A pretty great way to kick off summer movie nights? Dive into some fresh comedies you might’ve missed. We’ve put together a mix of 10 funny films from around the world — all released in 2023. How many of these have slipped under your radar?
Content
- Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
- La Chimera
- Barbie
- Wonka
- Dream Scenario
- Theater Camp
- Cocaine Bear
- The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
- Problemista
- Concrete Utopia
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
IMDb: 7.4/10
2023, Comedy
Romania, Croatia, France, Luxembourg; Not rated
Director: Radu Jude
Top Cast: Ilinca Manolache, Ovidiu Pîrșan, Nina Hoss, Dorina Lazăr
This one’s a satirical black comedy concerning Ilinca Manolache’s Angela Răducanu. She’s living inside Bucharest, and she is burning out fast while she works as a production assistant.
Angela does spend all of her days in some transit all around that city, as then she films more auditions just for a corporate workplace safety video — but a spoiler: it is not exactly just a workers’ rights anthem. The company’s goal? To make it look as if the injured employees brought it on themselves.
Angela starts up a TikTok account in order to cope with the stress and sheer absurdity of it all. She performs as her alter ego Bobiță there, a crude, sexist character straight out of the internet’s darker corners too. She goes where? This does what? Nowhere simple.
This one’s just for you, if you’re into offbeat storytelling. Modern footage, TikTok clips, vintage archives, and scenes from Angela Moves On (Angela merge mai departe), the 1981 Romanian film comprise a wild collage.
La Chimera
IMDb: 7.3/10
2023, Drama, Fantasy
Italy, France, Switzerland; Not rated
Director: Alice Rohrwacher
Top Cast: Josh O’Connor, Carol Duarte, Vincenzo Nemolato, Isabella Rossellini
La Chimera takes all of us to sun-soaked Tuscany in the 1980s. Arthur (Josh O’Connor), a British archaeologist just out of prison, is haunted by a complex past. And that’s no coincidence.
Arthur has an unusual gift that enables him to sense the locations of ancient Etruscan tombs. It is his intention to use that gift of his. He has joined with a group of tombaroli — grave robbers who unearth ancient treasures and sell them on the black market.
Arthur does care about matters exceeding simple money. His adventure through relics and ruins includes something deeper such as finding meaning, lost love, or peace with his past.
Barbie
IMDb: 6.8/10
2023, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy
USA; PG-13
Director: Greta Gerwig
Top Cast: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera
In the flawless, bubblegum-pink world of Barbieland, «Stereotypical Barbie» (played by Margot Robbie) seems to have it all. Her days? A swirl of parties, perfect outfits, and absolutely zero worries.
Until — boom — something shifts. Out of nowhere, she’s hit with… thoughts of death. Her feet go flat. There’s cellulite. Things that just don’t happen in Barbieland. So, naturally, she heads to the Real World to figure out what on Earth is going on.
Ken (Ryan Gosling), ever the devoted sidekick, can’t imagine life without her. So he tags along. But little does he know — this trip isn’t just about Barbie. It’s where he starts to discover who he actually is.
Wonka
IMDb: 6.7/10
2023, Musical, Fantasy, Adventure
UK, USA; PG
Director: Paul King
Top Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Calah Lane, Keegan-Michael Key
Young, wide-eyed, and brimming with ambition, Willy Wonka (Timothée Chalamet) dreams of opening his own chocolate shop — one filled with magic, wonder, and impossible sweets. But reality hits hard.
The chocolate industry? It’s ruthless. And in this city, it’s run by the so-called «Chocolate Cartel» — a trio of sugar-coated villains: Arthur Slugworth (Paterson Joseph), Gerald Prodnose (Matt Lucas), and Felix Fickelgruber (Matthew Baynton). Together, they crush competition like stale toffee.
And that’s just the beginning of Wonka’s troubles. Thanks to a sneaky contract, he ends up trapped in debt bondage to a laundry tyrant, scrubbing stains in a grimy basement alongside other unlucky souls.
But this is Wonka we’re talking about. The question isn’t if he’ll escape — it’s how much magic he’ll stir up along the way.
Dream Scenario
IMDb: 6.8/10
2023, Comedy, Drama
USA; Not rated
Director: Kristoffer Borgli
Top Cast: Nicolas Cage, Julianne Nicholson, Michael Cera
Paul Matthews (Nicolas Cage) is a mild-mannered evolutionary biology professor, as his life is nearly imperceptible due to its quietness. That is, this continues until something strange starts happening then. What it unfolds into is just like a little surreal thing.
Paul starts now to appear within other people’s dreams unexpectedly. Total strangers. He is simply there initially. Harmless, silent, background weirdness. However, the dreams turn toward the darker. Paul has no control over any of that and starts doing unsettling things.
Soon, he’s famous. Or rather, infamous. The fame is not the good kind; it is spiraling, viral, and chaotic. Paul struggles in order to comprehend the situation as the public's perception of him changes to something sinister from «that dream guy.»
