Discover the top 10 European films of 2023

Europe, 10 out of 10!

2023 was undoubtedly a good year for cinema, and particularly for European cinema, which showed all its creativity and diversity. In fact, it was three profoundly European films by great filmmakers that scooped the prizes at the world’s three major film festivals: Cannes, Venice and Berlin. A sign that the most innovative and risky work is now being done by European productions. The year 2023 also marks the collapse of the big American machines, led by Marvel, which are no longer able to renew their appeal to an audience that is perhaps jaded by the redundancy of blockbusters and the fact that they are so far removed from the real world. Have superheroes outlived their usefulness? Nothing could be further from the truth, but at the same time the Mission Impossible, Indiana Jones and Fast and Furious franchises have all failed at the global box office.

Duly noted. We wanted to put together a Top 10 list of our top 10 films, and it’s clear that they all have a direct link (in terms of production or direction) with Europe. At a time when the unity of the European Union is in doubt and scepticism and isolationism are on the rise, European cinema is emerging as a standard-bearer for differences, an affirmation of the words and images of authors, in touch with their reality, taking the pulse of the world and examining our humanity in all its grandeur and abomination.

So here’s a Top 10, with no ranking (what’s the point?), as a global overview of the greatest and most moving things the big screen (Out Netflix, Amazon Prime and consorts) has offered us.

“Perfect Days” by Wim Wenders (Germany, Japan)

First things first. The recent winner of the Prix Lumière 2023 makes his comeback with a film shot in a Japan he knows well, and which he recreates for us in all its simplicity and complexity through the story of Hirayama (played by the great Koji Yakusho, winner of the Best Actor prize at Cannes this year), who works in the toilets department of the city of Tokyo. Through his daily life, which is as humble and orderly as music paper (Wenders uses the most powerful soundtrack of the year, with all the standards of the 70s, led by Lou Reed…), and his attitude to life, which brings him serenity and peace of mind, attentive to the beauty of the world, from the nature he photographs to the books he collects.

Wenders succeeds in capturing the unspeakable, the sound of a leaf like a low-angled ray in the setting sun, and in so doing renders the beauty of the world in all its purity and clarity. In short, a humanist and philosophical film, one of those rare works that lifts us up by capturing the best of humanity. A filmmaker’s gift, like the magnificent last shot, luminous, musical and elegiac all at once, very Wendersian in any case, and which I won’t divulge, if only to make you want to go and see this film, released in the autumn and certainly still showing on the big screen in a cinema near you.

Watch our interview with Wim Wenders :

“Anatomy of a Fall” by Justine Triet (France)

Of course, we can’t overlook one of this year’s phenomenon films, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes (see interview), the European Film Prize in Berlin in December (see interview), has been nominated for several Golden Globes and is certainly in contention for the Oscars. The French filmmaker is no beginner or unknown, especially in French-speaking countries. But with this film, she is opening herself up to a wider audience, and particularly a European one, since her film speaks French, but also English (the common language of the characters) and German, as Sandra Hüller is obliged to do.

The German actress was a kind of double and muse for Justine Triet, and you can see and feel it on screen. The character of a powerful woman who must face not only a murder charge, that of her husband, but who must also see her intimacy exposed in a trial that is also that of her couple. This is a film that is not intended to be likeable, or even harsh, that never plays the affect card, opting instead for words and dialogue chiselled with a scalpel. The filmmaker tears back the curtain of appearances by dissecting feelings, the unsaid and the felt, putting the audience in the same mental state as the film’s protagonists, where the truth is never what you think it is.

“Four Daughters” by Kaouther Ben Hania (France, Tunisia, Germany, Saudi Arabia)

This is perhaps our favourite film of the year, seen in competition at Cannes and, shame on the jury, going home empty-handed. Kaouther Ben Hania is no novice, having already stunned the world with ‘Le Challat de Tunis’ in 2015, a mockumentary based on a news item and already devilishly well put together, revealing the virtuosity of the young Tunisian woman in her forties to play with representations and inextricably blend reality and fiction. A tour de force completely mastered for “Four Daughters”, recounting the director’s attempt to portray, with some of the real protagonists, what happened to Olfa, a single Tunisian mother, two of whose daughters left for the Jihad, a story that made headlines in Tunisia in the mid-2010s. 

Olfa becomes the character of the film in the making, in the intimacy of an all-female family. We enter a “women-friendly” environment, as the director herself puts it, at the very heart of a Muslim world that rarely gives women the opportunity to express themselves about their condition and what they are going through. An important film, then, for the representation of women on screen, their faces and voices, but also because it is made by a free and modern director who interweaves reality and cinema with a rare intelligence.

