Ten-best lists may be silly, but denying their uses and pleasures always struck me as sillier. And so, with the year half over, here are my favorite new movies of 2023 so far, listed in some semblance of alphabetical order (in some cases, I’ve paired two movies that seem to be in conversation with each other). As ever, I’m astonished by the range of good and even great movies I’ve seen already, and excited for the many more still to come:
‘De Humani Corporis Fabrica’
A cinematic shock to the senses, this latest work from the documentary filmmakers Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel (“Leviathan,” “Caniba”) deservedly won the Douglas Edwards Experimental Film Award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. But don’t let that — or the movie’s many unblinking, up-close scenes of human surgery — scare you off. More than just an endoscopic-horror tour de force, it’s also a deeply moving portrait of medical experts in action, reminiscent of Frederick Wiseman in its understanding of the agony and the necessity of human work. (“De Humani Corporis Fabrica” is still playing in select U.S. theaters.)
‘The Eight Mountains’
Two boyhood friends are torn apart, then fatefully reunite years later, in this superbly acted (by Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi) and soaringly beautiful adaptation of Paolo Cognetti’s 2016 bestseller. The Italian Alps scenery is glorious, of course, but it’s to the credit of the directors Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch that they present their mountainous landscapes as more than mere eye candy. At the heart of this decades-spanning love story is a bone-deep understanding of the deeply personal bonds we forge with our surroundings, and also the ones we try — and often fail — to move on from. (“The Eight Mountains” screens at 8 p.m. Saturday at Lumiere Music Hall, Beverly Hills.)
‘Other People’s Children’
It may begin with a shot of the Eiffel Tower at night, but Rebecca Zlotowski’s sneakily affecting Parisian romance subsequently sidesteps every cliché as it draws us into the life of a schoolteacher who becomes close to her lover’s 4-year-old daughter. The movie’s exquisitely tender truths flow directly from the lead performance of Virginie Efira, one of the finest European actors at the moment (she won a César for her work in the just-released “Revoir Paris”), but they also flow from an understated awareness of how life’s sharpest cruelties go hand-in-hand with its sweetest graces.
‘Pacifiction’ and ‘R.M.N.’
Two hypnotically absorbing, cryptically titled, insidiously damning panoramas of life in isolated environs: the sun-drenched island of Tahiti in Albert Serra’s “Pacifiction” and a snow-bound Transylvanian village in Cristian Mungiu’s “R.M.N.” Demonstrating masterly control of the camera and a profound understanding of human evil, both directors set their stories to the leisurely but hypnotic pace of everyday life, all the while hinting at underlying tensions and conspiracies, at sinister mysteries that don’t want to be solved. A viewer’s patience is required — and amply rewarded. (“Pacifiction” is streaming on Mubi and also available on other platforms. “R.M.N.” is available on multiple platforms.)
‘Past Lives’ and ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’
On the surface, Celine Song’s exquisite debut feature, “Past Lives,” might appear to have little in common with the thrillingly ambitious sequel to the Oscar-winning “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” But what unites these two unabashed crowd-pleasers — one an achingly perceptive almost-romance, the other a wildly creative and mercurial piece of animation — is their sly philosophical depth. Both are suffused with a playful, poignant understanding of the roads not taken, of the alternate versions of ourselves and our stories that we set in motion with every decision. In both movies, by the end, you can’t wait to see what happens next. (“Past Lives” and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” are both still playing in theaters.)
‘Showing Up’ and ‘Walk Up’
Michelle Williams plays a sculptor in Kelly Reichardt’s “Showing Up”; Kwon Hae-hyo plays a film director in Hong Sang-soo’s “Walk Up.” Here, then, are two luminous, lived-in portraits of oft-thwarted artists, forced to navigate the vagaries of real estate and the difficulties of other people as they struggle to find their place in the world. Reichardt and Hong have often been classified, sometimes condescendingly, as art-house miniaturists, but the worlds they create and invite us into are too enveloping, too precise in their details, to feel anything less than enormous. (“Showing Up” is available on multiple platforms. “Walk Up” is not yet available for home viewing.)
‘Stonewalling’
In this gripping, precisely modulated drama, directors Huang Ji and Ryuji Otsuka take a compassionate but tough-minded look at the life of a 20-year-old Chinese woman (an outstanding Yao Honggui), striving to find her place in a nation driven by the cruel logic of economic necessity. If that sounds dull or deterministic, it isn’t; in every bustling frame, the filmmakers show us a world in fascinating, never-ending flux, where, for young people especially, the conditions of work and the means of survival are forever being renegotiated. (“Stonewalling” is still playing in select U.S. theaters.)
And a few more standouts: “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.,” “Emily,” “Godland,” “Joyland,” “Palm Trees and Power Lines,” “Reality,” “Rimini,” “Skinamarink,” “A Thousand and One” and “Tori and Lokita.”
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