The 50 best movies of 2023 in the US
50Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
The animated sequel offers a dazzling and inventive adventure that provides an antidote to superhero fatigue. Read the full review
49
Anselm
Wim Wenders delivers a striking look at the work of German artist Anselm Kiefer in a stunning and superbly controlled documentary. Read the full review
48
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
Judy Blume’s timeless novel gets a smart and sensitive adaptation with a standout performance from Rachel McAdams as a mother trying to deal with her daughter’s journey into adulthood. Read the full review
Rachel McAdams and Abby Ryder in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Photograph: Dana Hawley / Courtesy of Lionsgate UK
47
American Fiction
Jeffrey Wright gives a career-best performance as a writer struggling with the backwards demands of the publishing world in writer-director Cord Jefferson’s incisive debut. Read the full review
46
How to Blow Up a Pipeline
A group of activists plot to destroy an oil pipeline in Daniel Goldhaber’s explosively entertaining eco-thriller. Read the full review
Explosively entertaining … Ariela Barer in How to Blow Up a Pipeline. Photograph: Neon
45
The Beasts
Middle-class incomers to a remote village in Spain’s “wild west” expose fear, resentment and nationalism in Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s disturbing true-crime drama. Read the full review
44
War Pony
The tenderness, wisdom and instinct to survive of two teenage Native Americans is beautifully observed in actor turned director Riley Keough’s debut feature. Read the full review
Awe-inspiring … Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV. Photograph: Sundance Institute
43
Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV
Documentary about the awe-inspiring vocation of the Korean avant garde disruptor, who foresaw the internet and meme culture’s importance in the 1970s. Read the full review
42
Orlando, My Political Biography
Paul B Preciado’s unusual and inventive documentary uses the work of Virginia Woolf to present the stories of 26 trans and non-binary people.
Complicated national loyalties … The Future Tense. Photograph: PR undefined
41
The Future Tense
Semi-dramatised essay film by Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy explores complicated national loyalties alongside those of an extraordinary rebel. Read the full review
40
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
Touches all the senses … All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt. Photograph: Jaclyn Martinez
Raven Jackson’s lyrical and leisurely debut drama follows the loves and losses of a woman living in Mississippi. Read the full review
39
The Deepest Breath
The dangerous act of freediving is explored in a visually immersive new film taking us down to the depths and examining what causes those involved to take such major risks. Read the full review
38
Rodeo
Bike dreams … Julie Ledru in Rodeo. Photograph: Album/Alamy
Real-life rider Julie Ledru plays a young tearaway on the outskirts of Bordeaux, drawn to take desperate risks with a criminal biker gang. Read the full review
37
Bad Press
A thrilling, eye-opening documentary follows the fight for freedom of the press within the Muscogee Nation, delivering insight and suspense.
36
The Taste of Things
Trần Anh Hùng’s delectable period drama follows the romance between a chef and her boss with indelible performances from Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel. Read the full review
35
Passages
A gay man cheats on his husband with a straight woman in Ira Sachs’s fiercely sexy and heartbreaking tale of young Parisians. Read the full review
34
Strange Way of Life
Dusty lusty tale … Strange Way of Life. Photograph: TCD/Prod DB/Alamy
Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke sizzle in Almodóvar’s queer cowboy yarn, a dusty lusty tale of long-lost lovers bound by a bloody fate. Read the full review
33
Napoleon
Ridley Scott dispenses with the symbolic weight attached to previous biopics in favour of a spectacle with a great star at its centre. Read the full review
32
You Hurt My Feelings
Bittersweet … You Hurt My Feelings. Photograph: A24 Films/© 2023 Just My Opinion Pictures Inc
Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tobias Menzies lead grownup marital-pain comedy whose bittersweet punchlines stress the bitter component. Read the full review
31
Wonka
Charming prequel to Roald Dahl’s celebrated chocolate-focused kids story, with Timothée Chalamet immensely likable as the youthful version of the top-hatted sweetmaker. Read the full review
30
Memory
Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard give excellent performances in Michel Franco’s absorbing drama about two lonely people finding each other. Read the full review
29
Oppenheimer
Agonising success … Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer. Photograph: Melinda Sue Gordon/AP
Flawed but extraordinary, Christopher Nolan’s account of the physicist who led the Manhattan Project captures the most agonising of success stories. Read the full review
28
The Teachers’ Lounge
A nervy German thriller that follows an idealistic young teacher as she tries to get to the bottom of a theft at school. Read the full review
27
Pretty Red Dress
Natey Jones as Travis in Pretty Red Dress. Photograph: BFI
Terrific performances from Natey Jones, Alexandra Burke and Temilola Olatunbosun match this big-hearted music drama about masculinity. Read the full review
26
Nostalgia
Tremendously shot and terrifically acted, this Neapolitan gangster drama from Mario Martone shatters the rose-tinted spectacles. Read the full review
25
May December
Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman are potent in Todd Haynes’ drama, Portman as an actor spending time with Moore’s married sex offender as research for playing her in a film. Read the full review
24
Love Life
Fumino Kimura as Taeko and Kento Nagayama as Jirô in Love Life. Photograph: Collection Christophel/Alamy
Japanese director Kôji Fukada has crafted a richly painful and quietly comic human drama filled with tangled and tragic chaotic life twists. Read the full review
23
Fremont
There are hints of early Jim Jarmusch in Babak Jalali’s dreamy fourth feature about a fortune cookie writer looking for love, with fine supporting turns from The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White and Gregg Turkington. Read the full review
22
Joyland
Alina Khan as Biba and Ali Junejo as Haider in Joyland. Photograph: TCD/Prod.DB/Alamy
Saim Sadiq’s film explores the unsettled social and sexual identities of a widower and his children with delicacy and tenderness. Read the full review
21
Pacifiction
Benoît Magimel’s French high commissioner confronts the end of his personal Eden in Tahiti, in Albert Serra’s distinctive film. Read the full review
20
Incredible But True
House hunter … Léa Drucker in Incredible But True. Photograph: Album/Alamy
Giddy comedy about middle-aged house hunters who find more in a bargain buy than anyone but director Quentin Dupieux could have dreamed of. Read the full review
19
Monster
Hirokazu Kore-eda’s knotty, perspective-shifting tale of a mother, a teacher, a child and an incident that brings them together delivers a heartbreaking gut punch. Read the full review
18
Full Time
School-run thriller turns into high-stakes motherhood drama, with Laure Calamy in an acutely relatable story that grips. Read the full review
17
After Love
Agonising … Joanna Scanlan in After Love. Photograph: Bbc Films/Allstar
Joanna Scanlan gives a tremendous performance as a Muslim convert, who agonisingly uncovers the secret life led by her late husband Ahmed, in a lacerating portrait of a life built on marital lies. Read the full review.
