It’s going to be a big year for the planet’s biggest movie stars, as 2023 bears witness to a bundle of big-budget blockbusters bursting onto the big screen. January will see the launch of films from Hollywood heavyweights Christian Bale (The Pale Blue Eye), Tom Hanks (A Man Called Otto), and Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt (Babylon).
February will mark the triumphant return of Brendan Fraser (The Whale) and Channing Tatum (Magic Mike’s Last Dance), before summer sees Tom Cruise back in Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, and Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Robert Downey Jnr., Gary Oldman, Rami Malik and Kenneth Branagh (yep, all of them) star in the Christopher Nolan-directed Oppenheimer.
The only other release that can rival the starry cast of Oppenheimer is science-fiction epic Dune: Part Two, set for release in November and starring Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Florence Pugh, Austin Butler, Stellan Skarsgård and Christopher Walken.
2023. A big year for Hollywood’s biggest stars. An even bigger year, you might say, for Hollywood in general. These are the films worth making a trip to the cinema for over the next 12 months…
The Pale Blue Eye
Release Date: 6 January 2023
Starring: Christian Bale, Harry Melling, Simon McBurney
Netflix’s adaptation of Louis Bayard’s 2003 novel, The Pale Blue Eye, draws on an influential but underreported period of the life of poet Edgar Allan Poe. Christian Bale stars as fictional detective Augustus Landor, a character inspired by various parts of Poe’s literary oeuvre, who has been called to the West Point Military Academy in New York to investigate a series of murders. The story itself is entirely fictional – despite Poe’s interest in the macabre it seems he was never involved in any actual murders – but the film does draw on a time that would come to shape Poe’s most famous works; his time as a young cadet at West Point.
A Man Called Otto
Release Date: 6 January 2023
Starring: Tom Hanks, John Higgins, Tony Bingham
A Man Called Otto is the second film adaptation of Fredrik Backman’s 2012 novel A Man Called Ove. The first, a Swedish production, was nominated for two Oscars and became the highest grossing foreign film of 2016 in the United States. Set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this year’s version follows suicidal, and recently widowed, Otto (Tom Hanks) as he goes about the routines of his isolated life until a new family moves in next door. An unlikely friendship ensues, changing Otto’s outlook on the world around him.
Babylon
Release Date: 20 January 2023
Starring: Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Jean Smart, Diego Calva, Olivia Wilde, Kaia Gerber, Tobey Maguire
Damien Chazelle, he of La La Land, directs this Gatsby-esque tale of oversized ambition and scandalous excess. Set in the late 1920s, as Hollywood transitions from silent films to movies with sound, Babylon centres on Manny Torres (Diego Calva), a Mexican immigrant and aspiring filmmaker who harbours dreams of making it big in the movie industry. When Torres meets aspiring starlet Nelly LaRoy (Margot Robbie) at a bacchanalian industry get-together, he senses his way in. The film that follows charts the rise and fall of multiple characters across scenes of quite outrageous decadence.
The Fabelmans
Release Date: 27 January 2023
Starring: Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, Gabriel LaBelle, Jeannie Berlin, Julia Butters, Robin Bartlett, Keeley Karsten
Steven Spielberg would often become emotional on the set of The Fabelmans, breaking down in tears between takes, according to Seth Rogan, who plays Bennie Loewy, a surrogate uncle to Sammy Fabelman, the fictional character based on Spielberg’s early life. Spielberg directed, co-wrote and co-produced The Fabelmans, which is set in post-World War II Arizona, and it’s clearly a project close to his heart. It explores the director’s adolescence and first years as a filmmaker through Sammy, himself an aspiring filmmaker who uses the power of movies to help him find the truth about his dysfunctional family.
The Whale
Release Date: 3 February 2023
Starring: Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink, Ty Simpkins
During the Venice premiere of The Whale in September 2022, Brendan Fraser received a six-minute standing ovation that reduced him to tears. He might be shedding a few more come awards season. The film is directed by Darren Aronofsky – Black Swan, The Fountain, Mother! – who has said it took him 10 years to cast the leading man for the picture. Apart from a single flashback at the beginning of the film, The Whale is shot exclusively within the apartment of Charlie (Fraser), a chronically obese and reclusive English teacher who hopes to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter (Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink).
