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

The Cannes International Film Festival will premiere new films from influential British filmmakers Jonathan Glazer and Ken Loach, as well as Japanese Palme d’Or winner Hirokazu Kore-eda, as part of its 2023 festival line-up.

Announced by general delegate Thierry Frémaux and incoming president Iris Knobloch during a press conference from Paris, France on Thursday 13th April, the 2023 Cannes International Film Festival will also debut new films from Todd Haynes, Wes Anderson and Wim Wenders.

Of the films listed to be in competition at the festival, six have been directed by women. This is a new record. Press and visitors can expect new films from former Palme d’Or-nominated directors Alice Rohrwacher (Happy as Lazzaro) and Jessica Hausner (Little Joe) among others.

The opening film of the festival will be Jeanne du Barry from French actress and director Maïwenn, about the last official mistress of Louis XV (set to be played by Johnny Depp).

Jeanne du Barry will be presented out of competition alongside Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, Kim Jee-won’s Cobweb, Sam Levinson’s The Idol, and James Mangold’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

There will also be a special screening of the latest film from British filmmaker Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave), Occupied City, a documentary about life in Amsterdam, Netherlands during the Nazi occupation of World War II.

The debut of Jonathan Glazer’s adaptation of Martin Amis’ “The Zone of Interest” will mark the first feature release by the Sexy Beast director since 2013’s critically-acclaimed Under the Skin. The Zone of Interest tells of a Nazi officer falling in love with the wife of the commander of the Auschwitz concentration camp and will star Toni Erdmann’s Sandra Hüller.

Meanwhile, Kes director Ken Loach will debut his first film since before to the pandemic. The British filmmaker, last at Cannes with Sorry We Missed You, directed Palme d’Or winners The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006) and I, Daniel Blake (2016). His latest film, The Old Oak, will see him reunite with screenwriter Paul Laverty to tell of the tensions between UK immigrants and the small north east village they are housed in.

Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose films have been nominated for the Palme d’Or six times, is another former Palme d’Or winner (Shoplifters) returning to the south of France in 2023. Kore-eda’s latest film, Monster, is currently being kept top secret, though it will reunite the Japanese director with his Shoplifters star Sakura Ando.

The only other Palme d’Or winner to return in 2023 will be Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan, whose film Winter Sleep won the prestigious award in 2014. Ceylan also won Best Director at Cannes in 2008 for Winter Sleep.

The line-up for the 2023 Cannes International Film Festival is as follows:

In Competition

CLUB ZERO Jessica HAUSNER
THE ZONE OF INTEREST Jonathan GLAZER
FALLEN LEAVES Aki KAURISMAKI
LES FILLES D’OLFA Kaouther BEN HANIA
ASTEROID CITY Wes ANDERSON
ANATOMIE D’UNE CHUTE Justine TRIET
MONSTER KORE-EDA Hirokazu
IL SOL DELL’AVVENIRE Nanni MORETTI
L’ÉTÉ DERNIER Catherine BREILLAT
KURU OTLAR USTUNE Nuri Bilge CEYLAN
LA CHIMERA Alice ROHRWACHER
LA PASSION DE DODIN BOUFFANT TRAN ANH Hùng
RAPITO Marco BELLOCCHIO
MAY DECEMBER Todd HAYNES
JEUNESSE WANG Bing
THE OLD OAK Ken LOACH
BANEL E ADAMA Ramata-Toulaye SY
PERFECT DAYS Wim WENDERS
FIREBRAND Karim AÏNOUZ

Un Certain Regard

LOS DELINCUENTES Rodrigo MORENO
HOW TO HAVE SEX Molly MANNING WALKER
GOODBYE JULIA Mohamed KORDOFANI
KADIB ABYAD Asmae EL MOUDIR
SIMPLE COMME SYLVAIN Monia CHOKRI
CROWRÃ João SALAVIZA; Renée NADER MESSORA
LOS COLONOS Felipe GÁLVEZ
OMEN Baloji TSHIANI
THE BREAKING ICE Anthony CHEN
ROSALIE Stéphanie DI GIUSTO
THE NEW BOY Warwick THORNTON
IF ONLY I COULD HIBERNATE Zoljargal PUREVDASH
HOPELESS KIM Chang-hoon
TERRESTRIAL VERSES Ali ASGARI; Alireza KHATAMI
RIEN À PERDRE Delphine DELOGET
LES MEUTES Kamal LAZRAQ

Out of Competition

INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY James MANGOLD
COBWEB KIM Jee-woon
THE IDOL Sam LEVINSON
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON Martin SCORSESE

Midnight Screenings

KENNEDY Anurag KASHYAP
OMAR LA FRAISE Elias BELKEDDAR
ACIDE Just PHILIPPOT

Cannes Premiere

KUBI Takeshi KITANO
BONNARD, PIERRE ET MARTHE Martin PROVOST
CERRAR LOS OJOS Victor ERICE
LE TEMPS D’AIMER Katell QUILLÉVÉRÉ

Special Screenings

MAN IN BLACK WANG Bing
OCCUPIED CITY Steve MCQUEEN
ANSELM (DAS RAUSCHEN DER ZEIT) Wim WENDERS
RETRATOS FANTASMAS Kleber MENDONÇA FILHO

The 2023 Cannes International Film Festival will take place 16-27 May, 2023.

