20 Best Movies You Shouldn’t Miss In 2023

(CTN NEWS) – Our critics select the top movies coming out in 2023, including Cocaine Bear, Barbie, The Little Mermaid, Oppenheimer, the newest installments of Dune, Indiana Jones, and Mission: Impossible, all starring Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie.

1. Cocaine Bear

Cocaine Bear is “inspired by” the true story of a black bear who ate a drug dealer’s stockpile of cocaine and has a title so succinct and to the point that it makes Snakes on a Plane sound confusing.

The sad truth is that the bear passed away nearly right away. After that, it was stuffed, displayed, and given the name “Pablo Escobar” in the Kentucky Fun Mall.

However, our ursine hero rampages across a forest in this rowdy horror comedy, directed by Elizabeth Banks (Pitch Perfect 2, Charlie’s Angels), attacking campers and crooks played by Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Alden Ehrenreich, and the late Ray Liotta.

Cocaine Bear should be a blast, even though it probably won’t win many Oscars if the viral trailer is any indication. Nicholas Barber

Released on February 24th

2. 65

With Jurassic World Dominion, the Jurassic Park / World franchise may have become extinct, but there are still plenty of dinosaurs to be seen on the big screen in 65.

Adam Driver plays Commander Mills, a starship pilot who crashes lands on a savage planet while “on a long-range exploratory mission.” Only one of his passengers, a young woman played by Ariana Greenblatt, seemed to have lived.

However, they are not alone. The catch is that they are 65 million years old and on Earth (hence the title).

Does that indicate that Mills has gone back in time? Or does he resemble a human but be an alien? As the co-writers of A Quiet Place, the movie’s writer-directors, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, are well-versed in lean, mean survival thrillers involving confrontations between people and ravenous beasts. (NB)

Released on March 9

3. John Wick, Chapter 4

Assassin-turned-hero John Wick, played by Keanu Reeves, is back and scowling, kicking, and killing his way across countries. As if Bond were a hit guy rather than a spy, he travels around Paris, Berlin, Osaka, and other James Bond-like destinations.

This time, Wick is being pursued by the criminal community, including the High Table figures that run all the criminal organizations. Due to his disloyalty.

Due to his excessive dog love? The stories rarely matter in this enormously popular, brutally fast-paced action franchise. Laurence Fishburne and Ian McShane, two Wick mainstays, are also back. Canary James

Released on March 24th

4. Renfield

Renfield is the Count’s loyal servant in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. He is a crazy man who eats, flies, and schemes to escape an asylum. But in this horror comedy from The Lego Batman Movie director Chris McKay, he gets a makeover.

The title part is played by Nicholas Hoult (The Great, The Favourite). As McKay puts it, Dracula is “the boss from Hell” in more ways than one, so Renfield prefers to spend time with a traffic cop played by Awkwafina even if he is still carrying out his master’s orders in modern-day New Orleans.

Warm Bodies, in which Hoult played a lovelorn zombie, demonstrated his ability to handle romantic comedies with monsters, but Nicolas Cage as a red-suited Count Dracula is the more intriguing choice.

In the category “The Role He Was Born To Play” (NB)

Releasedon April 14th

5. The Little Mermaid

Disney’s live-action adaptation of the 1989 animated hit is as realistic as a tale about a princess who is half human and half fish can be. Halle Bailey plays Ariel, who yearns to gain legs so she might meet her prince on land.

Halle Bailey performs alongside her sister as the duo Chloe x Halle. Melissa McCarthy plays Ursula the sea witch, Javier Bardem plays King Triton, Ariel’s father, and Daveed Diggs plays Sebastian the crab in the ensemble cast (you can almost hear him singing Under the Sea already).

Alan Menken and Lin-Manuel Miranda in addition to the original ones by Menken and the late Howard Ashman write four new songs. Rob Marshall, who directed Into the Woods and Mary Poppins Returns, is familiar with fairy tales. (CJ)

Released on May 26.

6. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

In 2018, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse combined a variety of animation idioms to create a captivating pop-art masterpiece. Additionally, it combined a variety of Spider-People.

A fresh Spider-Man named Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), a well-known Spider-Man named Peter Parker (Jake Johnson), and a Spider-Woman named Gwen Stacy were among the wall-crawlers from several alternate realities (Hailee Steinfeld).

But that was only the start. Six parallel universes will be covered by the sequel, which will also have 240 characters—many of them are connected to Spider-Man: For instance, the voice of the Spider-Man from the year 2099 is provided by Oscar Isaac.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Everything Everywhere All at Once’s various realities might soon appear straightforward in comparison. (NB)

Released on June 2

7. Asteroid City

In 1955, a fictitious US desert town is the setting of Wes Anderson’s most surreal take on reality.

