Don’t Miss These 6 Fall 2023 Movies That Have Gone Unnoticed

If you’re one of the lucky few able to attend, the 2023 New York Film Festival is a great way to see the latest in world cinema. From cutting-edge films such as Ryusuke Hamaguchi. Evil doesn’t exist to a more commercial fare, like Michael Mann’s FerrariThe Big Apple Film Festival effectively showcases the art form as it currently exists.

Of the hundreds of feature-length and short films shown at the New York Film Festival, I was able to see only a few, but each of them was special and memorable in its own way. Some, like the Garth Davis sci-fi film. Enemyhave already been released, and others, such as Andrew Hague’s, We are all strangers, is scheduled to be released this fall. From momentary masterpieces to flawed works of art, these six films are worth watching for audiences to see the state of cinema in 2023 and simply have a good time at the movies.

Enemy

Sometimes a film can be misunderstood for all the wrong reasons or simply not appreciated for whatever reason. An old-school contemplative sci-fi film from Garth Davis Enemy this is one of those films. When the film was released in early October, it received a surprising amount of reviews, ranging from mixed to negative. Don’t listen to the naysayers; Enemy it’s great and worth your time.

Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal play Henrietta and Junior, a married couple caught in the middle of an America hit by climate change. One day, they receive an intriguing offer: Junior has been asked to try out an experimental space colony as a future habitat for humanity, and to fill the void left by his absence, he will be replaced by an AI version of himself until he returns. Naturally, this raises all sorts of questions about identity and love, especially when Henrietta develops feelings for Junior’s replacement. Enemy it’s a thrilling throwback to the lofty science fiction stories of the 1950s and 1960s, which prioritized asking big questions over empty pyrotechnics.

Enemy is now playing in select theaters across the country.

Anatomy of a fall

Slow burn thriller Anatomy of a fall is as straightforward and direct as its name suggests. The film focuses on Sandra (Sandra Hüller, who is also in this season). Area of ​​interest), a writer who lives with her husband Vincent and visually impaired son Daniel in a remote ski village in France. One day, a son returns home to find his father dead from a fall and his mother the prime suspect in his possible murder. Did Sandra kill him? Did Vincent fall by accident? Or was it something or someone else?

Director Justine Triet isn’t just interested in answering these questions (though fear not, she does)—she’s also fascinated by the reasons why they’re asked in the first place. Sandra is not only on trial for the murder of her husband; she is also persecuted for not being an ideal wife, an ideal mother, or an easily defined idea of ​​what a “good woman” is. Anatomy of a fall Works very well as a suspense film, but it is more interesting when it deals with topics outside of the main crime itself.

Anatomy of a fall now playing in select cinemas.

May December

A quirky combination of melodrama, comedy and poignant character study. May December shouldn’t work as well as it does now. This is a credit to director Todd Haynes and the cast, led by Julianne Moore (Still Alice), Natalie Portman (Thor: Love and Thunder) and breakthrough Charles Melton (Riverdale) that they manage such a complex tonal balance with aplomb and, in the process, make one of the funniest and saddest films of the year at the same time.

The title refers to the previously scandalous relationship between Moore’s Gracie and Melton’s Joe, who first met when Grace was 37 and Joe was 14. Yes, it’s a barely fictionalized version of the notorious Mary Kay Letourneau case from the 1990s, but May December does not engage in cheap imitations. By adding Portman’s vaguely sinister actress Elizabeth to shadow Grace and Joe in the upcoming film based on their lives, Haynes adds a comedic, campy edge to what could have been an outright tragic story. It’s a strange but fresh film; there’s nothing quite like it, and its bittersweet humor can leave you pleasantly confused at times.

May December It will be released in limited theaters on November 17th and will be available to stream on Netflix on December 1st.

Boy and heron

Released in Japan under the title How are you doing?Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film (thank god he’s already retracted that statement) is less quirky than his more famous works such as Swept Away And Haul’s walking castlebut no less striking for its visual beauty and meaningful subject matter.

The film follows Mahito Maki, a young boy who has just lost his mother in a fire and learns to adapt to his new wife and his father’s family. Isolated from his peers, Mahito encounters a magical heron who leads him to a hidden tower that apparently hides his still-living mother. From there, Mahito is transported to another world that has all the hallmarks of a Miyazaki film: wizards with great power, enterprising women forging their own bold path, and lots and lots of birds.

Boy and heron it takes a while to get going (perhaps too many scenes involving the main heron pestering Mahito), but once it does, it sounds like Miyazaki’s best, full of magic and melancholy. It’s also a great addition to the pantheon of recent films by great directors joining John Huston’s film. Dead man and Ingmar Bergman After rehearsal as the film that serves as the definitive vindication of a distinguished career.

Boy and heron hits theaters December 8th.

We are all strangers

A New York Film Festival best film and a strong contender for 2023’s Best Picture, Andrew Haigh’s sadly beautiful film. We are all strangers This is the kind of film that haunts you; if it makes you cry, it just means you have good taste. Andrew Scott plays Adam, a forty-year-old screenwriter living in a nearly empty London skyscraper. One evening he travels by train to his hometown and meets a mysterious man in the park. He follows him home and is not at all shocked to learn that it is his father(Billy ElliotJamie Bell, who died more than three decades ago. Gradually Adam interacts with both his father and his mother (CrownClaire Foy) as if they were still alive, and tells them about her life, her new boyfriend Harry (Paul Mescal again) and how society has changed since they died.

The idea sounds sweet, but Hay never indulges in cheap sentiment. It is unknown whether Adam is hallucinating these visions, leaving you to decide what is real and what is not. But what is clear is that We are all strangers it’s the rare film that gives you that feeling of loneliness, the feeling of floating through life with both mild pleasure and subdued anxiety, just right. Both Scott and Mescal create believably lost creatures united by loneliness; this is their superpower and this is what unites them. This film may devastate you, but it will also enrich you, as only great art can.

We are all strangers will begin Breaking Hearts in theaters on December 22.

Ferrari

2019 film by James Mangold Ford vs Ferrari was the best dad movie ever, a gripping, self-effacing biopic that demonstrated the appeal of fat and testosterone without irony. Michael Mann FerrariOn the other hand, it’s the perfect grumpy uncle movie, a biopic that frequently loses control of its own narrative and nearly perishes due to some disastrous casting choices. (Casting directors, please stop casting Adam Driver as real Italians!)

That it remains worth watching has a lot to do with the dramatic true story of Enzo Ferrari, especially as he gets involved in the auto racing required to save his company from bankruptcy, and Penelope Cruz’s stellar performance as Ferrari’s long-suffering wife. , Laura, who brings joy to the film every time she appears on screen. Mann is known for his masterpieces Manhunter And Heatand there’s plenty of his dynamic filmmaking here, especially in the bravura climactic race scene that leaves you wanting Ferrari it was the best film.

Ferrari hits theaters December 25th.

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