The most anticipated movies of 2023

(Image credit: Illustrated | Getty Images)

published 1 January 2023

That indescribable feeling you get when the lights begin to dim in the movie theater? You'll be feeling that a lot in 2023, because the "coming soon" docket is stacked with films you aren't going to want to miss.

From several revivals of iconic franchises, to a big Marvel finale, to a new Martin Scorsese picture, there are lots of good excuses to venture back to the multiplex. Here are the films we're most looking forward to seeing this year:

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The Scream franchise returned with 2022's pitch-perfect "requel," and just over a year later, a sequel to the requel is already arriving. But this entry will give the slasher series a unique feel by moving the setting from Woodsboro to New York City. According to star Melissa Barrera, that makes things "20 times more mortifying" because in a big city, "everyone is kind of doing their own thing, and someone is screaming for help, and no one will come to help them." Yeah, sounds about right.

The writers and directors behind the 2022 film are back, as is the surviving new cast, including Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Mason Gooding, and Jasmin Savoy Brown, while new additions include Dermot Mulroney, Henry Czerny, Tony Revolori, and Samara Weaving. Courteney Cox is also returning as Gale Weathers for the sixth time. Unfortunately, this will be the franchise's first installment without star Neve Campbell, who exited after a salary dispute. But at least Hayden Panettiere is returning as fan favorite Kirby Reed from Scream 4. The film's official title has been confirmed as Scream VI, even though the last film was just titled Scream despite being a sequel and not a remake. This being Scream, we expect the characters to nitpick this title inconsistency as much as fans.

Instead, Rise revolves around a new character, Beth (Lily Sullivan), who pays a visit to her sister Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) at her apartment in Los Angeles, only for them to discover the famed book of the dead is in her building. Yeah, moving horror franchises into cities is going to be a big thing in the first half of the year, and Evil Dead is eschewing the traditional cabin-in-the-woods setting this time.

Three decades after the disastrous live-action Super Mario Bros. film from 1993, Nintendo hopes to do right by the character this time by placing him in the hands of Illumination, the animation studio behind the Minions. Pratt's casting in the lead role attracted early criticism that only became more intense after the trailer revealed his Mario voice sounds basically just like … Chris Pratt. But the rest of the cast is less contentious, with Jack Black voicing Bowser, Charlie Day voicing Luigi, Anya Taylor-Joy voicing Peach, Keegan-Michael Key voicing Toad, and Seth Rogen voicing Donkey Kong. Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario in the games, will also show up for some surprise cameos, Nintendo says.

We don't know much about the plot of the Mario Bros. movie, but it seems to involve Mario learning about the Mushroom Kingdom for the first time, as Bowser tries to take over the world while Princess Peach and others try to stop him. The most recent trailer also revealed the film will pull from other Mario properties outside of the main platforming games, including with a sequence inspired by Mario Kart. Get ready to have PTSD flashbacks in the theater at the sight of Rainbow Road.

Marvel has three big movies slated for 2023, including February's Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and July's The Marvels. But the most anticipated has to be May's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which looks like it will be a tear-jerking finale for the Guardians trilogy. Writer-director James Gunn has promised it will serve as a farewell to the current Guardians lineup, presumably meaning one or more of them will die or retire.

The first trailer heavily implies it could be Rocket that bites the dust, also teasing that we'll learn more about his creation with a flashback to when he was just a normal raccoon. Another big focus will be Peter's relationship with Gamora, who is actually from an alternate timeline because the "real" Gamora from the first two films was killed, for real, by Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. Joining the cast this time will be Chukwudi Iwuji as the High Evolutionary and Will Poulter as Adam Warlock, and Maria Bakalova reprises the voice of Cosmo the Spacedog after appearing in the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special.

Disney's latest live-action remake of one of its classic animated films is The Little Mermaid, which sees the 22-year-old singer take over the role of Ariel — and, if the trailer is any indication, absolutely nail the original's iconic song "Part of Your World." Jonah Hauer-King has been cast as Eric, while Melissa McCarthy plays Ursula, and Javier Bardem is King Triton. Daveed Diggs also voices Sebastian, Jacob Tremblay voices Flounder, and Awkwafina voices Scuttle. Rob Marshall, who helmed previous Disney musicals Into the Woods and Mary Poppins Returns, directs.

