While the tentpole releases of 2022 arguably peaked early with The Batman and Top Gun: Maverick, 2023 is refusing to let up for almost the entire year, starting silly with Blumhouse’s answer to Child’s Play in the A.I.-centric killer doll film M3GAN before ending on the return of the King, in December, as Paddington director Paul King returns to the limelight not with everyone’s favourite Peruvian Bear but instead the musical debut of everyone’s favourite Duneish Twink, Timothee Chalamet, in Wonka. There’s so much good stuff coming, in fact, that even with nearly forty films mentioned on this list, I had to leave some major stuff off: almost every major superhero movie; Wes Anderson’s latest quirkfest Asteroid City; the rather delightful looking Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Among Thieves; even future Best Picture Winner (at least in Vin Diesel’s eyes) Fast X. All are exciting prospects, but not exciting enough to make the cut.
Below, thus, are my most anticipated films of 2023, arranged into ten decidedly arbitrary categories where the order, crucially, does NOT matter!
#10. Original Sci-Fi: 65, Distance, and Spaceless
From the creative minds behind A Quiet Place (writer/director duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods) and The Evil Dead (Sam Raimi, who only produces here) comes a movie, 65, in which Adam Driver fights f*cking dinosaurs. The trailer for 65 certainly takes its time to let the prehistoric premise slip, but as soon as it does the pure giddiness of such a carnivorous conceit bleeds through with the promise of something wild and awesome — the Jurassic Park successor we deserved but never got. Alternatively, the creative geniuses behind Lyle, Lyle Crocodile, Will Speck and Josh Gordon, return to the big screen with Distant, a sci-fi comedy starring Anthony Ramos as an asteroid miner that crashes down on an alien world and must contend with his depleting oxygen supply, while Gore Verbinski’s latest film, Spaceless, likewise features oxygen as its dramatic countdown clock after a man wakes up tumbling through space with no help, guidance, or oxygen to spare. Such is the wonder of science-fiction that two films can be released featuring a depleting oxygen supply, yet one sounds terrifying from the director of A Cure For Wellness, and the other may very well feature Shawn Mendes as a singing crocodile.
#09. Killer Animals: Cocaine Bear, The Meg 2: The Trench, and Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey
None of the following films, regardless of how good they may (WILL) be, have any real Oscar prospects, and that is a tragic shame. Take, for instance, Cocaine Bear, a film technically based on a true story (Best Documentary Feature, anyone?) whose title is so delectably silly that the cast, director, and even plot are largely irrelevant provided it features Cocaine as one of the Bear Necessities of life. The Meg 2: The Trench, likewise, will feature Jason Statham once again taking on a Megaladon Shark with his bare (not Bear, and especially not Cocaine Bear) hands. This time, Ben Wheatley – the hypercreative mind behind A Field in England and Kill List, two deeply disturbing British horror films – is taking over in the director’s chair to deliver a sequel that is hopefully bloodier, weirder, and far, far sharkier. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, in contrast, has the best prospects of receiving that coveted Best Picture nomination in that it is, by technicality, based on Classic Literature (often a sure-fire way to secure Oscar’s favour), although the slight tonal shift from pleasantries in the Hundred Acre Wood to Pooh and Piglet gutting Christopher Robin like the savage monsters they are may be deemed a little unfaithful to the source material now that Winnie the Pooh has entered Public Domain. Blood, honey, cocaine, Jason Statham – it already sounds better than Green Book!
#08. Films that Would be More Exciting with a Different Lead Actor: The Super Mario Bros. Movie and The Flash
The Super Mario Bros. Movie has so much potential to be great! Going purely on the trailer, it is Illumination’s most visually spectacular film to date, frames itself as a love-letter to the entire Mario franchise, and features some absolutely spot-on casting, in particular Jack Black as Bowser. Equally, The Flash, despite its very … troubled production, has some a lot of good stuff going for it: Andres Muschetti is a very talented director; the plot line in use, Flashpoint, is one of the most significant and potent of the entire DC catalogue; it will feature the glorious return of Michael Keaton as Batman over thirty years since leaving the cowl behind (or he’ll just cameo at the end as The Vulture – at this point, that’s probably more likely). What both films crucially lack, however, is a likeable lead actor, with Chris Pratt method acting as himself to play the titular ITALIAN plumber and Ezra Miller, hot on the heels of numerous felonies, finally bringing some controversy to DC studios. Still, the surrounding elements for both films are very strong, and will hopefully elevate them beyond some very questionable casting choices …
#07. Pensioners Do Be Thirsting: Book Club: The Next Chapter and 80 For Brady
2018’s Book Club saw four of our greatest living actresses – Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen, who collectively have thirteen Oscar nominations between them – undergo transformative sexual awakenings after reading the novel 50 Shades of Grey. It was a rather delightful comedy, carried by the sheer gravitas of its cast, and has finally received a sequel that will hopefully be just as charming as the gang take a trip to Italy! Jane Fonda is not finished there, however, as she will also star in 80 for Brady, a thematically-similar roadtrip comedy in which four legendary actresses (not just Fonda, but Lily Tomlin, Sally Field and Rita Moreno, too!) galivant across the United States to meet their idol, Tom Brady. More importantly, however, Guy Fieri will also star as himself … enough said.