Magic Mike’s Last Dance
Release Date: 10 February 2023
Starring: Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey, Salma Hayek, Nancy Carroll
The first Magic Mike, released in 2012, grossed £140 million worldwide against a cost of £6 million. It is the top-grossing, ahem, ‘dance’ movie of all time. The sequel, Magic Mike XXL, made more than £100 million in cinemas across the globe, against a budget of £12 million. Little surprise, then, that Mike Lane is back. And this time he’s coming to London. After an unsuccessful business venture leaves Lane (Tatum) bust and bartending in Miami, a wealthy client (Hayek) presents an opportunity he can’t refuse – on the other side of the pond. Expect the same steamy scenes that had fans of the first two films visiting cinemas on repeat occasions.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Release Date: 14 July 2023
Starring: Tom Cruise, Vanessa Kirby, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, Hayley Atwell
In the much-delayed seventh instalment of the Mission: Impossible series, Tom Cruise is back as IMF agent Ethan Hunt. Cruise will be joined by Simon Pegg and Rebecca Ferguson who will return in their roles as Benji Dunn and Isla Faust, respectively. Also returning is Vanessa Kirby as arms dealer Alanna Mitsopolis, the White Widow, who first appeared in 2018’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout. New to the franchise is Hayley Atwell – of Marvel’s Agent Carter – in the role of Grace, a character with ambiguous loyalties, who director Christopher McQuarrie described as “a destructive force of nature”. The sequel, Dead Reckoning Part Two, is slated to be released on 28 June 2024.
Oppenheimer
Release Date: 21 July 2023
Starring: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Robert Downey Jnr., Gary Oldman, Rami Malik, Kenneth Branagh
After 2017’s Dunkirk, director Christopher Nolan is back with his second film related to World War II, and this one stars five Oscar winners: Casey Affleck, Kenneth Branagh, Matt Damon, Gary Oldman and Rami Malek. Three other members of the cast have also been nominated for an Academy Award: Robert Downey Jr., Tom Conti and Florence Pugh. Oppenheimer tells the story of the titular American theoretical physicist who became known as the ‘father of the atomic bomb’. A professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, J. Robert Oppenheimer was the head of the Los Alamos Laboratory, responsible for developing the world’s first nuclear weapons. The work of the conflicted scientist would result in the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Dune: Part 2
Release Date: 3 November 2023
Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Florence Pugh, Austin Butler, Stellan Skarsgård, Christopher Walken
How’s that for a cast? Despite the decision of filmmakers to split Frank Herbert’s novel of the same name into two parts, and thus concluding Part One on a huge cliffhanger, the studio didn’t greenlight Dune: Part Two until the first film had proven to be a success. And a success it was, winning an incredible six Oscars and five BAFTAs. Florence Pugh joins the cast for the second outing, reuniting with Chalamet for the first time since their acclaimed performances in Little Women. Promising mind-blowing cinematography and breath-taking battle scenes, this is one to be watched on the big screen.
Killers of the Flower Moon
Release Date: November (TBC)
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Robert De Niro
Another much-delayed movie, in Martin Scorsese’s first Western, the acclaimed director turns his lens to the true tale of a series of mysterious murders which plagued the Osage nation in Oklahoma during the 1920s, following the discovery of valuable oil deposits on Osage land. The incident sparked the FBI’s first major investigation. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Ernest Burkart, a conflicted rancher caught between his Osage wife, Mollie (Lily Gladstone), and his powerful uncle, William Hale (Robert De Niro), who quickly becomes the focus of FBI investigators. Scorsese’s film follows the FBI investigation and the parallel struggle of the Osage people to protect their land and their lives, shedding light on an underreported chapter in American history.
Read more: The best new books coming out in 2023
The post The biggest films coming out in 2023 and when they’ll be released appeared first on Luxury London.