Acid (2023)
Deadly Acid Rain
A harsh and urgent French-made catastrophe film about a family trying to survive and get to safety with the appearance of a sudden cloud of deadly acid rain
Films of 2023
Alice in Terrorland (2023)
Horror Version of Alice in Wonderland
Following Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey and its trashing of a classic children’s character, a horror version of Alice in Wonderland where the heroine has dark, hallucinatory visions of the book’s characters
Alien Invasion (2023)
Alien Nasty
From prolific producer Scott Jeffrey, best known for Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, a low-budget Alien copy, essentially an Alien that takes place in an English country mansion
All You Need is Death (2023)
Cursed Folk Song
A unique and original Irish variant on the Folk Horror genre about a couple who become wound up into the obsessive quest for a cursed folk song and the effect it has
The Animal Kingdom (2023)
Human-Animal Mutations
An award-winning and highly acclaimed French film set in a world that is affected by a series of mutations where people are transforming into animal hybrids
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
Marvel Comics Miniature Superhero
The third of the films devoted to Marvel’s miniature superhero. This ventures into multiverse themes works well when it comes to introducing the MCU’s big new super-villain who ended up never happening
Ape vs Mecha Ape (2023)
Giant Ape vs Giant Mechanical Ape
Ape vs Monster was The Asylum’s mockbuster take on Godzilla vs Kong. This is a sequel that takes a few leaves from Godzilla’s Mechagodzilla and pits the giant ape up against a giant robotic ape
Apocalypse Clown (2023)
Clowns in the Aftermath of Social Collapse
Not another killer clown film as you might initially assume, but a really funny Irish comedy about a group of dysfunctional clowns in the aftermath of the collapse of civilisation
Aporia (2023)
Altering the Timeline
Excellent low-key time travel film where Judy Greer is faced with the choice of eliminating the drunk driver who killed her husband from the timeline – only to end up with unexpected results
Appendage (2023)
Malignant Twin
In a similar vein to James Wan’s Malignant, a film with a heroine who has a malignant twin force its way out of a wound in her side and proceed to take over her life
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023)
Comic-Book Merman Superhero
The sequel to the DCEU’s Aquaman reaches for epic effects spectacle, although the character of Aquaman undergoes a substantial shift and is now given more of a comedy playing
Assassin (2023)
Bodyhopping Assassins
Another of the low-budget films Bruce Willis made before his retirement, this has a plot about body-hopping assassins that has surprising similarities to Possessor
Asteroid City (2023)
Retro 1950s Comedy/Alien Visitor
Wes Anderson’s quirky individualistic films can be an acquired taste. This is set in a stunningly designed retro 1950s town as various oddball characters intersect in between the appearance of an alien visitor
Attack of the Killer Chickens: The Movie! (2023)
Deliberately Bad Film
Yes, a film about an invasion by space chickens, which are represented by hand puppets. Words fail me on this one. This is painful to watch. My Worst Film of 2023.
Bad CGI Gator (2023)
Giant Alligator
A deliberately ridiculous Charles Band production where students throwing their laptops into a lake causes an alligator to float through the air and become giant-sized
Baghead (2023)
Mysterious Creature in the Cellar
Horror film about a mysterious creature in the cellar with a bag over its head that can bring a dead loved one back to life for two minutes, but where use of this comes with a price
Barbie (2023)
Doll Enters the Real World
Less a film than a phenomenon, there is something ironic about a doll that is accused of promoting negative body standards ending up leading a women’s movement. Moria has just one or two issues with this.
Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham (2023)
Comic-Book Superhero/Animation
DC Universe Animated film that is adapted from an Elseworlds story that offers up an alternate 1920s version of Batman who is fighting up against H.P. Lovecraft entities
Beau is Afraid (2023)
Surreal Journey
Ari Aster’s third film had many audiences scratching their heads. It follows Joaquin Phoenix on an allegorical journey that becomes a dark comedy and an entirely surreal Freudian nightmare
Bird Box: Barcelona (2023)
Mysterious Catastrophe After Which People Are Forced to Not Look Outside
Bird Box was a hit on Netflix and this is a sequel. The talented Pastor Brothers take the basics of the original and actually make a much better film out of them filled with fine tension
Birth/Rebirth (2023)
Modern Frankenstein Film
A standout modern variant on the Frankenstein film where two women conspire to cross waaay over medical ethic lines to revive a child from the dead
The Black Demon (2023)
Megalodon Shark
Another killer shark survival piece with a family trapped aboard an abandoned oil rig under attack by a megalodon shark that may be the embodiment of an Aztec god
The Black Mass (2023)
True Crime
Actress Devanny Pinn makes a fine directorial debut with this True Crime film based on Ted Bundy and the incident where he went on a killing spree at a Florida sorority house
Black Noise (2023)
Mysterious Happenings on an Island
A team of mercenaries arrive on an island on a retrieval mission only to find everybody has been turned to dust and a mysterious piercing noise that causes them to hallucinate
Blackout (2023)
Werewolf Film
Larry Fessenden is a strong genre force as director, producer and sometimes actor. He has covered most major horror themes in his films. Blackout was his take on the werewolf film
Blue Beetle (2023)
Comic-Book Superhero
The DC Comics superhero Blue Beetle, one of the Teen Titans, is given his own film. One of the more quickly forgettable entries among DC Comics’ attempts to compete with the MCU
Bodies (2023)
Cross-Historical Detective Story/Time Travel
A smart, intelligent tv mini-series that conducts a murder mystery that ranges between the 1890s and 2050s, before arriving at an ingenious and clever SF explanation
The Boogeyman (2023)
Stephen King Adaptation/Boogeyman
British director Rob Savage made a great splash in the early 2020s with Host and Dashcam. Here he turns his attentions to the adaptation of a Stephen King short story
Boston Strangler (2023)
True-Life Serial Killer
Produced by Ridley Scott, a new true crime work about the Boston Strangler killings that is told through the eyes of Keira Knightley as the journalist who broke the case
Box: Metaphor (2023)
Future Prison
Australian film about a future where people are imprisoned inside shipping containers, this suggests it is going to be something like another Cube
The Boy and the Heron (2023)
Anime/Boy Enters Otherworld
The twelfth film from Hayao Miyzaki at age 82, a quasi-autobiographical if a slightly less classic work. A renaissance of many Miyazaki themes as a boy follows a heron though into a strange fantasy otherworld
Boy Kills World (2023)
Gonzo Ultra-Violence/Action Film Parody
A film where you are struggling to find any easy labelling. What it is is an hilariously ultra-violent and over-the-top parody of an action movie that will have your sides splitting
Brooklyn 45 (2023)
Séance
A film of electrifying tensions set just after World War II where a group of friends gather in an apartment and hold a séance that in turn brings out what they did during the War
Candy Cane Lane (2023)
Christmas Film
Eddie Murphy – one of the funniest talents of the 1980s – has been largely absent for much of the 2010s. He returns here with a Christmas comedy in which he is the recipient of a curse given to him by an evil Santa elf
Cannibal Comedian (2023)
Cannibal Stand-Up Comedian
A film that fairly much sells you in its deliberately ridiculous title concept – a cannibal who sets out to find success as a stand-up comedian.
