top upcoming movies to watch in 2023

Upcoming 2023 films to watch 

Upcoming 2023 movies to watch 

 1. Cocaine Bear

With a title so short and to the point that it makes Snakes on a Plane seem convoluted, Cocaine Bear is "inspired by" the true story of a black bear that swallowed a drug dealer's stash of cocaine.

2. 65

The Jurassic Park / World franchise might have gone extinct with Jurassic World Dominion, but there are plenty more dinosaurs on the big screen in 65. 

3. John Wick, Chapter 4

Keanu Reeves returns as the assassin-but-hero John Wick, now scowling, kicking and killing his way across continents. He travels through Paris, Berlin, Osaka and other James-Bond like locations as if Bond were a hit man instead of a spy.

4. Renfield

In Bram Stoker's Dracula, Renfield is the undead Count's devoted servant, a madman who eats flies and plots his escape from an asylum. But he gets a makeover in this horror comedy from Chris McKay, director of The Lego Batman Movie.

5. The Little Mermaid

Disney's remake of the 1989 animated classic is live action – or as life-like as a story about a half-human, half-fish princess can be. Halle Bailey, who sings with her sister as the group Chloe x Halle, plays Ariel, longing to grow legs so she can join her prince on land.

6. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

In 2018, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse brought together numerous different animation styles to form a mesmerising pop-art masterpiece. It also brought together numerous different Spider-People

7. Asteroid City

Wes Anderson's latest skewed take on the world is set in 1955 in a fictional US desert town where children and parents attend a Junior Stargazer/ Space Cadet convention.

8. Elemental

Pixar's latest cartoon is set in Element City, a metropolis where everyone is made of one of the four classical elements: earth, water, air and fire. But what happens when a watery man (voiced by Mamoudou Athie) is attracted to a fiery woman (Leah Lewis)? Could things get steamy?

9. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

It's been 15 years since Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull came out – but now the 80-year-old Harrison Ford has dusted off his brown fedora for a fifth archaeological adventure

10. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

Having starred in the biggest film of 2022, Top Gun: Maverick, Tom Cruise moves straight onto what is bound to be one of the biggest films of 2023. It's certainly got one of the biggest titles. Delayed by two years because of the pandemic.

11. Barbie

All it took was a couple of photos: Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling rollerblading in retro-80s bubble-gum pink costumes as Barbie and Ken.

12. Oppenheimer

Tenet (2020) left many viewers scratching their heads, but Christopher Nolan's latest seems more firmly grounded. As he did in Dunkirk, Nolan revisits the past, this time with a more controversial story. 

13. Challengers

Fraught romances – Call Me by Your Name and the recent cannibal love story Bones and All – are one of Luca Guadagnino's specialties. Here it's a love triangle on a tennis court. 

14. Next Goal Wins

In 2001, Australia beat American Samoa at football, with a scoreline of 31-0. The American Samoan team was derided as the world's worst footballers for years afterwards, but their fortunes changed when they hired Thomas Rongen, a determined Dutch-US coach

15. Dune: Part Two

You know what to expect from Denis Villeneuve's follow-up to his 2001 extravaganza: Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides, Zendaya as his love interest, Chani, plus lots of sand and giant sandworms on the desert planet of Arrakis

16. Wonka

When did Willy Wonka meet the Oompa Loompas? How did he invent the Everlasting Gobstopper? These are just a couple of the questions that you probably didn't ask when you were reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

17. Poor Things

Yorgos Lanthimos, one of the most exciting directors working today, creates a bizarre Victorian tale, reuniting with Emma Stone and screenwriter Tony McNamara, both from The Favourite.

18. Beau is Afraid

The surreal and supernatural have a tendency to intrude on family life in Ari Aster's dazzling, idiosyncratic, psychologically fraught films (Hereditary, Midsommar).

19. Killers of the Flower Moon

Martin Scorsese's true-crime Western was in BBC Culture's round-up of films to watch in 2022, but its release was pushed back, so here we are again – and the release date still hasn't been confirmed

20. Maestro

Bradley Cooper is director, co-writer and star, playing Leonard Bernstein, the outsized conductor, composer (West Side Story) and celebrity who towered over the music world in the last half of the 20th Century

top upcoming movies to watch in 2023