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When it comes to the global Flickchart – and each sub-chart therein, like the Best Action Films of All Time, the Best Films Directed by Steven Spielberg or, in this case, the Best Films of 2023 – a year can make a lot of difference. More of our users see and rank more movies, and their rankings cause the list to shift.
The Top 20 for 2023 has changed quite a bit since our original list was published on January 6 last year. Six films have dropped out of the Top 20 – half of them family-friendly animation – to make room for critical darlings and Oscar winners. (And one of those newcomers is animation from one of the undisputed masters of the medium.)
As always, these are not OUR picks for the best films of the year, but YOURS, and your rankings will continue to adjust them as time goes by. These lists are only accurate up until the time they’re published, so without further adieu, here are the (new) current Top 20 Films of 2023.
20. The Killer
Directed by David Fincher
Current Global Rank: #4,065
Last Year’s Rank: #14
Last Year’s Global Rank: #4,799
Michael Fassbender followed up The Killer with an appearance in the dark comedy Kneecap, and a starring role in the Paramount+ series The Agency, opposite Jeffrey Wright and Richard Gere.
Director David Fincher has been busy remastering his breakout 1995 thriller Se7en and preparing it for its return to theaters early this month for its 30th anniversary. He has another thriller, currently titled Strangers, in development.
19. Air
Directed by Ben Affleck
Current Global Rank: #4,051
Last Year’s Rank: #13
Last Year’s Global Rank: #4,437
Ben Affleck has reunited with director Gavin O’Connor for The Accountant 2, a sequel to their 2016 thriller, currently in post-production. As a director, he’s in pre-production on a thriller currently titled Animals, starring Matt Damon, and he’s also developing a potential remake of Witness for the Prosecution. Damon and Affleck are both starring in the thriller RIP for director Joe Carnahan, currently in production. And Damon is set to reunite with his Oppenheimer director, Christopher Nolan, for The Odyssey, scheduled to release in 2026.
In 2024, Jason Bateman appeared in the action thriller Carry-On, for director Jaume Collet-Serra. In 2025, he’ll reprise his voice role from the 2016 Disney animated film Zootopia in its impending sequel. He’s currently in production on the miniseries DTF St. Louis.
Viola Davis’s appearances in 2024 consisted of voice work in Kung Fu Panda 4, and reprising her character from The Suicide Squad, Amanda Waller, in the DC animated series Creature Commandos. She’ll bring Waller back again for an eponymous live-action series, currently in production.
18. The Boy and the Heron
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
Current Global Rank: #3,429
NEW to the Top 20
The Boy and the Heron was the legendary Hayao Miyazaki’s first feature film as director since The Wind Rises in 2013. And, at the age of 83, it brought him his second Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film, after Spirited Away (2001). It was also touted as his last film. Time will tell if that will remain true, but if it is, what a finale for such an illustrious career.
17. The Iron Claw
Directed by Sean Durkin
Current Global Rank: #3,173
NEW to the Top 20
A late December release, The Iron Claw didn’t make its impact soon enough to register on our list a year ago, but it continues to climb in the global rankings.
Zac Efron starred in Ricky Stanicky for Amazon Prime and A Family Affair for Netflix in 2024, and can next be seen in The Studio, a star-studded series shepherded by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg for AppleTV.
Jeremy Allen White continues to star in the mega-hit Disney+ series The Bear, and has been tapped to play Bruce Springsteen in the musical biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere, currently in production. He’ll then voice Rotta the Hutt (son of Jabba) in director Jon Favreau’s Star Wars film The Mandalorian and Grogu, coming in 2026.
Harris Dickinson is currently in theaters alongside Nicole Kidman in director Halina Reijn’s Babygirl, and on AppleTV with Saoirse Ronan in Blitz, directed by Steve McQueen.
16. Asteroid City
Directed by Wes Anderson
Current Global Rank: #3,153
Last Year’s Rank: #9
Last Year’s Global Rank: #3,418
Wes Anderson is in post-production on his next film, The Phoenician Scheme, due to release in 2025 with Asteroid City stars Scarlett Johansson and Tom Hanks headlining another stacked Anderson cast.