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023)
Aardman Animation/Talking Chicken Caper Film
After 23 years, Aardman Animation make a sequel to their first feature film. Another chicken caper film where they try to capture some of its dotty charms and largely succeed
Chupa (2023)
Cute Baby Chupacabra
A directorial outing from Alfonso Cuaron’s son Jonas. This is essentially E.T. but with children befriended a cute baby chupacabra instead of a stranded alien
Circle Line (2023)
Monster Movie
A quite good monster movie from Singapore about people trapped down the disused brand of an underground railway line where they are hunted by a monster
Cobweb (2023)
Secrets in the Walls
A horror film produced by Seth Rogen that gains some really creepy effect as a boy finds something is living in the walls of his home
Cocaine Bear (2023)
Rampaging Drug-Addicted Bear
Very loosely based on a real-life incident, this is an Animals Attack film about a rampaging bear wired on cocaine. Director Elizabeth Banks makes a play for darkly funny humour
Cocaine Shark (2023)
Gonzo Killer Shark Film
Prolific Z-budget director Mark Polonia jumps aboard the bandwagon of Cocaine Bear and offers a film about a shark-human hybrid that is created by experimental cocaine
Colonials (2023)
Colonist Return to Post-Apocalyptic Earth
A low-budget film with some very accomplished effects that takes place in a devastated future as a Martian colonist returns to find what has happened to Earth
Crater (2023)
Coming of Age Story on The Moon
A surprisingly better than expected film from the Disney Channel, a Coming of Age story set on The Moon about a group of kids who break out to go on a jaunt across the lunar surface
Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms (2023)
Epic Chinese Fantasy
Billed as the Chinese Lord of the Rings, this is an historically-based fantasy film that tries to out-Hollywood Hollywood in terms of effects, design and costuming and looks stunningly epic in scale
The Creator (2023)
Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
Gareth Edwards, the director of Monsters and Godzilla, makes a genre-defining work about robotics and artificial intelligence set in a stunningly detailed future world. This site’s Top Film for 2023
A Creature Was Stirring (2023)
Mother Keeps Her Daughter Confined to Prevent Her Becoming a Monster
An interestingly strange and undeniably different film where two teens break into a house at Christmas time to find a mother who keeps her daughter confined lest the creature inside her get free
The Curse of the Clown Motel (2023)
Haunted Clown Motel
This was the second film set around the real-life Clown Motel in Nevada. Despite which this is not another killer clown films and is focused around the awakening of vengeful Native American spirits
Dario Argento Panico (2023)
Genre Director Documentary
A documentary that interviews Dario Argento, now in his early eighties, along with his family and those around him, where he discusses his life, films and career
Dark Harvest (2023)
Small Town's Deadly Halloween Run
David Slade seemed a promising directorial name several years ago with works like the charged Hard Candy, before making Twilight films and being lost in tv. Here he returns with a film set around a small town’s deadly Halloween rituals
Death’s Roulette (2023)
Imprisonment Thriller
A Mexican-made variant on one of the Saw films where a group of diverse people are locked into a room and must select one of their number to die otherwise everybody will be killed
The Deep Dark (2023)
Lovecraftian Monster in the Mining Shafts
From the director of the standout Meander, a dark and claustrophobic film set in the 1950s about miners disturbing a Lovecraftian entity buried in the depths of a mineshaft
Diabolik Chi Sei? (2023)
Masked Super-Thief/Comic-Book Adaptation
The third of the new series of films based on the cult Italian comic-book about a masked super-thief. This entry goes back to offer us a Diabolik origin story
Dick Dynamite: 1944 (2023)
Parody of WWII Heroics/Gonzo Splatter
A gonzo parody of WWII heroics a la Inglourious Basterds with the addition of Nazi zombies, over-the-top splatter and some decidedly non-PC humour, this proves an enormously entertainingly comic-book of a film
Disquiet (2023)
Hospital Nightmare and Hallucinations
Jonathan Rhys Meyers wakes up in a hospital as strange hallucinatory and nightmarish things start to happen. The fact that this is a deathdream film becomes very obvious
A Disturbance in the Force: How The Star Wars Holiday Special Happened (2023)
Documentary About The Star Wars Holiday Special
The Star Wars Holiday Special has a legendary awfulness in Star Wars fandom – least of all that George Lucas has done all in his power to quash its existence. This is a documentary about what happened
Doctor Jekyll (2023)
Hammer Dr Jekyll Adaptation
The revived Hammer Films takes on adapting Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde with Eddie Izzard playing the role as a trans woman. This offers some amusing modernisations of the familiar, oft-filmed story
Don’t Look Away (2023)
Killer Mannequin
Horror film from regular Canadian genre director Micheal Bafaro about a group of friends who enact a curse in which they are pursued and killed by a mannequin come to life
