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

In 2022, our team and a number of established contributors have reviewed more than 110 films in total, covering everything from the most lucrative blockbusters to the year’s best horrors and biggest awards bait, rating more than a dozen of them as our equivalent of five stars. At The Film Magazine we score each and every movie out of 24, as film was originally projected at 24 frames per second; the idea is for our scores to represent how many frames, on average, are worth viewing. Our equivalent of five stars is therefore 21 out of 24 and above, and we list each of these in our Hall of Fame. The very best of those Hall of Fame films, rated 22 out of 24 and above, have made this list of the 10 Highest-Scoring Films 2022.

If you’re interested in revisiting which films were most highly thought of in previous years, please take a look at our lists from 2021 and 2020. In this year’s edition, we’ll be presenting each film in order of score and then organising them in alphabetical order.

Follow @thefilmagazine on Twitter.

1. Bodies Bodies Bodies – 22/24

“If you’re looking to poke fun at the kids or experience some top-notch ironic Twitter discourse, then this is a film that won’t disappoint. Although its horror elements do err on the side of caution, the comedy will leave you satisfied if the jump scares and blood-covered cast do not.” – Morgan Barr

Bodies Bodies Bodies Review

2. Everything Everywhere All at Once – 22/24

“Everything Everywhere All at Once cements Daniels as one of the filmmaking partnerships to watch, the directorial duo equally imaginative, technically accomplished and emotionally dialled in to what makes us humans tick.” – Sam Sewell-Peterson

Everything Everywhere All at Once Review

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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