This has been a memorable year in the film industry for many of the wrong reasons; the five-month strike by Hollywood writers, and subsequently actors, too, threw production schedules into chaos. As for the actual movies, I suppose 2023 will be best remembered for a new word: Barbenheimer. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie came out on the same day, went head to head at the box office, and reminded millions how much fun it can still be to go to the pictures. As for my own five favourite releases of the year, here they are, listed in time-honoured fashion in reverse order…
5. Past Lives
Celine Song’s debut feature is a really sweet, charming, thought-provoking (and chaste) romance about a Korean-born writer, Nora (Greta Lee), who lives with her husband in New York City. She is happily assimilated there, yet is drawn into a relationship with Hae-Sung (Teo Yoo), a man she knew in her Seoul childhood.
Stream on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.
4. Tar
I thought Cate Blanchett was robbed at this year’s Academy Awards. In Todd Field’s intense drama she is spellbinding as Lydia Tar, a world-famous conductor, beautiful and brilliant, who lives comfortably with her wife and their child in Berlin… until she is accused of being a bully and a sexual predator.
Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV and others.
3. Oppenheimer
The central scene of Christopher Nolan’s epic film, when the atom bomb is first tested in the New Mexico desert, is, for my money, one of the most thunderously powerful spectacles in the long history of cinema.
With Cillian Murphy giving a compelling performance as the title character, nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, this is grown-up storytelling of the highest quality.
Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV and others.
2. Anatomy Of A Fall
The Palme d’Or winner at this year’s Cannes Film Festival is a truly gripping courtroom drama about a novelist (brilliantly played by German actress Sandra Huller) whose husband died in a fall from a balcony.
Their young sight-impaired son is a key witness to what might have been an accident, suicide or murder, while Justine Triet’s film is as much as anything a portrait of a troubled marriage. Riveting from start to finish.
In select cinemas
1. Rye Lane
Festive hats off to Raine Allen-Miller, whose directorial debut, a cheeky, edgy romantic comedy set in South London, is my film of the year. It was made for a fraction of the budget of most other 2023 romcoms yet has oodles more charm and wit, and was all the more rewarding for being such an unexpected pleasure.
I confess that I hadn’t heard of Allen-Miller before, or of screenwriters Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia, or indeed of the film’s effervescent leads David Jonsson and Vivian Oparah, but I’m glad I have now.
Anyway, a simple story (boy meets girl, both on the rebound from romantic break-ups) fizzes along, drawing much of its irresistible humour and energy from the strong Afro-Caribbean heritage in Peckham and Brixton. I loved it.
Happy New Year!
Disney+
James Parker is a UK-based entertainment aficionado who delves into the glitz and glamour of the entertainment industry. From Hollywood to the West End, he offers readers an insider’s perspective on the world of movies, music, and pop culture.
