As I continue to watch this pile of screeners sitting on my desk, and slowly assemble some kind of coherent top 10 of 2023, I’m also very much open to suggestions.
I’m talking about the below the radar films that have barely been seen by much of an audience — specifically referring to films that even some, or most, of our knowledgeable readers might not have even heard of.
We’ve had over 550 movies released in theaters this year, and there isn’t anyone, not even the most obsessed of moviegoers than can claim to have seen every single one of them.
The films that get noticed tend to be the major studio releases and critically acclaimed indies — everything else could easily get lost in the shuffle. That’s the sad truth of the business. There are plenty of films that deserved acclaim, but that ran out of luck, barely seen, barely heard of.
These are some of the best films that you might have never heard of — all of them are either low-budget indies or foreign films:
Sebastien Silva’s Rotting in the Sun, Paravel/Castaing-Taylor’s De Humanis Corpis Fabrica, Tina Satter’s Reality, Rodrigo Moreno’s The Delinquents, Eric Gravel’s A Plein Temps, Tarik Saleh’s Cairo Conspiracy, Laura Moss’ Birth/Rebirth, Laurel Parmet’s The Starling Girl, Susanna Fogel’s Cat Person, Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s The Beasts.
Now it’s your turn to point out the below the radar gems of 2023. As mentioned, I’m open to all suggestions.