After barely surviving a mandatory shutdown in response to the Coronavirus pandemic, the executive class running some of the largest film studios in the world decided that they weren’t quite ridiculously rich enough yet and furthermore they hadn’t taken enough liberties – financial, creative and moral – with those employed by them.

And so the actors and writers collectively said no and downed tools for five months in a dispute over pay (including residual payments in the age of streaming), working conditions, and especially the increasing threat of artificial intelligence being used to not only write screenplays based on algorithms but to steal the likenesses of actors (living and dead) and store them in perpetuity without just compensation.

With Hollywood productions quiet for half the year and none of the “talent” allowed to promote those movies that were completed prior to the strikes, we ended up with a more limited and less enthusiastically received slate of major releases. Not even superhero movies or franchise sequels fronted by Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise were guaranteed hits anymore.

Despite all this, 2023 ended up being a pretty good year for cinema, with plenty of examples of not only memorable blockbusters but of distinct filmmakers leaving their mark and under-represented communities providing vibrancy and freshness to a myriad of new stories. Based upon UK release dates, these are my 10 Best Films of 2023.

Follow me @SSPThinksFilm on X (Twitter).

10. You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah

You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah Review

2023 has been a great year for films about how Gen-Z processes their major life experiences, and this delightful, hilarious little film starring most of the Sandler clan (including Adam as an adorably schlubby dad) is up there with the very best.

As she approaches her her 13th birthday and the Jewish coming-of-age ritual, Stacy Friedman (Sunny Sandler) is determined to make her Bat Mitzvah the most perfect and memorable of her peer group, including that of BFF Lydia (Samantha Lorraine). But things get a lot more complicated as hormones, teenage crushes and petty but damaging psychological manipulation via social media enter the mix.

Five years ago, Bo Burnham made his memorable feature debut with Eighth Grade and told one of the most connective, visceral stories about becoming a teenager in years. Sammi Cohen’s film has the same aim but demonstrates how seismically culture has changed in just half a decade, all through a Jewish cultural lens. There may have never been a more challenging time to be growing up in an always-online age, and Alison Peck’s insightful script in addition to the across-the-board wonderfully naturalistic performances help to make this an unexpectedly profound crowd-pleaser.

9. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 Review

#JusticeforJamesGunn incarnate, the final chapter of the unlikeliest a-hole superhero team’s story shatters expectations and satisfyingly delivers on almost every level.

After years of defending the countless worlds together, the Guardians team has reached a precarious place. Their leader Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) has slumped into a depressed, alcoholic stupor after losing the love of his life Gamora (Zoe Saldaña), and Rocket’s (Bradley Cooper) past as a bio-engineered test subject comes back to haunt him in a very real way. Can the team come together one last time and save the galaxy, and themselves?

Marvel is seen as a pretty risk-averse studio and certainly much of their recent output has been received with a shrug from many viewers, but Guardians Vol 3 shows what happens when one of the best directors they partnered with is left to finish the story he wanted to tell. The action has never been more polished and visually dazzling, the performances from people and animated raccoons alike so honest and full of pain, Gunn’s love of animals so prominent as the team go up against a truly detestable figure who causes pain for the hell of it.

Recommended for you: MCU Marvel Cinematic Universe Movies Ranked

One Fine Morning (2022)
Director: Mia Hansen-Løve
Screenwriter: Mia Hansen-Løve
Starring: Léa Seydoux, Melvil Poupaud, Pascal Greggory, Camille Leban Martins

When asked about her inspiration for 2022 Cannes International Film Festival entry One Fine Morning, writer-director Mia Hansen-Løve said: “it came from my own observation of sometimes opposite things happening at the same time in one’s own life. Like a strange morning and at the same time a rebirth.”

One Fine Morning presents a realistic depiction of life and relationships, without a rose-tinted Hollywood lens. When Parisian single mother Sandra (Léa Seydoux) bumps into Clément (Melvil Poupaud), she discovers a side to herself that had been closed off since the death of her husband, five years previously. Their passionate love affair sparks a sexual re-awakening in Sandra, offering an outlet of happiness in a time of grief. Clément is sweet with Sandra’s young daughter Linn (Camille Leban Martins) as he initially slots into Sandra’s world. Linn is funny and charming as a child who knows yet doesn’t fully understand her mother’s new relationship with her school friend’s dad.

