Film of the Week’s 2023 Top Ten

Presenting the Film of the Week Top Ten of 2023

Compiled from films released in the UK in 2023

1. Anatomy of a Fall “What we get, over an expansive but consistently riveting two-and-a-half-hour runtime, is a kind of emotional procedural, less concerned with cold facts than with multiple parties’ fluid, permeable ideas of the truth, and the

1. Anatomy of a Fall
 “What we get, over an expansive but consistently riveting two-and-a-half-hour runtime, is a kind of emotional procedural, less concerned with cold facts than with multiple parties’ fluid, permeable ideas of the truth, and the ellipses between them.”

2. Tár “A film out to make its audience observe people, places and emotional spaces they’d ordinarily walk away from, and to take its precious time doing so. Tár herself would be proud, or seethingly envious.”

2. Tár
 “A film out to make its audience observe people, places and emotional spaces they’d ordinarily walk away from, and to take its precious time doing so. Tár herself would be proud, or seethingly envious.”

4. Godland “It sets its dark, violent, sometimes perversely petty human drama against a natural world so strange and spectacular and seemingly infinite that you can understand how a man of God might believe it to be the work of his master.”

4. Godland
 “It sets its dark, violent, sometimes perversely petty human drama against a natural world so strange and spectacular and seemingly infinite that you can understand how a man of God might believe it to be the work of his master.”

3. Killers of the Flower Moon “My favourite of the zesty creative flourishes studded across the three and half hour runtime is Leonardo DiCaprio’s teeth.”

3. Killers of the Flower Moon
 “My favourite of the zesty creative flourishes studded across the three and half hour runtime is Leonardo DiCaprio’s teeth.”

6. Oppenheimer “In most films, the act of joining together is benign, often a requirement as heroes progress towards victory. But in Oppenheimer , joining together is a source of terror.”

6. Oppenheimer
 “In most films, the act of joining together is benign, often a requirement as heroes progress towards victory. But in Oppenheimer, joining together is a source of terror.”

5. One Fine Morning “The fact that a tragedy is not necessarily all-consuming can weigh us down with guilt — how can I contemplate a love affair at a time like this? The fact is, life doesn’t stop, and this is a film that understands this well.”

5. One Fine Morning
 “The fact that a tragedy is not necessarily all-consuming can weigh us down with guilt — how can I contemplate a love affair at a time like this? The fact is, life doesn’t stop, and this is a film that understands this well.”

7. Beau Is Afraid “A self-evaluation so vast and intricate that you can examine yourself in some corners of it too, finding both ugly truths and gleefully absurd nonsense in the process.”

7. Beau Is Afraid
 “A self-evaluation so vast and intricate that you can examine yourself in some corners of it too, finding both ugly truths and gleefully absurd nonsense in the process.”

10. May December “Equally fair to all three principals (which is to say, sometimes, uniformly savage), May December plays out in a register of ultra-arch camp that nods to the soap-operatics of the whole premise and the characters’ competitive c

10. May December
 “Equally fair to all three principals (which is to say, sometimes, uniformly savage), May December plays out in a register of ultra-arch camp that nods to the soap-operatics of the whole premise and the characters’ competitive centring of themselves in the drama.”

9. Saint Omer “ Saint Omer is a film about witnessing, and not of the take-the-stand variety: rather, it sees how the passive process of listening becomes an active one of mirroring, of identification, of understanding the occasionally unthinka

9. Saint Omer
 “Saint Omer is a film about witnessing, and not of the take-the-stand variety: rather, it sees how the passive process of listening becomes an active one of mirroring, of identification, of understanding the occasionally unthinkable.”

8. Talk To Me “I’m a huge fan of the 1999 Devon Sawa slacker horror Idle Hands , but for providing decent jumps and scares within a compelling character-driven context, Talk To Me is a serious new contender for best ever evil-hand-themed horr

8. Talk To Me
 “I’m a huge fan of the 1999 Devon Sawa slacker horror Idle Hands, but for providing decent jumps and scares within a compelling character-driven context, Talk To Me is a serious new contender for best ever evil-hand-themed horror movie.”