Johansson lent her voice to Transformers One and starred opposite Channing Tatum in Fly Me to the Moon in 2024. This year, she’ll headline Jurassic World: Rebirth for Rogue One director Gareth Edwards. Hanks has been busy starring in Here, for director Robert Zemeckis, and serving as an executive producer on The Bloody Hundredth and the miniseries Masters of the Air, both for AppleTV.
Jason Schwartzman had a busy 2024, appearing in Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, and Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl. Look for him opposite Chloë Grace Moretz and Michelle Pfeiffer in director Michael Showalter’s upcoming Christmas-themed comedy Oh. What. Fun.
15. The Zone of Interest
Directed by Jonathan Glazer
Current Global Rank: #3,029
NEW to the Top 20
Winning two Academy Awards, including Best International Feature Film, brought attention to Jonathan Glazer’s Auschwitz drama that helped propel it up the global Flickchart. There’s no word yet on a new project for Glazer to follow it up, but considering The Zone of Interest is his first feature film since 2013’s Under the Skin, that may not be entirely surprising.
14. American Fiction
Directed by Cord Jefferson
Current Global Rank: #2,916
NEW to the Top 20
Another late December-releasing critical darling, American Fiction makes an impressive debut on our list after winning the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Cord Jefferson is following up his win by developing a miniseries currently titled Just Cause, though details are scarce for now.
First-time Oscar nominee for Fiction, Jeffrey Wright, starred opposite Michael Fassbender and Richard Gere in the Paramount+ series The Agency, will appear in a season two episode of HBOMax’s The Last of Us, and will reprise his role of Commissioner Gordon in The Batman: Part II from director Matt Reeves, which was recently pushed back to a 2027 release date. Look for Wright next opposite Denzel Washington in director Spike Lee’s High and Low, a remake of the 1963 thriller directed by Akira Kurosawa.
Wright’s likewise Oscar-nominated co-star, Sterling K. Brown, appeared in Atlas for Netflix in 2024, and will star in the series Paradise, premiering January 28 on Hulu.
13. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Directed by John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein
Current Global Rank: #2,509
Last Year’s Rank: #8
Last Year’s Global Rank: #2,729
Rumors of a sequel to this breakout hit swirl about the internet, but nothing’s actually happening on that front yet. Directors Daley and Goldstein are currently in post-production on Mayday, an action comedy about a military pilot flying a reconnaissance mission when he’s forced to crash-land in Soviet territory. The film stars Ryan Reynolds, Kenneth Branagh, and Maria Bakalova.
Following D&D, Chris Pine directed and starred in Poolman, to less than stellar reviews. He’s currently in production on The Kidnapping of Arabella for director Carolina Cavalli. Michelle Rodriguez can next be seen in Fast X: Part 2 in 2026. Justice Smith starred in I Saw the TV Glow, one of 2024’s impressive slate of horror films, and will next appear in Now You See Me 3, directed by Ruben Fleischer and expected in November.
12. Anatomy of a Fall
Directed by Justine Triet
Current Global Rank: #2,323
NEW to the Top 20
Along with The Zone of Interest, Anatomy of a Fall is the second 2023 film starring Sandra Hüller to make a big splash at the Oscars, and subsequently a big splash on the global Flickchart. Anatomy earned five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actress for Hüller, and it won Best Original Screenplay.
Director and Oscar-winning co-writer Justine Triet is contributing to the script for The Unknown, a fantasy film starring Léa Seydoux to be directed by Arthur Harari. The film is in pre-production and plot details are thus far unknown. No word yet on Triet’s next directorial effort.
Sandra Hüller starred in the German comedy film Zwei zu eins and miniseries Zeit Verbrechen in 2024, but she’s set to have another massive year internationally in 2026, as she’ll be starring opposite Ryan Gosling in directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s Project Hail Mary – based on the novel by The Martian‘s Andy Weir – as well as director Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s as-yet-untitled next film, alongside Tom Cruise, Jesse Plemons and John Goodman.
11. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Directed by Christopher McQuarrie
Current Global Rank: #2,008
Last Year’s Rank: #7
Last Year’s Global Rank: #2,244
Do we remove “Part One” from the title now? Christopher McQuarrie’s follow-up in Tom Cruise’s long-running action series has been re-dubbed Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, and it hits theaters this May. McQuarrie has a couple more action films currently in development – both starring Cruise. The Gauntlet will potentially pair them up with Scarlett Johansson, while Broadsword is a war movie that would reunite them with Mission: Impossible – Fallout‘s Henry Cavill.
10. John Wick: Chapter 4
Directed by Chad Stahelski
Current Global Rank: #1,987
Last Year’s Rank: #5
Last Year’s Global Rank: #2,043
Keanu Reeves has recently revealed that he’d love to make another John Wick movie, but he’s not sure his now 60-year-old body could take it. Fans will get to see him in the role at least one more time, however, as he appears in the spinoff Ballerina, set between John Wick Chapters 3 and 4, directed by Len Wiseman, starring Ana de Armas, and expected in theaters in June. In October, he’s appearing in Good Fortune, an action comedy written and directed by Aziz Ansari and co-starring Seth Rogen and Keke Palmer. And he’s currently reunited with director Francis Lawrence in production on Constantine 2, a sequel to their 2005 DC Comics film.
Director Chad Stahelski appears to have a variety of projects in development, including a Highlander remake starring Henry Cavill, and Rainbow Six, based on the novels by Tom Clancy and starring Michael B. Jordan.
9. Barbie
Directed by Greta Gerwig
Current Global Rank: #1,850
Last Year’s Rank: #4
Last Year’s Global Rank: #1,639
Barbie was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and it won 23-year-old Billie Eilish and her brother, Finneas O’Connell, their second Oscar for Best Original Song. Best Supporting Actress nominee America Ferrera will star opposite Matthew McConaughey in 2025, in The Lost Bus, from director Paul Greengrass.
Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt brought “Barbenheimer” together in The Fall Guy in 2024, and Gosling will be back in 2026 with Project Hail Mary. Margot Robbie can next be seen opposite Colin Farrell and Phoebe Waller-Bridge in A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, from director Kogonada, expected in theaters in May.
Greta Gerwig will appear in her husband Noah Baumbach’s next film, Jay Kelly, opposite Eve Hewson, Adam Sandler and George Clooney. She has then been tapped to direct a new Chronicles of Narnia film for Netflix.
8. Past Lives
Directed by Celine Song
Current Global Rank: #1,750
Last Year’s Rank: #12
Last Year’s Global Rank: #4,330
Past Lives was nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars. Writer-director Celine Song is currently in post-production on her next film, Materialists, a romantic comedy starring Chris Evans, Pedro Pascal and Dakota Johnson.
Greta Lee will appear in Disney’s third TRON film, opposite Jared Leto, Gillian Anderson, and original TRON star Jeff Bridges. The film is directed by Joachim Rønning and expected to hit theaters in October. She’ll follow this up with director Kathryn Bigelow’s next film, an as-yet-untitled White House thriller starring Rebecca Ferguson and Idris Elba.
7. Killers of the Flower Moon
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Current Global Rank: #1,648
Last Year’s Rank: #6
Last Year’s Global Rank: #2,106
Killers of the Flower Moon was nominated for ten Oscars, including Martin Scorsese’s tenth nomination for Best Director, but it left the ceremony without a win. Scorsese, at age 82, remains incredibly busy, with many projects in various stages of development, including a Theodore Roosevelt biopic intended to reunite him once again with Leonardo DiCaprio, and an adaptation of the novel A Life of Jesus by Shūsaku Endō, starring Miles Teller and Andrew Garfield.