Doomsday Meteor (2023)
Meteor on a Collision Course with Earth
Another enterprising low-budget disaster movie from The Asylum about a meteor on a collision course with the Earth. The great Joe Roche is on script and creates an amazingly almost plausible scenario
Dream Scenario (2023)
Man Appears in People’s Dreams
A film in which Nicolas Cage keeps appearing in other people’s dreams. This goes from an initial wild absurdism to something that becomes bitingly satiric as it takes on instant celebrity and Cancel Culture
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
Sword and Sorcery
A new film based on the role-playing game. The first film several years ago is poorly regarded. This is an attempt to reboot a film series but suffers badly from being handed to two comedy directors and their flip treatment
Elemental (2023)
Pixar Animation/World of Talking Elements
Pixar release that received uneven box-office and a critical drubbing. Despite being lumbered with a weak premise – talking elements! – it is not entirely unwatchable
The End We Start From (2023)
England Devastated by Catastrophic Flooding
Jodie Comer is a new mother who travels through an England that has been devastated by catastrophic flooding. Not dissimilar to The Road but less bleak
Evil Dead Rise (2023)
Possessed Dead
The fifth film in the Evil Dead series. This comes with the selling point of being a female-led sequel and offers a much more serious and gore-drenched take than previous entries
The Exorcist: Believer (2023)
Demonic Possession
In much the same way as they did with Halloween, Blumhouse and director David Gordon Green offer up a sequel to The Exorcist on the original’s fiftieth anniversary. The results are a bizarre scratch of the head
The Fall of the House of Usher (2023)
Edgar Allan Poe Adaptation
Mike Flanagan mini-series that expands on the story to incorporate a host of other Poe stories. More like another of Mike Flanagan’s cross-generational ghost stories by way of tv’s Succession with a lot of Poe-esque margin notes
Fear the Invisible Man (2023)
The Invisible Man Adaptation
A modest and quite good low-budget adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man, which adheres more faithfully to the Wells novel than the recent high-profile film
Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023)
Videogame Adaptation/Killer Animatronics
A Blumhouse film adaptation of the videogame that was a considerable hit at the box-office. Josh Hutcherson plays a security guard at a pizza parlour who faces killer animatronics come to life
The Flash (2023)
Comic-Book Superhero
Despite a poor box-office performance and a troubled production behind the scenes, it is a surprise what a good film this is, easily outstripping the last half-dozen MCU films put together
The Flood (2023)
Alligators Invade a Flooded Jail
This is essentially Assault on Precinct 13, which had police and criminals at siege inside a jail, but where the attacking street gangs are replaced by alligators. Far better than the B movie you assume
Foe (2023)
Near Future/Android Replacement
From the pen of Iain Reid who wrote I’m Thinking of Ending Things, an SF film about a man recruited for a space mission and the training of his android replacement. Expectedly, what is going on is shifting and pulls expectation out from under us
Forgotten Experiment (2023)
Time Travel
A Russian SF film where a plane is forced to put down on an island where people find themselves caught up in a series of time travel experiments and thrown between different eras
From Black (2023)
Resurrection Ritual
Strong and effective film about a grieving mother who is introduced to an occult ritual than can claimedly resurrect her dead son, a journey that takes her into very dark places
Gods of the Deep (2023)
Underwater Adventure/Lovecraftian Entity
Charlie Steeds is a low-budget British director who has shown reasonable promise. Here he makes an H.P. Lovecraft homage about a submarine expedition that awakens Cthulhu on the ocean floor
Godzilla Minus One (2023)
Japanese Monster Movie
The 33rd Japanese Godzilla film and the one to receive the greatest acclaim of any in the series so far, including the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. This takes the series back to the beginnings
Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 (2023)
Marvel Comics Adaptation/Space Opera
Third of the Guardians of the Galaxy films, this successfully recaptures the nature of the goofy ensemble comedy caper that made the first film such a winner but seemed to be missing in the second
Hanky Panky (2023)
Gonzo Comedy
A gonzo comedy about an alien invasion that takes place during a getaway at a remote cabin by assorted comically dysfunctional characters including a man who is accompanied by a talking handkerchief
Haunted Mansion (2023)
Haunted House Comedy
The second attempt to spin a film off from the Disney theme park ride, this comes in a more serious tone than the prior Eddie Murphy film but still emerges as lightweight in terms of horror
Haunting of the Queen Mary (2023)
Haunted Ocean Liner
A ghost story that takes place between two eras set aboard the real-life cruise liner Queen Mary, this conducts a variant on the ghost ship story with some reasonable effect
Heart of Stone (2023)
Spy/Action Film