As with all relationships, it is not always straightforward, and Clément’s marriage inevitably exposes cracks in the lovers’ private bubble. The elation in Sandra’s face at receiving a message from him, and the pain at their goodbyes, reflects the volatility of love and human emotion. Meanwhile, Sandra cares for her father (Pascal Greggory) who has Benson’s syndrome, a neurodegenerative disease affecting both his sight and mental capacity. No longer able to live by himself, Sandra painfully watches him being moved from one care facility to another.

In an interview for Sight & Sound magazine, Hansen-Løve said that “there are films I want to write and the films that I have to write – these films chose me more than I chose them”. The director’s experience of her own father’s illness clearly influenced the film and adds to its realistic portrayal. Greggory plays Sandra’s father with the subtle pain of a man who knows his mind is deteriorating. He told the audience: “it was the first time in my actor’s life that I really lost myself in the character”.

There is a very powerful line when Sandra is sorting through her father’s library, and she tells her daughter that she feels closer to him with his books than at the hospital. “There is his envelope body, here is his soul”. It is so poetically moving, and relatable to many people who have loved someone with a similar illness. The body is simply the outer shell, and when their mind is gone it is the things they once loved which truly reflect who they are, or who they were, and how they might want to be remembered. As a philosopher, language was his life and passion, and so it follows that books more accurately reflect Sandra’s father than his physical presence does. They are his interiority.

The tone of One Fine Morning mirrors Sandra’s fluctuating emotions, frequently interspersing tragedy with moments of humour. One such example is a very funny and charming moment when Sandra and her friends pretend to their children that Santa has arrived – the children giggle in delight in the next room as their parents go to great lengths to create the magic of Christmas.

This juxtaposition is also reflected in the film’s aesthetic, which contrasts sombre care homes and hospitals with the vibrant beauty of a sunny Parisian morning. Like the transience of the seasons, Hansen- Løve contrasts the unpredictable ups and downs of life, and how both can unexpectedly happen at the same time. Hansen-Løve has shot almost all of her films in 35mm, and when asked on her decision to do so with One Fine Morning, explained: “I knew that I was going to shoot in places that were not the prettiest, maybe I thought it would give them more soul”.

During the Cannes Q&A, Léa Seydoux said “it was the first time that [she] had the opportunity to play a normal woman, someone the audience would relate to immediately”. From glamorous Bond girl to the star of Cronenberg’s latest body horror, One Fine Morning certainly feels like a refreshing change and demonstrates her versatility as an actor. Viewers can empathise with Sandra’s character, feeling both her passion and her grief during the most tumultuous time in her life.

One Fine Morning depicts a bittersweet transitional period in a woman’s life, and finding love when you least expect it. While the film is undoubtedly sad, it has an air of life-affirming hopefulness, that with endings come new beginnings.

Score: 22/24

Written by Gala Woolley

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The French Dispatch (2021)
Director: Wes Anderson
Screenwriters: Wes Anderson
Starring: Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, Jeffrey Wright, Adrien Brody, Benicio del Toro, Léa Seydoux, Elisabeth Moss, Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton

Wes Anderson’s style is by now so distinctive that it has been much parodied and imitated, and yet it remains a glorious tinderbox of invention that continues to enthral many audiences. Fresh off the success of The Grand Budapest Hotel and Isle Of Dogs, the famed director returns with The French Dispatch, a loving ode to France and print journalism. Delayed from its original July 2020 release, The French Dispatch premiered at Cannes and London Film Festival before a wide release in October 2021. To date, this might be the most Anderson movie of them all; how much mileage anyone gets out of The French Dispatch may depend on how well versed they are in this particular filmmaker’s ouevre.

