Our Writers’ Top 10 Films of 2023

As 2023 draws to a close, our team of writers, reveling in independent cinema at festivals worldwide, unveils its top 10 discoveries of the year.

The year 2023 is coming to a close. Another season of festivals is wrapping up, and our team has had a great time throughout the year, exploring independent film wonders from around the globe. Some of these films have garnered significant attention from the press, industry, and film enthusiasts, achieving the Grand Slam at the most prestigious festivals. Others have remained within relatively niche distribution circuits, despite deserving to be discovered by many cinema enthusiasts. To summarize this exceptional year of discoveries, we have decided to share with you the ten films that each of our writers considers to be the best of the year. You’ll find a diverse range, spanning all genres and origins, but most importantly, a collection of unique, original, impactful, exhilarating, and significant works.

This year, our team has covered the most prestigious festivals (Cannes, Locarno, Berlin, Venice, Tribeca, Toronto, Sundance…) and highlighted some beautiful smaller-scale, local festivals that have proven to be splendid platforms for promoting high-quality works. Among them are the Trieste Film Festival, Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM), IFF Boston, Rencontres Cinématographiques de Béjaia, Etats généraux du film documentaire de Lussas, Fantasia Film Festival, and more. Our team had the honor of interviewing highly talented and renowned artists, including Monia Chokri, Lav Diaz, Selman Nacar, Stéphan Castang, Gabriela Cowperthwaite, João Salaviza, Weston Razooli, Amanda Nell Eu, and many others.

We sincerely thank our readers, partners, and the press officers who have bestowed their trust upon us. We look forward to discovering what the festival season of 2024 has in store for us.

Without further ado, here are the top 10 films of 2023 according to our editorial team:

Top 10 Films of 2023 by Abdul Latif:

1. Paradise is Burning (Dir. Mika Gustafson)

2. The Rye Horn (Dir. Jaione Camborda)

3. Empty Nets (Dir. Behrooz Karamizade)

4. About Dry Grasses (Dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

5. 20 Days in Mariupol (Dir. Mstyslav Chernov)

6. Animalia (Dir. Sofia Alaoui)

7. Afire (Dir. Christian Petzold)

8. Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (Dir. Ariane Louis-Seize)

9. Motherland (Dirs. Alexander Mihalkovich & Hanna Badziaka)

10. Birth/Rebirth (Dir. Laura Moss)

Top 10 Films of 2023 by Ryan Yau:

1. May December (Dir. Todd Haynes)

2. Fallen Leaves (Dir. Aki Kaurismäki)

3. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (Dir. Kelly Fremon Craig)

4. Oppenheimer (Dir. Christopher Nolan)

5. The Zone of Interest (Dir. Jonathan Glazer)

6. Evil Dead Rise (Dir. Lee Cronin)

7. The Holdovers (Dir. Alexander Payne)

8. Totém (Dir. Lila Avilés)

9. Eileen (Dir. William Oldroyd)

10. Asteroid City (Dir. Wes Anderson)

Top 10 Films of 2023 by Yohana Benattar:

1. Past Lives (Dir. Celine Song)

2. Bye Bye Tiberias (Dir. Lina Soualem)

3. Four Daughters (Dir. Kaouther Ben Hania)

4. Mariner of the Mountains (Dir. Karim Aïnouz)

5. Non Aligned: Scenes from the Labudović Reel (Dir. Mila Turajlíc)

6. The Old Oak (Dir. Ken Loach)

7. Renaissance (Dir. Nader S. Ayache)

8. A Liittle for My Heart and a Little for My God (Dir. Brita Landoff)

9. The World like a Jewel in the Hand: Unlearning Imperial Plunder (Dir. Ariella Aïsha Azoulay)

10. El Chinero, a Phantom Hill (Dir. Bani Khosnoudi)

Top 10 Films of 2023 by Kristin Ciliberto:

1. Oppenheimer (Dir. Christopher Nolan)

2. Poor Things (Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)

3. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (Dir. James Gunn)

4. Fair Play (Dir. Chloe Domont)

5. Killers of the Flower Moon (Dir. Martin Scorsese)

6. Dumb Money (Dir. Craig Gillespie)

7. Maestro (Dir. Bradley Cooper)

8. The Iron Claw (Dir. Sean Durkin)

9. John Wick: Chapter 4 (Dir. Chad Stahelski)

10. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Dirs. Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson)

Top 10 Films of 2023 by Mehdi Balamissa:

1. Fallen Leaves (Dir. Aki Kaurismäki)

2. The Zone of Interest (Dir. Jonathan Glazer)

3. Four Daughters (Dir. Kaouther Ben Hania)

4. Junkyard Dog (Dir. Jean-Baptiste Durand)

5. The Goldman Case (Dir. Cédric Kahn)

6. The Taste of Things (Dir. Trần Anh Hùng)

7. In the Rearview (Dir. Maciek Hamela)

8. The Animal Kingdom (Dir. Thomas Cailley)

9. Anatomy of a Fall (Dir. Justine Triet)

10. Holiday Native Land (Dirs. Nicolas Renaud, Brian Virostek)

Top 10 Documentaries of 2023 by Michael Granados:

1. Nowhere Near (Dir. Miko Revereza)

2. Our Body (Dir. Claire Simon)

3. Man in Black (Dir. Wang Bing)

4. Pictures of Ghosts (Dir. Kleber Mendonca Filho)

5. Milisuthando (Dir. Milisuthando Bongela)

6. De Facto (Dir. Selma Doborec)

7. A Golden Life (Dir. Boubacar Sangare)

8. GAMA (Dir. Kaori Oda)

9. Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (Dir. Anna Hints)

10. Gush (Dir. Fox Maxy)

Top 5 Films of 2023 by Ramona Boban-Vlahović:

1. The Promised Land (Dir. Nikolaj Arcel)

2. Poor Things (Dir. Yórgos Lánthimos)

3. Tatami (Dirs. Guy Nattiv & Zar Amir Ebrahimi)

4. El Shatt: A Blueprint for Utopia (Dir. Ivan Ramljak)

5. Scrapper (Dir. Charlotte Regan)

Top 10 Films of 2023 by Martha Bird:

1. 20,000 Species of Bees (Dir. Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren)

2. Saint Omer (Dir. Alice Diop)

3. Totem (Dir. Lila Aviles)

4. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Dir. Laura Poitras)

5. Fallen Leaves (Dir. Aki Kaurismäki)

6. Patagonia (Dir. Simone Bozzelli)

7. Transfariana (Dir. Joris Lachaise)

8. Passages (Dir. Ira Sachs)

9. Maestro (Dir. Bradley Cooper)

10. Past Lives (Dir. Celine Song)

Top 10 Films of 2023 by Aurélie Géron:

1. Four Daughters (Dir. Kaouther Ben Hania)

2. Love According to Dalva (Dir. Emmanuelle Nicot)

3. Junkyard Dog (Dir. Jean-Baptiste Durand)

4. Afterwards (Dir. Romane Garant Chartrand)

5. Just the Two of Us (Dir. Valérie Donzelli)

6. Perséides (Dir. Laurence Lévesque)

7. The Zone of Interest (Dir. Jonathan Glazer)

8. In the Rearview (Dir. Maciek Hamela)

9. Anatomy of a Fall (Dir. Justine Triet)

10. The Animal Kingdom (Dir. Thomas Cailley)

We hope that these lists, reflecting our diverse, unique, vibrant, and open-minded team of writers, will assist you in discovering or rediscovering films that have appeared significant and impactful to us this year. We look forward to sharing our findings from what the 2024 festival season has in store for us.