Find the best movies and show to watch from the year 2023. These handpicked recommendations are highly-rated by viewers and critics.
Genre: Documentary
Actor: Brock Lesnar, Dwayne Johnson, Floyd Brisco, Giovanna Yannotti, Jerry Brisco, Jim Ross, Kurt Angle, Mark Calaway, Mark Henry, Michael Hickenbottom, Nancy Schultz, Randy Couture, Ric Flair, Ronda Rousey, Steve Austin, Sylvester Terkay, Vince McMahon
Director: Alex Perry
With a turbulent publication history – rebooting three times with three separate publishers – the Netflix adaptation of Akuma Kun doesn’t have the exact same plot or protagonists. Instead of the original Shingo Umoregi from the 60s manga and 80s anime, this show hands it off to Shingo’s successor and son Ichiro, who conducts the same magical experiments but also investigates rogue paranormal activity. However, this anime doesn’t stray too far from the original, taking inspiration from the 60s with its ink scratched art style, and even calling back the original director and voice actors. It makes for a weird and quirky supernatural series that stands out from today’s anime, while still honoring the original creator, the late Shigeru Mizuki, on his 100th birthday.
Genre: Animation, Crime, Mystery, Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Actor: Fairouz Ai, Ryoko Shiraishi, Toshio Furukawa, Yuki Kaji, Yumiri Hanamori
There's something rich at the heart of Afire that, whether intentionally or not, is kept at arm's length from the viewer. Over the course of Leon's (Thomas Schubert) quiet summer retreat to work on the manuscript for his second book, we come to understand his generally irritable nature as not just creative but existential. Through his eyes and writer-director Christian Petzold's expertly restrained sensibilities for drama, every moment becomes tinged with a vague jealousy—insecurity about other people leading satisfied lives, and his inability to let anything be without finding fault in it first. Leon is meant to be difficult to sympathize with, but at his core is an emptiness that comes with the acknowledgement of how limited one's future really is.
And on the opposite end is Nadja (Paula Beer), a woman who just happens to be staying at the same vacation home due to an overlap in booking, whom Leon sees as a reminder for everything he lacks: romance, thoughtful attentiveness, and a love of life that helps her to stop focusing on what she thinks she lacks. The film stops short of having these characters undergo change that feels truly meaningful, but just seeing them dance around each other with a sharpening tension is well worth the experience.
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Actor: Enno Trebs, Esther Esche, Jennipher Antoni, Langston Uibel, Matthias Brandt, Paula Beer, Thomas Schubert
Director: Christian Petzold
Genre: Comedy, Family, Music
Actor: Anirudh Acharya, Harshil Koushik, Mandara Battalahalli, Sindhu Sreenivasa Murthy, Sudha Belawadi
Director: Sindhu Sreenivasa Murthy
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Actor: Daichi Watanabe, Gaku Hamada, Sosuke Ikematsu, Taiga Nakano, Toko Miura
Director: Kankuro Kudo, Naoki Watanabe, Satoko Yokohama
Based on a novel, A Perfect Story feels like a classic, straightforward romcom series. All of the elements are familiar to fans of the genre – running away from a wedding, bar meet-cutes, and fake relationships – but there’s a certain charm whenever these familiar elements show up. The show alternates between the timelines of Margot and David, taking its sweet time in the first episode before their timelines merge. And when they catch each other’s eye, it’s easy to root for these well-meaning characters looking for their match. While the story could be easily condensed into a film, the length allows the main duo to delve into a slowburn, friends-to-lovers romance.
Genre: Comedy
Actor: Álvaro Mel, Ana Belén, Ane Gabarain, Anna Castillo, Elena Irureta
Kenneth Branagh’s third Hercule Poirot movie does everything it can to divorce itself from the quaintness of a typical Agatha Christie adaptation. Loosely based on the novel Hallowe’en Party, this outing swaps exotic locales for the claustrophobic confines of a gothic Venetian palazzo and flirts outright with horror. The film, shot through more Dutch angles than an Amsterdam maths class has ever seen, uses the genre's visual language to credibly suggest that this mystery might actually have paranormal undertones. Forcing Poirot to reconsider his die-hard loyalty to rational explanations is an interesting twist — it punctures the idea of him as a mystery-solving god and gives the film bigger questions to chew on than whodunnit.
What that does, however, is sap the satisfaction of watching him expertly crack the puzzle, because the movie spends so much time centering Poirot’s crisis of confidence. A Haunting in Venice’s tone switch to serious horror is also at odds with the campily bad accents and mostly overwrought acting from the (much less starry than usual) cast. It’s not the same kind of reliable guilty pleasure we expect these vehicles to be, then, but this outing of Branagh’s Poirot is at least an interesting experiment in expanding these stories' usual limits.
Genre: Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Actor: Ali Khan, Amir El-Masry, Camille Cottin, David Menkin, Emma Laird, Jamie Dornan, Jude Hill, Kelly Reilly, Kenneth Branagh, Kyle Allen, Lorenzo Acquaviva, Michelle Yeoh, Riccardo Scamarcio, Rowan Robinson, Tina Fey, Vanessa Ifediora
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Following the 1999 film, 6ixtynin9: the Series is an unexpected adaptation about the unexpected package. The loss of the package drives the violence of the film, as gang members tries to recover the money, and as protagonist Toom tries to survive. This is despite the package being easily replaceable by the original sender. In turning the movie into a show, the story expands to a whole set of characters in Toom’s apartment building, as well as a whole set of potential victims. Additionally, in bringing the late 90s plot into the post-pandemic world – a world with mass layoffs, government incompetence, and democracy protests, 6ixtynin9 feels cathartic. The series captures that sense of pure survival we’ve been facing these past few years.