A spy action film starring Gal Gadot as a double agent. The film had its air stolen by Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning, nevertheless is filled with exhilarating action sequences and should have had a higher profile
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (2023)
Vampire Comedy
I was sold on this from the title. A droll Canadian (Quebec-made) vampire comedy about a vampire girl who cannot bring herself to kill and a suicidal teenager who becomes her willing victim
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023)
Future Televised Human Hunting
The Hunger Games was one of the biggest franchise of the 2010s. Here a number of the key talents return to make a prequel to the events, telling a story from the early days of the Hunger Games
Hypnotic (2023)
Psychic Powers/Reality Bender
Robert Rodriguez makes a film with Ben Affleck as a detective dealing with a man who can control others’ minds. However, this develops into a mind twister of considerable reality bending proportions
I.S.S. (2023)
International Space Station Drama
A gripping work set aboard the International Space Station where the US and Russian crews are suddenly placed at one another’s throats as war between the two sides breaks out down on Earth
If You Were the Last (2023)
NASA Space Mission Romantic Comedy
A space film set aboard a NASA space mission as two stranded astronauts debate whether to surrender to mutual attraction. In contrast to realistically grounded efforts such as Gravity, The Martian et al, this is a comedy
In My Mother’s Skin (2023)
Filipino Horror/Malevolent Fairy
An extremely good Filipino film about a family abandoned at the end of WWII where the only recourse seems to be the children trusting a malevolent fairy
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
Adventure Film
At age 80, Harrison Ford returns for what looks like being the last ever Indiana Jones film. It’s not perfect but when you compare to all the other contemporary franchises, this still has the good old adventure spirit
Infested (2023)
Spiders Overrun an Apartment Building
This French film ratchets up quite a reasonable degree of scary tension in taking a kitchen sink view as spiders overrun a low-income Paris apartment building
Infinity Pool (2023)
Executed Clones/Bored Lawless Elites
Extraordinary Brandon Cronenberg film about a fictional country where those convicted of crimes can have clone copies executed in their place, leading to an tourist underworld where all crimes are permissible
Insidious: The Red Door (2023)
Haunting/Astral Projection
The fifth film in the Insidious series. This time Patrick Wilson returns to the franchise and takes the director’s chair, showing he has been taking some lessons from James Wan
It Lives Inside (2023)
Hindu Demon
A US-made film from an East Indian director who draws on his cultural background in the story of a girl haunted by a demon from Hindu myth
It’s a Wonderful Knife (2023)
Slasher Version of It’s a Wonderful Life
The last few years have seen the slasher film conduct some odd conceptual crosshatches – this offers a mash-up between a slasher film and It’s a Wonderful Life
Jules (2023)
Senior Citizen Befriends Alien
Likeable comedy variant on E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial in which senior citizen Ben Kingsley befriends an alien visitor after its UFO crashes in his backyard. Few films are made with such an acute awareness of aging
Jung_E (2023)
Android Soldier Program
Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho turns his hand to making an SF film about the attempts to perfect an android soldier and the fight to complete and control it
Justice League: Warworld (2023)
Animation/Comic-Book Superheroes
Another of the animated DC Comics films in which various of their regular characters find themselves incarnated in simulated combat arenas
Kill Her Goats (2023)
Folk Slasher
You could maybe coin the term Folk Slasher for this low-budget film where girls are pursued by chainsaw wielding figures in goat-headed masks. Painfully bad on all counts.
Killer Book Club (2023)
Slasher Film
A Spanish slasher film reminiscent of I Know What You Did Last Summer, albeit rewritten for the Cancel Culture era, where a clown-masked killer eliminates their way through members of a book club
Knock at the Cabin (2023)
End of the World Prophecy
An M. Night Shayamalan film concerning strangers who conduct a home invasion to force Dave Bautista and family to make a horrible choice to prevent their vision of the end of the world
Landscape with Invisible Hand (2023)
Alien Visitors Satire
A bizarrely funny deadpan satire about aliens that have invaded the Earth and turned humanity into an economic underclass. With possibly the weirdest looking aliens to ever appear in an SF film
Last Sentinel (2023)
Drowned Future
Film set in a Waterworld styled drowned future aboard a mid-ocean platform between two warring sides. A film that almost entirely exists in terms of finely tuned psychological tensions
The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)
Vampire Aboard a Ship Voyage
One of a spate of recent films that adapt characters or sections from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, this concerns the doomed ship voyage aboard which Dracula travels to England