ScreenAnarchy's Top 10 Films Of The First Half Of 2023

Runners-up:

11: Polite Society
12: Sisu
13: M3GAN
14: I Like Movies
15: De Humani Corporis Fabrica
16: Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves (see picture above)
17: The Five Devils
18: The First Slam Dunk
19: Dalva
20: Samsara

10: Infinity Pool

Dark Brandon (Cronenberg, that is) strikes again. His previous film Possessor turned out to be our favorite back in 2020 and his new one doesn't pull its punches either. Mel Valentin was much impressed and wrote the following in his review:

"Cronenberg takes James - and by extension, the audience willing to set aside any doubts or their own squeamishness - through different levels of experiential terror, each one more depraved, debased, or debauched than the last. As the encounters become increasing distorted and hallucinogenic, bodies morph into other bodies, unfamiliar appendages grow out of familiar orifices, and Cronenberg, indulging practically every transgressive that crosses his mind, proves himself more than equal to the family name."

9: Suzume

Anime director Makoto Shinkai delivers what can only be called a 'triple whammy' with his newest film. His Your Name and Weathering With You broke records and this one nicely follows its brethren, continuing the man's impressive winning streak.

A storyline like "a girl needs to save the world" doesn't sound all that special in anime, but in Makoto's hands it becomes cinematic magic. Our Peter Martin loved it, stating in his review:

"By gentle turns that appear effortless, the film swerves, swoops and swoons. (...) As a film, Suzume is very sneaky. I didn't even notice it had stolen my heart."

8: Inu-Oh

What is this? Our top ten has two anime features in a row? Yeah well, when they're THIS good, we cannot help it. Yuasa Masaaki's newest film is technically from 2021 already, but time became a bit garbled during the pandemic so it only arrived in several European countries earlier this year. But wow, was it worth the wait! In this film he shows two boys, each cursed in his own way, who together develop a new kind of music in medieval Japan. What follows is a fantastic feast for the eyes and ears, a veritable pamphlet for creativity and its healing powers.

In my review I said:

"Inu-Oh is not about a history lesson. It is about art, having a rebel spirit, about stomping on holy ground to get heard, if necessary. This is maybe the finest work Yuasa Masaaki has done in the last decade, and it has so much of animation's ability to produce a cinematic breeze of fresh air. I love it unreservedly and hope to be able to revisit it many, many times."

7: Past Lives

Korean-Canadian playwright Celine Song has made a film about two childhood sweethearts meeting each other later in life, grown apart, and who wonder about what might have been, grown together. And judging from Shelagh Rowan-Legg's review, it is marvellous. She states:

"We could all live so many lives in a single lifetime; maybe the reason we wish for past lives is that we can imagine all we can accomplish, and the many people we could be with, in ways that our contemporary world makes almost impossible. Past Lives is deceptively unrestrained in its exploration of how we decide what we were meant to do and who we were meant to be with, and the acceptable regret that comes even when we've made a good choice."

6: Music

What is this... Angela Schanelec's newest film is hard to peg and even harder to describe, as any plot recount will seem very episodic yet missing every point made in the film. Those who have seen it say it is the execution rather than the story, but the screenplay is actually winning awards as well. So what is this?

Martin Kudlac said the following in his review:

"As demanding as the film is, the experience on the verge of meditation is that much rewarding, especially when viewers let themselves be absorbed in Schanelec's simple yet hypnotic image-weaving. (...) Schanelec's latest work is the celebration of the transcendental nature of music and cinema. Once again, Schanelec proved to be the master of minimalist cinema."

5: Asteroid City

Wes Anderson has a new star-studded immaculately composited pastel-tinted film out, and the word is that it's good!

Zach Gayne caught the film in Cannes and in his review he said the following:

"For many years now, Anderson has taken us into the lair of the extra-curricular-minded achiever, from beekeepers to underwater explorers, and now to space travelers. And although many of Anderson’s grownups have come to lose their luster for the stuff of childhood fascination, somehow at 54 years of age, Wes himself is as interested in the playful power of imagination as ever."

4: John Wick: Chapter 4

And on number four we have a chapter four! When your invented character becomes a meme, you're doing something either spectacularly wrong or spectacularly right. In the case of John Wick, it's being done right. Seeing Keanu Reeves (himself a bit meme-ish) plowing through entire armies clad just in a suit apparently made of plot armor is fun, and this fourth outing provides lots of it.

