2023 was another great year in the world of movies, but it will undoubtedly go down in history as the year that brought us the global phenomenon known as Barbenheimer. Yes, the combination we never knew we needed of Barbie and Oppenheimer was a match made in heaven that took us all by a pink and explosive storm. These two films may have led the pack, but there were a ton of other great movies that also made this a year to remember. And that’s where our list of the best reviewed movies of 2023 comes in.
For this particular roundup, we’ve decided to only include movies that we scored a 9 or 10. Per our review scale, a 9 means the movie was “Amazing” and a 10 means it was a “Masterpiece.” These coveted scores are our highest recommendations, and hopefully this list will ensure you don’t miss what were some of the best movies of 2023.
It only feels right to start with the Barbenheimer of it all. While Barbie may have won our Best Movie of the Year in 2023, as well as the global box office with a stellar worldwide total of $1.4 billion, Oppenheimer was the only one to walk away with a 10.
Reviewer Siddhant Adlakha said Oppenheimer was a “disturbing, mesmerizing vision of what humanity is capable of bringing upon itself, through its innovation, and through its capacity to justify any atrocity.” Barbie, on the other plastic hand, still took home a very respectable 9 from reviewer Alyssa Mora, who said it was a “masterful exploration of femininity and the pressures of perfection.”
There was only one other 10 in 2023, and as far as what it was, we only have two words - Baba Yaga. Very much in the fashion of how Keanu Reeves’ legendary character is an unstoppable force who takes down all who stand in his way, John Wick: Chapter 4 defied all the odds and secured the only other 10 from IGN in 2023. Reviewer Tom Jorgensen said this film “stands above its predecessors – and the past decade’s worth of action films as a whole – as a modern epic” as its “incredibly staged action scenes, engaging ensemble, and stylish production design coalesce into a modern action masterclass.”
The rest of our best reviewed movies all earned a 9, and a handful of them were based on events and people from history. One of the most high-profile movies in this category was Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, which is centered around the murders in a Native American tribe in Oklahoma. Adlakha said the film “revisits the Osage murders of the 1920s with a masterful hand, and a shockingly frank approach to violence and white supremacy.”
This month’s The Zone of Interest was the final film to get a 9 in 2023, and it tells the haunting story of a commandant of Auschwitz who is working to build a dream life for his family right next to the Holocaust’s deadliest camp. Reviewer Chase Hutchinson said it is “one of the most monumental films ever made” and one of the most “starkly horrifying, sickening, and monstrous” stories you’ll ever witness.
Maestro was directed by and stars Bradley Cooper as conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein. Reviewer Hanna Ines Flint said its “dynamic cinematic language speaks to the heart” and that the “caliber of Bradley Cooper's direction is matched by a transformative performance as the great American composer opposite a dynamite Carey Mulligan as his actress-wife.”
Horror was another genre that stood tall this year, and it was all led by our first 9 in 2023 in Scream 6. While reviewer Amelia Emberwing said it did “ultimately fumble the reason for Sidney Prescott’s absence,” that didn’t take away from the wonderful new Core Four cast that helped the sequel hit “all the right emotional beats” alongside “dialing the brutality up to eleven.”
Evil Dead Rise came next and was another beloved return of a longstanding franchise. Reviewer Matt Donato said it was “both a familiar and refreshing Evil Dead sequel that delivers all the gore you’d expect with a measured dose of the humor that makes this series a fan favorite.” Talk to Me was a new horror tale that told what happens when a group of friends figure out how to conjure spirits with an embalmed hand. Reviewer Kenneth Seward Jr. said it was a “unique take on possession” that put a focus on the “struggles associated with grief and depression.”
Famed horror writer/director Ari Aster followed up his terrifying Midsommar with the Joaquin Phoenix-led Beau Is Afraid, and Adlakha said it was a “deeply personal horror-comedy at a wildly ambitious scale.” Rounding out the horror bunch was When Evil Lurks, a film that took us to a farm where a demonic infection was doing some terrible things to the local livestock… and more. Donato said When Evil Lurks is a “capital ‘H’ horror film that risks it all and hits the jackpot, pummeling its audience into submissions and still leaving us asking for more.”
Jumping to more joyous fare, we were treated to some great laughs these past 365 days. One of the more lightweight moviegoing experiences of 2023 was Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, which we said very well may be the “most Wes Anderson movie.” Reviewer Jordan Hoffman wrote that it is “deceptively hilarious, and includes all the visual flair one would expect from this veteran auteur director and such a large cast of renowned actors.”
Adlakha said that Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers was an amazing “coming-of-age comedy-drama” that gave us a “career-defining performance” by Paul Giamatti. Richard Linklater’s Hit Man was another one that kept us smiling throughout its runtime as it mixed “romance with screwball comedy and a bizarre story of identity crisis that results in one of the most entertaining movies of the year.”
2023 also gave us what we once thought was going to be Hayao Miyazaki’s last film in The Boy and the Heron. While it turns out the legendary animator is already hard at work on his next project, that didn’t stop reviewer Rafael Motamayor from saying it was “Studio Ghibli’s most visually complex film to date” and that it also contemplated “the legacy of a legendary filmmaker and the world he is leaving behind.”
The Boy and the Heron was joined by other top-tier animated films, including Suzume. Seward Jr. said that this film, which follows the struggles of being a teenager that are compounded by the “occasional world-ending monster,” was one of the “most captivating animated films released this year.” Netflix’s Nimona was another standout in 2023 and turned out to be an excellent adaptation of the graphic novel by Noelle Stevenson. Reviewer Samantha Nelson said it was a “sweet and funny science-fantasy film that boldly fights the monster of intolerance.”
Motamayor also found a lot to love in The First Slam Dunk, the sequel to the iconic ’90s manga and anime that followed the members of the Shohoku High School basketball team. In his review, he called it a “high-octane thrilling sports anime film with mind-blowing animation that serves as a great conclusion and introduction to a classic ’90s anime.”
The last three movies we’ll be discussing all have stuck with us well past when their credits rolled. The first one up is Fingernails, a film starring Jessie Buckley and Jeremy Allen White that our reviewer Rafa Sales Ross said was a “sleek sci-fi feature that sets out to question the differences between passion and love through a near-future dystopia where couples can scientifically test their connection.”
May December is next and it follows an actress played by Natalie Portman who is shadowing a controversial tabloid figure played by Julianne Moore. Adlakha called it an “unnerving, campy triumph” that is a “melodramatic piece about searching for both honesty and dishonesty, and about which one is truly more revealing.” Lastly, we have Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, an “emotional rollercoaster dancing between reality and invention.” Reviewer Lex Briscuso also noted that “the consequences of a fractured marriage make for a deeply engrossing watch impossible not to get sucked into.”
And there you have it – IGN’s best reviewed movies of 2023! While we wait for the treasures we hope 2024 brings us, be sure to check out which films sadly made it onto our worst reviewed movies of 2023 list.
Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
