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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment

The 50 best movies of 2023 in the US – 50 to 1

Intertwining again … Past Lives.
Intertwining again … Killers of the Flower Moon, Past Lives. Illustration: Guardian Design/A24

50

Spider-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
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Lost … Benedetta Porcaroli as Amanda Photograph: PR undefined

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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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

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