Team Screen’s top films of 2023

In order to be eligible for the list, a film must have had a festival premiere and/or theatrical release in the past 12 months. There are five points for first place; four for second; three for third; two for fourth; and one for fifth, with these scores tallied to produce an overall top five (seen at the bottom).

Matt Mueller (editor)

1. The Zone Of Interest
2. All Of Us Strangers
3. Poor Things
4. Anatomy Of A Fall
5. Oppenheimer 

Favourite scene: Each of my top 5 have a load of sequences I could have chosen, but I’m going for that insane how-far-can-we-push-it set-piece from Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One where Tom Cruise and Hayley Atwell swing, parry and dodge falling debris in a train carriage dangling off a cliff.

Louise Tutt (deputy editor)

1. Rye Lane
2. Barbie
3. Past Lives
4. Polite Society
5. Name Me Lawand

Favourite scene: The first time Barry Keoghan’s Oliver meets Rosamund Pike, Richard E Grant and Carey Mulligan’s “poor dear Pamela” in Saltburn. I would have been happy for the film to end here.

Jeremy Kay (Americas editor) 

1. 20 Days In Mariupol
2. The Holdovers
3. Poor Things
4. The Zone Of Interest
5. Killers Of The Flower Moon

Favourite scene: The Ely Cathedral scene in Maestro where Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein conducts Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. Breathtaking.

Orlando Parfitt (senior editor - online)

1. The Zone Of Interest
2. Killers Of The Flower Moon
3. Oppenheimer
4. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One
5. Air

Favourite scene: The train-falling-of-a-cliff finale from Mission: Impossible - this series continues to be in a league of its own for cinematic set pieces.

Charles Gant (awards/box office editor)

1. Anatomy Of A Fall
2. All Of Us Strangers
3. American Fiction
4. Past Lives
5. Femme

Favourite scene: Come on, it’s got to be Barry Keoghan in Saltburn, and Jacob Elordi’s bathwater. That’s a moment you can never unsee.

Michael Rosser (international news editor)

1. Marry My Dead Body
2. Past Lives
3. Evil Does Not Exist
4. Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell
5. Deep Sea

Favourite scene: The opening of Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny, with Indy in his prime, was pure joy. Conversely, Past Lives delivers a sledgehammer of heartbreak as Nora and Hae Sung stare at each other without saying a word for a full minute - a heavy “what if?” hanging over the scene.

Tim Dams (Europe editor)

1. Past Lives
2. The Zone of Interest
3. Anatomy Of A Fall
4. Rye Lane
5. Afire

Favourite scene: The final scene of Past Lives, where Nora and Hae Sung stand and face each other in silence for a good two minutes. The culmination of an emotionally intelligent, restrained and beautifully acted film, it was an electric on-screen moment.

Ben Dalton (international reporter)

1. Oppenheimer
2. The Peasants 
3. Beyond Utopia 
4. Eileen 
5. Saltburn 

Favourite scene: Right up to its final line, Barbie’s screenplay is a delight; male bravado has never looked as silly or sweet as the Kens peacocking on the beach, and the cut to dear Allan at “I will beach both of you off at the same time”.

Mona Tabbara (UK reporter)

1. Rye Lane
2. Anatomy Of A Fall
3. Talk To Me
4. Femme
5. The Zone Of Interest

Favourite scene: The opening of Rye Lane, with the bird’s eye view spanning across the toilet cubicles. Such a dynamic and clever kick-off.   

Ellie Calnan (Reporter/digital content assistant) 

1. Past Lives
2. Anatomy Of A Fall
3. Poor Things 
4. Saltburn 
5. Barbie 

Favourite scene: It has to be that final scene of Saltburn. Incredible song choice and just sums up the insane nature of the whole film.

Gabriella Geisinger (Locations editor)

1. Anatomy of a Fall
2. Past Lives
3. American Fiction
4. Suzume
5. Monster

Favourite scene: The train ride where Isidor Isaac Rabi (David Krumholtz) meets J Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) for the first time in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. The nuance in differing Jewish identity and identity as a whole, and the way the simple dialogue conveys so much (‘eat’ may be one of best lines of the entire film) is something that still resonates.

Mark Salisbury (contributing editor)

1. Past Lives
2. The Holdovers
3. Rye Lane
4. American Fiction
5. The Killer

Favourite scene: The Killer’s bone-crunching fight with The Brute in David Fincher’s The Killer.

Wendy Mitchell (contributing editor)

1. Past Lives
2. The Zone of Interest
3. All of Us Strangers
4. Killers of the Flower Moon
5. The Holdovers 

Favourite scene: (tie) Barry Keoghan as Oliver Quick having a triumphant naked dance in Saltburn; the kitchen table reveal in Eileen.

Silvia Wong (Asia editor)

1. Past Lives
2. Time Still Turns The Pages
3. Monster
4. Tiger Stripes
5. All Of Us Strangers

Favourite scene: Nora crying in the final scene of Past Lives after seeing her childhood sweetheart off.

Rebecca Leffler (France correspondent)

1. Past Lives
2. Anatomy of a Fall
3. The Zone of Interest 
4. The Taste of Things
5. American Symphony

Favourite scene: In Past Lives When Hae Sung tells Nora: “What if this is a past life, and we are already something else to each other in our next life?” This line, like the film itself, is so ostensibly simple, yet so profound. It somehow manages to be simultaneously heart-meltingly sad and fantastically feel-good.  

Elisabet Cabeza (Spain correspondent)

1. Poor Things
2. The Zone Of Interest
3. Past Lives
4. Fallen Leaves
5. Killers Of The Flower Moon

Favourite scene: Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman in front of a mirror in Todd Hayne’s May December, with Moore playing her character and Portman playing Moore. What a skilful and fun game of mirrors.

Emilio Mayorga (Spain correspondent)

1. The Zone Of Interest
2. Fallen Leaves
3. Anatomy Of A Fall
4. Robot Dreams
5. The Eternal Memory

Favourite scene: 

At the end of Society Of The Snow, when the survivors are wiping each other’s skeletal, sun-burned bodies, while they celebrate the joy alongside the perplexity of the miracle of being alive.

Sandy George (Australia correspondent)

1. The Rooster
2. Anatomy Of A Fall
3. Lakota Nation vs. the United States
4. Kindred 
5. Cocaine Bear

Favourite scene: When telling his new friend a tale from his school days in The Rooster, Hugo Weaving’s character Mit changes from a raconteur proud of his naughtiness to a deeply damaged man.

• Screen Critcs’ films of the year