Year Ender 2023: From Past Lives to Kaathal, 23 best World Cinema films of 2023

Wry, witty and humane, Aatmapamphlet’s climax has had critics divided but they all agree that its premise and construction make it worth a watch. (Screen grab/YouTube/Colour Yellow Productions)

2023 has been an eventful year for major film industries around the globe. Three Shah Rukh Khan films in a single year—Pathaan, Jawan and Dunki—might sound like a small miracle, and we’ve all danced in a theatre in response. Bollywood’s come back with a vengeance, they say; while out West, the outlandish box office success of veteran filmmakers like Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon) and Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer) is being considered further proof that superhero fatigue has well and truly taken over.

Indeed, the other half of the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon, Greta Gerwig, transformed a vanilla re-branding project into a feminist manifesto. Wes Anderson hit screens both big and small, with Asteroid City and Henry Sugar, and dominated pop culture in a way the indie director has probably never wanted. While the greats became greater, Hollywood was rocked by SAG-AFTRA strikes—a reckoning with the demands of those who stood behind the picket lines was long overdue.

But there has also been a bounty of great cinema from around the world—from Norway to Japan, Kerala to Mexico—that hasn’t floated up to mainstream attention, likely because these films haven’t had the same marketing budgets. This is not an exhaustive list, but watch out for these films—coming to a film festival, screen or platform near you in the near future, if not already there—that among themselves showcase the range, styles and thematic concerns of our times’ most provocative filmmakers.

1. Past Lives by Celine Song, on Prime Video

Among the most acclaimed films of 2023, and with a string of award nominations in tow, Past Lives is a gentle, sensitive story that considers the question of ‘the path not taken’ quite seriously. Nora (Greta Lee) meets her childhood friend from Seoul, Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), decades after she has immigrated to New York. As they recount their lives to each other, she begins to question her marriage—but just when things appear to be on the verge of unravelling completely, comes a climax that leaves you breathless.

2. Kaathal: The Core by Jeo Baby, on JioCinema

A middle-aged politician in a small Kerala town gets a ticket to stand for elections at the same time that his wife decides to file for divorce—and her petition claims that he is gay. Mammootty and Jyothika bring career best performances in this delicate drama that navigates the serpentine waters of gender, class, sexuality, morality and tradition, without ever venturing into didacticism.

3. Sick of Myself by Kristoffer Borgli

Signe, a barista, is critical of her sculptor boyfriend’s narcissism, but also jealous of his moment in the limelight. To catch some of that golden light, she consumes a banned Russian medication that disfigures her face so badly, medical attention is warranted. Along with baffled doctors, come the curious press—and it appears she’s gotten what she wanted. Or has she? A vicious black comedy from Norway, Sick of Myself is full of awful people behaving awfully—and it’s a delight to watch.

4. Chithha by SU Arun Kumar, on Disney+Hotstar

A young girl is kidnapped, and her doting uncle is accused of abuse. This simple log line does little to grasp the depth, nuance and humanity with which Kumar has brought to life a slightly disturbing story of sexual abuse and masculinity. Add to that a career-best performance from Siddharth—this is a compelling watch.

5. Godland by Hlynur Palmason

Set in the 19th century, Godland follows a Danish pastor who has been sent to Iceland’s remote south-eastern coast to establish a church. What follows is effectively a survival drama, as young Lucas—who fancies himself something of an ethnographer along with being the lord’s emissary, a capsule of the time’s colonial aspirations—endures immense hardship to get there. Above all the compelling human drama, Godland is a treat for the eyes, with beautiful shots, locations, and camera work that transports you to a world that might have never actually existed but feels like it did.

6. Huesera: The Bone Woman by Michelle Garza Cervera

In the Mexican filmmaker’s accomplished debut feature—a horror flick—post-partum depression becomes a terrifying allegory for a woman who thinks she wants babies but realises, only too late, that she may not be ready to let go of the exciting, free-spirited “love is love” lifestyle she once adhered to. This terror, of course, manifests in hallucinations—she sees bones within bodies cracking everywhere. There is a truly chilling climax to boot, but some of the most terrifying bits are unnervingly close to reality.