While Disney does have further live-action remakes on its schedule including a new Snow White with Rachel Zegler, The Little Mermaid will be one of the last major films of the studio's "renaissance" era to be adapted into live-action, with the other big one left to go being Hercules. Lin-Manuel Miranda is collaborating with Alan Menken on writing "three or four" new songs, though he promised all the "ones you like" from the original are in the film, too. Don't even think about cutting "Poor Unfortunate Souls."

2018's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was one of the best-reviewed superhero films of the modern era, giving us a Spider-Man adventure involving the multiverse before it was cool. In summer 2023, it's finally getting a follow-up, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. It once again centers around Miles Morales, with Gwen Stacy and Peter B. Parker, who came in from other universes in the original, also returning.

This time, though, the film will be hopping around between six different universes, which means it will feature six different unique art styles — and 240 characters. The new voice cast includes Issa Rae as Spider-Woman and Daniel Kaluuya as a punk rock version of Spider-Man called Spider-Punk. Miles "encounters a team of Spider-People charged with protecting" the multiverse, but "when the heroes clash on how to handle a new threat, Miles finds himself pitted against the other Spiders," the synopsis says.

Set in 1969 amid the space race, the film will see Indiana Jones once again take on Nazis, who have been recruited for the U.S. moon landing program. "The simple fact is that the moon-landing program was run by a bunch of ex-Nazis," co-writer Jez Butterworth told Empire. "How 'ex' they are is the question. And it gets up Indy's nose." One such Nazi is Mads Mikkelsen's Voller, who according to Empire was inspired by Wernher von Braun, a real Nazi who became a NASA engineer. Also joining Indy on the mission is his goddaughter Helena, played by Fleabag's Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who fans have speculated could be the daughter of Marcus Brody. But before you jump to conclusions that she's the "next Indiana Jones," director James Mangold clarified, "No one is 'taking over' or replacing Indy or donning his hat." Still, TBD is how Dial of Destiny will explain what the heck happened to Indiana Jones' son Mutt Williams, as, for obvious reasons, actor Shia LaBeouf isn't coming back.

After Maverick became an unprecedented box office phenomenon, Tom Cruise hopes to wow audiences with a big-screen spectacle for the second consecutive summer with this seventh Mission: Impossible entry. Christopher McQuarrie, director of Rogue Nation and Fallout, returns, and the film's release has been a long time coming considering it was one of the first major Hollywood productions to resume filming amid the pandemic. (Remember Cruise's infamous COVID rant on set?)

We don't know much about the plot of Dead Reckoning, but Henry Czerny, who we haven't seen as former IMF director Eugene Kittridge since the original film in 1996, is back. Cary Elwes and Pom Klementieff are also joining the series in mysterious roles. The trailer teases a whole bunch of stunts that could have gotten Tom Cruise killed, including one that sees Cruise ride a motorcycle off a cliff — which, yes, he actually did for real. The man is truly (nearly) dying to entertain us.

The director's follow-up to Tenet stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, known as the "father of the atomic bomb" due to his involvement in the Manhattan Project. But on top of Murphy, Oppenheimer boasts one of the most absurdly star-studded casts in recent memory, including Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Rami Malek, Florence Pugh, Jack Quaid, Alden Ehrenreich, Kenneth Branagh, Josh Peck, Alex Wolff, Gary Oldman, Benny Safdie, Josh Hartnett, and Dane DeHaan, among others. It might be easier to list the actors who aren't in it.

Given Nolan seems to be leaning more into biographical drama than blockbuster spectacle this time, it's possible Oppenheimer could be his best chance yet at having a major presence at the Academy Awards. Notably, the movie also sees Nolan move over to Universal after years of working with Warner Bros.; the studio had notably infuriated the director, a major proponent of movie theaters, by dropping all its 2021 movies on streaming. But Warner Bros. has other plans for July 21…

Margot Robbie stars as Barbie in the live-action film, while Ryan Gosling plays Ken, and set photos of the two rollerblading around California in bright neon outfits set social media ablaze last year. We don't know a lot about the plot, though it reportedly will feature multiple Barbies and Kens, with Issa Rae and Hari Nef rumored to be playing other Barbies and Simu Liu and Ncuti Gatwa playing other Kens.

