2023 looks like a feast for cinema fans, with new movies from Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese, Steve McQueen and Greta Gerwig, and sequels galore, including a 7th "Mission: Impossible" and a 5th "Indiana Jones."
80-year-old Harrison Ford got digitally de-aged for 'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny'Image: Scicily1/IPA/ABACAPRESS/picture alliance
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For the better part of two years, as the COVID pandemic shut down theaters worldwide, cinema fans were starved of big movies. But after the fast comes the feast.
This past year has been a big screen bonanza, with everything from pure-popcorn blockbusters like "Top Gun: Maverick" and "Avatar: The Way of Water" to intimate and human-sized features, including Todd Field's classical music drama "Tar" starring Cate Blanchett and the twisty Hitchcockian thriller "Decision to Leave" from Korean director Park Chan-wook.
But it looks like 2023 will be the year film fans really fill their boots. The new year is so packed with must-see movies, some cinephiles will struggle to get out of the theaters.
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Epic movies are back
In the epic category, we have three directing titans taking on big biopics of famous personalities.
In "Oppenheimer," "Tenet" and "Interstellar" filmmaker Christopher Nolan turns the story of the Manhattan Project and the development of the first atomic bomb into a ticking-clock moral thriller. Cillian Murphy plays Robert Oppenheimer alongside an A-list cast including Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, and Gary Oldman.
The directors' director, Michael Mann ("The Last of the Mohicans," "Heat") is in pole position with "Ferrari," his long-in-development movie about the life of the Italian driver and auto innovator. Adam Driver plays Enzo Ferrari —hopefully with a better Italian accent than was on display in Ridley Scott's disastrous "House of Gucci" — with Penelope Cruz as his wife Laura.
Not to be outdone, Martin Scorsese is going full epic with "Roosevelt," his take on Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt Jr, 25th President of the United States, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as the big man in a story that follows Roosevelt’s transformation from a slender, pampered Harvard boy to a commanding general and political leader.
Scorsese-DiCaprio completists will get a double-dip, as Scorsese is also releasing "Killers Of The Flower Moon," a $200 million crime drama centered around the real-life murders of members of a Native American tribe in the 1920s. The killings sparked a major FBI investigation.
The works of filmmaking legend Martin Scorsese
For many critics, Martin Scorsese ranks as one of the most important US film directors of the last half-century. The native New Yorker has shaped American cinema like no other.
Image: 2017 Concorde Filmverleih GmbH
Master of moving pictures
Martin Scorsese was born in Queens, New York in 1942, far from the glittering lights of Hollywood. The Italian-American grew up in Little Italy, his beloved hometown. At first he wanted to be a priest, but eventually he decided to study film — a lucky choice for film lovers around the world.
Image: 2017 Concorde Filmverleih GmbH
Scenes of a city: 'Mean Streets'
After his 1967 debut, Scorsese made his breakthrough with the 1973 thriller "Mean Streets." The gritty drama introduced the milieu that would make him famous: the Mafia, petty criminals and the New York underworld. The film was an unsparing look at the reality inspired by his childhood experiences. Shot in a furious, tumultuous style, it starred a young Robert De Niro (right) and Harvey Keitel.
Image: United Archives/dpa/picture alliance
Iconic images: 'Taxi Driver'
Despite many later masterpieces, this 1976 film remains a favorite. The disturbing meditation on love and violence stars De Niro as a frustrated Vietnam veteran working as a nighttime taxi driver driven to save a 12-year-old prostitute (a young Jodie Foster). With De Niro acting, Michael Chapman behind the camera and Bernard Herrmann scoring the music, Scorsese created a classic.
Image: Ronald Grant/IMAGO
Musical love story: 'New York, New York'
For some critics, the excessive violence in "Taxi Driver" was a step too far. "New York, New York," released a year later, aimed to be more crowd-pleasing: a post-World War II love story that was heavy on the music. De Niro was back in the role of a self-centered saxophonist, joined by Liza Minnelli (right) as a young singer. However, the film did not do well at the box office.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/Everett Collection
Violence in the ring: 'Raging Bull'
Scorsese's boxing biopic is considered to be one the best films of all time. Released in 1980, the film follows the career of American boxer Jake LaMotta, charting his rise and fall. De Niro's performance is legendary: to realistically portray the different phases of the boxing star's life, he went through extensive training and gained nearly 60 pounds (27 kilograms).
Image: United Archives/IMAGO
Comedic satire: 'The King of Comedy'
After shining the spotlight on gangsters, music and sports, Scorsese showed off another facet of his skills in 1982. "The King of Comedy" is a brilliant satire on the cult of stardom and media hype. Unsuccessful at the box office, today the film is considered one of Scorsese's best works. De Niro returned to star with famed comedian Jerry Lewis — a winning team.
Image: Mary Evans Picture Library/picture alliance
Playing with film history: 'The Color of Money'
Scorsese is not only an outstanding director but also a major connoisseur of film history. This has been shown by his various documentaries on individual film epochs — and his billiard drama "The Color of Money," starring Paul Newman and Tom Cruise. The film builds on Robert Rossen's 1961 classic "The Hustler," in which Newman portrayed a young pool player.
Image: Glasshouse Images/picture alliance
Life of Jesus: 'The Last Temptation of Christ'
When he was a young man, Scorsese wanted to become a priest. Nothing came of it, but as a director he has returned to the topic of religion again and again. It came up in numerous subplots of his gangster movies and was also central to his 1988 film "The Last Temptation of Christ." A convincing Willem Dafoe took on the lead role.