The French Dispatch essentially comprises of four short stories featuring articles from the final edition of the titular French Dispatch, a supplement in the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun from the fictional French town of Ennui-sur-Blasé. We begin with the news that the magazine’s editor Arthur Howitzer Jr (Bill Murray) has died and that he had wished for the magazine to wind down upon his death, thus the four stories are to be the magazine’s last.

The stories in question are as follows…

“The Cycling Reporter” by Herbsaint Sazerac (played by Owen Wilson), navigates Enui by day and night, giving readers a tour of the town the magazine operates from. While this is a relatively short segment, it still showcases Owen Wilson’s natural ability to fit seamlessly into Anderson’s projects, Wilson of course having co-written the first three films Anderson worked on.

“The Concrete Masterpiece” by J.K.L. Berensen (Tilda Swinton in fine comedic form) focuses on incarcerated artist Moses Rosenthaler (Benicio del Toro), and particularly his relationship with his muse Simone (Léa Seydoux). The bulk of the story operates as a play on the art world with Adrien Brody’s Julien Cadazio an art dealer of great success deeply interested in Moses’ works. This segment acts as a showcase for its cast with Brody of course a standout in The Grand Budapest Hotel and Del Toro showing a natural aptitude for the whimsical nature of Anderson’s work.

“Revisions to a Manifesto” by Lucinda Krementz (Frances McDormand) depicts a series of turbulent student protests. It’s clear these sequences strongly bear the influence of French New Wave pioneers Truffaut and Godard, with direct nods to Masculin Feminin especially. This sequence is led by Timothée Chalamet’s Zeffirelli, a leader within the student protest movement.

The final story is “The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner” by Roebuck Wright (Jeffrey Wright). This story is almost a story within a story, with Wright giving a TV interview recounting an absurd encounter in which the Comissaire’s son was kidnapped, and a story involving police cooking. This is arguably the deepest of the overarching stories, being more soulful and introspective than some of the earlier segments.

The cast are, as any fan of Anderson’s work would expect, on top form. And, while some certainly have less to do than others, the leads in each of the main segments are clearly having a blast, each illustrating their understandings of the nuances of Anderson’s dialogue. Christoph Waltz, Willem Dafoe and Elisabeth Moss could do with more to do, but with a cast as loaded as this there are always those who draw the short straw.

Robert Yeoman’s Cinematography is a constant delight. Flipping between black and white and colour throughout, Yeoman handles the juxtaposition with great skill and allows certain elements in each story to shine, whether that be Moses’ works of art or the piercing blue eyes of Saoirse Ronan. The production design, which is a treat across Anderson’s filmography, is once again a consummate joy, be it the offices of the French Dispatch or Café Le Sans Blague which makes appearances throughout.

While perhaps The French Dispatch is not Anderson’s most free-flowing film, it is an amalgamation of everything Anderson has put to film to date, drawing on his love of cartoons, newspapers and French culture (in particular cinema). This is a love letter to the world of journalism, and it contains some stellar lead performances and wildly creative directorial choices. If you are not already enamoured by this director’s style, The French Dispatch may not be for you, but if you are you will certainly find much to love.

21/24

No Time to Die (2021)
Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga
Screenwriters: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Cary Joji Fukunaga, Phoebe Waller-Bridge
Starring: Daniel Craig, Rami Malek, Léa Seydoux, Lashana Lynch, Ralph Fiennes, Christoph Waltz, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Wright, Billy Magnussen, Ana de Armas, David Dencik, Rory Kinnear

Daniel Craig’s last hurrah as James Bond has been a long time coming. Between Danny Boyle departing the project due to the old “creative differences” chestnut, Craig’s injury during filming and the many release reschedules as a result of the Coronavirus Pandemic, the release of the latest Bond film has taken as long as the last long break in the franchise, between Licence to Kill in 1989 and Goldeneye in 1995. So, after all this patient waiting, does No Time to Die justify one of the longest build-ups in blockbuster history? It probably depends on what sized screen you’re watching it on (IMAX is highly recommended).

James Bond (Daniel Craig) is forced out of his happy early retirement with Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux) by the re-emergence of SPECTRE and the plans of terrorist Safin (Rami Malek) to deploy a deadly biological weapon. But can Bond, with the help of agents from MI6 and the CIA, who both seem increasingly unfit for purpose against more nebulous world threats, save everything and everyone that is important to him one last time?