Is he able to put an end to this madness, dream-invasion? When these accusations happen to be coming from people’s subconscious, is it possible for him to clear his name? Sleep will never feel safe again, of that you can be sure.
Theater Camp
IMDb: 6.9/10
2023, Comedy
USA; Not rated
Director: Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman
Top Cast: Ben Platt, Molly Gordon, Noah Galvin
Upstate New York has AdirondACTS, which is a scrappy little summer theater camp that was founded by Joan Rubinsky (Amy Sedaris), who is flamboyant and beloved. But during a performance, Joan suddenly collapses and enters a coma. Therefore, her son Troy (Jimmy Tatro) is left in charge to run the camp.
Here is what is the catch: Troy has got the business brains, of course. But is he knowledgeable about the theater? That language is beyond his comprehension.
Troy tries to keep the camp afloat through very questionable strategies as it nears financial ruin. The show, meanwhile, must go on despite help from the suits, according to the eccentric, intensely loyal camp instructors.
Pure stage magic, as well as last-minute musicals with miscast kids, make what follows into a sincere, chaotic mess. Is it the case that the camp will be saved? Or just go out there in a glitter blaze with jazz hands? In either case, a performance is going to have to occur.
Cocaine Bear
IMDb: 5.9/10
2023, Horror, Comedy
USA; R
Director: Elizabeth Banks
Top Cast: Keri Russell, Alden Ehrenreich, O’Shea Jackson Jr.
It’s 1985, in Georgia’s more deep forests. Andrew Thornton tosses cocaine-filled duffel bags from a plane he is in. He botches his parachute jump then plummets to his death.
That bag lands in the woods, and it doesn’t stay hidden for long. Things do go completely off the rails, and also a curious black bear takes just a taste as finding it.
The bear is now high as a kite in addition to being absolutely unhinged then goes on a wild rampage. It tears through the forest in addition to attacking anything — or anyone — in its path.
Caught in the chaos? Tourists who were unlucky just picked the wrong day for a hike, a desperate mom was searching for her missing daughter, and a group of panicked drug dealers were trying to recover the lost stash.
It is bloody, it is absurd, and it sounds just like a bear does sound. On cocaine. And nothing is safe.
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
IMDb: 7.4/10
2023, Drama
USA; PG
Director: Wes Anderson
Top Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Ralph Fiennes, Dev Patel
Henry Sugar (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a wealthy bachelor living a carefree, extravagant life — fast cars, high-stakes gambling, and zero responsibilities. One day, he stumbles upon a strange medical report written by Dr. Chatterjee (Dev Patel). It tells the story of Imdad Khan (Ben Kingsley), a man who claims he can see without using his eyes — all thanks to a powerful meditation technique taught to him by an Indian yogi (Richard Ayoade).
Intrigued and a little obsessed, Henry decides to master the same practice — not for spiritual enlightenment, but to cheat at cards. After years of training in secret, he does it. He can see through playing cards. He can win — every time.
But as the money piles up, Henry finds something unexpected: boredom. Emptiness. Victory without meaning. What begins as a quest for personal gain slowly transforms into something else entirely.
Problemista
IMDb: 6.8/10
2023, Comedy, Drama
USA; Not rated
Director: Julio Torres
Top Cast: Julio Torres, Tilda Swinton, RZA, Greta Lee
Alejandro Martínez (Julio Torres) is a dreamer hailing from El Salvador who is quite wide-eyed, also full of oddball ideas, plus who hopes that he can break into the toy design world in New York City. He presents his odd, fanciful ideas to Hasbro. He receives only denials for dolls with crossed fingers and toys that hardly work.
He is desperate for a chance to stay in the U.S., so he lands a job to work as an archivist within FreezeCorp. This surreal company freezes artists in a cryogenic manner so that their legacy is allowed to live on, literally. His assignment? See the iced body of Bobby Ascencio (RZA), a painter famous for egg-themed artwork.
Following one mishap, Alejandro’s fired and now stares down the barrel of deportation. He turns out of options, to Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton), Bobby’s widow, an art critic, wildly eccentric, with absolutely zero chill, also flaming red hair.
She offers to sponsor his visa, but only upon the condition that he helps her mount a chaotic final tribute exhibition in Bobby’s name. An odyssey that is surreal through Craigslist gigs and immigration bureaucracy, also the art world, and the tangled space between self-expression with survival follows.
Concrete Utopia
IMDb: 6.6/10
2023, Drama, Thriller
South Korea; Not rated
Director: Um Tae-hwa
Top Cast: Lee Byung-hun, Park Seo-joon, Park Bo-young
After a devastating earthquake, Seoul is left in ruins. The only residential building that remains intact is the Hwang Gung Apartments complex. Soon, its residents become the target of survivors who have lost their homes.
In an effort to survive, the community creates its own rules and appoints a leader (Lee Byung-hun), who quickly proves that protection comes at a high cost.
Concrete Utopia is a tense thriller about fear, power, and moral compromises in the face of disaster.