7. Fallen Leaves by Aki Kaurismaki, on MUBI

In present-day Helsinki, Ansa is a 40-something woman who works at a supermarket that surveils its employees while paying them minimum wage. Holappa is a middle-aged construction worker who drinks a bit much and can’t hold a job. They meet at a karaoke bar, and while they’re really not each other’s “type”, they decide to give it a go. Kaurismaki’s rom-com is saved from Love Actually-style soppiness by its dry, satirical eye on world events—such as the war in Ukraine, capitalist greed, and rising social inequality—with a certain weariness that’ll feel all too familiar.

8. Close by Lukas Dhont, on Prime Video

The Belgian director’s latest is a heart-wrenching tale of adolescent friendship between two 13-year-olds who together spend a dream summer of war story reenactments, lying on the grass, abundant sleepovers and teenage hijinks together. But a stray, thoughtless question once they return to school cleaves them apart. Insightful and deeply moving.

9. Return to Seoul by Davy Chou, on Prime Video

In the able hands of the Cambodian French director, fresh face Park Ji-min transforms into Freddie, a compelling young woman who was adopted by French parents but returns to Seoul to contact her birth parents. The film takes her (and us) to strange places—she even has a stint dealing arms—but at its core is a very familiar quest for identity.

10. Passages by Ira Sachs, on MUBI

Tomas and Martin are cosmopolitan sophisticates, happily married and living it up in France. That is, until Tomas ends up sleeping with a woman. Playing out in Paris at its seductive best, Passages is as much about the gashes that infidelity, no matter how frank and in-your-face, can rend on someone’s psyche—while also touching on middle age and the very idea of monogamy.

11. Monster by Hirokazu Kore-eda

In the Japanese-language Monster, time isn’t linear, no one’s motives are what they seem and explanations for strange happenings are hard to come by. The film opens with a building on fire—a hostess bar—and young Minato watching it go up in flames. Minato has complained to his mother about being insulted and beaten by his teacher (who has been spotted at this building). His livid mother demands explanations from the school, only to find out that her son has been bullying others. The story twists into further complexity before it all unspools—thankfully on a note of hope and humanness.

12. Anatomy of a Fall by Justine Triet

The winner of this year’s Palme D’Or at Cannes film festival, Triet’s courtroom drama is a nail-biter from start to finish. Much like the Colin Firth-led The Staircase, this is a film that considers how society (and a courtroom) puts a relationship under the scanner when a writer falls to his death from the top floor of his mountain chalet. His wife becomes the only suspect, and in the end, it might be up to their young son to decide if she’s really innocent.

13. Three Of Us by Avinash Arun Dhaware, on Netflix

Shailaja (Shefali Shah) is a housewife who, one day, asks her husband to accompany her on a trip to Vengurla, a sleepy town in coastal Maharashtra. It is where she spent a few years of her adolescence—where she re-connects with old friends, her memories of a those halcyon days, and a paramour of the past. Buoyed by Avinash Arun’s sweeping frames (he is also the cinematographer), this is a film that foregrounds nostalgia, while also channeling a spirit of acceptance for the roads we’ve trodden through our lives, sans judgement.

14. The Zone of Interest by Jonathan Glazer

A family drama with the commanding officer who led Auschwitz at its centre? Tricky terrain, but Glazer pulls it off with chilling effect. Outside this technicolour mansion where picnics, dinners and garden parties transpire, systematic mass murder is being carried out (as history has attested) but you can only hear it. Glazer’s great achievement is to use the lens of survelliance—never empathetic, always clinical.

15. The Boy And The Heron by Hayao Miyazaki / Studio Ghibli

A decade after he retired from anime, after the swan song called The Wind Rises, Miyazaki’s latest is a somewhat more autobiographical story about a boy whose mother dies during WWII, and who is then transported to the countryside by his father, growing up and contending with the notion of grief in a fantastical universe of his own making. As if that weren’t compelling enough, you will not be able to take your eyes off the art.

