2023-12-12 15:39:25
2023 was a good year for cinema, in any case there were a lot of great films to see. This makes it all the more difficult to choose the best ten. We tried anyway and sorted them alphabetically rather than by quality. It’s a sensible coincidence that our list ends – and also begins – with Sandra Hülser, Germany’s new cinema star.
“Anatomy of a Case”
Sandra Hülser (r.) in “Anatomy of a Case”
Quelle: Plaion Pictures
Awards for this film have been raining since Cannes. The first ones – who always become suspicious when the celebration becomes too collective – are already looking for what they can criticize about Sandra Hülser. Nothing! Here she plays – Oscar-worthy – a writer who is suspected of having killed her husband (also a writer, but of the failed variety) by pushing him out of the attic window of the house. Or was it an accident? Even suicide? The film plot focuses on the reconstruction of the case. The police are investigating and the writer will soon be in court. The fact that it never gets boring over the course of 150 minutes is also due to the fantastic supporting cast: Swann Arnaud as the self-absorbed lawyer and Milo Machado Graner in the child role. The French director Justine Triet has confidently brought the legal drama genre into the 21st century, as a relationship thriller and psychological chamber play with a mcguffin-sized soundtrack: an instrumental version of 50 Cent’s “PIMP” Marc Reichwein
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“Anatomy of a Case”
„Asteroid City“
Steve Carell (l.) in „Asteroid City“
Quelle: Courtesy of Pop. 87 Productions/Focus Features
The weirdos say that Wes Anderson has outlived himself or is stuck in the straitjacket of his aesthetic mannerism. In fact, “Asteroid City” also uses a lot of pastel palaver. The usual suspects are at the start, Jason Schwartzman and Adrien Brody, this time joined by Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Margot Robbie, Rupert Friend, Jeff Goldblum, Steve Carrell, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Matt Dillon and and and. Even Jarvis Cocker from Pulp and a shy alien star in this most beautiful of all Anderson films, about the things that really matter in life: love, memories and gifted teenagers. Jan Kuveler
About the pros and cons
Opinion about Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City”
„Banshees of Inisherin“
Colin Farrell in Banshees of Inisherin
Quelle: picture alliance / ZUMAPRESS.com / Entertainment Pictures
The banshees in the title of Martin McDonagh’s Irish ballad about 1923 and the bloody end of a friendship, which was released in Germany this year, do not bode well. Banshees are Celtic banshees sent from the afterlife to announce their impending death to the living. On the Irish island of Inisherin (modeled on Acaill, the largest of the Irish islands), Colm becomes friends with Pádraic. The two were more than brothers, part of the inventory of the Inisherin pub. Then everything explodes. A simple story. And an almost magically current tale about toxic masculinity, the origin of violence, about how loneliness makes people – especially men – strange and susceptible to hubris and self-destructive madness. Elmar Krekeler
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„The Banshees of Inisherin“
„Barbie“
Margot Robbie in „Barbie“
Source: Warner Bros.
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Any nagging objections that “Barbie” is an ultra-capitalist venture commissioned by the Mattel company must be ignored when it comes to this masterpiece. The popes for whom Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel were not orphans either. Richly allusive and funny, Greta Gerwig gets to the bottom of the secret of gaming. Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling travel somnambulistically between the world of fantasy and reality. What are you made for? You can only find out for yourself, as Billie Eilish whispers unrivaled in your ear. Plus wonderful supporting characters like Weird Barbie! Jakob Hayner
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„Killers of the Flower Moon“
Lily Gladstone (M.) in „Killers of the Flower Moon“
Those: Melinda Sue Gordon/Apple TV+
Martin Scorsese is still in impressive form in his ninth decade. “Killers of the Flower Moon”, the true story of the crimes against the oil-rich Osage, is as visually powerful as it is depressing. Fabulous book (David Grann) meets fabulous screenplay (Scorsese and Eric Roth). Fabulous actors (De Niro, diCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons) make for a fabulous film that is actually three films in one: a sick love story, a historical crime story and a stirring courtroom drama. Seen this way, Scorsese also picked up the pace. “Killers of the Flower Moon” stays under four hours. Wieland friend
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„Killers of the Flower Moon“
“The teacher’s room”
Leonie Bensch in “The Teacher’s Room”
Quelle: picture alliance / ZUMAPRESS.com / Entertainment Pictures
Since the sixty-eights began to march through institutions, the staff room has been a mythical place from which hope for a better future radiated. In Ilker Çatak’s German Film Prize winner “The Teacher’s Room”, an idealistic teacher fresh from university takes over a class and fails miserably because of the realities: unrealistic training, selfish helicopter parents, the dark side of zero tolerance, racism in the classroom, the shitstorm society . A mercilessly consistent film with the logic of a nightmare or, in short: Germany 2023. Hanns-Georg Rodek
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„Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning“
Tom Cruise in „Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning“
Quelle: Paramount Pictures and Skydance
Things are mostly tranquil on the legendary Orient Express. Cocktails and fine dinners alternate while the landscape passes by outside. As soon as Tom Cruise buys a ticket, the lethargy is over. The long, breathtaking scene, which begins with one of the most breakneck stunts in cinema history and ends with another, can be understood metaphorically: Cruise is and remains the most powerful locomotive in action cinema. And not only is secret agent Ethan Hunt up to date, but also his adversary, played inexpensively by an artificial intelligence. Jan Kuveler
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„The Old Oak“
Dave Turner (M.) in „Old Oak“
Quelle: Wild Bunch Germany
Refugees from Syria reach a former mining village in northern England – and some villagers are “not amused”. Too much has changed: vacant properties are being sold off to real estate sharks, and children often go to bed here without a warm meal. The owner of the local pub wants to change that, together with the new villagers and following the motto of the once proud miners: “If we eat together, we stick together”. In what is probably his last film, Ken Loach (87) shows a lot of understanding for the fear of the left behind of strangers. And how it can be overcome through new community spirit. A small masterpiece beyond all multicultural sentimentality. Mladen Gladic
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Ken Loachs „The Old Oak“
„Oppenheimer“
Cillian Murphy in „Oppenheimer“
Quelle: Universal Pictures
Making three-hour films in the age of Instagram and TikTok should be banned. The only exception that didn’t make me angry this year was Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. Carried by the fantastic acting of Cillian Murphy – and perhaps also by the waiting for the atomic bomb to explode – you stay spellbound by the story. Nolan has managed to give the cruelty something poetic – which culminates in the magnificent scene of the detonation, shown without sound. The film resonates for a long time and for me it beat “Barbie” this year. Lena Karger
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„The Zone of Interest“
Sandra Hüller in „The Zone of Interest“
Source: dpa/LEONINE Studios
Holocaust films have ventured further and further in their graphic representation of horror – most recently into the gas chambers. The Cannes runner-up “Zone of Interest” by Briton Jonathan Glazer, which will be released in Germany at the beginning of next year, now takes a step back visually: we don’t see anything of the inside of the concentration camp. We just hear it. For the first and last minutes of the film, the screen remains black; only the sounds of shots and screams fill the cinema. In between, we experience the untroubled family idyll of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höß, whose garden directly borders the camp. Marie Luise Goldman
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„The Zone of Interest“
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