No Time to Die, at least in terms of sheer scale, spectacle and ambition, is a truly grand finale for Daniel Craig’s tenure as James Bond. It’s also the longest Bond film by some margin, but thankfully it’s engaging enough to not feel like it. Cary Fukunaga’s directorial vision is striking from the film’s very first slasher movie-inflected scene, and the standard is only raised by a propulsive extended action sequence in Italy that precedes the dazzling credits sequence accompanied by Billy Eilish’s earworm of a theme song. Most of the action scenes that follow, especially the late stage close-quarters shootout between Bond and an army of henchmen in a stairwell, all have a pleasing rhythm aided by Tom Cross and Elliot Graham’s punchy editing and don’t shy away from the necessary brutality of Bond’s actions. Action fans will doubtless be satisfied by what’s on display, but you do start to run into some problems if you look any deeper.

The Craig Bond movies have suffered from tonal inconsistencies ever since they started giving him one-liners in Skyfall. These are some of the darkest and most violent entries in nearly 60 years of spy movies, and yet Craig is now doing jarring Roger Moore puns and some of the spy shop talk scenes are liable to make you double-take like that pigeon in Moonraker, notably the one that transitions straight from a deathly serious discussion of a world-threatening programmable virus to a conversation about what might be the best way to hack into a bionic eye.

Aside from Craig, who fully completes Bond’s transformation from blunt instrument to a fully-rounded, fallible and emotional human being, it is the women in this Bond film that steal the show, and it’s about damn time.

Incredibly, Léa Seydoux as Madeleine is the first “Bond Girl” to carry over from one film to another in the franchise’s history. Recruiting Phoebe Waller-Bridge on co-scripting duties seems to have helped no end as Madeleine gets some real depth and an arc continued from Spectre, her resilience developed from being the daughter of an amoral man with a lot of enemies, but never letting the many horrors she witnesses change her fundamentally good and caring nature. Having Bond’s back in the action scenes is the hyper-competent and professional 00 agent Nomi (Lashana Lynch) – surely destined for a TV spinoff if EON Productions choose to go down that route with Amazon – and also Paloma (Ana de Armas), an enthusiastic but nervy new CIA recruit who proves a real asset to Bond in a fight. It’s only really Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) who gets a bit of a short shrift, still largely being confined to typing duties after she accidentally shot Bond two films ago.

Poet, writer and academic Jen Campbell has talked a lot in her YouTube video series about disfigurement and villainy in popular culture, and it is a debate that has certainly gained traction in recent years. Whatever Ian Fleming and others did in their books, and however long-standing a character trope for the Bond movies and other visual media it is, we need to stop equating physical differences with evil. It’s 2021. There’s not one but three different baddies in No Time to Die carrying on this tired and frankly quite gross convention.

You could almost forgive the filmmakers for making the characters visually distinctive to match a memorable performance, but Safin is such a first-base Bond villain (once his need for personal vengeance is satisfied he falls back on a vaguely defined master plan involving killing a lot of people for reasons), and Malek’s generically foreign accent is so thick you’re doing well if you haven’t missed half his dialogue. It’s nice for Bond fans to be treated to the sight of an honest-to-goodness villain lair on an island again, but quite what all his hazmat-suited lackeys are actually doing in the background is anybody’s guess.

Speaking of accents and stereotypes, David Dencik’s plot-driving Russian scientist Obruchev is the most cartoonish exaggerated role in a Bond film since Alan Cumming’s Soviet hacker Boris in Goldeneye. At times his line delivery stops just short of Borat and the character oscillates between exposition dumping and acting as a moustachioed MacGuffin. Continuing this somewhat archaic and backwards look at the world as it stands today, there is also a bizarre moment towards the end of the film that presupposes continuing British military might on the global stage which is frankly a fantasy, but then again that’s what Bond has always been.