Will Ferrell is also playing the CEO of Mattel, and set photos have shown him pursuing Barbie in a chase. So it sounds like the movie could involve Barbie realizing she's a toy and escaping a Mattel factory into the real world, sort of like The Truman Show. Not only is Oscar-nominee Gerwig directing, but she co-wrote it with her partner, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Noah Baumbach, so it's safe to assume they have something interesting and subversive in store. Barbie as our 2024 Best Picture winner … believe it!

David Gordon Green and Blumhouse concluded their rebooted Halloween trilogy last year with Halloween Ends, and in 2023, they're already moving on to another iconic series: The Exorcist. In the same vein as Green's 2018 Halloween, this new Exorcist will revive the franchise but within the continuity of the original, and Ellen Burstyn is even returning as her character from the 1973 classic. According to Green, it's a follow-up to the original, though it's not erasing the existence of the other sequels.

Also joining the cast for Part Two will be Christopher Walken as Emperor Shaddam IV, Florence Pugh as the emperor's daughter Princess Irulan, Léa Seydoux as Lady Margot, and Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha, the nephew of Stellan Skarsgård's Baron Harkonnen. Part Two is expected to adapt the entire rest of the original novel, so you can expect it to feel more conclusive than the original. But there's room for more films based on the further Dune books, and a prequel show set in the universe called Dune: The Sisterhood is already in the works for HBO Max.

Eight years after the conclusion of The Hunger Games, the series is returning with this prequel based on the book of the same name by Suzanne Collins. It takes place decades before the original series and revolves around a young Coriolanus Snow, who will eventually become the villainous President Snow. He's tasked with mentoring a tribute for the 10th Hunger Games: Lucy Gray Baird, a young girl from District 12. Tom Blyth has been cast as Coriolanus Snow, while West Side Story's Rachel Zegler is playing Lucy. Euphoria's Hunter Schafer is also playing Tigris Snow, cousin of Coriolanus, while Peter Dinklage stars as dean Casca Highbottom, Viola Davis plays gamemaker Volumnia Gaul, and Jason Schwartzman plays TV host "Lucky" Flickerman.

But there's one reason to bet on the former: Wonka is being directed by Paul King, the filmmaker behind the beloved Paddington movies, and he wrote it with the screenwriter behind Paddington 2. It sounds like Wonka is also a full-blown musical. Chalamet told British Vogue he has seven musical numbers in the film, which he described as "so sincere" and "so joyous." Colman also had high praise for her co-star, telling Variety he's "doing something different" in the film but "it's such a treat. He's so beautiful on-screen. He's magical."

Killers of the Flower Moon is the latest Martin Scorsese picture, and if that isn't enough to get you in the door, it should be. Technically, the movie hasn't been officially set for a 2023 release, and it was originally thought to be coming out in 2022, setting up an epic Spielberg vs. Scorsese battle at the Oscars. But Scorsese recently claimed the movie will be released "in a few months," presumably referring to its film festival debut.

Scorsese reunites with Leonardo DiCaprio for Killers of the Flower Moon, which revolves around an investigation into the mysterious murders of the Osage tribe in Oklahoma in the 1920s. It's based on the non-fiction book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. The cast also includes Robert De Niro, Jesse Plemons, John Lithgow, and Brendan Fraser. That's right: It's a continuation of the ongoing Brenaissance. Jack White of the White Stripes is also randomly in here in a role that hasn't been revealed.

With The Fabelmans being this year's Oscar frontrunner, could we be looking at back-to-back Best Picture wins for longtime pals Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese? We'll have to see, but after Netflix's The Irishman, this is also another big streaming film from Scorsese with a ridiculously huge budget, as it's being co-distributed by Apple and reportedly cost $200 million. Is Marty's master plan to bankrupt every streamer in Hollywood one by one? We're not saying that, but we're also not not saying it.

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Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.