As Andrew Mack says in his review:

"The John Wick franchise has never been about whether will he or won’t achieve his goal; it's always been about how. How he does it and how many foes he will have to go through to do it. As action fans we are tremendously forgiving and patient with any thin or laborious storytelling when we’re given such an embarrassment of riches in the set pieces."

3: Blackberry

Bam-alam. Once upon a time, when people didn't know about smartphones yet but everybody had a mobile already, someone devised a phone on which you could receive email. And it became hugely popular for a while. Riveting story right? Well, the way director Matt Johnson tells it, complete with good guys and bad guys, it is!

Our Kurt Halfyard loves it, and in his review he explains one of the reasons why:

"One of the most satisfying aspects from this wildly entertaining movie, is the density and attention to detail of its chaotic production design. From its opening shot of Mike and Doug’s shabby Honda driving past a Mennonite wagon (a familiar site to anyone who has lived in Kitchener-Waterloo in Ontario) to the pop cultural ephemera of the RIM office (reams of nerd posters and t-shirts), to the diners and airport waiting areas of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The film is not in your face about the recent period, as it focuses on the technology story and characters, but not since David Fincher’s Zodiac have I seen the elegant balance of such elements that just feels right; without feeling in your face about it."

2: Showing Up

Kelly Reichardt has a strong track record on our site, if a bit spread-out over time. First Cow showed up in multiple years of our "best-of" lists. That her newest one is this high in the charts (while many people here hadn't even heard of the title yet) bodes well for when it gets more famous. Is this going to be the winner at the end of the year, perhaps?

It's an at times comical drama about the daily struggles artists have, and Dustin Chang reviewed it for us. He writes:

"Showing Up is emblematic of the small pleasures we get from our creations that success doesn’t measure in fame and fortune. It’s self-satisfaction of showing up every day to your studio (or basement, or shed, or garage) and creating. (...) Funny and light yet packed with so much daily life wisdom, with great, natural performances by everyone involved, Showing Up continues to showcase Reichardt as a unique voice in the American film scene. "

1: Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse

And the winner is... THIS (click on the magnificent poster to see a larger version of it)! The second part of a trilogy which, if part three sticks the landing, might end up becoming one of the most beloved ones in film history. The whole world is falling in love a bit with the characters. Not just Peter Parker, Miles Morales and SpiderGwen, but also Hobie (SpiderPunk) and Pavitr (Spider-Man India). It's a museum of artwork and character development wrapped in a ball and thrown at you. Directors Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson can be mighty proud of themselves and their army of animators.

In his review, Mel Valentin describes one of the reasons why this one resonates with so many people:

" (...) Miles, in his naturally rebellious, teenaged enthusiasm, just as naturally wants to be not just the hero of his own particular story, but the teller too. Ultimately, that elevates Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse from standard superhero fare about power fantasies and wish-fulfilment and into a heartfelt story about free will, predestination, and becoming the author of your own life-story."

That concludes the Top-10. Will it stand like this until the end of the year? Unlikely. And we'll enjoy whatever newcomers enter it.

All sixty in alphabetical order:

Afire
Arc
Are You There God? It's Me
Asteroid City
Babylon
Beau Is Afraid
Birth / Rebirth
Blackberry
Blackening, The
Coma
Convenience Story
Crater
Creed III
Dalva
De Humani Corporis Fabrica
Deep Sea
Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves
Eastern Front
Elemental
Enys Men
EO
Evil Dead Rise (See picture above)
First Slam Dunk, The
Five Devils, The
Hand
Holy Spider
I Like Movies
Infinity Pool
Inu-Oh
Jeanne Du Barry
John Wick Chapter 4
King of Wuxia, The
Little Love Package, A
Living Bad / Bad Living
M3GAN
Magic Mike's Last Dance
Mater Gardner, The
Music
New Religion
No Dogs or Italians Allowed
Our Body
Past Lives
Pathaan
Pearl
Plane
Polite Society
Return to Seoul
Samsara
Showing Up
Sisu
Skinamarink
Smoking Causes Coughing
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Suzume
Tchaikovsky's Wife
Thousand and One, A
To Catch a Killer
20,000 Species of Bees
xxxHolic
You Hurt My Feelings