Parents and kids are attending a Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention there. I’ll take a wild guess and assume that the asteroid in the title has anything to do with it since the official description states that a cataclysmic event causes things to be disrupted.

What is certain is that Anderson’s movies—The Grand Budapest Hotel and The French Dispatch are among his best—are absurd and strange in the most imaginative ways possible, and that the cast is out of this world, featuring Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman, Steve Carell, Margot Robbie, and Willem Dafoe. (CJ)

Released on June 16th

8. Elemental

The latest animated film from Pixar takes place in Element City, a city where everyone is composed of one of the four traditional elements: earth, water, air, and fire.

But what transpires when a fire-loving woman (Leah Lewis) catches the attention of a water-loving man (Mamoudou Athie)? Can things grow hot and heavy?

Although the ingenious anthropomorphic idea is characteristic of the company that created Inside Out, Elemental’s director, Peter Sohn, claims that his culture-clash romance is actually about growing up as a Korean immigrant family’s kid in a diverse Bronx neighborhood.

That’s a good piece of news. Pixar is currently at its best when directors are free to reflect their roots on screen, as Luca and Turning Red both showed. (NB)

Released on June 16th

9. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

After 15 years after the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Harrison Ford, 80, has dusted off his brown fedora for a fifth archaeological escapade.

In the first and third movies, John Rhys-Davies reprises his role as Sallah, while John Williams contributes what he claims will be his final score before retiring. However, there are a lot of intriguing alterations.

This is the first Indiana Jones movie to be set in 1969 and not be directed by Steven Spielberg or be based on a George Lucas tale (although the two are executive producers).

The director and co-writer have been replaced by James Mangold, who also worked on the last two Wolverine movies and made Walk the Line.

In addition, he cast Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Indy’s goddaughter, Antonio Banderas as a new ally, and Mads Mikkelsen as a Nazi enemy. (NB)

Released on June 30th

10. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part I

Tom Cruise immediately moves on to what is sure to be one of the biggest movies of 2023 after starring in Top Gun: Maverick, the biggest movie of 2022. It undoubtedly has one of the most important titles.

The sequel, which we’ll name “Mission: Impossible 7,” which was delayed by two years due to the pandemic, reunites Cruise with his normal cast members Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, and Rebecca Ferguson, as well as the series’ regular writer-director, Christopher McQuarrie.

The spy narrative remains top-secret, but what matters are the action scenes and Cruise’s feats.

According to him, the primary challenge this time is “far and away the riskiest thing we’ve ever attempted”: riding a motorcycle up a steep ramp, over a precipice, and back down again. What he has planned for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two in 2024 is amazing. (NB)

Released on July 14th

11. Barbie

It took a few pictures to capture Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling’s rollerblading in classic 1980s Barbie and Ken costumes. As a result of the internet uproar, Barbie became one of the most eagerly awaited movies of the year.

A different image shows Robbie in Barbie’s little pink convertible. Greta Gerwig, whose Little Women (2019) was both true to the book and updated with a 21st-Century sensibility, directs a movie that promises to be both satirical and meta, starring Will Ferrell as an executive at the toy manufacturer Mattel.

The traditional blonde Barbie with the ponytail towers over a crowd of little girls in the teaser, mimicking the obelisk from 2001: A Space Odyssey. So far, it’s enjoyable. (CJ)

12. Oppenheimer

While Tenet (2020) left many spectators perplexed, Christopher Nolan’s most recent film seems more firmly anchored. Nolan goes back in time, as he did in Dunkirk, but this time with a contentious tale. J. Robert Oppenheimer, a US physicist renowned as “the father of the atomic bomb,” is portrayed by Cillian Murphy.

Oppenheimer spent the remainder of his life debating the ethics of his profession. This biopic is shot in Imax and includes dramatic on-screen explosions set in the desert of New Mexico, where the bomb was tested because everything Nolan does is enormous.

Florence Pugh portrays Oppenheimer’s ex-lover, Matt Damon plays the US Army General who oversaw the Manhattan Project that produced the bomb, and Robert Downey Jr. plays Lewis Strauss, the man in charge of the government hearings that called into question Oppenheimer’s loyalty.

Emily Blunt plays Oppenheimer’s scientist wife, Kitty. (CJ)

Released on July 21

13. Challengers

Luca Guadagnino is known for his tense love stories, such as the latest cannibal story Bones and All and Call Me by Your Name. This love triangle takes place on a tennis court.

In the movie, Zendaya plays Tashi, a former professional athlete who is now the coach and wife of a champion named Art (Mike Faist), who is going through a rough patch.

He faces Patrick (Josh O’Connor), Art’s best friend growing up when she encourages him to start his comeback in a low-stakes Challengers competition.

Although it may sound like kiss-marry-kill, the performers trained for months to look like tennis pros, so there is some actual sport involved as well. (CJ)

Released on August 11th

14. Next Goal Wins

In a football game in 2001, Australia defeated American Samoa 31-0.