“Fallen Leaves” by Aki Kaurismaki (Finland, Germany)

This is perhaps the most touching and moving film in this selection. A Charlie Chaplin-style tale, but set in Finland today: a love story between two lonely proletarian losers, Ansa and Holappa, tossed about by life, who have to face up to the harshness of a pitiless world and the implacable law of the market that pushes them to the back of society. A contemporary version of “Modern Times”, but far removed from the hyper-connected world (here, only the radio sends news of the war in Ukraine, like an echo of the madness of the world) and social networks. 

No networks here, no artefacts, but social and poetic: such is the credo of the great Kaurismaki, a filmmaker whose heart overflows like the glasses he fills for his character Holappa, a melancholic romantic waiting for true love. There is not an ounce of misery in his cinema, and on the contrary there is a beauty and humour in the characters and situations that is reminiscent of a poem by Jacques Prévert with a Scandinavian twist. It’s a heart-warming film that’s a joy to be a part of, lulled by the gentleness and simplicity of the love that must win out in the end. Great art, then.

“How to have Sex” by Molly Manning Walker (United Kingdom, Greece, Belgium)

This is undoubtedly the best first film of the year, from a young British director whose follow-up we can’t wait to see. It’s full of sensitivity and, above all, a great ability to capture the ever-fragile, ever-changing, ever-difficult zeitgeist. Molly Manning Walker takes us along with her heroine and her friends on what the Anglo-Saxons call a “coming-to-age movie”: a film about initiation and learning, at the age of first sexual feelings, with the question of consent and its grey areas constantly in the background, multiplied by the way others look at you, especially in the age of social networks. 

In short, this is a film that is totally in tune with the times, choosing the sour over the sweet, the lucidly melancholy over the carefree, and above all avoiding any moralism. In a hedonistic and materialistic environment, there are many injunctions to let oneself go and enjoy oneself without hindrance, poorly concealing the rampant misogyny and patriarchy. “How to have Sex” is a title without a question mark: there is no one way to make love, the question is how to do it (well). The film is definitely a must-see for all teenagers.

“Oppenheimer” de Chistopher Nolan (États-Unis, Royaume-Uni)

It’s our blockbuster of the list, but Christopher Nolan has the particularity of being a faithful servant of Hollywood while at the same time being one of the most singular and brilliant auteurs of his generation. Following in the footsteps of his many futuristic films (“Interstellar” and “Tenet” topping the list), he has now delivered a biopic of great power, both in terms of narrative and form. Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb”, was not an easy character to grasp, full of contradictions and doubts, but Nolan’s success lies in not wishing to cast all the many shadows over this brilliant (and cursed at the same time) inventor of the greatest weapon of mass destruction ever devised by man. Instead, he chooses to show the complexity of the man and his times through a story that draws on many layers. It has to be said that in Cillian Murphy the British-American director has found the ideal pearl. Also spotted in “Peaky Blinders”, he has already played under Nolan in “Inception” and the “Dark Knights” trilogy, blending perfectly into his universe where reality is never what you think it is. The viewer is left free to interpret and project what may be going on inside Oppenheimer’s head, never imposing the unambiguous or the obvious. Nothing less was expected of the filmmaker, the demiurge of a cinema that is both spectacular and experimental, emotional and cerebral. A real tour de force.

“On the Adamant” by Nicolas Philibert (France, Japan)

It’s not the first time that a documentary has won a top award at a major festival, but the fact is rare enough to be highlighted with the Golden Bear awarded at the beginning of 2023 to Nicolas Philibert and his exemplary “On the Adamant”. Adamant is the name of a psychiatric day hospital that not only has the unique feature of being a boat moored on the Quais de Seine, but is also an open space where the boundary between patients and carers is not necessarily visible. A floating utopia, unique, but one that seems to work. It’s a Noah’s Ark for those who can’t fit in, those who are always a little outcast, those who are deficient in our modern societies. 

