The best upcoming movies of 2023 (according to Stuff)

Last year may have brought us Elvis, multiverse madness in Everything Everywhere All at Once, a truly wild friendship in The Banshees of Inisherin and the phenomenon of ‘it’s Morbin’ time’. That’s not a patch on what we have to look forward to this year, though. So you need our guide to the best upcoming movies coming to movie theaters and streaming services near you.

From a plastic doll to a chocolatier origin story, here are the biggest upcoming movies this year.

Additional copy by Esat Dedezade

Spider-man: Across the Spider-verse

‘Do we really need another Spider-man?’ many groaned when it was announced that the webslinger would be getting an animated outing in 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. When we entered the Spider-Verse, though, we were given a dazzling, kaleidoscopic marvel of an animated film that breathed new life into a sometimes tiring genre.

Spider-man: Across the Spider-verse once again follows the exploits of a young Miles Morales and his travels to defeat a multiverses worth of villainous being. Expect jaw-dropping animation and the voice acting talents of Daniel Kaluuya, Oscar Isaac, Issa Rae and many more grade A talents.

Release date: 2 June

Astroid City

Wash your pastel coloured suit, dig out that glockenspiel and start growing out that pencil moustache because a new Wes Anderson film is coming. Asteroid City follows the residents of a fictional American town in the 1950s who stumble upon a world ending event. You’d think that would be an asteroid, but given how Wes Anderson is prone to a few twists, who knows. Starring a typical bonkers cast including Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie and pretty much everyone else in Hollywood, expect a typically quirky dramedy from the Fantastic Mr Fox director.

Release date: 16 June

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Harrison Ford returns for the *checks notes* fifth instalment in the Indiana Jones franchise, complete with AI-powered, face-youthening magic so that he precisely resembles his 80s self.

Taking place in 1969, the film is set against the space race, while Jones tries to battle the re-emergence of Nazism. The opening sequence takes place in 1944, hence that de-ageing tech. We’ve got high hopes for realistic results too, given the decades of footage available to help train the AI system to do its thing. A recent clip shared from the film may have dampened our spirits a bit – the overly CGI-d chase scene looks devoid of personality compared to past Indiana Jones epics – but still, Dial of Destiny should make for a cinematic experience.

Release date: 30 June

Barbie

Cinema can truly change the world, and few times has that statement been truer than with the news that Barbie will be getting her big screen outing in 2023. The world was momentarily unified in joy at the sight of Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling rollerskating in Barbie attire down Venice Beach. When the first trailer dropped, pretty much a shot-for-shot recreation of 2001: A Space Odyssey‘s famous ‘Dawn of Man’ scene, we collectively cried tears of joy. Will Barbie prove to be everything we’ve ever wanted?

Probably not, but it’ll likely be a whole lot of fun. Directed by Greta Gerwig (Little Women, Lady Bird), written by Gerwig and Noah Baumbach (Marriage Story) and starring Robbie, Gosling, the new Doctor Ncuti Gatwa and Will Ferrell as the Mattel CEO, Barbie looks set to be a gloriously self-aware romp and everything we’ve always wanted.

Release date: 21 July

Oppenheimer

Christopher Nolan is renowned for shunning CGI in favour of practical effects. He crashed a real Boeing 747 in Tenet, flipped a real truck in The Dark Knight and created a revolving hallway for Inception. Such is Nolan’s dedication to his craft, fans joked that Nolan would film a real life atomic blast for the forthcoming biopic Oppenheimer. Turns out, that’s what the Dunkirk director sorta did, somehow recreating a nuclear explosion without the use of CGI.

We’ll have to wait until July to see what that looks like on the big screen. But health and safety flaunting stunts aside, Oppenheimer follows the life of physicist J Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb and destroyer of worlds. With a stellar cast, including Cillian Murphy portraying the director of the Manhattan Project, Emily Blunt and Matt Damon, and the best visual effects in the business, Oppenheimer is already set to be one of the biggest spectacles of the summer.

Release date: 21 July

Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple TV+)

Adapted from the nonfiction book of the same name, Killers of the Flower Moon follows a series of murders of members from the Osage tribe in Oklahoma. Set in 1920s America, the Osage people lived on vast reserves of oil, which made the tribe incredibly wealthy, but also the target.

This is Scorsese’s first film since The Irishman, and in classic Scorsese fashion, Killers of the Flower Moon features a whole host of Hollywood’s brightest and best. Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Robert De Niro, Jesse Plemons, Brendan Fraser, and a surprise visit from Jack White will all be making an appearance.

Release date: 20 October

Dune: Part Two

The sequel to the critically-acclaimed fantasy blockbuster Dune continues the story of one of the most iconic Sci-Fi novels of all time, driven by a star-studded cast including the likes of Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista, and more. Expect more zany fashion, plenty of sand, giant worms, and, of course, an attempt to save the fate of the known universe itself. No pressure.

Release date: 3 November

Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

The appetite is still very much there for more Hunger Games. The franchise, based on the books of the same name, has remained hugely popular since its first big box office outing in 2012. Battle Royal with cheese it may have been called by some folks, but there’s no denying its impact.

The series is set to return with Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, an origin story that tells of how a civilisation full lent into its ‘what if…’ impulses and set its citizens against each other in a battle to the death. From the trailer, we can expect a film stylised on 1920s Americana, with an extra dollop of dystopia.

Release date: 17 November 2023

Napoleon

When Ridley Scott and Joaquin Phoenix last joined forces on the big screen, we got the Roman epic that was Gladiator. This time around, Scott and Phoenix are telling an arguably even grander story. That of the French war commander and incorrectly labelled ‘short man’, Napoleon.

Napoleon will focus on the political leader’s early years to his rise to power as one of history’s most prominent figures. Few specific details are known about Napoleon at this moment, but the film is set to be released on Apple TV+ some time in 2023. Once again, there isn’t a trailer or poster for Napoleon just yet, so we hope the above iconic scene will suffice for now.

Release date: 22 November 2023

Wonka

The gritty origin story trope hit new levels of absurd when it was announced that Wonka would be hitting cinemas in 2023. Will Wonka turn out to be a ridiculed comedian, a la Joker? Or is he more of a Batman-like figure, a tortured soul who forges a chocolate empire after [insert harrowing adolescent experience here]? But after the original announcement came intrigue. Who is the real Willy Wonka? How did he build his fortune? And how many people did he dispose of by cramming them into chocolate tubes or feeding them poisoned blueberries?

We’ll have to wait to hear the answers to those questions. But given how this big budget musical includes a cast of Timothée Chalamet as the young chocolatier, Keegan-Michael Key, Rowan Atkinson, Olivia Colman and Sally Hawkins, Wonka is primed to be an origin story of grand proportions.

We don’t have a trailer for Wonka just yet, but we’ll be sure to update this article when that changes. For now, enjoy a Gene Wilder sing-along.

Release date: 15 December