DiCaprio will star opposite Benicio del Toro and Sean Penn in Paul Thomas Anderson’s next film, The Battle of Baktan Cross, slated for theatrical release in August. Flower Moon‘s Best Supporting Actress nominee, Lily Gladstone, stars in the romantic comedy The Wedding Banquet for director Andrew Ahn in April. Robert De Niro has three projects releasing in 2025: Barry Levinson’s Alto Knights, from GoodFellas scribe Nicholas Pileggi; Brad Furman’s Tin Soldier, with Jamie Foxx; and the Netflix miniseries Zero Day, with Jesse Plemons.
6. Poor Things
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
Current Global Rank: #1,443
NEW to the Top 20
Another end-of-December release, Poor Things didn’t quite find enough of an audience to make our list a year ago, but it was close, clocking in at #25. Nominated for 11 Oscars, it won four, including Emma Stone’s second award for Best Actress. It marks the highest-ranked debut on the list this time.
Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone, and Willem Dafoe reunited for Kinds of Kindness in 2024. Lanthimos’ next film, Bugonia, will star Stone again, alongside Jesse Plemons and Alicia Silverstone. It’s due in theaters in November. Stone will then appear opposite Pedro Pascal and Austin Butler in the next film from Hereditary director Ari Aster, Eddington, currently in post-production. Then she’s setting her sights on Cruella 2 for Disney.
The always-busy Willem Dafoe appeared in one short and four feature films in 2024, including two entries on our year-end Top 20 list, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Nosferatu. In 2025, he’ll be in A24’s fantasy adventure film The Legend of Ochi, and The Birthday Party, from Spanish director Miguel Ángel Jiménez.
Mark Ruffalo next stars opposite Robert Pattinson in Mickey 17, from Parasite director Bong Joon-ho, arriving in theaters in April.
5. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Directed by James Gunn
Current Global Rank: #1,288
Last Year’s Rank: #3
Last Year’s Global Rank: #1,218
Having completed his Guardians trilogy, James Gunn is now fully entrenched with Marvel’s competition, having taken over as co-head of the new DC Universe at Warner Bros. Superman, directed by Gunn and starring David Corenswet in the title role, Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor, and Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane will kick things off on July 11.
Things have been rocky for the Marvel Cinematic Universe since Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: No Way Home brought Phase Three to an end back in 2019, but Marvel and Disney hope to get things back on track for Phase Six. This year, Captain America: Brave New World (February 14) and Thunderbolts* (May 2) will mark the end of Phase Five, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps will usher in Phase Six on July 25, just two weeks after Superman hits.
4. The Holdovers
Directed by Alexander Payne
Current Global Rank: #1,191
Last Year’s Rank: #11
Last Year’s Global Rank: #3,773
A new Christmas classic is born. Nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture, The Holdovers won Best Supporting Actress for Da’Vine Joy Randolph, one of the most-expected wins heading into awards season. Randolph guest starred on Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building in 2024, and this May will star in Golden, a musical inspired by the life of Pharrell Williams, and directed by Michel Gondry.
Alexander Payne is turning his attention to a documentary about film scholar Jeanine Basinger. Paul Giamatti is starring in Downton Abbey 3 this September, and has been tapped to play the villain in several episodes of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, a new Paramount+ series debuting in 2026. And Dominic Sessa can next been seen in Now You See Me 3 in November.
3. Godzilla Minus One
Directed by Takashi Yamazaki
Current Global Rank: #973
Last Year’s Rank: #10
Last Year’s Global Rank: #3,731
After more than 50 years of giant lizard history, Godzilla Minus One now joins the 1954 original as the only other Godzilla film ranked within Flickchart’s global Top 1000. With its estimated $15 million budget, Minus One won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, beating out much more expensive competition including fellow Top 20 films Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. Unsurprisingly, director Takashi Yamazaki has been tapped to craft a sequel.
2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers & Justin K. Thompson
Current Global Rank: #529
Last Year’s Rank: #1
Last Year’s Global Rank: #546
Across the Spider-Verse lost the Best Animated Feature Film Oscar to Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron, but it remains in the upper echelons of the global Flickchart, even if it has been pushed out of the #1 slot for 2023.