16. Maagh - The Winter Within by Aamir Bashir

While it premiered at the Busan film festival late last year, Bashir’s sophomore feature is still doing the rounds of film festivals, and stunning audiences—big and small—into quiet contemplation, around the globe. The wonderful Zoya Hussain plays Nargis, a pashmina-shawl weaver hailing from the nomadic Bakarwal tribe, who copes with loss and uncertainty in a Kashmir where Article 370 has been revoked, when her husband does not return after an Army sweep. Time moves at a glacial pace and Kashmir’s white beauty is everywhere—but the violence, never explicit, is evident for anyone who cares to look.

17. The Monk And The Gun by Pawo Choyning Dorji

Bhutan’s official Oscar submission is also Dorji’s love letter to his country as it transformed in the mid-2000s—a kingdom that built bridges with the West on Coca-Cola cans, Internet cable, TV sets and materialism. As the country prepares for its first-ever democratic election, Dorji depicts his countrymen reckoning with this clash between traditional values and modernity, and uses an American character on a globe-trotting hunt for a Civil War rifle, to invite the world in.

18. Ardhangini by Kaushik Ganguly

Churni Ganguly, whom you might remember from Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani, takes the lead in her partner Kaushik Ganguly’s sublime tale about a woman who must help her ex-husband’s new wife (and former lover) navigate matters of finance and grief when the man they have in common is in a coma. A gentle story about womanhood that doesn’t reduce its female protagonists to the roles they must play in mens’ lives.

19. The Taste of Things by Tranh Anh Hung, on MUBI

The inimitable Juliette Binoche plays cook to late-1800s’ celebrated gourmet chef Dodin Bouffant (played by Benoit Magimel), who might’ve invaded continents with his culinary skills, but whose real passion is reserved for Eugenie—a fact that he proves when he begins to cook for her. A bittersweet romance from the Belgian director—just the candy you need in these hard times.

20. Aatmapamphlet by Ashish Avinash Bende, on Zee5

This extraordinary young-adult romance, that is also a biting satire about coming of age in 1980s India, has a simple plotline. Young Ashish Bende (Om Bendkhale) has a crush on schoolmate Srushti and hopes to one day find the courage to profess his love. At the same time, he and his gang of friends reckon with growing up in a country that is witnessing changes that will alter the graph of its history and future place in the world. Wry, witty and humane, Aatmapamphlet’s climax has had critics divided but they all agree that its premise and construction make it worth a watch.

21. One Fine Morning by Mia Hansen-Løve, on Prime Video

Léa Seydoux plays a single mother who is raising an eight-year-old daughter while also caring for her father, who has been diagnosed with a neuro-degenerative disease. To complicate things, she finds solace in unexpected quarters, in this drama about the marks that life’s big changes can leave behind.

22. Tora’s Husband by Rima Das

In Rima Das’ third feature, Chhaygaon in Assam is coming back to life after being ravaged by the pandemic. Tora (Tarali Kalita Das) is a housewife who watches her husband Jaan (Abhijit Das) lose his sense of self. The director of Village Rockstars takes the global calamity as a moment to consider all that we can lose, death and disease notwithstanding, and how grief can come from unexpected quarters.

23. All Of Us Strangers by Andrew Haigh

Adapted from the Japanese novel Strangers, by Taichi Yamada, Haigh’s romance had the Internet in a flutter when its cast was announced. Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott live up to the hype in this fantasy romance. Scott is Adam, a depressed screenwriter who is working on a script based on the death of his parents when he was very young. In the alcohol-loving Harry, he finds company—and more. But as he reckons with his queerness, the movie swerves into supernatural territory—turns out his folks are alive and well, living as they did in the 1980s. Strong performances and Haigh’s innate sense of style make this a must-watch.