The best movies you (maybe) haven’t seen in 2023
Sydney Sweeney autopsied, Marion Cotillard transformed, Karim Leklou into a marabout, animated basketball players, an orphan shell… Our alternative best of 2023.
It is always easier to make the top favorite films of the editorial team (it is here, in fact) than that of the “unseen” films of the year: there will always be film buffs who will tell us that they saw the little confidential and ultra arty pearl or the latest Bollywood bomb with Shahrukh Khan distributed in around ten copies in France. Good for them, and so much the better for our system which allows us to have access to an absolutely staggering variety of films. That was our little cheeky passage: now let’s move on to our alternative top 10, of films that we still find that we haven’t seen enough – if at all – this year. By you, for example?
Moving by Shinji Somai
The story of a divorce seen through the eyes of an 11-year-old child suddenly tossed between two homes. This 1993 film, which has remained unreleased on our screens, is the work of Shinji Sōmai, a filmmaker who died of lung cancer in 2001, and adored by Koreeda and Hamaguchi. And we understand why: this marvel of staging and skin-deep sensitivity constitutes the DNA of their cinema. A masterpiece
Our full review of Moving can be read here:
Drop of gold by Clément Cogitore
A false marabout named Ramsès is scheming in Barbès: Drop of gold East a new masterstroke for the director of Braguino, which explores both the torments of Karim Leklou (the real boss of 2023, with Timeout And Vincent must die) and a whole strange area of Paris, where reality and imagination merge to create a new world of cinema.
Our full review of Drop of gold can be read here:
Greater Paris by Martin Jauvat
If Hey man! Where is my cash register? And Under the Silver Lake had a kid, he would definitely look like Greater Paris : a hilarious road-buddy-stoner movie schoolboy who wanders from Cergy to La Hacquinière, exploring a secret geography around RER lines, water towers, aliens and pyramids. Already our cult comedy of the year, and a first feature which will ensure that we will not soon forget its young (28 years old!) director.
Linda wants chicken! by Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach
A girl demands chicken with peppers – her late father’s favorite recipe – from her mother, who is ready to do anything to grant her wishes after unjustly punishing her. Without knowing that in a France paralyzed by a strike, this quest will turn out to be a real obstacle course! A great film about mourning, full of gags and narrative exploits, enhanced by the inventiveness of the animation
Our full review of Linda wants chicken! can be read here:
Little Girl Blue by Mona Achache
Between documentary and auto-fiction, Mona Achache paints a vibrant portrait of her mother and the women in her family overwhelmed by a strange curse. Marion Cotillard delivers an incredible composition. One of the greatest actress gestures of 2023 which we dare not imagine will not be celebrated at the next César.
Our full review of little girl blue can be read here:
Marcel the shell (with his shoes) by Dean Fleischer-Camp
A tiny shell recounts its life with modesty and big tears… This adorable mockumentary, whining like a Pixar from the 2000s and carried by the whispered voice of Jenny Slate, implicitly recounts the disorientation of the Sundance filmmakers, formerly prince consorts of Hollywood and now lost in a civilization of the dematerialized (Uber/AirBnb/streaming/YouTube/etc.) and the ephemeral.
Our full review of Marcel the shell (with his shoes) can be read here:
Ghost portraits of Kleber Mendonça Filho
The director ofAquarius explores the past of his city (Recife, Brazil), reveals the dark side of making of of his films, and above all tells the memory of his ghost cinemas, closed and disappeared. Much more, and much better, than an ode to cinephilia: an archeology of the intimate and the collective, of lost dreams and dead images.
reality by Tina Satter
As in Olfa’s Daughters And little girl blue, Tina Satter orchestrates a perfect balance between fiction and documentary to tell the story of Reality Winner, an NSA employee who was the first whistleblower convicted under the Espionage Act for leaking a classified document revealing a Russian hacking attempt in the election of Trump. And this based on the transcription of the audio recording of her interrogation at her home, by two FBI agents. And in the title role, Sydney Sweeney superbly confirms what we have known since Euphoria: the quality and power of his game.
Our full review of reality can be read here:
Blind willows, sleeping woman by Pierre Földes
By adapting several short stories by Haruki Murakami, Pierre Földes manages, through the limpidity of his line, to transcribe all the strangeness and grace of this abundant work. Its staging of absolute grace and purity embraces the viewer and never lets go. A miracle of a film.
Our full review of Blind willows, sleeping woman can be read here:
One of Japan’s greatest comic book authors adapts his cult manga on basketball: the result is a fabulous gesture of animated cinema, both an exciting sports film (the match images are crazy) and a shocking brotherly melodrama (the transmission and reproduction of trauma, that kind of thing). But even as a simple basketball movie, The First Slam Dunk East the best of the genre.
Our full review of The First Slam Dunk can be read here:
