20 Underrated and Overlooked Films from 2023

Alice, Darling

Dir. Mary Nighy

As the title character in this effectively claustrophobic drama, Anna Kendrick is caught in an emotionally abusive relationship, and her friends attempt to rescue her. Alice’s anxiety is expressed through muted tones – she's a shadow of her former self – panic and hair-pulling. She seems to sink while she swims, but in unravelling her relationship Alice finds herself. [Eleanor Capaldi]

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret

Dir. Kelly Fremon Craig

This is 2023’s sweetest film. We see an 11-year-old girl’s fears and frustrations not condescended or rushed through; the overwhelm of adolescence is dealt with so sensitively. I give the film the highest seal of approval possible for a Bildungsroman: I wish I had this when I was that age. [Lucy Fitzgerald]

Kathy Bates and Abby Ryder Forston in Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. Photo: Lionsgate

Babylon

Dir. Damien Chazelle

La La Land earned Damien Chazelle a reputation for romanticising Hollywood, but Babylon shows the director is all too aware of the darker side of Tinseltown. Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt give career-best performances, and Chazelle captures how the cruelty and chaos of Hollywood’s Golden Age created magic onscreen. [Nathaniel Ashley]

Bottoms 

Dir. Emma Seligman

Girls! Lesbians! Fights! Bottoms is as chaotic as the teenage hormones that rage through its characters, and gives full recognition to the fact that in a straight world epitomised by this film’s football bros, a gay girl’s gotta do what a gay girl’s gotta do. A raucously unhinged followup to Seligman’s Shiva Baby. [EC]

Cassandro

Dir. Roger Ross Williams

Roger Ross Williams’ assuredly flamboyant biopic successfully grapples with both the heightened excesses of Mexican wrestling, and the nuance required to tell the story of real-life ‘exótico’ (luchador fighting in drag) Saúl Armendáriz honestly. In a movie that’s – in so many ways – about performance, Gael García Bernal puts in a perfect one. [Bart Owl]

Enys Men

Dir. Mark Jenkin

Mark Jenkin may object to the folk horror label, but his Bait followup creates a wild, unsettling world with its own ungovernable, inexplicable rules through its uncanny soundscape and a nonlinear narrative. Mary Woodvine’s almost-wordless performance as the solitary volunteer cataloguing flowers on a long-abandoned mining island heightens the unease. [Carmen Paddock]

Evil Dead Rise

Dir. Lee Cronin

The demonic franchise gets a new lease on death with a groovy, gory story on the horrors of motherhood. Executive produced by Sam Raimi, Lee Cronin’s film swaps the cabin in the woods for an LA art deco apartment block, reviving the saga’s formula with chilling corridors, cracked bones and charismatic protagonists – sisters Beth (Lily Sullivan) and Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland). [Stefania Sarrubba]

Fremont

Dir. ‎Babak Jalali

The immigration processes of the West are inherently absurd. No wonder, then, that British-Iranian filmmaker Babak Jalali found in them such fertile grounds for his Jim Jarmusch-esque comedy Fremont. Following an Afghan translator working in a fortune cookie factory, Fremont is a wry and all too astute look at what it means to build new futures. [Anahit Behrooz]

Anaita Wali Zada in Fremont. Photo: Modern Films

God’s Creatures

Dir. Anna Rose Holmer, Saela Davis

Emily Watson and Paul Mescal’s performances are electrifying and uneasily sympathetic in this understated family tale turned psychological thriller that explores generations of men behaving badly. Shane Crowley’s script leaves space for the unspoken, and Chayse Irvin’s moody cinematography externalises the fraught secrets underpinning bonds in this close-knit fishing community. [CP]

Hypnotic

Dir. Robert Rodriguez

Ben Affleck looks permanently confused in Hypnotic. Can you blame him? The film grows more confounding with every bizarre twist, but the ludicrous plotting and Robert Rodriguez’s refusal to pause for a moment’s thought make it weirdly compelling. You can see why it flopped (the end credits' tease of a sequel is delusional) but it’s a very enjoyable 90-minute romp. [Philip Concannon]

The Innocent

Dir. Louis Garrel

Louis Garrel confidently takes a seat in the director's chair with this disarming caper, which takes a few surprising turns and contains some skilfully executed setpieces. Garrel also delivers a fine lead performance as a young man suspicious of his mother’s ex-con husband, but as his too-eager companion, Noémie Merlant's effervescent comic turn steals the movie. [PC]

Knock at the Cabin

Dir. M. Night Shyamalan

A gripping home invasion thriller and a meditation on the nature of religious faith, Knock at the Cabin is the perfect project for a technically gifted genre filmmaker / spiritually-minded indie weirdo like M. Night Shyamalan. The moment in which Dave Bautista adjusts his little glasses halfway through a brawl may also be the most charming thing put on the screen in 2023. [Ross McIndoe]

Leonor Will Never Die

Dir. Martika Ramirez Escobar

An ode to Filipino B-movies from the 1970s, Leonor Will Never Die sees an ageing screenwriter find herself trapped inside one of her own scripts. Director Martika Ramirez Escobar’s palpable love for these incredibly niche, low-budget action thrillers makes it easy to forgive some of her films’ more meandering meta moments. [NA]

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Dir. Dean Fleischer Camp

A small shell with a smart pair of shoes tries to locate his accidentally dispersed family in this shatteringly adorable part-stop motion part-mockumentary from Dean Fleischer Camp. Marcel may have a hard exoskeleton, but in his tender openness to vulnerability, he is the star of the softest, sweetest film of the year. [AB]

Please Baby Please

Dir. Amanda Kramer

Queer theory as meta-textual musical fantasy, Please Baby Please sees Amanda Kramer throw David Lynch, Kenneth Anger and West Side Story into a blender and pour out a thoughtful, cine-literate and joyous ride, while wearing its influences (and its big gay heart) on its sleeve. You’ll be having so much fun you’ll almost forget it's a musical. [BO]

Polite Society

Dir. Nida Manzoor

Aspiring stuntwoman Ria (Priya Kansara) has a few tricks up her sleeve to save older sister Lena (Ritu Arya) from her impending, picture-perfect marriage. Writer-director Nida Manzoor debuts with an electrifying, beautifully weird sisterhood story that packs an emotional sucker punch and leaves you massaging your jaw, begging for more. [SS]

Skinamarink

Dir. Kyle Edward Ball

Halfway between Paranormal Activity and avant-garde immersive installation, Skinamarink commands your whole attention for the smallest amount of story. Applying experiential visual language to one nightmarish night where two children are trapped and isolated in their home, Kyle Edward Ball probes deep into our psyches to summon subdued, violent chills. [Rory Doherty]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Dir. Jeff Rowe

Seth Rogen genre projects have a track record of being bombastic and irritating, but this sketchy, hand-drawn-esque animation style, which the Spider-Verse films brought into the mainstream, is a perfect fit for these reptilian 90s icons. If you can wince through the uber-modern teen speak, it's a dazzling and giddy romp. [RD]

Theater Camp

Dir. Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman

From Bugsy Malone to Outnumbered, utilising precocious children on screen is an evergreen entertainment device and Theater Camp amusingly imbues its young characters with sass, self-seriousness and verbosity. With both humorous and moving sentiments, satire and sincerity coexist charmingly in this mockumentary about a much-derided community: musical theatre kids. [LF]

You Hurt My Feelings

Dir. Nicole Holofcener

Soft-spoken but sharply observed, You Hurt My Feelings is another thoughtful romantic dramedy from Nicole Holofcener. Beth and Don’s marriage seems near perfect until one day she overhears him admitting that he actually doesn’t care for her writing. From there, Holofcener unfolds an effortlessly funny, gently insightful tale about just how much honesty we really want from the people we love. [RM]