Years later, the American Samoan team was mocked as having the worst footballers in the world, but things changed when they recruited Thomas Rongen, a tenacious Dutch-American coach.

Anyone who watched the inspirational, Cool Runnings-style documentary of the same name from 2014 will be aware with their underdog narrative. It received a perfect score of 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

But now Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok, Jojo Rabbit) is retelling it as a heartwarming comedy-drama with Michael Fassbender playing Rongen.

Football supporters who were apprehensive following the contentious World Cup in Qatar last year may discover that Waititi restores their trust in the noble game. (NB)

Released on September 22

15. Dune: Part Two

You already know what to anticipate from Denis Villeneuve’s sequel to his blockbuster from 2001: On the arid planet of Arrakis, there is Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides, Zendaya as Chani, a lot of sand, and enormous sandworms. Where Dune left off, the action-spectacular opens with Atreides seeking retribution from the foes who attacked his family.

Austin Butler (Elvis) has joined as the wicked Baron Harkonnen, who Stellan Skarsgard again plays. Whatever your opinion of Dune was—reactions ranged from impressed to disappointed—new casting for the sequel may be hard to resist: Emperor Shaddam IV is portrayed by Christopher Walken and Florence Pugh as his daughter. (CJ)

published on November 3rd

16. Wonka

When did the Oompa Loompas and Willy Wonka first meet? How did he create the Everlasting Gobstopper? A few of the queries you probably didn’t think to ask when reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are included below.

However, a prequel to Roald Dahl’s story is coming whether or not you asked for it. Timothée Chalamet performs the role of the world’s best and most eccentric chocolatier, following in the footsteps of Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp.

The most compelling aspect of Wonka is that it was written and directed by Paul King and Simon Farnaby, the creative minds behind Paddington 2.

With music written by Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy and a supporting ensemble that includes Olivia Colman, Rowan Atkinson, and Matt Lucas, Wonka might be the perfect Christmas movie. (NB)

Released on December 23.

17. Poor Things

One of today’s most intriguing directors, Yorgos Lanthimos, reunites with The Favourite writers Tony McNamara and Emma Stone to create a weird Victorian narrative.

The movie is a retelling of the Frankenstein tale and is based on the 1992 novel by Alasdair Grey. Stone plays a suicidal mother whose unborn child’s brain is transplanted in her revived body by a deranged (needless to say) scientist.

Willem Dafoe portrays Dr. Godwin Baxter, and Duncan Wedderburn, a con man with a Dickensian name, is played by Mark Ruffalo. Lanthimos has demonstrated that he can handle terrifying concepts with the darkest humor in movies like The Lobster. (CJ)

Released in 2023

18. Beau is Afraid

The strange and otherworldly frequently interfere with family life in Ari Aster’s brilliant, eccentric, psychologically challenging movies (Hereditary, Midsommar).

In his most recent film, Joaquin Phoenix plays Beau, who loses one parent and runs into challenges that, in all likelihood, only Aster could conjure.

The plot has been kept a secret, but in addition to Armen Nahapetian playing teenage Beau, Nathan Lane and Patti LuPone also star in the film.

Whatever you call the movie—its working title was Disappointment Blvd.—Beau doesn’t seem like a happy guy. What kind of Aster heroine or hero? (CJ)

Released in 2023

19. Killers of the Flower Moon

The release date for Martin Scorsese’s true-crime Western, included on BBC Culture’s list of movies to see in 2022, has yet to be announced. So, here we are again.

What is known is that David Grainn’s book about the 1920s “Reign of Terror,” which saw at least 60 Osage Native Americans slaughtered in Oklahoma, served as the basis for Killers of the Flower Moon.

Robert De Niro portrays the cattle rancher thought to be responsible for the massacre, Jesse Plemons plays the FBI agent looking into it, Leonardo DiCaprio plays his nephew, and Lily Gladstone represents his Osage wife.

The alleged three-hour epic also stars Brendan Fraser and John Lithgow. Again, there is no confirmation of the rumored premiere’s location at Cannes in May. Hope it doesn’t appear in our previews for the next year. (NB)

Released in 2023

20. Maestro

Leonard Bernstein, the enormous conductor, composer (West Side Story), and superstar who dominated the music industry in the latter half of the 20th century is portrayed by Bradley Cooper, who also serves as the film’s director, co-writer, and actor.

The movie chronicles Bernstein’s long-lasting marriage to Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan), who was well aware of his sexual orientation before anyone else. Playing one of their adult daughters is Maya Hawke.

The presence of egotistical musical geniuses on screen seems to be a thing right now (see: Tár), but the fact that Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese are producing this film is the most encouraging sign, and I’ll take that endorsement over anything else. (CJ)

Released in 2023

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