2023 was quite a big year for film — in the quiet and strange and the surprising stories that stuck with us, not just in box office hits. These are the movies from offbeat comedies to haunting dramas that made people feel a little more, look closer, and also lean in.
Rolling Stone assembled this list about the ones affecting listeners most, not releases with the largest volume. These ten films each bring something unexpected to the table. They tell of a love story, wrapping it in grief, stretching a quiet moment across a lifetime, or twisting a teenage fight club.
The year’s most unforgettable films are films that defined the year, such as The Zone of Interest, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, The Delinquents, and even more, examined closely in this location.
Content
- The Zone of Interest
- The Delinquents
- All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
- All of Us Strangers
- Return to Seoul
- You Hurt My Feelings
- Bottoms
- Skinamarink
- The Quiet Girl
- Showing Up
The Zone of Interest
IMDb: 7.3/10
2023, Drama, History, War
UK, Poland, USA, PG-13
Director: Jonathan Glazer
Top Cast: Christian Friedel, Sandra Hüller
The film follows Rudolf Höss, the Auschwitz commandant, and his wife Hedwig, living alongside their children in a house next to the concentration camp. Family dinners, along with gardening as well as picnics, define their daily life. A chilling contrast appears beyond their garden wall, given the horrors there.
Jonathan Glazer directed the story, focusing more on the Höss family’s unsettling normalcy than on Martin Amis’s novel’s plot. At the Cannes Film Festival, the film won the Grand Prix, plus it took home two Oscars: Best International Feature and Best Sound.
Los delincuentes
IMDb: 5.7/10
2023, Comedy, Drama
Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Luxembourg; Not Rated
Director: Rodrigo Moreno
Top Cast: Daniel Elías, Esteban Bigliardi
Morán, a bank employee in Buenos Aires, develops an unusual plan involving stealing a large sum of money from the bank, turning himself in, as well as asking his co-worker Román to hide the cash until he’s out of prison. The idea? Later live free and now do the time.
At the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, the director Rodrigo Moreno premiered that film inside the «Un Certain Regard» section, and it was Argentina’s official submission for Best International Feature at the Oscars.
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
IMDb: 5.9/10
2023, Drama
USA, PG
Director: Raven Jackson
Top Cast: Charleen McClure, Moses Ingram, Reginald Helms Jr.
Mack is a Black woman from Mississippi, also her story is told in the film through moments and memories that stretch across her life in a quiet, poetic stream. It glimpses family, love, loss, and the slow passage of time — not a big plot. It is just a film that leans into feeling rather than dialogue. The film focuses on touch as well as sound, and also on how memories live inside the body.
According to the National Board of Review, it is a top 10 independent film of 2023.
All of Us Strangers
IMDb: 7.1/10
2023, Drama, Romance, Fantasy
UK, R
Director: Andrew Haigh
Top Cast: Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Jamie Bell
Adam is a lonely writer in London, and he resides there as he starts a sweet love affair that he never foresaw with Harry next door. Simultaneously, he is drawn back toward his childhood home, where he confronts his deceased parents as he remembers them. What follows is a deeply personal adventure through both love and loss. It is also like an adventure through memory.
Director Andrew Haigh adapted the story from a novel by Taichi Yamada, also he reimagined it through a queer lens. Many scenes from Adam’s childhood home were actually filmed in Haigh’s own childhood house, and that adds an extra layer of intimacy to the film.
Return to Seoul
IMDb: 6.9/10
2022, Drama
France, Germany, Belgium, Cambodia, Qatar; R
Director: Davy Chou
Top Cast: Park Ji-min, Oh Kwang-rok, Guka Han
Freddie is now a 25-year-old French woman adopted when just a baby from South Korea. She travels to Seoul on a whim. Her goal is to try to locate her birth parents there. A search for answers starts turning into something far more complicated, forcing her to confront questions about where she truly belongs and who she is.
Director Davy Chou was inspired by a close friend who was adopted from Korea in real life.
You Hurt My Feelings
IMDb: 6.5/10
2023, Comedy, Drama
USA, R
Director: Nicole Holofcener
Top Cast: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobias Menzies, Michaela Watkins
Beth is a successful writer as well as a creative writing teacher also, and she is working on her next book. She is married to Don, who is a therapist, and their relationship seems solid until one day she overhears him admit that he does not actually like her new novel.
That moment of honesty shakes everything. Now Beth questions her work. She is also igniting inquiries about the entirety of their marriage. The film explores how tiny breaches to trust can redefine our comprehension of truly backing the people we love.
Bottoms
IMDb: 6.7/10
2023, Comedy
USA, R
Director: Emma Seligman
Top Cast: Rachel Sennott, Ayo Edebiri, Ruby Cruz
PJ and Josie are two awkward so unpopular high schoolers who start a girls' self-defense club through a wild idea. The real goal? They are crushing on the cheerleaders in order to get closer, or perhaps a little jealous.
But what starts as a fake excuse turns to something real and is way more intense. Soon, their club shakes the school up as a real fight club, unexpectedly and hilariously.
Skinamarink
IMDb: 5.1/10
2022, Horror, Mystery
Canada, Not Rated
Director: Kyle Edward Ball
Top Cast: Lucas Paul, Dali Rose Tetreault, Ross Paul
Two young kids Kevin and Kaylee, wake up to find that their dad is now gone and something strange is happening in the house in the middle of the night. One by one, windows as well as doors are disappearing now. They seek comfort from old cartoons since they are stuck in the dark while trying to grasp the eerie, changing world near them.
The film has minimal visuals with almost no dialogue, made in a very experimental style. It was shot with a budget that was tiny at just $15,000, and it became a cult hit by surprise. Its box office run made over $1 million total.
The Quiet Girl
IMDb: 7.7/10
2022, Drama
Ireland, PG-13
Director: Colm Bairéad
Top Cast: Catherine Clinch, Carrie Crowley, Andrew Bennett
Cáit is a quiet, nine-year-old girl from a large, poor family in the Irish countryside. Distant relatives she barely knows host her for a summer. It is a gentle experience which changes one’s life to become that which starts as a summer more meaningful.
Cáit feels loved as well as seen in their caring, calm home at this time. At a slow pace, she does begin to open up now. She finds confidence she’s never had until now.
The movie became historic as the initial Irish film up for a Best International Feature Oscar. The film is based on Claire Keegan’s short story Foster.
Showing Up
IMDb: 6.5/10
2022, Comedy, Drama
USA, R
Director: Kelly Reichardt
Top Cast: Michelle Williams, Hong Chau, André Benjamin
Lizzy is a sculptor as well as being an administrator at the art school. She is ready for a show soon enough yet life keeps obstructing her family drama, friendships that are not easy. She cares for a hurt pigeon. Lizzy has to try to stay focused on her work. She is juggling everything else as the days tick steadily by.
The film gently explores what it means to be an artist while one deals with all of real life’s messiness.