16
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
The seductively quirky sad-serious tone of Haruki Murakami is evident in this animated adaptation of his surreal tales, as a constellation of characters try to save Tokyo – including a lost cat and a giant talkative frog. Read the full review
15
Amanda
Lost … Benedetta Porcaroli as Amanda
A wealthy young woman, friendless and lost after studying abroad, sets about recovering an old friendship she thinks she once had. Read the full review
14
Alcarràs
Carla Simón’s award-winning story of a peach farmer struggling to make ends meet asks many important questions about our relationship with the land and the human cost of progress. Read the full review
13
Maestro
Heartfelt … Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein and Carey Mulligan as Felicia Montealegre in Maestro. Photograph: Jason McDonald/Netflix
Bradley Cooper’s head-flingingly heartfelt Leonard Bernstein biopic offers an eerily exact impersonation of the composer, and gets to the heart of the sacrifices great artists feel they need to make. Read the full review
12
The Eight Mountains
A meditation on our capacity for love shapes this sweeping story of two friends, torn apart by family and life’s journeys but bound by something deeper. Read the full review
11
Showing Up
Michelle Williams plays an artist struggling with personal issues as she prepares her show in Kelly Reichardt’s absorbing low-key drama. Read the full review
10
Anatomy of a Fall
Compelling … Sandra Hüller and Swann Arlaud in Anatomy of a Fall. Photograph: Landmark Media/Alamy
Sandra Hüller compels as an author accused of murder in Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winning psychothriller, about a suspicious death whose only reliable witness happens to be blind. Read the full review
9
Godland
Hlynur Pálmason’s fictional account of a Danish pastor sent to Iceland in the 19th century is superb in its compositions and nuanced depictions of hostility. Read the full review
8
The Boy and the Heron
Bittersweet … Mahito (left) and Heron in The Boy and the Heron. Photograph: Studio Ghibli
Swan song release from Japanese master animator Hayao Miyazaki, a bittersweet tale of a kid searching for the spirit of his dead mother, killed in a Tokyo bomb attack during the second world war. Read the full review
7
Poor Things
Emma Stone gives an astonishing performance in Yorgos Lanthimos’s offbeat adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s fantastical novel about science, sex and gender. Read the full review
6
20 Days in Mariupol
Film-maker Mstyslav Chernov risked everything to document Russia’s attack from within the besieged Ukrainian city, recording unthinkable horrors in this vital account. Read the full review
5
All of Us Strangers
Ghosts … Andrew Scott in All of Us Strangers. Photograph: FlixPix/Alamy
Andrew Haigh’s mesmeric, emotionally devastating drama follows Andrew Scott’s lonely gay screenwriter as he encounters the ghosts of his long-dead parents. Read the full review
4
The Holdovers
Alexander Payne’s dazzling return to form focuses on a trio of misfits (played by Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and newcomer Dominic Sessa) as they’re forced to spend Christmas together. Read the full review
3
The Zone of Interest
Jonathan Glazer’s haunting take on Martin Amis’s novel sits us with a Nazi family living outside Auschwitz, an uncomfortably effective exercise in confronting the banality of evil. Read the full review
2
Killers of the Flower Moon
Hard truths … Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon. Photograph: Melinda Sue Gordon/Courtesy of Apple
Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Lily Gladstone star in Martin Scorsese’s macabre western about serial murders among the Osage tribe in 1920s Oklahoma, which reflects the erasure of Native Americans from the US. Read the full review
1
Past Lives
Delicate … Teo Yoo and Greta Lee in Past Lives. Photograph: Alamy
Celine Song’s feature debut, about two people whose lives intertwine again after years apart, is delicate and sophisticated, but also simple and direct. Read the full review