While Sony’s live-action “Spider-Verse” has fallen apart in 2024, with the likes of box-office bombs Madame Web and Kraven the Hunter, fans have waited with anticipation for a conclusion to the animated Spider-Verse trilogy. Unfortunately, they’ll have to wait even longer, as Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse was recently pushed back even further, with no concrete release date set.
1. Oppenheimer
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Current Global Rank: #482
Last Year’s Rank: #2
Last Year’s Global Rank: #551
Oppenheimer was the big deal at the Academy Awards, winning seven of its 13 nominations, including Best Picture. And now, it tops the Flickchart for 2023 (though, to be fair, it was nipping at Spider-Verse‘s heels even as we published our list last year).
Best Actor winner Cillian Murphy is returning to the franchise that put him on the map, as he joins the cast of Danny Boyle’s zombie sequel 28 Years Later, coming to theaters in June. Best Supporting Actor winner Robert Downey Jr. is returning to the franchise that made him the biggest movie star in the world, as he is slated to play the villainous Dr. Doom in Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday in 2026.
Christopher Nolan’s next film will also be arriving in 2026. He’s working on an adaptation of on of the oldest known pieces of fiction in the world, Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey. His star-studded cast will include the likes of Oppenheimer‘s Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Charlize Theron, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland, and Zendaya.
The Fallen
These films appeared in the Top 20 when our list was published last year, but as more users have seen and ranked more movies, they have dropped in the rankings, or been displaced by other movies that have found their audience.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Directed by Jeff Rowe
Co-Directed by Kyler Spears
Was: #15
Now: #21
Current Global Rank: #4,159
Last Year’s Global Rank: #4,917
Nimona
Directed by Nick Bruno & Troy Quane
Was: #19
Now: #22
Current Global Rank: #4,525
Last Year’s Global Rank: #6,947
Scream VI
Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett
Was: #18
Now: #26
Current Global Rank: #5,918
Last Year’s Global Rank: #6,474
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Directed by Aaron Horvath & Michael Jelenik
Co-Directed by Pierre Leduc & Fabien Polack
Was: #16
Now: #30
Current Global Rank: #6,153
Last Year’s Global Rank: #6,064
Creed III
Directed by Michael B. Jordan
Was: #20
Now: #36
Current Global Rank: #6,692
Last Year’s Global Rank: #7,041
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Directed by James Mangold
Was: #17
Now: #38
Current Global Rank: #7,053
Last Year’s Global Rank: #6,243
The Best of the Rest
To round out the list, here are the rest of the current Top 40 Films of 2023 on Flickchart:
21. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (Directed by Jeff Rowe; Co-Directed by Kyler Spears)
22. Nimona (Directed by Nick Bruno & Troy Quane)
23. Late Night with the Devil (Directed by Cameron & Colin Cairnes)
24. May December (Directed by Todd Haynes)
25. Saltburn (Directed by Emerald Fennell)
26. Scream VI (Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett)
27. Beau is Afraid (Directed by Ari Aster)
28. Perfect Days (Directed by Wim Wenders)
29. BlackBerry (Directed by Matt Johnson)
30. The Super Mario Bros. Movie (Directed by Aaron Horvath & Michael Jelenic; Co-Directed by Pierre Leduc & Fabien Polack)
31. Hit Man (Directed by Richard Linklater)
32. Bottoms (Directed by Emma Seligman)
33. All of Us Strangers (Directed by Andrew Haigh)
34. Wonka (Directed by Paul King)
35. Society of the Snow (Directed by J.A. Bayona)
36. Creed III (Directed by Michael B. Jordan)
37. Dream Scenario (Directed by Kristoffer Borgli)
38. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Directed by James Mangold)
39. Evil Dead Rise (Directed by Lee Cronin)
40. The Covenant (Directed by Guy Ritchie)
Most of the information for this article was taken from the Internet Movie Database.
