Apple TV+
2The Zone of Interest
The Zone of Interest
Read Our Review of The Zone of Interest
Thanks to our inherent morbid curiosity, films and documentaries on the Holocaust have nearly always translated into stellar viewing figures. This mass extermination of a select group of people has gone down as one of the bloodiest, most barbaric acts of persecution ever. While we have become accustomed to viewing this industrial scale massacre through the eyes of Jews, Jonathan Glazer’s movie,The Zone of Interestoffers a very different angle. This bleak portrait of the pursuit of normal life next to a site where a brutal genocide is occurring is as harrowing as it is freakishly normalized.
An Important Holocaust Film
The film concerns the head of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoss (Christian Friedel) and his wife, Hedwig (Sandra Huller), as they plan to set up a dreamlike life for them and their young family next to Auschwitz. This eerie tale of the blissful normalcy that surrounded this arena of peril offers up such a poignant oxymoron in an emphatically thought-provoking picture. This idyllic family home, providing Rudolf and Hedwig this relaxing oasis next-door to the gunshots, screams, and chimneys burning the bodies of the dead, is perhaps the most damning indictment of the complicity of humankind ever shown on-screen.
The Zone of InterestIs Currently in Theaters
1Killers of the Flower Moon
Killers of the Flower Moon
Read Our Review of Killers of the Flower Moon
Martin Scorsese’s three-and-a-half-hour-long epic provided us with a chilling historical account of the Osage murders in early 19th century Oklahoma.Killers of the Flower Moonis a screen adaptation of author, David Grann’s nonfiction 2017 novel of the same name, offers an in-depth exploration into a string of murders committed against members of the Osage Nation by the power-hungry, who were driven by corruption, money, and greed.
The Best Movie of the Year?
Leonardo DiCaprio assumes the role of spineless, weak-willed Ernest Burkhart, who marries the oil-rich Mollie (Lily Gladstone) under the watchful eye of his calculated, cold-blooded, and manipulative uncle, William Hale, as the pair attempt to seize control of these oil fields. Not only is this Apple TV+ production so beautifully captured by cinematographer, Rodrigo Prieto, but Scorsese’s fastidious direction means the film truly exposes the barefaced evil at play through the lens of three superb performances from Lily Gladstone, Robert De Niro, and Leonardo DiCaprio, who are all in inspired form.
Check out the full list of 50 films here.
