This 2023, which is now coming to an end, has produced good auteur and independent cinema, has marked the return of veterans such as Víctor Erice, Martin Scorsese and Ridley Scott and, above all, has left us two titles that have swept the box office: Barbie and Oppenheimer. The strike of Hollywood screenwriters and actors has been one of the most prominent protagonists of a cinematographic year that has delayed premieres and has exhibited films that have shone at a Cannes festival that has recovered its splendor of yesteryear. In Spanish territory, Erice is joined by the triumph of 20,000 species of bees, distinguished at the Berlinale, Malaga and a great favorite for the Goya and The Snow Society, a Netflix blockbuster directed by J.A. Bayona looking straight to the Oscars.
The Canadian Korean playwright Celine Song made her big debut in feature film direction with this beautiful, sensitive and painful story about love, memories of the past and the mysteries of a capricious destiny that dazzled at the Sundance and Berlin festivals and is chosen to five awards in the next edition of the Golden Globes. Distributed by the successful A24, Past Lives largely tells many episodes from the director's own life, which also addresses the new masculinity in a story that plays with time jumps and challenges clichés.
'Jota' Bayona and Netflix have teamed up to explain, with the emotion and spectacularity that characterizes the Barcelonan, the aerial tragedy in the Andes that occurred in 1972. Based on the book of the same name by Pablo Vierci, a friend of the 16 survivors, the film is a fascinating story of love and infinite dedication that, unlike Viven, focuses on telling what happened to those young people during the 72 days they were trapped in one of the most inaccessible and hostile environments on the planet.
Three decades after El sol del membrillo, Víctor Erice returned to the big screen with this ode to cinema, memory, the passage of time, failure and friendship cooked over a slow fire, seasoned by prodigious photography and silences and glances that they say it all. Like that of a José Coronado in a state of grace. It is aiming for 11 Goya awards and the prestigious magazine Cahiers du cinema has chosen it as second best film of the year.
The Frenchwoman Justine Triet became the third woman to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes festival with this masterful puzzle that dissects the intimacy of a couple in a murder trial. The German actress Sandra Hüller shines in the role of a successful writer who is too cold and independent who does not behave like a good victim in the eyes of a society with too many prejudices.
The live-action feminist comedy of the famous Mattel doll starring Margot Robbie and directed by Greta Gerwig has been the big blockbuster of the year. The film and its explosion of pink color is a statement against the patriarchy, with a platinum blonde and humiliated Ken (fun Ryan Gosling) who hailed Gerwig as the first solo director to surpass $1 billion and aims to succeed in awards season.
In summer, Nolan's new film landed, a biopic of the considered father of the atomic bomb. In the hands of the British filmmaker and with a superlative Cilian Murphy in the role of the New York physicist, the film, filmed in IMAX, delves into the contradictions of a complex character who ended up denying his discovery and was marginalized by both the scientific community and the United States Government.
Another tribute to the seventh art (and to life itself) is the one displayed in front of and behind the camera by an unleashed and dancing Moretti in the shoes of a filmmaker in the middle of a marital crisis who wants to make a film about the Italian communism of the 1990s. 50 and 60.
Scorsese has filmed in great detail and with exquisite staging a three and a half hour production that portrays the massacre of dozens of members of the Osage Indian Nation that took place in the 1920s by the excessive greed of the white man. For the occasion, the New Yorker has brought together his favorite actors Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio. Of course, the show is stolen by the extraordinary actress of native origin Lily Gladstone.
The author of the award-winning Snow White (2012) returns with a silent film in his first foray into animation. His adaptation of Sara Varon's graphic novel is an emotional love letter to New York in the 1980s, starring the friendship between a lonely dog and a robot.
The Finnish director offers in just 80 minutes a simple and magnificent lesson in cinema and the love of cinema around two solitary beings – he is an alcoholic – who fall in love in a degraded Helsinki with precarious jobs and constant news on the radio about the Russian invasion. from Ukraine.
Bairéad's debut feature, spoken in Gaelic, nominated for the Oscar for Ireland, thrilled audiences around the world and was one of the surprises of the year. The story of a girl who needs parents, which is also the story of parents who need a daughter, touched the viewer's most sensitive chord.
Brendan Fraser won the Oscar for best actor. It's not surprising because he is huge. Immense as an actor and also immense literally because in this film he is a man who suffers from morbid obesity, who lives to devour enormous quantities of pizzas, jars full of battered chicken from Kentucky Fried Chicken, enormous sandwiches overflowing with mayonnaise and all kinds of food rubbish you can imagine. It is his way of extinguishing his sorrows and letting himself die slowly but inexorably.
Tang Wei is a detective investigating the death of a mountaineer. It could have been an accident or suicide. But it is also possible that he was murdered by his beautiful young wife. The policeman follows that last clue, but he can't help but feel attracted to the suspect.
The world changed for Kazuo Ishiguro, Nobel Prize winner in literature, when in his youth he saw Live, (Akira Kurosawa, 1952). The writer always wanted to convey the values of that film and wrote the script for this remake set in London in the 1950s. Living, starring Oscar-nominated Bill Nighy, gives the key to where the secret of happiness lies.
At 86 years old, the British director dares with one of the great characters in history: Napoleon. And Joaquin Phoenix was the ideal actor to play Emperor Bonaparte. Napoleon is not a history lesson, it is pure cinema. Two and a half hours of authentic entertainment.
Padraic and Colm are lifelong friends. Since time immemorial, they meet every day in the pub and spend the afternoon between pints of beer. But one afternoon, Colm (Brendan Gleeson) refuses to join Padraic (Colin Farrell) for a drink. McDonagh directs with precision this tragicomedy set on a small Irish island off the coast of Galway in 1923 that he enthused for its dark humor.
A couple, he from Venezuela, she from Barcelona, decides to move to the United States. The brutal interrogation to which they are subjected by customs officials will make them rethink their decision and also their relationship. Alberto Ammann is nominated for a Goya for his performance.
This Chinese film is worth recovering because it is beautiful. A young farmer and a sick girl get married forced by their family. Little by little a love and trust is born between them that grows in parallel with the seasons of the year.
This story of a boy who feels like a girl won a prize at the Berlinale, triumphed at the Malaga Festival and the Forqué Awards, and everything indicates that it could sweep the Goya Awards.
The biopic of the comedian Eugenio, who triumphed with his caustic jokes in the 80s, has won the public's applause largely thanks to the interpretation of David Verdaguer, whose Eugenio is identical to the original.