#06. Blockbuster Sequels: Dune Part II, John Wick: Chapter Four, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part I, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
This is a category filled to the brim with gargantuan blockbuster spectacle, and precisely zero Jane Fonda (Despicable!). Dune: Part II will be the second instalment in Denis Villeneuve’s sweeping three-part adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fic epic, adding rising movie stars Florence Pugh and Austin Butler to its already stacked cast as the story builds from a slow-burn first half into an even more spectacular second. Likewise, both John Wick: Chapter Four and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part I each hail from (incredibly awesome) franchises determined to outdo their spectacle with every subsequent outing, with Tom Cruise, in particular, never ceasing to impress with his reckless disregard for personal safety during every Mission: Impossible shoot. Ultimately, however, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is the most exciting blockbuster coming out this year, wherein it only needs to be half as good as the original to automatically hit Top 10 superhero movies of all time. Additionally, in its attempt to unite the Spider-Verses a la 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, the Japanese Spider-Man from the 1970s is slated to make an appearance, which will only be cool for a hundred or so people worldwide, but will, for those people, be really f*cking cool.
#05. Dracula Movies: Renfield and The Last Voyage of the Demeter
Nicolas Cage will take his swaggering capacity for delirium to even more deliciously hammy heights in 2023 as the dapperly dressed Dracula of Chris McKay’s Renfield. There is more to be excited about here, including the fact Chris McKay directed The LEGO Batman Movie (he did also direct The Tomorrow War, though it’s easier to blame Chris Pratt for that than the guy that made Batman watch Jerry Maguire), but the price of admission is already covered tenfold by letting Nicolas Cage rock that spectacular look (see above). As a complete tonal whiplash, The Last Voyage of the Demeter will stick to a more atmospherically authentic adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula in a supernatural horror story that focusses on the ship that brought Big D’s coffin over from Transylvania and was consequently haunted into a derelict wreck. Javier Botet, the actor playing Dr. Acula here, is less immediately exciting than Nicolas Cage, though his previous work as the creature in numerous beloved horror flicks (including, most impressively, as The Crooked Man in The Conjuring 2) promises a darker and harsher Dracula to contend with.
#04. Ominious Names: Barbie, Oppenheimer, Napoleon, and Wonka
The History of Cinema has borne witness to many iconic rivalries: Alien V.S. Predator; Freddy V.S. Jason; any major franchise V.S. the fans of that very franchise. This year, on the 21st July, another epic duel will be fought. In the Blue Corner, starring Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling and future Doctor Who lead Ncuti Gatwa, will be Greta Gerwig’s dollification of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Barbie. Meanwhile, in the Red Corner, weighing a grand total of … every male actor in Hollywood, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer will recreate the Atomic Bomb (with practical effects, of course) in its story about the superweapon’s founder, J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy). Two more tonally opposite films could not coexist, let alone open, on the same day if they tried, but between the two both Gerwig and Nolan promise to reinvigorate a Summer movie season otherwise poisoned with sequels and reboots. Ridley Scott, likewise, promises to reinvigorate the biopic genre with a historical Napoleon epic starring Joaquin Phoenix as the titular dictator, while Paul King seeks to reinvigorate the human soul in his first post-Paddington outing with the musical prequel Wonka, based on the titular chocolatier’s early life when he looked more like Timothee Chalamet and less like a deeply disquieting Johnny Depp. Collectively, the four films promise to reinvigorate the great Oscar tradition of awarding Best Picture to films with Ominous One-Name Titles, from Rebecca to Rocky to Hamlet to, now, the fifty shades of pink oozing through on-screen in Barbie!
#03. Spooky Spooks: Scream VI, Saw X, Evil Dead Rise, Infinity Pool, In My Mother’s Skin, Knock at the Cabin, and Haunted Mansion
It’s always impossible, as a lover of horror, to reduce the genre’s future offerings down to one or two or three or four films, so for once I’ve shown restraint and gone with seven. Scream VI, notably, will be the first instalment in the franchise to not feature Neve Campbell’s iconic Final Girl Sidney Prescott, although the returning influence of director-duo Tyler Gillett & Matt Bettinelli-Olpin – who helmed both Scream (2022) and Ready or Not, each a delight – give it more than just the benefit of the doubt. Meanwhile, Tobin Bell will be making his glorious return to the Saw saga after previously skipping Spiral: From the Book of Saw (always need to remember that that was the subtitle), hopefully implying, similarly, that the franchise itself will be returning to the gloriously nonsensical plot that makes it such a ridiculous romp alongside its gnarly kills. Continuing on with this theme of the grisly and the gory, few do it better than either the Evil Dead franchise or dudes named Cronenberg, with Evil Dead Rise and Infinity Pool (directed by David Cronenberg’s son, Brandon) promising kooky supernatural slaughter and a twisted body horror nightmare respectively.