You can feel the freedom of the camera and the freedom of speech, thanks to the closeness that seems to have been created between the small film crew (4 people maximum) and the ‘passengers’ on the Adamant. In the end, this is a film of rare intimacy, in which what is said resembles lucid confessions that may remain in suspense or end in a burst of laughter. The unpredictability and gentle madness cradle this particularly empathetic film, with an absence of judgement and prejudice about people like you and me, after all. And nobody’s perfect, as we like to hear throughout the film…

“La Chimera” by Alice Rochwacher (Italy, Switzerland, France)

With three films that unashamedly deserve to be in this Top 10, Italian cinema is back in 2023, and in fine style. For one thing, Nanni Moretti is taking us “Towards a radiant future “x by returning to his favourite pastimes: cinema, politics, psychoanalysis and love! In short, his Roman cuisine is as tasty as ever. And also with Marco Bellocchio, who in “The Abduction” digs deeper into his political-historical cinema, which never ceases to revisit Italian history, and in particular its darkest episodes, such as the true story of the abduction (the title “Rapito” in Italian is more accurate) of a young Jewish child, taken from his family by the Catholic Church and the ogre Pius IX, whose pontificate was the longest of the papacy. But it’s another film that finally wins our votes as one of the best of the year: “La Chimère” by Alice Rochwacher, which once again (after “Heureux comme Lazare” and “Les Merveilles”, among other nuggets) distils something new in contemporary cinema: a form of freedom in the storytelling and a communicative desire for the collective.

Its characters are reminiscent of a troupe straight out of a Fellini film (notably Isabella Rossellini as a crazy old lady): By portraying a British archaeologist (played by one of the most promising talents of his generation, notably seen in the ‘Peaky Blinders’ series, Josh O’connor) who has to contend with a gang of tomb robbers and a fair few chimeras, Rochwacher inevitably revisits certain ancient European myths (in this case, the Etruscan civilisation), and gives free rein to a style of filmmaking that is full of the mysteries of the past.

“The Taste of Things” by Tràn Anh Hung (France, Belgium)

This film is a bit of a critics’ darling, first decried at Cannes for its Director’s Prize, though deserved because of its sensual, enveloping way of filming the stoves and the love that speaks for itself between Dodin, an outstanding gastronome, and his cook, the executor of his culinary fantasies; then contested for its Oscar nomination under the French banner in the Best International Film category. It has just made the short list of the 15 best films of the year (which does not speak English) and has every chance of being one of the five finalists. So let’s ignore the critics (especially those from France), and let the viewer revel in this feast for the senses, this apology for good food and extravagant meals, served up masterfully by a duo who were great in the city and who are great again on the big screen, in the intimacy of their pots and pans. 

Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel never overdo it, and their complicity is obvious. Tràn Anh Hung makes the most of this 3-star couple, particularly in the character of Eugénie, a woman who values her freedom and, above all, her job as a cook. Those who believe in modernity will see this ‘Passion of Dodin-Bouffant’ as a conventional academic film, but it has a universal message about the joys of simple things like cooking and making love. It’s a lesson!

“Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros” by Frederick Wiseman (France, Belgium)

In a radically different register, but also marked by excellence, Menus plaisirs – Les Troisgros is, as its title suggests, a kind of documentary biopic on the Troisgros house, which has had 3 Michelin stars for 55 years, filmed by one of the greatest living masters of documentary, Frederick Wiseman, 93, who once again brings a fresh perspective to his subject. In just 4 hours – the length of a gourmet meal, no less – he delivers a kaleidoscopic, impressionistic film that, in successive strokes, paints a hyper-realistic picture of life in a top restaurant, from the reception room to the vegetable garden and the market, not forgetting, of course, the kitchens, a nuclear reactor where food becomes a marvel. Beyond that, it’s the portrait of an exceptional family, heir to a know-how and a love of local produce that the film manages to capture, taking us along for the ride in the company of Charolais cows whose grass is as green as it is fat, to kidneys with passion fruit that seem to propel those who taste them into another galaxy… not to mention the colossal cheese board or the improbable desserts that reproduce a bird’s nest and its egg, all in chocolate. Creativity, an extreme demand for freshness and quality, patience, and transmission – these are all values that Wiseman succeeds in conveying to us without any commentary, voice-over or additional music. Where the art of editing meets the art of haute cuisine…

And for 2024…

There are, of course, other films that we could have included in this Top 10, such as “The Zone of Interest” by Jonathan Glazer, winner of the Grand Prix du Jury at Cannes, about the family life of the Auschwitz camp leader; “Green Border” by Polish director Agnieszka Holland about the exploitation of migrants at the gateway to Europe; and “Poor Things”, a female version of the Frankenstein myth, by Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, winner of the Golden Lion at the last Venice Film Festival. But that’s for next year, since these films won’t hit the big screens until 2024. In the meantime, make sure you catch up with all the films you’ve seen, whether in cinemas or at home!