Image: United Archives/picture-alliance
Mafia masterpiece: 'Goodfellas'
In 1990, Scorsese returned to one of his favorite themes with a film that was more elaborate and more brutal than anything he'd done before. "Goodfellas" takes an in-depth look at the Sicilian Mafia world in New York. In the leading roles: Ray Liotta (left), Joe Pesci (center) — and, of course, Robert De Niro (right). Shooting his fourth feature for Scorsese was Germany's Michael Ballhaus.
Image: picture-alliance
Historic love: 'The Age of Innocence'
In a seemingly conscious effort to break free from the Mafia theme, Scorsese went in a completely different direction in 1993. The historical romance "The Age of Innocence," based on the well-known book by New York writer Edith Wharton, was an artistic success. Scorsese mastered the genre almost effortlessly, with the help of actors Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder.
Image: dpa/picture alliance
Epic: 'Gangs of New York'
Scorsese linked crime and history in his 2002 feature "Gangs of New York." The ambitious production cost upwards of €100 million (around $120 million). The film, starring Leonardo DiCaprio (right), Daniel Day-Lewis (left) and Cameron Diaz, received mixed reviews, in part because now-disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein was accused of having overstepped his role to influence the movie.
Image: picture-alliance/United Archives/Impress
Old-school glamour: 'The Aviator'
Much like De Niro in the first half of his career, Leonardo DiCaprio has become one of Scorsese's favorite actors. In 2004, DiCaprio starred alongside Cate Blanchett in the ambitious "The Aviator" as legendary billionaire Howard Hughes. The film was a brilliant portrait of the eccentric aviation pioneer, film producer and seducer of Hollywood starlets.
Image: Entertainment Pictures/IMAGO
3D homage: 'Hugo'
In 2011, Scorsese made a love letter to cinema with his family film "Hugo." Set in the early 1930s, it tells the story of 12-year-old orphan Hugo Cabret who lives in the walls of a Parisian train station. The mystery was the director's homage to the birth of cinema and early French filmmaker Georges Melies, and it gave Scorsese the chance to experiment with 3D technology.
Image: Entertainment Pictures/IMAGO
Power of money: 'The Wolf of Wall Street'
Two years later in 2013, the director turned his attention to the world of finance with "The Wolf of Wall Street." DiCaprio was back in this behind-the-scenes look at the true story of a corrupt stockbroker in the early 1990s. The film skewers the Wall Street mentality and is classic Scorsese, inventively filmed and full of whimsical, even humorous scenes.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/abaca/C. Guerin
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Big films from big directors
The big film/ big director offerings don't stop there.
Denis Villeneuve returns in 2023 with "Dune: Part Two," the closing chapter in his sci-fi extravaganza, starring Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya. "Blitz" from "12 Years a Slave" filmmaker Steve McQueen explores stories of Londoners during the WWII bombings of the British capital.
Wes Anderson goes full quirky with "Asteroid City," an all-star piece starring Tilda Swinton, Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson and Bryan Cranston, centered on an astronomy convention in a desert in the 1950s.
Notably, 83-year-old "Godfather" director Francis Ford Coppola will present his two-decades-in-the-making swan song, "Megalopolis," about an architect trying to rebuild New York City after a devastating disaster. The film features Adam Driver, Forest Whitaker and Laurence Fishburne.
On the more popcorn side of the scale, Tom Cruise, after soaring to new heights of supersonic stardom with "Top Gun: Maverick," returns as IMF agent Ethan Hunt in the seventh entry of the "Mission: Impossible" action franchise. Keanu Reeves will be back, guns a-blazing, as the titular assassin in "John Wick: Chapter 4," and a de-aged Harrison Ford dons the fedora one more time for "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny."
Superheroes are back
Hollywood is dusting off quite a few old franchises for 2023.
There will be new "Transformers" "Star Wars" and "Fast and the Furious" sequels and a prequel to "The Hunger Games" ("Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes"). There's also going to be a reboot of 1989's guilty pleasure "Road House" starring Jake Gyllenhaal in the Patrick Swayze role as the tough bouncer, for whom "pain don't hurt," hired to tame a notoriously dirty bar.
Meanwhile, the superhero factory continues to spit out new models. Fans of tights and VFX can look forward to a third "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Ant-Man," a second "Captain Marvel," "Aquaman" and "Shazam!," and at least one new entry to the comic-book canon, as "The Flash," featuring controversial star Ezra Miller as the fastest man on earth, finally hits theaters.
Alongside "Transformers," another feature-length film based on a toy will be making a play for cinema audiences. But "Barbie" from "Lady Bird" and "Little Women" director Greta Gerwig promises to be a smart and even feminist take on the blond plastic icon. Margot Robbie plays Barbie and Ryan Gosling as her ever-smiling beau Ken. The story has Barbie banished from the candy-colored utopia of Barbieland and thrown into our world.
Films for arthouse fans
Those who like their feminism without the sweetener can check out Sarah Polley's "Women Talking." Her adaptation of Miriam Toews' novel about women in a tight-knit religious community grappling with the fallout from a sexual abuse scandal stars Rooney Mara, Claire Foy and Frances McDormand. It wowed fans at the Toronto Film Festival this year and will hit theaters in 2023.
Specialty and arthouse film highlights for 2023 are almost too numerous to mention, but here is a sampling. One movie to look out for is Susanna Fogel’s "Cat Person," a look at modern-day relationships featuring "CODA" breakout Emilia Jones and "Succession" star Nicholas Braun.
Todd Haynes will release melodrama "May/December" with Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, and Charles Melton. "Poor Things," the latest exercise in mind-bending weirdness from the inimitable Yorgos Lanthimos, director of "The Lobster" and "The Favourite," will feature Emma Stone as a woman brought back from the dead via the brain of her unborn child.
That film might be an acquired taste, but the copious cinema buffet on offer means there truly will be something for everyone next year at the movies.