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Mystery
Actor: Davika Hoorne, Patara Eksangkul, Ploi Horwang, Thanaporn Rattanasasiwimon, Trisanu Soranun
Director: Pen-Ek Ratanaruang
Genre: Drama
Actor: Ane Gabarain, Itziar Lazkano, Martxelo Rubio, Miguel Garcés, Patricia López Arnaiz, Sara Cózar, Sofía Otero
Director: Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren
At first glance, 1670 seems to be a historical drama, with the actors dressed in fairly historically accurate attire, and the show being set in the titular year, just around after the late Middle Ages. However, the first few scenes disabuse us of the notion, as the eccentric Jan Paweł routinely breaks the fourth wall in order to introduce us to the family. While the sets and the costumes are of its time, the approach and events are not, as 1670 plays out like a reality TV show, with candid shots and interviews introducing the weird and fame-obsessed village inhabitants, satirically depicting modern day scenarios with a historical flair. While some of the jokes seem Polish-specific and they rely on breaking the fourth wall a bit too often, 1670 is a funny reminder of how good things currently are, and how silly we remain, through resituating modern petty grievances in medieval times.
Genre: Comedy
Actor: Bartłomiej Topa, Katarzyna Herman, Martyna Byczkowska, Michał Balicki, Michał Sikorski
Director: Kordian Kądziela
Genre: Drama, History
Actor: Abhishek Sengupta, Anant Joshi, Anshumaan Pushkar, Geeta Agrawal Sharma, Harish Khanna, Medha Shankr, Perry Chhabra, Priyanshu Chatterjee, Sanjay Bishnoi, Sarita Joshi, Sonal Jha, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Vijay Rajoria, Vikas Divyakirti, Vikrant Massey
Director: Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Originally released as a film, War Sailor tells the oft-forgotten tale of the Norwegian merchant sailors who were required by law to take part in the battle against Axis forces. Reluctantly but bravely, they rose to the challenge and became part of a valiant effort that unfortunately went under the radar because of their civilian status.
The extended three-part series on Netflix gives these war sailors their due by telling their story in rich detail and epic proportions. It goes even deeper to explore the aftermath of war and its harrowing toll on survivors. The storytelling is grand, but it's important to note that War Sailor is less interested in heroics than it is in humanity—it has the characters questioning the purpose of fighting a war they know little about and dives deep into their lives post-war, where even then peace still seems elusive.
It’s a sprawling story so the pacing can get sluggish, but if you don't mind the occasional overlong take, then War Sailor pays off immensely.
Genre: Drama
Actor: Ine Marie Wilmann, Kristoffer Joner, Pål Sverre Hagen
If the rules to The Traitors sound familiar, it’s because they’re premised on the schoolyard game Mafia (or Werewolf), which itself is based on trickery and deceit. At first glance, it doesn’t seem like much, but once you raise the stakes to a quarter of a million dollars, as the show does, then it becomes a test of morality: how far are you willing to go to win some cash? And when it comes down to it, will you be able to choose between money and friends?
Mix this with typical reality drama, Survivor-like tournaments, and compelling backstories, then you have yourself an addictive watch, as entertaining as it is over the top. It’s not prestige TV, but it’s an enjoyable way to spend your time, especially if you’re a fan of competition shows.
Genre: Reality
Actor: Alan Cumming
Erin Lee Carr, the director of Britney vs Spears, returns with a scoop. Ringleader is not just another pop culture doc, because it features a first-time interview with the young woman at the center of The Bling Ring robberies in Hollywood, Rachel Lee. But this is not the kind of film that tries to pick the brains of a perpetrator. Instead, the director positions herself as a journalist in front of her subject and questions her frankly, an approach resulting in amusing frankness. However, the rest of the doc feels too formulaic in the way it stitches together personal archive footage that is more or less neutral. Banking too much on exclusivity when it comes to the interview, already clouds it with expectations. One is led to ask whether Lee is good, bad, repentant or sociopathic and project onto her such qualities—a move which invites a similar fascination with celebrity life the film tries to untangle.
Genre: Documentary
Actor: Allen Salkin, Amy Kaufman, Christine Kee, Rachel Lee, Sarika Kim
Director: Erin Lee Carr
As a psychological profile of its subject, this documentary about the so-called “mastermind” behind the Bling Ring burglaries isn’t as rigorous as it should be — but as a portrait of that hyper-materialistic era and our never-ending obsession with fame, it fares much better. Rachel Lee was identified as the “ringleader” of the teenagers’ crime spree by some of her accomplices but had never spoken in public until this documentary. That suggests a juicy exposé; in line with this impression, Lee initially presents as starkly self-aware. However, our trust in her ability to give us a truly honest account soon crumbles as she lists off rather weak reasons for her crimes: her middle-class upbringing and parental divorce (though her teenage experiences with drug abuse are more plausible explanations).
Though the film points out the logical flaws and inaccuracies in Lee’s account, it never really takes her to task for them, compromising the rest of her contributions. What is more incisive is its treatment of ancillary figures in the scandal (a fame-obsessed investigating officer and a Bling Ring victim-influencer) — examples which, coupled with the doc’s examination of the flashy excess of the ‘00s, lay out a much clearer picture of the kids’ motivations than much of what Lee offers.
Genre: Documentary
Actor: Allen Salkin, Amy Kaufman, Christine Kee, Rachel Lee, Sarika Kim
Director: Erin Lee Carr