For all its inconsistencies and a few noticeable stumbles, No Time to Die builds to a pretty great, powerful, almost operatic finale that brings world-ending stakes back down to the most human and relatable level. With the help of assured direction, solid supporting performances and eye-popping action set-pieces, Daniel Craig goes out on an overall high by the standards of the wider James Bond series, even if some of his earlier outings were more consistent in their execution.

16/24

Recommended for you: Every James Bond 007 Movie Ranked

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
Director: Wes Anderson
Screenwriter: Wes Anderson
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Saoirse Ronan, Harvey Keitel, Jeff Goldblum, Mathieu Amalric, Owen Wilson, Léa Seydoux, Jude Law, Tom Wilkinson, F. Murray Abraham

Following the release of the acclaimed Moonrise Kingdom in 2012, Wes Anderson would make perhaps one of the defining films of the 2010s and one of the most praised in his storied filmography. 2014’s The Grand Budapest Hotel has proven to be a gargantuan success in the seven years since its release, earning the joint most nominations at the 2015 Oscars with 9 (equal with Birdman), and featuring on the BBC’s 2016 list of the Best Films of the 21^st Century, a list that also featured Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums and Moonrise Kingdom.

The Grand Budapest Hotel was immediately acclaimed in reviews from most major sources, with Empire publishing, “For those willing to check in without prejudice, this may well be among Anderson’s better films, one of the few that repay repeated viewings”. The Grand Budapest Hotel seems to be a film that even some of Anderson’s detractors have found various levels of enjoyment in. While it is too soon to say if this is his most universally praised film, the sheer levels of fandom it has created indicate it is in contention to be one of his most beloved.

This colourful 2014 release follows a lowly lobby boy named Zero (Tony Revolori) as he starts his life working at the eponymous establishment in the fictional nation of Zubrowka. Following a series of flashbacks through various decades, the bulk of the story occupies the space between the two World Wars, acting somewhat as a musing on the rise of Fascism in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1930s. Zero works under the tutelage of the eccentric Monsieur M Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), the hotel’s concierge who has had a number of affairs with elderly wealthy women including the mysterious Madame D (Tilda Swinton). Following Madame D’s death, Gustave and Zero are embroiled in a series of escapades relating to Madame D’s will and the grievances of her family, finding themselves at odds with local law enforcement.

Perhaps the film’s biggest strength is its tone, Anderson fully committing to his trademarked quirky dialogue and humour which on paper is at odds with the time period in which the story is set. The balance between humour and darkness at times walks a fine line, but Ralph Fiennes’ Gustave is never short of a quip or two and this often offsets some of the darker moments. This is arguably one of Anderson’s most outright funny films, and whether or not it would be classed as a comedy certainly leans heavily on the comedic chops of its leads, with Fiennes excelling in a role worlds away from most of his work to this point and earning some of the best reviews in his own storied career.

Alexandre Desplat’s score is one of his finest – featuring notable Russian folk undertones – and rightly won the Oscar for Original Score. The score is complementary of the film’s setting and period, and works wonderfully in contrast to Anderson’s more pop and rock heavy soundtracks present in the filmmaker’s previous films.

While all of Anderson’s films are ensemble affairs to differing extents, The Grand Budapest Hotel features one of his finest, with each of the cast getting their moments to shine, be it Willem Dafoe as a mercenary, Jeff Goldblum as a show-stealing lawyer, Adrien Brody, Edward Norton or Saoirse Ronan. While the film does well to allow its large cast of supporting characters to have moments in the spotlight, the film undoubtedly belongs to the duo of Ralph Fiennes and Tony Revolori.

It’s not hard to see why The Grand Budapest Hotel has gleaned such love over the past seven years. It is a perfect encapsulation of the best of Anderson’s works, with its fast-paced dialogue and candy coloured visual palette. Anchored by an eccentric Ralph Fiennes offering some of the finest work of his career, the tone is balanced to perfection, its absurdity meeting deeper moments in a seamless and wholly enjoyable fashion. There are few films that can boast such a complete authorial vision as The Grand Budapest Hotel, a film that sets the high marker for Wes Anderson’s acclaimed career.

23/24