In My Mother’s Skin, not-at-all similarly, will alternatively follow the antics of a young girl in WW2 that tended to her dying mother while simultaneously getting acquainted with a flesh-eating fairy, while Knock at the Cabin, M. Night Shyamalan’s latest offering since “The Beach That Makes You Grow Old!!!”, features David Bautista and Ronald Weasley (AKA actor Rupert Grint) as two sinister strangers that trap a family in their cabin to allegedly prevent the apocalypse. Neither scenario sounds particularly enticing, but thus is the wonders of horror. And in a similar vein, the upcoming horror-comedy Haunted Mansion – a remake of the 2003 Eddie Murphy film – positions itself as a night alone in a haunted house with Jared Leto, which would be equally frightening if not for the additioanl presences of Owen Wilson, Tiffany Haddish, Danny DeVito, Jamie Lee-Curtis and Lakeith Stanfield. They alone secure this Haunted Mansion at least one more star on Yelp, and will hopefully win a few more stars for the film overall, too!
#02. There’s Been a Murder!: Killers of the Flower Moon and The Killer
There’s nothing more heart-warming than multi-billion-dollar studios giving iconic directors carte blanche to create their endlessly disturbing crime films. Take, for instance, Martin Scorsese’s latest epic, Killers of the Flower Moon, which combines an exceptional cast – boasting Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Jesse Plemons, and Brendan Fraser – with an immaculate eye for crime fiction into a murderous Western mystery. Likewise, David Fincher’s upcoming thriller The Killer, starring Michael Fassbender and Tilda Swinton, reunites the King of Killers (or, at least, movies about them) with screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker for the first time since Se7en in 1995, my all-time favourite film. Despite knowing nothing else about the plot beyond it being an adaptation of a graphic novel, I’ve not been this excited about an upcoming film since Matt Reeves remade Se7en last year! To any extent, Fincher and Scorsese are two of the best directors working today, so anything they produce is automatically must-see, preferably in a cinema if possible!
#01. Comic Book Supervillains Doing … Not That: Inside, Beau is Afraid, Next Goal Wins, and Coyote V.S. Acme
On a long enough timeline, every somewhat major Hollywood star will do their time as a comic book movie villain, making this category effectively just a catch-all. Regardless, Willem Defoe, even beyond the Green Goblin, is a terrific actor whose ability to embody madness is near unparalleled, once again brought to the brink of lunacy, here, after an art heist gone wrong entraps him in a near-impenetrable penthouse, cut off from the outside world. Entitled Inside to juice the Bo Burnham fandom for all their worth (although, crucially, Burnham is not involved), the film will centre almost exclusively on Defoe in a single-location psychological thriller. Meanwhile, Joaquin Phoenix will star in Ari Aster’s latest film, Beau is Afraid, as presumably a man named Beau, with little else concrete known about the film other than Aster being the mad genius behind Hereditary (read: Best Horror Film of the 2010s), and the first cut allegedly hitting north of three hours. And while editing is of course a valuable step in the filmmaking process, if Zack Snyder can get a four-hour Justice League out of his system, then By God Ari Aster deserves the same!
Deciding on the comic book villain in question for Next Goal Wins is admittedly quite tricky: on one hand, Michael Fassbender, the star, was a superb Magneto during the X-Men prequel series; on the other, Taika Waititi, the director, is responsible for Thor: Love and Thunder. That being said, Waititi was also responsible for What We Do in the Shadows (Great), Hunt for the Wilderpeople (Terrific), and Jojo Rabbit (Excellent), so his track record beyond the blockbuster realm is effectively spotless. Based on a 2014 documentary of the same name, the film will star Fassbender as a football coach tasked with helping the weakest football team in the world qualify for the 2014 World Cup, blending Waititi’s signature brand of comedy with a classic underdog story for, hopefully, something far better than Chris Hemsworth riding his axe like a broom. Finally, John Cena, hot on the heels of playing villain-turned-antihero Peacemaker, will star as the lawyer of Acme Corporation in the legal comedy Coyote V.S. Acme. Here, Wile E. Coyote (yes, the Looney Tunes character) and his lawyer (Will Forte) will be suing the fictious Acme Corporation that has led the Coyote into ruin for decades due to their faulty traps and products. Written by James Gunn, the film’s concept, alone, is wonderfully original, and will, like Next Goal Wins, function as an underdog story where one little coyote sticks it to the big man. And in an age were billionaires are wasting, just as a random example, $44 Billion (again, just a number off the top of my head), on needless vanity projects, its good to see a film championing the little guy against his Bourgeoise overlords. Vivre le Revolution, Wile E. Coyote — VIVRE LE REVOLUTION!!!
Film Scribe 