Social satire Triangle of Sadness has won the Cannes International Film Festival’s highest honour, the Palme d’Or. 

In a ceremony that took place from the Grand Lumière Theater on Saturday 28th May 2022, Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund joined the likes of Francis Ford Coppola, Michael Haneke and Ken Loach as a two-time Palme d’Or recipient, making him just the ninth director in history to achieve such a feat.

“All of us agree that the unique thing with cinema is that we’re watching together. So we have to save something to talk about but we should also have fun and be entertained,” the director said during his acceptance speech.

Triangle of Sadness stars Woody Harrelson as a Marxist yacht captain who accidentally maroons his super-rich passengers on an island. Östlund’s previous Palme d’Or winner, 2017’s The Square, told a similarly as satirical story, with Claes Bang playing a museum curator setting up a controversial new exhibit.

The director, who was also behind Force Majeure (2014), was awarded the Palme d’Or by a jury of nine filmmakers that included A Separation director Asghar Farhadi, Rebecca Hall and Noomi Rapace, and was headed by French actor Vincent Lindon, who starred in 2021 Palme d’Or winner Titane.

Östlund was not, however, named the Cannes Best Director, as it was South Korean The Handmaiden director Park Chan-wook who earned that award for his work on murder mystery Decision to Leave.

The jury selected joint winners for the festival’s 2nd prize, the Grand Prix, in Claire Denis’ Stars at Noon and Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont’s Close. Denis’ film is a romantic thriller set in 1980s Nicaragua and features actors Joe Alwyn, Margaret Qualley, John C. Reilly and Benny Safdie. Close is a drama about two thirteen-year-old boys learning about responsibility.

Parasite star Song Kang-ho won the award for Best Actor. His performance in Broker, as the head of a family seeking a home for an abandoned baby, earned the actor rave reviews under the watchful eye of previous Palme d’Or winner Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters).

Zar Amir Ebrahimi won the award for Best Actress for her performance as a journalist in Holy Spider, from Border director Ali Abbasi.

Tarik Saleh, the Swedish-Egyptian filmmaker behind The Nile Hilton Incident (2017), won the Cannes award for Best Screenplay for his work on Cairo thriller Boy from Heaven.

The Jury Prize was shared by The Eight Mountains (by Charlotte Vandermeersch and Felix van Groeningen) and EO (by Jerzy Skolimowski). The 75th anniversary prize was awarded to Tori et Lokita, directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne.

The award for Best First Film, the Caméra d’Or, went to War Pony from Riley Keough and Gina Gammell. Special mention was made to Plan 75 from director Chie Hayakawa.

The Last King of Scotland star Forest Whitaker was awarded an Honourary Palme d’Or.

Italian actress Argento, who starred in English-language releases XXX (2002) and Marie Antoinette (2006), stated: “In 1997, I was raped by Harvey Weinstein here at Cannes. I was 21 years old. The festival was his hunting ground.”

She continued, “I want to make a prediction: he will never be welcomed here again. He will live in disgrace, shunned by a film community that once embraced him and covered up for his crimes. And even tonight, sitting among you, there are still those who need to be held accountable for their conduct against women. For behaviour that does not belong in this industry; does not belong in any industry or workplace. You know who you are, but most importantly we know who you are, and we are not going to allow you to get away with it any longer.”

Australian actress Cate Blanchett was the president of the 2018 festival and headed a panel of judges who chose from a plethora of films including three by women – of whom one, Nadine Labaki, won the Jury Prize for Capernaum.

Here is the full list of festival winners:

Palme d’Or – Shoplifters
Director: Hirokazu Kore-Eda

Short Film Palme d’Or – All These Creatures
Director: Charles Williams
Special Mention: On the Border (dir: Wei Shujun)

Grand Prize – Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman)

Jury Prize – Nadine Labaki (Capernaum)

Special Palme d’Or – Jean-Luc Godard (Image Book)

Best Actor – Marcello Fonte (Dogman)

Best Actress – Samal Yeslyamova (My Little One)

Best Director – Pawel Pawlikowski (Cold War)

Camera d’Or – Girl
Dir: Lukas Dhont

Best Screenplay (Tie) – Alice Rohrwacher (Happy As Lazzaro) & Nader Saeivar (3 Faces)

For more information on what the awards mean, please take a look at our article: A Brief History of Cannes International Film Festival.

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