The Best of 2023: 43rd Shadows Awards

The year-end ritual is complete, as I compile my lists of the best of the year. This post is merely a preview - there is so much more on the website if you dare! Meanwhile, my voting continues in various awards (Golden Globes, London Critics, Online Critics, Galeca Dorian Awards), bearing only passing resemblance to these lists due to eligibility rules. And I'll add my usual Critical Week note below...

BEST FILM:

1. All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh)
2. Past Lives (Celine Song)
3. Joyland (Saim Sadiq)
4. Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos)
5. Reality (Tina Satter)
6. Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet)
7. The First Slam Dunk (Takehiko Inoue)
8. The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)
9. Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese)
10. Barbie (Greta Gerwig)

DIRECTOR:

1. Celine Song - Past Lives
2. Tina Satter - Reality
3. Andrew Haigh - All of Us Strangers
4. Jonathan Glazer - The Zone of Interest
5. JA Bayona - Society of the Snow

SCREENWRITER:

1. Celine Song - Past Lives
2. Andrew Haigh - All of Us Strangers
3. Saim Sadiq - Joyland
4. Molly Manning Walker - How to Have Sex
5. Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach - Barbie

ACTRESS:

1. Sandra Huller - ​​Anatomy of a Fall, The Zone of Interest
2. Emma Stone - Poor Things
3. Sydney Sweeney - Reality
4. Teyana Taylor - A Thousand and One
5. Lily Gladstone - Killers of the Flower Moon

ACTOR:

1. Ali Junejo - Joyland
2. Andrew Scott - All of Us Strangers
3. Cillian Murphy - Oppenheimer
4. Koji Yakusho - Perfect Days
5. Colman Domingo - Rustin, The Color Purple

SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

1. Da'Vine Joy Randolph - The Holdovers, A Little White Lie, Rustin
2. Rosamund Pike - Saltburn
3. Danielle Brooks - The Color Purple
4. Jodie Foster - Nyad
5. Claire Foy - All of Us Strangers

SUPPORTING ACTOR:

1. Paul Mescal - All of Us Strangers, Foe, God's Creatures, Carmen
2. Robert Downey Jr - Oppenheimer
3. Mark Ruffalo - Poor Things
4. Alessandro Borghi - The Eight Mountains
5. Aaron Pierre - Brother, Foe

WORST FILM:

1. Expend4bles (Scott Waugh)
2. Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (Rhys Frake-Waterfield)
3. Hunt Club (Elizabeth Blake Thomas)
4. Haunted Mansion (Justin Simien)
5. Assassin Club (Camille Delamarre)

TV SERIES:

1. The Bear (FX)
2. Lessons in Chemistry (Apple)
3. Ted Lasso (Apple)
4. Dave (FX)
5. Succession (HBO)

POP SINGLE:

1. People Pleaser - Cat Burns
2. Flowers - Miley Cyrus
3. Heaven - Niall Horan
4. Padam Padam - Kylie
5. Chemical - Post Malone

C R I T I C A L  W E E K : 
Everything’s new

I've been in catch-up mode, but have limited my viewing, preferring to take a bit of time off for a change. Watching movies is work for me! But I caught up with Wim Wender's wonderful drama Perfect Days, a pointed observation about life through the eyes of a hugely likeable Japanese toilet cleaner. And then there was Franz Rogowski giving another staggering performance in the thoughtful French drama Disco Boy, Ferzan Ozpetek's nostalgic and involving personal drama Nuovo Olimpo, the familiar but effective immigrant romance Norwegian Dream and two very strong docs: Beyond Utopia, a riveting look at a pastor who helps people escape from the North Korea, and 20 Days in Mariupol, a devastating account of Russia's horrific siege on the Ukrainian port city.

This coming week I will continue catching up with films for voting purposes, because there are still a lot of those! New screenings kick off with Jodie Comer in The End We Start From.

Critical Week: Make a wish

Awards season is in peak flow, with multiple screenings and Q&As every day, forcing us to choose carefully. One easy choice was attending the world premiere of Wonka, attended by filmmaker Paul King and the entire cast. The party was astonishing (so much candy!), and the film is a lot of fun too. There was also the musical remake of The Color Purple, a finely made film even if the songs create an uneven tone. Eddie Murphy takes on Christmas in Candy Cane Lane, an enjoyably goofy comedy fantasy that's slight but watchable. That's pretty much the same way to describe Melissa McCarthy in Genie.

BEST OUT THIS WEEK:
May December • Femme
Fallen Leaves • Totem
We Dare to Dream
ALL REVIEWS >

A bit more high brow, there's Jeffrey Wright in the fiercely intelligent comedy American Fiction, taking on cancel culture with complexity and nuance. George MacKay and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett are excellent in the dark British drama Femme, a provocative exploration of masculinity. Isabelle Huppert is as good as always in The Sitting Duck (La Syndicaliste), an otherwise rather dry and talky drama. The slickly made Hong Kong crime thriller The Goldfinger reunites the great Tony Leung and Andy Lau, although the film gets bogged down in details. And there were two riveting docs: High and Low traces the life of disgraced fashion icon John Galliano, while We Dare to Dream is an intimate journey with members of the Olympic refugee team.

And as voting deadlines get closer, screenings are getting even busier. Movies this week include Pierce Brosnan in Fast Charlie, acclaimed foreign films The Taste of Things, The Peasants, Monica and Green Border, plus on-stage performances of Lunar Halo at Sadler's Wells, Tossed at Royal Vauxhall Tavern and Gary Starr at Southwark Playhouse.